opinion
stringlengths 349
204k
| instruction
stringclasses 163
values | question
stringclasses 160
values | choices
sequencelengths 0
311
| answer
sequencelengths 1
1
| task
stringclasses 157
values |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
TENNESSEE v. GARNER et al.
No. 83-1035.
Argued October 30, 1984
Decided March 27, 1985
White, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell, and Stevens, JJ., joined. O’Connor, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Burger, C. J., and Rehnquist, J., joined, post, p. 22.
Henry L. Klein argued the cause for petitioners in No. 83-1070. With him on the briefs were Clifford D. Pierce, Jr., Charles V. Holmes, and Paul F. Goodman. W. J. Michael Cody, Attorney General of Tennessee, argued the cause for appellant in No. 83-1035. With him on the briefs were William M. Leech, Jr., former Attorney General, and Jerry L. Smith, Assistant Attorney General.
Steven L. Winter argued the cause for appellee-respondent Garner. With him on the brief was Walter L. Bailey, Jr.
Together with No. 83-1070, Memphis Police Department et al. v. Garner et al., on certiorari to the same court.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Florida Chapter of the National Bar Association by Deitra Micks; and for the Police Foundation et al. by William Josephson, Robert Kasanof, Philip Lacovara, and Margaret Bush Wilson.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires us to determine the constitutionality of the use of deadly force to prevent the escape of an apparently unarmed suspected felon. We conclude that such force may not be used unless it is necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.
HH
At about 10:45 p. m. on October 3, 1974, Memphis Police Officers Elton Hymon and Leslie Wright were dispatched to answer a “prowler inside call.” Upon arriving at the scene they saw a woman standing on her porch and gesturing toward the adjacent house. She told them she had heard glass breaking and that “they” or “someone” was breaking in next door. While Wright radioed the dispatcher to say that they were on the scene, Hymon went behind the house. He heard a door slam and saw someone run across the backyard. The fleeing suspect, who was appellee-respondent’s decedent, Edward Garner, stopped at a 6-feet-high chain link fence at the edge of the yard. With the aid of a flashlight, Hymon was able to see Garner’s face and hands. He saw no sign of a weapon, and, though not certain, was “reasonably sure” and “figured” that Garner was unarmed. App. 41, 56; Record 219. He thought Garner was 17 or 18 years old and about 5' 5" or 5' 7" tall. While Garner was crouched at the base of the fence, Hymon called out “police, halt” and took a few steps toward him. Garner then began to climb over the fence. Convinced that if Garner made it over the fence he would elude capture, Hymon shot him. The bullet hit Garner in the back of the head. Garner was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he died on the operating table. Ten dollars and a purse taken from the house were found on his body.
In using deadly force to prevent the escape, Hymon was acting under the authority of a Tennessee statute and pursuant to Police Department policy. The statute provides that “[i]f, after notice of the intention to arrest the defendant, he either flee or forcibly resist, the officer may use all the necessary means to effect the arrest.” Tenn. Code Ann. §40-7-108 (1982). The Department policy was slightly more restrictive than the statute, but still allowed the use of deadly force in cases of burglary. App. 140-144. The incident was reviewed by the Memphis Police Firearm’s Review Board and presented to a grand jury. Neither took any action. Id., at 57.
Garner’s father then brought this action in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, seeking damages under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for asserted violations of Garner’s constitutional rights. The complaint alleged that the shooting violated the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. It named as defendants Officer Hymon, the Police Department, its Director, and the Mayor and city of Memphis. After a 3-day bench trial, the District Court entered judgment for all defendants. It dismissed the claims against the Mayor and the Director for lack of evidence. It then concluded that Hymon’s actions were authorized by the Tennessee statute, which in turn was constitutional. Hymon had employed the only reasonable and practicable means of preventing Garner’s escape. Garner had “recklessly and heedlessly attempted to vault over the fence to escape, thereby assuming the risk of being fired upon.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A10.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed with regard to Hymon, finding that he had acted in good-faith reliance on the Tennessee statute and was therefore within the scope of his qualified immunity. 600 F. 2d 52 (1979). It remanded for reconsideration of the possible liability of the city, however, in light of Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), which had come down after the District Court’s decision. The District Court was directed to consider whether a city enjoyed a qualified immunity, whether the use of deadly force and hollow point bullets in these circumstances was constitutional, and whether any unconstitutional municipal conduct flowed from a “policy or custom” as required for liability under Monell. 600 F. 2d, at 54-55.
The District Court concluded that Monell did not affect its decision. While acknowledging some doubt as to the possible immunity of the city, it found that the statute, and Hymon’s actions, were constitutional. Given this conclusion, it declined to consider the “policy or custom” question. App. to Pet. for Cert. A37-A39.
The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded. 710 F. 2d 240 (1983). It reasoned that the killing of a fleeing suspect is a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment, and is therefore constitutional only if “reasonable.” The Tennessee statute failed as applied to this case because it did not adequately limit the use of deadly force by distinguishing between felonies of different magnitudes — “the facts, as found, did not justify the use of deadly force under the Fourth Amendment.” Id., at 246. Officers cannot resort to deadly force unless they “have probable cause ... to believe that the suspect [has committed a felony and] poses a threat to the safety of the officers or a danger to the community if left at large.” Ibid.
The State of Tennessee, which had intervened to defend the statute, see 28 U. S. C. § 2403(b), appealed to this Court. The city filed a petition for certiorari. We noted probable jurisdiction in the appeal and granted the petition. 465 U. S. 1098 (1984).
II
Whenever an officer restrains the freedom of a person to walk away, he has seized that person. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 878 (1975). While it is not always clear just when minimal police interference becomes a seizure, see United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544 (1980), there can be no question that apprehension by the use of deadly force is a seizure subject to the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment.
A
A police officer may arrest a person if he has probable cause to believe that person committed a crime. E. g., United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411 (1976). Petitioners and appellant argue that if this requirement is satisfied the Fourth Amendment has nothing to say about how that seizure is made. This submission ignores the many cases in which this Court, by balancing the extent of the intrusion against the need for it, has examined the reasonableness of the manner in which a search or seizure is conducted. To determine the constitutionality of a seizure “[w]e must balance the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion.” United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 703 (1983); see Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 654 (1979); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 555 (1976). We have described “the balancing of competing interests” as “the key principle of the Fourth Amendment.” Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692, 700, n. 12 (1981). See also Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 536-537 (1967). Because one of the factors is the extent of the intrusion, it is plain that reasonableness depends on not only when a seizure is made, but also how it is carried out. United States v. Ortiz, 422 U. S. 891, 895 (1975); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 28-29 (1968).
Applying these principles to particular facts, the Court has held that governmental interests did not support a lengthy detention of luggage, United States v. Place, supra, an airport seizure not “carefully tailored to its underlying justification,” Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 500 (1983) (plurality-opinion), surgery under general anesthesia to obtain evidence, Winston v. Lee, 470 U. S. 753 (1985), or detention for fingerprinting without probable cause, Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U. S. 721 (1969); Hayes v. Florida, 470 U. S. 811 (1985). On the other hand, under the same approach it has upheld the taking of fingernail scrapings from a suspect, Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U. S. 291 (1973), an unannounced entry into a home to prevent the destruction of evidence, Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23 (1963), administrative housing inspections without probable cause to believe that a code violation will be found, Camara v. Municipal Court, supra, and a blood test of a drunken-driving suspect, Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757 (1966). In each of these cases, the question was whether the totality of the circumstances justified a particular sort of search or seizure.
B
The same balancing process applied in the cases cited above demonstrates that, notwithstanding probable cause to seize a suspect, an officer may not always do so by killing him. The intrusiveness of a seizure by means of deadly force is unmatched. The suspect’s fundamental interest in his own life need not be elaborated upon. The use of deadly force also frustrates the interest of the individual, and of society, in judicial determination of guilt and punishment. Against these interests are ranged governmental interests in effective law enforcement. It is argued that overall violence will be reduced by encouraging the peaceful submission of suspects who know that they may be shot if they flee. Effectiveness in making arrests requires the resort to deadly force, or at least the meaningful threat thereof. “Being able to arrest such individuals is a condition precedent to the state’s entire system of law enforcement.” Brief for Petitioners 14.
Without in any way disparaging the importance of these goals, we are not convinced that the use of deadly force is a sufficiently productive means of accomplishing them to justify the killing of nonviolent suspects. Cf. Delaware v. Prouse, supra, at 659. The use of deadly force is a self-defeating way of apprehending a suspect and so setting the criminal justice mechanism in motion. If successful, it guarantees that that mechanism will not be set in motion. And while the meaningful threat of deadly force might be thought to lead to the arrest of more live suspects by discouraging escape attempts, the presently available evidence does not support this thesis. The fact is that a majority of police departments in this country have forbidden the use of deadly force against nonviolent suspects. See infra, at 18-19. If those charged with the enforcement of the criminal law have abjured the use of deadly force in arresting nondangerous felons, there is a substantial basis for doubting that the use of such force is an essential attribute of the arrest power in all felony cases. See Schumann v. McGinn, 307 Minn. 446, 472, 240 N. W. 2d 525, 540 (1976) (Rogosheske, J., dissenting in part). Petitioners and appellant have not persuaded us that shooting nondangerous fleeing suspects is so vital as to outweigh the suspect’s interest in his own life.
The use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable. It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape. Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so. It is no doubt unfortunate when a suspect who is in sight escapes, but the fact that the police arrive a little late or are a little slower afoot does not always justify killing the suspect. A police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect by shooting him dead. The Tennessee statute is unconstitutional insofar as it authorizes the use of deadly force against such fleeing suspects.
It is not, however, unconstitutional on its face. Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force. Thus, if the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape, and if, where feasible, some warning has been given. As applied in such circumstances, the Tennessee statute would pass constitutional muster.
Ill
A
It is insisted that the Fourth Amendment must be construed in light of the common-law rule, which allowed the use of whatever force was necessary to effect the arrest of a fleeing felon, though not a misdemeanant. As stated in Hale’s posthumously published Pleas of the Crown:
“[I]f persons that are pursued by these officers for felony or the just suspicion thereof . . . shall not yield themselves to these officers, but shall either resist or fly before they are apprehended or being apprehended shall rescue themselves and resist or fly, so that they cannot be otherwise apprehended, and are upon necessity slain therein, because they cannot be otherwise taken, it is no felony.” 2 M. Hale, Historia Placitorum Coronae 85 (1736).
See also 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *289. Most American jurisdictions also imposed a flat prohibition against the use of deadly force to stop a fleeing misdemeanant, coupled with a general privilege to use such force to stop a fleeing felon. E. g., Holloway v. Moser, 193 N. C. 185, 136 S. E. 375 (1927); State v. Smith, 127 Iowa 534, 535, 103 N. W. 944, 945 (1905); Reneau v. State, 70 Tenn. 720 (1879); Brooks v. Commonwealth, 61 Pa. 352 (1869); Roberts v. State, 14 Mo. 138 (1851); see generally R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law 1098-1102 (3d ed. 1982); Day, Shooting the Fleeing Felon: State of the Law, 14 Crim. L. Bull. 285, 286-287 (1978); Wilgus, Arrest Without a Warrant, 22 Mich. L. Rev. 798, 807-816 (1924). But see Storey v. State, 71 Ala. 329 (1882); State v. Bryant, 65 N. C. 327, 328 (1871); Caldwell v. State, 41 Tex. 86 (1874).
The State and city argue that because this was the prevailing rule at the time of the adoption of the Fourth Amendment and for some time thereafter, and is still in force in some States, use of deadly force against a fleeing felon must be “reasonable.” It is true that this Court has often looked to the common law in evaluating the reasonableness, for Fourth Amendment purposes, of police activity. See, e. g., United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411, 418-419 (1976); Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103, 111, 114 (1975); Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 149-153 (1925). On the other hand, it “has not simply frozen into constitutional law those law enforcement practices that existed at the time of the Fourth Amendment’s passage.” Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 591, n. 33 (1980). Because of sweeping change in the legal and technological context, reliance on the common-law rule in this case would be a mistaken literalism that ignores the purposes of a historical inquiry.
B
It has been pointed out many times that the common-law rule is best understood in light of the fact that it arose at a time when virtually all felonies were punishable by death. “Though effected without the protections and formalities of an orderly trial and conviction, the killing of a resisting or fleeing felon resulted in no greater consequences than those authorized for punishment of the felony of which the individual was charged or suspected.” American Law Institute, Model Penal Code §3.07, Comment 3, p. 56 (Tentative Draft No. 8, 1958) (hereinafter Model Penal Code Comment). Courts have also justified the common-law rule by emphasizing the relative dangerousness of felons. See, e. g., Schumann v. McGinn, 307 Minn., at 458, 240 N. W. 2d, at 533; Holloway v. Moser, supra, at 187, 136 S. E., at 376 (1927).
Neither of these justifications makes sense today. Almost all crimes formerly punishable by death no longer are or can be. See, e. g., Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982); Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584 (1977). And while in earlier times “the gulf between the felonies and the minor offences was broad and deep,” 2 Pollock & Maitland 467, n. 3; Carroll v. United States, supra, at 158, today the distinction is minor and often arbitrary. Many crimes classified as misdemeanors, or nonexistent, at common law are now felonies. Wilgus, 22 Mich. L. Rev., at 572-573. These changes have undermined the concept, which was questionable to begin with, that use of deadly force against a fleeing felon is merely a speedier execution of someone who has already forfeited his life. They have also made the assumption that a “felon” is more dangerous than a misdemeanant untenable. Indeed, numerous misdemeanors involve conduct more dangerous than many felonies.
There is an additional reason why the common-law rule cannot be directly translated to the present day. The common-law rule developed at a time when weapons were rudimentary. Deadly force could be inflicted almost solely in a hand-to-hand struggle during which, necessarily, the safety of the arresting officer was at risk. Handguns were not carried by police officers until the latter half of the last century. L. Kennett & J. Anderson, The Gun in America 150-151 (1975). Only then did it become possible to use deadly force from a distance as a means of apprehension. As a practical matter, the use of deadly force under the standard articulation of the common-law rule has an altogether different meaning — and harsher consequences — now than in past centuries. See Wechsler & Michael, A Rationale for the Law of Homicide: I, 37 Colum. L. Rev. 701, 741 (1937).
One other aspect of the common-law rule bears emphasis. It forbids the use of deadly force to apprehend a misde-meanant, condemning such action as disproportionately severe. See Holloway v. Moser, 193 N. C., at 187, 136 S. E., at 376; State v. Smith, 127 Iowa, at 535, 103 N. W., at 945. See generally Annot., 83 A. L. R. 3d 238 (1978).
In short, though the common-law pedigree of Tennessee’s rule is pure on its face, changes in the legal and technological context mean the rule is distorted almost beyond recognition when literally applied.
C
In evaluating the reasonableness of police procedures under the Fourth Amendment, we have also looked to prevailing rules in individual jurisdictions. See, e. g., United States v. Watson, 423 U. S., at 421-422. The rules in the States are varied. See generally Comment, 18 Ga. L. Rev. 137, 140-144 (1983). Some 19 States have codified the common-law rule, though in two of these the courts have significantly limited the statute. Four States, though without a relevant statute, apparently retain the common-law rule. Two States have adopted the Model Penal Code’s provision verbatim. Eighteen others allow, in slightly varying language, the use of deadly force only if the suspect has committed a felony involving the use or threat of physical or deadly force, or is escaping with a deadly weapon, or is likely to endanger life or inflict serious physical injury if not arrested. Louisiana and Vermont, though without statutes or case law on point, do forbid the use of deadly force to prevent any but violent felonies. The remaining States either have no relevant statute or case law, or have positions that are unclear.
It cannot be said that there is a constant or overwhelming trend away from the common-law rule. In recent years, some States have reviewed their laws and expressly rejected abandonment of the common-law rule. Nonetheless, the long-term movement has been away from the rule that deadly force may be used against any fleeing felon, and that remains the rule in less than half the States.
This trend is more evident and impressive when viewed in light of the policies adopted by the police departments themselves. Overwhelmingly, these are more restrictive than the common-law rule. C. Milton, J. Halleck, J. Lardner, & G. Abrecht, Police Use of Deadly Force 45-46 (1977). The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department, for example, both forbid the use of firearms except when necessary to prevent death or grievous bodily harm. Id., at 40-41; App. 88. For accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, a department must restrict the use of deadly force to situations where “the officer reasonably believes that the action is in defense of human life ... or in defense of any person in immediate danger of serious physical injury.” Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc., Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies 1-2 (1983) (italics deleted). A 1974 study reported that the police department regulations in a majority of the large cities of the United States allowed the firing of a weapon only when a felon presented a threat of death or serious bodily harm. Boston Police Department, Planning & Research Division, The Use of Deadly Force by Boston Police Personnel (1974), cited in Mattis v. Schnarr, 547 F. 2d 1007, 1016, n. 19 (CA8 1976), vacated as moot sub nom. Ashcroft v. Mattis, 431 U. S. 171 (1977). Overall, only 7.5% of departmental and municipal policies explicitly permit the use of deadly force against any felon; 86.8% explicitly do not. K. Matulia, A Balance of Forces: A Report of the International Association of Chiefs of Police 161 (1982) (table). See also Record 1108-1368 (written policies of 44 departments). See generally W. Geller & K. Karales, Split-Second Decisions 33-42 (1981); Brief for Police Foundation et al. as Amici Curiae. In light of the rules adopted by those who must actually administer them, the older and fading common-law view is a dubious indicium of the constitutionality of the Tennessee statute now before us.
D
Actual departmental policies are important for an additional reason. We would hesitate to declare a police practice of long standing “unreasonable” if doing so would severely hamper effective law enforcement. But the indications are to the contrary. There has been no suggestion that crime has worsened in any way in jurisdictions that have adopted, by legislation or departmental policy, rules similar to that announced today. Amici note that “[a]fter extensive research and consideration, [they] have concluded that laws permitting police officers to use deadly force to apprehend unarmed, non-violent fleeing felony suspects actually do not protect citizens or law enforcement officers, do not deter crime or alleviate problems caused by crime, and do not improve the crime-fighting ability of law enforcement agencies.” Id., at 11. The submission is that the obvious state interests in apprehension are not sufficiently served to warrant the use of lethal weapons against all fleeing felons. See supra, at 10-11, and n. 10.
Nor do we agree with petitioners and appellant that the rule we have adopted requires the police to make impossible, split-second evaluations of unknowable facts. See Brief for Petitioners 25; Brief for Appellant 11. We do not deny the practical difficulties of attempting to assess the suspect’s dangerousness. However, similarly difficult judgments must be made by the police in equally uncertain circumstances. See, e. g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S., at 20, 27. Nor is there any indication that in States that allow the use of deadly force only against dangerous suspects, see nn. 15, 17-19, supra, the standard has been difficult to apply or has led to a rash of litigation involving inappropriate second-guessing of police officers’ split-second decisions. Moreover, the highly technical felony/misdemeanor distinction is equally, if not more, difficult to apply in the field. An officer is in no position to know, for example, the precise value of property stolen, or whether the crime was a first or second offense. Finally, as noted above, this claim must be viewed with suspicion in light of the similar self-imposed limitations of so many police departments.
IV
The District Court concluded that Hymon was justified in shooting Garner because state law allows, and the Federal Constitution does not forbid, the use of deadly force to prevent the escape of a fleeing felony suspect if no alternative means of apprehension is available. See App. to Pet. for Cert. A9-A11, A38. This conclusion made a determination of Garner’s apparent dangerousness unnecessary. The court did find, however, that Garner appeared to be unarmed, though Hymon could not be certain that was the case. Id., at A4, A23. See also App. 41, 56; Record 219. Restated in Fourth Amendment terms, this means Hymon had no articu-lable basis to think Garner was armed.
In reversing, the Court of Appeals accepted the District Court’s factual conclusions and held that “the facts, as found, did not justify the use of deadly force.” 710 F. 2d, at 246. We agree. Officer Hymon could not reasonably have believed that Garner — young, slight, and unarmed — posed any threat. Indeed, Hymon never attempted to justify his actions on any basis other than the need to prevent an escape. The District Court stated in passing that “[t]he facts of this case did not indicate to Officer Hymon that Garner was ‘non-danger ous.’ ” App. to Pet. for Cert. A34. This conclusion is not explained, and seems to be based solely on the fact that Garner had broken into a house at night. However, the fact that Garner was a suspected burglar could not, without regard to the other circumstances, automatically justify the use of deadly force. Hymon did not have probable cause to believe that Garner, whom he correctly believed to be unarmed, posed any physical danger to himself or others.
The dissent argues that the shooting was justified by the fact that Officer Hymon had probable cause to believe that Garner had committed a nighttime burglary. Post, at 29, 32. While we agree that burglary is a serious crime, we cannot agree that it is so dangerous as automatically to justify the use of deadly force. The FBI classifies burglary as a “property” rather than a “violent” crime. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States 1 (1984). Although the armed burglar would present a different situation, the fact that an unarmed suspect has broken into a dwelling at night does not automatically mean he is physically dangerous. This case demonstrates as much. See also Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S. 277, 296-297, and nn. 22-23 (1983). In fact, the available statistics demonstrate that burglaries only rarely involve physical violence. During the 10-year period from 1973-1982, only 3.8% of all burglaries involved violent crime. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Household Burglary 4 (1985). See also T. Reppetto, Residential Crime 17, 105 (1974); Conklin & Bittner, Burglary in a Suburb, 11 Criminology 208, 214 (1973).
V
We wish to make clear what our holding means in the context of this case. The complaint has been dismissed as to all the individual defendants. The State is a party only by virtue of 28 U. S. C. § 2403(b) and is not subject to liability. The possible liability of the remaining defendants — the Police Department and the city of Memphis — hinges on Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), and is left for remand. We hold that the statute is invalid insofar as it purported to give Hymon the authority to act as he did. As for the policy of the Police Department, the absence of any discussion of this issue by the courts below, and the uncertain state of the record, preclude any consideration of its validity.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
The owner of the house testified that no lights were on in the house, but that a back door light was on. Record 160. Officer Hymon, though uncertain, stated in his deposition that there were lights on in the house. Id., at 209.
In fact, Garner, an eighth-grader, was 15. He was 5' 4" tall and weighed somewhere around 100 or 110 pounds. App. to Pet. for Cert. A5.
When asked at trial why he fired, Hymon stated:
“Well, first of all it was apparent to me from the little bit that I knew about the area at the time that he was going to get away because, number 1, I couldn’t get to him. My partner then couldn’t find where he was because, you know, he was late coming around. He didn’t know where I was talking about. I couldn’t get to him because of the fence here, I couldn’t have jumped this fence and come up, consequently jumped this fence and caught him before he got away because he was already up on the fence, just one leap and he was already over the fence, and so there is no way that I could have caught him.” App. 52.
He also stated that the area beyond the fence was dark, that he could not have gotten over the fence easily because he was carrying a lot of equipment and wearing heavy boots, and that Garner, being younger and more energetic, could have outrun him. Id., at 53-54.
Garner had rummaged through one room in the house, in which, in the words of the owner, “[a]ll the stuff was out on the floors, all the drawers was pulled out, and stuff was scattered all over.” Id., at 34. The owner testified that his valuables were untouched but that, in addition to the purse and the 10 dollars, one of his wife’s rings was missing. The ring was not recovered. Id., at 34-35.
Although the statute does not say so explicitly, Tennessee law forbids the use of deadly force in the arrest of a misdemeanant. See Johnson v. State, 173 Tenn. 134, 114 S. W. 2d 819 (1938).
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .” U. S. Const., Arndt. 4.
The Court of Appeals concluded that the rule set out in the Model Penal Code “accurately states Fourth Amendment limitations on the use of deadly force against fleeing felons.” 710 F. 2d, at 247. The relevant portion of the Model Penal Code provides:
“The use of deadly force is not justifiable . . . unless (i) the arrest is for a felony; and (ii) the person effecting the arrest is authorized to act as a peace officer or is assisting a person whom he believes to be authorized to act as a peace officer; and (iii) the actor believes that the force employed creates no substantial risk of injury to innocent persons; and (iv) the actor believes that (1) the crime for which the arrest is made involved conduct including the use or threatened use of deadly force; or (2) there is a substantial risk that the person to be arrested will cause death or serious bodily harm if his apprehension is delayed.” American Law Institute, Model Penal Code §3.07(2)(b) (Proposed Official Draft 1962).
The court also found that “[a]n analysis of the facts of this case under the Due Process Clause” required the same result, because the statute was not narrowly drawn to further a compelling state interest. 710 F. 2d, at 246-247. The court considered the generalized interest in effective law enforcement sufficiently compelling only when the the suspect is dangerous. Finally, the court held, relying on Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S. 622 (1980), that the city was not immune.
The dissent emphasizes that subsequent investigation cannot replace immediate apprehension. We recognize that this is so, see n. 13, infra; indeed, that is the reason why there is any dispute. If subsequent arrest were assured, no one would argue that use of deadly force was justified. Thus, we proceed on the assumption that subsequent arrest is not likely. Nonetheless, it should be remembered that failure to apprehend at the scene does not necessarily mean that the suspect will never be caught.
In lamenting the inadequacy of later investigation, the dissent relies on the report of the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. It is worth noting that, notwithstanding its awareness of this problem, the Commission itself proposed a policy for use of deadly force arguably even more stringent than the formulation we adopt today. See President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, Task Force Report: The Police 189 (1967). The Commission proposed that deadly force be used only to apprehend “perpetrators who, in the course of their crime threatened the use of deadly force, or if the officer believes there is a substantial risk that the person whose arrest is sought will cause death or serious bodily harm if his apprehension is delayed.” In addition, the officer would have “to know, as a virtual certainty, that the suspect committed an offense for which the use of deadly force is permissible.” Ibid.
We note that the usual manner of deterring illegal conduct — through punishment — has been largely ignored in connection with flight from arrest. Arkansas, for example, specifically excepts flight from arrest from the offense of “obstruction of governmental operations.” The commentary notes that this “reflects the basic policy judgment that, absent the use of force or violence, a mere attempt to avoid apprehension by a law enforcement officer does not give rise to an independent offense.” Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-2802(3)(a) (1977) and commentary. In the few States that do outlaw flight from an arresting officer, the crime is only a misdemeanor. See, e. g., Ind. Code § 35-44-3-3 (1982). Even forceful resistance, though generally a separate offense, is classified as a misdemeanor. E. g., Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶31-1 (1984); Mont. Code Ann. §45-7-301 (1984); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §642:2 (Supp. 1983); Ore. Rev. Stat. §162.315 (1983).
This lenient approach does avoid the anomaly of automatically transforming every fleeing misdemeanant into a fleeing felon — subject, under the common-law rule, to apprehension by deadly force — solely by virtue of his flight. However, it is in real tension with the harsh consequences of flight in cases where deadly force is employed. For example, Tennessee does not outlaw fleeing from arrest. The Memphis City Code does, §22-34.1 (Supp. 17, 1971), subjecting the offender to a maximum fine of $50, § 1-8 (1967). Thus, Garner’s attempted escape subjected him to (a) a $50 fine, and (b) being shot.
See Sherman, Reducing Police Gun Use, in Control in the Police Organization 98, 120-123 (M. Punch ed. 1983); Fyfe, Observations on Police Deadly Force, 27 Crime & Delinquency 376, 378-381 (1981); W. Geller & K. Karales, Split-Second Decisions 67 (1981); App. 84 (affidavit of William Bracey, Chief of Patrol, New York City Police Department). See generally Brief for Police Foundation et al. as Amici Curiae.
The roots of the concept of a “felony” lie not in capital punishment but in forfeiture. 2 F. Pollock & F. Maitland, The History of English Law 465 (2d ed. 1909) (hereinafter Pollock & Maitland). Not all felonies were always punishable by death. See id., at 466-467, n. 3. Nonetheless, the link was profound. Blackstone was able to write: “The idea of felony is indeed so generally connected with that of capital punishment, that we find it hard to separate them; and to this usage the interpretations of the law do now conform. And therefore if a statute makes any new offence felony, the law implies that is shall be punished with death, viz. by hanging, as well as with forfeiture . . . .” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *98. See also R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law 14-15 (3d ed. 1982); 2 Pollock & Maitland 511.
White-collar crime, for example, poses a less significant physical threat than, say, drunken driving. See Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U. S. 740 (1984); id., at 755 (Blackmun, J., concurring). See Model Penal Code Comment, at 57.
It has been argued that sophisticated techniques of apprehension and increased communication between the police in different jurisdictions have made it more likely that an escapee will be caught than was once the case, and that this change has also reduced the “reasonableness” of the use of deadly force to prevent escape. E. g., Sherman, Execution Without Trial: Police Homicide and the Constitution, 33 Vand. L. Rev. 71, 76 (1980). We are unaware of any data that would permit sensible evaluation of this claim. Current arrest rates are sufficiently low, however, that we have some doubt whether in past centuries the failure to arrest at the scene meant that the police had missed their only chance in a way that is not presently the case. In 1983, 21% of the offenses in the Federal Bureau of Investigation crime index were cleared by arrest. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States 159 (1984). The clearance rate for burglary was 15%. Ibid.
Ala. Code § 13A-3-27 (1982); Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-510 (1977); Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 196 (West 1970); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-22 (1972); Fla. Stat. § 776.05 (1983); Idaho Code § 19-610 (1979); Ind. Code § 35-41-3-3 (1982); Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-3215 (1981); Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-15(d) (Supp. 1984); Mo. Rev. Stat. § 563.046 (1979); Nev. Rev. Stat. § 200.140 (1983); N. M. Stat. Ann. § 30-2-6 (1984); Okla. Stat., Tit. 21, §732 (1981); R. I. Gen. Laws § 12-7-9 (1981); S. D. Codified Laws §§ 22-16-32, 22-16-33 (1979); Term. Code Ann. § 40-7-108 (1982); Wash. Rev. Code § 9A. 16.040(3) (1977). Oregon limits use of deadly force to violent felons, but also allows its use against any felon if “necessary.” Ore. Rev. Stat. § 161.239 (1983). Wisconsin’s statute is ambiguous, but should probably be added to this list. Wis. Stat. § 939.45(4) (1981-1982) (officer may use force necessary for “a reasonable accomplishment of a lawful arrest”). But see Clark v. Ziedonis, 368 F. Supp. 544 (ED Wis. 1973), aff’d on other grounds, 513 F. 2d 79 (CA7 1975).
In California, the police may use deadly force to arrest only if the crime for which the arrest is sought was “a forcible and atrocious one which threatens death or serious bodily harm,” or there is a substantial risk that the person whose arrest is sought will cause death or serious bodily harm if apprehension is delayed. Kortum v. Alkire, 69 Cal. App. 3d 325, 333,138 Cal. Rptr. 26, 30-31 (1977). See also People v. Ceballos, 12 Cal. 3d 470, 476-484, 526 P. 2d 241, 245-250 (1974); Long Beach Police Officers Assn. v. Long Beach, 61 Cal. App. 3d 364, 373-374, 132 Cal. Rptr. 348, 353-354 (1976). In Indiana, deadly force may be used only to prevent injury, the imminent danger of injury or force, or the threat of force. It is not permitted simply to prevent escape. Rose v. State, 431 N. E. 2d 521 (Ind. App. 1982).
These are Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia. Werner v. Hartfelder, 113 Mich. App. 747, 318 N. W. 2d 825 (1982); State v. Foster, 60 Ohio Misc. 46, 59-66, 396 N. E. 2d 246, 255-258 (Com. Pl. 1979) (citing cases); Berry v. Hamman, 203 Va. 596, 125 S. E. 2d 851 (1962); Thompson v. Norfolk & W. R. Co., 116 W. Va. 705, 711-712, 182 S. E. 880, 883-884 (1935).
Haw. Rev. Stat. §703-307 (1976); Neb. Rev. Stat. §28-1412 (1979). Massachusetts probably belongs in this category. Though it once rejected distinctions between felonies, Uraneck v. Lima, 359 Mass. 749, 750, 269 N. E. 2d 670, 671 (1971), it has since adopted the Model Penal Code limitations with regard to private citizens, Commonwealth v. Klein, 372 Mass. 823, 363 N. E. 2d 1313 (1977), and seems to have extended that decision to police officers, Julian v. Randazzo, 380 Mass. 391, 403 N. E. 2d 931 (1980).
Alaska Stat. Ann. § 11.81.370(a) (1983); Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-410 (1978); Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-1-707 (1978); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 11, §467 (1979) (felony involving physical force and a substantial risk that the suspect will cause death or serious bodily injury or will never be recaptured); Ga. Code § 16-3-21(a) (1984); Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶7-5 (1984); Iowa Code § 804.8 (1983) (suspect has used or threatened deadly force in commission of a felony, or would use deadly force if not caught); Ky. Rev. Stat. § 503.090 (1984) (suspect committed felony involving use or threat of physical force likely to cause death or serious injury, and is likely to endanger life unless apprehended without delay); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 17-A, § 107 (1983) (commentary notes that deadly force may be used only “where the person to be arrested poses a threat to human life”); Minn. Stat. § 609.066 (1984); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 627:5(II) (Supp. 1983); N. J. Stat. Ann. § 2C-3-7 (West 1982); N. Y. Penal Law § 35.30 (McKinney Supp. 1984-1985); N. C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-401 (1983); N. D. Cent. Code § 12.1-05-07.2.d (1976); 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §508 (1982); Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 9.51(c) (1974); Utah Code Ann. § 76-2-404 (1978).
See La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14:20(2) (West 1974); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 13, § 2305 (1974 and Supp. 1984). A Federal District Court has interpreted the Louisiana statute to limit the use of deadly force against fleeing suspects to situations where “life itself is endangered or great bodily harm is threatened.” Sauls v. Hutto, 304 F. Supp. 124, 132 (ED La. 1969).
These are Maryland, Montana, South Carolina, and Wyoming. A Maryland appellate court has indicated, however, that deadly force may not be used against a felon who “was in the process of fleeing and, at the time, presented no immediate danger to . . . anyone . . . Giant Food, Inc. v. Scherry, 51 Md. App. 586, 589, 596, 444 A. 2d 483, 486, 489 (1982).
In adopting its current statute in 1979, for example, Alabama expressly chose the common-law rule over more restrictive provisions. Ala. Code § 13A-3-27, Commentary, pp. 67-63 (1982). Missouri likewise considered but rejected a proposal akin to the Model Penal Code rule. See Mattis v. Schnarr, 547 F. 2d 1007, 1022 (CA8 1976) (Gibson, C. J., dissenting), vacated as moot sub nom. Ashcroft v. Mattis, 431 U. S. 171 (1977). Idaho, whose current statute codifies the common-law rule, adopted the Model Penal Code in 1971, but abandoned it in 1972.
In a recent report, the Department of Corrections of the District of Columbia also noted that “there is nothing inherently dangerous or violent about the offense,” which is a crime against property. D. C. Department of Corrections, Prisoner Screening Project 2 (1985).
The dissent points out that three-fifths of all rapes in the home, three-fifths of all home robberies, and about a third of home assaults are committed by burglars. Post, at 26-27. These figures mean only that if one knows that a suspect committed a rape in the home, there is a good chance that the suspect is also a burglar. That has nothing to do with the question here, which is whether the fact that someone has committed a burglary indicates that he has committed, or might commit, a violent crime.
The dissent also points out that this 3.8% adds up to 2.8 million violent crimes over a 10-year period, as if to imply that today’s holding will let loose 2.8 million violent burglars. The relevant universe is, of course, far smaller. At issue is only that tiny fraction of cases where violence has taken place and an officer who has no other means of apprehending the suspect is unaware of its occurrence. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the treatment the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed, that is, whether the court below the Supreme Court (typically a federal court of appeals or a state supreme court) affirmed, reversed, remanded, denied or dismissed the decision of the court it reviewed (typically a trial court). Adhere to the language used in the "holding" in the summary of the case on the title page or prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. Exceptions to the literal language are the following: where the Court overrules the lower court, treat this a petition or motion granted; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing refuses to enforce or enjoins the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as reversed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing enforces the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as affirmed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing sets aside the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as vacated; if the decision is set aside and remanded, treat it as vacated and remanded. | What treatment did the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"modify",
"remand",
"unusual disposition"
] | [
3
] | sc_lcdisposition |
UNITED STATES v. HENRY
No. 79-121.
Argued January 16, 1980
Decided June 16, 1980
Burger, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BreNNAN, Stewart, Marshall, Powell, and Stevens, JJ., joined. Powell, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 275. Blackmun, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which White, J., joined, post, p. 277. RehNquist, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 289.
Deputy Solicitor General Frey argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General McCree, Assistant Attorney General Heymann, and Edwin S. Kneedler.
Michael E. Geltner argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Larry J. Ritchie and William W. Greenhalgh.
Me. Chief Justice Burgee
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to consider whether respondent’s Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel was violated by the admission at trial of incriminating statements made by respondent to his cellmate, an undisclosed Government informant, after indictment and while in custody. 444 U. S. 824 (1979).
I
The Janaf Branch of the United Virginia Bank/Seaboard National in Norfolk, Va., was robbed in August 1972. Witnesses saw two men wearing masks and carrying guns enter the bank while a third man waited in the car. No witnesses were able to identify respondent Henry as one of the participants. About an hour after the robbery, the getaway car was discovered. Inside was found a rent receipt signed by one “Allen It. Norris” and a lease, also sighed by Norris, for a house in Norfolk. Two men, who were subsequently convicted of participating in the robbery, were arrested at the rented house. Discovered with them were the proceeds of the robbery and the guns and masks used by the gunmen.
Government agents traced the rent receipt to Henry; on the basis of this information, Henry was arrested in Atlanta, Ga., in November 1972. Two weeks later he was indicted for armed robbery under 18 U. S. C. §§2113 (a) and (d). He was held pending trial in the Norfolk city jail. Counsel was appointed on November 27.
On November 21, 1972, shortly after Henry was incarcerated, Government agents working on the Janaf robbery contacted one Nichols, an inmate at the Norfolk city jail, who for some time prior to this meeting had been engaged to provide confidential information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a paid informant. Nichols was then serving a sentence on local forgery charges. The record does not disclose whether the agent contacted Nichols specifically to acquire information about Henry or the Janaf robbery.
Nichols informed the agent that he was housed in the same cellbloclc with several federal prisoners awaiting trial, including Henry. The agent told him to be alert to any statements made by the federal prisoners, but not to initiate any conversation with or question Henry regarding the bank robbery. In early December, after Nichols had been released from jail, the agent again contacted Nichols, who reported that he and Henry had engaged in conversation and that Henry had told him about the robbery of the Janaf bank. Nichols was paid for furnishing the information.
When Henry was tried in March 1973, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation testified concerning the events surrounding the discovery of the rental slip and the evidence uncovered at the rented house. Other witnesses also connected Henry to the rented house, including the rental agent who positively identified Henry as the “Allen R. Norris” who had rented the house and had taken the rental receipt described earlier. A neighbor testified that prior to the robbery she saw Henry at the rented house with John Luck, one of the two men who had by the time of Henry’s trial been convicted for the robbery. In addition, palm prints found on the lease agreement matched those of Henry.
Nichols testified at trial that he had “an opportunity to have some conversations with Mr. Henry while he was in the jail,” and that Henry told him that on several occasions he had gone to the Janaf Branch to see which employees opened the vault. Nichols also testified that Henry described to him the details of the robbery and stated that the only evidence connecting him to the robbery was the rental receipt. The jury was not informed that Nichols was a paid Government informant.
On the basis of this testimony, Henry was convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 25 years. On appeal, he raised no Sixth Amendment claims. His conviction was affirmed, judgt. order reported at 483 F. 2d 1401 (CA4 1973), and his petition to this Court for a writ of cer-tiorari was denied. 421 U. S. 915 (1975).
On August 28, 1975, Henry moved to vacate his sentence pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2255 At this stage, he stated that he had just learned that Nichols was a paid Government informant and alleged that he had been intentionally placed in the same cell with Nichols so that Nichols could secure information about the robbery. Thus, Henry contended that the introduction of Nichols’ testimony violated his Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel. The District Court denied the motion without a hearing. The Court of Appeals, however, reversed and remanded for an evidentiary inquiry into “whether the witness [Nichols] was acting as a government agent during his interviews with Henry.”
On remand, the District Court requested affidavits from the Government agents. An affidavit was submitted describing the agent’s relationship with Nichols and relating the following conversation:
“I recall telling Nichols at this time to be alert to any statements made by these individuals [the federal prisoners] regarding the charges against them. I specifically recall telling Nichols that he was not to question Henry or these individuals about the charges against them, however, if they engaged him in conversation or talked in front of him, he was requested to pay attention to their statements. I recall telling Nichols not to initiate any conversations with Henry regarding the bank robbery charges against Henry, but that if Henry initiated the conversations with Nichols, I requested Nichols to pay attention to the information furnished by Henry.”
The agent’s affidavit also stated that he never requested anyone affiliated with the Norfolk city jail to place Nichols in the same cell with Henry.
The District Court again denied Henry’s § 2255 motion, concluding that Nichols’ testimony at trial did not violate Henry’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the actions of the Government impaired the Sixth Amendment rights of the defendant under Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201 (1964). The court noted that Nichols had engaged in conversation with Henry and concluded that if by association, by general conversation, or both, Nichols had developed a relationship of trust and confidence with Henry such that Henry revealed incriminating information, this constituted interference with the right to the assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment. 590 F. 2d 544 (1978).
II
This Court has scrutinized postindictment confrontations between Government agents and the accused to determine whether they are “critical stages” of the prosecution at which the Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel attaches. See, e. g., United States v. Ash, 413 U. S. 300 (1973); United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218 (1967). The present case involves incriminating statements made by the accused to an undisclosed and undercover Government informant while in custody and after indictment. The Government characterizes Henry’s incriminating statements as voluntary and not the result of any affirmative conduct on the part of Government agents to elicit evidence. From this, the Government argues that Henry’s rights were not violated, even assuming the Sixth Amendment applies to such surreptitious confrontations; in short, it is contended that the Government has not interfered with Henry’s right to counsel.
This Court first applied the Sixth Amendment to postindictment communications between the accused and agents of the Government in Massiah v. United States, supra. There, after the accused had been charged, he made incriminating statements to his codefendant, who was acting as an agent of the Government. In reversing the conviction, the Court held that the accused was denied “the basic protections of [the Sixth Amendment] when there was used against him at his trial evidence of his own incriminating words, which federal agents had deliberately elicted from him.” Id., at 206. The Massiah holding rests squarely on interference with his right to counsel.
The question here is whether under the facts of this case a Government agent “deliberately elicited” incriminating statements from Henry within the meaning of Massiah. Three factors are important. First, Nichols was acting under instructions as a paid informant for the Government; second, Nichols was ostensibly no more than a fellow inmate of Henry; and third, Henry was in custody and under indictment at the time he was engaged in conversation by Nichols.
The Court of Appeals viewed the record as showing that Nichols deliberately used his position to secure incriminating information from Henry when counsel was not present and held that conduct attributable to the Government. Nichols had been a paid Government informant for more than a year; moreover, the FBI agent was aware that Nichols had access to Henry and would be able to engage him in conversations without arousing Henry’s suspicion. The arrangement between Nichols and the agent was on a contingent-fee basis; Nichols was to be paid only if he produced useful information. This combination of circumstances is sufficient to support the Court of Appeals’ determination. Even if the agent’s statement that he did not intend that Nichols would take affirmative steps to secure incriminating information is accepted, he must have known that such propinquity likely would lead' to that result.
The Government argues that the federal agents instructed Nichols not to question Henry about the robbery. Yet according to his own testimony, Nichols was not a passive listener; rather, he had “some conversations with Mr. Henry” while he was in jail and Henry’s incriminatory statements were “the product of this conversation.” While affirmative interrogation, absent waiver, would certainly satisfy Massiah, we are not persuaded, as the Government contends, that Brewer v. Williams, 430 U. S. 387 (1977), modified Massiah’s “deliberately elicited” test., See Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U. S. 291, 300, n. 4 (1980). In Massiah, no inquiry was made as to whether Massiah or his codefendant first raised the subject of the crime under investigation.
It is quite a different matter when the Government uses undercover agents to obtain incriminating statements from persons not in custody but suspected of criminal activity prior to the time charges are filed. In Hoffa v. United States, 385 U. S. 293, 302 (1966), for example, this Court held that “no interest legitimately protected by the Fourth Amendment is involved” because “the Fourth Amendment [does not protect] a wrongdoer’s misplaced belief that a person to whom he voluntarily confides his wrongdoing will not reveal it.” See also United States v. White, 401 U. S. 745 (1971). Similarly, the Fifth Amendment has been held not to be implicated by the use of undercover Government agents before charges are filed because of the absence of the potential for compulsion. See Hoffa v. United States, swpra, at 303-304. But the Fourth and Fifth Amendment claims made in those cases are not relevant to the inquiry under the Sixth Amendment here — whether the Government has interfered with the right to counsel of the accused by “deliberately eliciting” incriminating statements. Our holding today does not modify White or Hoffa.
It is undisputed that Henry was unaware of Nichols’ role as a Government informant. The Government argues that this Court should apply a less rigorous standard under the Sixth Amendment where the accused is prompted by an undisclosed undercover informant than where the accused is speaking in the hearing of persons he knows to be Government officers. That line of argument, however, seeks to infuse Fifth Amendment concerns against compelled self-incrimination into the Sixth Amendment protection of the right to the assistance of counsel. An accused speaking to a known Government agent is typically aware that his statements may be used against him. The adversary positions at that stage are well established; the parties are then “arm’s-length” adversaries.
When the accused is in the company of a fellow inmate who is acting by prearrangement as a Government agent, the same cannot be said. Conversation stimulated in such circumstances may elicit information that an accused would not intentionally reveal to persons known to be Government agents. Indeed, the Massiah, Court noted that if the Sixth Amendment “is to have any efficacy it must apply to indirect and surreptitious interrogations as well as those conducted in the jailhouse.” The Court pointedly observed that Massiah was more seriously imposed upon because he did not know that his codefendant was a Government agent. 377 U. S., at 206.
Moreover, the concept of a knowing and voluntary waiver of Sixth Amendment rights does not apply in the context of communications with an undisclosed undercover informant acting for the Government. See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938). In that setting, Henry, being unaware that Nichols was a Government agent expressly commissioned to secure evidence, cannot be held to have waived his right to. the assistance of counsel.
Finally, Henry’s incarceration at the time he was engaged in conversation by Nichols is also a relevant factor. As a ground for imposing the prophylactic requirements in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 467 (1966), this Court noted the powerful psychological inducements to reach for aid when a person is in confinement. See also id., at 448-454. While the concern in Miranda was limited to custodial police interrogation, the mere fact of custody imposes pressures on the accused; confinement may bring into play subtle influences that will make him particularly susceptible to the ploys of undercover Government agents. The Court of Appeals determined that on this record the incriminating conversations between Henry and Nichols were facilitated by Nichols’ conduct and apparent status as a person sharing a common plight. That Nichols had managed to gain the confidence of Henry, as the Court of Appeals determined, is confirmed by Henry’s request that Nichols assist him in his escape plans when Nichols was released from confinement.
Under the strictures of the Court’s holdings on the exclusion of evidence, we conclude that the Court of Appeals did not err in holding that Henry’s statements to Nichols should not have been admitted at trial. By intentionally creating a situation likely to induce Henry to make incriminating statements without the assistance of counsel, the Government violated Henry’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel. This is not a case where, in Justice Cardozo’s words, “the constable . . . blundered,” People v. DeFore, 242 N. Y. 13, 21, 150 N. E. 585, 587 (1926); rather, it is one where the “constable” planned an impermissible interference with the right to the assistance of counsel.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is
Affirmed.
The record does disclose that on November 21, 1972, the same day the agent contacted Nichols, the agent’s supervisor interrogated Henry at the jail. After denying participation in the robbery, Henry exercised his right to terminate the interview.
Henry also asked Nichols if he would help him once Nichols was released. Henry requested Nichols to go to Virginia Beach and contact a woman there. He prepared instructions on how to find the woman and wanted Nichols to tell her to visit Henry in the Norfolk jail. He explained that he wanted to ask the woman to carry a message to his partner, who was incarcerated in the Portsmouth city jail. Henry also gave Nichols a telephone number and asked him to contact an individual named “Junior” or “Nail.” In addition Henry asked Nichols to provide him with a floor plan of the United States Marshals’ office and a handcuff key because Henry intended to attempt an escape.
Joseph Sadler, another of Henry’s cellmates, also testified at trial. He stated that Henry had told him that Henry had robbed a bank with a man named “Lucky” or “Luck.” Sadler testified that on advice of counsel he informed Government agents of the conversation with Henry. Sadler was not a paid informant and had no arrangement to monitor or report on conversations with Henry.
In his § 2255 petition, Henry also alleged that Sadler’s testimony was perjurious; that the Government failed to disclose Brady material, see Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963); that the United. States Attorney’s argument to the jury was impermissibly prejudicial; and that his trial counsel was incompetent. The District Court rejected each of these grounds, and none of these issues is before this Court.
The Court of Appeals acknowledged that the testimony of Sadler, another cellmate of Henry, supported the conviction but was not willing to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Nichols’ testimony did not influence the jury. Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 24 (1967).
Although both the Government, and Mr. Justice Rehnquist in dissent, question the continuing vitality of the Massiah branch of the Sixth Amendment, we reject their invitation to reconsider it.
The affidavit of the agent discloses that “Nichols had been paid by the FBI for expenses and services in connection with information he had provided” as an informant for at least a year. The only reasonable inference from this statement is that Nichols was paid when he produced information, not that Nichols was continuously on the payroll of the FBI. Here, the service requested of Nichols was that he obtain incriminating information from Henry; there is no indication that Nichols would have been paid if he had not performed the requested service.
Two aspects of the agent’s affidavit are particularly significant. First, it is clear that the agent in his discussions with Nichols singled out Henry as the inmate in whom the agent had a special interest. Thus, the affidavit relates that “I specifically recall telling Nichols that he was not to question Henry or these individuals” and “I recall telling Nichols not to initiate any conversations with Henry regarding the bank robbery charges,” but to “pay attention to the information furnished by Henry.” (Emphasis added.) Second, the agent only instructed Nichols not to question Henry or to initiate conversations regarding the bank robbery charges. Under these instructions, Nichols remained free to discharge his task of eliciting the statements in myriad less direct ways.
The situation where the “listening post” is an inanimate electronic device differs; such a device has no capability of leading the conversation into any particular subject or prompting any particular replies. See, e. g., United States v. Hearst, 563 F. 2d 1331, 1347-1348 (CA9 1977), cert. denied, 435 U. S. 1000 (1978). However, that situation is not presented in this case, and there is no occasion to treat it; nor are we called upon to pass on the situation where an informant is placed in close proximity but makes no effort to stimulate conversations about the crime charged.
No doubt the role of the agent at the time of the conversations between Massiah and his codefendant was more active than that of the federal agents here. Yet the additional fact in Massiah that the agent was monitoring the conversations is hardly determinative. In both Massiah and this case, the informant was charged with the task of obtaining information from an accused. Whether Massiah's codefendant questioned Massiah about the crime or merely engaged in general conversation about it was a matter of no concern to the Massiah Court. Moreover, we deem it irrelevant that in Massiah the agent had to arrange the meeting between Massiah and his codefendant while here the agents were fortunate enough to have an undercover informant already in close proximity to the accused.
This is not to read a “custody” requirement, which is a prerequisite to the attachment of Miranda rights, into this branch of the Sixth Amendment. Massiah was in no sense in custody at the time of his conversation with his eodefendant. Rather, we believe the fact of custody bears on whether the Government “deliberately elicited” the incriminating statements from Henry.
This is admittedly not a case such as Massiah where the informant and the accused had a prior longstanding relationship. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence in the record which discloses that Nichols had managed to become more than a casual jailhouse acquaintance. That Henry could be induced to discuss his past crime is hardly surprising in view of the fact that Nichols had so ingratiated himself that Henry actively solicited his aid in executing his next crime — his planned attempt to escape from the jail.
The holding of the Court of Appeals that this was not harmless error is on less firm grounds in view of the strong evidence against Henry, in-eluding the testimony of a neutral fellow inmate, Henry's rental of the hideaway house, and his presence there with the other participants in the robbery before the crime. The Government, however, has not argued that the error was harmless, and on balance, we are not inclined to disturb the determination of the Court of Appeals.
Although it does not bear on the constitutional question in this case, we note that Disciplinary Rule 7-104 (A) (1) of the Code of Professional Responsibility provides:
“ (A) During the course of his representation of a client a lawyer shall not:
“(1) Communicate or cause another to communicate on the subject of the representation with a party he knows to be represented by a lawyer in that matter unless he has the prior consent of the lawyer representing such other party or is authorized by law to do so.”
See also Ethical Consideration 7-18. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether administrative action occurred in the context of the case prior to the onset of litigation. The activity may involve an administrative official as well as that of an agency. To determine whether administration action occurred in the context of the case, consider the material which appears in the summary of the case preceding the Court's opinion and, if necessary, those portions of the prevailing opinion headed by a I or II. Action by an agency official is considered to be administrative action except when such an official acts to enforce criminal law. If an agency or agency official "denies" a "request" that action be taken, such denials are considered agency action. Exclude: a "challenge" to an unapplied agency rule, regulation, etc.; a request for an injunction or a declaratory judgment against agency action which, though anticipated, has not yet occurred; a mere request for an agency to take action when there is no evidence that the agency did so; agency or official action to enforce criminal law; the hiring and firing of political appointees or the procedures whereby public officials are appointed to office; attorney general preclearance actions pertaining to voting; filing fees or nominating petitions required for access to the ballot; actions of courts martial; land condemnation suits and quiet title actions instituted in a court; and federally funded private nonprofit organizations. | Did administrative action occur in the context of the case? | [
"No",
"Yes"
] | [
0
] | sc_adminaction_is |
CELOTEX CORP. v. CATRETT, ADMINISTRATRIX OF THE ESTATE OF CATRETT
No. 85-198.
Argued April 1, 1986
Decided June 25, 1986
Rehnquist, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which White, Marshall, Powell, and O’ConnoR, JJ., joined. White, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 328. Brennan, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Burger, C. J., and Blackmun, J., joined, post, p. 329. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 337.
Leland S. Van Koten argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were H. Emslie Parks and Drake C. Zaharris.
Paul March Smith argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Joseph N. Onek, Joel I. Klein, James F. Green, and Peter T. Enslein.
Stephen M. Shapiro, Robert L. Stem, William H. Crabtree, Edward P. Good, and Paul M. Bator filed a brief for the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.
Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted the motion of petitioner Celotex Corporation for summary judgment against respondent Catrett because the latter was unable to produce evidence in support of her allegation in her wrongful-death complaint that the decedent had been exposed to petitioner’s asbestos products. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed, however, holding that petitioner’s failure to support its motion with evidence tending to negate such exposure precluded the entry of summary judgment in its favor. Catrett v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 244 U. S. App. D. C. 160, 756 F. 2d 181 (1985). This view conflicted with that of the Third Circuit in In re Japanese Electronic Products, 723 F. 2d 238 (1983), rev’d on other grounds sub nom. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U. S. 574 (1986). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 474 U. S. 944 (1985), and now reverse the decision of the District of Columbia Circuit.
Respondent commenced this lawsuit in September 1980, alleging that the death in 1979 of her husband, Louis H. Catrett, resulted from his exposure to products containing asbestos manufactured or distributed by 15 named corporations. Respondent’s complaint sounded in negligence, breach of warranty, and strict liability. Two of the defendants filed motions challenging the District Court’s in perso-nam jurisdiction, and the remaining 13, including petitioner, filed motions for summary judgment. Petitioner’s motion, which was first filed in September 1981, argued that summary judgment was proper because respondent had “failed to produce evidence that any [Celotex] product . . . was the proximate cause of the injuries alleged within the jurisdictional limits of [the District] Court. ” In particular, petitioner noted that respondent had failed to identify, in answering interrogatories specifically requesting such information, any witnesses who could testify about the decedent’s exposure to petitioner’s asbestos products. In response to petitioner’s summary judgment motion, respondent then produced three documents which she claimed “demonstrate that there is a genuine material factual dispute” as to whether the decedent had ever been exposed to petitioner’s asbestos products. The three documents included a transcript of a deposition of the decedent, a letter from an official of one of the decedent’s former employers whom petitioner planned to call as a trial witness, and a letter from an insurance company to respondent’s attorney, all tending to establish that the decedent had been exposed to petitioner’s asbestos products in Chicago during 1970-1971. Petitioner, in turn, argued that the three documents were inadmissible hearsay and thus could not be considered in opposition to the summary judgment motion.
In July 1982, almost two years after the commencement of the lawsuit, the District Court granted all of the motions filed by the various defendants. The court explained that it was granting petitioner’s summary judgment motion because “there [was] no showing that the plaintiff was exposed to the defendant Celotex’s product in the District of Columbia or elsewhere within the statutory period.” App. 217. Respondent appealed only the grant of summary judgment in favor of petitioner, and a divided panel of the District of Columbia Circuit reversed. The majority of the Court of Appeals held that petitioner’s summary judgment motion was rendered “fatally defective” by the fact that petitioner “made no effort to adduce any evidence, in the form of affidavits or otherwise, to support its motion.” 244 U. S. App. D. C., at 163, 756 F. 2d, at 184 (emphasis in original). According to the majority, Rule 56(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and this Court’s decision in Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 159 (1970), establish that “the party opposing the motion for summary judgment bears the burden of responding only after the moving party has met its burden of coming forward with proof of the absence of any genuine issues of material fact.” 244 U. S. App. D. C., at 163, 756 F. 2d, at 184 (emphasis in original; footnote omitted). The majority therefore declined to consider petitioner’s argument that none of the evidence produced by respondent in opposition to the motion for summary judgment would have been admissible at trial. Ibid. The dissenting judge argued that “[t]he majority errs in supposing that a party seeking summary judgment must always make an affirmative eviden-tiary showing, even in cases where there is not a triable, factual dispute.” Id., at 167, 756 F. 2d, at 188 (Bork, J., dissenting). According to the dissenting judge, the majority’s decision “undermines the traditional authority of trial judges to grant summary judgment in meritless cases.” Id., at 166, 756 F. 2d, at 187.
We think that the position taken by the majority of the Court of Appeals is inconsistent with the standard for summary judgment set forth in Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Under Rule 56(c), summary judgment is proper “if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” In our view, the plain language of Rule 56(c) mandates the entry of summary judgment, after adequate time for discovery and upon motion, against a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party’s case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial. In such a situation, there can be “no genuine issue as to any material fact,” since a complete failure of proof concerning an essential element of the nonmoving party’s case necessarily renders all other facts immaterial. The moving party is “entitled to a judgment as a matter of law” because the nonmoving party has failed to make a sufficient showing on an essential element of her case with respect to which she has the burden of. proof. “[T]h[e] standard [for granting summary judgment] mirrors the standard for a directed verdict under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a) . . . .” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., ante, at 250.
Of course, a party seeking summary judgment always bears the initial responsibility of informing the district court of the basis for its motion, and identifying those portions of “the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any,” which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. But unlike the Court of Appeals, we find no express or implied requirement in Rule 56 that the moving party support its motion with affidavits or other similar materials negating the opponent’s claim. On the contrary, Rule 56(c), which refers to “the affidavits, if any” (emphasis added), suggests the absence of such a requirement. And if there were any doubt about the meaning of Rule 56(c) in this regard, such doubt is clearly removed by Rules 56(a) and (b), which provide that claimants and defendants, respectively, may move for summary judgment “with or without supporting affidavits” (emphasis added). The import of these subsections is that, regardless of whether the moving party accompanies its summary judgment motion with affidavits, the motion may, and should, be granted so long as whatever is before the district court demonstrates that the standard for the entry of summary judgment, as set forth in Rule 56(c), is satisfied. One of the principal purposes of the summary judgment rule is to isolate and dispose of factually unsupported claims or defenses, and we think it should be interpreted in a way that allows it to accomplish this purpose.
Respondent argues, however, that Rule 56(e), by its terms, places on the nonmoving party the burden of coming forward with rebuttal affidavits, or other specified kinds of materials, only in response to a motion for summary judgment “made and supported as provided in this rule.” According to respondent’s argument, since petitioner did not “support” its motion with affidavits, summary judgment was improper in this case. But as we have already explained, a motion for summary judgment may be made pursuant to Rule 56 “with or without supporting affidavits.” In cases like the instant one, where the nonmoving party will bear the burden of proof at trial on a dispositive issue, a summary judgment motion may properly be made in reliance solely on the “pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file.” Such a motion, whether or not accompanied by affidavits, will be “made and supported as provided in this rule,” and Rule 56(e) therefore requires the nonmoving party to go beyond the pleadings and by her own affidavits, or by the “depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file,” designate “specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.”
We do not mean that the nonmoving party must produce evidence in a form that would be admissible at trial in order to avoid summary judgment. Obviously, Rule 56 does not require the nonmoving party to depose her own witnesses. Rule 56(e) permits a proper summary judgment motion to be opposed by any of the kinds of evidentiary materials listed in Rule 56(c), except the mere pleadings themselves, and it is from this list that one would normally expect the nonmoving party to make the showing to which we have referred.
The Court of Appeals in this case felt itself constrained, however, by language in our decision in Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144 (1970). There we held that summary judgment had been improperly entered in favor of the defendant restaurant in an action brought under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. In the course of its opinion, the Adickes Court said that “both the commentary on and the background of the 1963 amendment conclusively show that it was not intended to modify the burden of the moving party... to show initially the absence of a genuine issue concerning any material fact.” Id., at 159. We think that this statement is accurate in a literal sense, since we fully agree with the Adickes Court that the 1963 amendment to Rule 56(e) was not designed to modify the burden of making the showing generally required by Rule 56(c). It also appears to us that, on the basis of the showing before the Court in Adickes, the motion for summary judgment in that case should have been denied. But we do not think the Adickes language quoted above should be construed to mean that the burden is on the party moving for summary judgment to produce evidence showing the absence of a genuine issue of material fact, even with respect to an issue on which the nonmoving party bears the burden of proof. Instead, as we have explained, the burden on the moving party may be discharged by “showing” — that is, pointing out to the district court — that there is an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party’s case.
The last two sentences of Rule 56(e) were added, as this Court indicated in Adickes, to disapprove a line of cases allowing a party opposing summary judgment to resist a properly made motion by reference only to its pleadings. While the Adickes Court was undoubtedly correct in concluding that these two sentences were not intended to reduce the burden of the moving party, it is also obvious that they were not adopted to add to that burden. Yet that is exactly the result which the reasoning of the Court of Appeals would produce; in effect, an amendment to Rule 56(e) designed to facilitate the granting of motions for summary judgment would be interpreted to make it more difficult to grant such motions. Nothing in the two sentences themselves requires this result, for the reasons we have previously indicated, and we now put to rest any inference that they do so.
Our conclusion is bolstered by the fact that district courts are widely acknowledged to possess the power to enter summary judgments sua sponte, so long as the losing party was on notice that she had to come forward with all of her evidence. See 244 U. S. App. D. C., at 167-168, 756 F. 2d, at 189 (Bork, J., dissenting); 10A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2720, pp. 28-29 (1983). It would surely defy common sense to hold that the District Court could have entered summary judgment sua sponte in favor of petitioner in the instant case, but that petitioner’s filing of a motion requesting such a disposition precluded the District Court from ordering it.
Respondent commenced this action in September 1980, and petitioner’s motion was filed in September 1981. The parties had conducted discovery, and no serious claim can be made that respondent was in any sense “railroaded” by a premature motion for summary judgment. Any potential problem with such premature motions can be adequately dealt with under Rule 56(f), which allows a summary judgment motion to be denied, or the hearing on the motion to be continued, if the nonmoving party has not had an opportunity to make full discovery.
In this Court, respondent’s brief and oral argument have been devoted as much to the proposition that an adequate showing of exposure to petitioner’s asbestos products was made as to the proposition that no such showing should have been required. But the Court of Appeals declined to address either the adequacy of the showing made by respondent in opposition to petitioner’s motion for summary judgment, or the question whether such a showing, if reduced to admissible evidence, would be sufficient to carry respondent’s burden of proof at trial. We think the Court of Appeals ■with its superior knowledge of local law is better suited than we are to make these determinations in the first instance.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have for almost 50 years authorized motions for summary judgment upon proper showings of the lack of a genuine, triable issue of material fact. Summary judgment procedure is properly regarded not as a disfavored procedural shortcut, but rather as an integral part of the Federal Rules as a whole, which are designed “to secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every action.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 1; see Schwarzer, Summary Judgment Under the Federal Rules: Defining Genuine Issues of Material Fact, 99 F. R. D. 465, 467 (1984). Before the shift to “notice pleading” accomplished by the Federal Rules, motions to dismiss a complaint or to strike a defense were the principal tools by which factually insufficient claims or defenses could be isolated and prevented from going to trial with the attendant unwarranted consumption of public and private resources. But with the advent of “notice pleading,” the motion to dismiss seldom fulfills this function any more, and its place has been taken by the motion for summary judgment. Rule 56 must be construed with due regard not only for the rights of persons asserting claims and defenses that are adequately based in fact to have those claims and defenses tried to a jury, but also for the rights of persons opposing such claims and defenses to demonstrate in the manner provided by the Rule, prior to trial, that the claims and defenses have no factual basis.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Since our grant of certiorari in this case, the Fifth Circuit has rendered a decision squarely rejecting the position adopted here by the District of Columbia Circuit. See Fontenot v. Upjohn Co., 780 F. 2d 1190 (1986).
Justice Stevens, in dissent, argues that the District Court granted summary judgment only because respondent presented no evidence that the decedent was exposed to Celotex asbestos products in the District of Columbia. See post, at 338-339. According to Justice Stevens, we should affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals, reversing the District Court, on the “narrower ground” that respondent “made an adequate showing” that the decedent was exposed to Celotex asbestos products in Chicago during 1970-1971. See ibid.
Justice Stevens’ position is factually incorrect. The District Court expressly stated that respondent had made no showing of exposure to Celotex asbestos products “in the District of Columbia or elsewhere.” App. 217 (emphasis added). Unlike Justice Stevens, we assume that the District Court meant what it said. The majority of the Court of Appeals addressed the very issue raised by Justice Stevens, and decided that “[t]he District Court’s grant of summary judgment must therefore have been based on its conclusion that there was ‘no showing that the plaintiff was exposed to defendant Celotex’s product in the District of Columbia or elsewhere within the statutory period.’” Catrett v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 244 U. S. App. D. C. 160, 162, n. 3, 756 F. 2d 181, 183, n. 3 (1985) (emphasis in original). In other words, no judge involved in this case to date shares Justice Stevens’ view of the District Court’s decision.
Rule 56(e) provides:
“Supporting and opposing affidavits shall be made on personal knowledge, shall set forth such facts as would be admissible in evidence, and shall show affirmatively that the affiant is competent to testify to the matters stated therein. Sworn or certified copies of all papers or parts thereof referred to in an affidavit shall be attached thereto or served therewith. The court may permit affidavits to be supplemented or opposed by depositions, answers to interrogatories, or further affidavits. When a motion for summary judgment is made and supported as provided in this rule, an adverse party may not rest upon the mere allegations or denials of his pleading, but his response, by affidavits or as otherwise provided in this rule, must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial. If he does not so respond, summary judgment, if appropriate, shall be entered against him.”
Rule 56(e) provides:
“The motion shall be served at least 10 days before the time fixed for the hearing. The adverse party prior to the day of hearing may serve opposing affidavits. The judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. A summary judgment, interlocutory in character, may be rendered on the issue of liability alone although there is a genuine issue as to the amount of damages.”
See Louis, Federal Summary Judgment Doctrine: A Critical Analysis, 83 Yale L. J. 745, 752 (1974); Currie, Thoughts on Directed Verdicts and Summary Judgments, 45 U. Chi. L. Rev. 72, 79 (1977).
Rule 56(f) provides:
“Should it appear from the affidavits of a party opposing the motion that he cannot for reasons stated present by affidavit facts essential to justify his opposition, the court may refuse the application for judgment or may order a continuance to permit affidavits to be obtained or depositions to be taken or discovery to be had or may make such other order as is just.” | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases. | What is the ideological direction of the decision? | [
"Conservative",
"Liberal",
"Unspecifiable"
] | [
1
] | sc_decisiondirection |
ALBRECHT et al. v. UNITED STATES.
NO. 148.
Argued January 8,1947.
Decided February 3, 1947.
Richmond C. Coburn and Samuel M. Watson argued the cause for petitioners. With them on the brief were George Eigel, William L. Igoe and William H. Allen. Roscoe Anderson filed a brief for petitioner in No. 149.
Roger P. Marquis argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Washington, Assistant Attorney General Bazelon and Wilma C. Martin.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question here is whether the Government is obligated to pay interest in connection with the following land-purchase arrangements and condemnation proceedings. The Government made separate contracts with the petitioners to buy certain lands from them to be used for a public purpose. The contracts stipulated a purchase price to be paid at an indefinite future time when certain conditions had been fulfilled. They also granted the Government the right to immediate possession. Later the Government questioned the validity of the contracts and attempted to rescind them on the ground that by reason of fraud and other things the contract prices were grossly excessive and represented far more than the “just compensation” required by the Fifth Amendment. It filed condemnation proceedings in District Courts under 40 Stat. 241, as amended, 50 U. S. C. § 171, asking the Courts to fix “just compensation” after hearing evidence on that subject. It also filed a declaration of taking under 46 Stat. 1421, 40 U. S. C. § 258a, at the same time depositing in the Courts sums of money, substantially less than the contract prices, which it estimated to be the true “just compensation” for the property taken. The Courts then entered orders divesting the property owners of all title and vesting it in the Government. A companion case in which a District Court held an identical contract valid was appealed and eventually reached this Court. Prior to and pending this appeal these petitioners vigorously asserted the validity of the terms of the contracts which fixed the agreed prices for transfer of possession and title to their properties. Several years later this Court upheld the validity of the identical contract in the companion case. Thereupon the Government, complying with that decision, paid the full contract purchase prices into the District Courts. It prayed that the landowners’ compensation be fixed as the contract price without interest. Petitioners asserted that they had a right to interest from the time of the “taking,” guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment’s provision for “just compensation.” The Government contended that the “just compensation” provision was not applicable, and that petitioners had no right to interest because their purchase contracts did not provide for it. One District Court decided this question in favor of the Government, 60 F. Supp. 741, but two decided against it. 61 F. Supp. 199. The Circuit Court of Appeals held for the Government. 155 F. 2d 73, 77. In a case involving somewhat similar facts, United States v. Baugh, 149 F. 2d 190, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had decided against the Government. Because of the apparent conflict presented and because the question is of widespread importance, we granted certio-rari. The facts and issues, so far as we deem them relevant to disposition of all the cases, are identical, and so we consider all of them together.
We agree with the Circuit Court of Appeals that the Government is not obligated to pay interest in these cases. It is true that in cases submitted to them for determination of “just compensation,” courts have evolved a rule whereby an element of compensation designated as interest is sometimes allowed. Under this rule, and in the absence of an agreement of the parties fixing compensation, courts first fix the fair market value of property as of the time it is taken. The property owner, against whom there is no counterclaim, is always entitled to payment of this much. But where payment of that fair market value is deferred, it has been held that something more than fair market value is required to make the property owner whole, to afford him “just compensation.” This additional element of compensation has been measured in terms of reasonable interest. Thus, “just compensation” in the constitutional sense has been held, absent a settlement between the parties, to be fair market value at the time of taking plus “interest” from that date to the date of payment.
But the method used by courts to determine “just compensation” in an adversary proceeding where the parties have failed previously to agree on its amount is not the exclusive method for determining that question. The Fifth Amendment does not prohibit landowners and the Government from agreeing between themselves as to what is just compensation for property taken. See Danforth v. United States, 308 U. S. 271. Nor does it bar them from embodying that agreement in a contract, as was done here. And certainly where a party to such a contract stands upon its terms to enforce them for his own advantage, he cannot at the same time successfully disavow those terms so far as he conceives them to be to his disadvantage. That is precisely the position of the petitioners here. They made contracts for the transfer and possession of lands at prices concerning which they have never complained. At the end of prolonged litigation, the Government was barred from showing that compensations fixed by the contracts were not just, but were excessive. Having thus bound the Government to the contract prices as the measure of “just compensation,” which prices, to say the least, generously meet the Fifth Amendment’s “just compensation” requirement, they now seek to escape the burdens of these identical contract provisions. They invoke the Fifth Amendment in pursuit of something more than the compensation for which their contracts provide — contracts which they are not willing to abandon.
The answer to their contention is that in this posture of the cases these transactions have passed out of the range of the Fifth Amendment. For the reasoning on which interest is added to value as a part of “just compensation” in court condemnation proceedings is not applicable to this situation. That reasoning is that when a court determines just compensation, it first fixes bare value at the time of the taking and adds a sum to compensate for deferred payment of bare value so as to make the property owner whole as required by the Fifth Amendment. We do not think this formula fits contractual arrangements for compensation. Exactly what factors the parties consider, in addition to bare value, cannot easily be ascertained. This very group of transactions illustrates that there may be many such additional factors. For example, all the contracts here provided for immediate Government possession, though none contemplated immediate payments. We cannot know what amounts were added in the bargains to the bare market values as estimated, though unarticulated, allowances for the anticipated delays in payment. And other factors, which need not be enumerated, entered into the contract prices. These things demonstrate the inadvisability of applying a constitutional rule as to interest, specially designed to enable courts to calculate “just compensation,” to an entirely different situation in which parties, supposedly with due regard to their own interests, bargain between themselves as to compensation. Since these petitioners have chosen to stand on their contract terms as to the amount they will receive for their property, rather than to have “just compensation,” in the constitutional sense, fixed by the courts, we must look to those terms for the measure of their compensation, including their right to that part of compensation which courts have called interest.
We have not overlooked the contention that this conclusion is in conflict with our holding in Danforth v. United States, 308 U. S. 271. We do not think it is. That was also a case in which a statute authorized Government agents to purchase property, and a price had been agreed on prior to condemnation proceedings. But the asserted interest claim was there denied. The decision in that case reasserted the principle that interest in condemnation proceedings does not begin until there has been a taking. After noting the several incidents asserted to constitute a taking, we held that there was no interval between the taking of the property there and payment for it. Thus the question we have considered here was neither directly involved, raised, nor given special consideration. A further incidental distinction between that case and this is that in the Danforth case the contract did not anticipate that the taking would precede payment.
Turning now to the right to interest under the contracts, and apart from the contention regarding the Fifth Amendment, we find that the contracts have no provision for payment of interest. No statute authorizes the payment of interest in cases like this. In the absence of specific contract or statutory provisions no interest runs against the Government even though the Government’s payment for the contract purchases be delayed. See Smyth v. United States, 302 U. S. 329, 353; United States v. Thayer-West Point Hotel Co., 329 U. S. 585, 588; United States v. N. Y. Rayon Importing Co., 329 U. S. 654, 659-660.
There is some argument that interest should be allowed because the Declaration of Taking Act, 46 Stat. 1421, 40 U. S. C. § 258a, under which condemnation proceedings were filed, authorizes payment of interest from the date property is taken. Cf. United States v. Thayer-West Point Hotel Co., supra, p. 588. This provision, however, is no more than a statutory embodiment of the rule for determining constitutional “just compensation” in the absence of a governing contract, and what we have already said is equally applicable to the claim for interest under the statute. It contains no specific provision for interest on Government contracts of purchase. And here, while the litigation was under the condemnation statute, the petitioners’ reliance on the purchase price provisions of the contracts as to value took these claims for interest outside the purview of the interest provisions of the Declaration of Taking Act, and left them to be governed by the interest rules which would have applied had suit been brought by petitioners to enforce the contract terms. Petitioners were barred from receiving interest in any proceeding for the reason that their contracts contained no promise to pay interest.
Affirmed.
The first contract condition as to payment was that it should be made upon conveyance of a good and merchantable title. The second was that if “for any reason” the Attorney General did not approve the title, the Government could obtain a good title by condemnation proceedings in an appropriate district court, in which event the agreed compensation was to be deposited in court.
Muschany v. United States, 324 U. S. 49.
Some of the petitioners claimed interest from the date the Government took possession of the lands under the contract to the date the Government deposited the full contract price. One petitioner claimed interest only from the date of the filing of the declaration of taking on the difference on that date between the sum the Government deposited as the estimated “just compensation” and the full contract price finally deposited. Interest was awarded by the two District Courts on this latter theory only from the date of the declaration of taking.
Seaboard Air Line v. United States, 261 U. S. 299, 306; Shoshone Tribe v. United States, 299 U. S. 476, 496, 497; Jacobs v. United States, 290 U. S. 13, 16-17; United States v. Klamath Indians, 304 U.S. 119, 123. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the disposition of the case, that is, the treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed. The information relevant to this variable may be found near the end of the summary that begins on the title page of each case, or preferably at the very end of the opinion of the Court. For cases in which the Court granted a motion to dismiss, consider "petition denied or appeal dismissed". There is "no disposition" if the Court denied a motion to dismiss. | What is the disposition of the case, that is, the treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed (includes modified)",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"certification to or from a lower court",
"no disposition"
] | [
1
] | sc_casedisposition |
STATE TAX COMMISSION OF UTAH v. PACIFIC STATES CAST IRON PIPE CO.
No. 178.
Argued March 20, 1963.
Decided April 1, 1963.
F. Burton Howard, Assistant Attorney General of Utah, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief was A. Pratt Kesler, Attorney General.
C. M. Gilmour argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
Per Curiam.
Respondent, a Nevada corporation qualified to do business in Utah, manufactures cast-iron pipe and related items in Provo, Utah, and sells its products throughout the Western States. Prices set by respondent are for the goods delivered at a specific job site, and interstate delivery is usually made by common carrier or in respondent’s own equipment. The sales here involved occurred in a different manner. In each case the material was manufactured to meet the specifications of specific out-of-state jobs. The contract called for out-of-state shipment, and respondent set a destination price which included the going common carrier freight charges between the two points involved. But delivery was made and title passed to the purchaser at respondent’s foundry-in Provo. The purchaser then transported the pipe with its own equipment to the predetermined out-of-state destination. The common carrier tariff was credited to the purchaser.
The Utah Tax Commission imposed upon respondent a sales tax deficiency covering these sales.
The Supreme Court of Utah reversed the Tax Commission, on the grounds that the certainty of interstate shipment made the imposition of the tax on these shipments unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause. 13 Utah 2d 113, 369 P. 2d 123. We reverse its judgment on the authority of International Harvester Co. v. Department of Treasury, 322 U. S. 340, 345, which holds on facts close to those of this case that a State may levy and collect a sales tax, since the passage of title and delivery to the purchaser took place within the State.
Reversed. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the respondent of the case. The respondent is the party being sued or tried and is also known as the appellee. Characterize the respondent as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the respondent by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the respondent is actually single entitiy or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single respondent, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the respondent of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
112
] | sc_respondent |
SCHAFFER, a minor, by his parents and next friends, SCHAFFER et vir, et al. v WEAST, SUPERINTENDENT, MONTGOMERY COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, et al.
No. 04-698.
Argued October 5, 2005
Decided November 14, 2005
O’Connor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 62. Ginsburg, J., post, p. 63, and Breyer, J., post, p. 67, filed dissenting opinions. Roberts, G. J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
William, H. Hurd argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Siran S. Faulders, Michael J. Eig, and Haylie M. Iseman.
Gregory G. Garre argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Maree F. Sneed, Jonathan S. Franklin, Zvi Greismann, Judith S. Bresler, Eric C. Brousaides, and Jeffrey A. Krew.
David B. Salmons argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General Keisler, Acting Assistant Attorney General Schlozman, Marleigh D. Dover, Stephanie R. Marcus, and Kent D. Talbert
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Commonwealth of Virginia et al. by Judith Williams Jagdmann, Attorney General of Virginia, William E. Thro, State Solicitor General, Eric A Gregory and Joel C. Hoppe, Associate State Solicitors General, and Maureen Riley Matsen, Deputy Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Phill Kline of Kansas, Mike Hatch of Minnesota, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Patricia Lynch of Rhode Island, Rob Mc-Kenna of Washington, and Peggy A Lautenschlager of Wisconsin; for The ARC of the United States et al. by Drew S. Days III, Seth M. Galanter, and Linda A Amsbarger; for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates et al. by Ankur J. Goel and M. Miller Baker; and for Various Autism Organizations by Gregory A Castanias, Thomas F. Urban II, and Beth T. Sigall.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of Hawaii et al. by Mark J. Bennett, Attorney General of Hawaii, and Girard D. Lau, Deputy Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: David W. Marquez of Alaska, Douglas B. Moylan of Guam, and W. A Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma; for the Council of the Great City Schools et al. by Julie Wright Halbert and Pamela Harris; for the National School Boards Association by Leslie Robert Stellman, Rochelle S. Eisenberg, Lisa Y. Settles, Julie Underwood, Naomi Gittins, and Thomas Hutton; and for the Virginia School Boards Association et al. by Joseph Thomas Tokarz II and Kathleen Shepherd Mehfoud.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA or Act), 84 Stat. 175, as amended, 20 U. S. C. § 1400 et seq. (2000 ed. and Supp. V), is a Spending Clause statute that seeks to ensure that “all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education,” § 1400(d)(1)(A) (2000 ed., Supp. V). Under IDEA, school districts must create an “individualized education program” (IEP) for each disabled child. § 1414(d). If parents believe their child’s IEP is inappropriate, they may request an “impartial due process hearing.” § 1415(f). The Act is silent, however, as to which party bears the burden of persuasion at such a hearing. We hold that the burden lies, as it typically does, on the party seeking relief.
I
A
Congress first passed IDEA as part of the Education of the Handicapped Act in 1970, 84 Stat. 175, and amended it substantially in the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, 89 Stat. 773. At the time the majority of disabled children in America were “either totally excluded from schools or sitting idly in regular classrooms awaiting the time when they were old enough to ‘drop out,’” H. R. Rep. No. 94-332, p. 2 (1975). IDEA was intended to reverse this history of neglect. As of 2003, the Act governed the provision of special education services to nearly 7 million children across the country. See Dept, of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, Data Analysis System, http:// www.ideadata.org/tables27th/ar_ aa9.htm (as visited Nov. 9, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file).
IDEA is “frequently described as a model of ‘cooperative federalism.’ ” Little Rock School Dist v. Mauney, 183 F. 3d 816, 830 (CA8 1999). It “leaves to the States the primary responsibility for developing and executing educational programs for handicapped children, [but] imposes significant requirements to be followed in the discharge of. that responsibility.” Board of Ed. of Hendrick Hudson Central School Dist., Westchester Cty. v. Rowley, 458 U. S. 176, 183 (1982). For example, the Act mandates cooperation and reporting between state and federal educational authorities. Participating States must certify to the Secretary of Education that they have “policies and procedures” that will effectively meet the Act’s conditions. 20 U. S. C. § 1412(a). (Unless otherwise noted, all citations to the Act are to the pre-2004 version of the statute because this is the version that was in effect during the proceedings below. We note, however, that nothing in the recent 2004 amendments, 118 Stat. 2674, appears to materially affect the rule announced here.) State educational agencies, in turn, must ensure that local schools and teachers are meeting the State’s educational standards. §§ 1412(a)(11), 1412(a)(15)(A). Local educational agencies (school boards or other administrative bodies) can receive IDEA funds only if they certify to a state educational agency that they are acting in accordance with the State’s policies and procedures. § 1413(a)(1).
The core of the statute, however, is the cooperative process that it establishes between parents and schools. Row-ley, supra, at 205-206 (“Congress placed every bit as much emphasis upon compliance with procedures giving parents and guardians a large measure of participation at every stage of the administrative process,... as it did upon the measurement of the resulting IEP against a substantive standard”). The central vehicle for this collaboration is the IEP process. State educational authorities must identify and evaluate disabled children, §§ 1414(a)-(c), develop an IEP for each one, § 1414(d)(2), and review every IEP at least once a year, § 1414(d)(4). Each IEP must include an assessment of the child’s current educational performance, must articulate measurable educational goals, and must specify the nature of the special services that the school will provide. § 1414(d)(1)(A).
Parents and guardians play a significant role in the IEP process. They must be informed about and consent to evaluations of their child under the Act. § 1414(c)(3). Parents are included as members of “IEP teams.” § 1414(d)(1)(B). They have the right to examine any records relating to their child, and to obtain an “independent educational evaluation of the[ir] child.” § 1415(b)(1). They must be given written prior notice of any changes in an IEP, § 1415(b)(3), and be notified in writing of the procedural safeguards available to them under the Act, § 1415(d)(1). If parents believe that an IEP is not appropriate, they may seek an administrative “impartial due process hearing.” § 1415(f). School districts may also seek such hearings, as Congress clarified in the 2004 amendments. See S. Rep. No. 108-185, p. 37 (2003). They may do so, for example, if they wish to change an existing IEP but the parents do not consent, or if parents refuse to allow their child to be evaluated. As a practical matter, it appears that most hearing requests come from parents rather than schools. Brief for Petitioners 7.
Although state authorities have limited discretion to determine who conducts the hearings, § 1415(f)(1), and responsibility generally for establishing fair hearing procedures, § 1415(a), Congress has chosen to legislate the central components of due process hearings. It has imposed minimal pleading standards, requiring parties to file complaints setting forth “a description of the nature of the problem,” § 1415(b)(7)(B)(ii), and “a proposed resolution of the problem to the extent known and available ... at the time,” § 1415(b)(7)(B)(iii). At the hearing, all parties may be accompanied by counsel, and may “present evidence and confront, cross-examine, and compel the attendance of witnesses.” §§ 1415(h)(1) — (2). After the hearing, any aggrieved party may bring a civil action in state or federal court. § 1415(i)(2). Prevailing parents may also recover attorney’s fees. § 1415(i)(3)(B). Congress has never explicitly stated, however, which party should bear the burden of proof at IDEA hearings.
B
This case concerns the educational services that were due, under IDEA, to petitioner Brian Schaffer. Brian suffers from learning disabilities and speech-language impairments. From prekindergarten through seventh grade he attended a private school and struggled academically. In 1997, school officials informed Brian’s mother that he needed a school that could better accommodate his needs. Brian’s parents contacted respondent Montgomery County Public Schools System (MCPS) seeking a placement for him for the following school year.
MCPS evaluated Brian and convened an IEP team. The committee generated an initial IEP offering Brian a place in either of two MCPS middle schools. Brian’s parents were not satisfied with the arrangement, believing that Brian needed smaller classes and more intensive services. The Schaffers thus enrolled Brian in another private school, and initiated a due process hearing challenging the IEP and seeking compensation for the cost of Brian’s subsequent private education.
In Maryland, IEP hearings are conducted by administrative law judges (ALJs). See Md. Educ. Code Ann. § 8-413(c) (Lexis 2004). After a 3-day hearing, the ALJ deemed the evidence close, held that the parents bore the burden of persuasion, and ruled in favor of the school district. The parents brought a civil action challenging the result. The United States District Court for the District of Maryland reversed and remanded, after concluding that the burden of persuasion is on the school district. Brian S. v. Vance, 86 F. Supp. 2d 538 (2000). Around the same time, MCPS offered Brian a placement in a high school with a special learning center. Brian’s parents accepted, and Brian was educated in that program until he graduated from high school. The suit remained alive, however, because the parents sought compensation for the private school tuition and related expenses.
Respondents appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. While the appeal was pending, the ALJ reconsidered the case, deemed the evidence truly in “equipoise,” and ruled in favor of the parents. The Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded the appeal so that it could consider the burden of proof issue along with the merits on a later appeal. The District Court reaffirmed its ruling that the school district has the burden of proof. 240 F. Supp. 2d 396 (Md. 2002). On appeal, a divided panel of the Fourth Circuit reversed. Judge Michael, writing for the majority, concluded that petitioners offered no persuasive reason to “depart from the normal rule of allocating the burden to the party seeking relief.” 377 F. 3d 449, 453 (2004). We granted certiorari, 543 U. S. 1145 (2005), to resolve the following question: At an administrative hearing assessing the appropriateness of an IEP, which party bears the burden of persuasion?
II
A
The term “burden of proof” is one of the “slipperiest member[s] of the family of legal terms.” 2 J. Strong, McCormick on Evidence §342, p. 433 (5th ed. 1999) (hereinafter McCormick). Part of the confusion surrounding the term arises from the fact that historically, the concept encompassed two distinct burdens: the “burden of persuasion,” i. e., which party loses if the evidence is closely balanced, and the “burden of production,” i. e., which party bears the obligation to come forward with the evidence at different points in the proceeding. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs v. Greenwich Collieries, 512 U. S. 267, 272 (1994). We note at the outset that this case concerns only the burden of persuasion, as the parties agree, Brief for Respondents 14; Reply Brief for Petitioners 15, and when we speak of burden of proof in this opinion, it is this to which we refer.
When we are determining the burden of proof under a statutory cause of action, the touchstone of our inquiry is, of course, the statute. The plain text of IDEA is silent on the allocation of the burden of persuasion. We therefore begin with the ordinary default rule that plaintiffs bear the risk of failing to prove their claims. McCormick § 337, at 412 (“The burdens of pleading and proof with regard to most facts have been and should be assigned to the plaintiff who generally seeks to change the present state of affairs and who therefore naturally should be expected to bear the risk of failure of proof or persuasion”); C. Mueller & L. Kirkpatrick, Evidence §3.1, p. 104 (3d ed. 2003) (“Perhaps the broadest and most accepted idea is that the person who seeks court action should justify the request, which means that the plaintiffs bear the burdens on the elements in their claims”).
Thus, we have usually assumed without comment that plaintiffs bear the burden of persuasion regarding the essential aspects of their claims. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq., does not directly state that plaintiffs bear the “ultimate” burden of persuasion, but we have so concluded. St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U. S. 502, 511 (1993); id., at 531 (Souter, J., dissenting). In numerous other areas, we have presumed or held that the default rule applies. See, e. g., Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 561 (1992) (standing); Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corp., 526 U. S. 795, 806 (1999) (Americans with Disabilities Act); Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U. S. 541, 553 (1999) (equal protection); Wharf (Holdings) Ltd. v. United Int’l Holdings, Inc., 532 U. S. 588, 593 (2001) (securities fraud); Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U. S. 922, 931 (1975) (preliminary injunctions); Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 287 (1977) (First Amendment). Congress also expressed its approval of the general rule when it chose to apply it to administrative proceedings under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 556(d); see also Greenwich Collieries, supra, at 271.
The ordinary default rule, of course, admits of exceptions. See McCormick § 337, at 412-415. For example, the burden of persuasion as to certain elements of a plaintiff’s claim may be shifted to defendants, when such elements can fairly be characterized as affirmative defenses or exemptions. See, e. g., FTC v. Morton Salt Co., 334 U. S. 37, 44-45 (1948). Under some circumstances this Court has even placed the burden of persuasion over an entire claim on the defendant. See Alaska Dept, of Environmental Conservation v. EPA, 540 U. S. 461, 494 (2004). But while the normal default rule does, not solve all cases, it certainly solves most of them. Decisions that place the entire burden of persuasion on the opposing party at the outset of a proceeding — as petitioners urge us to do here — are extremely rare. Absent some reason to believe that Congress intended otherwise, therefore, we will conclude that the burden of persuasion lies where it usually falls, upon the party seeking relief.
B
Petitioners contend first that a close reading of IDEA’S text compels a conclusion in their favor. They urge that we should interpret the statutory words “due process” in light of their constitutional meaning, and apply the balancing test established by Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319 (1976). Even assuming that the Act incorporates constitutional due process doctrine, Eldridge is no help to petitioners because “[o]utside the criminal law area, where special concerns attend, the locus of the burden of persuasion is normally not an issue of federal constitutional moment.” Lavine v. Milne, 424 U. S. 577, 585 (1976).
Petitioners next contend that we should take instruction from the lower court opinions of Mills v. Board of Education, 348 F. Supp. 866 (DC 1972), and Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Pennsylvania, 334 F. Supp. 1257 (ED Pa. 1971) (hereinafter PARC). IDEA’S drafters were admittedly guided “to a significant extent” by these two landmark cases. Rowley, 458 U. S., at 194. As the court below noted, however, the fact that Congress “took a number of the procedural safeguards from PARC and Mills and wrote them directly into the Act” does not allow us to “conclude ... that Congress intended to adopt the ideas that it failed to write into the text of the statute.” 377 F. 3d, at 455.
Petitioners also urge that putting the burden of persuasion on school districts will further IDEA’S purposes because it will help ensure that children receive a free appropriate public education. In truth, however, very few cases will be in evidentiary equipoise. Assigning the burden of persuasion to school districts might encourage schools to put more resources into preparing lEPs and presenting their evidence. But IDEA is silent about whether marginal dollars should be allocated to litigation and administrative expenditures or to educational services. Moreover, there is reason to believe that a great deal is already spent on the administration of the Act. Litigating a due process complaint is an expensive affair, costing schools approximately $8,000 to $12,000 per hearing. See Department of Education, J. Chambers, J. Harr, & A. Dhanani, What Are We Spending on Procedural Safeguards in Special Education 1999-2000, p. 8 (May 2003) (prepared under contract by American Institutes for Research, Special Education Expenditure Project). Congress has also repeatedly amended the Act in order to reduce its administrative and litigation-related costs. For example, in 1997 Congress mandated that States offer mediation for IDEA disputes. § 615(e) of IDEA, as added by § 101 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997, Pub. L. 105-17, 111 Stat. 90, 20 U. S. C. § 1415(e). In 2004, Congress added a mandatory “resolution session” prior to any due process hearing. § 615(f)(1)(B) of IDEA, as added by § 101 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, Pub. L. 108-446, 118 Stat. 2720, 20 U. S. C. A. § 1415(f)(1)(B) (Supp. 2005). It also made new findings that “[pjarents and schools should be given expanded opportunities to resolve their disagreements in positive and constructive ways,” and that “[tjeachers, schools, local educational agencies, and States should be relieved of irrelevant and unnecessary paperwork burdens that do not lead to improved educational outcomes.” §§ 1400(c)(8)-(9).
Petitioners in effect ask this Court to assume that every IEP is invalid until the school district demonstrates that it is not. The Act does not support this conclusion. IDEA relies heavily upon the expertise of school districts to meet its goals. It also includes a so-called “stay-put” provision, which requires a child to remain in his or her “then-current educational placement” during the pendency of an IDEA hearing. §1415(j). Congress could have required that a child be given the educationál placement that a parent requested during a dispute, but it did no such thing. Congress appears to have presumed instead that, if the Act’s procedural requirements are respected, parents will prevail when they have legitimate grievances. See Rowley, supra, at 206 (noting the “legislative conviction that adequate compliance with the procedures prescribed would in most cases assure much if not all of what Congress wished in the way of substantive content in an IEP”).
Petitioners’ most plausible argument is that “[t]he ordinary rule, based on considerations of fairness, does not place the burden upon a litigant of establishing facts peculiarly within the knowledge of his adversary.” United States v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 355 U. S. 253, 256, n. 5 (1957); see also Concrete Pipe & Products of Cal., Inc. v. Construction Laborers Pension Trust for Southern Cal., 508 U. S. 602, 626 (1993). But this “rule is far from being universal, and has many qualifications upon its application.” Green-leaf’s Lessee v. Birth, 6 Pet. 302, 312 (1832); see also McCormick §337, at 413 (“Very often one must plead and prove matters as to which his adversary has superior access to the proof”). School districts have a “natural advantage” in information and expertise, but Congress addressed this when it obliged schools to safeguard the procedural rights of parents and to share information with them. See School Comm. of Burlington v. Department of Ed. of Mass., 471 U. S. 359, 368 (1985). As noted above, parents have the right to review all records that the school possesses in relation to their child. § 1415(b)(1). They also have the right to an “independent educational evaluation of the[ir] child.” Ibid. The regulations clarify this entitlement by providing that a “parent has the right to an independent educational evaluation at public expense if the parent disagrees with an evaluation obtained by the public agency.” 34 CFR § 300.502(b)(1) (2005). IDEA thus ensures parents access to an expert who can evaluate all the materials that the school must make available, and who can give an independent opinion. They are not left to challenge the government without a realistic opportunity to access the necessary evidence, or without an expert with the firepower to match the opposition.
Additionally, in 2004, Congress added provisions requiring school districts to answer the subject matter of a complaint in writing, and to provide parents with the reasoning behind the disputed action, details about the other options considered and rejected by the IEP team, and a description of all evaluations, reports, and other factors that the school used in coming to its decision. § 615(c)(2)(B)(i)(I) of IDEA, as added by § 101 of Pub. L. 108-446,118 Stat. 2718, 20 U. S. C. § 1415(e)(2)(B)(i)(I) (2000 ed., Supp. V). Prior to a hearing, the parties must disclose evaluations and recommendations that they intend to rely upon. 20 U. S. C. § 1415(f)(2). IDEA hearings are deliberately informal and intended to give AUs the flexibility that they need to ensure that each side can fairly present its evidence. IDEA, in fact, requires state authorities to organize hearings in a way that guarantees parents and children the procedural protections of the Act. See § 1415(a). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, parents may recover attorney’s fees if they prevail. § 1415(i)(3)(B). These protections ensure that the school bears no unique informational advantage.
III
Finally, respondents and several States urge us to decide that States may, if they wish, override the default rule and put the burden always on the school district. Several States have laws or regulations purporting to do so, at least under some circumstances. See, e. g., Minn. Stat. § 125A.091, subd. 16 (2004); Ala. Admin. Code Rule 290-8-9-.08(8)(c)(6) (Supp. 2004); Alaska Admin. Code, tit. 4, § 52.550(e)(9) (2003); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 14, §3140 (1999). Because no such law or regulation exists in Maryland, we need not decide this issue today. Justice Breyer contends that the allocation of the burden ought to be left entirely up to the States. But neither party made this argument before this Court or the courts below. We therefore decline to address it.
We hold no more than we must to resolve the case át hand: The burden of proof in an administrative hearing challenging an IEP is properly placed upon the party seeking relief. In this, case, that party is Brian, as represented by his parents. But the rule applies with equal effect to school districts: If they seek to challenge an IEP, they will in turn bear the burden of persuasion before an ALJ. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is, therefore, affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The Chief Justice took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the respondent of the case. The respondent is the party being sued or tried and is also known as the appellee. Characterize the respondent as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the respondent by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the respondent is actually single entitiy or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single respondent, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the respondent of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
20
] | sc_respondent |
ROBERTS v. SEA-LAND SERVICES, INC., et al.
No. 10-1399.
Argued January 11, 2012
Decided March 20, 2012
Sotomayor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, Alito, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Ginsburg, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 113.
Joshua T. Gülelan II argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Michael F. Pozzi and Charles Robinowitz.
Joseph R. Palmore argued the cause for the federal respondent. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Verrilli, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, and M. Patricia Smith. Peter D. Keisler argued the cause for respondent Sea-Land Services, Inc. With him on the brief were Carter G. Phillips, Eric D. McArthur, and Frank B. Hugg.
Jeffrey R. White filed a brief for the American Association for Justice as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Justice Sotomayor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA or Act), ch. 509, 44 Stat. 1424, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq., caps benefits for most types of disability at twice the national average weekly wage for the fiscal year in which an injured employee is “newly awarded compensation.” § 906(c). We hold that an employee is “newly awarded compensation” when he first becomes disabled and thereby becomes statutorily entitled to benefits, no matter whether, or when, a compensation order issues on his behalf.
I
A
The LHWCA “is a comprehensive scheme to provide compensation ‘in respect of disability or death of an employee ... if the disability or death results from an injury occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States.’ ” Metropolitan Stevedore Co. v. Rambo, 515 U. S. 291, 294 (1995) (quoting § 903(a)); An employee’s compensation depends on the severity of his disability and his preinjury pay. A totally disabled employee, for example, is entitled to two-thirds of his preinjury average weekly wage as long as he remains disabled. • §§ 908(a)-(b), 910.
Section 906, however, sets a cap on compensation. Disability benefits, “shall not exceed” twice “the applicable national average weekly wage.” § 906(b)(1). The national average weekly wage — “the national average weekly earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers on private non-agricultural payrolls,” §902(19) — is recalculated by the Secretary of Labor each fiscal year. § 906(b)(3). For most types of disability, the “applicable” national average weekly wage is the figure for the fiscal year in which a beneficiary is “newly awarded compensation,” and the cap remains constant as long as benefits continue. § 906(c).
Consistent with the central bargain of workers’ compensation regimes — limited liability for employers; certain, prompt recovery for employees — the LHWCA requires that employers pay benefits voluntarily, without formal administrative proceedings. Once an employee provides notice of a disabling injury, his employer must pay compensation “periodically, promptly, and directly . . . without an award, except where liability to pay compensation is controverted.” § 914(a). In general, employers pay benefits without contesting liability. See Pallas Shipping Agency, Ltd. v. Duris, 461 U. S. 529, 532 (1983). In the mine run of cases, therefore, no compensation orders issue.
If an employer controverts, or if an employee contests his employer’s actions with respect to his benefits, the dispute advances to the Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP). See 20 CFR §§702.251-702.262 (2011). The OWCP district directors “are empowered to amicably and promptly resolve such problems by informal procedures.” §702.301. A district director’s informal disposition may result in a compensation order. § 702.315(a). In practice, however, “many pending claims are amicably settled through voluntary payments .without the necessity of a formal order.” Intercounty Constr. Corp. v. Walter, 422 U. S. 1, 4, n. 4 (1975). If informal resolution fails, the district director refers the dispute to an administrative law judge (ALJ). See 20 CFR §§702.316, 702.331-702.351. An ALJ’s decision after a hearing culminates in the entry of a compensation order. 33 U. S. C. §§ 919(c)-(e).
B
In fiscal year 2002, petitioner Dana Roberts slipped and fell on a patch of ice while employed at respondent Sea-Land Services’ marine terminal in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Roberts injured his neck and shoulder and did not return to work. On receiving notice of his disability, Sea-Land (except for a 6-week period in 2003) voluntarily paid Roberts benefits absent a compensation order until fiscal year 2005. When Sea-Land discontinued voluntary payments, Roberts filed an LHWCA claim, and Sea-Land controverted. In fiscal year 2007, after a hearing, an ALJ awarded Roberts benefits at the statutory maximum rate of $966.08 per week. This was twice the national average weekly wage for fiscal year 2002, the fiscal year when Roberts became disabled.
Roberts moved for reconsideration, arguing that the “applicable” national average weekly wage was the figure for fiscal year 2007, the fiscal year when he was “newly awarded compensation” by the ALJ’s order. The latter figure would have entitled Roberts to $1,114.44 per week. The ALJ denied reconsideration, and the Department of Labor’s Benefits Review Board (or BRB) affirmed, concluding that “the pertinent maximum rate is determined by the date the disability commences.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 20. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in relevant part, holding that an employee “is ‘newly awarded compensation’ within the meaning of [§ 906(c)] when he first becomes entitled to compensation.” Roberts v. Director, OWCP, 625 P. 3d 1204, 1208 (2010) (per curiam). We granted certiorari, 564 U. S. 1066 (2011), to resolve a conflict among the Circuits with respect to the time when a beneficiary is “newly awarded compensation,” and now affirm.
II
Roberts contends that “awarded compensation” means “awarded compensation in a formal order.” Sea-Land, supported by the Director, OWCP, responds that “awarded compensation” means “statutorily entitled to compensation because of disability.” The text of § 906(c), standing alone, admits of either interpretation. But “our task is to fit, if possible, all parts into an harmonious whole.” FTC v. Mandel Brothers, Inc., 359 U. S. 385, 389 (1959). Only the interpretation advanced by Sea-Land and the Director makes §906 a working part of the statutory scheme; supplies an administrable rule that results in equal treatment of similarly situated beneficiaries; and avoids gamesmanship in the claims process. In light of these contextual and structural considerations, we hold that an employee is “newly awarded compensation” when he first becomes disabled and thereby becomes statutorily entitled to benefits under the Act, no matter whether, or when, a compensation order issues on his behalf.
A
We first consider “whether the language at issue has a plain and unambiguous meaning with regard to the particular dispute in the case.” Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U. S. 337, 340 (1997). The LHWCA does not define “awarded,” but in construing the Act, as with any statute, “‘we look first to its language, giving the words used their ordinary meaning.’ ” Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc. v. Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, 519 U. S. 248, 255 (1997) (quoting Moskal v. United States, 498 U. S. 103, 108 (1990)). At first blush, Roberts’ position is appealing. In ordinary usage, “award” most often means “give by judicial decree” or “assign after careful judgment.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 152 (2002); see also, e. g., Black’s Law Dictionary 157 (9th ed. 2009) (“grant by formal process or by judicial decree”).
But “award” can also mean “grant,” or “confer or bestow upon.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, at 152; see also ibid. (1971 ed.) (same). The LHWCA “grants” benefits to disabled employees, and so can be said to “award” compensation by force of its entitlement-creating provisions. Indeed, this Court has often said that statutes “award” entitlements. See, e. g., Astrue v. Ratliff, 560 U. S. 586, 591 (2010) (referring to “statutes that award attorney’s fees to a prevailing party”); Barber v. Thomas, 560 U. S. 474, 493 (2010) (appendix to majority opinion) (statute “awards” good-time credits to federal prisoners); New Energy Co. of Ind. v. Limbach, 486 U. S. 269, 271 (1988) (Ohio statute “awards a tax credit”); Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 306 U. S. 493, 500 (1939) (California workers’ compensation statute “award[s] compensation for injuries to an employee”); see also, e. g., Connecticut v. Doehr, 501 U. S. 1, 28 (1991) (Rehnquist, C. J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“Materialman’s and mechanic’s lien statutes award an interest in real property to workers”). Similarly, this Court has described an employee’s survivors as “having been ‘newly awarded’ death benefits” by virtue of the employee’s death, without any reference to a formal order. Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs v. Rasmussen, 440 U. S. 29, 44, n. 16 (1979) (quoting § 906(c)’s predecessor provision, 33 U. S. C. § 906(d) (1976 ed.)).
In short, the text of § 906(c), in isolation, is indeterminate.
B
Statutory language, however, “cannot be construed in a vacuum. It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.” Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 809 (1989). In the context of the LHWCA’s comprehensive, reticulated regime for worker benefits — in which § 906 plays a pivotal role — “awarded compensation” is much more sensibly interpreted to mean “statutorily entitled to compensation because of disability.”
1
Section 906 governs compensation in all LHWCA cases. As explained above, see supra, at 98, the LHWCA requires employers to pay benefits voluntarily, and in the vast majority of cases, that is just what occurs. Under Roberts’ interpretation of § 906(c), no employee receiving voluntary payments has been “awarded compensation,” so none is subject to an identifiable maximum rate of compensation. That' result is incompatible with the Act’s design. Section 906(b)(1) caps “[c]ompensation for disability or death (other than compensation for death required ... to be paid in a lump sum)” at twice “the applicable national average weekly wage, as determined by the Secretary under paragraph (3).” Section 906(b)(3), in turn, directs the Secretary to “determine” the national average weekly wage before each fiscal year begins on October 1 and provides that “[s]uch determination shall be the applicable national average weekly wage” for the coming fiscal year. And § 906(c), in its turn, provides that “[d]eterminations under subsection (b)(3) . . . with respect to” a fiscal year “shall apply to ... those newly awarded compensation during such” fiscal year. Through a series of cross-references, the three provisions work together to cap disability benefits.
By its terms, and subject to one express exception, § 906(b)(1) specifies that the cap applies globally, to all disability claims. But all three provisions interlock, so the cap functions as Congress intended only if § 906(c) also applies globally, to all such cases. See, e. g., FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 133 (2000) (“A court must... interpret the statute ‘as a symmetrical and coherent regulatory scheme’” (quoting Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561, 569 (1995))). If Roberts’ interpretation were correct, § 906(c) would have no application at all in the many cases in which no formal orders issue, because employers make voluntary payments or the parties reach informal settlements. We will not construe § 906(c) in a manner that renders it “entirely superfluous in all but the most unusual circumstances.” TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U. S. 19, 29 (2001).
Recognizing this deficiency in his reading of § 906(c), Roberts proposes that orders issue in every case, so that employers can lock in the caps in effect at the time their employees become disabled. This is a solution in search of a problem. Under settled LHWCA practice, orders are rare. Roberts’ interpretation would set needless administrative machinery in motion and would disrupt the congressionally preferred system of voluntary compensation and informal dispute resolution. The incongruity of Roberts' proposal is highlighted by his inability to identify a vehicle for the entry of an order in an uncontested case. Section 919(c), on which Roberts relies, applies only if an employee has filed a claim. Likewise, 20 CFR § 702.315(a) applies only in the case of a claim or an employer’s notice of controversion. See §702.301. We doubt that an employee will file a claim for the sole purpose of assisting his employer in securing a lower cap. And we will not read § 906(c) to compel an employer to file a baseless notice of controversion. Cf. 33 U. S. C. §§ 928(a), (d) (providing for assessment of attorney’s fees and costs against employers who controvert unsuccessfully). Roberts suggests that employers could threaten to terminate benefits in order to induce their employees to file claims, and thus initiate the administrative process. Construing any workers’ compensation regime to encourage gratuitous confrontation between employers and employees strikes us as unsound. .
2
Using the national average weekly wage for the fiscal year in which an employee becomes disabled coheres with the LHWCA’s administrative structure. Section 914(b) requires an employer to pay benefits within 14 days of notice of an employee’s disability. To do so, an employer must be able to calculate the cap. An employer must also notify the Department of Labor of voluntary payments by filing a form that indicates, inter alia, whether the “maximum rate is being paid.” Dept, of Labor, Form LS-206, Payment of Compensation Without Award (rev. Aug. 2011), online at http://www.dol.gov/owcp/dlhwc/ls-206.pdf. On receipt of this form, an OWCP claims examiner must verify the rate of compensation in light of the applicable cap. See Dept, of Labor, Longshore (DLHWC) Procedure Manual §2-n201(3)(b)(3) (hereinafter Longshore Procedure Manual), online at http://www.dol.gov/owcp/dlhwe/lspm/lspm2-201.htm. It is difficult to see how an employer can apply or certify a national average weekly wage other than the one in effect at the time an employee becomes disabled. An employer is powerless to predict when an employee might file a claim, when a compensation order might issue, or what the national average weekly wage will be at that later time. Likewise for a claims examiner.
Moreover, applying the national average weekly wage for the fiscal year in which an employee becomes disabled, advances the LHWCA’s purpose to compensate disability, defined as “incapacity because of injury to earn the wages which the employee was receiving at the time of injury.” 33 U. S. C. §902(10) (emphasis added). Just as the LHWCA takes “the average weekly wage of the injured employee at the time of the injury” as the “basis upon which to compute compensation,” § 910, it is logical to apply the national average weekly wage for the same point in time. Administrative practice has long treated the time of injury as the relevant date. See, e.g., Dept, of Labor, Longshore Act Coverage and Benefits, Pamphlet LS-560 (rev. Dec. 2003) (“Compensation payable under the Act may not exceed 200% of the national average weekly wage, applicable at the time of injury”), online at http://www.dol.gov/owcp/dIhwc/ LS-560pam.htm; Dept, of Labor, Workers’ Compensation Under the Longshoremen’s Act, Pamphlet LS-560 (rev. Nov. 1979) (same); see also, e. g., Dept, of Labor, LHWCA Bulletin No. 11-01, p. 2 (2010) (national average weekly wage for particular fiscal year applies to “disability incurred during” that fiscal year).
Applying the national average weekly wage at the time of onset of disability avoids disparate treatment of similarly situated employees. Under Roberts’ reading, two employees who earn the same salary and suffer the same injury on the same day could be entitled to different rates of compensation based on the happenstance of their obtaining orders in different fiscal years. We can imagine no reason why Congress would have intended, by choosing the words “newly awarded compensation,” to differentiate between employees based on such an arbitrary criterion.
8
Finally, using the national average weekly wage for the fiscal year in which disability commences discourages gamesmanship in the claims process. If the fiscal year in which an order issues were to determine the cap, the fact that the national average weekly wage typically rises every year with inflation, see n. 2, supra, would become unduly significant. Every employee affected by the cap would seek the entry of a compensation order in a later fiscal year. Even an employee who has been receiving compensation at the proper rate for years would be well advised to file a claim for greater benefits in order to obtain an order at a later time. Likewise, an employee might delay the adjudicatory process to defer the entry of an order. And even in an adjudicated case where an employer is found to have paid benefits at the proper rate, an ALJ would adopt the later fiscal year’s national average weekly wage, making the increased cap retroactively applicable to all of the employer’s payments. Roberts candidly acknowledges that his position gives rise to such perverse incentives. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 58-59. We decline to adopt a rule that would reward employees with windfalls for initiating unnecessary administrative proceedings, while simultaneously punishing employers who have complied fully with their statutory obligations.
III
We find Roberts’ counterarguments unconvincing.
A
First, Roberts observes that some provisions of the LHWCA clearly use “award” to mean “award in a formal order,” and contends that the same must be true of “awarded compensation” in § 906(c). We agree that the Act sometimes uses “award” as Roberts urges. Section 914(a), for example, refers to the payment of compensation “to the person enti-tied thereto, without an award,” foreclosing the equation of “entitlement” and “award” that we adopt with respect to § 906(c) today. But the presumption that “identical words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning . . . readily yields whenever there is such variation in the connection in which the words are used as reasonably to warrant the conclusion that they were employed in different parts of the act with different intent.” General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. v. Cline, 540 U. S. 581, 595 (2004) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also, e. g., United States v. Cleveland Indians Baseball Co., 532 U. S. 200, 213 (2001). Here, we find the presumption overcome because several provisions of the Act would make no sense if “award” were read as Roberts proposes. Those provisions confirm today’s holding because they too, in context, use “award” to denote a statutory entitlement to compensation because of disability.
For example, § 908(c)(20) provides that “[p]roper and equitable compensation not to exceed $7,500 shall be awarded for serious disfigurement.” Roberts argues that § 908(e)(20) “necessarily contemplates administrative action to fix the amount of the liability and direct its payment.” Reply Brief for Petitioner 11. In Roberts’ view, no disfigured employee may receive benefits without invoking the administrative claims process. That argument, however, runs counter to §908’s preface, which directs that “[compensation for disability shall be paid to the employee,” and to § 914(a), which requires the payment of compensation “without an award.” It is also belied by employers’ practice of paying § 908(c)(20) benefits voluntarily. See, e. g., Williams-McDowell v. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., No. 99-0627 etc., 2000 WL 35928576, *1 (BRB, Mar. 15, 2000) (per curiam); Evans v. Bergeron Barges, Inc., No. 98-1641, 1999 WL 35135283, *1 (BRB, Sept. 3, 1999) (per curiam). In light of the LHWCA’s interest in prompt payment and settled practice, “awarded” in § 908(c)(20) can only be better read, as in § 906(c), to refer to a disfigured employee’s entitlement to benefits.
Likewise, § 908(d)(1) provides that if an employee who is receiving compensation for a scheduled disability dies before receiving the full amount of compensation to which the schedule entitles him, “the total amount of the award unpaid at the time of death shall be payable to or for the benefit of his survivors.” See also § 908(d)(2). Roberts’ interpretation of “award” would introduce an odd gap: Only survivors of those employees who were receiving schedule benefits pursuant to orders — not survivors of employees who were receiving voluntary payments — would be entitled to the unpaid balances due their decedents. There is no reason why Congress would have chosen to distinguish between survivors in this manner. And the Benefits Review Board has quite sensibly interpreted § 908(d) to mean that “an employee has a vested interest in benefits which accrue during his lifetime, and, after he dies, his estate is entitled to those benefits, regardless of when an award is made.” Wood v. Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc., 28 BRBS 27, 36 (1994) (per curiam).
Finally, § 933(b) provides: "For the purpose of this subsection, the term ‘award’ with respect to a compensation order means a formal order issued by the deputy commissioner, an administrative law judge, or Board.” Unless award may mean something other than “award in a compensation order,” this specific definition would be unnecessary. Roberts contends that this provision', enacted in 1984, “was indeed ‘unnecessary’ ” in light of Pallas Shipping. Brief for Petitioner 29; see 461 U. S., at 534 (“The term ‘compensation order’ in the LHWCA refers specifically to an administrative award of compensation following proceedings with respect to the claim”). Roberts’ argument offends the canon against superfluity and neglects that § 933(b) defines the term “award,” whereas Pallas Shipping defines the term “compensation order.” Moreover, Congress’ definition of “award,” which tracks Roberts’ preferred interpretation, was carefully limited to § 933(b). Had Congress intended to adopt a universal definition of “award,” it could have done so in § 902, the LHWCA’s glossary. Read in light of the “duty to give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute,” Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S.. 167, 174 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted), § 933(b) debunks Roberts’ argument that the Act always uses “award” to mean “award in a formal order” and confirms that “award” has other meanings.
B
Next, Roberts notes that this Court has refused to read the statutory phrase “person entitled to compensation” in § 933(g) to mean “person awarded compensation.” See Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U. S. 469, 477 (1992) (“[A] person entitled to compensation need not be receiving compensation or have had an adjudication in his favor”). In Roberts’ view, the converse must also be true: “[A]warded compensation” in § 906(c) cannot mean “entitled to compensation.” But Cowart’s reasoning does not work in reverse. Cowart did not construe § 906(c) or the term “award,” but relied on the uniform meaning of the phrase “person entitled to compensation” in the LHWCA. See id., at 478-479. As just explained, the LHWCA contains no uniform meaning of the term “award.” Moreover, Cowart did not hold that the groups of “employees entitled to compensation” and “employees awarded compensation” were mutually exclusive. The former group includes the latter: The entry of a compensation order is a sufficient but not necessary condition for membership in the former, ¿fee id» at 477.
c
Finally, Roberts contends that his interpretation furthers the LHWCA’s purpose of providing' employees with prompt compensation by encouraging employers to avoid delay and expedite administrative proceedings. But Roberts’ remedy would also punish employers who voluntarily pay benefits at the proper rate from the time of their employees’ injuries. These employers would owe benefits under the higher cap applicable in any future fiscal year when their employees chose to file claims. And Roberts’ remedy would offer no relief at all to the many beneficiaries entitled to less than the statutory maximum rate.
The more measured deterrent to employer tardiness is interest that “accrues from the date a benefit came due, rather than from the date of the ALJ’s award.” Matulic v. Director, OWCP, 154 F. 3d 1052, 1059 (CA9 1998). The Director has long taken the position that “interest is a necessary and inherent component of 'compensation’ because it ensures that the delay in payment of compensation does not diminish the amount of compensation to which the employee is entitled.” Sproull v. Director, OWCP, 86 F. 3d 895, 900 (CA9 1996); see also, e. g., Strachan Shipping Co. v. Wedemeyer, 452 F. 2d 1225, 1229 (CA5 1971). Moreover, “[t]imely [cjontroversion does not relieve the responsible party from paying interest on unpaid compensation.” Longshore Procedure Manual §8-201, online at http://www.dol.gov/owcp/ dlhwc/lspm/lspm8-201.htm. Indeed, the ALJ awarded Roberts interest “on each unpaid installment of compensation from the date the compensation became due.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 108, Order ¶⅛.
* * *
We hold that an employee is “newly awarded compensation” when he first becomes disabled and thereby becomes statutorily entitled to benefits, no matter whether, or when, a compensation order issues on his behalf. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Section 906 provides, in pertinent part:
“(b) Maximum rate of compensation
“(1) Compensation for disability or death (other than compensation for death required ... to be paid in a lump sum) shall not exceed an amount equal to 200 per centum of the applicable national average weekly wage, as determined by the Secretary under paragraph (3).
“(3) As soon as practicable after June 30 of each year, and in any event prior to October 1 of such year, the Secretary shall determine the national average weekly wage for the three consecutive calendar quarters ending June 30. Such determination shall be the applicable national average weekly wage for the period beginning with October 1 of that year and ending with September 30 of the next year....
“(c) Applicability of determinations
“Determinations under subsection (b)(3) . . . with respect to a period shall apply to employees or survivors currently receiving compensation for permanent total disability or death benefits during such period, as well as those newly awarded compensation during such period.”
For those “currently receiving compensation for permanent total disability or death benefits,” §906(c), the cap is adjusted each fiscal year — and typically increases, in step with the usual inflation-driven rise in' the national average weekly wage. See Dept, of Labor, Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation (DLHWC), NAWW Information, online at http://www.dol.gov/owcp/dlhwc/NAWWinfo.htm (all Internet materials as visited Mar. 16, 2012, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). Section 906(e)’s “currently receiving compensation” clause is not at issue here.
In fiscal year 1971, only 209 cases out of the 17,784 in which compensation was paid resulted in orders. Hearings on S. 2318 et al. before the Subcommittee on Labor of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 92d Cong., 2d Sess., 757-758 (1972). Congress enacted §906⅛ predecessor provision, which included the “newly awarded compensation” clause, in 1972. Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act Amendments of 1972, § 5, 86 Stat. 1253.
Compare 625 F. 3d 1204 (time of entitlement) with Wilkerson v. Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc., 125 F. 3d 904 (CA5 1997) (time of order), and Boroski v. DynCorp Int'l, 662 F. 3d 1197 (CA11 2011) (same).
Justice Ginsburg’s view, not advanced by any party, is that an employee is “awarded compensation” when his employer “voluntarily pays compensation or is officially ordered to do so.” Post, at 115 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). But reading “awarded compensation” as synonymous with “receiving compensation” is further from the ordinary meaning of “award” than the Court’s approach: A person who slipped and fell on a negligently maintained sidewalk would not say that she had been “awarded money damages” if the business responsible for the sidewalk voluntarily paid her hospital bills. Cf. post, at 115-116.
Moreover, if Congress had intended “awarded compensation” to mean “receiving compensation,” it could have said so — as, in fact, it did in § 906(c)’s parallel clause, which pertains to beneficiaries “currently receiving compensation for permanent total disability or death.” See nn. 1-2, supra. Justice Ginsburg’s reading denies effect to Congress’ textual shift, and therefore “runs afoul of the usual rule that ‘when the legislature uses certain language in one part of the statute and different language in another, the court assumes different meanings were intended.’ ” Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 711, n. 9 (2004).
Nor is Justice Ginsburg’s reliance on a single sentence of legislative history persuasive. See post, at 116-117. True, a Senate Committee Report described those “newly awarded compensation” as those “who begin receiving compensation.” S. Rep. No. 92-1125, p. 18 (1972). But a subsequent House Committee Report did not. Cf. H. R. Rep. No. 92-1441, p. 15 (1972) (statute provides a “method for determining maximum and minimum compensation (to be applicable to persons currently receiving compensation as well as those newly awarded compensation)”). The legislative materials are a wash.
Justice Ginsburg ⅛ approach is either easily circumvented or unworkable. For example, Justice Ginsburg determines that Roberts is entitled to the fiscal year 2002 maximum rate from March 11, 2002, to July 15, 2003, because Sea-Land was making voluntary payments during that time. Post, at 118. But SeaTLand was paying Roberts $933.82 per week, less than the $966.08 that the ALJ found Roberts was entitled to receive. Compare App. to Pet. for Cert. 101 with id., at 107, Order ¶1. If any voluntary payment suffices, regardless of an employee’s actual entitlement, then an employer can hedge against a later finding of liability by paying the smallest- amount to which the Act might entitle an employee but controverting liability as to the remainder. See, e. g., R. M. v. Sabre Personnel Assoc., Inc., 41 BRBS 727, 730 (2007). An employer who controverts is not subject to the Act’s delinquency penalty. See 33 U. S. C. § 914(e). Perhaps Justice Ginsburg gives Sea-Land the benefit of the doubt because its voluntary payments were close to Roberts’ actual entitlement. But if that is so, then how close is close enough?
Roberts accurately notes that in some cases, the time of injury and the time of onset of disability differ. We have observed that “the LHWCA does not compensate physical injury alone but the disability produced by that injury.” Metropolitan Stevedore Co. v. Rambo, 515 U. S. 291, 297 (1995). From that principle, lower courts have rightly concluded that when dates of injury and onset of disability diverge, the latter is the relevant date for determining the applicable national average weekly wage. See, e.g., Service Employees Int’l, Inc. v. Director, OWCP, 595 F. 3d 447, 456 (CA2 2010); Kubin v. Pro-Football, Inc., 29 BRBS 117 (1995) (per curiam).
Likewise, in a small group of cases — those in which disability lasts more than 3 but less than 15 days — the time of onset of disability and the time of entitlement will differ. See § 906(a) (“No compensation shall be allowed for the first three days of the disability . . . Provided, however, That in case the injury results in disability of more than fourteen days the compensation shall be allowed from the date of the disability”). In these cases, the relevant date is that on which disability and entitlement coincide: the fourth day after the onset of disability.
Other LHWCA provisions, read in context, also use award to mean “award in a formal order.” For example, §§ 913(a) and 928(b), like § 914(a), refer to the payment of compensation “without an award.” And the LHWCA distinguishes between voluntary payments and those due under an order for purposes of punishing employer delinquency. Compare § 914(e) (10 percent penalty for late payment of “compensation payable without an award”) with § 914(f) (20 percent penalty for late payment of “compensation, payable under the terms of an award”).
Sections 908(c)(1) to (20) set forth a “schedule” of particular injuries that entitle an employee “to receive two-thirds of his average weekly wages for a specific number of weeks, regardless of whether his earning capacity has actually been impaired.” Potomac Elec. Power Co. v. Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, 449 U. S. 268, 269 (1980). For example, an employee who loses an arm is entitled to two-thirds of his average weekly wage for 312 weeks. § 908(c)(1).
Roberts’ interpretation also would afford unwarranted significance to the entry of an order in other circumstances, resulting in arbitrary distinctions within other classes of beneficiaries. For example, § 908(c)(22) provides that if an employee suffers from more than one scheduled disability, the “awards” for each “shall run consecutively.” Under Roberts’ interpretation, §908(c)(22) would require consecutive payments only for employees who were receiving scheduled disability benefits pursuant to orders; those receiving voluntary payments presumably would be entitled to concurrent payments. See §§ 914(a) — <b). That result would conflict with § 908(c)(22)’s text, which states that consecutive payments must be made “[i]n any case” involving multiple scheduled disabilities. See, e. g., Thornton v. Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, Inc., 44 BRBS 111 (2010) (per curiam).
Similarly, § 910(h)(1) sets out two formulas for increasing benefits for pre-1972 disability or death in light of the higher rates Congress provided in the 1972 LHWCA amendments. The first applies to those receiving compensation at the then-applicable maximum rate; the second applies to those “awarded compensation ... at less than the maximum rate.” See Dept, of Labor, OWCP Bulletin No. 10-73, Adjustment of Compensation for Total Permanent Disability or Death Prior to LS/HW Amendments of 1972, pp. 2-4 (1973). Roberts’ interpretation would make the second formula applicable only to beneficiaries receiving less than the maximum rate pursuant to orders, not to all such beneficiaries. Again, there is no reason to believe that Congress intended this distinction, nor has OWCP applied it. See ibid, (prescribing a “uniform” method for computing the increase in all “[cjases being compensated at less than the maximum rate,” with no reference to the existence of an order).
Thus, as under Justice Ginsburg’s approach, an employer who controverts still “runs the risk” of greater liability if an AU awards an employee compensation at some point subsequent to the onset of disability. See post, at 117.
Because “newly awarded compensation,” read in context, is unambiguous, we do not reach respondents’ argument that the Director’s interpretation of § 906(e) is entitled to deference under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984).
As the Court notes, the maximum rate for a given fiscal year applies to two groups of injured workers: those who are “newly awarded compensation during such [year],” and those who are “currently receiving compensation for permanent total disability or death benefits during such [year].” 33 U. S. C. § 906(c). Ante, at 102, n. 5. Contrary to the Court’s charge, I do not read “newly awarded compensation” as synonymous with “currently receiving compensation.” See ibid. An injured worker who is “currently receiving compensation” in a given fiscal year was “newly awarded compensation” in a previous year. My interpretation therefore gives “effect to Congress’ textual shift,” ibid.: It identifies two distinct groups of workers who are entitled to a given year’s maximum rate. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the petitioner of the case. The petitioner is the party who petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. This party is variously known as the petitioner or the appellant. Characterize the petitioner as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the petitioner by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the petitioner is actually single entity or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single petitioner, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the petitioner of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
73
] | sc_petitioner |
CODD, POLICE COMMISSIONER, CITY OF NEW YORK, et al. v. VELGER
No. 75-812.
Argued December 1, 1976
Decided February 22, 1977
W. Bernard Richland argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioners.
Sam Resnicoff argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Edward M. Rappaport.
Per Curiam.
Respondent Velger’s action shifted its focus, in a way not uncommon to lawsuits, from the time of the filing of his complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to the decision by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit which we review here. His original complaint alleged that he had been wrongly dismissed without a hearing or a statement of reasons from his position as a patrolman with the New York City Police Department, and under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, sought reinstatement and damages for the resulting injury to his reputation and future employment prospects. After proceedings in which Judge Gurfein (then of the District Court) ruled that respondent had held a probationary position and therefore had no hearing right based on a property interest in his job, respondent filed an amended complaint. That complaint alleged more specifically than had the previous one that respondent was entitled to a hearing due to the stigmatizing effect of certain material placed by the City Police Department in his personnel file. He alleged that the derogatory material had brought about his subsequent .dismissal from a position with the Penn-Central Railroad Police Department, and that it had also prevented him from finding other employment of a similar nature for which his scores on numerous examinations otherwise qualified him.
The case came on for a bench trial before Judge Werker, who, in the words of his opinion on the merits, found “against plaintiff on all issues.” He determined that the only issue which survived Judge Gurfein’s ruling on the earlier motions was whether petitioners, in discharging respondent had “imposed a stigma on Mr. Yelger that foreclosed his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities.” After discussing the evidence bearing upon this issue, Judge Werker concluded that “[i]t is clear from the foregoing facts that plaintiff has not proved that he has been stigmatized by defendants.”
Among the specific findings of fact made by the District Court was that an officer of the Penn-Central Railroad Police Department was shown the City Police Department file relating to respondent’s employment, upon presentation of a form signed by respondent authorizing the release of personnel information. From an examination of the file, this officer “gleaned that plaintiff had been dismissed because while still a trainee he had put a revolver to his head in an apparent suicide attempt.” The Penn-Central officer tried to verify this story, but the Police Department refused to cooperate with him, advising him to proceed by letter. In rendering judgment against the respondent, the court also found that he had failed to establish “that information about his Police Department service was publicized or circulated by defendants in any way that might reach his prospective employers.”
Respondent successfully appealed this decision to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That court held that the finding of no stigma was clearly erroneous. It reasoned that the information about the apparent suicide attempt was of a kind which would necessarily impair employment prospects for one seeking work as a police officer. It also decided that the mere act of making available personnel files with the employee’s consent was enough to place responsibility for the stigma on the employer, since former employees had no practical alternative but to consent to the release of such information if they wished to be seriously considered for other employment. Velger v. Cawley, 525 F. 2d 334 (1975).
We granted certiorari, sub nom. Cawley v. Velger, 427 U. S. 904 (1976), and the parties have urged us to consider whether the report in question was of a stigmatizing nature, and whether the circumstances of its apparent dissemination were such as to fall within the language of Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 573 (1972) and Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341 (1976). We find it unnecessary to reach these issues, however, because of respondent’s failure to allege or prove one essential element of his case.
Assuming all of the other elements necessary to make out a claim of stigmatization under Roth and Bishop, the remedy mandated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is “an opportunity to refute the charge.” 408 U. S., at 573. “The purpose of such notice and hearing is to provide the person an opportunity to clear his name,” id., at 573 n. 12. But if the hearing mandated by the Due Process Clause is to serve any useful purpose, there must be some factual dispute between an employer and a discharged employee which has some significant bearing on the employee’s reputation. Nowhere in his pleadings or elsewhere has respondent affirmatively asserted that the report of the apparent suicide attempt was substantially false. Neither' the District Court nor the Court of Appeals made any such finding. When we consider the nature of the interest sought to be protected, we believe the absence of any such allegation or finding is fatal to respondent’s claim under the Due Process Clause that he should have been given a hearing.
Where the liberty interest involved is that of conditional freedom following parole, we have said that the hearing required by the Due Process Clause in order to revoke parole must address two separate considerations. The first is whether the parolee in fact committed the violation with which he is charged, and the second is whether if he did commit the act his parole should, under all the circumstances, therefore be revoked. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 479-480 (1972); Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U. S. 778, 784 (1973). The fact that there was no dispute with respect to the commission of the act would not necessarily obviate the need for a hearing on the issue of whether the commission of the act warranted the revocation of parole.
But the hearing required where a nontenured employee has been stigmatized in the course of a decision to terminate his employment is solely “to provide the person an opportunity to clear his name.” If he does not challenge the substantial truth of the material in question, ho hearing would afford a promise of achieving that result for him. For the contemplated hearing does not embrace any determination analogous to the “second step” of the parole revocation proceeding, which would in effect be a determination of whether or not, conceding that the report were true, the employee was properly refused re-employment. Since the District Court found that respondent had no Fourteenth Amendment property interest in continued employment, the adequacy or even the existence of reasons for failing to rehire him presents no federal constitutional question. Only if the employer creates and disseminates a false and defamatory impression about the employee in connection with his termination is such a hearing required. Both, supra; Bishop, supra.
Our decision here rests upon no overly technical application of the rules of pleading. Even conceding that the respondent’s termination occurred solely because of the report of an apparent suicide attempt, a proposition which is certainly not crystal clear on this record, respondent has at no stage of this litigation affirmatively stated that the “attempt” did not take place as reported. The furthest he has gone is a suggestion by his counsel that “[i]t might have been all a mistake, [i]t could also have been a little horseplay.” This is not enough to raise an issue about the substantial accuracy of the report. Respondent has therefore made out no claim under the Fourteenth Amendment that he was harmed by the denial of a hearing, even were we to accept in its entirety the determination by the Court of Appeals that the creation and disclosure of the file report otherwise amounted to stigmatization within the meaning of Board of Regents v. Roth, supra.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed with instructions to reinstate the judgment of the District Court.
So ordered.
Respondent’s amended complaint did not seek a delayed Both hearing to be conducted by his former employer at which he would have the opportunity to refute the charge in question. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 573 (1972). The relief he sought was premised on the assumption that the failure to accord such a hearing when it should have been accorded entitled him to obtain reinstatement and damages resulting from the denial of such hearing. We therefore have no occasion to consider the allocation of the burden of pleading and proof of the necessary issues as between the federal forum and the administrative hearing where such relief is sought.
The Court of Appeals did not pass on this "property interest” question. Respondent has not urged it as an alternative basis for affirming the judgment of that court, and indeed has all but conceded in his brief that the District Court’s interpretation of the relevant New York cases is correct in this respect. Brief for Respondent 14. The opinion of the District Court on this point reflects a proper understanding of Roth, supra, and of Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 598 (1972), and we see no reason to disturb its application of those cases to particular facets of the New York law of entitlement to public job tenure. Id., at 602 n. 7. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the petitioner of the case. The petitioner is the party who petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. This party is variously known as the petitioner or the appellant. Characterize the petitioner as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the petitioner by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the petitioner is actually single entity or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single petitioner, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the petitioner of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
18
] | sc_petitioner |
FERENS et ux. v. JOHN DEERE CO., aka DEERE & CO.
No. 88-1512.
Argued November 6, 1989
Decided March 5, 1990
Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and White, Stevens, and O’Connor, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Brennan, Marshall, and Black-MUN, JJ., joined, post, p. 533.
Richard B. Tucker III argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was Stanley V. Ostrow.
David P. Helwig argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Gary F. Sharlock.
Hugh C. Griffin filed a brief for the Product Liability Advisory Council as amicus curiae urging affirmance.
Larry L. Simms, Steven C. Kany, and C. Paul Cavender filed a brief for Pfizer Inc. as amicus curiae.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 1404(a) of Title 28 states: “For the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought.” 28 U. S. C. § 1404(a) (1982 ed.). In Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U. S. 612 (1964), we held that, following a transfer under § 1404(a) initiated by a defendant, the transferee court must follow the choice-of-law rules that prevailed in the transferor court. We now decide that, when a plaintiff moves for the transfer, the same rule applies.
I
Albert Ferens lost his right hand when, the allegation is, it became caught in his combine harvester, manufactured by Deere & Company. The accident occurred while Ferens was working with the combine on his farm in Pennsylvania. For reasons not explained in the record, Ferens delayed filing a tort suit, and Pennsylvania’s 2-year limitations period expired. In the third year, he and his wife sued Deere in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, raising contract and warranty claims as to which the Pennsylvania limitations period had not yet run. The District Court had diversity jurisdiction, as Ferens and his wife are Pennsylvania residents, and Deere is incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in Illinois.
Not to be deprived of a tort action, the Ferenses in the same year filed a second diversity suit against Deere in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, alleging negligence and products liability. Diversity jurisdiction and venue were proper. The Ferenses sued Deere in the District Court in Mississippi because they knew that, under Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U. S. 487, 496 (1941), the federal court in the exercise of diversity jurisdiction must apply the same choice-of-law rules that Mississippi state courts would apply if they were deciding the case. A Mississippi court would rule that Pennsylvania substantive law controls the personal injury claim but that Mississippi’s own law governs the limitation period.
Although Mississippi has a borrowing statute which, on its face, would seem to enable its courts to apply statutes of limitations from other jurisdictions, see Miss. Code Ann. § 15-1-65 (1972), the State Supreme Court has said that the borrowing statute “only applies where a nonresident [defendant] in whose favor the statute has accrued afterwards moves into this state.” Louisiana & Mississippi R. Transfer Co. v. Long, 159 Miss. 654, 667, 131 So. 84, 88 (1930). The borrowing statute would not apply to the Ferenses’ action because, as the parties agree, Deere was a corporate resident of Mississippi before the cause of action accrued. The Mississippi courts, as a result, would apply Mississippi’s 6-year statute of limitations to the tort claim arising under Pennsylvania law and the tort action would not be time barred under the Mississippi statute. See Miss. Code Ann. § 15-1-49 (1972).
The issue now before us arose when the Ferenses took their forum shopping a step further: having chosen the federal court in Mississippi to take advantage of the State’s limitations period, they next moved, under § 1404(a), to transfer the action to the federal court in Pennsylvania on the ground that Pennsylvania was a more convenient forum. The Ferenses acted on the assumption that, after the transfer, the choice-of-law rules in the Mississippi forum, including a rule requiring application of the Mississippi statute of limitations, would continue to govern the suit.
Deere put up no opposition, and the District Court in Mississippi granted the § 1404(a) motion. The court accepted the Ferenses’ arguments that they resided in Pennsylvania; that the accident occurred there; that the claim had no conhection to Mississippi; that a substantial number of witnesses resided in the Western District of Pennsylvania but none resided in Mississippi; that most of the documentary evidence was located in the Western District of Pennsylvania but none Was located ih Mississippi; and that the warranty action pending in the Western District of Pennsylvania presented common questions of law and fact.
The District Court in Pennsylvania consolidated the transferred tort action with the Ferenses’ pending warranty action but declined to honor the Mississippi statute of limitations as the District Court in Mississippi would have done. It ruled instead that, because the Ferenses had moved for transfer as plaintiffs, the rule in Van Dusen did not apply. Invoking the 2-year limitations period set by Pennsylvania law, the District Court dismissed their tort action. Ferens v. Deere & Co., 639 F. Supp. 1484 (WD Pa. 1986).
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed, but not, at first, on grounds that the Ferenses had lost their entitlement to Mississippi choice-of-law rules by invoking § 1404 (a). The Court of Appeals relied at the outset on the separate theory that applying Mississippi’s statute of limitations would violate due process because Mississippi had no legitimate interest in the case. Ferens v. Deere & Co., 819 F. 2d 423 (1987). We vacated this decision and remanded in light of Sun Oil Co. v. Wortman, 486 U. S. 717 (1988), in which we held that a State may choose to apply its own statute of limitations to claims governed by the substantive laws of another State without violating either the Full Faith and Credit Clause or the Due Process Clause. Ferens v. Deere & Co., 487 U. S. 1212 (1988). On remand, the Court of Appeals again affirmed, this time confronting the Van Dusen question and ruling that a transferor court’s choice-of-law rules do not apply after a transfer under § 1404(a) on a motion by a plaintiff. 862 F. 2d 31 (1988). We granted certiorari, 490 U'. S. 1064 (1989).
II
Section 1404(a) states only that a district court may transfer venue for the convenience of the parties and witnesses when in the interest of justice. It says nothing about choice of law and nothing about affording plaintiffs different treatment from defendants. We touched upon these issues in Van Dusen, but left open the question presented in this case. See 376 U. S., at 640. In Van Dusen, an airplane flying from Boston to Philadelphia crashed into Boston Harbor soon after takeoff. The personal representatives of the accident victims brought more than 100 actions in the District Court for the District of Massachusetts and more than 40 actions in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. When the defendants moved to transfer the actions brought in Pennsylvania to the federal court in Massachusetts, a number of the Pennsylvania plaintiffs objected because they lacked capacity under Massachusetts law to sue as representatives of the decedents. The plaintiffs also averred that the transfer would deprive them of the benefits of Pennsylvania’s choice-of-law rules because the transferee forum would apply to their wrongful-death claims a different substantive rule. The plaintiffs obtained from the Court of Appeals a writ of mandamus ordering the District Court to vacate the transfer. See id., at 613-615.
We reversed. After considering issues not related to the present dispute, we held that the Court of Appeals erred in its assumption that Massachusetts law would govern the action following transfer. The legislative history of § 1404(a) showed that Congress had enacted the statute because broad venue provisions in federal Acts often resulted in inconvenient forums and that Congress had decided to respond to this problem by permitting transfer to a convenient federal court under § 1404(a). Id., at 634-636. We said:
“This legislative background supports the view that § 1404(a) was not designed to narrow the plaintiff’s venue privilege or to defeat the state-law advantages that might accrue from the exercise of this venue privilege but rather the provision was simply to counteract the inconveniences that flowed from the venue statutes by permitting transfer to a convenient federal court. The legislative history of § 1404(a) certainly does not justify the rather startling conclusion that one might ‘get a change of a law as a bonus for a change of venue.’ Indeed, an interpretation accepting such a rule would go far to frustrate the remedial purposes of § 1404(a). If a change in the law were in the offing, the parties might well regard the section primarily as a forum-shopping instrument. And, more importantly, courts would at least be reluctant to grant transfers, despite considerations of convenience, if to do so might conceivably prejudice the claim of a plaintiff who initially selected a permissible forum. We believe, therefore, that both the history and purposes of § 1404(a) indicate that it should be regarded as a federal judicial housekeeping measure, dealing with the placement of litigation in the federal courts and generally intended, on the basis of convenience and fairness, simply to authorize a change of courtrooms.” Id., at 635-637 (footnotes omitted).
We thus held that the law applicable to a diversity case does not change upon a transfer initiated by a defendant.
Ill
The quoted part of Van Dusen reveals three independent reasons for our decision. First, § 1404(a) should not deprive parties of state-law advantages that exist absent diversity jurisdiction. Second, § 1404(a) should not create or multiply opportunities for forum shopping. Third, the decision to transfer venue under § 1404(a) should turn on considerations of convenience and the interest of justice rather than on the possible prejudice resulting from a change of law. Although commentators have questioned whether the scant legislative history of § 1404(a) compels reliance on these three policies, see Note, Choice of Law after Transfer of Venue, 75 Yale L. J. 90, 123 (1965), we find it prudent to consider them in deciding whether the rule in Van Dusen applies to transfers initiated by plaintiffs. We decide that, in addition to other considerations, these policies require a transferee forum to apply the law of the transferor court, regardless of who initiates the transfer. A transfer under § 1404(a), in other words, does not change the law applicable to a diversity case.
A
The policy that § 1404(a) should not deprive parties of state-law advantages, although perhaps discernible in the legislative history, has its real foundation in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938). See Van Dusen, 376 U. S., at 637. The Erie rule remains a vital expression of the federal system and the concomitant integrity of the separate States. We explained Erie in Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99, 109 (1945), as follows:
“In essence, the intent of [the Erie] decision was to insure that, in all cases where a federal court is exercising jurisdiction solely because of the diversity of citizenship of the parties, the outcome of the litigation in the federal court should be substantially the same, so far as legal rules determine the outcome of a litigation, as it would be if tried in a State court. The nub of the policy that underlies Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins is that for the same transaction the accident of a suit by a non-resident litigant in a federal court instead of in a State court a block away should not lead to a substantially different result.”
In Hanna v. Plumer, 380 U. S. 460, 473 (1965), we held that Congress has the power to prescribe procedural rules that differ from state-law rules even at the expense of altering the outcome of litigation. This case does not involve a conflict. As in Van Dusen, our interpretation of § 1404(a) is in full accord with the Erie rule.
The Erie policy had a clear implication for Van Dusen. The existence of diversity jurisdiction gave the defendants the opportunity to make a motion to transfer venue under § 1404(a), and if the applicable law were to change after transfer, the plaintiff’s venue privilege and resulting state-law advantages could be defeated at the defendant’s option. 376 U. S., at 638. To allow the transfer and at the same time preserve the plaintiff’s state-law advantages, we held that the choice-of-law rules should not change following a transfer initiated by a defendant. Id., at 639.
Transfers initiated by a plaintiff involve some different considerations, but lead to the same result. Applying the transferor law, of course, will not deprive the plaintiff of any state-law advantages. A defendant, in one sense, also will lose no legal advantage if the transferor law controls after a transfer initiated by the plaintiff; the same law, after all, would have applied if the plaintiff had not made the motion. In another sense, however, a defendant may lose a nonlegal advantage. Deere, for example, would lose whatever advantage inheres in not having to litigate in Pennsylvania, or, put another way, in forcing the Ferenses to litigate in Mississippi or not at all.
We, nonetheless, find the advantage that the defendant loses slight. A plaintiff always can sue in the favorable state court or sue in diversity and not seek a transfer. By asking for application of the Mississippi statute of limitations following a transfer to Pennsylvania on grounds of convenience, the Ferenses are seeking to deprive Deere only of the advantage of using against them the inconvenience of litigating in Mississippi. The text of § 1404(a) may not say anything about choice of law, but we think it not the purpose of the section to protect a party’s ability to use inconvenience as a shield to discourage or hinder litigation otherwise proper. The section exists to eliminate inconvenience without altering permissible choices under the venue statutes. See Van Dusen, supra, at 634-635. This interpretation should come as little surprise. As in our previous cases, we think that “[t]o construe § 1404(a) this way merely carries out its design to protect litigants, witnesses and the public against unnecessary inconvenience and expense, not to provide a shelter for . . . proceedings in costly and inconvenient forums.” Continental Grain Co. v. Barge FBL-585, 364 U. S. 19, 27 (1960). By creating an opportunity to have venue transferred between courts in different States on the basis of convenience, an option that does not exist absent federal jurisdiction, Congress, with respect to diversity, retained the Erie policy while diminishing the incidents of inconvenience.
Applying the transferee law, by contrast, would undermine the Erie rule in a serious way. It would mean that initiating a transfer under § 1404(a) changes the state law applicable to a diversity case. We have held, in an isolated circumstance, that § 1404(a) may pre-empt state law. See Stewart Organization, Inc. v. Ricoh Corp., 487 U. S. 22 (1988) (holding that federal law determines the validity of a forum selection clause). In general, however, we have seen § 1404(a) as a housekeeping measure that should not alter the state law governing a case under Erie. See Van Dusen, supra, at 636-637; see also Stewart Organization, supra, at 37 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (finding the language of § 1404(a) “plainly insufficient” to work a change in the applicable state law through pre-emption). The Mississippi statute of limitations, which everyone agrees would have applied if the Ferenses had not.moved for a transfer, should continue to apply in this case.
In any event, defendants in the position of Deere would not fare much better if we required application of the transferee law instead of the transferor law. True, if the transferee law were to apply, some plaintiffs would not sue these defendants for fear that they would have no choice but to litigate in an inconvenient forum. But applying the transferee law would not discourage all plaintiffs from suing. Some plaintiffs would prefer to litigate in an inconvenient forum with favorable law than to litigate in a convenient forum with unfavorable law or not to litigate at all. The Ferenses, no doubt, would have abided by their initial choice of the District Court in Mississippi had they known that the District Court in Pennsylvania would dismiss their action. If we were to rule for Deere in this case, we would accomplish little more than discouraging the occasional motions by plaintiffs to transfer inconvenient cases. Other plaintiffs would sue in an inconvenient forum with the expectation that the defendants themselves would seek transfer to a convenient forum, resulting in application of the transferor law under Van Dusen. See Note, Choice of Law in Federal Court After Transfer of Venue, 63 Cornell L. Rev. 149, 156 (1977). In this case, for example, Deere might have moved for a transfer if the Ferenses had not.
B
Van Dusen also sought to fashion a rule that would not create opportunities for forum shopping. Some commentators have seen this policy as the most important rationale of Van Dusen, see, e. g., 19 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §4506, p. 79 (1982), but few attempt to explain the harm of forum shopping when the plaintiff initiates a transfer. An opportunity for forum shopping exists whenever a party has a choice of forums that will apply different laws. The Van Dusen policy against forum shopping simply requires us to interpret § 1404(a) in a way that does not create an opportunity for obtaining a more favorable law by selecting a forum through a transfer of venue. In the Van Dusen case itself, this meant that we could not allow defendants to use a transfer to change the law. 376 U. S., at 636.
No interpretation of § 1404(a), however, will create comparable opportunities for forum shopping by a plaintiff because, even without § 1404(a), a plaintiff already has the option of shopping for a forum with the most favorable law. The Ferenses, for example, had an opportunity for forum shopping in the state courts because both the Mississippi and Pennsylvania courts had jurisdiction and because they each would have applied a different statute of limitations. Diversity jurisdiction did not eliminate these forum shopping opportunities; instead, under Erie, the federal courts had to replicate them. See Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U. S., at 496 (“Whatever lack of uniformity [Erie] may produce between federal courts in different states is attributable to our federal system, which leaves to a state, within the limits permitted by the Constitution, the right to pursue local policies diverging from those of its neighbors”). Applying the transferor law would not give a plaintiff an opportunity to use a transfer to obtain a law that he could not obtain through his initial forum selection. If it does make selection of the most favorable law more convenient, it does no more than recognize a forum shopping choice that already exists. This fact does not require us to apply the transferee law. Section 1404(a), to reiterate, exists to make venue convenient and should not allow the defendant to use inconvenience to discourage plaintiffs from exercising the opportunities that they already have.
Applying the transferee law, by contrast, might create opportunities for forum shopping in an indirect way. The advantage to Mississippi’s personal injury lawyers that resulted from the State’s then applicable 6-year statute of limitations has not escaped us; Mississippi’s long limitation period no doubt drew plaintiffs to the State. Although Sun Oil held that the federal courts have little interest in a State’s decision to create a long statute of limitations or to apply its statute of limitations to claims governed by foreign law, we should recognize the consequences of our interpretation of § 1404(a). Applying the transferee law, to the extent that it discourages plaintiff-initiated transfers, might give States incentives to enact similar laws to bring in out-of-state business that would not be moved at the instance of the plaintiff.
C
Van Dusen also made clear that the decision to transfer venue under § 1404(a) should turn on considerations of convenience rather than on the possibility of prejudice resulting from a change in the applicable law. See 376 U. S., at 636; Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U. S. 235, 253-254, and n. 20 (1981). We reasoned in Van Dusen that, if the law changed following a transfer initiated by the defendant, a district court “would at least be reluctant to grant transfers, despite considerations of convenience, if to do so might conceivably prejudice the claim of a plaintiff.” 376 U. S., at 636. The court, to determine the prejudice, might have to make an elaborate survey of the law, including statutes of limitations, burdens of proof, presumptions, and the like. This would turn what is supposed to be a statute for convenience of the courts into one expending extensive judicial time and resources. Because this difficult task is contrary to the purpose of the statute, in Van Dusen we made it unnecessary by ruling that a transfer of venue by the defendant does not result in a change of law. This same policy requires application of the transferor law when a plaintiff initiates a transfer.
If the law were to change following a transfer initiated by a plaintiff, a district court in a similar fashion would be at least reluctant to grant a transfer that would prejudice the defendant. Hardship might occur because plaintiffs may find as many opportunities to exploit application of the transferee law as they would find opportunities for exploiting application of the transferor law. See Note, 63 Cornell L. Rev., at 156. If the transferee law were to apply, moreover, the plaintiff simply would not move to transfer unless the benefits of convenience outweighed the loss of favorable law.
Some might think that a plaintiff should pay the price for choosing an inconvenient forum by being put to a choice of law versus forum. But this assumes that § 1404(a) is for the benefit only of the moving party. By the statute’s own terms, it is not. Section 1404(a) also exists for the benefit of the witnesses and the interest of justice, which must include the convenience of the court. Litigation in an inconvenient forum does not harm the plaintiff alone. As Justice Jackson said:
“Administrative difficulties follow for courts when litigation is piled up in congested centers instead of being handled at its origin. Jury duty is a burden that ought not to be imposed upon the people of a community which has no relation to the litigation. In cases which touch the affairs of many persons, there is reason for holding the trial in their view and reach rather than in remote parts of the country where they can learn of it by report only. There is a local interest in having localized controversies decided at home. There is an appropriateness too, in having the trial of a diversity case in a forum that is at home with the state law that must govern the case, rather than having a court in some other forum untangle problems in conflicts of laws, and in law foreign to itself.” Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U. S. 501, 508-509 (1947).
The desire to take a punitive view of the plaintiff’s actions should not obscure the systemic costs of litigating in an inconvenient place.
D
This case involves some considerations to which we perhaps did not give sufficient attention in Van Dusen. Foresight and judicial economy now seem to favor the simple rule that the law does not change following a transfer of venue under § 1404(a). Affording transfers initiated by plaintiffs different treatment from transfers initiated by defendants may seem quite workable in this case, but the simplicity is an illusion. If we were to hold that the transferee law applies following a § 1404(a) motion by a plaintiff, cases such as this would not arise in the future. Although applying the transferee law, no doubt, would catch the Ferenses by surprise, in the future no plaintiffs in their position would move for a change of venue.
Other cases, however, would produce undesirable complications. The rule would leave unclear which law should apply when both a defendant and a plaintiff move for a transfer of venue or when the court transfers venue on its own motion. See Note, 63 Cornell L. Rev., at 158. The rule also might require variation in certain situations, such as when the plaintiff moves for a transfer following a removal from state court by the defendant, or when only one of several plaintiffs requests the transfer, or when circumstances change through no fault of the plaintiff making a once convenient forum inconvenient. True, we could reserve any consideration of these questions for a later day. But we have a duty, in deciding this case, to consider whether our decision will create litigation and uncertainty. On the basis of these considerations, we again conclude that the transferor law should apply regardless of who makes the § 1404(a) motion.
IV
Some may object that a district court in Pennsylvania should not have to apply a Mississippi statute of limitations to a Pennsylvania cause of action. This point, although understandable, should have little to do with the outcome of this case. Congress gave the Ferenses the power to seek a transfer in § 1404(a), and our decision in Van Dusen already could require a district court in Pennsylvania to apply the Mississippi statute of limitations to Pennsylvania claims. Our rule may seem too generous because it allows the Ferenses to have both their choice of law and their choice of forum, or even to reward the Ferenses for conduct that seems manipulative. We nonetheless see no alternative rule that would produce a more acceptable result. Deciding that the transferee law should apply, in effect, would tell the Ferenses that they should have continued to litigate their warranty action in Pennsylvania and their tort action in Mississippi. Some might find this preferable, but we do not. We have made quite clear that “[t]o permit a situation in which two cases involving precisely the same issues are simultaneously pending in different District Courts leads to the wastefulness of time, energy and money that § 1404(a) was designed to prevent.” Continental Grain, 364 U. S., at 26.
From a substantive standpoint, two further objections give us pause but do not persuade us to change our rule. First, one might ask why we require the Ferenses to file in the District Court in Mississippi at all. Efficiency might seem to dictate a rule allowing plaintiffs in the Ferenses’ position not to file in an inconvenient forum and then to return to a convenient forum though a transfer of venue, but instead simply to file in the convenient for urn and ask for the law of the inconvenient forum to apply. Although our rule may invoke certain formality, one must remember that § 1404(a) does not provide for an automatic transfer of venue. The section, instead, permits a transfer only when convenient and “in the interest of justice. ” Plaintiffs in the position of the Ferenses must go to the distant forum because they have no guarantee, until the court there examines the facts, that they may obtain a transfer. No one has contested the justice of transferring this particular case, but the option remains open to defendants in future cases. Although a court cannot ignore the systemic costs, of inconvenience, it may consider the course that the litigation already has taken in determining the interest of justice.
Second, one might contend that, because no per se rule requiring a court to apply either the transferor law or the transferee law will seem appropriate in all circumstances, we should develop more sophisticated federal choice-of-law rules for diversity actions involving transfers. See Note, 75 Yale L. J., at 130-135. To a large extent, however, state conflicts-of-law rules already ensure that appropriate laws will apply to diversity cases. Federal law, as a general matter, does not interfere with these rules. See Sun Oil, 486 U. S., at 727-729. In addition, even if more elaborate federal choice-of-law rules would not run afoul of Klaxon and Erie, we believe that applying the law of the transferor forum effects the appropriate balance between fairness and simplicity. Cf. R. Leflar, American Conflicts Law § 143, p. 293 (3d ed. 1977) (arguing against a federal common law of conflicts).
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Mississippi’s statute of limitations should govern the Ferenses’ action. We reverse and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia,
with whom Justice Brennan, Justice Marshall, and Justice Blackmun join, dissenting.
Plaintiffs, having filed this diversity action in Federal District Court in Mississippi, successfully moved for a transfer of venue to the District Court in Pennsylvania where their warranty action was then pending. The question we must decide is which State’s choice-of-law principles will govern the case now that it is to be litigated in that court.
The Rules of Decision Act, first placed in the Judicial Code by the Judiciary Act of 1789, currently provides:
“The laws of the several states, except where the Constitution or treaties of the United States or Acts of Congress otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in civil actions in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply.” 28 U. S. C. § 1652 (1982 ed.).
In Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), we held that the Act requires a federal court to apply, in diversity cases, the law of the State in which it sits, both statutory law and common law established by the courts. Three years later, in Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U. S. 487, 494 (1941), we considered “whether in diversity cases the federal courts must follow conflict of laws rules prevailing in the states in which they sit.” We answered the question in the affirmative, reasoning that, were the rule otherwise, “the accident of diversity of citizenship would constantly disturb equal administration of justice in coordinate state and federal courts sitting side by side,” a state of affairs that “would do violence to the principle of uniformity within a state, upon which the Tompkins decision is based.” Id., at 496. See also Griffin v. McCoach, 313 U. S. 498, 503 (1941). Although the venue provision of § 1404(a) was enacted after Klaxon, see 62 Stat. 937, we have repeatedly reaffirmed Klaxon since then. See Nolan v. Transocean Air Lines, 365 U. S. 293 (1961); Day & Zimmermann, Inc. v. Challoner, 423 U. S. 3 (1975).
The question we must answer today is whether 28 U. S. C. § 1404(a) (1982 ed.) and the policies underlying Klaxon— namely, uniformity within a State and the avoidance of forum shopping — produce a result different from Klaxon when the suit in question was not filed in the federal court initially, but was transferred there under § 1404(a) on plaintiff’s motion. In Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U. S. 612 (1964), we held that a result different from Klaxon is produced when a suit has been transferred under § 1404(a) on defendant’s motion. Our reasons were two. First, we thought it highly unlikely that Congress, in enacting § 1404(a), meant to provide defendants with a device by which to manipulate the substantive rules that would be applied. 376 U. S., at 633-636. That conclusion rested upon the fact that the law grants the plaintiff the advantage of choosing the venue in which his action will be tried, with whatever state-law advantages accompany that choice. A defensive use of § 1404(a) in order to deprive the plaintiff of this “venue privilege,” id,., at 634, would allow .the defendant to “ ‘get a change of law as a bonus for a change of venue,”’ id., at 636 (citation omitted), and would permit the defendant to engage in forum shopping among States, a privilege that the Klaxon regime reserved for plaintiffs. Second, we concluded that the policies of Erie and Klaxon would be undermined by application of the transferee court’s choice-of-law principles in the case of a defendant-initiated transfer, id., at 637-640, because then “the ‘accident’ of federal diversity jurisdiction” would enable the defendant “to utilize a transfer to achieve a result in federal court which could not have been achieved in the courts of the State where the action was filed,” id., at 638. The goal of Erie and Klaxon, we reasoned, was to prevent “forum shopping” as between state and federal systems; the plaintiff makes a choice of forum law by filing the complaint, and that choice must be honored in federal court, just as it would have been honored in state court, where the defendant would not have been able to transfer the case to another State.
We left open in Van Dusen the question presented today, viz., whether “the same considerations would govern” if a plaintiff sought a § 1404(a) transfer. 376 U. S., at 640. In my view, neither of those considerations is served — and indeed both are positively defeated — by a departure from Klaxon in that context. First, just as it is unlikely that Congress, in enacting § 1404(a), meant to provide the defendant with a vehicle by which to manipulate in his favor the substantive law to be applied in a diversity case, so too is it unlikely that Congress meant to provide the plaintiff with a vehicle by which to appropriate the law of a distant and inconvenient forum in which he does not intend to litigate, and to carry that prize back to the State in which he wishes to try the case. Second, application of the transferor court’s law in this context would encourage forum shopping between federal and state courts in the same jurisdiction on the basis of differential substantive law. It is true, of course, that the plaintiffs here did not select the Mississippi federal court in preference to the Mississippi state courts because of any differential substantive law; the former, like the latter, would have applied Mississippi choice-of-law rules and thus the Mississippi statute of limitations. But one must be blind to reality to say that it is the Mississippi federal court in which these plaintiffs have chosen to sue. That was merely a way station en route to suit in the Pennsylvania federal court. The plaintiffs were seeking to achieve exactly what Klaxon was designed to prevent: the use of a Pennsylvania federal court instead of a Pennsylvania state court in order to obtain application of a different substantive law. Our decision in Van Dusen compromised “the principle of uniformity within a state,” Klaxon, supra, at 496, only in the abstract, but today’s decision compromises it precisely in the respect that matters — i. e., insofar as it bears upon the plaintiff’s choice between a state and a federal forum. The significant federal judicial policy expressed in Erie and Klaxon is reduced to a laughingstock if it can so readily be evaded through filing- and-transfer.
The Court is undoubtedly correct that applying the Klaxon rule after a plaintiff-initiated transfer would deter a plaintiff in a situation such as exists here from seeking a transfer, since that would deprive him of the favorable substantive law. But that proves only that this disposition achieves what Erie and Klaxon are designed to achieve: preventing the plaintiff from using “the accident of diversity of citizenship,” Klaxon, 313 U. S., at 496, to obtain the application of a different law within the State where he wishes to litigate. In the context of the present case, he must either litigate in the State of Mississippi under Mississippi law, or in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania under Pennsylvania law.
The Court expresses concern, ante, at 529-530, that if normal Erie-Klaxon principles were applied a district judge might be reluctant to order a transfer, even when faced with the prospect of a trial that would be manifestly inconvenient to the parties, for fear that in doing so he would be ordering what is tantamount to a dismissal on the merits. But where the plaintiff himself has moved for a transfer, surely the principle of volenti non jit injuria suffices to allay that concern. The Court asserts that in some cases it is the defendant who will be prejudiced by a transfer-induced change in the applicable law. That seems likely to be quite rare, since it assumes that the plaintiff has gone to the trouble of bringing the suit in a less convenient forum, where the law is less favorable to him. But where the defendant is disadvantaged by a plaintiff-initiated transfer, I do not see how it can reasonably be said that he has been “prejudiced,” since the plaintiff could have brought the suit in the “plaintiff’s-law forum” with the law more favorable to him (and the more convenient forum) in the first place. Prejudice to the defendant, it seems to me, occurs only when the plaintiff is enabled to have his cake and eat it too — to litigate in the more convenient forum that he desires, but with the law of the distant forum that he desires.
The Court suggests that applying the choice-of-law rules of the forum court to a transferred case ignores the interest of the federal courts themselves in avoiding the “systemic costs of litigating in an inconvenient place,” citing Justice Jackson’s eloquent remarks on that subject in Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U. S. 501, 508-509 (1947). Ante, at 530. The point, apparently, is that these systemic costs will increase because the change in law attendant to transfer will not only deter the plaintiff from moving to transfer but will also deter the court from ordering sua sponte a transfer that will harm the plaintiff’s case. Justice Jackson’s remarks were addressed, however, not to the operation of § 1404(a), but to “those rather rare cases where the doctrine [of forum non conveniens] should be applied.” 330 U. S., at 509. Where the systemic costs are that severe, transfer ordinarily will occur whether the plaintiff moves for it or not; the district judge can be expected to order it sua sponte. I do not think that the prospect of depriving the plaintiff of favorable law will any more deter a district judge from transferring than it would have deterred a district judge, under the prior regime, from ordering a dismissal sua sponte pursuant to the doctrine of forum non conveniens. In fact the deterrence to sua sponte transfer will be considerably less, since transfer involves no risk of statute-of-limitations bars to refiling.
Thus, it seems to me that a proper calculation of systemic costs would go as follows: Saved by the Court’s rule will be the incremental cost of trying in forums that are inconvenient (but not so inconvenient as to prompt the court’s sua sponte transfer) those suits that are now filed in such forums for choice-of-law purposes. But incurred by the Court’s rule will be the costs of considering and effecting transfer, not only in those suits but in the indeterminate number of additional suits that will be filed in inconvenient forums now that filing-and-transfer is an approved form of shopping for law; plus the costs attending the necessity for transferee courts to figure out the choice-of-law rules (and probably the substantive law) of distant States much more often than our Van Dusen decision would require. It should be noted that the file-and-transfer ploy sanctioned by the Court today will be available not merely to achieve the relatively rare (and generally unneeded) benefit of a longer statute of limitations, but also to bring home to the desired state of litigation all sorts of favorable choice-of-law rules regarding substantive liability — in an era when the diversity among the States in choice-of-law principles has become kaleidoscopic.
The Court points out, apparently to deprecate the prospect that filing-and-transfer will become a regular litigation strategy, that there is “no guarantee” that a plaintiff will be accorded a transfer; that while “[n]o one has contested the justice of transferring this particular case,” that option “remains open to defendants in future cases”; and that “[although a court cannot ignore the systemic costs of inconvenience, it may consider the course that the litigation already has taken in determining the interest of justice.” Ante, at 532. I am not sure what this means — except that it plainly does not mean what it must mean to foreclose the filing-and-transfer option, namely, that transfer can be denied because the plaintiff was law shopping. The whole theory of the Court’s opinion is that it is not in accord with the policy of § 1404(a) to deprive the plaintiff of the “state-law advantages” to which his “venue privilege” entitles him. Ante, at 524. The Court explicitly repudiates “[t]he desire to take a punitive view of the plaintiff’s actions,” ante, at 530, and to make him “pay the price for choosing an inconvenient forum by being put to a choice of law versus forum,” ante, at 529. Thus, all the Court is saying by its “no guarantee” language is that the plaintiff must be careful to choose a really inconvenient forum if he wants to be sure about getting a transfer. That will often not be difficult. In sum, it seems to me quite likely that today’s decision will cost the federal courts more time than it will save them.
Thus, even as an exercise in giving the most extensive possible scope to the policies of § 1404(a), the Court’s opinion seems to me unsuccessful. But as I indicated by beginning this opinion with the Rules of Decision Act, that should not be the object of the exercise at all. The Court and I reach different results largely because we approach the question from different directions. For the Court, this case involves an “interpretation of § 1404(a),” ante, at 524, and the central issue is whether Klaxon stands in the way of the policies of that statute. For me, the case involves an interpretation of the Rules of Decision Act, and the central issue is whether § 1404(a) alters the “principle of uniformity within a state” which Klaxon says that Act embodies. I think my approach preferable, not only because the Rules of Decision Act does, and § 1404(a) does not, address the specific subject of which law to apply, but also because, as the Court acknowledges, our jurisprudence under that statute is “a vital expression of the federal system and the concomitant integrity of the separate States,” ante, at 523. To ask, as in effect the Court does, whether Erie gets in the way of § 1404(a), rather than whether § 1404(a) requires adjustment of Erie, seems to me the expression of a mistaken sense of priorities.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.
The prospective transferor court would not be deterred at all, of course, if we simply extended the Van Dusen rule to court-initiated transfers. In my view that would be inappropriate, however, since court-initiated transfer, like plaintiff-initiated transfer, does not confer upon the defendant the advantage of forum shopping for law, Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U. S. 612, 636 (1964), and does not enable the defendant “to utilize a transfer to achieve a result in federal court which could not have been achieved in the courts of the State where the action was filed,-’ id., at 638.
The current edition of Professor Leflar’s treatise on American Conflicts Law lists 10 separate theories of choice of law that are applied, individually or in various combinations, by the 50 States. See R. Leñar, L. McDougall III, & R. Felix, American Conflicts Law §§86-91, 93-96 (4th ed. 1986). See also Kay, Theory into Practice: Choice of Law in the Courts, 34 Mercer L. Rev. 521, 525-584, 591-592 (1983). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue of the Court's decision. Determine the issue of the case on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. | What is the issue of the decision? | [
"comity: civil rights",
"comity: criminal procedure",
"comity: First Amendment",
"comity: habeas corpus",
"comity: military",
"comity: obscenity",
"comity: privacy",
"comity: miscellaneous",
"comity primarily removal cases, civil procedure (cf. comity, criminal and First Amendment); deference to foreign judicial tribunals",
"assessment of costs or damages: as part of a court order",
"Federal Rules of Civil Procedure including Supreme Court Rules, application of the Federal Rules of Evidence, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure in civil litigation, Circuit Court Rules, and state rules and admiralty rules",
"judicial review of administrative agency's or administrative official's actions and procedures",
"mootness (cf. standing to sue: live dispute)",
"venue",
"no merits: writ improvidently granted",
"no merits: dismissed or affirmed for want of a substantial or properly presented federal question, or a nonsuit",
"no merits: dismissed or affirmed for want of jurisdiction (cf. judicial administration: Supreme Court jurisdiction or authority on appeal from federal district courts or courts of appeals)",
"no merits: adequate non-federal grounds for decision",
"no merits: remand to determine basis of state or federal court decision (cf. judicial administration: state law)",
"no merits: miscellaneous",
"standing to sue: adversary parties",
"standing to sue: direct injury",
"standing to sue: legal injury",
"standing to sue: personal injury",
"standing to sue: justiciable question",
"standing to sue: live dispute",
"standing to sue: parens patriae standing",
"standing to sue: statutory standing",
"standing to sue: private or implied cause of action",
"standing to sue: taxpayer's suit",
"standing to sue: miscellaneous",
"judicial administration: jurisdiction or authority of federal district courts or territorial courts",
"judicial administration: jurisdiction or authority of federal courts of appeals",
"judicial administration: Supreme Court jurisdiction or authority on appeal or writ of error, from federal district courts or courts of appeals (cf. 753)",
"judicial administration: Supreme Court jurisdiction or authority on appeal or writ of error, from highest state court",
"judicial administration: jurisdiction or authority of the Court of Claims",
"judicial administration: Supreme Court's original jurisdiction",
"judicial administration: review of non-final order",
"judicial administration: change in state law (cf. no merits: remand to determine basis of state court decision)",
"judicial administration: federal question (cf. no merits: dismissed for want of a substantial or properly presented federal question)",
"judicial administration: ancillary or pendent jurisdiction",
"judicial administration: extraordinary relief (e.g., mandamus, injunction)",
"judicial administration: certification (cf. objection to reason for denial of certiorari or appeal)",
"judicial administration: resolution of circuit conflict, or conflict between or among other courts",
"judicial administration: objection to reason for denial of certiorari or appeal",
"judicial administration: collateral estoppel or res judicata",
"judicial administration: interpleader",
"judicial administration: untimely filing",
"judicial administration: Act of State doctrine",
"judicial administration: miscellaneous",
"Supreme Court's certiorari, writ of error, or appeals jurisdiction",
"miscellaneous judicial power, especially diversity jurisdiction"
] | [
13
] | sc_issue_9 |
LOCAL 1976, UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF AMERICA, A. F. L., et al. v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD.
No. 127.
Argued March 12, 1958.
Decided June 16, 1958.
Arthur Garrett argued the cause for petitioners in No. 127. With him on the brief was John C. Stevenson.
Dominick L. Manoli argued the causes for the National Labor Relations Board. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Rankin, Jerome D. Fenton and Norton J. Come. With them on the briefs also were Thomas J. McDermott in No. 127 and Stephen Leonard in Nos. 273 and 324.
Louis P. Poulton argued the cause for petitioner in No. 324. With him on the brief were Plato E. Papps and George W. Christensen.
Herbert S. Thatcher argued the cause for respondent in No. 273. With him on the brief were David Previant and L. N. D. Wells, Jr.
Peter T. Beardsley and Gerard D. Reilly filed a brief for the American Trucking Associations, Inc., as amicus curiae, urging reversal in No. 273 and affirmance in No. 324.
William B. Barton filed a brief for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, as amicus curiae, in Nos. 273 and 324.
J. Albert Woll, Thomas E. Harris and Joseph M. Stone filed a brief for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, as amicus curiae, in Nos. 127, 273 and 324.
Together with No. 273, National Labor Relations Board v. General Drivers, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers Union, Local No. 886, AFL-CIO, and No. 324, Local 850, International Association of Machinists, AFL-CIO, v. National Labor Relations Board, both on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argued March 11-12, 1958.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases involve so-called “hot cargo” provisions in collective bargaining agreements. More particularly, they raise the question whether such a provision is a defense to a charge against a union of an unfair labor practice under § 8 (b) (4) (A) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 136, 141, 29 U. S. C. §158 (b)(4)(A).
No. 127 arises out of a labor dispute between carpenter unions and an employer engaged in the building construction trade in Southern California. The Sand Door and Plywood Company is the exclusive distributor in Southern California of doors manufactured by the Paine Lumber Company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Watson and Dreps are millwork contractors who purchase doors from Sand. Havstad and Jensen are general contractors who were, at the time of the dispute involved, engaged in the construction of a hospital in Los Angeles. Havstad and Jensen are parties to a master labor agreement negotiated with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America on behalf of its affiliated district councils and locals, including petitioner unions. This agreement, comprehensively regulating the labor relations of Havstad and Jensen and its carpenter employees, includes a provision that, “workmen shall not be required to handle non-union material.”
In August 1954 doors manufactured by Paine and purchased by Sand were delivered to the hospital construction site by Watson and Dreps. On the morning of August 17, Fleisher, business agent of petitioner Local 1976, came to the construction site and notified Steinert, Havstad and Jensen’s foreman, that the doors were nonunion and could not be hung. Steinert therefore ordered employees to cease handling the doors. When Nicholson, Havstad and Jensen’s general superintendent, appeared on the job and asked Fleisher why the workers had been prevented from handling the doors, he stated that they had been stopped until it could be determined whether the doors were union or nonunion. Subsequent negotiations between officers of Sand and the union failed to produce an agreement that would permit the doors to be installed.
On the basis of charges filed by Sand and a complaint duly issued, the National Labor Relations Board found that petitioners had induced and encouraged employees to engage in a strike or concerted refusal to handle Paine’s doors in order to force Havstad and Jensen and Sand to cease doing business with Paine, all in violation of § 8 (b) (4) (A). 113 N. L. R. B. 1210. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit enforced the Board’s cease-and-desist order, 241 F. 2d 147, and we granted certiorari. 355 U. S. 808. The sole question tendered by the petition for certiorari concerned the relation between the hot cargo provision in the collective bargaining agreement and the charge of an unfair labor practice proscribed by §8 (b)(4)(A).
Nos. 273 and 324 arise out of a labor dispute in Oklahoma City in which certain unions are said to have induced the employees of five common carriers to cease handling the goods of another employer in violation of § 8 (b) (4) (A). American Iron and Machine Works was engaged in a controversy with Local 850 of the International Association of Machinists, the bargaining representative of its production and maintenance employees, and a strike had been called at the company’s plants. Picketing at the plants prevented the carriers that normally served American Iron from making pickup and deliveries, so American Iron hauled freight in its own trucks to the loading platforms of the carriers. The Machinists followed the trucks to the carriers’ platforms and picketed them there, without making it clear that their dispute was only with American Iron. In addition, there was evidence that they expressly requested employees of some of the carriers not to handle American Iron freight. Teamsters union Local 886, representative of the carriers’ employees, instructed the employees to cease handling the freight. All the carriers except one expressly ordered their employees to move American Iron freight, but nevertheless they refused to do so. The Teamsters’ contract with the carriers contained a provision that, “Members of the Union shall not be allowed to handle or haul freight to or from an unfair company, provided, this is not a violation of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947.”
On the basis of charges filed by American Iron, the Board issued complaints against the unions and found that both the Machinists and Teamsters, by their appeals or instructions to the carriers’ employees, had violated § 8 (b)(4)(A), notwithstanding the hot cargo provision in the collective bargaining agreement. 115 N. L. R. B. 800. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit set aside the order as to the Teamsters because of the hot cargo provision (No. 273), but enforced the order against the Machinists (No. 324). 101 U. S. App. D. C. 80, 247 F. 2d 71. We granted certiorari in all three cases because of conflicts among the circuits as to the meaning of § 8 (b)(4)(A), and because of the importance of the problem in the administration of the National Labor Relations Act, and ordered them consolidated for argument. 355 U. S. 808.
Section 8 (b) (4) (A) provides that, “It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents ... (4) to engage in, or to induce or encourage the employees of any employer to engage in, a strike or a concerted refusal in the course of their employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services, where an object thereof is: (A) forcing or requiring . . . any employer or other person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person . . .
Whatever may have been said in Congress preceding the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act concerning the evil of all forms of “secondary boycotts” and the desirability of outlawing them, it is clear that no such sweeping prohibition was in fact enacted in § 8 (b) (4) (A). The section does not speak generally of secondary boycotts. It describes and condemns specific union conduct directed to specific objectives. It forbids a union to induce employees to strike against or to refuse to handle goods for their employer when an object is to force him or another person to cease doing business with some third party. Employees must be induced; they must be induced to engage in a strike or concerted refusal; an object must be to force or require their employer or another person to cease doing business with a third person. Thus, much that might argumentatively be found to fall within the broad and somewhat vague concept of secondary boycott is not in terms prohibited. A boycott voluntarily engaged in by a secondary employer for his own business reasons, perhaps because the unionization of other employers will protect his competitive position or because he identifies his own interests with those of his employees and their union, is not covered by the statute. Likewise, a union is free to approach an employer to persuade him to engage in a boycott, so long as it refrains from the specifically prohibited means of coercion through inducement of employees.
From these considerations of what is not prohibited by the statute, the true scope and limits of the legislative purpose emerge. The primary employer, with whom the union is principally at odds, has no absolute assurance that he will be free from the consequences of a secondary boycott. Nor have other employers or persons who deal with either the primary employer or the secondary employer and who may be injuriously affected by the restrictions^ on commerce that flow from secondary boycotts. Nor has the general public. We do not read the words “other person” in the phrase “forcing or requiring . . . any employer or other person” to extend protection from the effects of a secondary boycott to such other person when the secondary employer himself, the employer of the employees involved, consents to the boycott. When he does consent it cannot appropriately be said that there is a strike or concerted refusal to handle goods on the part of the employees. Congress has not seen fit to protect these other persons or the general public by any wholesale condemnation of secondary boycotts, since if the secondary employer agrees to the boycott, or it is brought about by means other than those proscribed in §8 (b)(4) (A), there is no unfair labor practice.
It is relevant to recall that the Taft-Hartley Act was, to a marked degree, the result of conflict and compromise between strong contending forces and deeply held views on the role of organized labor in the free economic life of the Nation and the appropriate balance to be struck between the uncontrolled power of management and labor to further their respective interests. This is relevant in that it counsels wariness in finding by construction a broad policy against secondary boycotts as such when, from the words of the statute itself, it is clear that those interested in just such a condemnation were unable to secure its embodiment in enacted law. The problem raised by these cases affords a striking illustration of the importance of the truism that it is the business of Congress to declare policy and not this Court’s. The judicial function is confined to applying what Congress has enacted after ascertaining what it is that Congress has enacted. But such ascertainment, that is, construing legislation, is nothing like a mechanical endeavor. It could not be accomplished by the subtlest of modern “brain” machines. Because of the infirmities of language and the limited scope of science in legislative drafting, inevitably there enters into the construction of statutes the play of judicial judgment within the limits of the relevant legislative materials. Most relevant, of course, is the very language in which Congress has expressed its policy and from which the Court must extract the meaning most appropriate. Of course § 8 (b) (4) (A), like the entire Taft-Hartley Act, was designed to protect the public interest, but not in the sense that the public was to be shielded from secondary boycotts no matter how brought about. Congress’ purpose was more narrowly conceived. It aimed to restrict the area of industrial conflict insofar as this could be achieved by prohibiting the most obvious, widespread, and, as Congress evidently judged, dangerous practice of unions to widen that conflict: the coercion of neutral employers, themselves not concerned with a primary labor dispute, through the inducement of their employees to engage in strikes or concerted refusals to handle goods. In the light of the purpose of the statute as thus defined the cases now before the Court must be judged.
The question is whether a hot cargo provision, such as is found in the collective bargaining agreements in these cases, can be a defense to a charge of an unfair labor practice under § 8 (b) (4) (A) when, in the absence of such a provision, the union conduct would unquestionably be a violation. This question has had a checkered career in the decisions of the National Labor Relations Board since it first came before that tribunal some nine years ago. In the Conway’s Express case, In re International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 87 N. L. R. B. 972 (1949), aff’d sub nom. Rabouin v. Labor Board, 195 F. 2d 906, the Board (Members Houston, Murdock, and Gray) found that there was nothing in a hot cargo provision as such repugnant to the policy of the statute, and that the union had not violated § 8 (b) (4) (A) when, pursuant to the provision, it had instructed employees not to handle goods, and the employers had apparently acquiesced. Chairman Herzog concurred in the finding that § 8 (b) (4) (A) had not been violated on the facts of the particular case, but was of the opinion that the hot cargo provision did not license the union itself to take action to induce the employees to refuse to handle goods. 87 N. L. R. B., at 983, n. 33. Member Reynolds dissented on the ground that a hot cargo provision was in conflict with the policy of the statute and could not be invoked as a defense to a charge of a violation of § 8 (b)(4)(A). In the Pittsburgh Plate Glass case, Chauffeurs Union, 105 N. L. R. B. 740 (1953), where the union had also induced employees not to handle goods and the employers had acquiesced in the enforcement of the hot cargo provisions, the Board without dissent (Members Houston, Murdock, Styles and Peterson; Chairman Herzog took no part) adhered to the Conway decision. Since "the employers in this proceeding consented to the 'unfair goods’ provision of the contracts, their employees’ failure to handle these goods was not a strike or concerted refusal to work under Section 8 (b)(4)(A).” 105 N. L. R. B., at 744.
In the McAllister case, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 110 N. L. R. B. 1769 (1954), the Board took a different position. Members Rodgers and Beeson were of the view that § 8 (b) (4) (A) prohibited all secondary boycotts and had been enacted as much for the protection of the primary employer and the public as the secondary employers, and that a contract between the secondary employers and the union was ineffective to waive the protection granted these other interests. They called for overruling the Conway case and a declaration that a hot cargo provision is no defense to a charge under §8 (b)(4)(A). Chairman Farmer concurred in finding a violation of the statute, on the ground that the case was distinguishable from the Conway and Pittsburgh Plate Class decisions in that the employers had not acquiesced in the employees’ failure to handle the goods. He found nothing contrary to the statute in the execution of a hot cargo provision and mutual adherence to it by employer and union, but only in the inducement of employees to refuse to handle goods in the face of express instructions to do so. Members Murdock and Peterson dissented on the ground that since the employers had by the hot cargo provision consented in advance to the boycott, there was no strike or concerted refusal to handle goods within the meaning of the statute, apparently even assuming that the employers had instructed their employees to handle the goods.
Still further mutations in the position of the Board and the views of the individual members took place in the Sand Door case, Local 1976, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 113 N. L. R. B. 1210 (1955), now here as No. 127. Chairman Farmer and Member Leedom maintained that, although hot cargo clauses are not themselves in conflict with the statute, any direct appeal by a union to the employees of a secondary employer to induce them to refuse to handle goods, and in this manner to assert their rights under the contract, violates §8 (b)(4)(A). The importance of the fact that, evidently, the employer in the case before the Board had not acquiesced in the stoppage was not made clear. Member Rodgers concurred in the result on the basis of the principal opinion in the McAllister case and his view that hot cargo clauses as such violate the policy of the statute. Members Murdock and Peterson, dissenting, adhered to the views they had expressed in McAllister. See also Local 11, United Brotherhood of Carpenters (General Millwork Corp.), 113 N. L. R. B. 1084, 1086-1087, and Members Murdock and Peterson dissenting at 1088-1090, aff’d sub nom. Labor Board v. Local 11, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 242 F. 2d 932 (C. A. 6th Cir.).
In the American Iron case, General Drivers Union, 115 N. L. R. B. 800 (1956), now here as Nos. 273 and 324, Members Leedom and Bean relied on the principal opinion in the Sand Door case, making it clear that any direct appeal to the employees was forbidden whether or not the employer acquiesced in the boycott. Member Rodgers concurred on the basis of his previous opinions. Members Murdock and Peterson dissented, noting that since there was a violation of the statute even if the employer acquiesced, the Conway doctrine had at last been clearly repudiated. See also Milk Drivers Union (Crowley’s Milk Co.), 116 N. L. R. B. 1408 (1956), orders reversed and enforcement denied sub nom. Milk Drivers Union v. Labor Board, 245 F. 2d 817 (C. A. 2d Cir.).
In a decision handed down after the granting of certio-rari in the cases now before the Court, Truck Drivers Union (Genuine Parts Co.), 119 N. L. R. B. 399 (1957), two members of the Board, Chairman Leedom and Member Jenkins, rested on a broader ground than that taken in the principal opinion in the Sand Door and American Iron cases: when the secondary employer is a common carrier subject to the Interstate Commerce Act, 24 Stat. 379, as amended by Act of Aug. 9, 1935, 49 Stat. 543, amended, 49 U. S. C. §§ 301-327, a hot cargo clause is invalid at its inception and cannot be recognized by the Board as having any force or effect. It is also strongly suggested in the opinion filed by these members that it would be desirable to establish such a rule in respect to all employers, and that the mere existence of a hot cargo clause should be deemed prima facie evidence of inducement in violation of § 8 (b)(4)(A). Member Rodgers concurred on the basis of his earlier opinions, without considering the implications of the Interstate Commerce Act. Member Bean concurred solely on the basis of the Sand Door case. Member Murdock dissented, objecting particularly to what he conceived to be the extreme suggestion that the mere existence of a hot cargo provision should be deemed prima facie evidence of a violation of § 8 (b)(4)(A), and pointing out that a majority of the Board appears to have abandoned the theory of the Sand Door and American Iron cases even before this Court could review them.
The argument that a hot cargo clause is a defense to a charge of a violation of § 8 (b) (4) (A) may be thus stated. The employer has by contract voluntarily agreed that his employees shall not handle the goods. Because of this consent, even if it is sought to be withdrawn at the time of an actual work stoppage and boycott, it cannot be said, in the light of the statutory purpose, either that there is a “strike or a concerted refusal” on the part of the employees, or that there is a “forcing or requiring” of the employer. Only if consideration is confined to the circumstances immediately surrounding the boycott, in disregard of the broader history of the labor relations of the parties, is it possible to say that the employer is coerced into engaging in the boycott. If the purpose of the statute is to protect neutrals from certain union pressures to involve them involuntarily in the labor disputes of others, protection should not extend to an employer who has agreed to a hot cargo provision, for such an employer is not in fact involuntarily involved in the dispute. This must at least be so when the employer takes no steps at the time of the boycott to repudiate the contract and to order his employees to handle the goods. The union does no more than inform the employees of their contractual rights and urge them to take the only action effective to enforce them.
The Board in the present cases has rejected the argument as not comporting with the legislative purpose to be drawn from the statute, projected onto the practical realities of labor relations. We agree, duly heedful of the strength of the argument to the contrary. There is nothing in the legislative history to show that Congress directly considered the relation between hot cargo provisions and the prohibitions of § 8 (b)(4)(A). Nevertheless, it seems most probable that the freedom of choice for the employer contemplated by § 8 (b) (4) (A) is a freedom of choice at the time the question whether to boycott or not arises in a concrete situation calling for the exercise of judgment on a particular matter of labor and business policy. Such a choice, free from the prohibited pressures — whether to refuse to deal with another or to maintain normal business relations on the ground that the labor dispute is no concern of his — must as a matter of federal policy be available to the secondary employer notwithstanding any private agreement entered into between the parties. See National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board, 309 U. S. 350, 364. This is so because by the employer’s intelligent exercise of such a choice under the impact of a concrete situation when judgment is most responsible, and not merely at the time a collective bargaining agreement is drawn up covering a multitude of subjects, often in a general and abstract manner, Congress may rightly be assumed to have hoped that the scope of industrial conflict and the economic effects of the primary dispute might be effectively limited.
Certainly the language of the statute does not counter such an interpretation. The employees’ action may be described as a “strike or concerted refusal,” and there is a “forcing or requiring” of the employer, even though there is a hot cargo provision. The realities of coercion are not altered simply because it is said that the employer is forced to carry out a prior engagement rather than forced now to cease doing business with another. A more important consideration, and one peculiarly within the cognizance of the Board because of its closeness to and familiarity with the practicalities of the collective bargaining process, is the possibility that the contractual provision itself may well not have been the result of choice on the employer’s part free from the kind of coercion Congress has condemned. It may have been forced upon him by strikes that, if used to bring about .a boycott when the union is engaged in a dispute with some primary employer, would clearly be prohibited by the Act. Thus, to allow the union to invoke the provision to justify conduct that in the absence of such a provision would be a violation of the statute might give it the means to transmit to the moment of boycott, through the contract, the very pressures from which Congress has determined to relieve secondary employers.
Thus inducements of employees that are prohibited under § 8 (b)(4)(A) in the absence of a hot cargo provision are likewise prohibited when there is such a provision. The Board has concluded that a union may not, on the assumption that the employer will respect his contractual obligation, order its members to cease handling goods, and that any direct appeal to the employees to engage in a strike or concerted refusal to handle goods is proscribed. This conclusion was reached only after considerable experience with the difficulty of determining whether an employer has in fact acquiesced in a boycott, whether he did or did not order his employees to handle the goods, and the significance of an employer’s silence. Of course if an employer does intend to observe the contract, and does truly sanction and support the boycott, there is no violation of § 8 (b) (4) (A). A voluntary employer boycott does not become prohibited activity simply because a hot cargo clause exists. But there remains the question whether the employer has in fact truly sanctioned and supported the boycott, and whether he has exercised the choice contemplated by the statute. The potentiality of coercion in a situation where the union is free to approach the employees and induce them to enforce their contractual rights by self-help is very great. Faced with a concerted work stoppage already in progress, an employer may find it substantially more difficult than he otherwise would to decide that business should go on as usual and that his employees must handle the goods. His “acquiescence” in the boycott may be anything but free. In order to give effect to the statutory policy, it is not unreasonable to insist, as the Board has done, that even when there is a contractual provision the union must not appeal to the employees or induce them not to handle the goods. Such a rule expresses practical judgment on the effect of union'conduct in the framework of actual labor disputes and what is necessary to preserve to the employer the freedom of choice that Congress has decreed. On such a matter the judgment of the Board must be given great weight, and we ought not set against it our estimate of the relevant factors.
There is no occasion to consider the invalidity of hot cargo provisions as such. The sole concern of the Board in the present cases was whether the contractual provision could be used by the unions as a defense to a charge of inducing employees to strike or refuse to handle goods for objectives proscribed by § 8 (b) (4) (A). As we have said, it cannot be so used. But the Board has no general commission to police collective bargaining agreements and strike down contractual provisions in which there is no element of an unfair labor practice. Certainly the voluntary observance of a hot cargo provision by an employer does not constitute a violation of § 8 (b)(4)(A), and its mere execution is not, contrary to the suggestion of two members of the Board in the Genuine Parts case, Truck Drivers Union, 119 N. L. R. B. 399, prima facie evidence of prohibited inducement of employees. It does not necessarily follow from the fact that the unions cannot invoke the contractual provision in the manner in which they sought to do so in the present cases that it may not, in some totally different context not now before the Court, still have legal radiations affecting the relations between the parties. All we need now say is that the contract cannot be enforced by the means specifically prohibited in § 8 (b) (4) (A).
In Nos. 273 and 324, the Board in its brief suggests that we should go further and find that the contract provisions in these cases are invalid as such because the secondary employers are common carriers subject to the Interstate Commerce Act, 24 Stat. 379, as amended by Act of Aug. 9, 1935, 49 Stat. 543, amended, 49 U. S. C. §§ 301-327. In the recent Genuine Parts case, already referred to, Truck Drivers Union, 119 N. L. R. B. 399, two members of the Board in fact took this position, stating that when common carriers are involved hot cargo clauses are “invalid at their inception and can be given no operative cognizance so far as the administration of this [the Labor Management Relations] Act is concerned.” This is true, it is said, because by entering a contract not to handle the goods the carrier violates its obligations under the Interstate Commerce Act to provide nondiscriminatory service and to observe just and reasonable practices. See Act of Aug. 9, 1935, § 216, 49 Stat. 558, amended, 49 U. S. C. § 316. The carrier’s consent to boycott is therefore void, and it follows that it is likewise void for all purposes concerned with the Labor Management Relations Act. Since the Genuine Parts decision was handed down, the Interstate Commerce Commission has in fact ruled, in Galveston Truck Line Corp. v. Ada Motor Lines, Inc., 73 M. C. C. 617 (Dec. 16, 1957), that the carriers there involved were not relieved from their obligations under the Interstate Commerce Act by a hot cargo clause.
It is significant to note the limitations that the Commission was careful to draw about its decision in the Galveston case. It was not concerned to determine, as an abstract matter, the legality of hot cargo clauses, but only to enforce whatever duty was imposed on the carriers by the Interstate Commerce Act and their certificates. The Commission recognized that it had no general authority to police such contracts, and its sole concern was to determine whether a hot cargo provision could be a defense to a charge that the carriers had violated some specific statutory duty. It is the Commission that in the first instance must determine whether, because of certain compelling considerations, a carrier is relieved of its usual statutory duty, and necessarily it makes this determination in the context of the particular situation presented by the case before it. Other agencies of government, in interpreting and administering the provisions of statutes specifically entrusted to them for enforcement, must be cautious not to complicate the Commission’s administration of its own act by assuming as a fixed and universal rule what the Commission itself may prefer to develop in a more cautious and pragmatic manner through case-by-case adjudication.
But it is said that the Board is not enforcing the Interstate Commerce Act or interfering with the Commission’s administration of that statute, but simply interpreting the prohibitions of its own statute in a way consistent with the carrier’s obligations under the Interstate Commerce Act. Because of that Act a carrier cannot effectively consent not to handle the goods of a shipper. Since he cannot effectively consent, there is, under § 8 (b) (4) (A), a “strike or concerted refusal,” and a “forcing or requiring” of the carrier to cease handling goods just as much as if no hot cargo clause existed. But the fact that the carrier’s consent is not effective to relieve him from certain obligations under the Interstate Commerce Act does not necessarily mean that it is ineffective for all purposes, nor should a determination under one statute be mechanically carried over in the interpretation of another statute .involving significantly different considerations and legislative purposes. Whether a carrier has without justification failed to provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory service is a question of defining the carrier’s duty in the framework of the national transportation policy. Whether there is a “strike or concerted refusal,” or a “forcing or requiring” of an employer to cease handling goods is a matter of the federal policy governing labor relations. The Board is not concerned with whether the carrier has performed its obligations to the shipper, but whether the union has performed its obligation not to induce employees in the manner proscribed by § 8 (b)(4)(A). Common factors may emerge in the adjudication of these questions, but they are, nevertheless, distinct questions involving independent considerations. This is made clear by a situation in which the carrier has freely agreed with the union to engage in a boycott. He may have failed in his obligations under the Interstate Commerce Act, but there clearly is no violation of § 8 (b) (4) (A); there has been no prohibited inducement of employees.
The case is not like that in Southern S. S. Co. v. Labor Board, 316 U. S. 31, where the Board was admonished not to apply the policies of its statute so single-mindedly as to ignore other equally important congressional objectives. A specific remedy ordered by the Board — reinstatement of employees who had engaged in a strike— worked directly to weaken the effectiveness of a statutory prohibition against mutiny by members of the crew of a vessel. Presumed illegality under the mutiny statute was not used to establish a violation of the labor statute. It was relied on to establish an abuse of discretion in giving a remedy. Much less was there any suggestion that the Board should abandon an independent inquiry into the requirements of its own statute and mechanically accept standards elaborated by another agency under a different statute for wholly different purposes.
The unions in Nos. 273 and 324 violated § 8 (b) (4) (A) for the reasons set forth in the first part of this opinion, and not as a consequence of prohibitions in the Interstate Commerce Act.
The judgments in Nos. 127 and 324 are affirmed. The judgment in No. 273 is reversed and the cause remanded to the Court of Appeals with instructions to grant enforcement of the order of the Board.
Nos. 127 and 324 — Affirmed.
No. 273 — Reversed and remanded.
We therefore find it unnecessary to consider other contentions now made by petitioners on issues resolved against them by both the Board and the Court of Appeals: (1) Whether Steinert, when he instructed the employees to stop handling the doors, acted as a representative of Havstad and Jensen, the employer, or in his capacity as a member of the union, bound to enforce its rules. (2) Whether there was substantial evidence to support the Board’s conclusion that the union conduct was not primary activity outside the scope of § 8 (b) (4) (A). See Irvine v. California, 347 U. S. 128, 129-130; Rule 23 (c) of the Revised Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Certain contentions of the unions in Nos. 273 and 324 can be quickly disposed of. The controversy was not rendered moot simply because, after the filing of the charges and before the complaint issued, picketing had ceased and the Machinists had entered into a collective bargaining agreement containing a no-strike clause. We cannot say that there was no danger of recurrent violation, see United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 632-633, and that the Board was not justified in concluding that, under all the circumstances, it was desirable to add the sanction of its order to whatever agreement the parties had reached. The Machinists’ contention that their activity was only legitimate primary activity is foreclosed by the Board’s contrary finding on the basis of conflicting evidence. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the petitioner of the case. The petitioner is the party who petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. This party is variously known as the petitioner or the appellant. Characterize the petitioner as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the petitioner by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the petitioner is actually single entity or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single petitioner, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the petitioner of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
177
] | sc_petitioner |
BUCHANAN v. STANSHIPS, INC., et al.
No. 87-133.
Decided March 21, 1988
Per Curiam.
Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(4) provides that if any party files a timely motion “under Rule 59 [of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure] to alter or amend the judgment,” then the time for appeal “shall run from the entry of the order . . . granting or denying” such a motion. The Rule specifically indicates that a notice of appeal filed before the disposition of such a motion “shall have no effect” but that a “new notice of appeal must be filed within the prescribed time measured from the entry of the order disposing of the motion.” In this case, we are asked to determine whether a prevailing party’s motion for costs constitutes a Rule 59 motion and thereby renders ineffective a notice of appeal filed prior to the disposition of that motion.
I
Petitioners, a widow and her minor child, brought this wrongful-death" action against respondents in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana under the Death on the High Seas Act, ch. 111, 41 Stat. 537, 46 U. S. C. § 761 et seq. The court initially granted summary judgment for respondents, but the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed this ruling. 744 F. 2d 1070 (1984). On remand, the District Court conducted a bench trial. Then, on January 26, 1987, the court entered judgment in favor of respondents, dismissing petitioners’ suit with prejudice. Pet. for Cert. 15. The judgment made no mention of costs. The next day petitioners filed a notice of appeal in the District Court pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3. Id., at 16.
On January 29, 1987, respondents filed an application for the allowance of costs, styled as a “Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment.” Id., at 17. The motion asked that the District Court “amend its judgment” to reflect that respondents were “entitled to recover their taxable costs,” and specifically invoked Rule 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Ibid. The District Court issued an order granting respondents’ request the next day. Id., at 18.
Petitioners did not file a second notice of appeal following the District Court’s order granting respondents’ motion. Respondents subsequently moved the Court of Appeals to dismiss petitioners’ appeal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction due to failure to file a timely notice of appeal. Id., at 19. Respondents argued that Rule 4(a)(4) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure rendered petitioners’ first notice of appeal void because the motion for the allowance of costs was a Rule 59(e) motion. Relying on its prior decision in Harcon Barge Co. v. D & G Boat Rentals, Inc., 784 F. 2d 665 (CA5) (en banc), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 930 (1986), the Court of Appeals agreed and dismissed petitioners’ appeal. Pet. for Cert. 25. See also Charles v. Daley, 799 F. 2d 343, 347 (CA7 1986) (adopting the analysis of Harcon Barge). Petitioners seek certiorari, noting that the Court of Appeals’ decision is in tension with our decision in White v. New Hampshire Dept. of Employment Security, 455 U. S. 445 (1982), and in conflict with decisions of the Ninth Circuit and the Eleventh Circuit, see Durham v. Kelly, 810 F. 2d 1500 (CA9 1987); Alimenta (U. S. A.), Inc. v. Anheuser-Busch Cos., 803 F. 2d 1160 (CA11 1986); Lucas v. Florida Power & Light Co., 729 F. 2d 1300 (CA11 1984).
II
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) concerns “motion[s] to alter or amend the judgment.” The Rule requires that such motions be filed within 10 days of the initial entry of judgment. “[T]he federal courts generally have invoked Rule 59(e) only to support reconsideration of matters properly encompassed in a decision on the merits.” White, supra, at 451. In White, we held that a motion for attorney’s fees under 42 U. S. C. § 1988 was not a Rule 59(e) motion. We reasoned that because § 1988 provides for fees independently of the underlying cause of action and only for a “prevailing party,” a motion for fees required an inquiry “separate from the decision on the merits — an inquiry that cannot even commence until one party has ‘prevailed.’” 455 U. S., at 451-452. Cf. Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 807 F. 2d 155 (CA10 1986) cert. granted, 484 U. S. 895 (1987) (presenting issue whether a different rule applies when fees are not provided for independently, as by § 1988, but as an aspect of the underlying action). Such a motion therefore “‘does not imply a change in the judgment, but merely seeks what is due because of the judgment.’” 455 U. S., at 452 (emphasis added) (quoting Knighton v. Watkins, 616 F. 2d 795, 797 (CA5 1980)).
Respondents’ postjudgment motion for costs similarly sought only what was due because of the judgment. Because the Death on the High Seas Act contains no provision regarding costs, respondents’ motion for costs necessarily was predicated on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d). Assessment of such costs does not involve reconsideration of any aspect of the decision on the merits. Under Rule 54(d), the “prevailing party” automatically is entitled to costs “unless the court otherwise directs.” Indeed, the Rule contemplates that applications for costs will be presented in the first instance not to the court but to the clerk; a district judge need not take up the issue at all unless the losing party makes a timely motion for judicial review. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 54(d) (“On motion served within 5 days [after the clerk’s taxing of costs], the action of the clerk may be reviewed by the court”); 10 C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2679, p. 396 (2d ed. 1983). A sharp distinction between the judgment on the merits and an award of costs under Rule 54(d) also is evident in Rule 58’s instruction that “[e]ntry of the judgment shall not be delayed for the taxing of costs.” Thus it is apparent that the Rules “attemp[t] to divorce the process of entering judgment from that of determining and assessing the costs.” 10 Wright, Miller, & Kane, supra, § 2679, p. 392.
•While a different issue may be presented if expenses of this sort were provided as an aspect of the underlying action, we are satisfied that a motion for costs filed pursuant to Rule 54(d) does not seek “to alter or amend the judgment” within the meaning of Rule 59(e). Instead, such a request for costs raises issues wholly collateral to the judgment in the main cause of action, issues to which Rule 59(e) was not intended to apply. White, supra, at 451. Cf. FCC v. League of Women Voters, 468 U. S. 364, 373-374, n. 10 (1984) (issue of entitlement to “attorney’s fees and costs” described as “wholly collateral” to judgment on the merits) (emphasis added); Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U. S. 156, 172 (1974) (order assigning costs held immediately appealable under the “collateral order” doctrine because it “involved a collateral matter unrelated to the merits”). Respondents’ inaccurate designation of their costs request as a Rule 59(e) motion cannot change this fact. Nor can respondents’ incorrect label deprive petitioners of the benefit of their timely notice of appeal. Because respondents’ motion, properly viewed, was a Rule 54(d) motion for costs rather than a Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend a judgment, petitioners’ notice of appeal was timely under the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.
Certiorari is therefore granted, the decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether the court opinion mentions that one or more of the members of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed dissented. Focus on whether there exists any statement to this effect in the opinion, for example "divided," "dissented," "disagreed," "split.". A reference, without more, to the "majority" or "plurality" does not necessarily evidence dissent (the other judges may have concurred). If a case arose on habeas corpus, indicate dissent if either the last federal court or the last state court to review the case contained one. If the highest court with jurisdiction to hear the case declines to do so by a divided vote, indicate dissent. If the lower court denies an en banc petition by a divided vote and the Supreme Court discusses same, indicate dissent. | Does the court opinion mention that one or more of the members of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed dissented? | [
"Yes",
"No"
] | [
1
] | sc_lcdisagreement |
UNITED STATES v. YELLOW CAB CO.
NO. 218.
Argued December 6, 1950.
Decided February 26, 1951.
James L. Morrisson argued the causes for the United States. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Perlman and Paul A. Sweeney. Assistant Attorney General Morison was also on the brief in No. 218. Acting Assistant Attorney General Clapp was also on the brief in No. 204.
Frank F. Roberson argued the cause for petitioner in No. 204. With him on the brief were George D. Horning, Jr. and Joseph J. Smith, Jr.
Bernard G. Segal argued the cause for respondent in No. 218. With him on the brief were Wm. A. Schnader and James J. Leyden.
Mb. Justice Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether the Federal Tort Claims Act empowers a United States District Court to require the United States to be impleaded as a third-party defendant and to answer the claim of a joint tort-feasor for contribution as if the United States were a private individual. For the reasons hereinafter stated, we hold that it does.
No. 218 — Yellow Cab Case.
December 1, 1946, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, four passengers in a taxicab were injured by a collision between the cab and a United States mail truck. Claiming diversity of citizenship and charging negligence on the part of the cab driver, they sued his employer, the Yellow Cab Company, in the United States District Court. By leave of court, the company impleaded the United States as a third-party defendant and charged that the negligence of the mail truck driver made the United States liable for all or part of the passengers’ claims against the company. The United States moved for its dismissal as a third-party defendant on the ground that the Federal Tort Claims Act does not authorize suits against it on derivative claims. The motions were denied. The court tried the cases together, without a jury, and rendered judgments against the company totaling $7,800, but in favor of the company against the United States for one-half of the several amounts awarded the passengers. Motions by the United States to set aside the judgments against it were denied and the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed those denials. Howey v. Yellow Cab Co., 181 E. 2d 967. On petition of the United States, we granted certiorari after the Capital Transit case, infra, had been decided the other way. 340 U. S. 809.
No. 204 — Capital Transit Case.
August 4,1947, in the District of Columbia, a passenger on a streetcar was injured by a collision between it and a jeep operated by a United States soldier acting within the scope of his duties. The passenger, charging negligence, sued the Capital Transit Company in the District Court for the District of Columbia. By leave of court, the company impleaded the United States as a third-party defendant, charging that the soldier’s negligence was the sole or a contributing cause of the collision and asking judgment against the United States for a contributable portion of any sum which might be awarded against the company in favor of the passenger. In response to motions by the United States, the court entered a final judgment dismissing the third-party complaint on the ground that it failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted against the United States. Stradley v. Capital Transit Co., 87 F. Supp. 94. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. 87 U. S. App. D. C.-, 183 F. 2d 825. It reviewed the opinion in Howey v. Yellow Cab, supra, and disagreed with it. See also, Sappington v. Barrett, 86 U. S. App. D. C. 334, 182 F. 2d 102. On petition of the company, we granted certiorari because of the conflict of decisions and the importance of the issue in the application of the Federal Tort Claims Act. 340 U. S. 808.
The Government Has Consented To Be Sued for Contribution.
In the Yellow Cab case the court below concluded that under the law of Pennsylvania a private individual would be liable to his joint tort-feasor for contribution, and that the United States, through the Federal Tort Claims Act, had consented to be sued and would be liable, under the same circumstances, in the same manner and to the same extent. In the Capital Transit case, while the court below held that the United States could not be impleaded as a third-party defendant, it refrained from deciding whether, in a separate action, the company might enforce a right to contribution against the United States. Accordingly, although the court affirmed the dismissal of the third-party complaint against the United States, it did so without prejudice to the maintenance of a separate action for contribution by the joint tort-feasor. 87 U. S. App. D. C. at-, 183 F. 2d at 830.
The Government now contends, in both cases, that it has not consented to be sued for contribution claimed by a joint tort-feasor, even in a separate action. We therefore discuss that issue first.
The Federal Tort Claims Act waives the Government’s immunity from suit in sweeping language. It unquestionably waives it in favor of an injured person. It does the same for an insurer whose claim has been subrogated to his. United States v. Aetna Surety Co., 338 U. S. 366. The issue here is whether the Act also covers claims for contribution which would be due from the Government if the Government were a private individual.
On its face the Act amply covers such consent. Section 410 (a) waives immunity from suit on—
“any claim against the United States, for money only, accruing on and after January 1, 1945, on account of damage to or loss of property or on account of personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant for such damage, loss, injury, or death in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred. Subject to the provisions of this title, the United States shall be liable in respect of such claims to the same claimants, in the same manner, and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances, except that the United States shall not be liable for interest prior to judgment, or for punitive damages. . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) 60 Stat. 844, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) §931 (a)..
The words “any claim against the United States . . . on account of personal injury” (emphasis supplied) are broad words in common usage. They are not words of art. Section 421 lists 12 classes of claims to which the waiver shall not apply, but claims for contribution are not so listed.
This Act does not subject the Government to a previously unrecognized type of obligation. Through hundreds of private relief acts, each Congress for many years has recognized the Government’s obligation to pay claims on account of damage to or loss of property or on account of personal injury or death caused by negligent or wrongful acts of employees of the Government. This Act merely substitutes the District Courts for Congress as the agency to determine the validity and amount of the claims. It suggests no reason for reading into it fine distinctions between various types of such claims.
Despite the broad language of the Act, the Government has reviewed its legislative history in an attempt to restrict its scope. Most of that history relates to periods prior to the 2d Session of the 79th Congress at which the Act was passed. After more than 20 years of consideration, the subject was then presented to Congress in a new aspect. The bill became Title IV of the Legislative Reorganization Bill of 1946 at a moment when the overwhelming purpose of Congress was to make changes of procedure which would enable it to devote more time to major public issues. The reports at that session omitted previous discussions which tended to restrict the scope of the Tort Claims bill. The proceedings emphasized the benefits to be derived from relieving Congress of the pressure of private claims. Recognizing such a clearly defined breadth of purpose for the bill as a whole, and the general trend toward increasing the scope of the waiver by the United States of its sovereign immunity from suit, it is inconsistent to whittle it down by refinements.
Of course there is no immunity from suit by the Government to collect claims for contribution due it from its joint tort-feasors. The Government should be able to enforce this right in a federal court not only in a separate action but by impleading the joint tort-feasor as a third-party defendant. See 3 Moore’s Federal Practice (2d ed. 1948) 507, et seq. It is fair that this should work both ways. However, if the Act is interpreted as now urged by the Government, it would mean that if an injured party recovered judgment against the Government, the Government then could sue its joint tort-feasor for the latter’s contributory share of the damages (local substantive law permitting). On the other hand, if the injured party recovered judgment against the private tort-feasor, it would mean that (despite local substantive law favoring contributory liability) that individual could not sue the Government for the latter’s contributory share of the same damages. Presumably, the claimant would be relegated to a private bill for legislative relief. Such a result should not be read into this Act without a clearer statement of it than appears here.
We find, therefore, that the Government has consented to be sued for contribution under the circumstances of these cases — at least in a separate action. There remains the question of whether the Government may be im-pleaded as a third-party defendant.
The Government Has Consented To Be Impleaded as a Third-Party Dependant in an Action for Contribution Due a Joint Tort-Feasor.
The Government contends that, even if the Federal Tort Claims Act carries the Government’s consent to be sued in a separate action for contribution due a joint tort-feasor, it does not carry consent to be impleaded as a third-party defendant to meet such a claim.
We find nothing in the nature of the rights and obligations of joint tort-feasors to require such a procedural distinction, nor does the Act state such a requirement. On the contrary, the Act expressly makes the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure applicable, and Rule 14 provides for third-party practice.
This brings the instant cases within the principle approved in United States v. Aetna Surety Co., 338 U. S. 366, 383:
“In argument before a number of District Courts and Courts of Appeals, the Government relied upon the doctrine that statutes waiving sovereign immunity must be strictly construed. We think that the congressional attitude in passing the Tort Claims Act is more accurately reflected by Judge Cardozo’s statement in Anderson v. Hayes Construction Co., 243 N. Y. 140, 147, 153 N. E. 28, 29-30: ‘The exemption of the sovereign from suit involves hardship enough where consent has been withheld. We are not to add to its rigor by refinement of construction where consent has been announced.’ ”
Once we have concluded that the Federal Tort Claims Act covers an action for contribution due a tort-feasor, we should not, by refinement of construction, limit that consent to cases where the procedure is by separate action and deny it where the same relief is sought in a third-party action. As applied to the State of New York, Judge Cardozo said in language which is apt here: “No sensible reason can be imagined why the State, having consented to be sued, should thus paralyze the remedy.” 243 N. Y. at 147, 153 N. E. at 29. “A sense of justice has brought a progressive relaxation by legislative enactments of the rigor of the immunity rule. As representative governments attempt to ameliorate inequalities as necessities will permit, prerogatives of the government yield to the needs of the citizen. . . . When authority is given, it is liberally construed.” United States v. Shaw, 309 U. S. 495, 501.
The Government suggests that difficult procedural problems may arise in other cases if a waiver of immunity is held to exist in these cases. Eor example, the Act requires claims against the United States to be tried without a jury and, although a jury was not insisted upon in the instant cases, the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution preserves to private individuals their right of trial by jury on such claims in a federal court. The Government argues that the Act is not sufficiently specific to permit two such different modes of trial to arise in the same case.
Such difficulties are not insurmountable. If, for example, a jury had been demanded in the Yellow Cab case, the decision of jury and nonjury issues could have been handled in a manner comparable to that used when issues of law are tried to a jury and issues of an equitable nature in the same case are tried by the court alone. If special circumstances had demonstrated the inadvisability, in the first instance, of impleading the United States as a third-party defendant, the leave of court required by Rule 14 could have been denied. If, at a later stage, the situation had called for a separation of the claims, the court could have ordered their separate trial. Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 42 (b). The availability of third-party procedure is intended to facilitate, not to preclude, the trial of multiple claims which otherwise would be triable only in separate proceedings. The possibility of such procedural difficulties is not sufficient ground for so limiting the scope of the Act as to preclude its application to all cases of contribution or even to all cases of contribution arising under third-party practice. If the Act develops unanticipated complications, Congress can then meet them to such extent as it may desire to fit the demonstrated needs.
We therefore conclude that the Federal Tort Claims Act carries the Government’s consent to be sued for contribution not only in a separate proceeding but also as a third-party defendant.
The Yellow Cab case is affirmed. The Capital Transit case is reversed and the cause remanded to the District Court for proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
No. 218, affirmed.
No. 204, reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas dissent.
Title IV of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 812, 842-847, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) §§ 921-946. Under the revision of the Judicial Code, effective September 1, 1948, 62 Stat. 869, et seq., these provisions now appear, with slight modifications, in 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed., Supp. Ill) §§ 1291, 1346 (b), 1402 (b), 1504, 2110, 2401 (b), 2402,2411,2412 and 2671-2680.
Pa. Laws 1939, No. 376; Purdon’s Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 12, §2081 (Cum. Pocket Part 1949); and see Goldman v. Mitchell-Fletcher Co., 292 Pa. 354, 141 A. 231; Fisher v. Diehl, 156 Pa. Super. 476, 482, 40 A. 2d 912, 916. For the District of Columbia, see Knell v. Feltman, 85 U. S. App. D. C. 22, 174 F. 2d 662; George’s Radio v. Capital Transit Co., 75 U. S. App. D. C. 187, 126 F. 2d 219. No question has been raised as to the applicability of the law of Pennsylvania and that of the District of Columbia in the respective cases as the law under which the liability of the United States is to be determined if its immunity from suit has been waived.
The District Court went further. It stated that it found “nothing within the letter of the statute constituting a waiver of immunity in respect of claims against the United States for contribution in actions in tort.” 87 F. Supp. at 95.
“Sec. 410. (a) Subject to the provisions of this title, the United States district court for the district wherein the plaintiff is resident or wherein the act or omission complained of occurred . . . sitting without a jury, shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear, determine, and render judgment on any claim against the United States, for money only, accruing on and after January 1, 1945, on account of damage to or loss of property or on account of personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant for such damage, loss, injury, or death in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred. Subject to the provisions of this title, the United States shall be liable in respect of such claims to the same claimants, in the same manner, and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances, except that the United States shall not be liable for interest prior to judgment, or for punitive damages. Costs shall be allowed in all courts to the successful claimant to the same extent as if the United States were a private litigant, except that such costs shall not include attorneys’ fees. . . .” 60 Stat. 843-844, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 931 (a).
A proviso as to death cases, included in this section by 61 Stat. 722, as of August 2, 1946, is not material here.
Effective September 1, 1948, the above provisions were repealed and their substance, material here, was largely reenacted in 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed., Supp. Ill) §§ 1346 (b), 1402 (b), 2402 and 2674. We rely on the meaning of the language in the original Act and read the revised language as carrying it out. Insofar as the changes are material here, the reviser’s note merely stated that “Minor changes were made in phraseology.” H. It. Rep. No. 308, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. A123. Furthermore, the acts complained of in the instant cases occurred before the revised code became effective and the parties treat the original language as applicable. “Any rights or liabilities now existing under such [repealed] sections or parts thereof shall not be affected by this repeal.” 62 Stat. 992, effective September 1, 1948.
“Where a statute contains a clear and sweeping waiver of immunity from suit on all claims with certain well defined exceptions, resort to that rule [of strict construction] cannot be had in order to enlarge the exceptions.” Employers’ Fire Ins. Co. v. United States, 167 F. 2d 655, 657. See also, Old Colony Ins. Co. v. United States, 168 F. 2d 931, 933.
The significance of the failure to list a claim for contribution as excepted from the waiver is emphasized by such exceptions as the following:
“(a) Any claim based upon an act or omission of an employee of the Government, exercising due care, in the execution of a statute or regulation, whether or not such statute or regulation be valid ....
“(h) Any claim arising out of assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, libel, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, or interference with contract rights. . . .” 60 Stat. 845, 846, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) §943 (a) and (h), see 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed., Supp. Ill) § 2680 (a) and (h).
The only Act previously adopted in this field was the Small Tort Claims Act of December 28, 1922. It merely authorized heads of executive departments and independent establishments to give summary relief on “any claim accruing after April 6, 1917, on account of damages to or loss of privately owned property where the amount of the claim does not exceed $1,000, caused by the negligence of any officer or employee of the Government acting within the scope of his employment. . . .” 42 Stat. 1066, 31 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) §215; see 60 Stat. 843, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) §921, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed., Supp. Ill) § 2672.
Many bills to enlarge the waiver of immunity were introduced but not passed. See Brooks v. United States, 337 U. S. 49, 51; Gottlieb, The Federal Tort Claims Act — A Statutory Interpretation, 35 Geo. L. J. 1-8 (1946-1947).
The Special Senate Committee on the Organization of Congress, which reported the bill, referred to this Title IV as follows: “It is complementary to the provision in title I banning private bills and resolutions in Congress, leaving claimants to their remedy under this title.” S. Rep. No. 1400 (on S. 2177), 79th Cong., 2d Sess. 29. That provision was:
“PRIVATE BILLS BANNED
“Sec. 131. No private bill or resolution (including so-called omnibus claims or pension bills), and no amendment to any bill or resolution, authorizing or directing (1) the payment of money for property damages, for personal injuries or death for which suit may be instituted under the Federal Tort Claims Act, or for a pension (other than to carry out a provision of law or treaty stipulation); (2) the construction of a bridge across a navigable stream; or (3) the correction of a military or naval record, shall be received or considered in either the Senate or the House of Representatives.” 60 Stat. 831.
The broad lines of the trend in waiving the immunity of the United States from suit appear from the Court of Claims Act of Feb. 24, 1855, 10 Stat. 612, see 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed., Supp. Ill) § 171, et seq.; Tucker Act of Mar. 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 505, see 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed., Supp. Ill) § 1491, et seq.; Patent Infringement Act of June 25, 1910, 36 Stat. 851, as amended, 35 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 68; Suits in Admiralty Act of Mar. 9, 1920, 41 Stat. 525, as amended, 46 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 741, et seq.; Small Tort Claims Act of Dec. 28, 1922, 42 Stat. 1066, see 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed., Supp. Ill) § 2672; Public Vessels Act of Mar. 3, 1925, as amended, 43 Stat. 1112, 46 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 781, et seq. See also, Shumate, Tort Claims Against State Governments, 9 Law and Contemp. Prob. (1942) 242; Constitutional and Statutory Provisions of the States, Vol. VIII, Settlement of Claims Against the States, published by The Council of State Governments (1950).
The views expressed in the earlier legislative history of this particular bill lose force by their omission from the 1946 report and discussion. However, the following comment made in 1942 by the House Committee on the Judiciary, then in charge of the bill, is of some significance for the reason that it relates to the effect of the omission of a certain provision, and there was no occasion to refer again to that omission in 1946:
“Section 403 of the Senate bill provided for proportionate liability of the United States where a Government employee was a joint tort-feasor with someone else. This provision is not contained in the recommended bill and in cases involving joint tort-feasors the rights and liabilities of the United States will be determined by the local law.” (Emphasis supplied.) H. R. Rep. No. 2245, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 12.
This recognizes that with the provision for proportionate liability eliminated, as is still the case, the immunity of the United States should be considered as waived in relation to the Government’s rights and liabilities in cases involving joint tort-feasors.
In the same report, at page 9, the Committee made statements which are relied upon by the Government in argument, as assimilating the proposed jurisdiction of the District Courts under the Federal Tort Claims Act to their existing jurisdiction under the Tucker Act. Based on such assimilation, it is argued that the United States may not be joined as a defendant under the new Act because it could not be so joined under the Tucker Act. These statements were repeated in the report of the same Committee in 1945. H. R. Rep. No. 1287 (on H. R. 181), 79th Cong., 1st Sess. 5. The statements, however, were entirely omitted from even the sectional analysis of the measure when in 1946 it was incorporated in the Reorganization Bill and the report on it was made by the Senate Committee on the Organization of Congress. S. Rep. No. 1400 (on S. 2177), 79th Cong., 2d Sess. 29-34.. The omitted comments related to the joinder of the United States as a co-defendant, rather than as a third-party defendant. We note also that the Tort Claims Act substantially broadens the jurisdiction of the District Courts as compared to that provided by the Tucker Act. Under the Tort Claims Act their jurisdiction is unlimited in amount instead of being restricted to claims not exceeding $10,000; it is exclusive of, rather than concurrent with, that of the Court of Claims, and the District Court procedure is expressly made subject to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure rather than to the Tucker Act.
"Sec. 411. In actions under this part [suits on tort claims against the United States], the forms of process, writs, pleadings, and motions, and the practice and procedure, shall be in accordance with the rules promulgated by the Supreme Court pursuant to the Act of June 19, 1934 (48 Stat.. 1064) [Federal Rules of Civil Procedure]; and the same provisions for counterclaim and set-off, for interest upon judgments, and for payment of judgments, shall be applicable as in cases brought in the United States district courts under the Act of March 3, 1887 (24 Stat. 505) [Tucker Act].” 60 Stat. 844, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) §932.
The above references to the specific instances in which the Tucker Act procedure is to control under the Federal Tort Claims Act emphasize the application of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure under all other circumstances.
In the revision of Title 28, effective September 1,1948, this section was omitted as unnecessary because “the Rules of Civil Procedure promulgated by the Supreme Court shall apply to all civil actions.” S. Rep. No. 1559, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. 12, as to Amendment No. 61.
“Rule 14. Third-Party Practice.
“(a) WheN Defendant May Bring in Third Party. Before the service of his answer a defendant may move ex parte or, after the service of his answer, on notice to the plaintiff, for leave as a third-party plaintiff to serve a summons and complaint upon a person not a party to the action who is or may be liable to him for all or part of the plaintiff’s claim against him. If the motion is granted and the summons and complaint are served, the person so served, hereinafter called the third-party defendant, shall make his defenses to the third-party plaintiff’s claim as provided in Rule 12 ... . The third-party defendant may assert against the plaintiff any defenses which the third-party plaintiff has to the plaintiff’s claim. . . .” (The amendments which became effective March 19, 1948, and are included here, made no changes that are material in the instant cases.)
Rule 20 similarly provides for the permissive joinder of parties.
See Englehardt v. United States, 69 F. Supp. 451 (D. C. Md.); Newsum v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 79 F. Supp. 225 (D. C. S. D. N. Y.) (third-party practice); Maryland v. Manor Real Estate & Trust Co., 83 F. Supp. 91 (D. C. Md.), rev’d in part on other grounds, 176 F. 2d 414; Rivers v. Bauer, 79 F. Supp. 403 (D. C. E. D. Pa.), aff’d, 175 F. 2d 774; and Bullock v. United States, 72 F. Supp. 445 (D. C. N. J.); also 3 Moore’s Federal Practice (2d ed. 1948) 2737-2738; Hulen, Suits on Tort Claims Against the United States, 7 F. E. D. (1948) 699-700; and Note, Joinder of the Government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 59 Yale L. J. 1515-1521 (1950). Contra: Prechtl v. United States, 84 F. Supp. 889 (D. C. W. D. N. Y.); Donovan v. McKenna, 80 F. Supp. 690 (D. C. Mass.); Uarte v. United States, 7 F. R. D. 705 (D. C. S. D. Calif.), aff’d on other grounds, 175 F. 2d 110; Drummond v. United States, 78 F. Supp. 730 (D. C. E. D. Va.).
See Ryan Distributing Corp. v. Caley, 51 F. Supp. 377 (D. C. E. D. Pa.) (in patent litigation, claim of damages for infringement was tried by jury and petition for injunction was passed on by the court); Ford v. Wilson & Co., 30 F. Supp. 163 (D. C. Conn.) (legal issues to jury, equity issues to the court); Munkacsy v. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2 F. R. D. 380 (D. C. E. D. N. Y.) (libel issue by jury; violation of civil rights where jury was not demanded was tried by the court); Mealy v. Fidelity National Bank, 2 F. R. D. 339 (D. C. E. D. N. Y.) (two causes of action tried by court and third by jury); Elkins v. Nobel, 1 F. R. D. 357 (D. C. E. D. N. Y.) (one cause of action tried by court and three by jury). See also, Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 38 (c), 39 and 42.
See note 10, supra. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue of the Court's decision. Determine the issue of the case on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. | What is the issue of the decision? | [
"antitrust (except in the context of mergers and union antitrust)",
"mergers",
"bankruptcy (except in the context of priority of federal fiscal claims)",
"sufficiency of evidence: typically in the context of a jury's determination of compensation for injury or death",
"election of remedies: legal remedies available to injured persons or things",
"liability, governmental: tort or contract actions by or against government or governmental officials other than defense of criminal actions brought under a civil rights action.",
"liability, other than as in sufficiency of evidence, election of remedies, punitive damages",
"liability, punitive damages",
"Employee Retirement Income Security Act (cf. union trust funds)",
"state or local government tax",
"state and territorial land claims",
"state or local government regulation, especially of business (cf. federal pre-emption of state court jurisdiction, federal pre-emption of state legislation or regulation)",
"federal or state regulation of securities",
"natural resources - environmental protection (cf. national supremacy: natural resources, national supremacy: pollution)",
"corruption, governmental or governmental regulation of other than as in campaign spending",
"zoning: constitutionality of such ordinances, or restrictions on owners' or lessors' use of real property",
"arbitration (other than as pertains to labor-management or employer-employee relations (cf. union arbitration)",
"federal or state consumer protection: typically under the Truth in Lending; Food, Drug and Cosmetic; and Consumer Protection Credit Acts",
"patents and copyrights: patent",
"patents and copyrights: copyright",
"patents and copyrights: trademark",
"patents and copyrights: patentability of computer processes",
"federal or state regulation of transportation regulation: railroad",
"federal and some few state regulations of transportation regulation: boat",
"federal and some few state regulation of transportation regulation:truck, or motor carrier",
"federal and some few state regulation of transportation regulation: pipeline (cf. federal public utilities regulation: gas pipeline)",
"federal and some few state regulation of transportation regulation: airline",
"federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: electric power",
"federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: nuclear power",
"federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: oil producer",
"federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: gas producer",
"federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: gas pipeline (cf. federal transportation regulation: pipeline)",
"federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: radio and television (cf. cable television)",
"federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: cable television (cf. radio and television)",
"federal and some few state regulations of public utilities regulation: telephone or telegraph company",
"miscellaneous economic regulation"
] | [
5
] | sc_issue_8 |
NORTHWEST AIRLINES, INC., et al. v. COUNTY OF KENT, MICHIGAN, et al.
No. 92-97.
Argued November 29, 1993
Decided January 24, 1994
Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 374. Blackmun, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Walter A. Smith, Jr., argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was Jonathan S. Franklin.
William F. Hunting, Jr., argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Mark S. Allard, Robert A. Buchanan, and Michael M. Conway.
Edward C. DuMont argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Days, Assistant Attorney General Hunger, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, William Kanter, Christine N. Kohl, Paul M. Geier, and Dale C. Andrews.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Air Transport Association of America by Mary E. Downs; for Thrifty Rent-A-Car System, Inc., by Randall J. Holder and Nancy Glisan Gourley; and for the American Trucking Associations, Inc., by Andrew L. Frey, Andrew J. Pincus, Daniel R. Barney, and Robert Digges, Jr.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of New Hampshire et al. by Jeffrey R. Howard, Attorney General of New Hampshire, and Monica A Ciolfi, Assistant Attorney General, Grant Woods, Attorney General of Arizona, Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General of California, Robert A Butterworth, Attorney General of Florida, Bonnie J. Campbell, Attorney General of Iowa, Michael E. Carpenter, Attorney General of Maine, Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General of Michigan, Joseph P. Mazurek, Attorney General of Montana, Frederick P. DeVesa, Acting Attorney General of New Jersey, Heidi Heitkamp, Attorney General of North Dakota, Mark Barnett, Attorney General of South Dakota, and James E. Doyle, Attorney General of Wisconsin; for the City of Los Angeles by James K. Hahn, Gary R. Netzer, Breton K. Lobner, Steven S. Rosenthal, and Anthony L. Press; for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association by John S. Yodice; for the Airports Council International-North America by Patricia A Hahn; for the American Association of Airport Executives by Scott P. Lewis; for the National Business Aircraft Association, Inc., et al. by Raymond J. Rasenberger; and for the U. S. Conference of Mayors et al. by Richard Ruda.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Seven commercial airlines, petitioners in this case, assert that certain airport user fees charged to them are unreasonable and discriminatory, in violation of the federal Anti-Head Tax Act (AHTA), 49 U, S. C. App. § 1513, and the Commerce Clause. Because the record, as it now stands, does not warrant a judicial determination that the fees in question are unreasonable or unlawfully discriminatory, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
A
The user fees contested in this case are charged by the Kent County International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Airport is owned by respondent Kent County and operated by respondents Kent County Board of Aeronautics and Kent County Department of Aeronautics (collectively, the Airport). Petitioners are seven commercial airlines serving the Airport (the Airlines).
The Airport collects rent and fees from three groups of users: (1) commercial airlines, including petitioners; (2) “general aviation,” i. e., corporate and privately owned aircraft not used for commercial, passenger, cargo, or military service; and (3) nonaeronautical concessionaires, including car rental agencies, the parking lot, restaurants, gift shops, “rent-a-cart” facilities, and other small vendors. Since 1968, the Airport has allocated its costs and set charges to aircraft operators pursuant to a “cost of service” accounting system known as the “Buckley methodology.” This system is designed to charge the Airlines only for the cost of providing the particular facilities and services they use.
Under its accounting system, the Airport first determines the costs of operating the airfield and the passenger terminal, and allocates these costs among the users of the facilities. Costs associated with airfield operations (e. g., maintaining the runways and navigational facilities) are allocated to the Airlines and general aviation in proportion to their use of the airfield. No portion of these costs is allocated to the concessions. Costs associated with maintaining the airport terminal are allocated among the terminal tenants— the Airlines and the concessions — in proportion to each tenant’s square footage.
The Airport then establishes fees and rates for each user group. It charges the Airlines 100% of the costs allocated to them, in the form of aircraft landing and parking fees (for use of the airfield), and rent (for the terminal space the Airlines occupy). General aviation, however, is charged at a lower rate. The Airport recovers from that user group a per gallon fuel flowage fee for local aircraft and a landing fee for aircraft based elsewhere. These fees account for only 20% of the airfield costs allocated to general aviation.
In relation to costs, the Airport thus “undercharges” general aviation. At the same time, measured by allocated costs, the Airport vastly “overcharges” the concessions. The Airlines pay a cost-based per square foot rate for their terminal space. The concessions, however, pay market rates for their space. Market rates substantially exceed the concessions’ allocated costs and yield a sizable surplus. The surplus offsets the general aviation shortfall of approximately $525,000 per year, and has swelled the Airport’s reserve fund by more than $1 million per year.
B
Using the “Buckley methodology” just described, the Airlines and the Airport periodically negotiated and agreed upon fees to be charged through December 31,1986. Following a new rate study made in 1986, the Airport proposed increased fees beginning January 1, 1987. App. 193 (Plaintiffs’ Exh. 6). The Airlines objected to the higher fees and failed to reach an agreement with the Airport. Ultimately, the County Board of Aeronautics adopted an ordinance unilaterally increasing the fees. On the effective date of the ordinance, April 1, 1988, the Airlines sued the Airport, primarily challenging post-December 31, 1986, rates. The Airlines attacked (1) the Airport’s failure to allocate to the concessions a portion of the airfield costs, (2) the surplus generated by the Airport’s fee structure, and (3) the Airport’s failure to charge general aviation 100% of its allocated airfield costs. These features, the Airlines alleged, made the fees imposed on them unreasonable and thus unlawful under the AHTA, as added, 87 Stat. 90, and as amended, 49 U. S. C. App. § 1513, and the Airport and Airway Improvement Act of 1982 (AAIA), 96 Stat. 686, as amended, 49 U. S. C. App. §2210. The Airlines also asserted that the Airport’s treatment of general aviation discriminates against interstate commerce in favor of primarily local traffic, in violation of the Commerce Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3.
The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. In the first of three opinions, the District Court denied the motions, holding that the Airport’s cost methodology is not per se unreasonable. App. to Pet. for Cert. 57. In its second opinion, the District Court held that the Airlines have an implied right of action to challenge the fees under the AHTA but not under the AAIA, and that the Airlines have no cause of action under the Commerce Clause. Id., at 42-46. Following a bench trial, the District Court issued its third and final opinion, concluding that the challenged fees are not unreasonable under the AHTA. 738 F. Supp. 1112 (WD Mich. 1990).
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s judgment in principal part. 955 F. 2d 1054 (1992). In accord with the District Court, the Court of Appeals held that the AHTA impliedly confers a private right of action on the Airlines, but the AAIA does not. Id., at 1058. On the merits, the Court of Appeals (1) upheld as reasonable under the AHTA the bulk of the charges that the Airport imposes on the Airlines, and (2) rejected the Airlines’ dormant Commerce Clause claim on the ground that the AHTA regulates the area. Id., at 1060-1064.
On one matter, however, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s judgment and remanded the case. The District Court had upheld as reasonable under the AHTA the Airport’s decision to allocate to the Airlines 100% of the costs of providing “crash, fire, and rescue” (CFR) services. 738 F. Supp., at 1119. Emphasizing that the CFR facilities service all aircraft, not just the Airlines, the Court of Appeals held that the Airport must allocate CFR costs between the Airlines and general aviation. 955 F. 2d, at 1062-1063, 1064.
Petitioning for this Court’s review, the Airlines challenged the Court of Appeals’ adverse rulings on the AHTA and Commerce Clause issues. The Airport did not cross-petition for review of the Sixth Circuit’s judgment to the extent that it favored the Airlines; specifically, the Airport did not petition for review of the remand to the District Court for allocation of the costs of CFR services between the Airlines and general aviation. We granted certiorari, 508 U. S. 959 (1993), to resolve a conflict between the decision under review and a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Indianapolis Airport Authority v. American Airlines, Inc., 733 F. 2d 1262 (1984), which declared key parts of a similar fee structure unreasonable under the AHTA.
II
A
In Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority Dist. v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 405 U. S. 707 (1972), this Court held that the Commerce Clause does not prohibit States or municipalities from charging commercial airlines a “head tax” on passengers boarding flights at airports within the jurisdiction, to defray the costs of airport construction and maintenance. We stated in Evansville: “At least so long as the toll is based on some fair approximation of use or privilege for use, . . . and is neither discriminatory against interstate commerce nor excessive in comparison with the governmental benefit conferred, it will pass constitutional muster, even though some other formula might reflect more exactly the relative use of the state facilities by individual users.” Id., at 716-717.
Concerned that our decision in Evansville might prompt a proliferation of local taxes burdensome to interstate air transportation, Congress enacted the AHTA. See Aloha Airlines, Inc. v. Director of Taxation of Haw., 464 U. S. 7, 9-10 (1983) (summarizing history of AHTA’s enactment); S. Rep. No. 93-12, p. 4 (1973) (Congress intended AHTA to “ensure . . . that local ‘head’ taxes will not be permitted to inhibit the flow of interstate commerce.”); id., at 17 (“The head tax ... cuts against the grain of the traditional American right to travel among the States.”).
The AHTA provides in pertinent part:
“(a) Prohibition; exemption
“No State (or political subdivision thereof . . .) shall levy or collect a tax, fee, head charge, or other charge, directly or indirectly, on persons traveling in air commerce or on the carriage of persons traveling in air commerce or on the sale of air transportation or on the gross receipts derived therefrom ....
“(b) Permissible State taxes and fees
“[NJothing in this section shall prohibit a State (or political subdivision thereof...) from the levy or collection of taxes other than those enumerated in subsection (a) of this section, including property taxes, net income taxes, franchise taxes, and sales or use taxes on the sale of goods or services; and nothing in this section shall prohibit a State (or political subdivision thereof . . .) owning or operating an airport from levying or collecting reasonable rental charges, landing fees, and other service charges from aircraft operators for the use of airport facilities.” 49 U. S. C. App. § 1513.
Primarily, the Airlines urge that the Airport’s fees overcharge them in violation of the AHTA. Before reaching that issue, however, we face a threshold question. The United States as amicus curiae and, less strenuously, the Airport, urge that the Airlines have no right to enforce the AHTA through a private action commenced in a federal court of first instance. Instead, they maintain, complaints under the AHTA must be pursued initially in administrative proceedings before the Secretary of Transportation, subject to judicial review in the courts of appeals.
The threshold question is substantial: If Congress intended no right of immediate access to a federal court under the AHTA, then the Airlines’ AHTA claim should have been dismissed, not adjudicated on the merits as it was, indeed in part favorably to the Airlines. However, the Airport filed no cross-petition for certiorari seeking to upset the judgment to the extent that it rejected the Airport’s CFR cost allocation (100% to the Airlines) as inconsonant with the AHTA. For that reason, we decline to resolve the private right of action question in this case.
A prevailing party need not cross-petition to defend a judgment on any ground properly raised below, so long as that party seeks to preserve, and not to change, the judgment. See, e. g., Thigpen v. Roberts, 468 U. S. 27, 29-30 (1984). A cross-petition is required, however, when the respondent seeks to alter the judgment below. See, e.g., Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U. S. 111, 119, n. 14 (1985); United States v. New York Telephone Co., 434 U. S. 159, 166, n. 8 (1977); Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc., 426 U. S. 548, 560, n. 11 (1976); United States v. ITT Continental Baking Co., 420 U. S. 223, 226-227, n. 2 (1975). Alteration would be in order if the private right of action question were resolved in favor of the Airport. For then, the entire judgment would be undone, including the portion remanding for reallocation of CFR costs between the Airlines and general aviation. The Airport’s failure to file a cross-petition on the CFR issue — the issue on which it was a judgment loser — thus leads us to resist the plea to declare the AHTA claim unfit for District Court adjudication.
The question whether a federal statute creates a claim for relief is not jurisdictional. See Air Courier Conference v. Postal Workers, 498 U. S. 517, 523, n. 3 (1991); Burks v. Lasker, 441 U. S. 471, 476, n. 5 (1979); Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 278-279 (1977); Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 682 (1946). Accordingly, we shall assume, solely for purposes of this case, that the alleged AHTA private right of action exists.
B
The AHTA prohibits States and their subdivisions from levying a “fee” or “other charge” “directly or indirectly” on “persons traveling in air commerce or on the carriage of persons traveling in air commerce.” 49 U. S. C. § 1513(a). Landing fees, terminal charges, and other airport user fees of the sort here challenged fit § 1513(a)’s description. As we confirmed in an opinion invalidating a state tax on airlines’ gross receipts, §1513(a)’s compass is not limited to direct “head” taxes. Aloha Airlines, 464 U. S., at 12-13.
But § 1513(a) does not stand alone. That subsection’s prohibition is immediately modified by §1513(b)’s permission. See Wardair Canada Inc. v. Florida Dept. of Revenue, 477 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1986) (Burger, C. J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (§ 1513(b)’s saving clause was enacted in response to the States’ concern that §1513(a)’s “sweeping provision would prohibit even unobjectionable taxes such as landing fees . . .”). Sections 1513(a) and (b) together instruct that airport user fees are permissible only if, and to the extent that, they fall within § 1513(b)’s saving clause, which removes from § 1513(a)’s ban “reasonable rental charges, landing fees, and other service charges from aircraft operators for the use of airport facilities.”
While § 1513(b) allows only “reasonable rental charges, landing fees, and other service charges,” the AHTA does not set standards for assessing reasonableness. Courts, we recognize, are scarcely equipped to oversee, without the initial superintendence of a regulatory agency, rate structures and practices. See Colorado Interstate Gas Co. v. FPC, 324 U. S. 581, 589 (1945) (“Rate-making is essentially a legislative function.”); cf. Far East Conference v. United States, 342 U. S. 570, 574 (1952) (“in cases raising issues of fact not within the conventional experience of judges or cases requiring the exercise of administrative discretion, agencies created by Congress for regulating the subject matter should not be passed over”). The Secretary of Transportation is charged with administering the federal aviation laws, including the AHTA. His Department is equipped, as courts are not, to survey the field nationwide, and to regulate based on a full view of the relevant facts and circumstances. If we had the benefit of the Secretary’s reasoned decision concerning the AHTA’s permission for the charges in question, we would accord that decision substantial deference. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-845 (1984). Lacking guidance from the Secretary, however, and compelled to give effect to the statute’s use of “reasonable,” we must look elsewhere.
The parties point to the standards this Court employs to measure the reasonableness of fees under the Commerce Clause, as stated in the Evansville case, see supra, at 362-363; they invite our use of the Evansville standards as baselines for determining the reasonableness of fees under the AHTA. We accept the parties’ suggestions. Although Congress enacted the AHTA because it found unsatisfactory the end result of our Commerce Clause analysis in Evansville — the validation of “head” taxes — Congress specifically permitted, through §1513(b)’s saving clause, “reasonable rental charges, landing fees, and other services charges.” The formulation in Evansville has been used to determine “reasonableness” in related contexts. See, e. g., American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Scheiner, 483 U. S. 266, 289-290 (1987) (applying Evansville test to assess validity under Commerce Clause of state taxes applied to interstate motor carrier); Massachusetts v. United States, 435 U. S. 444, 466-467 (1978) (applying Evansville test to determine constitutionality of tax under intergovernmental immunity doctrine). It will suffice for the purpose at hand.
To recapitulate, a levy is reasonable under Evansville if it (1) is based on some fair approximation of use of the facilities, (2) is not excessive in relation to the benefits conferred, and (3) does not discriminate against interstate commerce. 405 U. S., at 716-717. The Airlines contend that the Airport’s fee structure fails the Evansville test on three main counts. We consider each contention in turn.
1
As noted above, the Airport allocates its air-operations costs between the Airlines and general aviation; the concessions in fact supply the lion’s share of the Airport’s revenues, see supra, at 360, but are allocated none of these costs. The Airlines contend that the concessions benefit substantially, albeit indirectly, from air operations, because those operations generate the concessions’ customer flow. Therefore, the Airlines urge, the Airport’s failure to allocate to the concessions any of the airfield-associated costs violates Evansville’s requirement that user fees be “based on some fair approximation of use or privilege for use.” 405 U. S., at 716-717. The cost reallocation sought by the Airlines would not change the market-based rent paid by the concessions, see supra, at 360, but it would lower the charges imposed on the Airlines.
We see no obvious conflict with Evansville in the Airport’s allocation of the costs of air operations to the Airlines and general aviation, but not to the concessions. Only the Airlines and general aviation actually use the runways and navigational facilities of the Airport; the concessions use only the terminal facilities. The Airport’s decision to allocate costs according to a formula that accounts for this distinction appears to “reflect a fair, if imperfect, approximation of the use of facilities for whose benefit they are imposed.” 405 U. S., at 716-717.
The District Court found that (with one minor exception) the Airport charged the Airlines “the break-even costs for the areas they use.” 738 F. Supp., at 1119. In this light, we cannot conclude that the Airlines were charged fees “excessive in comparison with the governmental benefit conferred.” Evansville, supra, at 717. See also Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 25 (“As long as an airport’s charges to air carriers do not result in revenues that exceed by more than a reasonable margin the costs of servicing those carriers, the Secretary would normally sustain those charges as reasonable under federal law.”) (citing Federal Aviation Administration, Airport Compliance Requirements, Order No. 5190.6A §§4-13, 4-14, pp. 20-22 (Oct. 2, 1989), and 14 CFR § 399.110(f) (1993)).
2
The Airlines also contend that the Airport’s fee methodology is unlawful because, by imposing on the Airlines virtually all of the air-operations costs, and exacting fees from the concessions far in excess of their allocated costs, the methodology generates huge surpluses. The AHTA, however, does not authorize judicial inquiry focused on the amount of the Airport’s surplus. The statute requires only that an airport’s fees not “be excessive in relation to costs incurred by the taxing authorities” for benefits conferred on the user. Evansville, supra, at 719. As we have explained, the Airlines are charged only for the costs of benefits they receive. The Airport’s surplus is generated from fees charged to concessions, and the amounts of those fees are not at issue. As the Court of Appeals pointed out, § 1513(b) applies only to fees charged to “aircraft operators.” 955 F. 2d, at 1060.
The Airlines urge us to consider the effect of the concession revenues when deciding whether the fees charged the Airlines are reasonable, pointing to the Seventh Circuit’s analysis in Indianapolis Airport v. American Airlines, Inc., 733 F. 2d, at 1268 (invalidating the Indianapolis Airport’s fee structure on the ground, inter alia, that the Airport’s generation of a surplus from the concession fees indirectly raised the costs of air travel). The Seventh Circuit, however, overlooked a key factor. It reasoned explicitly from the incorrect premise that “[n]o agency has regulatory authority over the rate practices of the Indianapolis Airport Authority.” Ibid. The Seventh Circuit panel believed that “the duty of regulation [fell] to the courts in the enforcement of the state and federal statutes forbidding unreasonable rates.” Ibid. That court thought it necessary to “imagine [itself] in the role of a regulatory agency.” Ibid. In contrast, our opinion in this case emphasizes that the Department of Transportation has regulatory authority to enforce the federal aviation laws, including the AHTA and the AAIA, see supra, at 366-367, and n. 11, so there is no cause for courts to offer a substitute for “conventional public utility regulation,” 733 F. 2d, at 1268.
We resist inferring a limit on airport surpluses from the AHTA for a further reason. That measure does not mention surplus accumulation, but another statute, the AAIA, directly addresses the use of airport revenues. The AAIA requires that “all revenues generated by the airport . . . be expended for the capital or operating costs of the airport . . . .” 49 U. S. C. App. §2210(a)(12) (emphasis supplied). The Airlines do not suggest that the Airport is using its surplus for any purpose other than Airport-related expenses, nor did they seek review of the lower courts’ holding that they had no right of action under the AAIA. 955 F. 2d, at 1058-1059. For these reasons, even if the AAIA is read to impose a limit on the accumulation of surplus revenues, see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26-27, the question whether the Airport’s surpluses are excessive is not properly before us.
3
Finally, the Airlines contend that the Airport’s fees discriminate against them in favor of general aviation, in violation of Evansville’s instruction that airport tolls be nondiscriminatory regarding interstate commerce and travel. As earlier recounted, see supra, at 359-360, the Airlines pay 100% of their allocated costs while general aviation users are assessed fees covering only 20% of their allocated costs.
We need not consider whether the Airlines would have a compelling point had they established that general aviation is properly categorized as intrastate commerce. Cf., e.g., Chemical Waste Management, Inc. v. Hunt, 504 U. S. 334, 339-348 (1992) (invalidating state fee on hazardous wastes generated outside, but disposed of inside, the State, because it discriminated against interstate commerce); American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Scheiner, 483 U. S., at 268-269 (invalidating state highway use taxes because they discriminated against interstate motor carriers). The record in this case, it suffices to say, does not support the Airlines’ argument. We cannot assume, in the total absence of proof, that the large and diverse general aviation population served by the Airport travels typically intrastate and seldom ventures beyond Michigan’s borders.
I
The Airlines assert that, even if the Airport’s user fees are not unreasonable under the AHTA, they violate the “dormant” Commerce Clause. Even if we considered the AHTA’s express permission for States’ imposition of “reasonable rental charges, landing fees, and other service charges from aircraft operators for the use of airport facilities,” 49 U. S. C. App. § 1513(b), insufficiently clear to rule out judicial dormant Commerce Clause analysis, petitioners’ argument would fail. We have already found the challenged fees reasonable under the AHTA through the lens of Evansville — that is, under a reasonableness standard taken directly from our dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence.
* * *
For the reasons stated, and without prejudging the outcome of any eventual proceeding before or regulation by the Secretary of Transportation, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Justice Blackmun took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
See James C. Buckley, Rental Fee Recommendations (Feb. 1969), App. 223-275.
In contrast, “residual cost” accounting systems base rates and fees on the total cost of operating the airport. See Brief for City of Los Angeles as Amicus Curiae 5.
The parking lot is owned and operated by the Airport itself and is not material to this dispute.
The Airlines are also charged for the cost of providing “crash, fire, and rescue” services, and amortization fees for assets acquired by the Airport.
Most concessions pay 10% of their gross receipts as rent for space.
For example, the Airport’s annual net revenues from 1987 to 1989 ranged from approximately $1.6 million to $1.9 million. App. 278-279 (Plaintiffs’ Exhs. 301 and 355).
The ordinance increased aircraft landing fees by $.20 per thousand pounds, and increased terminal rent charges by $6.67 per square foot for prime heated and air-conditioned space, $.59 per square foot for nonprime air-conditioned space, and $1.84 per square foot for nonprime, heated, non-air-conditioned space. The ordinance also decreased aircraft parking fees by $.12 per thousand pounds. 738 F. Supp. 1112, 1115 (WD Mich. 1990).
Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 435, n. 23 (1984), is not to the contrary. There the Court of Appeals had reversed the respondent’s criminal conviction, holding postarrest incriminating statements inadmissible under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). Because he prevailed in the Court of Appeals, obtaining a judgment entirely in his favor, respondent could not have filed a cross-petition. Accordingly, his contention that certain prearrest statements (whose admissibility the Court of Appeals had left ambiguous) were inadmissible was a permissible argument in defense of the judgment below.
The Airport’s argument, accepted by the dissent, that user fees are entirely outside the scope of the AHTA because they are not “head” taxes, advances an untenable reading of the statute. We note, in this regard, § 1513(b)’s recognition, in its first clause, of “taxes other than those enumerated in subsection (a) of this section, including property taxes, net income taxes, franchise taxes, and sales or use taxes on the sale of goods or services” (emphasis added). Unlike the property and income taxes listed in the first clause of § 1513(b), the airport user fees listed in § 1513(b)’s second clause are not described as taxes “other than those enumerated in subsection (a).” The statute, in sum, is hardly ambiguous on this matter: User fees are covered by § 1513(a), but may be saved by § 1513(b).
The reasonableness of the Airport’s rates might have been referred, prior to any court’s consideration, to the Department of Transportation under the primary jurisdiction doctrine. That doctrine is “specifically applicable to claims properly cognizable in court that contain some issue within the special competence of an administrative agency” and permits courts to make a “ ‘referral’ to the agency, staying further proceedings so as to give the parties reasonable opportunity to seek an administrative ruling.” Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U. S. 258, 268 (1993). However, as the parties have not briefed or argued this question, we decline to invoke the doctrine here.
The Federal Aviation Act, which encompasses the AHTA, authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to conduct investigations, issue orders, and promulgate regulations necessary to implement the statute. See 49 U. S. C. App. § 1354(a). The Act provides a mechanism for administrative adjudication, subject to judicial review in the courts of appeals, of alleged violations. See § 1482(a) (“[a]ny person may file with the Secretary of Transportation ... a complaint in writing with respect to anything done or omitted to be done by any person in contravention of any provisions of [the Act], or of any requirement established pursuant thereto”); § 1486 (judicial review provision). The Secretary has established procedures for adjudicating such complaints through the Federal Aviation Administration, see 14 CFR pt. 13 (1993), and the FAA has entertained challenges to the reasonableness of airport landing fees under the AHTA. See New England Legal Foundation v. Massachusetts Port Authority, 883 F. 2d 157, 159-166 (CA1 1989).
See Brief for Petitioners 20, 22-23; Reply Brief for Petitioners 3-4; Brief for Respondents 32; see also Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 23-29 (arguing that Evansville reasonableness test is satisfied without explicitly endorsing its application).
Contrary to the dissent’s suggestion, applying Evansville’s standards to determine whether airport fees are “reasonable” under § 1513(b) would not permit airports to “imposte] a modest per passenger fee on airlines as a service charge for use of airport facilities.” Post, at 380. Section 1513(a)’s prohibition is written broadly, whereas § 1513(b) is narrow, saving only “reasonable rental charges, landing fees, and other service charges.” A per passenger service charge would be an impermissible “head charge” under § 1513(a), and does not fit into any of the three categories saved by § 1513(b). The user fees challenged here, by contrast, are “rental charges, landing fees, and other service charges,” § 1513(b), that would be prohibited as “fee[s]” or “other charge[s]” under § 1513(a), unless they are “reasonable.” See supra, at 365-366.
It remains open to the Secretary, utilizing his Department’s capacity to comprehend the details of airport operations across the country, and the economics of the air transportation industry, to apply some other formula (including one that entails more rigorous scrutiny) for determining whether fees are “reasonable” within the meaning of the AHTA; his exposition will merit judicial approbation so long as it represents “a permissible construction of the statute.” Chevron U.S. A Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-845 (1984).
See also 405 U. S., at 718-719 (airports may lawfully distinguish among classes of users, including aircraft operators and concessions, based on their differing uses of airport facilities); Denver v. Continental Air Lines, Inc., 712 F. Supp. 834, 838, 839 (Colo. 1989) (rejecting a similar argument, noting: “Nothing in the history and purpose of the Anti-Head Tax Act indicates that Congress intended the courts to act as a public utility commission and intervene in the setting of airport rates and charges through the adoption or rejection of any particular type of cost accounting methodology. Denver’s division of costs and revenues between airlines and concessionaires is facially a reasonable approach to establishing rental charges, terminal rates, landing fees and other service charges which are collected from the users of the facilities at Stapleton [Airport].”).
The District Court found that the Airport overcharged the Airlines for aircraft parking and ordered the Airport “to recalculate this fee to result in a true break-even charge.” 738 F. Supp., at 1120. The Airport did not appeal this order.
The Airlines do not dispute that they are charged only their allocated share of the airfield and terminal costs. They assert, however, that the Airport has allocated to them excessive “carrying charges” or amortization fees for capital improvements. The Court of Appeals specifically addressed and rejected this contention, concluding that the rate charged “is reasonable and should not result in a net present value which exceeds the initial cost of the [capital improvements] project.” 955 F. 2d 1054, 1063 (CA6 1992). We have no cause to disturb that determination.
The Airlines suggest that they had no opportunity to develop a record demonstrating discrimination in favor of intrastate carriers, because the District Court granted summary judgment for respondents on the Commerce Clause question. See Reply Brief for Petitioners 9-10, n. 14. This argument does not fly. The case did proceed to trial on the AHTA claim. The Airlines have asserted that Evansville’s standard governs AHTA reasonableness. Thus, under their own theory, they had to demonstrate the equivalent of a violation of the dormant Commerce Clause — i e., discrimination against interstate commerce — in order to prevail at the AHTA trial. The Airlines’ belated suggestion — which contradicts their endorsement of Evansville, see Brief for Petitioners 22-23 — that discrimination in favor of intrastate commerce is relevant under the Commerce Clause, but not under the AHTA, is unimpressive. The AHTA was a direct response to Evansville; Congress’ principal concern in enacting the measure was to proscribe fees that unduly burden interstate commerce. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 93-12, p. 17 (1973). Covered fees, as we have emphasized, include, but are not limited to, head taxes. See supra, at 365-366, and n. 9.
See, e. g., Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502 U. S. 437, 458 (1992) (requiring that Congress “manifest its unambiguous intent before a federal statute will be read to permit” state regulation discriminating against interstate commerce).
See, e. g., Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U. S. 130, 154 (1982) (“Once Congress acts, courts are not free to review state taxes or other regulations under the dormant Commerce Clause. When Congress has struck the balance it deems appropriate, the courts are no longer needed to prevent States from burdening commerce, and it matters not that the courts would invalidate the state tax or regulation under the Commerce Clause in the absence of congressional action.”). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state associated with the respondent. If the respondent is a federal court or federal judge, note the "state" as the United States. The same holds for other federal employees or officials. | What state is associated with the respondent? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
26
] | sc_respondentstate |
FULMAN et al., TRUSTEES v. UNITED STATES
No. 76-1137.
Argued November 29, 1977
Decided February 22, 1978
Daniel D. Levenson argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioners.
Michael L. Paup argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Friedman, Assistant Attorney General Ferguson, Stuart A. Smith, and Joseph L. Liegl.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in this case is the validity of the provision of Treas. Reg. § 1.562-1 (a), 26 CFR § 1.562-1 (a) (1977), that a personal holding company’s distribution of appreciated property to its shareholders results, under §§561 and 562 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. §§ 561 and 562, in a dividends-paid deduction limited to an amount that is “the adjusted basis of the property in the hands of the distributing corporation at the time of the distribution.” The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit sustained the validity of the provision in this case, 545 F. 2d 268 (1976), disagreeing with the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in H. Wetter Mfg. Co. v. United States, 458 F. 2d 1033 (1972), which had concluded that the limitation on the dividends-paid deduction is invalid and that a personal holding company is entitled to a deduction equal in amount to the fair market value of property distributed. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 431 U. S. 928 (1977). We agree with the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that the limitation on the dividends-paid deduction provided by the regulations is valid, and therefore affirm its judgment.
I
The maximum income tax rate applied to corporations has for many years been substantially below marginal tax rates applicable to high-income individuals. As early as 1913, Congress recognized that this disparity provided an incentive for individuals to create corporations solely to avoid taxes. In response Congress imposed a tax on the shareholders of any corporation “formed or fraudulently availed of” for the purpose of avoiding personal income taxes. Tariff Act of 1913, § II-A, Subdivision 2, 38 Stat. 166; see Ivan Allen Co. v. United States, 422 U. S. 617, 624-625, and n. 8 (1975). Section 220 of the Revenue Act of 1921, 42 Stat. 247, shifted the incidence of this tax to the corporation itself, where it has remained to this day. See Ivan Allen Co. v. United States, supra, at 625 n. 8.
Early statutes designed to combat abuse of the corporate form were not notably successful, however, and in 1934 Congress concluded that the “incorporated pocketbook”- — a closely held corporation formed to receive passive investment property and to accumulate income accruing with respect to that property — had become a major vehicle of tax avoidance. Congress’ response was the personal holding company tax, enacted in 1934, and now codified as §§ 541-547 and 561-565 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. §§ 541-547 and 561-565 (1970 ed. and Supp. V).
The object of the personal holding company tax is to force corporations which are “personal holding companies” to pay in each tax year dividends at least equal to the corporation’s undistributed personal holding company income — i. e., its adjusted taxable income less dividends paid to shareholders of the corporation, see § 545 — thus ensuring that taxpayers cannot escape personal taxes by accumulating income at the corporate level. This object is effectuated by imposing on a personal holding company both the ordinary income tax applicable to its operation as a corporation and a penalty tax of 70% on its undistributed personal holding company income. See §§ 541, 545, 561. Since the penalty tax rate equals or exceeds the highest rate applicable to individual taxpayers, see 26 U. S. C. § 1 (1970 ed. and Supp. V), it will generally be in the interest of those controlling the personal holding company to distribute all personal holding company income, thereby avoiding the 70% tax at the corporate level by reducing to zero the tax base against which it is applied.
II
Petitioners are the successors to Pierce Investment Corp. In 1966 the Commissioner audited Pierce and determined that it was a personal holding company for the tax years 1959, 1960, 1962, and 1963. Deficiencies in personal holding company-taxes of $26,671.30 were assessed against Pierce. In response to the audit, Pierce entered an agreement with the Commissioner pursuant to § 547 of the Code which provides that a corporation in Pierce’s position may enter such an agreement, acknowledging its deficiency and personal holding company status, and may within 90 days thereafter make “deficiency dividend” payments that become a deduction against personal holding company income in the years for which a deficiency was determined and reduce that deficiency. Shares of stock Pierce held in other companies were promptly distributed as deficiency dividends. The fair market value of this stock at the time of distribution is agreed to have been $32,535; its adjusted tax basis, $18,725.11.
Pierce then filed a claim for a deficiency-dividend deduction, as required by § 547 (e), indicating that the value of dividends distributed for the tax years in question was $32,535. The Commissioner, relying on Treas. Reg. § 1.562-1 (a), allowed this claim only to the extent of Pierce’s adjusted basis in the stock, and he determined a new deficiency after reducing Pierce’s personal holding company income by the amount of the deficiency dividends allowed. Pierce paid this tax and the Commissioner denied its claim for a refund.
Petitioners as Pierce’s successors thereafter brought a refund suit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, arguing that the deficiency dividends should have been valued at their fair market value. The District Court on cross-motions for summary judgment denied relief, 407 F. Supp. 1039 (1976), and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. Each court found the Treasury Regulation to be a reasonable interpretation of the personal holding company tax statute, and each expressly refused to follow the contrary holding of H. Wetter Mfg. Co. v. United States, supra. Accordingly a refund was denied.
III
“[I]t is fundamental . . . that as 'contemporaneous constructions by those charged with administration of’ the Code, [Treasury] Regulations 'must be sustained unless unreasonable and plainly inconsistent with the revenue statutes,’ and 'should not be overruled except for weighty reasons.’ ” Bingler v. Johnson, 394 U. S. 741, 749-750 (1969), quoting Commissioner v. South Texas Lumber Co., 333 U. S. 496, 501 (1948); accord, United States v. Correll, 389 U. S. 299, 306-307 (1967). This rule of deference is particularly appropriate here, since, while obviously some rule of valuation must be applied, Congress, as we shall see, failed expressly to provide one. See United States v. Correll, supra; 26 U. S. C. §7805 (a).
Section 547 (a) of the Code requires that a taxpayer who like Pierce pays dividends after a determination of liability by the Commissioner “shall be allowed” “a deduction ... for the amount of deficiency dividends (as defined in subsection (d)) for the purpose of determining the personal holding company tax.” Subsection 547 (d) in turn provides that
“the term 'deficiency dividends’ means the amount of the dividends paid by the corporation . . . , which would have been includible in the computation of the deduction for dividends paid under section 561 for the taxable year with respect to which the liability for personal holding company tax exists, if distributed during such taxable year.”
Continuing this chain of definitions, § 561 (a) provides that the deduction for dividends “shall be the sum of,” inter alia, dividends paid during the taxable year; and §561 (b)(1) points to § 562 as the source of a rule for valuing such dividends. Section 562, however, provides only exceptions to a basic rule said to be provided by § 316 of the Code, 26 U. S. C. § 316. But when we turn to § 316, the trail of definitions finally turns cold, for that section states only that a dividend is a “distribution of property made by a corporation to its shareholders” out of current or accumulated earnings or, in the case of personal holding companies, out of its current personal holding company income. Inexplicably, moreover, the draftsmen refer us back to § 562 for “[r]ules applicable in determining dividends eligible for dividends paid credit deduction.” See Cross References following § 316.
Petitioners suggest that the way out of this circularity is to adopt the valuation rules for distributions of property found in § 301 of the Code, 26 U. S. C. § 301. We cannot agree, for § 301 deals not with the problem of valuing the distribution with respect to the distributing corporation, but establishes rules governing the valuation with respect to distributees. This is not to deny the logical force of petitioners’ argument that, since the purpose of the personal holding company tax is to force individuals to include personal holding company income in their individual returns, the corporate distributor should get a deduction at the corporate level equal to the income generated by the distribution at the shareholder level as defined by § 301, that is, the fair market value of the appreciated property in this case. See 26 U. S. C. § 301 (b) (1)(A). Indeed, H. Wetter Mfg. Co. v. United States, 458 F. 2d 1033 (1972), and Gulf Inland Corp. v. United States, 75-2 USTC ¶ 9620 (WD La.), appeal docketed, No. 75-3767 (CA5 1975), have taken the view urged by petitioners, and but for the Regulation, the argument might well prevail. But, as we have indicated, the issue before us is not how we might resolve the statutory ambiguity in the first instance, but whether there is any reasonable basis for the resolution embodied in the Commissioner’s Regulation. We conclude that there is.
In the Revenue Act of 1936, Congress enacted a surtax on undistributed profits intended to supplement the 1934 enactment of the personal holding company tax. In § 27 (c) of the 1936 Act, 49 Stat. 1665, later codified as § 27 (d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, 53 Stat. 20, Congress expressly provided the “adjusted basis” measure for valuation with respect to the distributing corporation of dividends paid in appreciated property rather than money:
“If a dividend is paid in property other than money . . . the dividends paid credit with respect thereto shall be the adjusted basis of the property in the hands of the corporation at the time of the payment, or the fair market value of the property at the time of the payment, whichever is the lower.”
Although this section may not have been enacted with the personal holding company tax primarily in mind, § 351 (b) (2) (C) of the 1936 Act nonetheless expressly provided that the dividends-paid credit for that tax would be governed by § 27 (c). At the same time, in contrast, the 1936 Act provided that property distributed as a dividend would be valued with respect to distributees at its fair market value. See Revenue Act of 1936, § 116 (j), 49 Stat. 1689.
The relevant provisions of the 1936 Revenue Act were carried over without material change into the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. See §§ 27 (d), 115 (j), of that Code, 53 Stat. 20, 48.. Thus, the logical symmetry between the gain recognized at the shareholder level and the dividend credit allowed at the corporate level, which petitioners argue should be the touchstone for our decision, was not part of the scheme of the Internal Revenue Code from 1936 to 1964.
Nor can Congress’ failure to re-enact a counterpart to § 27 (c) in the 1954 Code be read unambiguously to indicate that Congress had abandoned the "adjusted basis” measure in favor of the “fair market value” measure. In describing the purpose of § 562 (a), which defines dividends eligible for deduction for personal holding company tax purposes, the Senate Finance Committee explained:
“Subsection (a) provides that the term 'dividend’ for purposes of this part shall include, except as otherwise provided in this section, only those dividends described in section 316 .... The requirements of sections 27 (d), (e), (f), and (i) of existing law [Internal Revenue Code of 1939, as amended] are contained in the definition of ‘dividend’ in section 312, and accordingly are not restated in section 562.” S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 325 (1954).
The Report of the House Ways and Means Committee is in haec verba, except that it says that the requirements of §§27 (d), (e), (f), and (i) are contained in what is now § 316 of the 1954 Code. See H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., A181 (1954). The discrepancy between the House and Senate Reports is not material, however, since, as we have explained, there is no way to reach the result of § 27 (c) by following any path through the language of the 1954 Code. In light of the failure of the language of the Code to create the result of § 27 (c), the statement in the House and Senate Reports could be read to indicate that Congress meant to incorporate only so much of § 27 as was actually enacted — that is, none of it. But this meaning is not compelled, and we cannot say that the language of the Reports cannot be read to evince Congress’ intention, albeit erroneously abandoned in execution, to retain the “adjusted basis” valuation rule of § 27 (c).
At the least, it is not unreasonable for the Commissioner to have assumed that Congress intended to carry forward the law existing prior to the 1954 Code with respect to the measure of valuation. As we said in United States v. Ryder, 110 U. S. 729, 740 (1884): “It will not be inferred that the legislature, in revising and consolidating the laws, intended to change their policy, unless such intention be clearly expressed.” Accord, Aberdeen & Rockfish R. Co. v. SCRAP, 422 U. S. 289, 309 n. 12 (1975); Muniz v. Hoffman, 422 U. S. 454, 467-472 (1975); Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Corp., 353 U. S. 222, 227 (1957). If we will not read legislation to abandon previously prevailing law when, as here, a reeodification of law is incomplete or departs substantially and without explanation from prior law, we cannot conclude that the Commissioner may not adopt a similar rationale in drafting his rule. In any case, given the law under the 1939 Code and the ambiguity surrounding the House and Senate Reports on § 562, it is impossible to identify in this case any “weighty reasons” that would justify setting aside the Treasury Regulation.
Affirmed.
Me. Justice Blackmun took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Ҥ 561. Definition of deduction for dividends paid.
“(a) General rule.
“The deduction for dividends paid shall be the sum of—
“(1) the dividends paid during the taxable year,
“(b) Special rules applicable.
“(1) In determining the deduction for dividends paid, the rules provided in section 562 . . . shall be applicable.”
Ҥ 562. Rules applicable in determining dividends eligible for dividends paid deduction.
“(a) General rule.
“For purposes of this part, the term ‘dividend’ shall, except as otherwise provided in this section, include only dividends described in section 316 .. . .”
Ҥ 1.562-1 Dividends for which the dividends paid deduction is allowable,
“(a) General rule. ... If a dividend is paid in property (other than money) the amount of the dividends paid deduction with respect to such property shall be the adjusted basis of the property in the hands of the distributing corporation at the time of the distribution. . . .”
Accord, Gulf Inland Corp. v. United States, 75-2 USTC ¶ 9620 (WD La.), appeal docketed, No. 75-3767 (CA5 1975). But see C. Blake McDowell, Inc. v. Commissioner, 67 T. C. 1043 (1977).
See H. R. Rep. No. 704, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 1, pp. 11-12 (1934); Subcommittee of House Committee on Ways and Means, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., Preliminary Report on Prevention of Tax Avoidance 6-8 (Comm. Print 1934). For a history of the personal holding company tax, see Libin, Personal Holding Companies and the Revenue Act of 1964, 63 Mich. L. Rev. 421, 421-429 (1965).
Sections 561-565 also define the dividends-paid deduction used in the accumulated earnings tax, 26 U. S. C. §§ 531-537 (1970 ed. and Supp. V).
A personal holding company is defined as a corporation at least 60% of whose adjusted ordinary gross income is personal holding company income, and 50%> of whose stock is owned by five or fewer persons. 26 U. S. C. § 542 (a). Personal holding company income is income from passive investment property such as dividends, rents, or royalties. § 543.
Such dividends would, of course, be taxable to noncorporate shareholders at their fair market value. See 26 U. S. C. § 301 (b) (1) (A).
In Wetter, the Sixth Circuit, adopting a “plain meaning” rule, held that the 1954 Code required the rule of 26 U. S. C. § 301 to be used in establishing the value of the dividend deduction under the personal holding company tax. The meaning of the 1954 Code is, however, anything but plain.
Although we have said that penalty tax provisions are to be strictly construed, see Ivan Allen Co. v. United States, 422 U. S. 617, 627 (1975); Commissioner v. Acker, 361 U. S. 87, 91 (1959), this rule of construction does not apply to the personal holding company tax since any penalty can be easily avoided by following — as petitioners’ predecessor did — the guidelines set out in 26 U. S. C. § 547.
Petitioners also argue that the valuation standard provided by § 301 was expressly adopted by the House as the standard to be used in establishing the value of a dividend with respect to a corporation as well as to a distributee-shareholder. In H. R. 8300, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. (1954), the forerunner of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, § 562 (a) referred to § 312 which stated: “The term 'dividend’ when used in this subtitle means a distribution (as determined in section SOI (a)) ... .”. (Emphasis added.) Section 301 (a) defined a “distribution” as “the amount of money . . . and the fair market value of securities and property received” by a distributee. This, petitioners conclude, shows that Congress meant to use the standard of § 301, now codified as 26 U. S. C. § 301, as the standard for valuing distributions of property with respect to both the distributing corporation and the distributee-shareholder.
The language in § 312 italicized above was deleted by the Senate, however, and does not appear in § 316 of the 1954 Code — which corresponds to § 312 of H. R. 8300, supra. Moreover, as explained infra, at 536-538, the House Report states that the rule of § 27 (c) of the Revenue Act of 1936, 49 Stat. 1665, was incorporated in the 1954 Code. If that is indeed the case, then § 301 cannot be the section that governed valuation of property dividends under § 562 (a) of H. R. 8300, since § 301 does not embody the valuation rule of § 27 (c) with respect to distributions to noncorporate shareholders. Instead, H. R. 8300, § 301 (a), mandates the use of fair market value without regard to basis when the distributee is a noncorporate shareholder, whereas §27 (e) mandated the use of the lower of basis or fair market value. The rule of §27 (c) is used in H. R. 8300 only with respect to corporate distributees, taxpayers who were not the target of the personal holding company tax. There is, therefore, no unambiguous inference to be drawn from the linkage between §§ 301, 312, and 562 of the House bill. See also nn. 13-14, infra.
Finally, petitioners argue that our decision in Ivan Allen Co. v. United States, supra, supports their contention that fair market value must be the measure of property dividends. But this is not the case. As we made abundantly clear in Ivan Allen, the fair market value of liquid assets figures only in calculating whether “earnings and profits . . . [have been] permitted to accumulate beyond the reasonable needs of the business.” 26 U. S. C. § 533 (a). Unrealized appreciation does not figure in the tax base to which the accumulated earnings tax applies. See 422 U. S., at 627, 633. Since Ivan Allen thus holds that appreciation does not figure in the accumulated earnings tax base, there is no justification for reasoning from that opinion that such appreciation must nonetheless figure in the dividends to be subtracted from that base.
See generally Drake, Distributions in Kind and the Dividends Paid Deduction — Conflict in the Circuits, 1977 B. Y. U. L. Rev. 45.
Section 27 was added as part of a general revision of the undistributed profits and accumulated earnings taxes. See S. Rep. No. 2156, 74th Cong., 2d Sess., 12-13, 16-18 (1936). There is no discussion in the legislative history of the 1936 Act of the reason for applying § 27 to personal holding companies.
49 Stat. 1732.
The Court of Appeals theorized that this discrepancy may have been due to a typographical error in the Senate Report. As the bill which was to become the 1954 Code was passed by the House, the provisions of § 316 of the Code were set out as § 312. The Senate renumbered the bill, but adopted the discussion of the House Report essentially verbatim, possibly failing to correct all instances where section numbers had changed. See 545 F. 2d, at 270 n. 2.
If one assumes that S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. (1954), is correct in stating that Congress re-enacted § 27 (c) of the Revenue Act of 1936 as § 312 of the 1954 Code, 26 U. S. C. § 312, but see n. 13, supra, then Treas. Reg. 1.562-1 (a), 26 CFR § 1.562-1 (a) (1977), must be upheld because § 312 (a) (3) provides a dividend valuation rule identical to that of § 27 (c). But § 312 is on its face addressed only to the narrow issue of the effect of dividends on corporate earnings and profits, an issue unrelated to the personal holding company tax. Therefore § 312 is no more likely to be the correct locus of the re-enactment of § 27 (c) than § 301 of the Code. Moreover, even if the Senate did intend § 312 to be the locus of the rule of §27 (c), ambiguity remains because the House, if it put §27 (c) anywhere, put it in §§ 301 and 316 of the Code. See n. 9, supra.
Treas. Reg. 1.562-1 (a), 26 CFR § 1.562-1 (a) (1977), does not, of course, correspond to § 27 (c) of the Revenue Act of 1936 in valuing depreciated property. The Treasury Regulation requires adjusted basis to be used in valuing all distributions of property; § 27 (c) provided that the lower of adjusted basis or fair market value would be used. See supra, at 536. However, we have no occasion to pass on the validity of § 1.562-1 (a) as applied to depreciated property since, even if it should be invalid in that circumstance, this would not help petitioners in this case. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations | What is the ideological direction of the decision reviewed by the Supreme Court? | [
"Conservative",
"Liberal",
"Unspecifiable"
] | [
1
] | sc_lcdispositiondirection |
ALTRIA GROUP, INC., et al. v. GOOD et al.
No. 07-562.
Argued October 6, 2008
Decided December 15, 2008
Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Scalia and Auto, JJ., joined, post, p. 91.
Theodore B. Olson argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Mark A. Perry, Amir C. Tayrani, Kenneth J. Parsigian, Kenneth S. Getter, and Guy Miller Struve.
David C. Frederick argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Mark L. Evans, Gerard V. Mantese, Mark Rossman, Thomas V. Urmy, Jr., Todd S. FLeyman, and Samuel W. Lanham, Jr.
Douglas Hallward-Driemeier argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae in support of respondents. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Garre, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Assistant Attorney General Hertz, Mark B. Stern, and Alisa B. Klein
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America by Jeffrey A. Lamken, Allyson N. Ho, Robin S. Conrad, and Amar D. Sarwal; for the National Association of Manufacturers by Peter A. Barile III, Jan S. Amundson, and Quentin Riegel; for the Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc., by John M. Thomas; and for the Washington Legal Foundation by Daniel J. Popeo and Richard A. Samp.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of Maine et al. by G. Steven Rowe, Attorney General of Maine, Paul Stern, Deputy Attorney General, Linda Conti, Chief, Consumer Protection Division, and Jennifer Willis and Carolyn Silsby, Assistant Attorneys General, by Peter J. Niekles, Interim Attorney General of the District of Columbia, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Talis J. Colberg of Alaska, Terry Goddard of Arizona, Dustin McDaniel of Arkansas, Edmund G. Brown, Jr., of California, John W. Suthers of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Joseph R. Biden III of Delaware, Bill McCollum of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Steve Carter of Indiana, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Stephen N. Six of Kansas, Jack Conway of Kentucky, James D. Caldwell of Louisiana, Douglas F. Gansler of Maryland, Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, Lori Swanson of Minnesota, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Mike McGrath of Montana, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Kelly A. Ayotte of New Hampshire, Anne Milgram of New Jersey, Gary K. King of New Mexico, Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Nancy H. Rogers of Ohio, IV A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, Patrick C. Lynch of Rhode Island, Henry D. McMaster of South Carolina, Lawrence E. Long of South Dakota, Robert E. Cooper, Jr., of Tennessee, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Robert M. McKenna of Washington, Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia, J. B. Van Ho lien of Wisconsin, and Bruce A. Salzburg of Wyoming; for the American Medical Association et al. by Gerson H. Smoger; for Former Commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission by Robert L. King; for the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition et al. by Kathleen Hoke Dachille; for the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium et al. by David C. Vladeck, Leslie A. Brueckner, and Julie Nepveu; and for Allan M. Brandt et al. by Robert S. Peck and Francine A. Hochberg.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for Constitutional and Administrative Law Scholars by Ernest A. Young, pro se, and Erin Glenn Busby; and for Former Commissioners et al. of the Federal Trade Commission by Michael S. Fried, Christian G. Vergonis, and Robert T. Smith.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondents, who have for over 15 years smoked “light” cigarettes manufactured by petitioners, Philip Morris USA, Inc., and its parent company, Altria Group, Inc., claim that petitioners violated the Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act (MUTPA). Specifically, they allege that petitioners’ advertising fraudulently conveyed the message that their “light” cigarettes deliver less tar and nicotine to consumers than regular brands despite petitioners’ knowledge that the message was untrue. Petitioners deny the charge, asserting that their advertisements were factually accurate. The merits of the dispute are not before us because the District Court entered summary judgment in favor of petitioners on the ground that respondents’ state-law claim is pre-empted by the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, as amended (Labeling Act or Act). The Court of Appeals reversed that judgment, and we granted certiorari to review its holding that the Labeling Act neither expressly nor impliedly pre-empts respondents’ fraud claim. We affirm.
I
Respondents are Maine residents and longtime smokers of Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights cigarettes, which are manufactured by petitioners. Invoking the diversity jurisdiction of the Federal District Court, respondents filed a complaint alleging that petitioners deliberately deceived them about the true and harmful nature of “light” cigarettes in violation of the MUTPA, Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 5, § 207 (Supp. 2008). Respondents claim that petitioners fraudulently marketed their cigarettes as being “light” and containing “ ‘[Lowered [t]ar and [njicotine’ ” to convey to consumers that they deliver less tar and nicotine and are therefore less harmful than regular cigarettes. App. 28a-29a.
Respondents acknowledge that testing pursuant to the Cambridge Filter Method indicates that tar and nicotine yields of Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights are lower than those of regular cigarettes. Id., at 30a. Respondents allege, however, that petitioners have known at all relevant times that human smokers unconsciously engage in compensatory behaviors not registered by Cambridge Filter Method testing that negate the effect of the tar- and nicotine-reducing features of “light” cigarettes. Id., at 30a-31a. By covering filter ventilation holes with their lips or fingers, taking larger or more frequent puffs, and holding the smoke in their lungs for a longer period of time, smokers of “light” cigarettes unknowingly inhale as much tar and nicotine as do smokers of regular cigarettes. Ibid. “Light” cigarettes are in fact more harmful because the increased ventilation that results from their unique design features produces smoke that is more mutagenic per milligram of tar than the smoke of regular cigarettes. Id., at 31a-32a. Respondents claim that petitioners violated the MUTPA by fraudulently concealing that information and by affirmatively representing, through the use of “light” and “lowered tar and nicotine” descriptors, that their cigarettes would pose fewer health risks. Id., at 32a, 33a.
Petitioners moved for summary judgment on the ground that the Labeling Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1334(b), expressly preempts respondents’ state-law cause of action. Relying on our decisions in Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504 (1992), and Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly, 533 U. S. 525 (2001), the District Court concluded that respondents’ MUTPA claim is pre-empted. The court recast respondents’ claim as a failure-to-warn or warning neutralization claim of the kind pre-empted in Cipollone: The claim charges petitioners with “produc[ing] a product it knew contained hidden risks . . . not apparent or known to the consumer” — a claim that “runs to what [petitioners] actually said about Lights and what [respondents] claim they should have said.” 436 F. Supp. 2d 132, 151 (Me. 2006). And the difference between what petitioners said and what respondents would have them say is “ 'intertwined with the concern about cigarette smoking and health.’” Id., at 153 (quoting Reilly, 533 U. S., at 548). The District Court thus concluded that respondents’ claim rests on a state-law requirement based on smoking and health of precisely the kind that § 1334(b) pre-empts, and it granted summary judgment for petitioners.
Respondents appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed. The Court of Appeals first rejected the District Court’s characterization of respondents’ claim as a warning neutralization claim akin to the pre-empted claim in Cipollone. 501 F. 3d 29, 37, 40 (CA1 2007). Instead, the court concluded that respondents’ claim is in substance a fraud claim that alleges that petitioners falsely represented their cigarettes as “light” or having “lowered tar and nicotine” even though they deliver to smokers the same quantities of those components as do regular cigarettes. Id., at 36. “The fact that these alleged misrepresentations were unaccompanied by additional statements in the nature of a warning does not transform the claimed fraud into failure to warn” or warning neutralization. Id., at 42-43. Finding respondents’ claim indistinguishable from the non-pre-empted fraud claim at issue in Cipollone, the Court of Appeals held that it is not expressly pre-empted. The court also rejected petitioners’ argument that respondents’ claim is impliedly pre-empted because their success on that claim would stand as an obstacle to the purported policy of the FTC allowing the use of descriptive terms that convey Cambridge Filter Method test results. Accordingly, it reversed the judgment of the District Court.
In concluding that respondents’ claim is not expressly preempted, the Court of Appeals considered and rejected the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning in a similar case. 501 F. 3d, at 45. Unlike the court below, the Fifth Circuit likened the plaintiffs’ challenge to the use of “light” descriptors to Cipollone’s warning neutralization claim and thus found it expressly pre-empted. Brown v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 479 F. 3d 383, 392-393 (2007). We granted the petition for certiorari to resolve this apparent conflict. 552 U. S. 1162 (2008).
II
Article VI, cl. 2, of the Constitution provides that the laws of the United States “shall be the supreme Law of the Land;... any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.” Consistent with that command, we have long recognized that state laws that conflict with federal law are “without effect.” Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 746 (1981).
Our inquiry into the scope of a statute’s pre-emptive effect is guided by the rule that “‘[t]he purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone’ in every pre-emption case.” Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U. S. 470, 485 (1996) (quoting Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 375 U. S. 96, 103 (1963)). Congress may indicate pre-emptive intent through a statute’s express language or through its structure and purpose. See Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U. S. 519, 525 (1977). If a federal law contains an express pre-emption clause, it does not immediately end the inquiry because the question of the substance and scope of Congress’ displacement of state law still remains. Pre-emptive intent may also be inferred if the scope of the statute indicates that Congress intended federal law to occupy the legislative field, or if there is an actual conflict between state and federal law. Freightliner Corp. v. Myrick, 514 U. S. 280, 287 (1995).
When addressing questions of express or implied preemption, we begin our analysis “with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States [are] not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947). That assumption applies with particular force when Congress has legislated in a field traditionally occupied by the States. Lohr, 518 U. S., at 485; see also Reilly, 533 U. S., at 541-542 (“Because ‘federal law is said to bar state action in [a] fiel[d] of traditional state regulation,’ namely, advertising, we ‘wor[k] on the assumption that the historic police powers of the States [a]re not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that [is] the clear and manifest purpose of Congress’” (citation omitted)). Thus, when the text of a pre-emption clause is susceptible of more than one plausible reading, courts ordinarily “accept the reading that disfavors pre-emption.” Bates v. Dow Agrosciences LLC, 544 U. S. 431, 449 (2005).
Congress enacted the Labeling Act in 1965 in response to the Surgeon General’s determination that cigarette smoking is harmful to health. The Act required that every package of cigarettes sold in the United States contain a conspicuous warning, and it pre-empted state-law positive enactments that added to the federally prescribed warning. 79 Stat. 283. Congress amended the Labeling Act a few years later by enacting the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969. The amendments strengthened the language of the prescribed warning, 84 Stat. 88, and prohibited cigarette advertising in “any medium of electronic communication subject to [Federal Communications Commission] jurisdiction,” id., at 89. They also broadened the Labeling Act’s preemption provision. See Cipollone, 505 U. S., at 520 (plurality opinion) (discussing the difference in scope of the pre-' emption clauses of the 1965 and 1969 Acts). The Labeling Act has since been amended further to require cigarette manufacturers to include four more explicit warnings in their packaging and advertisements on a rotating basis.
The stated purpose of the Labeling Act is
“to establish a comprehensive Federal program to deal with cigarette labeling and advertising with respect to any relationship between smoking and health, whereby—
“(1) the public may be adequately informed that cigarette smoking may be hazardous to health by inclusion of a warning to that effect on each package of cigarettes; and
“(2) commerce and the national economy may be (A) protected to the maximum extent consistent with this declared policy and (B) not impeded by diverse, nonuniform, and confusing cigarette labeling and advertising regulations with respect to any relationship between smoking and health.” 79 Stat. 282, 15 U. S. C. § 1331.
The requirement that cigarette manufacturers include in their packaging and advertising the precise warnings mandated by Congress furthers the Act’s first purpose. And the Act’s pre-emption provisions promote its second purpose.
As amended, the Labeling Act contains two express preemption provisions. Section 5(a) protects cigarette manufacturers from inconsistent state labeling laws by prohibiting the requirement of additional statements relating to smoking and health on cigarette packages. 15 U. S. C. § 1334(a). Section 5(b), which is at issue in this case, provides that “[n]o requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this chapter.” § 1334(b).
Together, the labeling requirement and pre-emption provisions express Congress’ determination that the prescribed federal warnings are both necessary and sufficient to achieve its purpose of informing the public of the health consequences of smoking. Because Congress has decided that no additional warning statement is needed to attain that goal, States may not impede commerce in cigarettes by enforcing rules that are based on an assumption that the federal warnings are inadequate. Although both of the Act’s purposes are furthered by prohibiting States from supplementing the federally prescribed warning, neither would be served by limiting the States’ authority to prohibit deceptive statements in cigarette advertising. Petitioners acknowledge that “Congress had no intention of insulating tobacco companies from liability for inaccurate statements about the relationship between smoking and health.” Brief for Petitioners 28. But they maintain that Congress could not have intended to permit the enforcement of state fraud rules because doing so would defeat the Labeling Act’s purpose of preventing nonuniform state warning requirements. 15 U. S. C. § 1331. As we observed in Cipollone, however, fraud claims “rely only on a single, uniform standard: falsity.” 505 U. S., at 529 (plurality opinion).
Although it is clear that fidelity to the Act’s purposes does not demand the pre-emption of state fraud rules, the principal question that we must decide is whether the text of § 1334(b) nevertheless requires that result.
Ill
We have construed the operative phrases of § 1334(b) in two prior cases: Cipollone, 505 U. S. 504, and Reilly, 533 U. S. 525. On both occasions we recognized that the phrase “based on smoking and health” modifies the state-law rule at issue rather than a particular application of that rule.
In Cipollone, the plurality, which consisted of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices White, O’Connor, and Stevens, read the pre-emption provision in the 1969 amendments to the Labeling Act to pre-empt common-law rules as well as positive enactments. Unlike Justices Blackmun, Kennedy, and Souter, the plurality concluded that the provision does not preclude all common-law claims that have some relationship to smoking and health. 505 U. S., at 521-523. To determine whether a particular common-law claim is preempted, the plurality inquired “whether the legal duty that is the predicate of the common-law damages action constitutes a 'requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health . . . with respect to . . . advertising or promotion,’ giving that clause a fair but narrow reading.” Id., at 524.
Applying this standard, the plurality held that the plaintiff’s claim that cigarette manufacturers had fraudulently misrepresented and concealed a material fact was not preempted. That claim alleged a violation of the manufacturers’ duty not to deceive — a duty that is not “based on” smoking and health. Id., at 528-529. Respondents in this case also allege a violation of the duty not to deceive as that duty is codified in the MUTPA. The duty codified in that state statute, like the duty imposed by the state common-law rule at issue in Cipollone, has nothing to do with smoking and health.
Petitioners endeavor to distance themselves from that holding by arguing that respondents’ claim is more analogous to the “warning neutralization” claim found to be pre-empted in Cipollone. Although the plurality understood the plaintiff to have presented that claim as a “theory of fraudulent misrepresentation,” id., at 528, the gravamen of the claim was the defendants’ failure to warn, as it was “predicated on a state-law prohibition against statements in advertising and promotional materials that tend to minimize the health hazards associated with smoking,” id., at 527. Thus understood, the Cipollone plurality’s analysis of the warning neutralization claim has no application in this case.
Petitioners nonetheless contend that respondents’ claim is like the pre-empted warning neutralization claim because it is based on statements that “might create a false impression” rather than statements that are “inherently false.” Brief for Petitioners 39. But the extent of the falsehood alleged does not alter the nature of the claim. Nothing in the Labeling Act’s text or purpose or in the plurality opinion in Cipollone suggests that whether a claim is pre-empted turns in any way on the distinction between misleading and inherently false statements. Petitioners’ misunderstanding is the same one that led the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, when confronted with a “light” descriptors claim, to reach a result at odds with the Court of Appeals’ decision in this case. See Brown, 479 F. 3d, at 391-393. Certainly, the extent of the falsehood alleged may bear on whether a plaintiff can prove her fraud claim, but the merits of respondents’ claim are not before us.
Once that erroneous distinction is set aside, it is clear that our holding in Cipollone that the common-law fraud claim was not pre-empted is directly applicable to the statutory claim at issue in this case. As was true of the claim in Cipollone, respondents’ claim that the deceptive statements “light” and “lowered tar and nicotine” induced them to purchase petitioners’ product alleges a breach of the duty not to deceive. To be sure, the presence of the federally mandated warnings may bear on the materiality of petitioners’ allegedly fraudulent statements, “but that possibility does not change [respondents’] case from one about the statements into one about the warnings.” 501 E 3d, at 44.
Our decision in Reilly is consistent with Cipollone’s analysis. Reilly involved regulations promulgated by the Massachusetts attorney general “ ‘in order to address the incidence of cigarette smoking and smokeless tobacco use by children under legal age . . . [and] in order to prevent access to such products by underage consumers.’ ” 533 U. S., at 533 (quoting 940 Code Mass. Regs. §21.01 (2000)). The regulations did not pertain to the content of any advertising; rather, they placed a variety of restrictions on certain cigarette sales and the location of outdoor and point-of-sale cigarette advertising. The attorney general promulgated those restrictions pursuant to his statutory authority to prevent unfair or deceptive trade practices. Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 93A, § 2 (West 1996). But although the attorney general’s authority derived from a general deceptive practices statute like the one at issue in this case, the challenged regulations targeted advertising that tended to promote tobacco use by children instead of prohibiting false or misleading statements. Thus, whereas the “prohibition” in Cipollone was the common-law fraud rule, the “prohibitions” in Reilly were the targeted regulations. Accordingly, our holding in Reilly that the regulations were pre-empted provides no support for an argument that a general prohibition of deceptive practices is “based on” the harm caused by the specific kind of deception to which the prohibition is applied in a given case.
It is true, as petitioners argue, that the appeal of their advertising is based on the relationship between smoking and health. And although respondents have expressly repudiated any claim for damages for personal injuries, see App. 26a, their actual injuries likely encompass harms to health as well as the monetary injuries they allege. These arguments are unavailing, however, because the text of § 1334(b) does not refer to harms related to smoking and health. Rather, it pre-empts only requirements and prohibitions— i. e., rules — that are based on smoking and health. The MUTPA says nothing about either “smoking” or “health.” It is a general rule that creates a duty not to deceive and is therefore unlike the regulations at issue in Reilly.
Petitioners argue in the alternative that we should reject the express pre-emption framework established by the Cipollone plurality and relied on by the Court in Reilly. In so doing, they invoke the reasons set forth in the separate opinions of Justice Blackmun (who especially criticized the plurality’s holding that the failure-to-warn claim was preempted) and Justice Scalia (who argued that the fraud claim also should be pre-empted). While we again acknowledge that our analysis of these claims may lack “theoretical elegance,” we remain persuaded that it represents “a fair understanding of congressional purpose.” Cipollone, 505 U. S., at 529-530, n. 27 (plurality opinion).
Petitioners also contend that the plurality opinion is inconsistent with our decisions in American Airlines, Inc. v. Wolens, 513 U. S. 219 (1995), and Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., 552 U. S. 312 (2008). Both cases, however, are inapposite— the first because it involved a pre-emption provision much broader than the Labeling Act’s, and the second because it involved precisely the type of state rule that Congress had intended to pre-empt.
At issue in Wolens was the pre-emptive effect of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (ADA), 49 U. S. C. App. § 1305(a)(1) (1988 ed.), which prohibits States from enacting or enforcing any law “relating to rates, routes, or services of any air carrier.” The plaintiffs in that case sought to bring a claim under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, 111. Comp. Stat., ch. 815, § 505 (West 1992). Our conclusion that the state-law claim was pre-empted turned on the unusual breadth of the ADA’s pre-emption provision. We had previously held that the meaning of the key phrase in the ADA’s pre-emption provision, “ ‘relating to rates, routes, or services,’ ” is a broad one. Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U. S. 374, 383-384 (1992) (emphasis added). Relying on precedents construing the pre-emptive effect of the same phrase in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a), we concluded that the phrase “‘relating to’ ” indicates Congress’ intent to pre-empt a large area of state law to further its purpose of deregulating the airline industry. 504 U. S., at 383-384. Unquestionably, the phrase “relating to” has a broader scope than the Labeling Act’s reference to rules “based on” smoking and health; whereas “relating to” is synonymous with “having a connection with,” id., at 384, “based on” describes a more direct relationship, see Safeco Ins. Co. of America v. Burr, 551 U. S. 47, 63 (2007) (“In common talk, the phrase ‘based on’ indicates a but-for causal relationship and thus a necessary logical condition”).
Petitioners’ reliance on Riegel is similarly misplaced. The plaintiffs in Riegel sought to bring common-law design, manufacturing, and labeling defect claims against the manufacturer of a faulty catheter. The case presented the question whether those claims were expressly pre-empted by the Medical Device Amendments of 1976 (MDA), 21 U. S. C. § 360c et seq. The MDA’s pre-emption clause provides that no State “‘may establish or continue in effect with respect to a device . . . any requirement’ relating to safety or effectiveness that is different from, or in addition to, federal requirements.” Riegel, 552 U. S., at 328 (quoting 21 U. S. C. § 360k(a); emphasis deleted).
The catheter at issue in Riegel had received premarket approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We concluded that premarket approval imposes “requirement[s] relating to safety [and] effectiveness” because the FDA requires a device that has received premarket approval to be made with almost no design, manufacturing, or labeling deviations from the specifications in its approved application. The plaintiffs’ products liability claims fell within the core of the MDA’s pre-emption provision because they sought to impose different requirements on precisely those aspects of the device that the FDA had approved. Unlike the Cipollone plaintiff’s fraud claim, which fell outside of the Labeling Act’s pre-emptive reach because it did not seek to impose a prohibition “based on smoking and health,” the Riegel plaintiffs’ common-law products liability claims unquestionably sought to enforce “requirement^] relating to safety or effectiveness” under the MDA. That the “relating to” language of the MDA’s pre-emption provision is, like the ADA’s, much broader than the operative language of the Labeling Act provides an additional basis for distinguishing Riegel. Thus, contrary to petitioners’ suggestion, Riegel is entirely consistent with our holding in Cipollone.
In sum, we conclude now, as the plurality did in Cipollone, that “the phrase ‘based on smoking and health’ fairly but narrowly construed does not encompass the more general duty not to make fraudulent statements.” 505 U. S., at 529.
IV
As an alternative to their express pre-emption argument, petitioners contend that respondents’ claim is impliedly preempted because, if allowed to proceed, it would present an obstacle to a longstanding policy of the FTC. According to petitioners, the FTC has for decades promoted the development and consumption of low tar cigarettes and has encouraged consumers to rely on representations of tar and nicotine content based on Cambridge Filter Method testing in choosing among cigarette brands. Even if such a regulatory policy could provide a basis for obstacle pre-emption, petitioners’ description of the FTC’s actions in this regard are inaccurate. The Government itself disavows any policy authorizing the use of “light” and “low tar” descriptors. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16-33.
In 1966, following the publication of the Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health, the FTC issued an industry guidance stating its view that “a factual statement of the tar and nicotine content (expressed in milligrams) of the mainstream smoke from a cigarette,” as measured by Cambridge Filter Method testing, would not violate the FTC Act. App. 478a. The .Commission made clear, however, that the guidanee applied only to factual assertions of tar and nicotine yields and did not invite “collateral representations ... made, expressly or by implication, as. to reduction or elimination of health hazards.” Id., at 479a. A year later, the FTC reiterated its position in a letter to the National Association of Broadcasters. The letter explained that, as a “general rule,” the Commission would not challenge statements of tar and nicotine content when “they are shown to be accurate and fully substantiated by tests conducted in accordance with the [Cambridge Filter Method].” Id., at 368a. In 1970, the FTC considered providing further guidance, proposing a rule that would have required manufacturers to disclose tar and nicotine yields as measured by Cambridge Filter Method testing. 35 Fed. Reg. 12671. The leading cigarette manufacturers responded by submitting a voluntary agreement under which they would disclose tar and nicotine content in their advertising, App. 899a-900a, and the FTC suspended its rulemaking, 36 Fed. Reg. 784 (1971).
Based on these events, petitioners assert that “the FTC has required tobacco companies to disclose tar and nicotine yields in cigarette advertising using a government-mandated testing methodology and has authorized them to use descriptors as shorthand references to those numerical test results.” Brief for Petitioners 2 (emphasis in original). As the foregoing history shows, however, the FTC has in fact never required that cigarette manufacturers disclose tar and nicotine yields, nor has it condoned representations of those yields through the use of “light” or “low tar” descriptors.
Subsequent Commission actions further undermine petitioners’ claim. After the tobacco companies agreed to report tar and nicotine yields as measured by the Cambridge Filter Method, the FTC continued to police cigarette companies’ misleading use of test results. In 1983, the FTC responded to findings that tar and nicotine yields for Barclay cigarettes obtained through Cambridge Filter Method testing were deceptive because the cigarettes in fact delivered disproportionately more tar to smokers than other cigarettes with similar Cambridge Filter Method ratings. 48 Fed. Reg. 15954. And in 1995, the FTC found that a manufacturer’s representation “that consumers will get less tar by smoking ten packs of Carlton brand cigarettes than by smoking a single pack of the other brands” was deceptive even though it was based on the results of Cambridge Filter Method testing. In re American Tobacco Co., 119 F. T. C. 3, 4. The FTC’s conclusion was based on its recognition that, “[i]n truth and in fact, consumers will not necessarily get less tar” due to “such behavior as compensatory smoking.” Ibid.
This history shows that, contrary to petitioners’ suggestion, the FTC has no longstanding policy authorizing collateral representations based on Cambridge Filter Method test results. Rather, the FTC has endeavored to inform consumers of the comparative tar and nicotine content of different cigarette brands and has in some instances prevented misleading representations of Cambridge Filter Method test results. The FTC’s failure to require petitioners to correct their allegedly misleading use of “light” descriptors is not evidence to the contrary; agency nonenforcement of a federal statute is not the same as a policy of approval. Cf. Sprietsma v. Mercury Marine, 537 U. S. 51 (2002) (holding that the Coast Guard’s decision not to regulate propeller guards did not impliedly pre-empt petitioner’s tort claims).
More telling are the FTC’s recent statements regarding the use of “light” and “low tar” descriptors. In 1997, the Commission observed that “[t]here are no official definitions for” the terms “ ‘light’ ” and “ ‘low tar,’ ” and it sought comments on whether “there [is] a need for official guidance with respect to the terms” and whether “the descriptors convey implied health claims.” 62 Fed. Reg. 48163. In November 2008, following public notice and comment, the Commission rescinded its 1966 guidance concerning the Cambridge Filter Method. 73 Fed. Reg. 74500. The rescission is a response to “a consensus among the public health and scientific communities that the Cambridge Filter method is sufficiently flawed that statements of tar and nicotine yields as measured by that method are not likely to help consumers make informed decisions.” Id., at 74503. The Commission’s notice of its proposal to rescind the guidance also reiterated the original limits of that guidance, noting that it “only addressed] simple factual statements of tar and nicotine yields. It d[id] not apply to other conduct or express or implied representations, even if they concerned] tar and nicotine yields.” Id., at 40351.
In short, neither the handful of industry guidances and consent orders on which petitioners rely nor the FTC’s inaction with regard to “light” descriptors even arguably justifies the pre-emption of state deceptive practices rules like the MUTPA.
V
We conclude, as we did in Cipollone, that the Labeling Act does not pre-empt state-law claims like respondents’ that are predicated on the duty not to deceive. We also hold that the FTC’s various decisions with respect to statements of tar and nicotine content do not impliedly pre-empt respondents’ claim. Respondents still must prove that petitioners’ use of “light” and “lowered tar” descriptors in fact violated the state deceptive practices statute, but neither the Labeling Act’s pre-emption provision nor the FTC’s actions in this field prevent a jury from considering that claim. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The MUTPA provides, as relevant, that “[u]nfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are declared unlawful.” §207. In construing that section, courts are to “be guided by the interpretations given by the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Courts to Section 45(a)(1) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 United States Code 45(a)(1)), as from time to time amended.” §207(1).
The Cambridge Filter Method weighs and measures the tar and nicotine collected by a smoking machine that takes 35 milliliter puffs of two seconds’ duration every 60 seconds until the cigarette is smoked to a specified butt length. App. 294a, 668a. As discussed below, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission) signaled in 1966 that the Cambridge Filter Method was an acceptable means of measuring the tar and nicotine content of cigarettes, but it never required manufacturers to publish test results in their advertisements.
79 Stat. 282.
Pub. L. 91-222, 84 Stat. 87. Though actually enacted in 1970, Congress directed that it be cited as a “1969 Act.”
Comprehensive Smoking Education Act, Pub. L. 98-474, §4(a), 98 Stat. 2201,15 U. S. C. § 1333(a).
Petitioners also urge us to find support for their claim that Congress gave the FTC exclusive authority to police deceptive health-related claims in cigarette advertising in what they refer to as the Labeling Act’s “saving clause.” The clause provides that, apart from the warning requirement, nothing in the Act “shall be construed to limit, restrict, expand, or otherwise affect the authority of the Federal Trade Commission with respect to unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the advertising of cigarettes.” § 1336. A plurality of this Court has previously read this clause to “indicate] that Congress intended the phrase ‘relating to smoking and health’... to be construed narrowly, so as not to proscribe the regulation of deceptive advertising.” Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504, 528-529 (1992). Nothing in the clause suggests that Congress meant to proscribe the States’ historic regulation of deceptive advertising practices. The FTC has long depended on cooperative state regulation to achieve its mission because, although one of the smallest administrative agencies, it is charged with policing an enormous amount of activity. See 1 S. Kanwit, Federal Trade Commission §§1:1, 1:2 (2004 ed. and Supp. 2008). Moreover, when the Labeling Act was amended in 1969 it was not even clear that the FTC possessed rulemaking authority, see 84 Stat. 89, making it highly unlikely that Congress would have intended to assign exclusively to the FTC the substantial task of overseeing deceptive practices in cigarette advertisements.
In his dissent, Justice Thomas criticizes our reliance on the plurality opinion in Cipollone, post, at 96-98, 103-108, 111-112, and advocates adopting the analysis set forth by Justice Scalia in his opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part in that case, post, at 95-96, 109-110. But Justice Scalia’s approach was rejected by seven Members of the Court, and in the almost 17 years since Cipollone was decided Congress has done nothing to indicate its approval of that approach. Moreover, Justice Thomas fails to explain why Congress would have intended the result that Justice Scalia’s approach would produce— namely, permitting cigarette manufacturers to engage in fraudulent advertising. As a majority of the Court concluded in Cipollone, nothing in the Labeling Act’s language or purpose supports that result.
The Cipollone plurality further stated that the warning neutralization claim was “merely the converse of a state-law requirement that warnings be included in advertising and promotional materials,” 505 U. S., at 527, evincing the plurality’s recognition that warning neutralization and failure-to-warn claims are two sides of the same coin. Justice Thomas’ criticism of the plurality’s treatment of the failure-to-warn claim, post, at 106, is beside the point, as no such claim is at issue in this litigation.
As the Court of Appeals observed, respondents’ allegations regarding petitioners’ use of the statements “light” and “lowered tar and nicotine” could also support a warning neutralization claim. But respondents did not bring such a claim, and the fact that they could have does not, as petitioners suggest, elevate form over substance. There is nothing new in the recognition that the same conduct might violate multiple proscriptions.
Justice Thomas contends that respondents’ fraud claim must be pre-empted because “[a] judgment in [their] favor will. .. result in a ‘requirement’ that petitioners represent the effects of smoking on health in a particular way in their advertising and promotion of light cigarettes.” Post, at 93. He further asserts that “respondents seek to require the cigarette manufacturers to provide additional warnings about compensatory behavior, or to prohibit them from selling these products with the ‘light’ or ‘low-tar’ descriptors.” Post, at 109-110. But this mischaracterizes the relief respondents seek. If respondents prevail at trial, petitioners will be prohibited from selling as “light” or “low tar” only those cigarettes that are not actually light and do not actually deliver less tar and nicotine. Barring intervening federal regulation, petitioners would remain free to make nonfraudulent use of the “light” and “low-tar” descriptors.
In implementing the MUTPA, neither the state legislature nor the state attorney general has enacted a set of special rules or guidelines targeted at cigarette advertising. As we noted in Cipollone, it was the threatened enactment of new state warning requirements rather than the enforcement of pre-existing general prohibitions against deceptive practices that prompted congressional action in 1969. 505 U. S., at 515, and n. 11.
Petitioners also point to Morales as evidence that our decision in Cipollone was wrong. But Morales predated Cipollone, and it is in any event even more easily distinguishable from this case than American Airlines, Inc. v. Wolens, 513 U. S. 219 (1995). At issue in Morales were guidelines regarding the form and substance of airline fare advertising implemented by the National Association of Attorneys General to give content to state deceptive practices rules. 504 U. S., at 379. Like the regulations at issue in Reilly, the guidelines were industry-specific directives that targeted the subject matter made off-limits by the ADA’s express pre-emption provisions. See also Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transp. Assn., 552 U. S. 364 (2008) (holding that targeted ground carrier regulations were pre-empted by a statute modeled on the ADA).
In a different action, the FTC charged a cigarette manufacturer with violating the FTC Act by misleadingly advertising certain brands as “low in tar” even though they had a higher-than-average tar rating. See In re American Brands, Inc., 79 F. T. C. 255 (1971). The Commission and the manufacturer entered a consent order that prevented the manufacturer from making any such representations unless they were accompanied by a clear and conspicuous disclosure of the cigarettes’ tar and nicotine content as measured by the Cambridge Filter Method. Id., at 258. Petitioners offer this consent order as evidence that the FTC authorized the use of “light” and “low tar” descriptors as long as they accurately describe Cambridge Filter Method test results. As the Government observes, however, the decree only enjoined conduct. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26. And a consent order is in any event only binding on the parties to the agreement. For all of these reasons, the consent order does not support the conclusion that respondents’ claim is impliedly pre-empted.
It seems particularly inappropriate to read a policy of authorization into the FTC’s inaction when that inaction is in part the result of petitioners’ failure to disclose study results showing that Cambridge Filter Method test results do not reflect the amount of tar and nicotine that consumers of “light” cigarettes actually inhale. See id,., at 8-11. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations | What is the ideological direction of the decision reviewed by the Supreme Court? | [
"Conservative",
"Liberal",
"Unspecifiable"
] | [
1
] | sc_lcdispositiondirection |
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. PITTSBURGH STEAMSHIP CO.
No. 258.
Argued April 19, 1949.
Decided June 20, 1949.
Robert L. Stern argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Perlman, Robert N. Denham, David P. Findling and Ruth Weyand.
Nathan L. Miller argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Lee C. Hinslea, Lucian Y. Ray and Roger M. Blough.
Mr. Justice Rutledge
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1945 the National Labor Relations Board, petitioner here, issued its complaint charging respondent with the commission of certain unfair labor practices in the course of operating its fleet of Great Lakes bulk cargo vessels. As developed at a hearing before a trial examiner, the Board’s charges were in substance that in 1944 respondent interfered with attempts by the National Maritime Union to organize respondent’s seamen, with the purpose and the ultimately achieved effect of causing the union’s repudiation at a Board-sponsored election. Specifically, there was testimony tending to show that licensed personnel (officers) on certain of respondent’s ships by word and deed had expressed to their unlicensed seamen bitter hostility to the union and its members; that respondent’s president, one Ferbert, had written two letters to every seaman covertly suggesting in inaccurate fashion the possible disadvantages of NMU. representation; and that one Shartle was discharged from respondent’s employ for engaging in union organization. Some of the Board’s testimony, tendered by union witnesses, was controverted by'respondent’s witnesses; and respondent also introduced testimony tending to show that it had strictly enjoined its licensed personnel to remain wholly neutral in the weeks leading up to and including the Board election.
The trial examiner concluded that respondent had interfered with NMU organization, in violation of §§ 7 and 8 (1) of the Wagner Act, 29 U. S. C. §§ 157, 158 (1), and had fired an employee for union activity, in violation of § 8 (3), 29 U. S. C. § 158 (3). Respondent’s exceptions to the trial examiner’s findings were briefed and argued before the Board, in accordance with its usual procedure. On August 13, 1946, the Board adopted the trial examiner’s findings without substantial change, and issued its order requiring respondent to cease and desist from its antiunion conduct and to reinstate the wrongfully discharged Shartle with full seniority and reimbursement .for lost wages. 69 N. L. R. B. 1395.
Two months later respondent petitioned the Court of Appeals to review the Board’s order; the Board filed a counterpetition for enforcement of the order. On April 5, 1948, the court announced its decision refusing enforcement. 167 F. 2d 126. The court did not determine whether the evidence, if credited, would support the .findings. Instead it held the findings and the order based thereon invalidated by the latent, pervasive and unremedied bias of the trial examiner — a bias found apparent on the face of the record: “Without exception, whenever there was a conflict of evidence, the witnesses for the [Company] were held to be untrustworthy and those for the union reliable. ... It is enough to say that the unvarying repudiation of every witness for the petitioner because of falsity, evasion or faint recollection, along with the consistent exaltation of every union witness as truthful, forthright and accurate, destroys completely any confidence that might otherwise be placed in the findings of the trial examiner and stamp [s] them as arbitrary. The Labor Board having adopted them in toto, its blanket pro forma findings are in no 'better posture. . . . With due respect for the rule that tne findings of the Board are binding upon us if based upon evidence, it becomes impossible to sustain an order upon the adoption of a trial examiner’s report which, upon its face, so clearly bears the imprint of bias and prejudice that it lacks all semblance of fair judicial determination.” 167 F. 2d at 128-129. To review the court’s determination, we granted certiorari. 335 U. S. 857.
First: We are constrained to reject the court’s conclusion that an objective finder of fact could not resolve all factual conflicts arising in a legal proceeding in favor of one litigant. The ordinary lawsuit, civil or criminal, normally depends for its resolution on which version of the facts in dispute is accepted by the trier of fact. Where the number of facts in dispute increases, the arithmetical chance of their uniform resolution diminishes — but it does not disappear. Yet it is not mere arithmetical chance which controls our present inquiry, for the facts disputed in litigation are not random unknowns in isolated equations — they are facets of related human behavior, and the chiseling of one facet helps to mark the borders of the next. Thus, in the determination of litigated facts, the testimony of one who has been found unreliable as to one issue may properly be accorded little weight as to the next. Accordingly, total rejection of an opposed view cannot of itself impugn the integrity or competence of a trier of fact. The gist of the matter has been put well by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, speaking through .Judge Hutcheson, in granting enforcement of an NLRB order:
“The fact alone ... of which Respondent makes so much, that Examiner and Board uniformly credited the Board’s witnesses and as uniformly discredited those of the Respondent, though the Board’s witnesses were few and the Respondent’s witnesses were many, would not furnish a basis for a finding by us that such a bias or partiality existed and therefore the hearings were unfair. Unless the credited evidence . . . carries its own death wound, that is, is incredible and therefore, cannot in law be credited, and the discredited evidence . . . carries its own irrefutable truth, that is, .is of such nature that it cannot in law be discredited, we cannot determine that to credit the one and discredit the other is an evidence of bias.”
Suffice it to say in this case that our attention has been called to no credited testimony which “carries its own death wound,” and to none discredited which “carries its own irrefutable truth.” Indeed, careful scrutiny of the record belies the view that the trial examiner did in fact believe all union testimony or that he even believed the union version of every disputed factual issue. Rather, the printed transcript suggests thoughtful and discriminating evaluation of the facts.
Second: A question remains as to the proper disposition of this case. It is urged upon us by the Board that, there being- substantial evidence in the record to support the Board's findings and order, we should remand the case with instructions to enforce the Board’s order without further delay. Without doubting the existence here of evidence substantial enough under the Wagner Act, Consolidated Edison Co. v. Labor Board, 305 U. S. 197, 229, to warrant the Board’s findings, we are not certain whether that standard controls this case. For questions have arisen whethér the Administrative Procedure Act, 60 Stat. 237, 5 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq., and the Taft-Hartley Act, 61 Stat. 136, 29 U. S. C. (1946 ed., Supp. I), § 141 et seq., enacted between .issuance of the Board’s order and the Court of Appeals’ decision, are applicable.to and, if applicable, in any way affect Board procedures and the scope of judicial review of Board orders. The applicability and possible effect of either or both of -these statutes apparently were not dealt with by the Court of Appeals, which neither discussed the statutes nor cited cases discussing them; the statutes and their’ impact have not been briefed with any elaboration before this Court. These questions should be considered in the first instance by the Court'of Appeals. . Accordingly, in order to afford such an opportunity, we remand the cause to the Court of Appeals for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Jackson reserves opinion as to the sufficiency of the evidence under the Wagner Act in view of the Court’s determination to return the case to the Court of Appeals.
The question voted on was acceptance of the NMU as collective-bargaining agent: the NMU was rejected by a vote of 889 to 720.
Labor Board v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 161 F. 2d 798, 800; see Labor Board v. Auburn Foundry, 119 F. 2d 331, 333.
Thus, for example, the trial examiner had the following to say by way of footnote to his intermediate report: “No attempt will be made to describe all statements and activities claimed by counsel for the Board to constitute part of the respondent’s course of anti-union conduct. Thus, no mention is made of those incidents which the undersigned regards as insubstantial in character or as unsupported by a fair preponderance of credible evidence." 69 N. L. R. B. at 1402, n. 6.
Important issues of fact arose, for example, over whether respondent had been responsible for distributing to the unlicensed seamen (1) copies of a speech hostile to' the NMU delivered by a Member of Congress, (2) copies of a union pamphlet entitled “NMU Fights Jim Crow,” which the union wished to withhold from circulation for fear the unlicensed seamen would react unfavorably to a union advocating racial equality. As to these issues the trial examiner had the following to say: “The respondent admitted responsibility for the issuance of the Ferbert. letters [see text,'supra], but denied that it distributed copies of the speech and pamphlet, both of which, the record establishes, came through the mails. There is no substantial evidence in the record showing - that the respondent was responsible for the distribution of the speech. The Jim Crow pamphlet, which set forth the Union’s opposition to racial discrimination in employment, was admittedly a publication of the Union. While there is evidence that the Union -and its organizers did not issue, or use that pamphlet as part of its campaign to organize the respondent’s vessels, and some support for the assertion that the respondent was responsible for its distribution is to be found in the evidence . . . showing the manner in which the respondent’s supervisory personnel used the pamphlet and its subject matter in playing upon the racial prejudices, antagonisms and fears of the employees, the record is likewise bare of substantial evidence tracing responsibility for- its distribution to the respondent. Consequently, and in view of the respondent’s disclaimer of responsibility, it is found that the respondent did not cause the distribution of the pamphlet or the speech.” .69 N.’L. R. B. at 1400. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the respondent of the case. The respondent is the party being sued or tried and is also known as the appellee. Characterize the respondent as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the respondent by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the respondent is actually single entitiy or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single respondent, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the respondent of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
79
] | sc_respondent |
TEXAS v. BROWN
No. 81-419.
Argued January 12, 1983
Decided April 19, 1983
Justice Rehnquist, joined by The Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice O’ConnoR, concluded that the police officer did not violate the Fourth Amendment in seizing the green balloon from respondent’s automobile. The plain-view doctrine provides grounds for a warrantless seizure of a suspicious item when the officer’s access to the item has some prior justification under the Fourth Amendment. This rule merely reflects an application of the Fourth Amendment’s central requirement of reasonableness to the law governing seizures of property. Here, the officer’s initial stop of respondent’s vehicle was valid, and his actions in shining his flashlight into the car and changing his position to see what was inside did not violate any Fourth Amendment rights. The “immediately apparent” language in Coolidge, supra, does not establish a requirement that a police officer “know” that certain items are contraband or evidence of a crime. “The seizure of property in plain view involves no invasion of privacy and is presumptively reasonable, assuming that there is probable cause to associate the property with criminal activity.” Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 587. Probable cause is a flexible, common-sense standard, merely requiring that the facts available to the officer would warrant a man of reasonable caution to believe that certain items may be contraband or stolen property or useful as evidence of a crime; it does not demand any showing that such a belief be correct or more likely true than false. In view of the police officer’s testimony here, corroborated by that of the police department chemist, as to the common use of balloons in packaging narcotics, the officer had probable cause to believe that the balloon contained an illicit substance. Moreover, the requirement of the plain-view doctrine under Coolidge, supra, that the officer must discover incriminating evidence “inadvertently,” without knowing in advance the location of the particular evidence and intending to seize it by use of the doctrine as a pretext, was no bar to the seizure here. Pp. 735-744.
Justice Powell, joined by Justice Blackmun, concurring in the judgment, concluded that the articulation in Coolidge, supra, of the plain-view exception to the Warrant Clause requirements of the Fourth Amendment is dispositive of the issue here. Respondent conceded that the officer’s initial intrusion was lawful and that the discovery of the tied-off balloon was inadvertent in that it was observed in the course of a lawful inspection of the front seat area of the automobile. If probable cause must be shown to justify the seizure, it existed here, in light of the evidence that tied-off balloons are common containers for carrying illegal narcotics. Moreover, a law enforcement officer may rely on his training and experience to draw inferences and make deductions that might well elude an untrained person. Pp. 744-746.
Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall, concurring in the judgment, concluded that under the “plain view” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement the officer’s warrantless temporary seizure of the balloon was proper, but that before the balloon’s contents could be used as evidence, the State had to justify opening it without a warrant, a question that remains open to the state court on remand. Pp. 747-751.
Rehnquist, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which BURGER, C. J., and White and O’Connor, JJ., joined. White, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 744. Powell, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Blackmun, J., joined, post, p. 744. Stevens, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Brennan and Marshall, JJ., joined, post, p. 747.
C. Chris Marshall argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Tim Curry, L. T. Wilson, and Stephen R. Chaney.
Allan K. Butcher argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was J. Don Carter.
Solicitor General Lee, Assistant Attorney General Jensen, Deputy Solicitor General Frey, and Joshua I. Schwartz filed a brief for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Justice Rehnquist
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice O’Connor joined.
Respondent Clifford James Brown was convicted in the District Court of Tarrant County, Tex., for possession of heroin in violation of state law. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed his conviction, holding that certain evidence should have been suppressed because it was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 617 S. W. 2d 196. That court rejected the State’s contention that the so-called “plain view” doctrine justified the police seizure. Because of apparent uncertainty concerning the scope and applicability of this doctrine, we granted certiorari, 457 U. S. 1116, and now reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
On a summer evening in June 1979, Tom Maples, an officer of the Fort Worth police force, assisted in setting up a routine driver’s license checkpoint on East Allen Street in that city. Shortly before midnight Maples stopped an automobile driven by respondent Brown, who was alone. Standing alongside the driver’s window of Brown’s car, Maples asked him for his driver’s license. At roughly the same time, Maples shined his flashlight into the car and saw Brown withdraw his right hand from his right pants pocket. Caught between the two middle fingers of the hand was an opaque, green party balloon, knotted about one-half inch from the tip. Brown let the balloon fall to the seat beside his leg, and then reached across the passenger seat and opened the glove compartment.
Because of his previous experience in arrests for drug offenses, Maples testified that he was aware that narcotics frequently were packaged in balloons like the one in Brown’s hand. When he saw the balloon, Maples shifted his position in order to obtain a better view of the interior of the glove compartment. He noticed that it contained several small plastic vials, quantities of loose white powder, and an open bag of party balloons. After rummaging briefly through the glove compartment, Brown told Maples that he had no driver’s license in his possession. Maples then instructed him to get out of the car and stand at its rear. Brown complied, and, before following him to the rear of the car, Maples reached into the car and picked up the green balloon; there seemed to be a sort of powdery substance within the tied-off portion of the balloon.
Maples then displayed the balloon to a fellow officer who indicated that he “understood the situation.” The two officers then advised Brown that he was under arrest. They also conducted an on-the-scene inventory of Brown’s car, discovering several plastic bags containing a green leafy substance and a large bottle of milk sugar. These items, like the balloon, were seized by the officers. At the suppression hearing conducted by the District Court, a police department chemist testified that he had examined the substance in the balloon seized by Maples and determined that it was heroin. He also testified that narcotics frequently were packaged in ordinary party balloons.
The Court of Criminal Appeals, discussing the Fourth Amendment issue, observed that “ ‘plain view alone is never enough to justify the warrantless seizure of evidence.’ ” 617 S. W. 2d, at 200, quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 468 (1971) (opinion of Stewart, J., joined by Douglas, Brennan, and Marshall, JJ.) It further concluded that “Officer Maples had to know that ‘incriminatory evidence was before him when he seized the balloon.’” 617 S. W. 2d, at 200 (emphasis supplied), quoting DeLao v. State, 550 S. W. 2d 289, 291 (Tex. Crim. App. 1977). On the State’s petition for rehearing, three judges dissented, stating their view that “[t]he issue turns on whether an officer, relying on years of practical experience and knowledge commonly accepted, has probable cause to seize the balloon in plain view.” 617 S. W. 2d, at 201.
Because the “plain view” doctrine generally is invoked in conjunction with other Fourth Amendment principles, such as those relating to warrants, probable cause, and search incident to arrest, we rehearse briefly these better understood principles of Fourth Amendment law. That Amendment secures the persons, houses, papers, and effects of the people against unreasonable searches and seizures, and requires the existence of probable cause before a warrant shall issue. Our cases hold that procedure by way of a warrant is preferred, although in a wide range of diverse situations we have recognized flexible, common-sense exceptions to this requirement. See, e. g., Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294 (1967) (hot pursuit); United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48, 51-52 (1951) (exigent circumstances); United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798 (1982) (automobile search); Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969), United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218 (1973), and New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981) (search of person and surrounding area incident to arrest); Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U. S. 266 (1973) (search at border or “functional equivalent”); Zap v. United States, 328 U. S. 624, 630 (1946) (consent). We have also held to be permissible intrusions less severe than full-scale searches or seizures without the necessity of a warrant. See, e. g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968) (stop and frisk); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 (1975) (seizure for questioning); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648 (1979) (roadblock). One frequently mentioned “exception to the warrant requirement,” Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, at 456, is the so-called “plain view” doctrine, relied upon by the State in this case.
While conceding that the green balloon seized by Officer Maples was clearly visible to him, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the State might not avail itself of the “plain view” doctrine. That court said:
“For the plain view doctrine to apply, not only must the officer be legitimately in a position to view the object, but it must be immediately apparent to the police that they have evidence before them. This ‘immediately apparent’ aspect is central to the plain view exception and is here relied upon by appellant. [Citation omitted.] In this case then, Officer Maples had to know that ‘incriminatory evidence was before him when he seized the balloon.’” 617 S. W. 2d, at 200.
The Court of Criminal Appeals based its conclusion primarily on the plurality portion of the opinion of this Court in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra. In the Coolidge plurality’s view, the “plain view” doctrine permits the warrantless seizure by police of private possessions where three requirements are satisfied. First, the police officer must lawfully make an “initial intrusion” or otherwise properly be in a position from which he can view a particular area. Id., at 465-468. Second, the officer must discover incriminating evidence “inadvertently,” which is to say, he may not “know in advance the location of [certain] evidence and intend to seize it,” relying on the plain-view doctrine only as a pretext. Id., at 470. Finally, it must be “immediately apparent” to the police that the items they observe may be evidence of a crime, contraband, or otherwise subject to seizure. Id., at 466. While the lower courts generally have applied the Coolidge plurality’s discussion of “plain view,” it has never been expressly adopted by a majority of this Court. On the contrary, the plurality’s formulation was sharply criticized at the time, see, Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S., at 506 (Black, J., dissenting); id., at 516-521 (White, J., dissenting). While not a binding precedent, as the considered opinion of four Members of this Court it should obviously be the point of reference for further discussion of the issue.
The Coolidge plurality observed: “it is important to keep in mind that, in the vast majority of cases, any evidence seized by the police will be in plain view, at least at the moment of seizure,” simply as “the normal concomitant of any search, legal or illegal.” Id., at 465. The question whether property in plain view of the police may be seized therefore must turn on the legality of the intrusion that enables them to perceive and physically seize the property in question. The Coolidge plurality, while following this approach to “plain view,” characterized it as an independent exception to the warrant requirement. At least from an analytical perspective, this description may be somewhat inaccurate. We recognized in Payton v. New, York, 445 U. S. 573, 587 (1980), the well-settled rule that “objects such as weapons or contraband found in a public place may be seized by the police without a warrant. The seizure of property in plain view involves no invasion of privacy and is presumptively reasonable, assuming that there is probable cause to associate the property with criminal activity.” A different situation is presented, however, when the property in open view is “‘situated on private premises to which access is not otherwise available for the seizing officer.’” Ibid., quoting G. M. Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U. S. 338, 354 (1977). As these cases indicate, “plain view” provides grounds for seizure of an item when an officer’s access to an object has some prior justification under the Fourth Amendment. “Plain view” is perhaps better understood, therefore, not as an independent “exception” to the Warrant Clause, but simply as an extension of whatever the prior justification for an officer’s “access to an object” may be.
The principle is grounded on the recognition that when a police officer has observed an object in “plain view,” the owner’s remaining interests in the object are merely those of possession and ownership, see Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, at 515 (White, J., dissenting). Likewise, it reflects the fact that requiring police to obtain a warrant once they have obtained a first-hand perception of contraband, stolen property, or incriminating evidence generally would be a “needless inconvenience,” 403 U. S., at 468, that might involve danger to the police and public. Ibid. We have said previously that “the permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice is judged by balancing its intrusion on . . . Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S., at 654. In light of the private and governmental interests just outlined, our decisions have come to reflect the rule that if, while lawfully engaged in an activity in a particular place, police officers perceive a suspicious object, they may seize it immediately. See Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192 (1927); Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344, 358 (1931); United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U. S. 452, 465 (1932); Harris v. United States, 390 U. S. 234, 236 (1968); Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U. S. 731 (1969). This rule merely reflects an application of the Fourth Amendment’s central requirement of reasonableness to the law governing seizures of property.
Applying these principles, we conclude that Officer Maples properly seized the green balloon from Brown’s automobile. The Court of Criminal Appeals stated that it did not “question . . . the validity of the officer’s initial stop of appellant’s vehicle as a part of a license check,” 617 S. W. 2d, at 200, and we agree. Delaware v. Prouse, supra, at 654-655. It is likewise beyond dispute that Maples’ action in shining his flashlight to illuminate the interior of Brown’s car trenched upon no right secured to the latter by the Fourth Amendment. The Court said in United States v. Lee, 274 U. S. 559, 563 (1927): “[The] use of a searchlight is comparable to the use of a marine glass or a field glass. It is not prohibited by the Constitution.” Numerous other courts have agreed that the use of artificial means to illuminate a darkened area simply does not constitute a search, and thus triggers no Fourth Amendment protection.
Likewise, the fact that Maples “changed [his] position” and “bent down at an angle so [he] could see what was inside” Brown’s car, App. 16, is irrelevant to Fourth Amendment analysis. The general public could peer into the interior of Brown’s automobile from any number of angles; there is no reason Maples should be precluded from observing as an officer what would be entirely visible to him as a private citizen. There is no legitimate expectation of privacy, Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring); Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735, 739-745 (1979), shielding that portion of the interior of an automobile which may be viewed from outside the vehicle by either inquisitive passersby or diligent police officers. In short, the conduct that enabled Maples to observe the interior of Brown’s car and of his open glove compartment was not a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
Thus there can be no dispute here as to the presence of the first of the three requirements held necessary by the Coolidge plurality to invoke the “plain view” doctrine. But the Court of Criminal Appeals, as we have noted, felt the State’s case ran aground on the requirement that the incriminating nature of the items be “immediately apparent” to the police officer. To the Court of Criminal Appeals, this apparently meant that the officer must be possessed of near certainty as to the seizable nature of the items. Decisions by this Court since Coolidge indicate that the use of the phrase “immediately apparent” was very likely an unhappy choice of words, since it can be taken to imply that an unduly high degree of certainty as to the incriminatory character of evidence is necessary for an application of the “plain view” doctrine.
In Colorado v. Bannister, 449 U. S. 1, 3-4 (1980), we applied what was in substance the plain-view doctrine to an officer’s seizure of evidence from an automobile. Id., at 4, n. 4. The officer noticed that the occupants of the automobile matched a description of persons suspected of a theft and that auto parts in the open glove compartment of the car similarly resembled ones reported stolen. The Court held that these facts supplied the officer with “probable cause,” id., at 4, and therefore, that he could seize the incriminating items from the car without a warrant. Plainly, the Court did not view the “immediately apparent” language of Coolidge as establishing any requirement that a police officer “know” that certain items are contraband or evidence of a crime. Indeed, Colorado v. Bannister, supra, was merely an application of the rule, set forth in Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980), that “[t]he seizure of property in plain view involves no invasion of privacy and is presumptively reasonable, assuming that there is probable cause to associate the property with criminal activity.” Id., at 587 (emphasis added). We think this statement of the rule from Payton, supra, requiring probable cause for seizure in the ordinary case, is consistent with the Fourth Amendment and we reaffirm it here.
As the Court frequently has remarked, probable cause is a flexible, common-sense standard. It merely requires that the facts available to the officer would “warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief,” Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 182, 162 (1925), that certain items may be contraband or stolen property or useful as evidence of a crime; it does not demand any showing that such a belief be correct or more likely true than false. A “practical, nontechnical” probability that incriminating evidence is involved is all that is required. Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160, 176 (1949). Moreover, our observation in United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 418 (1981), regarding “particularized suspicion,” is equally applicable to the probable-cause requirement:
“The process does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities. Long before the law of probabilities was articulated as such, practical people formulated certain common-sense conclusions about human behavior; jurors as factfinders are permitted to do the same — and so are law enforcement officers. Finally, the evidence thus collected must be seen and weighed not in terms of library analysis by scholars, but as understood by those versed in the field of law enforcement.”
With these considerations in mind it is plain that Officer Maples possessed probable cause to believe that the balloon in Brown’s hand contained an illicit substance. Maples testified that he was aware, both from his participation in previous narcotics arrests and from discussions with other officers,
that balloons tied in the manner of the one possessed by Brown were frequently used to carry narcotics. This testimony was corroborated by that of a police department chemist who noted that it was “common” for balloons to be used in packaging narcotics. In addition, Maples was able to observe the contents of the glove compartment of Brown’s car, which revealed further suggestions that Brown was engaged in activities that might involve possession of illicit substances. The fact that Maples could not see through the opaque fabric of the balloon is all but irrelevant: the distinctive character of the balloon itself spoke volumes as to its contents — particularly to the trained eye of the officer.
In addition to its statement that for seizure of objects in plain view to be justified the basis upon which they might be seized had to be “immediately apparent,” and the requirement that the initial intrusion be lawful, both of which requirements we hold were satisfied here, the Coolidge plurality also stated that the police must discover incriminating evidence “inadvertently,” which is to say, they may not “know in advance the location of [certain] evidence and intend to seize it,” relying on the plain-view doctrine only as a pretense. 430 U. S., at 470. Whatever may be the final disposition of the “inadvertence” element of “plain view,” it clearly was no bar to the seizure here. The circumstances of this meeting between Maples and Brown give no suggestion that the roadblock was a pretext whereby evidence of narcotics violation might be uncovered in “plain view” in the course of a check for driver’s licenses. Here, although the officers no doubt had an expectation that some of the cars they halted on East Allen Street — which was part of a “medium” area of narcotics traffic, App. 33 — would contain narcotics or paraphernalia, there is no indication in the record that they had anything beyond this generalized expectation. Likewise, there is no indication that Maples had any reason to believe that any particular object would be in Brown’s glove compartment or elsewhere in his automobile. The “inadvertence” requirement of “plain view,” properly understood, was no bar to the seizure here.
Maples lawfully viewed the green balloon in the interior of Brown’s car, and had probable cause to believe that it was subject to seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is accordingly reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Brown argues that the decision below rested on an independent and adequate state ground, and therefore that this Court lacks jurisdiction. Fox Film Corp. v. Muller, 296 U. S. 207, 210 (1935). The position is untenable. The opinion of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rests squarely on the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443 (1971), and on Texas cases interpreting that decision, e. g., Howard v. State, 599 S. W. 2d 597 (Tex. Crim. App. 1979); DeLao v. State, 550 S. W. 2d 289 (Tex. Crim. App. 1977); Duncan v. State, 549 S. W. 2d 730 (Tex. Crim. App. 1977); and Nicholas v. State, 502 S. W. 2d 169 (Tex. Crim. App. 1973). The only mention of the Texas Constitution occurs in a summary of Brown’s contentions at the outset of the lower court’s opinion.
Brown relies principally on Howard v. State, supra, and Duncan v. State, supra. Neither decision supports the proposition that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals based its decision upon state law. In Howard, the State argued that the plain-view doctrine justified the seizure of a closed translucent medicine jar from an automobile. The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the claim, relying on Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, and stating that the State’s arguments “cannot be squared with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the plain view doctrine.” 599 S. W. 2d, at 602. The court also relied on Thomas v. State, 572 S. W. 2d 507 (Tex. Crim. App. 1976), which it characterized as “[fjollowing the teachings of Coolidge v. New Hampshire.” 599 S. W. 2d, at 602. An additional opinion of the court on the State’s motion for rehearing merely elaborated upon the application of the plain-view doctrine set forth in the court’s original opinion. Similarly, in Duncan, the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the State’s reliance on the plain-view theory, citing to Coolidge for a statement of the applicable law, as well as to Nicholas v. State, supra. Like the court’s other decisions in the area, Nicholas relied only on Coolidge.
It is not clear on the record before us when Brown was arrested. The Court of Criminal Appeals stated, at one point in its opinion, that it did not question “the propriety of the arrest since appellant failed to produce a driver’s license.” ■ 617 S. W. 2d 196,200. This statement might be read to suggest that Brown was arrested upon his failure to produce a license, instead of at some point following seizure of the balloon from the car. The transcript of the suppression hearing, however, indicates rather clearly that Brown was not formally arrested until after seizure of the balloon. App. 28-31. In the face of such indications, we decline to interpret the above-quoted clause from the Court of Criminal Appeals’ opinion as evidencing a belief that an arrest occurred prior to seizure of the balloon. Rather, we think it likely that the court was simply reasoning that Brown’s arrest, whenever it may have taken place, was justified because of his failure to produce a driver’s license.
We do not address the argument that seizure of the balloon would have been justified under New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), which permits warrantless searches of the passenger compartment of an automobile incident to an arrest, because of the absence of clear factual findings regarding the time at which, and the reason for which, Brown was arrested and because the lower court was not able to consider that decision.
The plurality also remarked that “plain view alone is never enough to justify the warrantless seizure of evidence.” 403 U. S., at 468. The court below appeared to understand this phrase to impose an independent limitation upon the scope of the plain-view doctrine articulated in Coolidge. The context in which the plurality used the phrase, however, indicates that it was merely a rephrasing of its conclusion, discussed below, that in order for the plain-view doctrine to apply, a police officer must be engaged in a lawful intrusion or must otherwise legitimately occupy the position affording him a “plain view.”
Thus, police may perceive an object while executing a search warrant, or they may come across an item while acting pursuant to some exception to the Warrant Clause, e. g., Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294 (1967); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968). Alternatively, police may need no justification under the Fourth Amendment for their access to an item, such as when property is left in a public place, see Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 587 (1980).
It is important to distinguish “plain view,” as used in Coolidge to justify seizure of an object, from an officer’s mere observation of an item left in plain view. Whereas the latter generally involves no Fourth Amendment search, see infra, at 740; Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967), the former generally does implicate the Amendment’s limitations upon seizures of personal property. The information obtained as a result of observation of an object in plain sight may be the basis for probable cause or reasonable suspicion of illegal activity. In turn, these levels of suspicion may, in some cases, see, e. g., Terry v. Ohio, supra; United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798 (1982), justify police conduct affording them access to a particular item.
E. g., United States v. Chesher, 678 F. 2d 1353, 1356-1357, n. 2 (CA9 1982); United States v. Ocampo, 650 F. 2d 421, 427 (CA2 1981); United States v. Pugh, 566 F. 2d 626, 627, n. 2 (CA8 1977), cert. denied, 435 U. S. 1010 (1978); United States v. Coplen, 541 F. 2d 211 (CA9 1976), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 1073 (1977); United States v. Lara, 517 F. 2d 209 (CA5 1975); United States v. Johnson, 506 F. 2d 674 (CA8 1974), cert. denied, 421 U. S. 917 (1975); United States v. Booker, 461 F. 2d 990, 992 (CA6 1972); United States v. Hanahan, 442 F. 2d 649 (CA7 1971); People v. Waits, 196 Colo. 35, 580 P. 2d 391 (1978); Redd v. State, 240 Ga. 753, 243 S. E. 2d 16 (1978); State v. Chattley, 390 A. 2d 472 (Me. 1978); State v. Vohnoutka, 292 N. W. 2d 756 (Minn. 1980); Dick v. State, 596 P. 2d 1265 (Okla. Crim. App. 1979); State v. Miller, 45 Ore. App. 407, 608 P. 2d 595 (1980); Albo v. State, 379 So. 2d 648 (Fla. 1980).
While seizure of the balloon required a warrantless, physical intrusion into Brown’s automobile, this was proper, assuming that the remaining requirements of the plain-view doctrine were satisfied. United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798 (1982).
We need not address whether, in some circumstances, a degree of suspicion lower than probable cause would be sufficient basis for a seizure in certain cases.
See State v. King, 191 N. W. 2d 650, 655 (Iowa 1971); United States v. Santana, 485 F. 2d 365, 369-370 (CA2 1973), cert. denied, 415 U. S. 931 (1974); United States v. Bradshaw, 490 F. 2d 1097, 1101, n. 3 (CA4), cert. denied, 419 U. S. 895 (1974); North v. Superior Court, 8 Cal. 3d 301, 306-307, 502 P. 2d 1305, 1308 (1972). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the reason, if any, given by the court for granting the petition for certiorari. | What reason, if any, does the court give for granting the petition for certiorari? | [
"case did not arise on cert or cert not granted",
"federal court conflict",
"federal court conflict and to resolve important or significant question",
"putative conflict",
"conflict between federal court and state court",
"state court conflict",
"federal court confusion or uncertainty",
"state court confusion or uncertainty",
"federal court and state court confusion or uncertainty",
"to resolve important or significant question",
"to resolve question presented",
"no reason given",
"other reason"
] | [
10
] | sc_certreason |
ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL v. AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION et al.
No. 03-218.
Argued March 2, 2004 —
Decided June 29, 2004
Solicitor General Olson argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Assistant Attorney General Keisler, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Irving L. Gorn-stein, Barbara L. Herwig, Charles W. Scarborough, and August E. Flentje.
Ann E. Beeson argued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief were Christopher A. Hansen, Steven R. Shapiro, Stefan Presser, Christopher R. Harris, and David L. Sobel.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for DuPage County, Illinois, by Richard Hodyl, Jr., and Joseph E. Birkett; for the American Center for Law and Justice et al. by Jay Alan Sekulow, Stuart J. Roth, Colby M. May, Joel H. Thornton, John P. Tuskey, and Shannon D. Wood-ruff; for Focus on the Family et al. by William Wagner, Steve Reed, and Pat Trueman; for Morality-in Media, Inc., by Paul J. McGeady; for Wall-Builders, Inc., by Barry C. Hodge; and for Senator John S. McCain et al. by Carol A. Clancy and Bruce A. Taylor.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Society of Journalists and Authors et al. by Carl A. Solano, Theresa E. Loscalzo, Jennifer DuFault James, and Stephen J. Shapiro; for the Association of American Publishers, Inc., et al. by R. Bruce Rich, Jonathan Bloom, Jerry Berman, John B. Morris, Jr., and Robert Corn-Revere; and for Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts et al. by Seth M. Galanter, Charles H. Kennedy, Lois K. Perrin, and Elliot M. Mincberg.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents a challenge to a statute enacted by Congress to protect minors from exposure to sexually explicit materials on the Internet, the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), 112 Stat. 2681-736, codified at 47 U.'S. C. § 231. We must decide whether the Court of Appeals was correct to affirm a ruling by the District Court that enforcement of COPA should be enjoined because the statute likely violates the First Amendment.
In enacting COPA, Congress gave consideration to our earlier decisions on this subject, in particular the decision in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844 (1997). For that reason, “the Judiciary must proceed with caution and... with care before invalidating the Act.” Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U. S. 564, 592 (2002) (Ashcroft I) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment). The imperative of according respect to the Congress, however, does not permit us to depart from well-established First Amendment principles. Instead, we must hold the Government to its constitutional burden of proof.
Content-based prohibitions, enforced by severe criminal penalties, have the constant potential to be a repressive force in the lives and thoughts of a free people. To guard against that threat the Constitution demands that content-based restrictions on speech be presumed invalid, R. A. V. v. St Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 382 (1992), and that the Government bear the burden of showing their constitutionality, United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U. S. 803, 817 (2000). This is true even when Congress twice has attempted to find a constitutional means to restrict, and punish, the speech in question.
This case comes to the Court on certiorari review of an appeal from the decision of the District Court granting a preliminary injunction. The Court of Appeals reviewed the decision of the District Court for abuse of discretion. Under that standard, the Court of Appeals was correct to conclude that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in granting the preliminary injunction. The Government has failed, at this point, to rebut the plaintiffs’ contention that there are plausible, less restrictive alternatives to the statute. Substantial practical considerations, furthermore, argue in favor of upholding the injunction and allowing the case to proceed to trial. For those reasons, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals upholding the preliminary injunction, and we remand the case so that it may be returned to the District Court for trial on the issues presented.
I
A
COPA is the second attempt by Congress to make the Internet safe for minors by criminalizing certain Internet speech. The first attempt was the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Pub. L. 104-104, § 502, 110 Stat. 133, 47 U. S. C. § 223 (1994 ed., Supp. II). The Court held the CDA unconstitutional because it was not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest and because less restrictive alternatives were available. Reno, supra.
In response to the Court’s decision in Reno, Congress passed COPA. COPA imposes criminal penalties of a $50,000 fine and six months in prison for the knowing posting, for “commercial purposes,” of World Wide Web content that is “harmful to minors.” § 231(a)(1). Material that is “harmful to minors” is defined as:
“any communication, picture, image, graphic image file, article, recording, writing, or other matter of any kind that is obscene or that—
“(A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest;
“(B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast; and
“(C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.” § 231(e)(6).
“Minor[s]” are defined as “any person under 17 years of age.” §231(e)(7). A person acts for “commercial purposes only if such person is engaged in the business of making such communications.” “Engaged in the business,” in turn,
“means that the person who makes a communication, or offers to make a communication, by means of the World Wide Web, that includes any material that is harmful to minors, devotes time, attention, or labor to such activities, as a regular course of such person’s trade or business, with the objective of earning a profit as a result of such activities (although it is not necessary that the person make a profit or that the making or offering to make such communications be the person’s sole or principal business or source of income).” § 231(e)(2).
While the statute labels all speech that falls within these definitions as criminal speech, it also provides an affirmative defense to those who employ specified means to prevent minors from gaining access to the prohibited materials on their Web site. A person may escape conviction under the statute by demonstrating that he
“has restricted access by minors to material that is harmful to minors—
“(A) by requiring use of a credit card, debit account, adult-access code, or adult personal identification number;
“(B) by accepting a digital certificate that verifies age; or
“(C) by any other reasonable measures that are feasible under available technology.” § 231(c)(1).
Since the passage of COPA, Congress has enacted additional laws regulating the Internet in an attempt to protect minors. For example, it has enacted a prohibition on misleading Internet domain names, 18 U. S. C. §2252B (2000 ed., Supp. Ill), in order to prevent Web site owners from disguising pornographic Web sites in a way likely to cause uninterested persons to visit them. See Brief for Petitioner 7 (giving, as an example, the Web site “whitehouse.com”). It has also passed a statute creating a “Dot Kids” second-level Internet domain, the content of which is restricted to that which is fit for minors under the age of 13. 47 U. S. C. § 941 (2000 ed., Supp. II).
B
Respondents, Internet content providers and others concerned with protecting the freedom of speech, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. They sought a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the statute. After considering testimony from witnesses presented by both respondents and the Government, the District Court issued an order granting the preliminary injunction. The court first noted that the statute would place a burden on some protected speech. American Civil Liberties Union v. Reno, 31 F. Supp. 2d 473, 495 (1999). The court then concluded that respondents were likely to prevail on their argument that there were less restrictive alternatives to the statute: “On the record to date, it is not apparent... that [petitioner] can meet its burden to prove that COPA is the least restrictive means available to achieve the goal of restricting the access of minors” to harmful material. Id., at 497. In particular, it noted that “[t]he record before the Court reveals that blocking or filtering technology may be at least as successful as COPA would be in restricting minors’ access to harmful material online without imposing the burden on constitutionally protected speech that COPA imposes on adult users or Web site operators.” Ibid.
The Government appealed the District Court’s decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The Court of Appeals affirmed the preliminary injunction, but on a different ground. American Civil Liberties Union v. Reno, 217 F. 3d 162, 166 (2000). The court concluded that the “community standards” language in COPA by itself rendered the statute unconstitutionally overbroad. Ibid. We granted certiorari and reversed, holding that the community-standards language did not, standing alone, make the statute unconstitutionally overbroad. Ashcroft I, 535 U. S., at 585. We emphasized, however, that our decision was limited to that narrow issue. Ibid. We remanded the case to the Court of Appeals to reconsider whether the District Court had been correct to grant the preliminary injunction. On remand, the Court of Appeals again affirmed the District Court. 322 F. 3d 240 (2003). The Court of Appeals concluded that the statute was not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling Government interest, was overbroad, and was not the least restrictive means available for the Government to serve the interest of preventing minors from using the Internet to gain access to materials that are harmful to them. Id., at 266-271. The Government once again sought review from this Court, and we again granted certiorari. 540 U. S. 944 (2003).
II
A
“This Court, like other appellate courts, has always applied the abuse of discretion standard on review of a preliminary injunction.” Walters v. National Assn. of Radiation Survivors, 473 U. S. 305, 336 (1985) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks omitted). “The grant of appellate jurisdiction under [28 U. S. C.] § 1252 does not give the Court license to depart from established standards of appellate review.” Ibid. If the underlying constitutional question is close, therefore, we should uphold the injunction and remand for trial on the merits. Applying this mode of inquiry, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in entering the preliminary injunction. Our reasoning in support of this conclusion, however, is based on narrower, more specific grounds than the rationale the Court of Appeals adopted. The Court of Appeals, in its opinion affirming the decision of the District Court, construed a number of terms in the statute, and held that COPA, so construed, was unconstitutional. None of those constructions of statutory terminology, however, were relied on by or necessary to the conclusions of the District Court. Instead, the District Court concluded only that the statute was likely to burden some speech that is protected for adults, 31 F. Supp. 2d, at 495, which petitioner does not dispute. As to the definitional disputes, the District Court concluded only that respondents’ interpretation was “not unreasonable,” and relied on their interpretation only to conclude that respondents had standing to challenge the statute, id., at 481, which, again, petitioner does not dispute. Because we affirm the District Court’s decision to grant the preliminary injunction for the reasons relied on by the District Court, we decline to consider the correctness of the other arguments relied on by the Court of Appeals.
The District Court, in deciding to grant the preliminary injunction, concentrated primarily on the argument that there are plausible, less restrictive alternatives to COPA. A statute that “effectively suppresses a large amount of speech that adults have a constitutional right to receive and to address to one another ... is unacceptable if less restrictive alternatives would be at léast as effective in achieving the legitimate purpose that the statute was enacted to serve.” Reno, 521 U. S., at 874. When plaintiffs challenge a content-based speech restriction, the burden is on the Government to prove that the proposed alternatives will not be as effective as the challenged statute. Ibid.
In considering this question, a court assumes that certain protected speech may be regulated, and then asks what is the least restrictive alternative that can be used to achieve that goal. The purpose of the test is not to consider whether the challenged restriction has some effect in achieving Congress’ goal, regardless of the restriction it imposes. The purpose of the test is to ensure that speech is restricted no further than necessary to achieve the goal, for it is important to ensure that legitimate speech is not chilled or punished. For that reason, the test does not begin with the status quo of existing regulations, then ask whether the challenged restriction has some additional ability to achieve Congress’ legitimate interest. Any restriction on speech could be justified under that analysis. Instead, the court should ask whether the challenged regulation is the least restrictive means among available, effective alternatives.
In deciding whether to grant a preliminary injunction, a district court must consider whether the plaintiffs have demonstrated that they are likely to prevail on the merits. See, e. g., Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U. S. 922, 931 (1975). (The court also considers whether the plaintiff has shown irreparable injury, see ibid., but the parties in this case do not contest the correctness of the District Court’s conclusion that a likelihood of irreparable injury had been established. See 31 F. Supp. 2d, at 497-498.) As the Government bears the burden of proof on the ultimate question of COPA’s constitutionality, respondents must be deemed likely to prevail unless the Government has shown that respondents’ proposed less restrictive alternatives are less effective than COPA. Applying that analysis, the District Court concluded that respondents were likely to prevail. Id., at 496497. That conclusion was not an abuse of discretion, because on this record there are a number of plausible, less restrictive alternatives to the statute.
' The primary alternative considered by the District Court was blocking and filtering software. Blocking and filtering software is an alternative that is less restrictive than COPA, and, in addition, likely more effective as a means of restricting children’s access to materials harmful to them. The District Court, in granting the preliminary injunction, did so primarily because the plaintiffs had proposed that filters are a less restrictive alternative to COPA and the Government had not shown it would be likely to disprove the plaintiffs’ contention at trial. Ibid.
Filters are less restrictive than COPA. They impose selective restrictions on speech at the receiving end, not universal restrictions at the source. Under a filtering regime, adults without children may gain access to speech they have a right to see without having to identify themselves or provide their credit card information. Even adults with children may obtain access to the same speech on the same terms simply by turning off the filter on their home computers. Above all, promoting the use of filters does not condemn as criminal any category of speech, and so the potential chilling effect is eliminated, or at least much diminished. All of these things are true, moreover, regardless of how broadly or narrowly the definitions in COPA are construed.
Filters also may well be more effective than COPA. First, a filter can prevent minors from seeing all pornography, not just pornography posted to the Web from America. The District Court noted in its factfindings that one witness estimated that 40% of harmful-to-minors content comes from overseas. Id., at 484. COPA does not prevent minors from having access to those foreign harmful materials. That alone makes it possible that filtering software might be more effective in serving Congress’ goals. Effectiveness is likely to diminish even further if COPA is upheld, because the providers of the materials that would be covered by the statute simply can move their operations overseas. It is not an answer to say that COPA reaches some amount of materials that are harmful to minors; the question is whether it would reach more of them than less restrictive alternatives. In addition, the District Court found that verification systems may be subject to evasion and circumvention, for example, by minors who have their own credit cards. See id., at 484, 496-497. Finally, filters also may be more effective because they can be applied to all forms of Internet communication, including e-mail, not just communications available via the World Wide Web.
That filtering software may well be more effective than COPA is confirmed by the findings of the Commission on Child Online Protection, a blue-ribbon Commission created by Congress in COPA itself. Congress directed the Commission to evaluate the relative merits of different means of restricting minors’ ability to gain access to harmful materials on the Internet. Note following 47 U. S. C. § 231. It unambiguously found, that filters are more effective than age-verification requirements. See Commission on Child Online Protection (COPA), Report to Congress 19-21, 23-25, 27 (Oct. 20, 2000) (assigning a score for “Effectiveness” of 7.4 for server-based filters and 6.5 for client-based filters, as compared to 5.9 for independent adult-IB verification, and 5.5 for credit card verification). Thus, not only has the Government failed to eárry its burden of showing the District Court that the proposed alternative is less effective, but also a Government Commission appointed to consider the question has concluded just the opposite. That finding supports our conclusion that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in enjoining the statute.
Filtering software, of course, is not a perfect solution to the problem of children gaining access to harmful-to-minors materials. It may block some materials that are not harmful to minors and fail to catch some that are. See 31F. Supp. 2d, at 492. Whatever the deficiencies of filters, however, the Government failed to introduce specific evidence proving that existing technologies are less effective than the restrictions in COPA. The District Court made a specific factfind-ing that “[n]o evidence was presented to the Court as to the percentage of time that blocking and filtering technology is over- or underinclusive.” Ibid. In the absence of a showing as to the relative effectiveness of COPA and the alternatives proposed by respondents, it was not an abuse of discretion for the District Court to grant the preliminary injunction. The Government’s burden is not merely to show that a proposed less restrictive alternative has some flaws; its burden is to show that it is less effective. Reno, 521 U. S., at 874. It is not enough for the Government to show that COPA has some effect. Nor do respondents bear a burden to introduce, or offer to introduce, evidence that their proposed alternatives are more effective. The Government has the burden to show they are less so. The Government having failed to carry its burden, it was not an abuse of discretion for the District Court to grant the preliminary injunction.
One argument to the contrary is worth mentioning — the argument that filtering software is not an available alternative because Congress may not require it to be used. That argument carries little weight, because Congress undoubtedly may act to encourage the use of filters. We have held that Congress can give strong incentives to schools and libraries to use them. United States v. American Library Assn., Inc., 539 U. S. 194 (2003). It could also take steps to promote their development by industry, and their use by parents. It is incorrect, for that reason, to say that filters are part of the current regulatory status quo. The need for parental cooperation does not automatically disqualify a proposed less restrictive alternative. Playboy Entertainment Group, 529 U. S., at 824 (“A court should not assume a plausible, less restrictive alternative would be ineffective; and a court should not presume parents, given full information, will fail to act”). In enacting COPA, Congress said its goal was to prevent the “widespread availability of the Internet” from providing “opportunities for minors to access materials through the World Wide Web in a manner that can frustrate parental supervision or control.” Congressional Findings, note following 47 U. S. C. §231 (quoting Pub. L. 105-277, Tit. XIV, § 1402(1), 112 Stat. 2681-736). COPA presumes that parents lack the ability, not the will, to monitor what then-children see. By enacting programs to promote use of filtering software, Congress could , give parents that ability without subjecting protected speech to severe penalties.
The closest precedent on the general point is our decision in Playboy Entertainment Group. Playboy Entertainment Group, like this case, involved a content-based restriction designed to protect minors from viewing harmful materials. The choice was between a blanket speech restriction and a more specific technological solution that was available to parents who chose to implement it. 529 U. S., at 825. Absent a showing that the proposed less restrictive alternative would not be as effective, we concluded, the more restrictive option preferred by Congress could not survive strict scrutiny. Id., at 826 (reversing because “[t]he record is silent as to the comparative effectiveness of the two alternatives”). In the instant case, too, the Government has failed to show, at this point, that the proposed less restrictive alternative will be less effective. The reasoning of Playboy Entertainment Group and the holdings and force of our precedents require us to affirm the preliminary injunction. To do otherwise would be to do less than the First Amendment commands. “The ‘starch’ in our constitutional standards cannot be sacrificed to accommodate the enforcement choices of the Government.” Id., at 830 (Thomas, J., concurring).
B
There are also important practical reasons to let the injunction stand pending a full trial on the merits. First, the potential harms from reversing the injunction outweigh those of leaving it in place by mistake. Where a prosecution is a likely possibility, yet only an affirmative defense is available, speakers may self-censor rather than risk the perils of trial. There is a potential for extraordinary harm and a serious chill upon protected speech. Cf. id., at 817 (“Error in marking that line exacts an extraordinary cost”). The harm done from letting the injunction stand pending a. trial on the merits, in contrast, will not be extensive. No prosecutions have yet been undertaken under the law, so none will be disrupted if the injunction stands. Further, if the injunction is upheld, the Government in the interim can enforce obscenity laws already on the books.
Second, there are substantial factual disputes remaining in the case. As mentioned above, there is a serious gap in the evidence as to the effectiveness of filtering software. See supra, at 668. For us to assume, without proof, that filters are less effective than COPA would usurp the District Court’s factfinding role. By allowing the preliminary injunction to stand and remanding for trial, we require the Government to shoulder its full constitutional burden of proof respecting the less restrictive alternative argument, rather than excuse it from doing so.
Third, and on a related point, the factual record does not reflect current technological reality — a serious flaw in any case involving the Internet. The technology of the Internet evolves at a rapid pace. Yet the factfindings of the District Court were entered in February 1999, over five years ago. Since then, certain facts about the Internet are known to have changed. Compare, e. g., 31 F. Supp. 2d, at 481 (36.7 million Internet hosts as of July 1998), with Internet Systems Consortium, Internet Domain Survey, Jan. 2004, http:// www.isc.org/index.pl7/ops/ds (as visited June 22, 2004, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file) (233.1 million hosts as of Jan. 2004). It is reasonable to assume that other technological developments important to the First Amendment analysis have also occurred during that time. More and better filtering alternatives may exist than when the District Court entered its findings. Indeed, we know that after the District Court entered its factfindings, a congressionally appointed commission issued a report that found that filters are more effective than verification screens. See swpm, at 668.
Delay between the time that a district court makes fact-findings and the time that a case reaches this Court is inevitable, with the necessary consequence that there will be some discrepancy between the facts as found and the facts at the time the appellate court takes up the question. See, e. g., Benjamin, Stepping into the Same River Twice: Rapidly Changing Facts and the Appellate Process, 78 Texas L. Rev. 269, 290-296 (1999) (noting the problems presented for appellate courts by changing facts in the context of cases involving the Internet, and giving as a specific example the Court’s decision in Reno, 521 U. S. 844). We do not mean, therefore, to set up an insuperable obstacle to fair review. Here, however, the usual gap has doubled because the ease has been through the Court of Appeals twice. The additional two years might make a difference. By affirming the preliminary injunction and remanding for trial, we allow the parties to update and supplement the factual record to reflect current technological realities.
Remand will also permit the District Court to take account of a changed legal landscape. Since the District Court made its factfindings, Congress has passed at least two further statutes that might qualify as less restrictive alternatives to COPA — a prohibition on misleading domain names, and a statute creating a minors-safe “Dot Kids” domain. See supra, at 663. Remanding for trial will allow the District Court to take into account those additional potential alternatives.
On a final point, it is important to note that this opinion does not hold that Congress is incapable of enacting any regulation of the Internet designed to prevent minors from gaining access to harmful materials. The parties, because of the conclusion of the Court of Appeals that the statute’s definitions rendered it unconstitutional, did not devote their attention to the question whether further evidence might be introduced on the relative restrictiveness and effectiveness of alternatives to the statute. On remand, however, the parties will be able to introduce further evidence on this point. This opinion does not foreclose the District Court from concluding, upon a proper showing by the Government that meets the Government’s constitutional burden as defined in this opinion, that COPA is the least restrictive alternative available to accomplish Congress’ goal.
* * *
On this record, the Government has not shown that the less restrictive alternatives proposed by respondents should be disregarded. Those alternatives, indeed, may be more effective than the provisions of COPA. The District Court did not abuse its discretion when it entered the preliminary injunction. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the petitioner of the case. The petitioner is the party who petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. This party is variously known as the petitioner or the appellant. Characterize the petitioner as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the petitioner by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the petitioner is actually single entity or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single petitioner, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the petitioner of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
0
] | sc_petitioner |
SERFASS v. UNITED STATES
No. 73-1424.
Argued December 9, 1974
Decided March 3, 1975
Harry A. Dower argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief was Barry N. Mosebach.
Edward R. Korman argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Bork, Assistant Attorney General Petersen, and Deputy Solicitor General Frey.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to decide whether a Court of Appeals has jurisdiction of an appeal by the United States from a pretrial order dismissing an indictment based on a legal ruling made by the District Court after an examination of records and an affidavit setting forth evidence to be adduced at trial.
I
The material facts are not in dispute. Petitioner, whose military service had been deferred for two years while he was in the Peace Corps, was ordered to report for induction on January 18, 1971. On December 29, 1970, he requested the form for conscientious objectors, Selective Service Form 150, and after submitting the completed form to his local board, he requested an interview. Petitioner met with the local board on January 13, 1971, and thereafter he was informed by letter that it had considered his entire Selective Service file, had “unanimously agreed that there was no change over which [petitioner] had no control,” and had therefore “decided not to re-open [petitioner’s] file.” He was also informed that he was “still under Orders to report for Induction on January 18, 1971 at 5:15 A. M.” Petitioner appeared at the examining station and refused induction on January 18.
A grand jury returned an indictment charging petitioner with willfully failing to report for and submit to induction into the Armed Forces, in violation of 50 U. S. C. App. §462 (a). At petitioner’s arraignment he pleaded not guilty and demanded a jury trial. The trial date was set for January 9, 1973. Prior to that time, petitioner filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground that the local board did not state adequate reasons for its refusal to reopen his file. Attached to the motion was an affidavit of petitioner stating merely that he had applied for conscientious objector status and that the local board’s letter was the only communication concerning his claim which he had received. At the same time, petitioner moved “to postpone the trial of the within matter which is now scheduled for January 9, 1973, for the reason that a Motion to Dismiss has been simultaneously filed and the expeditious administration of justice will be served best by considering the Motion prior to trial.”
On January 5 the District Court granted petitioner’s motion to continue the trial and set a date for oral argument on the motion to dismiss the indictment. Briefs were submitted, and after hearing oral argument, the District Court entered an order directing the parties to submit a copy of petitioner’s Selective Service file. On July 16, 1973, it ordered that the indictment be dismissed. In its memorandum, the court noted that the material facts were derived from petitioner’s affidavit, from his Selective Service file, and from the oral stipulation of counsel at the argument “that the information which Serfass submitted to the Board establishes a prima facie claim for conscientious objector status based upon late crystallization.” The District Court held that dismissal of the indictment was appropriate because petitioner was “entitled to full consideration of his claim prior to assignment to combatant training and service,” and because the local board’s statement of reasons for refusing to reopen his Selective Service file was “sufficiently ambiguous to be reasonably construed as a rejection on the merits, thereby prejudicing-his right to in-service review.”
The United States appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, asserting jurisdiction under the Criminal Appeals Act, 18 U. S. C. § 3731, as amended by the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 1890. In a "Motion to Quash Appeal for Lack of Jurisdiction” and in his brief, petitioner contended that the Court of Appeals lacked jurisdiction because further prosecution was prohibited by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court of Appeals rejected that contention. It concluded that, although no appeal would have been possible in this case under the Criminal Appeals Act as it existed prior to the 1970 amendments, those amendments were “clearly intended to enlarge the Government's right to appeal to include all cases in which such an appeal would be constitutionally permissible.” Relying on its earlier opinion in United States v. Pecora, 484 F. 2d 1289 (1973), the Court of Appeals held that since petitioner had not waived his right to a jury trial, and no jury had been empaneled and sworn at the time the District Court ruled on his motion to dismiss the indictment, jeopardy had not attached and the dismissal was an appealable order. Pécora had held appealable, under the present version of § 3731, a pretrial dismissal of an indictment based on a stipulation of the facts upon which the indictment was based. In this case the Court of Appeals saw “no significant constitutional difference” arising from the fact that “the instant dismissal was based upon the trial court's finding that the defendant had established a defense as a matter of law, rather than upon the finding, as in Pécora, that there were insufficient facts as a matter of law to support a conviction.” In both cases “the pretrial motion of dismissal was based upon undisputed facts raising a legal issue and the defendant did not waive his right to a jury trial,” and in both “denial of the motion to dismiss [would have] entitled the defendant to the jury trial which he ha[d] not waived.”
As to the merits, the Court of Appeals concluded that in Musser v. United States, 414 U. S. 31 (1973), this Court had “placed an abrupt end to [the] line of eases” on which the District Court relied. It held that Musser should be applied retroactively to registrants such as petitioner who refused induction before the case was decided, and that since petitioner’s local board was without power to rule on the merits of a post-induction order conscientious objector claim, his right to in-service review was not prejudiced. Accordingly, it reversed the order of the District Court and remanded the case for trial or other proceedings consistent with its opinion.
Because of an apparent conflict among the Courts of Appeals concerning the question whether the Double Jeopardy Clause permits an appeal under § 3731 from a pretrial order dismissing an indictment in these circumstances, we granted certiorari. Petitioner did not seek review of, and we express no opinion with respect to, the holding of the Court of Appeals on the merits.
II
Prior to 1971, appeals by the United States in criminal cases were restricted by 18 U. S. C. § 3731 to categories descriptive of the action taken by a district court, and they were divided between this Court and the courts of appeals. In United States v. Sisson, 399 U. S. 267, 307-308 (1970), Mr. Justice Harlan aptly described the situation obtaining under the statute as it then read:
“Clarity is to be desired in any statute, but in matters of jurisdiction it is especially important. Otherwise the courts and the parties must expend great energy, not on the merits of dispute settlement, but on simply deciding whether a court has the power to hear a case. When judged in these terms, the Criminal Appeals Act is a failure. Born of compromise, and reflecting no coherent allocation of appellate responsibility, the Criminal Appeals Act proved a most unruly child that has not improved with age. The statute's roots are grounded in pleading distinctions that existed at common law but which, in most instances, fail to coincide with the procedural categories of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Not only does the statute create uncertainty by its requirement that one analyze the nature of the decision of the District Court in order to determine whether it falls within the class of common-law distinctions for which an appeal is authorized, but it has also engendered confusion over the court to which an appealable decision should be brought.”
At the same time that this Court was struggling with the “common law distinctions” of former § 3731, the decisions of the Courts of Appeals were demonstrating that, even when apparently straightforward, the language of the statute was deceptive. Thus, although after 1948 § 3731 literally authorized an appeal to a court of appeals whenever an indictment or information was set aside or dismissed except where direct appeal to this Court was authorized, that provision was generally construed, as it was construed by the Court of Appeals in this case, supra, at 381, and n. 4, to authorize an appeal to a court of appeals only if the decision setting aside or dismissing an indictment or information was “based upon a defect in the indictment or information, or in the institution of the prosecution.” United States v. Apex Distributing Co., 270 F. 2d 747, 755 (CA9 1959). See United States v. Ponto, 454 F. 2d 657, 659-663 (CA7 1971). In such fashion, even those “common law distinctions” which were removed from the face of the Criminal Appeals Act by the 1948 amendments were preserved by judicial construction. See United States v. Apex Distributing Co., supra, at 751-755; United States v. DiStefano, 464 F. 2d 845, 847-848 (CA2 1972).
The limits of the appellate jurisdiction of this Court and the courts of appeals under former § 3731, as construed, resulted in the inability of the United States to appeal from the dismissal of prosecution in a substantial number of criminal cases. In those cases where appellate jurisdiction lay in this Court, review was limited further by decisions of “the United States not to appeal the dismissal of a prosecution believed to be erroneous, simply because the question involved [was] not deemed of sufficiently general importance to warrant” our attention.
It was against this background that Congress undertook to amend § 3731. The legislative history of the 1970 amendments indicates that Congress was concerned with what it perceived to be two major problems under the statute as then construed: lack of appealability in many cases, and the requirement that certain appeals could be taken only to this Court. See S. Rep. No. 91-1296, pp. 4-18 (1970). Particular concern was expressed with respect to problems of appealability “in selective service cases where judges have reviewed defendants' selective service files before trials and dismissed the indictments after finding that there have been errors by the draft boards.” Id., at 14. Congress was of the view that “earlier versions of section 3731” had been subject to “restrictive judicial interpretations of congressional intent.” Id., at 18. Accordingly, it determined to “assure that the United States may appeal from the dismissal of a criminal prosecution by a district court in all cases where the Constitution permits,” and that “the appeal shall be taken first to a court of appeals.” Id., at 2-3. See id., at 18.
In light of the language of the present version of § 3731, including the admonition that its provisions “shall be liberally construed to effectuate its purposes,” and of its legislative history, it is clear to us that Congress intended to authorize an appeal to a court of appeals in this kind of case so long as further prosecution would not be barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. We turn to that inquiry.
Ill
Although articulated in different ways by this Court, the purposes of, and the policies which animate, the Double Jeopardy Clause in this context are clear. “The constitutional prohibition against 'double jeopardy’ was designed to protect an individual from being subjected to the hazards of trial and possible conviction more than once for an alleged offense. . . . The underlying idea, one that is deeply ingrained in at least the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence, is that the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty.” Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, 187-188 (1957). See United States v. Jorn, 400 U. S. 470, 479 (1971); Price v. Georgia, 398 U. S. 323, 326 (1970).
As an aid to the decision of cases in which the prohibition of the Double Jeopardy Clause has been invoked, the courts have found it useful to define a point in criminal proceedings at which the constitutional purposes and policies are implicated by resort to the concept of “attachment of jeopardy.” See United States v. Jorn, supra, at 480. In the case of a jury trial, jeopardy attaches when a jury is empaneled and sworn. Downum v. United States, 372 U. S. 734 (1963); Illinois v. Somerville, 410 U. S. 458 (1973). In a nonjury trial, jeopardy attaches when the court begins to hear evidence. McCarthy v. Zerbst, 85 F. 2d 640, 642 (CA10 1936). See Wade v. Hunter, 336 U. S. 684, 688 (1949). The Court has consistently adhered to the view that jeopardy does not attach, and the constitutional prohibition can have no application, until a defendant is “put to trial before the trier of the facts, whether the trier be a jury or a judge.” United States v. Jorn, supra, at 479. See Kepner v. United States, 195 U. S. 100, 128, 130-131 (1904); United States v. Macdonald, 207 U. S. 120, 127 (1907); Bassing v. Cady, 208 U. S. 386, 391-392 (1908); Collins v. Loisel, 262 U. S. 426, 429 (1923).
Under our cases jeopardy had not yet attached when the District Court granted petitioner’s motion to dismiss the indictment. Petitioner was not then, nor has he ever been, “put to trial before the trier of facts.” The proceedings were initiated by his motion to dismiss the indictment. Petitioner had not waived his right to a jury trial, and, of course, a jury trial could not be waived by him without the consent of the Government and of the court. Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 23 (a). See Patton v. United States, 281 U. S. 276, 312 (1930); Singer v. United States, 380 U. S. 24 (1965). In such circumstances, the District Court was without power to make any determination regarding petitioner’s guilt or innocence. Petitioner’s defense was raised before trial precisely because “trial of the facts surrounding the commission of the alleged offense would be of no assistance in determining” its validity. United States v. Covington, 395 U. S. 57, 60 (1969). See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 12 (b)(1). His motion to postpone the trial was premised on the belief that “the expeditious administration of justice will be served best by considering the Motion [to dismiss the indictment] prior to trial.” At no time during or following the hearing on petitioner’s motion to dismiss the indictment did the District Court have jurisdiction to do more than grant or deny that motion, and neither before nor after the ruling did jeopardy attach.
IV
Petitioner acknowledges that “formal or technical jeopardy had not attached” at the time the District Court ruled on his motion to dismiss the indictment. However, he argues that because that ruling was based on “ 'evidentiary facts outside of the indictment, which facts would constitute a defense on the merits at trial/ United States v. Brewster, 408 U. S. 501, 506” (1972), it was the “functional equivalent of an acquittal on the merits” and “constructively jeopardy had attached.” The argument is grounded on two basic and interrelated premises. First, petitioner argues that the Court has admonished against the use of “technicalities” in interpreting the Double Jeopardy Clause, and he contends that the normal rule as to the attachment of jeopardy is merely a presumption which is rebuttable in cases where an analysis of the respective interests of the Government and the accused indicates that the policies of the Double Jeopardy Clause would be frustrated by further prosecution. Cf. United States v. Velazquez, 490 F. 2d 29, 33 (CA2 1973). Second, petitioner maintains that the disposition of his motion to dismiss the indictment was, in the circumstances of this case, the “functional equivalent of an acquittal on the merits,” and he concludes that the policies of the Double Jeopardy Clause would in fact be frustrated by further prosecution. See United States v. Ponto, 454 F. 2d 657, 663-664 (CA7 1971). We disagree with both of petitioner’s premises and with his conclusion.
It is true that we have disparaged “rigid, mechanical” rules in the interpretation of the Double Jeopardy Clause. Illinois v. Somerville, 410 U. S. 458, 467 (1973). However, we also observed in that case that “the conclusion that jeopardy has attached begins, rather than ends, the inquiry as to whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars retrial.” Ibid. Cf. United States v. Sisson, 399 U. S., at 303. Implicit in the latter statement is the premise that the “constitutional policies underpinning the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee” are not implicated before that point in the proceedings at which “jeopardy attaches.” United States v. Jorn, 400 U. S., at 480. As we have noted above, the Court has consistently adhered to the view that jeopardy does not attach until a defendant is “put to trial before the trier of the facts, whether the trier be a jury or a judge.” Id., at 479. This is by no means a mere technicality, nor is it a “rigid, mechanical” rule. It is, of course, like most legal rules, an attempt to impart content to an abstraction.
When a criminal prosecution is terminated prior to trial, an accused is often spared much of the expense, delay, strain, and embarrassment which attend a trial. See Green v. United States, 355 U. S., at 187-188; United States v. Jorn, supra, at 479. Although an accused may raise defenses or objections before trial which are “capable of determination without the trial of the general issue,” Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 12(b)(1), and although he must raise certain other defenses or objections before trial, Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 12 (b)(2), in neither case is he “subjected to the hazards of trial and possible conviction.” Green v. United States, supra, at 187. Moreover, in neither case would an appeal by the United States “allow the prosecutor to seek to persuade a second trier of fact of the defendant’s guilt after having failed with the first.” United States v. Wilson, ante, at 352. See United States v. Jorn, supra, at 484. Both the history of the Double Jeopardy Clause and its terms demonstrate that it does not come into play until a proceeding begins before a trier “having jurisdiction to try the question of the guilt or innocence of the accused.” Kepner v. United States, 195 U. S., at 133. See Price v. Georgia, 398 U. S., at 329. Without risk of a determination of guilt, jeopardy does not attach, and neither an appeal nor further prosecution constitutes double jeopardy.
Petitioner’s second premise, that the disposition of his motion to dismiss the indictment was the “functional equivalent of an acquittal on the merits,” and his conclusion that the policies of the Double Jeopardy Clause would be frustrated by further prosecution in his case need not, in light of the conclusion we reach above, long detain us. It is, of course, settled that “a verdict of acquittal ... is a bar to a subsequent prosecution for the same offence.” United States v. Ball, 163 U. S. 662, 671 (1896); Green v. United States, supra, at 188. Cf. Kepner v. United States, supra; Fong Foo v. United States, 369 U. S. 141 (1962). But the language of cases in which we have held that there can be no appeal from, or further prosecution after, an “acquittal” cannot be divorced from the procedural context in which the action so characterized was taken. See United States v. Wilson, ante, at 346-348. The word itself has no talismanic quality for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause. Compare United States v. Oppenheimer, 242 U. S. 85, 88 (1916), with United States v. Barber, 219 U. S. 72, 78 (1911), and United States v. Goldman, 277 U. S. 229, 236-237 (1928). In particular, it has no significance in this context unless jeopardy has once attached and an accused has been subjected to the risk of conviction.
Our decision in United States v. Sisson, 399 U. S. 267 (1970), is not to the contrary. As we have noted in United States v. Wilson, ante, at 350-351, we do not believe the Court in Sisson intended to express an opinion with respect to the constitutionality of an appeal by the United States from the order entered by the District Court in that case. Moreover, even if we were to take the contrary view, we would reach the same conclusion here. For in Sisson, jeopardy had attached; the order of the District Court was “a legal determination on the basis of facts adduced at the trial relating to the general issue of the case.” 399 U. S., at 290 n. 19. See id., at 288; United States v. Jorn, supra, at 478 n. 7. Whatever else may be said about Sisson, it does not alter the fundamental principle that an accused must suffer jeopardy before he can suffer double jeopardy.
Similarly, petitioner’s reliance on United States v. Brewster, 408 U. S. 501 (1972), is misplaced. The question in that case was whether the Court had “jurisdiction under 18 U. S. C. § 3731 (1964 ed., Supp. V) to review the District Court’s [pretrial] dismissal of the indictment against appellee.” Id., at 504-505. In the course of concluding that there was jurisdiction, we observed: “Under United States v. Sisson, 399 U. S. 267 (1970), an appeal does not lie from a decision that rests, not upon the sufficiency of the indictment alone, but upon extraneous facts. If an indictment is dismissed as a result of a stipulated fact or the showing of evidentiary facts outside the indictment, which facts would constitute a defense on the merits at trial, no appeal is available. See United States v. Findley, 439 F. 2d 970 (CA1 1971).” 408 U. S., at 506. The question at issue in Brewster, the question decided in Sisson, and the citation of United States v. Findley, demonstrate beyond question that this passage in Brewster was not concerned with the constitutional question which, by virtue of the 1970 amendments to 18 U. S. C. § 3731, is before us in this case.
V
In holding that the Court of Appeals correctly determined that it had jurisdiction of the United States' appeal in this case under 18 U. S. C. § 3731, we of course express no opinion on the question whether a similar ruling by the District Court after jeopardy had attached would have been appealable. Nor do we intimate any view concerning the case put by the Solicitor General, of “a defendant who is afforded an opportunity to obtain a determination of a legal defense prior to trial and nevertheless knowingly allows himself to be placed in jeopardy before raising the defense.” Compare United States v. Findley, 439 F. 2d 970, 973 (CA1 1971), with United States v. Pecora, 484 F. 2d, at 1293-1294. See United States v. Jenkins, 490 F. 2d 868, 880 (CA2 1973), aff’d, ante, p. 358. We hold only that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar an appeal by the United States under 18 U. S. C. § 3731 with respect to a criminal defendant who has not been “put to trial before the trier of the facts, whether the trier be a jury or a judge.” United States v. Jorn, 400 U. S., at 479.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents, being of the view that the ruling of the District Court was based on evidence which could constitute a defense on the merits and therefore caused jeopardy to attach.
The District Court concluded that petitioner’s defense was properly raised by motion before trial and that, although petitioner had not waived his right to trial by jury, his defense was properly to be determined by the court. Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 12(b)(1), (4). Compare United States v. Ponto, 454 F. 2d 657, 663 (CA7 1971), with United States v. Ramos, 413 F. 2d 743, 744 n. 1 (CA1 1969). See United States v. Covington, 395 U. S. 57, 60 (1969); United States v. Sisson, 399 U. S. 267, 301 (1970); United States v. Knox, 396 U. S. 77, 83 (1969); 8 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 12.04 (2d ed. 1975).
In ordering dismissal the District Court relied primarily on United States v. Ziskowski, 465 F. 2d 480 (CA3 1972), and United States v. Folino, No. 72-1974 (CA3 June 29, 1973) (unreported).
Title 18 U. S. C. §3731 provides in pertinent part:
“In a criminal case an appeal by the United States shall lie to a court of appeals from a decision, judgment, or order of a district court dismissing an indictment or information as to any one or more counts, except that no appeal shall lie where the double jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution prohibits further prosecution.
“The provisions of this section shall be liberally construed to effectuate its purposes.”
Prior to the 1970 amendments, which were effective January 2, 1971, 18 U. S. C. §3731 (1964 ed., Supp. V) authorized an appeal by the United States to a court of appeals in all criminal cases “[f]rom a decision or judgment setting aside, or dismissing any indictment or information, or any count thereof except where a direct appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States is provided by this section.” Under this provision, the Court of Appeals concluded, appeals “were permissible only if the dismissal of an indictment was based upon a defect in the indictment or in the institution of the prosecution, rather than upon evidentiary facts outside the face of the indictment which would possibly constitute a defense at trial.”
The Court of Appeals noted that the District Court “expressly found that [petitioner] did not waive his right to a jury trial,” that the procedures for waiver required by Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 23 (a) had not been complied with, and that simultaneously with his motion to dismiss the indictment petitioner had filed a motion to postpone the trial.
In Pecora the Court of Appeals distinguished United States v. Hill, 473 F. 2d 759 (CA9 1972), holding unappealable the pretrial dismissal of an indictment alleging the mailing of obscene advertisements, on the grounds that in Hill (1) there was no determination whether the defendant had waived his right to a jury trial and (2) the District Court determined the character of evidence actually entered into the record “so it may be said that jeopardy had attached.” In this case the Court of Appeals concluded that the second distinction between Pécora and Hill did not “permit our holding the instant order unappealable,” and it noted that to the extent Pécora and Hill were inconsistent, it was bound by Pécora.
Title 18 U. S. C. § 3731 (1964 ed., Supp. V) provided in pertinent part:
“An appeal may be taken by and on behalf of the United States from the district courts direct to the Supreme Court of the United States in all criminal cases in the following instances:
“From a decision or judgment setting aside, or dismissing any indictment or information, or any count thereof, where such decision or judgment is based upon the invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment or information is founded.
“From a decision arresting a judgment of conviction for insufficiency of the indictment or information, where such decision is based upon the invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment or information is founded.
“From the decision or judgment sustaining a motion in bar, when the defendant has not been put in jeopardy.
“An appeal may be taken by and on behalf of the United States from the district courts to a court of appeals in all criminal cases, in the following instances:
“From a decision or judgment setting aside, or dismissing any indictment or information, or any count thereof except where a direct appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States is provided by this section.
“From a decision arresting a judgment of conviction except where a direct appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States is provided by this section.”
Provision for appeals in certain cases to the courts of appeals was first made in 1942. Act of May 9, 1942, c. 295, § 1, 56 Stat. 271, codified as former 18 U. S. C. § 682 (1946 ed.). Section 682 provided for an appeal to a court of appeals from “a decision or judgment-quashing, setting aside, or sustaining a demurrer or plea in abatement to any indictment or information, or any count thereof except where a direct appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States is provided by this section.”
Act of June 25, 1948, 62 Stat. 844, codified as former 18 U. S. C. § 3731 (1946 ed., Supp. II). The reviser’s note states that “[m]inor changes were made to conform to Rule 12 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.”
Department of Justice Comments on S. 3132, in S. Rep. No. 91-1296, p. 24 (1970). See also letter from Solicitor General Gris-wold to Senator McClellan, id., at 33.
The relevance and significance of the “well considered and carefully prepared” report of the Senate Judiciary Committee, see Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U. S. 384, 395 (1951) (Jackson, J., concurring), is not affected by the fact that the amendments proposed by the Committee and adopted without change by the Senate were modified by the House-Senate Conference Committee. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 91-1768, p. 21 (1970). The latter report contains no explanation of the changes made, and the changes themselves are consistent with the intent expressed in the Senate Report. See United States v. Wilson, ante, at 337-339.
This has been the general view of the Courts of Appeals. E. g., United States v. Jenkins, 490 F. 2d 868, 870 (CA2 1973), aff’d, ante, p. 358; United States v. Brown, 481 F. 2d 1035, 1039-1040 (CA8 1973). But see, e. g., United States v. Southern R. Co., 485 F. 2d 309, 312 (CA4 1973).
To the extent the passages referred to deal with the predecessors of the present version of § 3731, they are relevant because of the Court’s view that appeals from orders entered prior to the attachment of jeopardy presented no constitutional problem. See infra, at 392.
Pursuant to 18 U. S. C. §§ 3771 and 3772, proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, including amendments to Rule 12, were transmitted to Congress on April 22, 1974. The effective date of the proposed amendments was postponed until August 1, 1975, by Act of July 30, 1974, 88 Stat. 397.
It is clear that Congress intended to overrule Sisson’s construction of former § 3731 in the 1970 amendments. See S. Rep. No. 91-1296, p. 11 (1970); n. 10, supra.
In analyzing Sisson the Court of Appeals in Findley concluded: “Collectively we believe this was an approach not in terms of double jeopardy, but in terms of the land of error section 3731 was intended to cover.” 439 F. 2d 970, 973. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases. | What is the ideological direction of the decision? | [
"Conservative",
"Liberal",
"Unspecifiable"
] | [
0
] | sc_decisiondirection |
HAZELWOOD SCHOOL DISTRICT et al. v. UNITED STATES
No. 76-255.
Argued April 27, 1977
Decided June 27, 1977
Stewart, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Bueger, C. J., and BrenNan, White, Marshall, BlacicmtiN, Powell, and RehNquist, JJ., joined. BrennaN, J., post, p. 313, and White, J., post, p. 347, filed concurring opinions. SteveNs, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 314.
William H. Allen argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Coleman S. Hicks and Don O. Russell.
Deputy Solicitor General Wallace argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General McCree, Assistant Attorney General Days, Thomas S. Martin, Brian K. Landsberg, Walter W. Barnett, and Cynthia L. Attwood.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by Robert Allen Sedler and Joel M. Gora for the American Civil Liberties Union; by Robert A. Murphy, Richard S. Kohn, and Richard T. Seymour for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; by Jack Greenberg, James C. Gray, Jr., Patrick O. Patterson, Eric Schnapper, and Louis Gilden for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.; and by Stephen J. Poliak, Richard M. Sharp, and David Rubin for the National Education Assn.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner Hazelwood School District covers 78 square miles in the northern part of St. Louis County, Mo. In 1973 the Attorney General brought this lawsuit against Hazelwood and various of its officials, alleging that they were engaged in a “pattern or practice” of employment discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seg. (1970 ed. and Supp. V). The complaint asked for an injunction requiring Hazelwood to cease its discriminatory practices, to take affirmative steps to obtain qualified Negro faculty members, and to offer employment and give backpay to victims of past illegal discrimination.
Hazelwood was formed from 13 rural school districts between 1949 and 1951 by a process of annexation. By the 1967-1968 school year, 17,550 students were enrolled in the •¡district, of whom only 59 were Negro; the number of Negro 'pupils increased to 576 of 25,166 in 1972-1973, a total of ■just over 2%.
From the beginning, Hazelwood followed relatively unstructured procedures in hiring its teachers. Every person requesting an application for a teaching position was sent one, and completed applications were submitted to a central personnel office, where they were kept on file. During the early 1960's the personnel office notified all applicants whenever a teaching position became available, but as the number of applications on file increased in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, this practice was no longer considered feasible. The personnel office thus began the practice of selecting anywhere from 3 to 10 applicants for interviews at'the school where the vacancy existed. The personnel office did not substantively screen the applicants in determining which of them to send for interviews, other than to ascertain that each applicant, if selected, would be eligible for state certification by the time he began the job. Generally, those who had most recently submitted applications were jmost likely to be chosen for interviews.
Interviews were conducted by a department chairman, program coordinator, or the principal at the school where the teaching vacancy existed. Although those conducting the interviews did fill out forms rating the applicants in a number of respects, it ^undisputed that each school principal pos-., sessed virtually, unlimited discretion in hiring teachers for his .school. The only general guidance given to the principals was to ' hire' the “most competent” person available, and such intangibles as “personality, disposition, appearance, poise, voice, articulation, and ability to deal with people” counted heavily. The principal’s choice was routinely honored by Hazelwood’s Superintendent and the Board of Education.
In the early 1960’s Hazelwood found it necessary to recruit new teachers, and for that purpose members of its staff visited a number of colleges and universities in Missouri and bordering States. All the institutions visited were predominantly white, and Hazelwood did not seriously recruit at either of the two predominantly Negro four-year colleges in Missouri. As a buyer’s market began to develop for public school teachers, Hazelwood curtailed its recruiting efforts. For the 1971-1972 school year, 3,127 persons applied for only 234 teaching vacancies; for the 1972-1973 school year, there were 2,373 applications for 282 vacancies. A number of the applicants who were not hired were Negroes. /
v Hazelwood hired its first Negro teacher in 1969. The number of Negro faculty members gradually increased in successive years: 6 of 957 in the 1970 school year; 16 of 1,107 by the end of the 1972 school year; 22 of 1,231 in the 1973 school year. By comparison, according to 1970 census figures, of more than 19,000 teachers employed in that year in the St. Louis' area, 15.4% were Negro. That percentage figure in-eluded the St. Louis City School District, which in recent years has followed a policy of attempting to maintain a 50% Negro teaching staff. Apart from that school district, 5.7% of the teachers in the county were Negro in 1970.
Drawing upon these historic facts, the Government mounted its “pattern or practice” attack in the District Court upon four different fronts. It adduced evidence of (1) a history of alleged racially discriminatory practices, (2) statistical disparities in hiring, (3) the standardless and largely subjective hiring procedures, and (4) specific instances of alleged discrimination against 55 unsuccessful Negro applicants for teaching jobs. Hazelwood offered virtually no additional evidence in response, relying instead on evidence introduced by the Government, perceived deficiencies in the Government’s case, and its own officially promulgated policy “to hire all teachers on the basis of training, preparation and recommendations, regardless of race, color or creed.”
The District Court ruled that the Government had failed to establish a pattern or practice of discrimination. The court was unpersuaded by -'the alleged history of discrimination, noting that no dual school system had ever existed in Hazel-woody, The statistics showing that relatively small numbers of Negroes were employed as teachers were found nonproba-tive, on the ground that the percentage of Negro pupils in Hazelwood was similarly small. The court found nothing illegal or suspect in the teacher-hiring procedures that Hazel-wood had followed. Finally, the court reviewed the evidence in the 55 cases of alleged individual discrimination, and after stating that the., burden of proving intentional discrimination was on the Government, it found that this burden had not been sustained in a single, instance. Hence, the court entered judgment for the defendants. 392 F. Supp. 1276 (ED Mo.).
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed. 534 F. 2d 805. After suggesting that the District Court had assigned inadequate weight to evidence of discriminatory conduct on the part of Hazelwood before the effective date of Title VII/-.the Court of Appeals rejected the trial court’s analysis of the statistical data as resting on an irrelevant comparison of Negro teachers to Negro pupils in Hazelwood. The proper comparison, in the appellate court's view, was one between Negro teachers in Hazelwood and Negro teachers in the relevant labor market area. Selecting St. Louis County and St. Louis City as the relevant area, the Court of Appeals compared the 1970 census figures, showing that 15.4% of teachers in that area were Negro, to the racial composition of Hazelwood’s teaching staff. In the 1972-1973 and 1973-1974 school years, only 1.4% and 1.8%, respectively, of Hazelwood’s teachers were Negroes. This statistical disparity, particularly when viewed against the background of the teacher-hiring procedures that Hazelwood had followed, was held to constitute a prima facie case of a pattern or practice of racial discrimination.
In addition, the Court of Appeals reasoned that the trial court had erred in failing to measure the 55 instances in which Negro applicants were denied jobs against the four-part standard for establishing a prima facie case of individual discrimination set out in this Court’s opinion in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Oreen, 411 U. S. 792, 802. Applying that standard, the appellate court found 16 cases of individual discrimination, which “buttressed” the statistical proof. Because Hazelwood had not rebutted the Government's prima facie case of a pattern or practice of racial discrimination, the Court of Appeals directed judgment for the Government and prescribed the remedial order to be entered.
We granted certiorari, 429 U. S. 1037, to consider a substantial question affecting the enforcement of a pervasive federal law.
The petitioners primarily attack the judgment of the Court of Appeals for its reliance on “undifferentiated work force statistics to find an unrebutted prima facie case of employment discrimination.” The question they raise, in short, is whether a basic component in the Court of Appeals’ finding of a pattern or practice of discrimination — the comparatively small percentage of Negro employees on Hazelwood’s teaching staff — was lacking in probative force.
This Court’s recent consideration in Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, of the role of statistics in pattern-or-practice suits under Title VII provides substantial guidance in evaluating the arguments advanced by the petitioners. In that case we stated that it is the Government’s burden to “establish by a preponderance of the evidence that racial discrimination was the [employer’s] standard operating procedure — the regular rather than the unusual practice.” Id., at 336. We also noted that statistics can be an important source of proof in employment discrimination cases, since
“absent explanation, it is ordinarily to be expected that nondiscriminatory hiring practices will in time result in a work force more or less representative of the racial and ethnic composition of the population in the community from which employees are hired. Evidence of long-lasting and gross disparity between the composition of a work force and that of the general population thus may be significant even though § 703 (j) makes clear that Title VII imposes no requirement that a work force mirror the general population.” Id., at 340 n. 20.
See also Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266; Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 241-242. Where gross statistical disparities can be shown, they alone may in a proper case constitute prima facie proof of a pattern or practice of discrimination. Teamsters, supra, at 339.
There can be no doubt, in light of the Teamsters case, that the District Court’s comparison of Hazelwood’s teacher work force to its student population fundamentally misconceived the role of statistics in employment discrimination cases. The Court of Appeals was correct in the view that a proper comparison was between the racial composition of Hazelwood’s teaching staff and the racial composition of the qualified public school teacher population in the relevant labor market. See Teamsters, supra, at 337-338, and n. 17. The percentage of Negroes on Hazelwood’s teaching staff in 1972-1973 was 1.4%, and in 1973-1974 it was 1.8%. By contrast, the percentage of qualified Negro teachers in the area was, according to the 1970 census, at least 5.7%. Although these differ-enees were on their face substantial, the Court of Appeals erred in substituting its judgment for that of the District Court and holding that the Government had conclusively proved its "pattern or practice” lawsuit.
The Court of Appeals totally disregarded the possibility that this prima facie statistical proof in the record might at the trial court level be rebutted by statistics dealing with Hazelwood’s hiring after it became subject to Title VII. Racial discrimination by public employers was not made illegal under Title VII until March 24, 1972. A public employer who from that date forward made all its employment decisions in a wholly nondiscriminatory way would not violate Title VII even if it had formerly maintained an all-white work force by purposefully excluding Negroes. For this reason, the Court cautioned in the Teamsters opinion that once a prima facie case has been established by statistical workforce disparities, the employer must be given an opportunity to show that “the claimed discriminatory pattern is a product of pre-Act hiring rather than unlawful post-Act discrimination.” 431 U. S., at 360.
The record in this case showed that for the 1972-1973 school year, Hazelwood hired 282 new teachers, 10 of whom (3-.5%) were Negroes; for the following school year it hired 123 new teachers, 5 of whom (4.1%) were Negroes. Over the two-year period, Negroes constituted a total of 15 of the 405 new teachers hired (3.7%). Although the Court of Appeals briefly mentioned these data in reciting the facts, it wholly ignored them in discussing whether the Government had shown a pattern or practice of discrimination. And it gave no consideration at all to the possibility that post-Act data as to the number of Negroes hired compared to the total number of Negro applicants might tell a totally different story.
What the hiring figures prove obviously depends upon the figures to which they are compared. The Court of Appeals accepted the Government’s argument that the relevant comparison was to the labor market area of St. Louis County and the city of St. Louis, in which, according to the 1970 census, 15.4% of all teachers were Negro. The propriety of that comparison was vigorously disputed by the petitioners, who urged that because the city of St. Louis has made special attempts to maintain a 50% Negro teaching staff, inclusion of that school district in the relevant market area distorts the comparison. Were that argument accepted, the percentage of Negro teachers in the relevant labor market area (St. Louis County alone) as shown in the 1970 census would be 5.7% rather than 15.4%.
The difference between these figures may well be important; the disparity between 3.7% (the percentage of Negro teachers hired by Hazelwood in 1972-1973 and 1973-1974) and 5.7% may be sufficiently small to weaken the Government's other proof, while the disparity between 3;7% and 15.4% may be sufficiently large to reinforce it. In determining which of the two figures — or, very possibly, what intermediate figure — provides the most accurate basis for comparison to the hiring figures at Hazelwood, it will be necessary to evaluate such considerations as (i) whether the racially based hiring policies of the St. Louis City School District were in effect as far back as 1970, the year in which the census figures were taken; (ii) to what extent those policies have changed the racial composition of that district's teaching staff from what it would otherwise have been; (iii) to what extent St. Louis’ recruitment policies have diverted to the city, teachers who might otherwise have applied to Hazelwood; (iv) to what extent Negro teachers employed by the city would prefer employment in other districts such as Hazelwood; and (v) what the experience in other school districts in St. Louis County indicates about the validity of excluding the City School District from the relevant labor market.
It is thus clear that a determination of the appropriate comparative figures in this case will depend upon further evaluation by the trial court. As this Court admonished in Teamsters: “[Statistics . . . come in infinite variety . . . . [T]heir usefulness depends on all of the surrounding facts and circumstances.” 431 U. S., at 340. Only the trial court is in a position to make the appropriate determination after further findings. And only after such a determination is made can a foundation be established for deciding whether or not Hazelwood engaged in a pattern or practice of racial discrimination in its employment practices in violation of the law.
We hold, therefore, that the Court of Appeals erred in disregarding the post-Act hiring statistics in the record, and that it should have remanded the case to the District Court for further findings as to the relevant labor market area and for an ultimate determination of whether Hazelwood engaged in a pattern or practice of employment discrimination after March 24, 1972. Accordingly, the judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice White, see post, p. 347.]
Under 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-6 (a), the Attorney General was authorized to bring a civil action “[w]henever [he] has reasonable cause to believe that any person or group of persons is engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of any of the rights secured by [Title VII], and that the pattern or practice is of such a nature and is intended to deny the full exercise of [those rights].” The 1972 amendments to Title VII directed that this function be transferred as of March 24, 1974, to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, at least with respect to private employers. §2000e-6 (c) (1970 ed., Supp. V); see also §2000e-5 (f)(1) (1970 ed., Supp. V). The present lawsuit was instituted more than seven months before that transfer.
Before 1954 Hazelwood’s application forms required designation of race, and those forms were in use as late as the 1962-1963 school year.
Applicants with student or substitute teaching experience at Hazel-wood were given preference if their performance had been satisfactory.
One of those two schools was never visited even though it was located in nearby St. Louis. The second was briefly visited on one occasion, but no potential applicant was interviewed.
The parties disagree whether it is possible to determine from the present record exactly how many of the job applicants in each of the school years were Negroes.
. The defendants offered only one witness, who testified to the total number of teachers who had applied and were hired for jobs in the 1971-1972 and 1972-1973 school years. They introduced several exhibits consisting of a policy manual, policy book, staff handbook, and historical summary of Hazelwood’s formation and relatively brief existence.
As originally enacted, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applied only to private employers. The Act was expanded to include state and local governmental employers by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, 86 Stat. 103, whose effective date was March 24, 1972. See 42 IT. S. C. §§2000e (a), (b), (f), (h) (1970 ed., Supp. V).
The evidence of pre-Act discrimination relied upon by the Court of Appeals included the failure to hire any Negro teachers until 1969, the failure to recruit at predominantly Negro colleges in Missouri, and somewhat inconclusive evidence that Hazelwood was responsible for a 1962 Mississippi newspaper advertisement for teacher applicants that specified “white only.”
The city of St. Louis is surrounded by, but not included in, St. Louis County. Mo. Ann. Stat. §46.145 (1966).
Under McDonnell Douglas, a prima facie case of illegal employment discrimination is established by showing
“(i) that [an individual] belongs to a racial minority; (ii) that he applied and was qualified for a job for which the employer was seeking applicants; (iii) that, despite his qualifications, he was rejected; and (iv) that, after his rejection, the position remained open and the employer continued to seek applicants from persons of complainant’s qualifications.” 411 U. S., at 802.
Upon proof of these four elements, “[t]he burden then must shift to the employer to articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employee’s rejection.” Ibid.
The Court of Appeals held that none of the 16 prima facie cases of individual discrimination had been rebutted by the petitioners. See 534 F. 2d, at 814.
The District Court was directed to order that the petitioners cease from discriminating on the basis of race or color in the hiring of teachers, promulgate accurate job descriptions and hiring criteria, recruit Negro and white applicants on an equal basis, give preference in filling vacancies to the 16 discriminatorily rejected applicants, make appropriate backpay awards, and submit periodic reports to the Government on its progress in hiring qualified Negro teachers. Id., at 819-820.
In their petition for certiorari and brief on the merits, the petitioners have phrased the question as follows:
“Whether a court may disregard evidence that an employer has treated actual job applicants in a nondiscriminatory manner and rely on undifferentiated workforce statistics to find an unrebutted prima facie case of employment discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
Their petition for certiorari and brief on the merits did -raise a second question: "Whether Congress has authority under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to prohibit by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 employment practices of an agency of a state government in the absence of proof that the agency purposefully discriminated against applicants on the basis of race.” That issue, however, is not presented by the facts in this case. The Government’s opening statement in the trial court explained that its evidence was designed to show that the scarcity of Negro teachers at Hazelwood “is the result of purpose” and is attributable to “deliberately continued employment policies.” Thus here, as in Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, “[t]he Government’s theory of discrimination was simply that the [employer], in violation of § 703 (a) of Title VII, regularly and purposefully treated Negroes . . . less favorably than white persons.” Id., at 335 (footnote omitted).
In Teamsters, the comparison between the percentage of Negroes on the employer’s work force and the percentage in the general areawide population was highly..probative, because the job skill there involved— the ability to drive a truck — is one that many persons possess or can fairly readily acquire. When special qualifications are required to fill particular jobs, comparisons to the general population (rather than to the smaller group of individuals who possess the necessary qualifications) may have little probative value. The comparative statistics'introduced by the Government in the District Court, however, were properly limited to public school teachers, and therefore this is not a case like Mayor v. Educational Equality League, 415 U. S. 605, in which the racial-composition comparisons failed to take into account special qualifications for the position in question. Id., at 620-621.
Although the petitioners concede as a general matter the probative force of the comparative work-force statistics, they object to the Court of Appeals’ heavy reliance on these data on the ground that applicant-flow data, showing the actual percentage of white and Negro applicants for teaching positions at Hazelwood, would 'be firmer proof. As we have noted, see n. 5, supra, there was no clear evidence of such statistics. We leave it to the District Court on remand to determine whether competent proof of those data can be adduced. If so, it would, of course, be very relevant. Cf. Dothard v. Rawlinson, post, at 330.
As is discussed below, the Government contends that a comparative figure of 15.4%, rather than 5.7%, is the appropriate one. See infra, at 310-312. But even assuming, arguendo, that the 5.7% figure urged by the petitioners is correct, the disparity between that figure and the percentage of Negroes on Hazelwood’s teaching staff would be more than fourfold for the 1972-1973 school year, and threefold for the 1973-1974 school year. A precise method of measuring the significance of such statistical disparities was explained in Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U. S. 482, 496-497, n. 17. It involves calculation of the “standard deviation” as a measure of predicted fluctuations from the expected value of a sample. Using the 5.7% figure as the basis for calculating the expected value, the expected number of Negroes on the Hazelwood teaching staff would be roughly 63 in 1972-1973 and 70 in 1973-1974. The observed number in those years was 16 and 22, respectively. The difference between the observed and expected values was more than six standard deviations in 1972-1973 and more than five standard deviations in 1973-1974. The Court in Castaneda noted that “[a]s a general rule for such large samples, if the difference between the expected value and the observed number is greater than two or three standard deviations,” then the hypothesis that teachers were hired without regard to race would be suspect. 430 U. S., at 497 n. 17.
This is not to say that evidence of pre-Act discrimination can never have any probative force. Proof that an employer engaged in racial discrimination prior to the effective date of Title VII might in some circumstances support the inference that such discrimination continued, particularly where relevant aspects of the decisionmaking process had undergone little change. Cf. Fed. Rule Evid. 406; Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Homing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 267; 1 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 92 (3d ed. 1940); 2 id., §§ 302-305, 371, 375. And, of course, a public employer even before the extension of Title VII in 1972 was subject to the command of the Fourteenth Amendment not to engage in purposeful racial discrimination.
See n. 13, supra, and n. 21, infra. But cf. Teamsters, 431 U. S., at 364-367.
Indeed, under the statistical methodology explained in Castaneda v. Partida, supra, at 496-497, n. 17, involving the calculation of the standard deviation as a measure of predicted fluctuations, the difference between using 15.4% and 5.7% as the areawide figure would be significant. If the 15.4% figure is taken as the basis for comparison, the expected number of Negro teachers hired by Hazelwood in 1972-1973 would be 43 (rather than the actual figure of 10) of a total of 282, a difference of more than five standard deviations; the expected number in 1973-1974 would be 19 (rather than the actual figure 5) of a total of 123, a difference of more than three standard deviations. For the two years combined, the difference between the observed number of 15 Negro teachers hired (of a total of 405) would vary from the expected number of 62 by more than six standard deviations. Because a fluctuation of more than two or three standard deviations would undercut the hypothesis that decisions were being made randomly with respect to race, 430 U. S., at 497 n. 17, each of these statistical comparisons would reinforce rather than rebut the Government’s other proof. If, however, the 5.7% areawide figure is used, the expected number of Negro teachers hired in 1972-1973 would be roughly 16, less than two standard deviations from the observed number of 10; for 1973-1974, the expected value would be roughly seven, less than one standard deviation from the observed value of 5; and for the two years combined, the expected value of 23 would be less than two standard deviations, from the observed total of 15. A more precise method of analyzing these statistics confirms the results of the standard deviation analysis. See F. Mosteller, R. Rourke, & G. Thomas, Probability with Statistical Applications 494 (2d ed. 1970).
These observations are not intended to suggest that precise calculations of statistical significance are necessary in employing statistical proof, but merely to highlight the importance of the choice of the relevant labor market area.
In 1970 Negroes consituted only 42% of the faculty in St. Louis city schools, which could indicate either that the city’s policy was not yet in effect or simply that its goal had not yet been achieved.
The petitioners observe, for example, that Harris Teachers College in St. Louis, whose 1973 graduating class was 60% Negro, is operated by the city. It is the petitioners’ contention that the city’s public elementary and secondary schools occupy an advantageous position in the recruitment of Harris graduates.
Because the District Court focused on a comparison between the percentage of Negro teachers and Negro pupils in Hazelwood, it did not undertake an evaluation of the relevant labor market, and its casual dictum that the inclusion of the city of St. Louis “distorted” tho labor market statistics was not based upon valid criteria. 392 F. Supp. 1276, 1287 (ED Mo.).
It will also be open to the District Court on remand to determine whether sufficiently reliable applicant-flow data are available to permit consideration of the petitioners’ argument that those data may undercut a statistical analysis dependent upon hirings alone. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the respondent of the case. The respondent is the party being sued or tried and is also known as the appellee. Characterize the respondent as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the respondent by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the respondent is actually single entitiy or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single respondent, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the respondent of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
26
] | sc_respondent |
METLAKATLA INDIAN COMMUNITY, ANNETTE ISLAND RESERVE, v. EGAN, GOVERNOR OF ALASKA, et al.
No. 326.
Argued May 18, 1960.
Decided June 20, 1960.
Richard Schifter argued the cause for appellant in No. 326. With him on the brief were Theodore H. Little and Daniel M. Singer.
John W. Cmgun argued the cause and filed a brief for appellants in No. 327.
John L. Rader argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Ralph E. Moody, Attorney General of Alaska, Douglas L. Gregg, Assistant Attorney General, and Charles S. Rhyne.
John D. Calhoun argued the cause for the United States, as amicus curiae, urging reversal. On the brief were Solicitor General Rankin, Assistant, Attorney General Morton and Roger P. Marquis.
Together with No. 327, Organized Village of Kake et al. v. Egan, Governor of Alaska, also on appeal from the same Court.
MR. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These consolidated cases were commenced on June 22 and 24, 1959, in the interim District Court for Alaska, by complaints seeking permanent injunctions against threatened enforcement by the new State of Alaska, its Governor, and other agents, of an Alaska statute (Alaska Laws 1959, c. 17, as amended, Alaska Laws 1959, c. 95) making it a criminal offense to fish with traps. The statute was assailed on the ground that it was in conflict with applicable federal law. On July 2, 1959, orders were entered denying the injunctions, dismissing the complaints with prejudice, and denying an injunction pending appeal to this Court. 18 Alaska-, 174 F. Supp. 500. On July 11, 1959, Mr. Justice Brennan, acting in his capacity as a circuit justice, granted appellants’ application for an injunction pending final disposition of their future appeals to this Court. His opinion noted the existence of substantial questions, both as to our jurisdiction and the merits. - 80 S. Ct. 33. The notices of appeal were filed on August 6, 1959; on December 7, 1959, we postponed further consideration of the question of jurisdiction to the hearing of the cases on the merits. 361 U. S. 911.
If the orders rendered on July 2, 1959, were those of the “highest court of a State in which a decision could be had,” the appeals are within our jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2), since the court below sustained a statute of the State of Alaska against a claim of unconstitutionality under the United States Constitution. The jurisdictional problem arises out of the enactments governing Alaska’s accession to statehood, specifically, in relation to the Constitution of the new State and to the state and federal laws governing the termination of the former territorial courts and their displacement by a new state judicial system and a Federal District Court for the District of Alaska. The State Constitution, which took effect “immediately upon the admission of Alaska into the Union as a state” (Art. XV, § 25) on January 3, 1959, provided for a Supreme Court, to “be the highest court of the State, with final appellate jurisdiction,” a superior court, and such other courts as the legislature may provide. Art. IV, §§ 1, 2. Article XV, § 17, provides that in the transitional period until the new courts are organized, “the judicial system shall remain as constituted on the date of admission . . .” and that “[w]hen the state courts are organized, new actions shall be commenced and filed therein, and all causes, other than those under the jurisdiction of the United States, pending in the courts existing on the date of admission, shall be transferred to the proper state court as though commenced, filed, or lodged in those courts in the first instance, except as otherwise provided by law.”
The Alaska Statehood Act, 72 Stat. 339, which also became fully effective on January 3, 1959, in §§ 13-17, makes similar provision for the eventual disposition of business pending in the territorial district court upon the organization of the new District Court for the District of Alaska. However, it too provides, in § 18, that “the United States District Court for the Territory of Alaska shali continue to function as heretofore” for three years, or until the President proclaims that the new District Court “is prepared to assume the functions imposed upon it.” In June, 1959, when these actions were commenced, and on July 2, 1959, when decision below was rendered, neither new federal nor state courts were in operation.
The first question presented is whether the interim Alaskan District Court was the “court of a State” in deciding these cases. Sections 12 to 18 of the Statehood Act, 72 Stat. 339, make it plain that the interim court was not intended to be the newly created United States District Court for the District of Alaska, 28 U. S. C. § 81 A; otherwise the nature of the court, whether state or federal, is not explicitly set forth. It is apparent, however, that the court is to a significant degree the creature of two sovereigns acting cooperatively to accomplish the joint purpose of avoiding an interregnum in judicial administration in the transitional period. The termination of the existence of the interim court is governed by federal law, Statehood Act § 18; but the termination of its general jurisdiction over state law matters, insofar as it is dependent on state consent, is governed by state law, Alaska Laws 1959, c. 50, § 31 (2), which also provides for the accelerated organization of separate Alaska courts should the interim court be terminated before they are ready. Alaska Laws 1959, c. 50, § 32 (4), amended by Alaska Laws 1959, c. 151, § 1.
To determine our jurisdiction we need not engage in abstract speculation as to the function of the interim court in cases not before us. Whether the court can serve as a federal court, and the permissible scope of its powers if it may so serve, cf. National Mutual Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Transfer Co., 337 U. S. 582; Benner v. Porter, 9 How. 235, are perplexing questions, decision of which should not be avoidably made. It is apparent that the legislature of Alaska vested the judicial power of the State in the interim District Court for the time being, that the district judge in this case explicitly deemed himself to be exercising such power, and that, in light of the express consent of the United States, he properly did so. Benner v. Porter, supra. It follows that the District Court sat as a “court of a State” to decide these cases.
The question remains whether the interim court was also the “highest court” of Alaska within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1257. At the time of the filing of the notice of this appeal on August 6, 1959, the latest time at which jurisdiction could properly be determined, no new Alaska state court was in actual operation, although on July 29 the Justices of the Court were designated by the Governor. The contention that the interim court was not the highest court of Alaska at that time rests upon this latter fact, and the terms of Alaska Laws 1959, c. 151, § 1, amending Alaska Laws 1959, c. 50, § 32, which amendment provides that in the event that “a court of competent jurisdiction, by final judgment, declares that the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit lacks jurisdiction to hear appeals from the District Court of the District of Alaska, the Judicial Council shall forthwith meet and submit to the Governor the names of the persons nominated as justices of the supreme court and appeals from the District Court of the District of Alaska may be made to the State Supreme Court.”
Because the Ninth Circuit had ruled against its appellate jurisdiction over the interim court on June 16, 1959, six days before this action was commenced, Parker v. McCarrey, 268 F. 2d 907, it is urged that this provision, preserving appeals from the District Court to the Supreme Court of the State until the creation of that court, requires the conclusion that at least after July 29, when the Justices were appointed, appellate review was sufficiently guaranteed to make the Supreme Court, and not the District Court, the highest court of Alaska in which a decision in the instant case could be rendered.
The question thus raised is not free from doubt. Viewing the cases as of August 6, when the notices of appeal were filed, it is fairly arguable that the preservation effected by Alaska Laws 1959, c. 151, § 1, of the right to appeal to the Supreme Court of Alaska constituted the interim court as a lower court of Alaska within the intent of 28 U. S. C. § 1257 to await the completion of the State’s adjudicatory process as a prerequisite to adjudication here. Yet, were the promise of an appeal, however indefinitely postponed, to be taken as sufficient to bar our jurisdiction under § 1257, its equally obvious purpose to allow substantial constitutional questions to be timely brought here as of right would be frustrated. Although these cases were decided below on July 2, 1959, the date set by Alaska statute for full organization of the state courts was not until January 3, 1962, Alaska Laws 1959, c. 50, §§31 and 32 (4). If no other fact were present, a potential delay of two and one-half years before the organization of a court to hear the preserved appeal would in itself counsel a construction against denial of our jurisdiction. Here, however, two additional facts must be weighed: (1) the Justices of the Supreme Court were actually appointed on July 29, in pursuance of a direction to accelerate the organization of the court; and (2) the effective promulgation of the rules of the court (accomplished on October 5, 1959) and appointment of a clerk were in their hands. Alaska Laws 1959, c. 50, § 32 (3). While in light of these facts the question is exceedingly nice, we do not think that the assurance of a timely appeal to a court not yet functioning was sufficiently definite when the appeals were here filed to constitute a bar to our jurisdiction under § 1257 (2).
The interim court sustained the validity of the Alaska statute banning fishing with traps, Alaska Laws 1959, c. 17, as amended by Alaska Laws 1959, c. 95, against the claim of overriding federal law under the Supremacy Clause. The claim was based on an asserted conflict between the statute and regulations of the Secretary of the Interior, 24 Fed. Reg. 2053-71, prohibiting trap fishing in Alaskan waters generally, but excepting the appellants, thereby granting them in effect a license to fish with traps. The authority under which the Secretary purported to act is the Act of 1924, 43 Stat. 464, as amended, 48U.S.C. §§ 221,222.
A question not free from doubt, to put it at its lowest, thus raised under the Supremacy Clause, is however entangled with questions of construction of Alaskan state statutes as well as of the Alaska Statehood Act, supra. Also in issue is the effect of provisions of a compact between Alaska and the United States which, it is urged, reserved exclusive regulatory powers over Indian fishing rights to the United States, 72 Stat. 339, and which, so construed, is assertedly unconstitutional because of its failure to accord to Alaska participation in the Union on an “equal footing” with the other States. The latter contention raises related questions of federal power under the Commerce Clause, Art. 1, § 8. While we have before us questions of federal law that are the concern of this Court, their consideration implicates antecedent questions of local law turning in part on appreciation of local economic and social considerations pertinent to the scope of the so-called police power reserved to the State, upon which it would be patently desirable to have the enlightenment which the now fully formed Alaska Supreme Court presumably could furnish.
The original Act prohibiting traps was amended by Alaska Laws 1959, c. 95, § 1, so as to provide that it should not be construed inconsistently with the compact, and if the Alaska court determines as a matter of statutory construction that the compact was designed to leave with the United States, as to Indian fishing, the power it exercises under the White Act, a constitutional question now appearing on the horizon might disappear. Moreover, since questions are raised regarding the status of these two Indian communities in relation to the authority of the Secretary of the Interior, enlightenment drawn on the spot by the Alaska Supreme Court may be material to any ultimate determination of federal questions by this Court. Finally, since the ultimate challenge to this legislation is that it must yield to superior federal authority, an authoritative pronouncement by the Supreme Court of Alaska with regard to the justifications of this legislation under the so-called police power would have important bearing on the question of the scope of the powers reserved to the State.
Accordingly, consistently with the policies embodied in § 1257, and in view of the peculiar facts of these cases, we refrain at this stage from deciding the issues presented on the merits of these appeals so as to afford the Alaska Supreme Court the opportunity to rule on questions open to it for decision. We assume that that court has jurisdiction in these cases. However, since it alone can authoritatively decide such a question, we shall hold the cases on our docket. After the Alaska Supreme Court’s decision, there may be further proceedings on these appeals; and if it assumes jurisdiction, further appeals may be taken from its judgments. Cf. Lassiter v. Northampton County Board of Elections, 360 U. S. 45.
Because of the nature of the asserted claim of federal right and the irreparable nature of the injury which may flow from the enforcement of these Alaska criminal statutes prior to a final determination of the merits, we continue the stays granted by MR. Justice Brennan on July 11, 1959, until the final disposition of the cases.
Having been advised that appeals in these cases are pending in the Alaska Supreme Court, we direct appellants to pursue those appeals for disposition not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so Ordered.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas dissent from remitting the parties to the Alaska Supreme Court, as they are of the view that the controlling questions are federal ones whose resolution is for this Court. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the disposition of the case, that is, the treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed. The information relevant to this variable may be found near the end of the summary that begins on the title page of each case, or preferably at the very end of the opinion of the Court. For cases in which the Court granted a motion to dismiss, consider "petition denied or appeal dismissed". There is "no disposition" if the Court denied a motion to dismiss. | What is the disposition of the case, that is, the treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed (includes modified)",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"certification to or from a lower court",
"no disposition"
] | [
0
] | sc_casedisposition |
WIRTZ, SECRETARY OF LABOR v. HOTEL, MOTEL & CLUB EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 6.
No. 891.
Argued April 29, 1968.
Decided June 3, 1968.
Harris Weinstein argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Griswold, Assistant Attorney General Weisl, Louis F. Claiborne, Alan S. Rosenthal, Robert V. Zener, Charles Donahue, George T. Avery, and Beate Bloch.
Sidney E. Cohn argued the cause for respondent. With him on the briefs was Jerome B. Lurie..
Laurence Gold argued the cause for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, as amicus curiae, urging affirmance. With him on the brief were J. Albert Woll and Thomas E. Harris.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This action was brought by petitioner, the Secretary of Labor, in the District Court for the Southern District of New York for a judgment declaring void the May 1965 election of officers conducted by respondent Local 6, and ordering a new election under the Secretary’s supervision. The action is authorized by § 402 (b) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 534, 29 U. S. C. § 482 (b). The Secretary charged that a bylaw of the Local which limited eligibility for major elective offices to union members who hold or have previously held elective office was not a “reasonable qualification” within the intendment of the provision of § 401 (e) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 481 (e), that “every member in good standing shall be eligible to be a candidate and to hold office (subject to . . . reasonable qualifications uniformly imposed) . He charged further that enforcement of the bylaw “may have affected the outcome” of the election within the meaning of § 402 (c), 29 U. S. C. § 482 (c).
The District Court, after hearing, entered a judgment which declared that the prior-office requirement was not reasonable, but also declared that it could not be found that its enforcement in violation of § 401 (e) “may have affected the outcome” of the election. The court therefore refused to set aside the May 1965 election and to order a new election under the Secretary’s supervision, but did grant an injunction against enforcement of the bylaw in future elections. 265 F. Supp. 510. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the provision of the judgment which declared the bylaw not to be reasonable and its enforcement violative of § 401 (e), and set aside the injunction. The court found it unnecessary in that circumstance to decide whether enforcement of the bylaw at the election may have affected the outcome. 381 F. 2d 500. We granted certiorari. 390 U. S. 919. We hold that the restriction was not reasonable and that its enforcement may have affected the outcome of the election. The Secretary is therefore entitled to an order directing a new election under his supervision.
I.
Title IV is one of the seven titles of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA). Earlier this Term, we observed that “Title IV’s special function in furthering the overall goals of the LMRDA is to insure ‘free and democratic’ elections. The legislative history-shows that Congress weighed how best to legislate against revealed abuses in union elections without departing needlessly from its long-standing policy against unnecessary governmental intrusion into internal union affairs.” Wirtz v. Local 153, Glass Bottle Blowers Assn., 389 U. S. 463, 470-471. The Court of Appeals, however, in considering the reasonableness of the bylaw, emphasized only the congressional concern not to intervene unnecessarily in internal union affairs, stating that “[i]n deciding the issue of reasonableness we must keep in mind the fact that the Act did not purport to take away from labor unions the governance of their own internal affairs and hand that governance over either to the courts or to the Secretary of Labor. The Act strictly limits official interference in the internal affairs of unions.” 381 F. 2d, at 504. But this emphasis overlooks the fact that the congressional concern to avoid unnecessary intervention was balanced against the policy expressed in the Act to protect the public interest by assuring that union elections would be conducted in accordance with democratic principles. As we said in Wirtz v. Bottle Blowers, supra, at 473, decided after the Court of Appeals decided this case, “. . . Congress, although committed to minimal intervention, was obviously equally committed to making that intervention, once warranted, effective in carrying out the basic aim of Title IV.” Thus, “the freedom allowed unions to run their own elections was reserved for those elections which conform to the democratic principles written into § 401.” Id., at 471. In a companion case, Wirtz v. Local 125, Laborers’ Int’l Union, 389 U. S. 477, 483, we said that the provisions of § 401 are “necessary protections of the public interest as well as of the rights and interests of union members.” In sum, in § 401 “. . . Congress emphatically asserted a vital public interest in assuring free and democratic union elections that transcends the narrower interest of the complaining union member.” Wirtz v. Bottle Blowers, supra, at 475.
A pervasive theme in the congressional debates about the election provisions was that revelations of corruption, dictatorial practices and racketeering in some unions investigated by Congress indicated a need to protect the rights of rank-and-file members to participate fully in the operation of their union through processes of democratic self-government, and, through the election process, to keep the union leadership responsive to the membership. This theme is made explicit in the reports of the Labor Committees of both Houses of Congress. It is reflected in the discrete provisions of Title IV and also of Title I, the “Bill of Rights” for union members. 29 U. S. C. § 411. Title IV, and particularly § 401, was the vehicle by which Congress expressed its policy. That section prescribes standards to govern the conduct of union elections: International union elections must be held at least once every five years and local elections at least once every three years. Elections must be by secret ballot. Specific provisions insure equality of treatment in the mailing of campaign literature; require adequate safeguards to insure a fair election; guarantee a “reasonable opportunity” for the nomination of candidates, the right to vote, and the right of every member in good standing to be a candidate subject to “reasonable qualifications uniformly imposed,” the guarantee with which we are concerned in this case. 29 U. S. C. §§ 481 (a)-(e). Furthermore, although Congress emphatically gave unions the primary responsibility for enforcing compliance with the Act, Congress also settled enforcement authority on the Secretary of Labor to insure that serious violations would not go unremedied and the public interest go unvindicated. See Wirtz v. Bottle Blowers, supra; Wirtz v. Laborers’ Union, supra; Calhoon v. Harvey, 379 U. S. 134.
Congress plainly did not intend that the authorization in § 401 (e) of "reasonable qualifications uniformly imposed” should be given a broad reach. The contrary is implicit in the legislative history of the section and in its wording that “every member in good standing shall be eligible to be a candidate and to hold office . . . .” This conclusion is buttressed by other provisions of the Act which stress freedom of members to nominate candidates for office. Unduly restrictive candidacy qualifications can result in the abuses of entrenched leadership that the LMRDA was expressly enacted to curb. The check of democratic elections as a preventive measure is seriously impaired by candidacy qualifications which substantially deplete the ranks of those who might run in opposition to incumbents.
It follows therefore that whether the Local 6 bylaw is a “reasonable qualification” within the meaning of § 401 (e) must be measured in terms of its consistency with the Act’s command to unions to conduct “free and democratic” union elections.
I — I I — I
Local 6 has 27,000 members, assets of $2,300,000, and assets in welfare, pension, and medical funds of some $30,000,000. The Local represents bartenders, maids, dining room employees, and kitchen employees of hotels, motels, and private clubs in New York. It is structured into six geographic districts, each with five craft departments, for hotel and motel employees, and a seventh district for private clubs. The various crafts have their own representatives in each hotel, motel, or club. An Assembly, composed in 1965 of 372 members, meets four times a year and is the basic representative body. The delegates are elected from among the craft units within each of the seven districts on the basis of one delegate for each 75 members of a craft. 'The Assembly in turn elects from its membership an Executive Board on the basis of one board member for each 500 members, augmented by principal officers and by nonvoting business agents, 31 of whom are elected from the seven districts and others who are appointed by the Assembly. The Executive Board meets monthly. There is also an Administrative Board made up of, in addition to general officers, seven district vice-presidents elected from the districts and elected or appointed delegates to the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council. Finally there are four paid full-time general officers — President, Secretary-Treasurer, General Organizer, and Recording Secretary, all elected by the membership at large. Terms of office are three years. In practice the affairs of the Local are administered by the general officers and the Administrative Board.
The bylaw under challenge limited eligibility for positions as a general officer, district vice-president or elected business agent to members of either the Assembly or the Executive Board or members who, “at some time in the past, have served at least one term on either the Executive Board, the Assembly, or the old Shop Delegates Council.” The Shop Delegates Council was abolished in 1951 and replaced by the Assembly. These qualifications apply, however, only to members who stand for election for office. Vacancies may not always be filled by election; the general officers may in such cases fill vacancies by appointment of members without prior office-holding experience, with the approval of the Executive Board and the Assembly.
By the terms of the bylaw, in the May 1965 election only 1,725 of the 27,000 members were eligible to run for office. Of these, 1,182, or 70%., were eligible only because of service on the Shop Delegates Council which had been abolished 14 years earlier. Thus, only 543 of the eligibles, some 2% of the membership, had at some time or other served at least a term.in the Assembly, designated in the bylaws as “the highest body of the Union,” since its creation in 1951.
Five elections were held between 1951 and 1965. All of them were won by the “Administration Party,” whose slates were composed largely of incumbents. Until the May 1965 election there was only token opposition to those slates. Early in 1965, however, a “Membership Party” was organized. It attempted to field a slate of candidates to oppose the “Administration Party” slate for, among others, the four general offices and for 13 of the 27 vice-president and business agent posts. But enforcement of the bylaw disqualified the “Membership Party” candidates for the general office of Secretary-Treasurer and for eight of the district offices. Other “Membership Party” nominees were disqualified for lack of good standing. In result, the “Membership Party” slate was reduced to candidates for the offices of president, general organizer, and business agent in two districts. The “Administration Party” ran a full slate and elected its candidates by margins up to 7 to 1. Following the election, “Membership Party” members protested the validity of the bylaw and, after unsuccessfully exhausting internal union remedies as required by § 402 (a)(1), filed the complaint with the Secretary of Labor as authorized by that section which in due course led to the Secretary's filing this action.
Plainly, given the objective of Title IY, a candidacy limitation which renders 93% of union members ineligible for office can hardly be a “reasonable qualification.” The practical effect of the limitation was described by the District Court:
“In practice it was not possible to be elected to the Assembly except with the blessing of the Administration Party conferred by selection to run for the Assembly on Row A [of a voting machine]. This was doubtless in large part because there was never a full slate of opposing candidates for the Assembly. The candidates to run on Row A for the Assembly were selected by the incumbent group of officers and were put in nomination after caucuses of invited members, attended by officers. It was only natural that candidates selected to run on Row A for the Assembly would be supporters of the administration. All candidates on Row A were pledged to support each other. Dissidents could not be elected to the Assembly. . . .
“Since 1951 the only way new members could become eligible for office was to win election to the Assembly. But in this period the only candidates which won such election were those who ran on Row A, the administration ticket. The only way to run on Row A was to be selected by the administration. Thus, dissidents could not become eligible to be opposing candidates for office and effective opposition was thus sharply curtailed.” 265 F. Supp., at 516, 520.
The Local attempts to defend the restriction as a “reasonable qualification” by citing the concededly impressive record of the “Administration Party” in running the Local’s affairs since 1951. There is no reason to doubt that the Local has enjoyed enlightened and aggressive leadership. But that fact does not sustain the Local’s burden. Congress designed Title IV to curb the possibility of abuse by benevolent as well as malevolent entrenched leaderships.
The Local also argues that the high annual turnover in membership, the diverse interests of the various craft units and the multimillion-dollar finances of the Local justify the bylaw as a measure to limit the holding of important union offices to those members who have acquired a familiarity with the Local’s problems by service in lesser offices. That argument was persuasive with the Court of Appeals, which said:
“[I]t is not self-evident that basic minimum principles of union democracy require that every union entrust the administration of its affairs to untrained and inexperienced rank and file members. ... It does not seem to us to be surprising that the union should hesitate to permit a cook or a waiter or a dishwasher without any training or experience in the management of union affairs to take on responsibility for the complex and difficult problems of administration of this union.
“We do not believe that it is unreasonable for a union to condition candidacy for offices of greater responsibility upon a year [sic] of the kind of experience and training that a union member will acquire in a position such as that of membership in Local 6’s Assembly.” 381 F. 2d, at 505.
That argument is not, however, persuasive to us. It assumes that rank-and-file union members are unable to distinguish qualified from unqualified candidates for particular offices without a demonstration of a candidate’s performance in other offices. But Congress’ model of democratic elections was political elections in this country, and they are not based on any such assumption. Rather, in those elections the assumption is that voters will exercise common sense and judgment in casting their ballots. Local 6 made no showing that citizens assumed to make discriminating judgments in public elections cannot be relied on to make such judgments when voting as union members. Indeed the Local is not faithful to its own premise. A member need not have prior service in union office to be appointed, to a vacancy in any office. Also, many members of the powerful Administrative Board become such by reason of their appointments as delegates to the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council, another example of important officers who are not required to have had prior service. Moreover, as the District Court found, “once such an officer is appointed, he automatically becomes a member of the Assembly and immediately becomes eligible to run thereafter for any union office. This enables the incumbent group to qualify members for elective office by a procedure not available to dissidents.” 265 F. Supp., at 520.
The bylaw is virtually unique in trade union practice. It has its counterpart in some other locals of this International Union but not in all; and it is not a requirement included in the International’s constitution. Among other large unions only the International Ladies Garment Workers Union has a similar restriction, but that union provides members with the alternative of a union-conducted course in union management. Of 66 unions reporting receipts over $1,000,000 for 1964, only locals of ILGWU and Local 6 reported having this requirement.
Control by incumbents through devices which operate in the manner of this bylaw is precisely what Congress legislated against in the LMRDA. Cf. Wirtz v. Bottle Bloioers, supra, at 474-475. Accordingly, we hold that the bylaw is not a “reasonable qualification” within the meaning of § 401 (e).
III.
The Secretary was not entitled to an order for a supervised election unless the enforcement of the bylaw “may have affected” the outcome of the May 1965 election, § 402 (c), 29 U. S. C. § 482 (c). The “may have affected” language appeared in the bill passed by the Senate, S. 1555. The bill passed by the House, H. R. 8342, and the Kennedy-Ervin bill introduced in the Senate, S. 505, required the more stringent showing that the violation actually “affected” the outcome. The difference was resolved in conference by the adoption of the “may have affected” language. Senator Goldwater explained,
“The Kennedy-Ervin bill (S. 505), as introduced, authorized the court to declare an election void only if the violation of section 401 actually affected the outcome of the election rather than may have affected such outcome. The difficulty of proving such an actuality would be so great as to render the professed remedy practically worthless. Minority members in committee secured an amendment correcting this glaring defect and the amendment is contained in the conference report.” 105 Cong. Rec. 19765.
The provision that the finding should be made “upon a preponderance of the evidence” was left undisturbed •when the change was made. That provision is readily satisfied, however, as is the congressional purpose in changing “affected” to “may have affected” in order to avoid rendering the proposed “remedy practically worthless,” by ascribing to a proved violation of § 401 the effect of establishing a prima facie case that the violation “may-have affected” the outcome. This effect may of course be met by evidence which supports a finding that the violation did not affect the result. This construction is peculiarly appropriate when the violation of § 401, as here, takes the form of a substantial exclusion of candidates from the ballot. In such case we adopt the reasoning of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Wirtz v. Local Union 410, IUOE, 366 F. 2d 438, 443:
“The proviso was intended to free unions from the disruptive effect of a voided election unless there is a meaningful relation between a violation of the Act and results of a particular election. For example, if the Secretary’s investigation revealed that 20 percent of the votes in an election had been tampered with, but that all officers had won by an 8-1 margin, the proviso should prevent upsetting the election. . . . But in the cases at bar, the alleged violations caused the exclusion of willing candidates from the ballots. In such circumstances, there can be no tangible evidence available of the effect of this exclusion on the election; whether the outcome would have been different depends upon whether the suppressed candidates were potent vote-getters, whether more union members' would have voted had candidates not been suppressed, and so forth. Since any proof relating to effect on outcome must necessarily be speculative, we do not think Congress meant to place as stringent a burden on the Secretary as the district courts imposed here.”
The District Court acknowledged that the issue was “governed by the teaching of Wirtz v. Local Unions 410, etc.” and correctly held that under its principle “a violation by disqualification of candidates does not automatically require a finding that the outcome may have been affected.” 265 F. Supp., at 520-521. We cannot make out from the court’s opinion, however, whether the violation was regarded as establishing a prima facie case that the outcome was affected. But if we assume that the court accorded the violation that effect, we disagree with its conclusion that the evidence met that case. The court cited the substantial defeat of those “Membership Party” candidates who did run, the lack of evidence that any of the disqualified nominees was a proven vote-getter, the lack of a substantial grievance or issue asserted by the “Membership Party” against the incumbents, and the overwhelming advantage enjoyed by the “Administration Party” of having a full slate of candidates. 265 F. Supp., at 521. We do not think that these considerations constitute proof supporting the court’s conclusion. None of the factors relied on is tangible evidence against the reasonable possibility that the wholesale exclusion of members did affect the outcome. Nothing in them necessarily contradicts the logical inference that some or all of the disqualified candidates might have been elected had they been permitted to run. The defeat suffered by the few candidates allowed to run proves nothing about the performance that might have been made by those who did not. The District Court properly perceived that the bylaw necessarily inhibited the membership generally from considering making the race, but held that any inference from this was disproved by “the heavy vote in favor of the administration candidates . . . .” Ibid. But since 93% of the membership was ineligible under the invalid bylaw, it is impossible to know that the election would not have attracted many more candidates but for the bylaw. In short, the considerations relied on by the court are pure conjecture, not evidence. We therefore conclude that the prima facie case established by the violation was not met by evidence which supports the District Court’s finding that the violation did not affect the result.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded to the District Court with direction to order a new election under the Secretary’s supervision.
It is so ordered.
Me. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The bylaw provided:
“In order to be eligible for nomination as an officer, a candidate must possess the following qualifications: (1) He must be a member of the Union in continuous good standing for a period of two years immediately preceding his nomination; (2) He must be a member of either the Assembly or the Executive Board, or else, at some time in the past, have served at least one term on either the Executive Board, the Assembly, or the old Shop Delegates Council. In order to be eligible for nomination as a member of the Executive Board, as a delegate to the Assembly, or as a department delegate, a candidate must be a member of the Union in continuous good standing for a period of at least one year immediately preceding his nomination.”
Section 401 (e) provides in pertinent part:
“In any election required by this section which is to be held by secret ballot a reasonable opportunity shall be given for the nomination of candidates and every member in good standing shall be eligible to be a candidate and to hold office (subject to section 504 of this title and to reasonable qualifications uniformly imposed) and shall have the right to vote for or otherwise support the candidate or candidates of his choice, without being subject to penalty, discipline, or improper interference or reprisal of any kind by such organization or any member thereof. . . .” 29 U. S. C. §481 (e).
Section 402 (c) provides:
“If, upon a preponderance of the evidence after a trial upon the merits, the court finds—
“(2) that the violation of section 481 of this title may have affected the outcome of an election, the court shall declare the election, if any, to be void and direct the conduct of a new election under supervision of the Secretary and, so far as lawful and practicable, in conformity with the constitution and bylaws of the labor organization. . . .” 29 U. S. C. §482 (c).
Judge Dimock dissented from the reversal of the declaratory judgment but concurred in the setting aside of the injunction. However, he did not join the majority in holding that the District Court was without power to enjoin future violations; his concurrence was “based upon the Secretary’s concession of lack of power in the district court.” 381 F. 2d, at 507. This issue is not before us.
The District Court did not consider other violations alleged in the complaint because no member of Local 6 had first invoked union remedies to redress them pursuant to § 402 (a). In light of our decision we need not consider the Secretary’s argument that a member’s protest triggers a § 402 enforcement action in which the Secretary may challenge any violation of §401 discovered in his investigation of the member’s complaint and brought to the attention of the union. Cf. Wirtz v. Local 125, Laborers’ Int’l Union, 389 U. S. 477, 481-482.
See Report of the Senate Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, S. Rep. No. 1417, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. (1958). See discussion in Wirtz v. Bottle Blowers, supra, at 469-470.
“. . . Like other American institutions some unions have become large and impersonal; they have acquired bureaucratic tendencies and characteristics; their members like other Americans have sometimes become apathetic in the exercise of their personal responsibility for the conduct of union affairs. . . .
“. . . [E]ffective measures to stamp out crime and corruption and guarantee internal union democracy, cannot be applied to all unions without the coercive powers of government ....
“. . . Union members have a vital interest ... in the policies and conduct of union affairs. To the extent that union procedures are democratic they permit the individual to share in the formulation of union policy. This is not to say that in order to have democratically responsive unions, it is necessary to have each union member make decisions on detail as in a New England town meeting. What is required is the opportunity to influence policy and leadership by free and periodic elections.
“It needs no argument to demonstrate the importance of free and democratic union elections. . . . The Government which gives unions . . . power has an obligation to insure that the officials who wield it are responsive to the desires of the men and women whom they represent. The best assurance which can be given is a legal guaranty of free and periodic elections. The responsiveness of union officers to the will of the members depends upon the frequency of elections, and an honest count of the ballots. Guaranties of fairness will preserve the confidence of the public and the members in the integrity of union elections.” S. Rep. No. 187, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 6-7, 20 (1959); I Leg. Hist. 402-403, 416. And see H. R. Rep. No. 741, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 6-7, 15-16 (1959); I Leg. Hist. 764-765, 773-774.
See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 187, supra, n. 6, at 34; H. R. Rep. No. 741, supra, n. 6, at 26-27; I Leg. Hist. 430, 784-785.
For the general background and legislative history of the Act, see generally Aaron, The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 851 (1960); Cox, Internal Affairs of Labor Unions Under the Labor Reform Act of 1959, 58 Mich. L. Rev. 819 (1960); Levitan & Loewenberg, The Polities and Provisions of the Landrum-Griffin Act, in Regulating Union Government 28 (M. Estey, P. Taft, & M. Wagner eds. 1964); Rezler, Union Elections: The Background of Title IV of LMRDA, in Symposium on LMRDA 475 (R. Slovenko ed. 1961).
See 29 U. S. C. § 481 (e): “a reasonable opportunity shall be given for the nomination of candidates . . .”; id,., §411 (a)(1): “Every member of a labor organization shall have equal rights and privileges within such organization to nominate candidates
The Local has amended its bylaw to liberalize the candidacy requirements (making eligible department delegates and members of five years’ good standing) and the amended bylaw was to govern an election scheduled for May 16, 1968. The District Court held the amended bylaw also unreasonable, but that ruling is not before us. 265 F. Supp., at 522-523. In any event, respondent’s argument that the amendment renders this case moot is foreclosed by Wirtz v. Bottle Blowers, supra, at 475-476. See also Wirtz v. Laborers’ Union, supra, at 479.
For example, the “Membership Party” nominee for one of the vice presidencies was a department delegate (or shop steward) who had been active in his district council meetings; but he was ruled ineligible since he had not held office in the Assembly.
Senator Kennedy had introduced, and the Senate had passed, similar legislation in the 85th Congress which died in the House. Senator Kennedy’s bill, S. 3751, included the “may have affected” language. In introducing the measure, he noted that “[i]f the United States District Court agrees with the Secretary, that there has been a substantial violation of the provisions of the bill, then he shall void the election ...” 104 Cong. Rec. 7954. (Emphasis supplied.) The Senate-passed version, S. 3974, retained the language and the report on the bill said this:
“Since an election is not to be set aside for technical violations but only if there is reason to believe that the violation has 'probably affected the outcome of the election, the Secretary would not file a complaint unless there were also probable cause to believe that this condition was satisfied. . . . After a hearing on the merits the court would determine whether a violation had occurred which might have affected the outcome of an election.” S. Rep. No. 1684, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 13 (1958). (Emphasis supplied.)
Why Senator Kennedy modified the language in S. 505 is not explained.
The Conference Report noted the change as follows:
“In subsection (c) of section 402, the conference substitute adopts the provision of the Senate bill that directs the court to set aside an election if the violation ‘may have’ affected the outcome. Under the House amendment an election could be set aside only if the violation did affect the outcome.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1147, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 35 (1959); I Leg. Hist. 939. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed. If the case arose under the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, note the source as "United States Supreme Court". If the case arose in a state court, note the source as "State Supreme Court", "State Appellate Court", or "State Trial Court". Do not code the name of the state. | What is the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed? | [
"U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals",
"U.S. Court of International Trade",
"U.S. Court of Claims, Court of Federal Claims",
"U.S. Court of Military Appeals, renamed as Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces",
"U.S. Court of Military Review",
"U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals",
"U.S. Customs Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit",
"U.S. Tax Court",
"Temporary Emergency U.S. Court of Appeals",
"U.S. Court for China",
"U.S. Consular Courts",
"U.S. Commerce Court",
"Territorial Supreme Court",
"Territorial Appellate Court",
"Territorial Trial Court",
"Emergency Court of Appeals",
"Supreme Court of the District of Columbia",
"Bankruptcy Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit (includes the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia but not the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which has local jurisdiction)",
"Alabama Middle U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Northern U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Southern U.S. District Court",
"Alaska U.S. District Court",
"Arizona U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Western U.S. District Court",
"California Central U.S. District Court",
"California Eastern U.S. District Court",
"California Northern U.S. District Court",
"California Southern U.S. District Court",
"Colorado U.S. District Court",
"Connecticut U.S. District Court",
"Delaware U.S. District Court",
"District Of Columbia U.S. District Court",
"Florida Middle U.S. District Court",
"Florida Northern U.S. District Court",
"Florida Southern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Middle U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Northern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Guam U.S. District Court",
"Hawaii U.S. District Court",
"Idaho U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Central U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Northern U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Southern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Northern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Southern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Northern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Southern U.S. District Court",
"Kansas U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Western U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Middle U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Western U.S. District Court",
"Maine U.S. District Court",
"Maryland U.S. District Court",
"Massachusetts U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Western U.S. District Court",
"Minnesota U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Northern U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Southern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Western U.S. District Court",
"Montana U.S. District Court",
"Nebraska U.S. District Court",
"Nevada U.S. District Court",
"New Hampshire U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"New Mexico U.S. District Court",
"New York Eastern U.S. District Court",
"New York Northern U.S. District Court",
"New York Southern U.S. District Court",
"New York Western U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Middle U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"North Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Northern Mariana Islands U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Northern U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Southern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Northern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Western U.S. District Court",
"Oregon U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Middle U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Western U.S. District Court",
"Puerto Rico U.S. District Court",
"Rhode Island U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina U.S. District Court",
"South Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Middle U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Western U.S. District Court",
"Texas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Northern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Southern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Western U.S. District Court",
"Utah U.S. District Court",
"Vermont U.S. District Court",
"Virgin Islands U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Western U.S. District Court",
"Washington Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Washington Western U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Northern U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Western U.S. District Court",
"Wyoming U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana U.S. District Court",
"Washington U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"Alabama U.S. District Court",
"U.S. District Court for the Canal Zone",
"Georgia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois U.S. District Court",
"Indiana U.S. District Court",
"Iowa U.S. District Court",
"Michigan U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi U.S. District Court",
"Missouri U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey Eastern U.S. District Court (East Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New Jersey Western U.S. District Court (West Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New York U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina U.S. District Court",
"Ohio U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee U.S. District Court",
"Texas U.S. District Court",
"Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Norfolk U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky U.S. Distrcrict Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"California U.S. District Court",
"Florida U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas U.S. District Court",
"District of Orleans U.S. District Court",
"State Supreme Court",
"State Appellate Court",
"State Trial Court",
"Eastern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Middle Circuit (of the United States)",
"Southern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Alabama U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Alabama",
"Arkansas U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Arkansas",
"California U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of California",
"Connecticut U.S. Circuit for the District of Connecticut",
"Delaware U.S. Circuit for the District of Delaware",
"Florida U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Florida",
"Georgia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Georgia",
"Illinois U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Illinois",
"Indiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Indiana",
"Iowa U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Iowa",
"Kansas U.S. Circuit for the District of Kansas",
"Kentucky U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Kentucky",
"Louisiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Louisiana",
"Maine U.S. Circuit for the District of Maine",
"Maryland U.S. Circuit for the District of Maryland",
"Massachusetts U.S. Circuit for the District of Massachusetts",
"Michigan U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Michigan",
"Minnesota U.S. Circuit for the District of Minnesota",
"Mississippi U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Mississippi",
"Missouri U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Missouri",
"Nevada U.S. Circuit for the District of Nevada",
"New Hampshire U.S. Circuit for the District of New Hampshire",
"New Jersey U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New Jersey",
"New York U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New York",
"North Carolina U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of North Carolina",
"Ohio U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Ohio",
"Oregon U.S. Circuit for the District of Oregon",
"Pennsylvania U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Pennsylvania",
"Rhode Island U.S. Circuit for the District of Rhode Island",
"South Carolina U.S. Circuit for the District of South Carolina",
"Tennessee U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Tennessee",
"Texas U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Texas",
"Vermont U.S. Circuit for the District of Vermont",
"Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Virginia",
"West Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of West Virginia",
"Wisconsin U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Wisconsin",
"Wyoming U.S. Circuit for the District of Wyoming",
"Circuit Court of the District of Columbia",
"Nebraska U.S. Circuit for the District of Nebraska",
"Colorado U.S. Circuit for the District of Colorado",
"Washington U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Washington",
"Idaho U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Idaho",
"Montana U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Montana",
"Utah U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Utah",
"South Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of South Dakota",
"North Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of North Dakota",
"Oklahoma U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Oklahoma",
"Court of Private Land Claims"
] | [
20
] | sc_casesource |
BLYSTONE v. PENNSYLVANIA
No. 88-6222.
Argued October 10, 1989
Decided February 28, 1990
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which White, O’Connor, Scalia, and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Brennan, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Marshall, J., joined, and in all but Part IV of which Blackmun and Stevens, JJ., joined, post, p. 309.
Paul R. Gettleman argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Stefan Presser.
Ernest D. Preate, Jr., Attorney General of Pennsylvania, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Ronald Eisenberg, Hugh J. Burns, Jr., Ewing D. Newcomer, and Gaele McLaughlin Barthold, Special Deputy Attorneys General, and Robert A. Grad, Chief Deputy Attorney General.
A brief of amici curiae urging affirmance was filed for the State of California et al. by John K. Van de Karnp, Attorney General of California, Richard B. IglehaH, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Arnold O. Overoye, Senior Assistant Attorney General, and Edmund D. McMurray, Dane R. Gillette, and Ward A. Campbell, Deputy Attorneys General, RobeH K. Corbin, Attorney General of Arizona, John J. Kelly, Chief State’s Attorney of Connecticut, James T. Jones, Attorney General of Idaho, Neil F. HaHigan, Attorney General of Illinois, Linley E. Pearson, Attorney General of Indiana, Marc Racicot, Attorney General of Montana, Brian McKay, Attorney General of Nevada, John P. Arnold, Attorney General of New Hampshire, Lacy H. Thornburg, Attorney General of North Carolina, T. Travis Medlock, Attorney General of South Carolina, Michael Burson, Attorney General of Tennessee, R. Paul Van Dam, Attorney General of Utah, and Joseph P. Meyer, Attorney General of Wyoming.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A Pennsylvania jury sentenced petitioner Scott Wayne Blystone to death after finding him guilty of robbing and murdering a hitchhiker who was unlucky enough to have accepted a ride in his car. Petitioner challenges his sentence on the ground that the State’s death penalty statute is unconstitutional because it requires the jury to impose a sentence of death if, as in this case, it finds at least one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstances. We hold that the Pennsylvania death penalty statute, and petitioner’s sentence under it, comport with our decisions interpreting the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
On a September night in 1983, Dalton Charles Smith-burger, Jr., an individual characterized at trial as possessing a learning disability, was attempting to hitch a ride along a Pennsylvania road. Petitioner, who was driving an auto carrying his girlfriend and another couple, observed Smith-burger and announced: “I am going to pick this guy up and rob him, okay . . . ?” His friends acquiesced in the idea. Once petitioner had Smithburger in the car, he asked him if he had any money for gas. Smithburger responded that he only had a few dollars and began searching a pocket for money. Dissatisfied, petitioner pulled out a revolver, held it to Smithburger’s head, and demanded that Smithburger close his eyes and put his hands on the dash. Petitioner then pulled off the road and ordered Smithburger out of the car and into a nearby field. After searching his victim at gunpoint and recovering $13, petitioner told Smithburger to lie face down in the field. He later said to a friend: “‘He [Smithburger] was so scared. When I was searching him, his body was shaking.’” 519 Pa. 450, 490, 549 A. 2d 81, 100 (1988).
Petitioner then ordered his victim not to move, and crept back to the car to tell his companions he was going to kill Smithburger. Petitioner returned to the field where, paralyzed by fright, Smithburger remained with his face to the ground. Petitioner asked his victim what kind of car he had been in. Smithburger responded with the wrong answer— he accurately described the car as green with a wrecked back end. Petitioner then said “‘goodbye’” and discharged six bullets into the back of Smithburger’s head. During a subsequent conversation with a friend, petitioner was recorded on a concealed device “bragging in vivid and grisly detail of the killing of that unlucky lad.” Id., at 457, 549 A. 2d, at 84. In response to a query during the conversation as to whether petitioner dreamed about, or felt anything from, the murder, petitioner stated: “‘We laugh about it. . . . [I]t gives you a realization that you can do it. ... You can walk and blow somebody’s brains out and you know that you can get away with it. It gives you a feeling of power, self-confidence....’” Id., at 489-490, 549 A. 2d, at 100.
Petitioner was charged with and convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, criminal conspiracy to commit homicide, and criminal conspiracy to commit robbery. The same jury that convicted petitioner found as an aggravating circumstance that petitioner “committed a killing while in the perpetration of a felony.” 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9711(d)(6) (1988). The jury found that no mitigating circumstances existed, and accordingly sentenced petitioner to death pursuant to the Pennsylvania death penalty statute which provides that “[t]he verdict must be a sentence of death if the jury unanimously finds at least one aggravating circumstance . . . and no mitigating circumstance or if the jury unanimously finds one or more aggravating circumstances which outweigh any mitigating circumstances.” § 9711(c)(l)(iv). On direct appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, petitioner argued that the death penalty statute was unconstitutional because it mandated a sentence of death based on the outcome of the weighing process. The court summarily rejected this argument, see 519 Pa., at 473, 549 A. 2d, at 92, noting that it had been expressly refuted in its decision in Commonwealth v. Peterkin, 511 Pa. 299, 326-328, 513 A. 2d 373, 387-388 (1986), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 1070 (1987). In Peterkin, the court reasoned that the statute properly accommodated the concerns of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972), that jury discretion be channeled to avoid arbitrary and capricious capital sentencing, and Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 (1978), that a capital jury be allowed to consider all relevant mitigating evidence. 511 Pa., at 326-328, 513 A. 2d, at 387-388. We granted certiorari, 489 U. S. 1096 (1989), to decide whether the mandatory aspect of the Pennsylvania death penalty statute renders the penalty imposed upon petitioner unconstitutional, because it improperly limited the discretion of the jury in deciding the appropriate penalty for his crime. We now affirm.
The constitutionality of a death penalty statute having some “mandatory” aspects is not a novel issue for this Court. In Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262 (1976), we upheld a statute requiring the imposition of a death sentence if the jury made certain findings against the defendant beyond the initial conviction for murder. See id., at 278 (White, J., concurring in judgment). A majority of the Court believed that the Texas sentencing scheme at issue in Jurek cured the constitutional defect identified in Furman — namely, that unguided juries were imposing the death penalty in an inconsistent and random manner on defendants. See Furman, supra, at 309-310 (Stewart, J., concurring). Thus, by suitably directing and limiting a sentencing jury’s discretion “so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action,” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 189 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.), the Texas death penalty scheme was found to pass constitutional muster. See Jurek, 428 U. S., at 276.
It was also thought significant that the Texas sentencing scheme allowed the jury to consider relevant mitigating evidence. “A jury must be allowed to consider on the basis of all relevant evidence not only why a death sentence should be imposed, but also why it should not be imposed.” Id., at 271 (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). On the same day that Jurek was decided, the Court struck down two capital sentencing schemes largely because they automatically imposed a sentence of death upon an individual convicted of certain murders, without allowing “particularized consideration of relevant aspects of the character and record of each convicted defendant before the imposition upon hjm of a sentence of death.” Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 303 (1976) (plurality opinion); Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U. S. 325, 333-334 (1976) (plurality opinion); see also Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S., at 604 (plurality opinion) (“The mandatory death penalty statute in Woodson was held invalid because it permitted no consideration of relevant facets of the character and record of the individual offender or the circumstances of the particular offense”) (emphasis in original; quotation omitted).
In Lockett, the Court provided further guidance on the nature of “relevant” mitigating circumstances, concluding that a sentence!" must be allowed to consider, “as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant’s character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.” Ibid, (emphasis in original; footnote omitted). Last Term, we elaborated on this principle, holding that “the jury must be able to consider and give effect to any mitigating evidence relevant to a defendant’s background and character or the circumstances of the crime.” Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 328 (1989).
We think that the Pennsylvania death penalty statute satisfies the requirement that a capital sentencing jury be allowed to consider and give effect to all relevant mitigating evidence. Section 9711 does not limit the types of mitigating evidence which may be considered, and subsection (e) provides a jury with a nonexclusive list of mitigating factors which may be taken into account — including a “catchall” category providing for the consideration of “[a]ny other evidence of mitigation concerning the character and record of the defendant and the circumstances of his offense.” See 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9711(e)(8) (1988). Nor is the statute impermissibly “mandatory” as that term was understood in Wood-son or Roberts. Death is not automatically imposed upon conviction for certain types of murder. It is imposed only after a determination that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances present in the particular crime committed by the particular defendant, or that there are no such mitigating circumstances. This is sufficient under Lockett and Penry.
Petitioner challenges the statute as it was applied in his particular case. This challenge essentially consists of a claim that his sentencing proceeding was rendered “unreliable” by the mandatory aspect of § 9711 for two reasons. See Wood-son, supra, at 305 (there is a “need for reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case”) (plurality opinion). First, petitioner asserts that the mandatory feature of his jury instructions — derived, of course, from the statute — precluded the jury from evaluating the weight of the particular aggravating circumstance found in his case. Second, petitioner contends that the mandatory feature of the sentencing'instructions unconstitutionally limited the jury’s consideration of unenumerated mitigating circumstances. We address these arguments in turn.
At sentencing, petitioner’s jury found one aggravating circumstance present in this case — that petitioner committed a killing while in the perpetration of a robbery. No mitigating circumstances were found. Petitioner contends that the mandatory imposition of death in this situation violates the Eighth Amendment requirement of individualized sentencing since the jury was precluded from considering whether the severity of his aggravating circumstance warranted the death sentence. We reject this argument. The presence of aggravating circumstances serves the purpose of limiting the class of death-eligible defendants, and the Eighth Amendment does not require that these aggravating circumstances be further refined or weighed by a jury. See Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U. S. 231, 244 (1988) (“The use of ‘aggravating circumstances’ is not an end in itself, but a means of genuinely narrowing the class of death-eligible persons and thereby channeling the jury’s discretion”). The requirement of individualized sentencing in capital cases is satisfied by allowing the jury to consider all relevant mitigating evidence. In petitioner’s case the jury was specifically instructed to consider, as mitigating evidence, any “matter concerning the character or record of the defendant, or the circumstances of his offense.” App. 12-13. This was sufficient to satisfy the dictates of the Eighth Amendment.
Next, petitioner maintains that the mandatory aspect of his sentencing instructions foreclosed the jury’s consideration of certain mitigating circumstances. The trial judge gave the jury examples of mitigating circumstances that it was entitled to consider, essentially the list of factors contained in § 9711(e). Among these, the judge stated that the jury was allowed to consider whether petitioner was affected by an “extreme” mental or emotional disturbance, whether petitioner was “substantially” impaired from appreciating his conduct, or whether petitioner acted under “extreme” duress. Petitioner argues that these instructions impermissibly precluded the jury’s consideration of lesser degrees of disturbance, impairment, or duress. This claim bears scant relation to the mandatory aspect of Pennsylvania’s statute, but in any event we reject it. The judge at petitioner’s trial made clear to the jury that these were merely items it could consider, and that it was also entitled to consider “any other mitigating matter concerning the character or record of the defendant, or the circumstances of his offense.” App. 12-13. This instruction fully complied with the requirements of Lockett and Penry.
Three Terms ago, in McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279 (1987), we summarized the teachings of the Court’s death penalty jurisprudence:
“In sum, our decisions since Furman have identified a constitutionally permissible range of discretion in imposing the death penalty. First, there is a required threshold below which the death penalty cannot be imposed. In this context, the State must establish rational criteria that narrow the decisionmaker’s judgment as to whether the circumstances of a particular defendant’s case meet the threshold. Moreover, a societal consensus that the death penalty is disproportionate to a particular offense prevents a State from imposing the death penalty for that offense. Second, States cannot limit the sentencer’s consideration of any relevant circumstance that could cause it to decline to impose the penalty. In this respect, the State cannot channel the sentencer’s discretion, but must allow it to consider any relevant information offered by the defendant.” Id., at 305-306.
We think petitioner’s sentence under the Pennsylvania statute satisfied these requirements. The fact that other States have enacted different forms of death penalty statutes which also satisfy constitutional requirements casts no doubt on Pennsylvania’s choice. Within the constitutional limits defined by our cases, the States enjoy their traditional latitude to prescribe the method by which those who commit murder shall be punished.
Affirmed.
Only three Members of the Court expressly relied on the mandatory nature of the Texas sentencing scheme as one reason why it passed muster under Furman. See Jurek, 428 U. S., at 278 (White, J., joined by Burger, C. J. and Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment). While Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens did not explicitly rely on the mandatory character of that scheme in upholding it, those Justices certainly did not believe the mandatory language posed any constitutional difficulties. See generally id., at 268-277.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has construed § 9711(e) to allow consideration of any relevant mitigating evidence, even that falling outside the catchall provision of subsection (e)(8). Commonwealth v. Holcomb, 508 Pa. 425, 470, n. 26, 498 A. 2d 833, 856, n. 26 (1985) (plurality opinion), cert. denied, 475 U. S. 1150 (1986); see also Commonwealth v. Fahy, 512 Pa. 298, 315-316, 516 A. 2d 689, 698 (1986).
The dissent states that our discussion of the facial validity of the Pennsylvania statute under Penry and Lockett is irrelevant because “[w]e did not grant certiorari to determine if the statute allows sufficient consideration of mitigating circumstances as required by Lockett. We granted certiorari to consider whether a State may mandate the death penalty when the jury finds no mitigating circumstances.” Post, at 316, n. 5. This statement is in error. The question presented reads as follows: “Whether the mandatory nature of the Pennsylvania death penalty statute renders said statute facially unconstitutional or renders the death penalty imposed upon petitioner unconstitutional because it improperly limits the full discretion the sentencer must have in deciding the appropriate penalty for a particular defendant.” Pet. for Cert. 2. The jury’s ability to consider mitigating evidence is indeed germane to this question.
After receiving repeated warnings from the trial judge, and contrary advice from his counsel, petitioner decided not to present any proof of mitigating evidence during his sentencing proceedings. Asked to explain this decision by the trial judge, petitioner responded: “I don’t want anybody else brought into it.” App. 8. Nonetheless, the jury was specifically instructed that it should consider any mitigating circumstances which petitioner had proved by a preponderance of the evidence, and in making this determination the jury should consider any mitigating evidence presented at trial, including that presented by either side during the guilt phase of the proceedings. Id., at 13.
Petitioner’s reliance on Sumner v. Shuman, 483 U. S. 66 (1987), is misplaced. There we held that a statute mandating the death penalty for a prison inmate convicted of murder while serving a life sentence without possibility of parole violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Although noting that “[p]ast convictions of other criminal offenses can be considered as a valid aggravating factor in determining whether a defendant deserves to be sentenced to death for a later murder,” id,., at 81, we recognized that “the inferences to be drawn concerning an inmate’s character and moral culpability may vary depending on the nature of the past offense.” The sentencing scheme involved in that case, however, did not provide for the consideration of any mitigating circumstances. Id., at 67-68, n. 1.
The dissent attempts to undermine our reliance on Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262 (1976), by arguing that the requirement of individualized sentencing was fulfilled under the Texas death penalty statute in a way not allowed by the Pennsylvania scheme through the jury’s consideration of special findings required to be made before death could be imposed. Post, at 320-323. The dissent ignores the fact that the three-justice opinion in Jurek concluded that the Texas statute fulfilled the requirement of individualized sentencing precisely because one of the special findings had been construed by Texas courts to permit the consideration of mitigating evidence. Jurek, supra, at 272 (opinion of Stewart, Powell and Stevens, JJ.) (“Thus, the constitutionality of the Texas procedures turns on whether the enumerated questions allow consideration of particularized mitigating factors”). Nowhere in that opinion was it implied that the mandatory feature of the Texas statute was constitutional only because a jury could still weigh other factors under a particular construction of the special findings when it found no mitigating circumstances. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether the petitioning party (i.e., the plaintiff or the appellant) emerged victorious. The victory the Supreme Court provided the petitioning party may not have been total and complete (e.g., by vacating and remanding the matter rather than an unequivocal reversal), but the disposition is nonetheless a favorable one. Consider that the petitioning party lost if the Supreme Court affirmed or dismissed the case, or denied the petition. Consider that the petitioning party won in part or in full if the Supreme Court reversed, reversed and remanded, vacated and remanded, affirmed and reversed in part, affirmed and reversed in part and remanded, or vacated the case. | Consider that the petitioning party lost if the Supreme Court affirmed or dismissed the case, or denied the petition. Consider that the petitioning party won in part or in full if the Supreme Court reversed, reversed and remanded, vacated and remanded, affirmed and reversed in part, affirmed and reversed in part and remanded, or vacated the case. Did the petitioning win the case? | [
"Yes",
"No"
] | [
1
] | sc_partywinning |
UNITED STATES v. BRUNO.
No. 67.
Argued November 22, 1946.
Decided December 9, 1946.
Stanley M. Silverberg argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General McGrath, Robert L. Stern, George Moncharsh, David London, Irving M. Gruber and Albert J. Rosenthal.
George R. Sommer argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A criminal information was brought against Bruno for having wilfully sold waste paper at prices higher than the ceilings established by Maximum Price Regulation 30. The information contained five counts, each count charging a sale of a carload lot in 1944 at prices above the established ceilings. The jury found Bruno guilty on all five counts. He was sentenced to imprisonment for six months and fined $500. The judgment of conviction was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. 153 F. 2d 843. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted because of an asserted conflict in principle between the decision below and United States v. Seidmon, 154 F. 2d 228, in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bruno was in charge of a business, owned by a relative, which bought and sold waste paper. Carrano was a middleman who bought waste paper from Bruno on orders from Carrano’s customers. The paper was shipped by Bruno direct to the customers, Carrano paying Bruno the price.
In each of the five sales challenged here, Carrano ordered from Bruno a grade of paper known as No. 1 assorted kraft. In each, Bruno invoiced the shipment as such and charged the ceiling price for that grade of waste paper. Carrano paid Bruno the invoice price. It appears that the orders were subject to inspection and approval of the waste paper by the customers; that they customarily made the inspections on receipt of the shipments; and that if the paper was below the grade at which it had been invoiced, the customers would pay Carrano the lower ceiling price, Carrano debiting Bruno with the difference. Each of the five shipments in question was inspected by the customer on its arrival. It was discovered that each shipment was largely composed of corrugated paper, a grade carrying a lower ceiling price. In three cases, the customers paid Carrano only for the quality of waste paper received. Carrano thereupon debited Bruno with the difference. In two cases, the customer did not complain of the upgrading and Bruno retained the over-charges. Moreover, the debits to Bruno in the three instances mentioned followed on the heels of an investigation by the Office of Price Administration. It also appears that the debits were not shown on Bruno’s books. His ledger showed sales, not at the invoice price, but at lower prices. The concealed amounts were explained by Bruno as constituting his commissions on the sales.
The District Court charged the jury that “before you can find him guilty, there must have been in his mind an intention not to set a price and then have it adjusted after-wards according to the truth of the situation, but an intent to fix this price and charge it and get away with it, — an intent to commit the crime, the formation of a purpose in his mind when he did this thing, to get more money for that paper than the ceiling price established by law.” The court also charged that there could be no conviction if Bruno did not sell the waste paper “with the intent of receiving higher than ceiling price, and did not actually receive higher than ceiling price.”
We think it was proper to submit the case to the jury. The evidence seems to us ample to support the conviction. There was false grading in each invoice. The sales were not made at a price to be determined on the customers’ inspection of the grade. They were made at specific invoice prices which were above the ceiling. The goods were delivered at those prices; and those were the prices actually paid. In some instances there was a subsequent adjustment of the price to conform to the price ceiling for the grade actually shipped. But in others there was not. And bearing on the integrity of the system were two other facts — (1) the debits made followed the OPA investigation; (2) the inflated prices were not disclosed on Bruno’s books. In a seller’s market upgrading may be a convenient device for black market operations. As the Circuit Court of Appeals noted, when paper is scarce the seller may send not what is ordered but what he has, on the assumption that manufacturers will be glad to take any kind of paper they can get. In view of the inadequacy of the supply, buyers cannot always be expected to reject upgraded shipments or insist upon price adjustments. The facts of this case sustain that theory, for in two instances no price adjustment was sought or made. In view of all the circumstances, the jury could well conclude that the system adopted by Bruno was designed to bring him more for the goods than was lawful.
Reversed.
Section 205 (b), Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, 56 Stat. 23, 33, 50 U. S. C. App. Supp. Ill § 925 (b).
See 7 Fed. Reg. 9732, 8 Fed. Reg. 13049, 17483.
The Circuit Court of Appeals seemed to proceed on the assumption that in no instance did the ultimate price which was paid exceed the ceiling price.
The preceding part of the charge was:
“In order that there may be a crime here, there must have been an intent on the part of this defendant to commit that crime, which was to receive a price for the paper which he sold which was in excess of the ceiling price. Now, if actually there had been paid to him more than the ceiling price, but it was the intent and intention of all persons respecting it, not to accept that as the final price necessarily, but to accept it subject to adjustment which would be made upon the examination of the paper actually delivered and the establishment of the price set by law for that paper, that is, if they had the idea that the only price to be received was that which the law set for the paper actually delivered, and that actually was what was paid, then there was no intent on his part to break the law. But if he sold this paper to the dealer, the wholesale dealer for a price which was above the ceiling price, and that was the price that he intended to get, and if you find as a fact that the only reason he didn’t get it was because he didn’t get away with it and there was a discovery without his having intent to do the honest decent thing, and that was the only reason he didn’t get it, still he would have had an intent to commit the crime and would have effectively committed it when he received above-ceiling price which he intended to receive, if he did so intend, and if the only reason that he didn’t get the ceiling price was because he was found out.” | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether administrative action occurred in the context of the case prior to the onset of litigation. The activity may involve an administrative official as well as that of an agency. To determine whether administration action occurred in the context of the case, consider the material which appears in the summary of the case preceding the Court's opinion and, if necessary, those portions of the prevailing opinion headed by a I or II. Action by an agency official is considered to be administrative action except when such an official acts to enforce criminal law. If an agency or agency official "denies" a "request" that action be taken, such denials are considered agency action. Exclude: a "challenge" to an unapplied agency rule, regulation, etc.; a request for an injunction or a declaratory judgment against agency action which, though anticipated, has not yet occurred; a mere request for an agency to take action when there is no evidence that the agency did so; agency or official action to enforce criminal law; the hiring and firing of political appointees or the procedures whereby public officials are appointed to office; attorney general preclearance actions pertaining to voting; filing fees or nominating petitions required for access to the ballot; actions of courts martial; land condemnation suits and quiet title actions instituted in a court; and federally funded private nonprofit organizations. | Did administrative action occur in the context of the case? | [
"No",
"Yes"
] | [
1
] | sc_adminaction_is |
PENNSYLVANIA PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSION v. PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD CO.
No. 375.
Decided December 13, 1965.
William A. Goichman and Joseph C. Bruno for appellant.
Hugh B. Cox and Windsor F. Cousins for appellee.
Per Curiam.
In the three-judge District Court from which this appeal comes to us, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company sued to enjoin the enforcement of a duly promulgated order of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission on the sole ground that the order conflicted with a federal statute. The Commission, among other defenses, contended that the federal statute was unconstitutional, but the District Court decided the case in favor of the railroad and issued an appropriate injunction. 240 F. Supp. 233.
It follows from our recent decision in Swift & Co. v. Wickham, ante, p. 111, that the injunction sought by the railroad, being based on incompatibility between the state order and the federal statute, was not grounded in the “unconstitutionality” of a state measure so as to require a three-judge tribunal under 28 U. S. C. § 2281 (1964 ed.). Nor is § 2282, requiring such a tribunal in order to enjoin “any Act of Congress for repugnance to the Constitution,” invoked by the Commission’s defense that the federal statute is unconstitutional; it is settled that this provision “does not provide for a case where the validity of an Act of Congress is merely drawn in question, albeit that question be decided, but only for a case where there is an application for an interlocutory or permanent injunction to restrain the enforcement of an Act of Congress.” Garment Workers v. Donnelly Co., 304 U. S. 243, 250.
Because a three-judge court was not required to adjudicate this suit, this Court has no jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1253 (1964 ed.) to entertain a direct appeal. It does not appear from the record that the Commission lodged a protective appeal in the Court of Appeals, and the time to do so has almost certainly expired. The appeal to this Court occurred before Swift & Co. v. Wick-ham, supra, was decided, and there is no reason why the Commission should be deprived of appellate review. In accordance with precedent, we vacate the judgment below and remand the case to the District Court so that it may enter a fresh decree from which a timely appeal may be taken to the Court of Appeals. See Phillips v. United States, 312 U. S. 246, 254.
It is so ordered. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the manner in which the Court took jurisdiction. The Court uses a variety of means whereby it undertakes to consider cases that it has been petitioned to review. The most important ones are the writ of certiorari, the writ of appeal, and for legacy cases the writ of error, appeal, and certification. For cases that fall into more than one category, identify the manner in which the court takes jurisdiction on the basis of the writ. For example, Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), an original jurisdiction and a mandamus case, should be coded as mandamus rather than original jurisdiction due to the nature of the writ. Some legacy cases are "original" motions or requests for the Court to take jurisdiction but were heard or filed in another court. For example, Ex parte Matthew Addy S.S. & Commerce Corp., 256 U.S. 417 (1921) asked the Court to issue a writ of mandamus to a federal judge. Do not code these cases as "original" jurisdiction cases but rather on the basis of the writ. | What is the manner in which the Court took jurisdiction? | [
"cert",
"appeal",
"bail",
"certification",
"docketing fee",
"rehearing or restored to calendar for reargument",
"injunction",
"mandamus",
"original",
"prohibition",
"stay",
"writ of error",
"writ of habeas corpus",
"unspecified, other"
] | [
1
] | sc_jurisdiction |
KAISER STEEL CORP. v. MULLINS et al.
No. 80-1345.
Argued November 10, 1981
Decided January 13, 1982
White, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burger, C. J., and Powell, Rehnquist, Stevens, and O’Connor, JJ., joined. Brennan, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Marshall and Blackmun, JJ., joined, post, p. 89.
A. Douglas Melamed argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Lynn Bregman.
Stephen J. Poliak argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Ralph J. Moore, Jr., Wendy S. White, and E. Calvin Golumbic.
Barbara E. Etkind argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Lee, Assistant Attorney General Baxter, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Robert B. Nicholson, Robert J. Wiggers, and T. Timothy Ryan, Jr
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by James D. Hutchinson and John M. Cannon for the Mid-America Legal Foundation; and by Steven L. Friedman and John L. Kilcullen for the Pennsylvania Coal Mining Association.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by Alan M. Levy for the Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund; by James P. Watson, George M. Cox, John S. Miller, Jr., and Lionel Rickman for the Construction Laborers Trust Funds for Southern California et al.; by Gerald M. Feder and Denis F. Gordon for the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans; by Wayne Jett and Julius Reich for the Operating Engineers Pension Trust et al.; and by Harrison Combs and Willard P. Owens for the United Mine Workers of America.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue here is whether a coal producer, when it is sued on its promise to contribute to union welfare funds based on its purchases of coal from producers not under contract with the union, is entitled to plead and have adjudicated a defense that the promise is illegal under the antitrust and labor laws.
I
The National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreement of 1974 is a collective-bargaining agreement between the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and hundreds of coal producers, including steel companies such as petitioner Kaiser Steel Corp. The agreement required signatory employers to contribute to specified employee health and retirement funds. Section (d)(1) of Article XX required employers to pay specified amounts for each ton of coal produced and for each hour worked by covered employees. In addition, the section included a purchased-coal clause requiring employers to contribute to the trust specified amounts on “each ton of two thousand (2,000) pounds of bituminous coal after production by another operator, procured or acquired by [the employer] for use or for sale on which contributions to the appropriate Trusts as provided for in this Article have not been made. . . Section (d) also provided that employers would furnish the trustees with monthly statements showing the full amounts due the trust funds as well as the tons of coal produced, procured, or acquired for use or for sale. The parties agreed that if the clause requiring contributions based on purchased coal was held illegal by any court or agency, the union could demand negotiations with respect to a replacement for the invalidated provision.
Kaiser operates a steel mill in California and coal mines in Utah and New Mexico. Its mines produce only high-volatile coal, so it must purchase mid-volatile coal used in steel manufacturing from another producer. Since 1959, Kaiser has purchased virtually all of its mid-volatile coal requirements from Mid-Continent Coal and Coke Co. Mid-Continent’s employees are represented by the Redstone Workers’ Association, and their wages and benefits during the period covered by the 1974 Agreement were equal or superior to those required by the UMW contract. Nevertheless, the UMW has repeatedly attempted to become the collective-bargaining representative for Mid-Continent’s employees. According to affidavits submitted by Kaiser, the purchased-coal clause was not taken into account in calculating the needs and revenues of the various UMW trust funds during the negotiation of the 1974 Agreement.
Kaiser complied with its obligation under the 1974 contract to make contributions based on the coal it produced and the hours worked by its miners. It did not, however, report the coal that it acquired from others or make contributions based on such purchased coal. After the expiration of the 1974 contract, the trustees of the UMW Health and Retirement Funds, respondents here, sued Kaiser seeking to enforce the latter’s obligation to report and contribute with respect to coal not produced by Kaiser but acquired from others. Jurisdiction was asserted under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA), 61 Stat. 156, 29 U. S. C. § 185, and § 502 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 891, 29 U. S. C. §1132. Kaiser admitted its failure to report and contribute but defended on the ground, among others, that the agreement in these respects was void and unenforceable as violative of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. §§1 and 2, and § 8(e) of the NLRA, 73 Stat. 543, 29 U. S. C. § 158(e). The District Court did not pass on the legality of the purchased-coal agreement under either the Sherman Act or the NLRA. It nevertheless rejected Kaiser’s defense of illegality and granted the trustees’ motion for summary judgment. 466 F. Supp. 911 (1979). The Court of Appeals affirmed, 206 U. S. App. D. C. 334, 642 F. 2d 1302 (1980), also rejecting Kaiser’s defense without adjudicating the legality of the purchased-coal clause.
We granted Kaiser’s petition for certiorari raising the question, among others, whether the Court of Appeals had properly foreclosed its defense based on the illegality of its promise to report and contribute in connection with coal purchased from other producers. 451 U. S. 969 (1981). We now reverse.
II
There is no statutory code of federal contract law, but our cases leave no doubt that illegal promises will not be enforced in cases controlled by the federal law. In McMullen v. Hoffman, 174 U. S. 639 (1899), two bidders for public work submitted separate bids without revealing that they had agreed to share the work equally if one of them were awarded the contract. One of the parties secured the work and the other sued to enforce the agreement to share. The Court found the undertaking illegal and refused to enforce it, saying:
“The authorities from the earliest time to the present unanimously hold that no court will lend its assistance in any way towards carrying out the terms of an illegal contract. In case any action is brought in which it is necessary to prove the illegal contract in order to maintain the action, courts will not enforce it. . . .” Id., at 654.
“[T]o permit a recovery in this case is in substance to enforce an illegal contract, and one which is illegal because it is against public policy to permit it to stand. The court refuses to enforce such a contract and it permits defendant to set up its illegality, not out of any regard for the defendant who sets it up, but only on account of the public interest.” Id., at 669.
The rule was confirmed in Continental Wall Paper Co. v. Louis Voight & Sons Co., 212 U. S. 227 (1909), where the Court refused to enforce a buyer’s promise to pay for purchased goods on the ground that the promise to pay was itself part of a bargain that was illegal under the antitrust laws. “In such cases the aid of the court is denied, not for the benefit of the defendant, but because public policy demands that it should be denied without regard to the interests of individual parties.” 7d., at 262.
Kaiser’s position is that to require it to make contributions based on purchased coal would be to enforce a bargain that violates two different federal statutes, the Sherman Act and the NLRA. Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act prohibit contracts, combinations, and conspiracies in restraint of trade, as well as monopolization and attempts to monopolize. Kaiser urges that the purchased-coal clause is illegal under these sections because it puts non-UMW producers at a disadvantage in competing for sales to concerns like Kaiser and because it penalizes Kaiser for shopping among sellers for the lowest available price.
Section 8(e) of the NLRA forbids contracts between a union and an employer whereby the employer agrees to cease doing business with or to cease handling the products of another employer. Kaiser submits that being forced to contribute based on its purchases of coal from other employers violates §8(e), the hot-cargo provision, because it penalizes Kaiser for dealing with other employers who do not have a contract with the union and because the major purpose of prohibiting hot-cargo agreements is to protect employers like Kaiser from being coerced into aiding the union in its organizational or other objectives with respect to other employers.
The Court of Appeals, like the District Court, declined to pass on the legality of the purchased-coal clause under either the Sherman Act or the NLRA. It was apparently of the view that even if the agreement was unlawful, the illegality defenses should not be sustained in this case. We disagree. None of the grounds offered by the Court of Appeals or by the respondents for rejecting Kaiser’s defenses are persuasive.
We do not agree, in the first place, that if Kaiser’s agreement to contribute based on purchased coal is assumed to be illegal under either the Sherman Act or the NLRA, its promise to contribute could be enforced without commanding unlawful conduct. The argument is that employers’ contributions to union welfare funds are not, in themselves and standing alone, illegal acts and that ordering Kaiser to pay would therefore not demand conduct that is inherently contrary to public policy. Kaiser, however, did not make a naked promise to pay money to the union funds. The purchased-coal provision obligated it to pay only if it purchased coal from other employers and then only if contributions to the UMW funds had not been made with respect to that coal. Kaiser’s obligation arose from and was measured by its purchases from other producers. If Kaiser’s undertaking is illegal under the antitrust or the labor laws, it is because of the financial burden which the agreement attached to purchases of coal from non-UMW producers, even though they may have contributed to other employee welfare funds. It is plain enough that to order Kaiser to pay would command conduct that assertedly renders the promise an illegal undertaking under the federal statutes.
We do not agree that Kelly v. Kosuga, 358 U. S. 516 (1959), compels or even supports a contrary result. In that case, both petitioner and respondent were engaged in marketing onions. Petitioner agreed to buy a substantial portion of the onions owned by respondent. Petitioner and respondent mutually agreed that neither would deliver any onions to the futures market for the balance of the trading season. The agreement was for the purpose of fixing the price and limiting the amount of onions sold in the State of Illinois, thereby “creating a false and a fictitious market” for that produce. Id., at 517. After petitioner defaulted on the payments due under the contract, respondent sued for the balance of the purchase price and was awarded summary judgment. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals rejected petitioner’s claim that his undertaking was unenforceable because part of the agreement violated the Sherman Act. This Court affirmed. The Court said that “[a]s a defense to an action based on contract, the plea of illegality based on violation of the Sherman Act has not met with much favor,” id., at 518, particularly where the plea is made by a purchaser in an action to recover from him the agreed price for goods sold. Various cases in this Court were cited to support the observation, and Continental Wall Paper Co. v. Louis Voight & Sons Co., 212 U. S. 227 (1909), where the defense was sustained, was distinguished as a case where a judgment for an excessive purchase price “would be to make the courts a party to the carrying out of one of the very restraints forbidden by the Sherman Act.” Kelly v. Kosuga, supra, at 520. The Court went on to say that “[p]ast the point where the judgment of the Court would itself be enforcing the precise conduct made unlawful by the Act, the courts are to be guided by the overriding general policy ... ‘of preventing people from getting other people’s property for nothing when they purport to be buying it.’” 358 U. S., at 520-521 (quoting Continental Wall Paper Co. v. Louis Voight & Sons Co., supra, at 271). Applying this approach to the facts before it, the Court observed:
“[WJhile the nondelivery agreement between the parties could not be enforced by a court, if its unlawful character under the Sherman Act be assumed, it can hardly be said to enforce a violation of the Act to give legal effect to a completed sale of onions at a fair price. . . . [W]here, as here, a lawful sale for a fair consideration constitutes an intelligible economic transaction in itself, we do not think it inappropriate or violative of the intent of the parties to give it effect even though it furnished the occasion for a restrictive agreement of the sort here in question.” 358 U. S., at 521.
Respondents construe Kosuga as standing for two general propositions: first, that when a contract is wholly performed on one side, the defense of illegality to enforcing performance on the other side will not be entertained; and second, that the express remedies provided by the Sherman Act are not to be added to by including the avoidance of contracts as a sanction. It is apparent from the opinion in that case, however, that both propositions were subject to the limitation that the illegality defense should be entertained in those circumstances where its rejection would be to enforce conduct that the antitrust laws forbid. In Kosuga, there were two promises, one to pay for purchased onions and the other to withhold onions from the market. The former was legal and could be enforced, the latter illegal and unenforceable.
Kosuga thus contemplated that the defense of illegality would be entertained in a case such as this. If the purchased-coal agreement is illegal, it is precisely because the promised contributions are linked to purchased coal and are a penalty for dealing with producers not under contract with the UMW. In Kosuga, withholding onions from the market was not in itself illegal and could have been done unilaterally. But the agreement to do so, as the Court recognized, was unenforceable. Here, employer contributions to union welfare funds may be quite legal more often than not, but an agreement linking contributions to purchased coal, if illegal, is subject to the defense of illegality.
Respondents’ reliance on Lewis v. Benedict Coal Corp., 361 U. S. 459 (1960), is no more persuasive. There, as here, a collective-bargaining contract bound the coal company to contribute to an employee trust fund. When sued by the trustees for delinquent contributions, the employers defended on the ground that the union had violated the no-strike clause contained in the contract. Although the strikes were illegal, the Court held that the company’s promise to contribute to the fund was independent of and not conditioned on the union’s performance of its promise not to strike. Furthermore, the company was not entitled to a setoff against the trustees, who were innocent third parties, at least in the absence of some indication in the contract that the parties had intended to permit the employer to reduce its contributions by the amount of his damages caused by the striking unions. Just as in Kosuga, however, the promise that was enforced was not an illegal undertaking. Aside from the defense based on the union’s default, there was no claim that the employer’s promise to pay was illegal and unenforceable. The decision in no respect suggests that trustees could collect payments pursuant to a promise that itself violates the antitrust laws or the NLRA.
HH HH
We also do not agree that the question of the legality of the purchased-coal clause under § 8(e) of the NLRA was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board and that the District Court was therefore without authority to adjudicate Kaiser’s defense in this respect. The Board is vested with primary jurisdiction to determine what is or is not an unfair labor practice. As a general rule, federal courts dp not have jurisdiction over activity which “is arguably subject to §7 or §8 of the [NLRA],” and they “must defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board.” San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 245 (1959). See also Garner v. Teamsters, 346 U. S. 485, 490-491 (1953). It is also well established, however, that a federal court has a duty to determine whether a contract violates federal law before enforcing it. “The power of the federal courts to enforce the terms of private agreements is at all times exercised subject to the restrictions and limitations of the public policy of the United States as manifested in . . . federal statutes. . . . Where the enforcement of private agreements would be violative of that policy, it is the obligation of courts to refrain from such exertions of judicial power.” Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U. S. 24, 34-35 (1948) (footnotes omitted).
The “touchstone” and “central theme” of § 8(e) is the protection of neutral employers, such as Kaiser, which are caught in the middle of a union’s dispute with a third party. National Woodwork Manufacturers Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612, 624-626, 645 (1967). Section 8(e) provides not only that “it shall be an unfair labor practice” to enter an agreement containing a hot-cargo clause, but also that “any contract or agreement entered into heretofore or hereafter containing [a hot-cargo clause] shall be. to such extent unenforcible [sic] and void.” This strongly implies that a court must reach the merits of an illegality defense in order to determine whether the contract clause at issue has any legal effect in the first place.
That § 8(e) renders hot-cargo clauses void at their inception and at all times unenforceable by federal courts is also evident from its legislative history. It was enacted to close a loophole created by Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93 (1958) (Sand Door). There the Court held that the existence of a hot-cargo clause was not a defense to an unfair labor practice charge brought by a union against an employer, emphasizing that observance of the clause was not unlawful. “Section 8(e) was designed to plug this gap in the legislation by making the “hot cargo’ clause itself unlawful. The Sand Door decision was believed by Congress ... to create the possibility of damage actions against employers for breaches of ‘hot cargo’ clauses . . . .” National Woodwork Manufacturers Assn. v. NLRB, supra, at 634. If a union may not maintain a damages action for violation of a hot-cargo clause, it also may not enforce a hot-cargo clause in an action for specific performance.
That a federal court may determine the merits of Kaiser’s § 8(e) defense is further supported by Connell Construction Co. v. Plumbers & Steamfitters, 421 U. S. 616 (1975). There the petitioner filed suit claiming that an agreement between it and the respondent union violated §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Respondent contended that the agreement was exempt from the antitrust laws because it was authorized by § 8(e). The Court of Appeals refused to decide whether § 8(e) permitted the agreement or whether the agreement constituted an unfair labor practice under § 8(e), holding that the NLRB “has exclusive jurisdiction to decide in the first instance what Congress meant in 8(e) and 8(b)(4).” Connell Construction Co. v. Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union No. 100, 483 F. 2d 1154, 1174 (CA5 1973) (footnote omitted). This Court reversed on the ground that “the federal courts may decide labor law questions that emerge as collateral issues in suits brought under independent federal remedies, including the antitrust laws.” 421 U. S., at 626 (footnote omitted). See also Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676, 684-688 (1965). The Court then addressed the §8(e) issue on the merits and found that §8(e) did not allow the agreement at issue. 421 U. S., at 633. As a result, the agreement was subject to the antitrust laws, for the majority was persuaded that the legislative history did not suggest “labor-law remedies for § 8(e) violations were intended to be exclusive, or that Congress thought allowing antitrust remedies in cases like the present one would be inconsistent with the remedial scheme of the NLRA.” Id., at 634 (footnote omitted).
In Connell, we decided the § 8(e) issue in the first instance. It was necessary to do so to determine whether the agreement was immune from the antitrust laws. Here a court must decide whether the purchased-coal clause violates § 8(e) in order to determine whether to enforce the clause. As the Court recently stated with respect to a statute which also provides that contracts which violate it are “void,” “[a]t the very least Congress must have assumed that [the statute] could be raised defensively in private litigation to preclude the enforcement of . . . [a] contract.” Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S. 11, 18 (1979). Therefore, where a § 8(e) defense is raised by a party which § 8(e) was designed to protect, and where the defense is not directed to a collateral matter but to the portion of the contract for which enforcement is sought, a court must entertain the defense. While only the Board may provide affirmative remedies for unfair labor practices, a court may not enforce a contract provision which violates § 8(e). Were the rule otherwise, parties could be compelled to comply with contract clauses, the lawfulness of which would be insulated from review by any court.
IV
On September 26, 1980, nine days after the Court of Appeals issued the decision under review, Congress enacted legislation which respondents argue established -a special rule governing the availability of illegality defenses in actions for delinquent contributions brought by pension fund trustees. It is urged that Congress intended to preclude employers from raising defenses such as those Kaiser has attempted to raise here. Section 306(a) of the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980, Pub. L. 96-364, 94'Stat. 1295, added § 515 to ERISA, which provides:
“Every employer who is obligated to make contributions to a multiemployer plan under the terms of the plan or under the terms of a collectively bargained agreement shall, to the extent not inconsistent with law, make such contributions in accordance with the terms and conditions of such plan or such agreement.” 29 U. S. C. §1145 (1976 ed., Supp. V).
The provision which was eventually enacted as § 306(a) was added to S. 1076 by the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. The Committee explained that the provision was added because “simple collection actions brought by plan trustees have been converted into lengthy, costly and complex litigation concerning claims and defenses unrelated to the employer’s promise and the plans’ entitlement to the contributions,” and steps must be taken to “simplify delinquency collection.” Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources,. S. 1076 — The Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980: Summary and Analysis of Consideration, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., 44 (Comm. Print, Apr. 1980) (1980 Senate Labor Committee Print) (emphasis added). During floor debate, Senator Williams and Representative Thompson explained the purpose and meaning of § 306(a) in the same language used in the Senate Labor Committee Print. Both legislators also stated that they endorsed cases such as Lewis v. Benedict Coal Corp., 361 U. S. 459 (1960); Huge v. Long’s Hauling Co., 590 F. 2d 457 (CA3 1978), cert. denied, 442 U. S. 918 (1979); Lewis v. Mill Ridge Coals, Inc., 298 F. 2d 552 (CA6 1962); and disapproved cases such as Washington Area Carpenters’ Welfare Fund v. Overhead Door Co., 488 F. Supp. 816 (DC 1980), appeal pending, No. 80-1501 (CADC), and Western Washington Laborers-Employers Health and Security Trust Fund v. McDowell, 103 LRRM 2219 (WD Wash. 1979), appeal pending, No. 80-3024 (CA9).
Assuming, arguendo, that the 1980 Amendments are applicable to this case, they do not alter the result. Far from abolishing illegality defenses, § 306(a) explicitly requires employers to contribute to pension funds only where doing so would not be “inconsistent with law.” Even if §306(a) were construed as completely embracing the views expressed by Senator Williams and Representative Thompson, the statute would not require prohibiting Kaiser from raising defenses to the purchased-coal clause. The legislators did not say that employers should be prevented from raising all defenses; rather they spoke in terms of “unrelated” and “extraneous” defenses. As the United States points out in its brief, none of the cases the legislators endorsed “involved the enforcement of a contribution clause that itself was alleged to violate the law.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 28 (footnote omitted). Neither Lewis v. Benedict Coal Corp., supra, Huge v. Long's Hauling Co., supra, nor Lewis v. Mill Ridge Coals, Inc., supra, involved a defense based on the illegality of the very promise sought to be enforced.
Respondents’ contention that § 306(a) permits only one defense to be raised in suits to recover delinquent contributions — that the making of the payment itself violates § 302(a) of the LMRA — must be rejected for another reason. Respondents’ argument necessarily assumes that in enacting § 306(a), Congress implicitly repealed the antitrust laws, the labor laws, and any other statute which might be raised as a defense to a provision in a collective-bargaining agreement requiring an employer to contribute to a pension fund. Since “repeals by implication are disfavored,” Allen v. McCurry, 449 U. S. 90, 99 (1980), “ ‘the intention of the legislature to repeal must be clear and manifest.’” TVA v. Hill, 437 U. S. 153, 189 (1978), quoting Posadas v. National City Bank, 296 U. S. 497, 503 (1936). The statutory language provides no basis for implying such a repeal, and nowhere in the legislative history is there any mention that § 306(a) might conflict with other laws.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Kaiser has been a UMW signatory since the 1940’s. The purchased-coal clause was first included in the 1964 Agreement, although the UMW agreements left steel companies such as Kaiser free to purchase non-UMW coal for use in steel production until 1971 without penalty.
The 1971 purchased-coal clause and its predecessors have been subject to litigation on the grounds that the clause is an illegal “hot cargo” agreement under § 8(e) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U. S. C. § 158(e), see, e. g., Riverton Coal Co. v. UMW, 458 F. 2d 1035 (CA6), cert. denied, 407 U. S. 915 (1972), and that it constitutes a group boycott in violation of the antitrust laws. See, e. g., Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U. S. 657 (1965); South-East Coal Co. v. Consolidation Coal Co., 434 F. 2d 767 (CA6 1970), cert. denied, 402 U. S. 983 (1971).
If Kaiser had purchased its mid-volatile coal requirements from a UMW producer, it would not be required to make any payments under the purchased-coal clause. The producer of mid-volatile coal would increase its contributions to the trust funds based on the amount of coal mined and the number of hours worked by employees, but in turn the trust funds’ obligations to UMW members would increase.
See also Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U. S. 24, 34-35 (1948); D. R. Wilder Manufacturing Co. v. Corn Products Refining Co., 236 U. S. 165, 177 (1915); Bement v. National Harrow Co., 186 U. S. 70, 88 (1902); Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540, 548-549 (1902).
In order to sell coal to Kaiser, a non-UMW producer must lower its price such that when added to the amount Kaiser must pay under the purchased-coal clause, the price is still competitive with those charged by UMW producers.
The contention is that since the contract has expired, enforcing the promise to contribute will not bring about any of the evils that the antitrust or labor laws are designed to prevent. But if a promise is illegal at its inception and cannot be enforced during the term of the contract, it does not spring to life and become enforceable when the contract expires. If penalizing Kaiser for purchasing coal from producers without contracts with the UMW is illegal, it is not less so if the penalty is extracted after the termination of the promise. The suit is still a suit on a presumptively illegal undertaking. If a promisee need only wait until a contract expires to enforce an illegal provision, the defense of illegality would obviously be ephemeral. Cases such as Continental Wall Paper Co. v. Louis Voight & Sons Co., 212 U. S. 227 (1909), and McMullen v. Hoffman, 174 U. S. 639 (1899), confound such a rule. And if it be suggested that Kaiser should not have waited so long to assert its defense, the Court has held that “rules of estoppel will not be permitted to thwart the purposes of statutes of the United States.” Sola Electric Co. v. Jefferson Electric Co., 317 U. S. 173, 176 (1942).
Refusing to enforce a promise that is illegal under the antitrust or labor laws is not providing an additional remedy contrary to the will of Congress. A defendant proffering the defense seeks only to be relieved of an illegal obligation and does not ask any affirmative remedy based on the antitrust or labor laws. “[A]ny one sued upon a contract may set up as a defence that it is a violation of the act of Congress, and if found to be so, that fact will constitute a good defence to the action. . . . The act. . . gives to any person injured in his business or property the right to sue, but that does not prevent a private individual when sued upon a contract which is void as in violation of the act from setting it up as a defence, and we think when proved it is a valid defence to any claim made under a contract thus denounced as illegal.” Bement v. National Harrow Co., 186 U. S., at 88.
As is evident from the text, Kelly v. Kosuga did not hold that the promi-sor may be forced to perform an illegal contract because he has another remedy that would make him whole. The case did hold that the promisor may not avoid performing a perfectly legal promise because he has also made a separate, illegal undertaking. In doing so, Kosuga conforms to a common-law exception to the rule that courts will not enforce illegal contracts. See 6A A. Corbin, Contracts §§ 1518-1531 (1962 ed. and Supp. 1964); Comment, 27 U. Chi. L. Rev. 758, and n. 2 (1959-1960).
As the Court of Appeals recognized, “third-party beneficiaries, like the Trustees here, are subject to the contract defenses of nonperforming prom-isors.” 206 U. S. App. D. C. 334, 344, 642 F. 2d 1302,1312 (1980). In this respect, pension fund trustees have no special status which exempts them from the general rule that courts do not enforce illegal contracts. Only Congress could create such an exemption and, as discussed in Part IV, it has not done so.
The dissent rests entirely on § 306(a). • It does not suggest that absent § 306(a), the purchased-coal clause would not be subject to the defense that its enforcement is forbidden by both the antitrust and labor laws.
Senator Williams was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources and floor manager of S. 1076, the Senate counterpart of H. R. 3904, which became the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980. Similarly, Representative Thompson was Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and floor manager of H. R. 3904.
126 Cong. Rec. 23039 (1980) (remarks of Rep. Thompson); id., at 23288 (remarks of Sen. Williams).
Ibid, (remarks of Sen. Williams); id., at 23039 (remarks of Rep. Thompson); id., at 20180 (colloquy between Sen. Williams and Sen. Matsunaga). See also 1980 Senate Labor Committee Print, at 44.
According to the dissent, Congress intended to permit a union to extract a promise from an employer that would be illegal under the antitrust and labor laws as long as the promise is to pay money to pension fund trustees. Under this view, the defense of illegality would be unavailable during the life of the contract; it would be of no avail to the employer to secure a declaratory judgment that its promise violated federal statutes. The promise would still be enforceable, the effect being that the antitrust and labor laws would be suspended for the life of the contract. The dissent concedes that § 306(a) itself does not support this result. It instead relies on scraps of legislative history to work its partial repeal of the antitrust and labor laws. We are unconvinced that Congress intended any such result.
It should also be pointed out that Kaiser paid all sums that were anticipated in calculating the needs of the trust funds. The purchased-coal clause was not taken into account in providing trust fund revenues. We are unpersuaded that Congress intended to give pension fund trustees the benefit of illegal bargains that were not, and should not have been, relied upon to ensure the solvency of the trust funds.
Because attorney’s fees are normally awarded only to prevailing parties, the award of attorney’s fees to respondents is also reversed. The Court of Appeals held that the District Court had jurisdiction over this action pursuant to § 502 of ERISA and did not abuse its discretion in awarding attorney’s fees under § 502(g). That section permits a court to “allow a reasonable attorney’s fee and costs of action to either party” in an action brought under § 502. Petitioners contend that this is not a suit to enforce ERISA, it cannot be brought under § 502, and therefore there is no authority for an award of attorney’s fees. It is unnecessary to reach this issue. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the disposition of the case, that is, the treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed. The information relevant to this variable may be found near the end of the summary that begins on the title page of each case, or preferably at the very end of the opinion of the Court. For cases in which the Court granted a motion to dismiss, consider "petition denied or appeal dismissed". There is "no disposition" if the Court denied a motion to dismiss. | What is the disposition of the case, that is, the treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed (includes modified)",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"certification to or from a lower court",
"no disposition"
] | [
3
] | sc_casedisposition |
SANCHEZ-LLAMAS v. OREGON
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF OREGON
No. 04-10566.
Argued March 29, 2006
Decided June 28, 2006
Peter Gartlan argued the cause for petitioner in No. 04-10566. With him on the briefs were Donald Francis Donovan, Carl Micarelli, and Catherine M. Amirfar. Mark T. Standi argued the cause for petitioner in No. 05-51. With him on the briefs were Jeffrey A. Lamken and John C. Kiyonaga.
Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General of Oregon, argued the cause for respondent in No. 04-10566. With her on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, Peter Shepherd, Deputy Attorney General, and Erik Wasmann and Benjamin R. Hartman, Assistant Attorneys General. William E. Thro, State Solicitor General of Virginia, argued the cause for respondent in No. 05-51. With him on the brief were Robert F. McDonnell, Attorney General, Stephen R. McCullough, Assistant Attorney General, Ronald N. Regnery and Courtney M. Malveaux, Associate State Solicitors General, William C. Mims, Chief Deputy Attorney General, and Marla Graff Decker, Deputy Attorney General.
Deputy Solicitor General Garre argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae supporting respondents in both cases. On the brief were Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General Fisher, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, and Robert J. Erickson.
Together with No. 05-51, Bustillo v. Johnson, Director, Virginia Department of Corrections, on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in both eases were filed for the Republic of Honduras et al. by Paul R. Q. Wolfson and Asim Bhansali; for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York by Matthew D. Roberts; for Bar Associations et al. by Kevin R. Sullivan, William J. Aceves, and Jenny S. Martinez; and for L. Bruce Laingen et al. by Daniel C. Malone.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in No. 04-10566 were filed for the Government of the United Mexican States by Sandra L. Babcock; and for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. by Thomas H. Speedy Rice.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in No. 05-51 were filed for the American Bar Association by Michael S. Greco and Jeffrey L. Bleich; and for the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project et al. by Seth A. Tucker.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance in both eases were filed for the State of Alabama et al. by R. Ted Cruz, Solicitor General of Texas, Greg Abbott, Attorney General, Barry R. McBee, First Assistant Attorney General, Don Clemmer, Deputy Attorney General, and Kristofer S. Monson, Assistant Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Terry Goddard of Arizona, Mike Beebe of Arkansas, Bill Lockyer of California, John W. Suthers of Colorado, Carl C. Danberg of Delaware, Charles J. Crist, Jr., of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Steve Carter of Indiana, Tom Miller of Iowa, Tom Reilly of Massachusetts, Michael A Cox of Michigan, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Mike McGrath of Montana, George J. Chanos of Nevada, Kelly A Ayotte of New Hampshire, Patricia A. Madrid of New Mexico, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Jim Petro of Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Thomas W. Corbett, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Lawrence E. Long of South Dakota, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, Rob McKenna of Washington, and Patrick J. Crank of Wyoming; and for Professors of International Law et al. by Paul B. Stephan, Samuel Estreicher, and Eugene Theroux.
Kent S. Scheidegger filed a brief for the Criminal Justice Foundation as amicus curiae urging affirmance in No. 04-10566.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed in both cases for the European Union et al. by S. Adele Shank and John B. Quigley; for the Alliance Defense Fund by William Wagner and Benjamin W. Bull; for Former United States Diplomats by Harold Hongju Koh; for the International Court of Justice Experts by Lori Fisler Damrosch and Charles Owen Verrill, Jr.; and for Law Professors by John F. Stanton and Helen K. Michael.
Chief Justice Roberts
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (Vienna Convention or Convention), Apr. 24, 1963, [1970] 21 U. S. T. 77, 100-101, T. I. A. S. No. 6820, addresses communication between an individual and his consular officers when the individual is detained by authorities in a foreign country. These consolidated cases concern the availability of judicial relief for violations of Article 36. We are confronted with three questions. First, does Article 36 create rights that defendants may invoke against the detaining authorities in a criminal trial or in a postconviction proceeding? Second, does a violation of Article 36 require suppression of a defendant’s statements to police? Third, may a State, in a postconviction proceeding, treat a defendant’s Article 36 claim as defaulted because he failed to raise the claim at trial? We conclude, even assuming the Convention creates judicially enforceable rights, that suppression is not an appropriate remedy for a violation of Article 36, and that a State may apply its regular rules of procedural default to Article 36 claims. We therefore affirm the decisions below.
I
A
The Vienna Convention was drafted in 1963 with the purpose, evident in its preamble, of “contributing] to the development of friendly relations among nations, irrespective of their differing constitutional and social systems.” 21 U. S. T., at 79. The Convention consists of 79 articles regulating various aspects of consular activities. At present, 170 countries are party to the Convention. The United States, upon the advice and consent of the Senate, ratified the Convention in 1969. Id., at 77.
Article 36 of the Convention concerns consular officers’ access to their nationals detained by authorities in a foreign country. The article provides that “if he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner.” Art. 36(l)(b), id., at 101. In other words, when a national of one country is detained by authorities in another, the authorities must notify the consular officers of the detainee’s home country if the detainee so requests. Article 36(l)(b) further states that “[t]he said authorities shall inform the person concerned [L e., the detainee] without delay of his rights under this sub-paragraph.” Ibid. The Convention also provides guidance regarding how these requirements, and the other requirements of Article 36, are to be implemented:
“The rights referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State, subject to the proviso, however, that the said laws and regulations must enable full effect to be given to the purposes for which the rights accorded under this Article are intended.” Art. 36(2), ibid.
Along with the Vienna Convention, the United States ratified the Optional Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes (Optional Protocol or Protocol), Apr. 24, 1963, [1970] 21 U. S. T. 325, T. I. A. S. No. 6820. The Optional Protocol provides that “[disputes arising out of the interpretation or application of the Convention shall lie within the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice [(ICJ)],” and allows parties to the Protocol to bring such disputes before the ICJ. Id., at 326. The United States gave notice of its withdrawal from the Optional Protocol on March 7, 2005. Letter from Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, to Kofi A. Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations.
B
Petitioner Moisés Sanchez-Llamas is a Mexican national. In December 1999, he was involved in an exchange of gunfire with police in which one officer suffered a gunshot wound in the leg. Police arrested Sanchez-Llamas and gave him warnings under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), in both English and Spanish. At no time, however, did they inform him that he could ask to have the Mexican Consulate notified of his detention.
Shortly after the arrest and Miranda warnings, police interrogated Sanchez-Llamas with the assistance of an interpreter. In the course of the interrogation, Sanchez-Llamas made several incriminating statements regarding the shootout with police. He was charged with attempted aggravated murder, attempted murder, and several other offenses. Before trial, Sanchez-Llamas moved to suppress the statements he made to police. He argued that suppression was warranted because the statements were made involuntarily and because the authorities had failed to comply with Article 36 of the Vienna Convention. The trial court denied the motion. The case proceeded to trial, and Sanchez-Llamas was convicted and sentenced to 2OV2 years in prison.
He appealed, again arguing that the Vienna Convention violation required suppression of his statements. The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed. Judgt. order reported at 191 Ore. App. 399, 84 P. 3d 1133 (2004). The Oregon Supreme Court also affirmed, concluding that Article 36 “does not create rights to consular access or notification that are enforceable by detained individuals in a judicial proceeding.” 338 Ore. 267, 276, 108 P. 3d 573, 578 (2005) (en banc). We granted certiorari. 546 U. S. 1001 (2005).
C
Petitioner Mario Bustillo, a Honduran national, was with several other men at a restaurant in Springfield, Virginia, on the night of December 10, 1997. That evening, outside the restaurant, James Merry was struck in the head with a baseball bat as he stood smoking a cigarette. He died several days later. Several witnesses at the scene identified Bustillo as the assailant. Police arrested Bustillo the morning after the attack and eventually charged him with murder. Authorities never informed him that he could request to have the Honduran Consulate notified of his detention.
At trial, the defense pursued a theory that another man, known as “Sirena,” was responsible for the attack. Two defense witnesses testified that Bustillo was not the killer. One of the witnesses specifically identified the attacker as Sirena. In addition, a third defense witness stated that she had seen Sirena on a flight to Honduras the day after the victim died. In its closing argument before the jury, the prosecution dismissed the defense theory about Sirena. See App. in No. 05-51, p. 21 (“This whole Sirena thing, I don’t want to dwell on it too much. It’s very convenient that Mr. Sirena apparently isn’t available”). A jury convicted Bustillo of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. His conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal.
After his conviction became final, Bustillo filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in state court. There, for the first time, he argued that authorities had violated his right to consular notification under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention. He claimed that if he had been advised of his right to confer with the Honduran Consulate, he “would have done so without delay.” App. in No. 05-51, at 60. Moreover, the Honduran Consulate executed an affidavit stating that “it would have endeavoured to help Mr. Bustillo in his defense” had it learned of his detention prior to trial. Id., at 74. Bustillo insisted that the consulate could have helped him locate Sirena prior to trial. His habeas petition also argued, as part of a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, that his attorney should have advised him of his right to notify the Honduran Consulate of his arrest and detention.
The state habeas court dismissed Bustillo’s Vienna Convention claim as “procedurally barred” because he had failed to raise the issue at trial or on appeal. App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 05-51, p. 43a. The court also denied Bustillo’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, ruling that his belated claim that counsel should have informed him of his Vienna Convention rights was barred by the applicable statute of limitations and also meritless under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984). App. in No. 05-51, at 132. In an order refusing Bustillo’s petition for appeal, the Supreme Court of Virginia found “no reversible error” in the habeas court’s dismissal of the Vienna Convention claim. App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 05-51, at la. We granted certiorari to consider the Vienna Convention issue. 546 U. S. 1001 (2005).
II
We granted certiorari as to three questions presented in these cases: (1) whether Article 36 of the Vienna Convention grants rights that may be invoked by individuals in a judicial proceeding; (2) whether suppression of evidence is a proper remedy for a violation of Article 36; and (3) whether an Article 36 claim may be deemed forfeited under state procedural rules because a defendant failed to raise the claim at trial.
As a predicate to their claims for relief, Sanchez-Llamas and Bustillo each argue that Article 36 grants them an individually enforceable right to request that their consular officers be notified of their detention, and an accompanying right to be informed by authorities of the availability of consular notification. Respondents and the United States, as amicus curiae, strongly dispute this contention. They argue that “there is a presumption that a treaty will be enforced through political and diplomatic channels, rather than through the courts.” Brief for United States 11; ibid, (quoting Head Money Cases, 112 U. S. 580, 598 (1884) (a treaty “ ‘is primarily a compact between independent nations,’ ” and “ ‘depends for the enforcement of its provisions on the interest and the honor of the governments which are parties to it’”)). Because we conclude that Sanchez-Llamas and Bustillo are not in any event entitled to relief on their claims, we find it unnecessary to resolve the question whether the Vienna Convention grants individuals enforceable rights. Therefore, for purposes of addressing petitioners’ claims, we assume, without deciding, that Article 36 does grant Bustillo and Sanchez-Llamas such rights.
A
Sanchez-Llamas argues that the trial court was required to suppress his statements to police because authorities never told him of his rights under Article 36. He refrains, however, from arguing that the Vienna Convention itself mandates suppression. We think this a wise concession. The Convention does not prescribe specific remedies for violations of Article 36. Rather, it expressly leaves the implementation of Article 36 to domestic law: Rights under Article 36 are to “be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State.” Art. 36(2), 21 U. S. T., at 101. As far as the text of the Convention is concerned, the question of the availability of the exclusionary rule for Article 36 violations is a matter of domestic law.
It would be startling if the Convention were read to require suppression. The exclusionary rule as we know it is an entirely American legal creation. See Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, 415 (1971) (Burger, C. J., dissenting) (the exclusionary rule “is unique to American jurisprudence”). More than 40 years after the drafting of the Convention, the automatic exclusionary rule applied in our courts is still “universally rejected” by other countries. Bradley, Mapp Goes Abroad, 52 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 375, 399-400 (2001); see also Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U. S. 217, 226 (1996) (postratification understanding “traditionally considered” as an aid to treaty interpretation). It is implausible that other signatories to the Convention thought it to require a remedy that nearly all refuse to recognize as a matter of domestic law. There is no reason to suppose that Sanchez-Llamas would be afforded the relief he seeks here in any of the other 169 countries party to the Vienna Convention.
For good reason then, Sanchez-Llamas argues only that suppression is required because it is the appropriate remedy for an Article 36 violation under United States law, and urges us to require suppression for Article 36 violations as a matter of our “authority to develop remedies for the enforcement of federal law in state-court criminal proceedings.” Reply Brief for Petitioner in No. 04-10566, p. 11.
For their part, the State of Oregon and the United States, as amicus curiae, contend that we lack any such authority over state-court proceedings. They argue that our cases suppressing evidence obtained in violation of federal statutes are grounded in our supervisory authority over the federal courts—an authority that does not extend to state-court proceedings. Brief for Respondent in No. 04-10566, pp. 42-43; Brief for United States 32-34; see McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332, 341 (1943) (suppressing evidence for violation of federal statute requiring persons arrested without a warrant to be promptly presented to a judicial officer); Mallory v. United States, 354 U. S. 449 (1957) (suppressing evidence for violation of similar requirement of Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 5(a)); Miller v. United States, 357 U. S. 301 (1958) (suppressing evidence obtained incident to an arrest that violated 18 U. S. C. § 3109). Unless required to do so by the Convention itself, they argue, we cannot direct Oregon courts to exclude Sanchez-Llamas’ statements from his criminal trial.
To the extent Sanchez-Llamas argues that we should invoke our supervisory authority, the law is clear: “It is beyond dispute that we do not hold a supervisory power over the courts of the several States.” Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, 438 (2000); see also Smith v. Phillips, 455 U. S. 209, 221 (1982) (“Federal courts hold no supervisory authority over state judicial proceedings and may intervene only to correct wrongs of constitutional dimension”). The cases on which Sanchez-Llamas principally relies are inapplicable in light of the limited reach of our supervisory powers. Mallory and McNabb plainly rest on our supervisory authority. Mallory, supra, at 453; McNabb, supra, at 340. And while Miller is not clear about its authority for requiring suppression, we have understood it to have a similar basis. See Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 31 (1963).
We also agree with the State of Oregon and the United States that our authority to create a judicial remedy applicable in state court must lie, if anywhere, in the treaty itself. Under the Constitution, the President has the power, “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties.” Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. The United States ratified the Convention with the expectation that it would be interpreted according to its terms. See 1 Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 325(1) (1986) (“An international agreement is to be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to its terms in their context and in the light of its object and purpose”). If we were to require suppression for Article 36 violations without some authority in the Convention, we would in effect be supplementing those terms by enlarging the obligations of the United States under the Convention. This is entirely inconsistent with the judicial function. Cf. The Amiable Isabella, 6 Wheat. 1, 71 (1821) (Story, J.) (“[T]o alter, amend, or add to any treaty, by inserting any clause, whether small or great, important or trivial, would be on our part an usurpation of power, and not an exercise of judicial functions. It would be to make, and not to construe a treaty”).
Of course, it is well established that a self-executing treaty binds the States pursuant to the Supremacy Clause, and that the States therefore must recognize the force of the treaty in the course of adjudicating the rights of litigants. See, e. g., Hauenstein v. Lynham, 100 U. S. 483 (1880). And where a treaty provides for a particular judicial remedy, there is no issue of intruding on the constitutional prerogatives of the States or the other federal branches. Courts must apply the remedy as a requirement of federal law. Cf. 18 U. S. C. § 2515; United States v. Giordano, 416 U. S. 505, 524-525 (1974). But where a treaty does not provide a particular remedy, either expressly or implicitly, it is not for the federal courts to impose one on the States through lawmaking of their own.
Sanchez-Llamas argues that the language of the Convention implicitly requires a judicial remedy because it states that the laws and regulations governing the exercise of Article 36 rights “must enable full effect to be given to the purposes for which the rights ... are intended,” Art. 36(2), 21 U. S. T., at 101 (emphasis added). In his view, although “full effect” may not automatically require an exclusionary rule, it does require an appropriate judicial remedy of some kind. There is reason to doubt this interpretation. In particular, there is little indication that other parties to the Convention have interpreted Article 36 to require a judicial remedy in the context of criminal prosecutions. See Department of State Answers to Questions Posed by the First Circuit in United States v. Nai Fook Li, No. 97-2034 etc., p. A-9 (Oct. 15, 1999) (“We are unaware of any country party to the [Vienna Convention] that provides remedies for violations of consular notification through its domestic criminal justice system”).
Nevertheless, even if Sanchez-Llamas is correct that Article 36 implicitly requires a judicial remedy, the Convention equally states that Article 36 rights “shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State.” Art. 36(2), 21 U. S. T., at 101. Under our domestic law, the exclusionary rule is not a remedy we apply lightly. “[0]ur cases have repeatedly emphasized that the rule’s ‘costly toll’ upon truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives presents a high obstacle for those urging application of the rule.” Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole v. Scott, 524 U. S. 357, 364-365 (1998). Because the rule’s social costs are considerable, suppression is warranted only where the rule’s “ ‘remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served.’” United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 908 (1984) (quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U. S. 338, 348 (1974)).
We have applied the exclusionary rule primarily to deter constitutional violations. In particular, we have ruled that the Constitution requires the exclusion of evidence obtained by certain violations of the Fourth Amendment, see Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U. S. 687, 694 (1982) (arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 655-657 (1961) (unconstitutional searches and seizures), and confessions exacted by police in violation of the right against compelled self-incrimination or due process, see Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 435 (failure to give Miranda warnings); Payne v. Arkansas, 356 U. S. 560, 568 (1958) (involuntary confessions).
The few cases in which we have suppressed evidence for statutory violations do not help Sanchez-Llamas. In those cases, the excluded evidence arose directly out of statutory violations that implicated important Fourth and Fifth Amendment interests. McNdbb, for example, involved the suppression of incriminating statements obtained during a prolonged detention of the defendants, in violation of a statute requiring persons arrested without a warrant to be promptly presented to a judicial officer. We noted that the statutory right was intended to “avoid all the evil implications of secret interrogation of persons accused of crime,” 318 U. S., at 344, and later stated that McNabb was “responsive to the same considerations of Fifth Amendment policy that . . . face[d] us ... as to the States” in Miranda, 384 U. S., at 463. Similarly, in Miller, we required suppression of evidence that was the product of a search incident to an unlawful arrest. 357 U. S., at 305; see California v. Hodari D, 499 U. S. 621, 624 (1991) (“We have long understood that the Fourth Amendment’s protection against 'unreasonable . . . seizures’ includes seizure of the person”).
The violation of the right to consular notification, in contrast, is at best remotely connected to the gathering of evidence. Article 36 has nothing whatsoever to do with searches or interrogations. Indeed, Article 36 does not guarantee defendants any assistance at all. The provision secures only a right of foreign nationals to have their consulate informed of their arrest or detention—not to have their consulate intervene, or to have law enforcement authorities cease their investigation pending any such notice or intervention. In most circumstances, there is likely to be little connection between an Article 36 violation and evidence or statements obtained by police.
Moreover, the reasons we often require suppression for Fourth and Fifth Amendment violations are entirely absent from the consular notification context. We require exclusion of coerced confessions both because we disapprove of such coercion and because such confessions tend to be unreliable. Watkins v. Sowders, 449 U. S. 341, 347 (1981). We exclude the fruits of unreasonable searches on the theory that without a strong deterrent, the constraints of the Fourth Amendment might be too easily disregarded by law enforcement. Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S. 206, 217 (1960). The situation here is quite different. The failure to inform a defendant of his Article 36 rights is unlikely, with any frequency, to produce unreliable confessions. And unlike the search-and-seizure context—where the need to obtain valuable evidence may tempt authorities to transgress Fourth Amendment limitations—police win little, if any, practical advantage from violating Article 36. Suppression would be a vastly disproportionate remedy for an Article 36 violation.
Sanchez-Llamas counters that the failure to inform defendants of their right to consular notification gives them “a misleadingly incomplete picture of [their] legal options,” Brief for Petitioner in No. 04-10566, p. 42, and that suppression will give authorities an incentive to abide by Article 36.
Leaving aside the suggestion that it is the role of police generally to advise defendants of their legal options, we think other constitutional and statutory requirements effectively protect the interests served, in Sanchez-Llamas’ view, by Article 36. A foreign national detained on suspicion of crime, like anyone else in our country, enjoys under our system the protections of the Due Process Clause. Among other things, he is entitled to an attorney, and is protected against compelled self-incrimination. See Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 228, 238 (1896) (“[A]ll persons within the territory of the United States are entitled to the protection guaranteed by” the Fifth and Sixth Amendments). Article 36 adds little to these “legal options,” and we think it unnecessary to apply the exclusionary rule where other constitutional and statutory protections—many of them already enforced by the exclusionary rule—safeguard the same interests Sanchez-Llamas claims are advanced by Article 36.
Finally, suppression is not the only means of vindicating Vienna Convention rights. A defendant can raise an Article 36 claim as part of a broader challenge to the voluntariness of his statements to police. If he raises an Article 36 violation at trial, a court can make appropriate accommodations to ensure that the defendant secures, to the extent possible, the benefits of consular assistance. Of course, diplomatic avenues—the primary means of enforcing the Convention— also remain open.
In sum, neither the Vienna Convention itself nor our precedents applying the exclusionary rule support suppression of Sanchez-Llamas’ statements to police.
B
The Virginia courts denied petitioner Bustillo’s Article 36 claim on the ground that he failed to raise it at trial or on direct appeal. The general rule in federal habeas cases is that a defendant who fails to raise a claim on direct appeal is barred from raising the claim on collateral review. See Massaro v. United States, 538 U. S. 500, 504 (2003); Bousley v. United States, 523 U. S. 614, 621 (1998). There is an exception if a defendant can demonstrate both “cause” for not raising the claim at trial, and “prejudice” from not having done so. Massaro, supra, at 504. Like many States, Virginia applies a similar rule in state postconviction proceedings, and did so here to bar Bustillo’s Vienna Convention claim. Normally, in our review of state-court judgments, such rules constitute an adequate and independent state-law ground preventing us from reviewing the federal claim. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 729 (1991). Bustillo contends, however, that state procedural default rules cannot apply to Article 36 claims. He argues that the Convention requires that Article 36 rights be given “‘full effect’” and that Virginia’s procedural default rules “prevented any effect (much less ‘full effect’) from being given to” those rights. Brief for Petitioner in No. 05-51, p. 35 (emphasis deleted).
This is not the first time we have been asked to set aside procedural default rules for a Vienna Convention claim. Respondent Johnson and the United States persuasively argue that this question is controlled by our decision in Breard v. Greene, 523 U. S. 371 (1998) (per curiam). In Breard, the petitioner failed to raise an Article 36 claim in state court— at trial or on collateral review—and then sought to have the claim heard in a subsequent federal habeas proceeding. Id., at 375. He argued that “the Convention is the ‘supreme law of the land’ and thus trumps the procedural default doctrine.” Ibid. We rejected this argument as “plainly incorrect,” for two reasons. Ibid. First, we observed, “it has been recognized in international law that, absent a clear and express statement to the contrary, the procedural rules of the forum State govern the implementation of the treaty in that State.” Ibid. Furthermore, we reasoned that while treaty protections such as Article 36 may constitute supreme federal law, this is “no less true of provisions of the Constitution itself, to which rules of procedural default apply.” Id., at 376. In light of Breard’s holding, Bustillo faces an uphill task in arguing that the Convention requires States to set aside their procedural default rules for Article 36 claims.
Bustillo offers two reasons why Breará does not control his case. He first argues that Breard’s holding concerning procedural default was “unnecessary to the result,” Brief for Petitioner in No. 05-51, at 45, because the petitioner there could not demonstrate prejudice from the default and because, in any event, a subsequent federal statute—the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,110 Stat. 1214—superseded any right the petitioner had under the Vienna Convention to have his claim heard on collateral review. We find Bustillo’s contention unpersuasive. Our resolution of the procedural default question in Breará was the principal reason for the denial of the petitioner’s claim, and the discussion of the issue occupied the bulk of our reasoning. See 523 U. S., at 375-377. It is no answer to argue, as Bustillo does, that the holding in Breará was “unnecessary” simply because the petitioner in that case had several ways to lose. See Richmond Screw Anchor Co. v. United States, 275 U. S. 331, 340 (1928).
Bustillo’s second reason is less easily dismissed. He argues that since Breará, the ICJ has interpreted the Vienna Convention to preclude the application of procedural default rules to Article 36 claims. The LaGrand Case (F. R. G. v. U. S.), 2001 I. C. J. 466 (Judgment of June 27) (LaGrand), and the Case Concerning Avena and other Mexican Nationals (Mex. v. U. S.), 2004 I. C. J. 12 (Judgment of Mar. 31) (Avena), were brought before the ICJ by the governments of Germany and Mexico, respectively, on behalf of several of their nationals facing death sentences in the United States. The foreign governments claimed that their nationals had not been informed of their right to consular notification. They further argued that application of the procedural default rule to their nationals’ Vienna Convention claims failed to give “full effect” to the purposes of the Convention, as required by Article 36. The ICJ agreed, explaining that the defendants had procedurally defaulted their claims “because of the failure of the American authorities to comply with their obligation under Article 36.” LaGrand, supra, at 497, ¶ 91; see also Avena, supra, at 57, ¶ 113. Application of the procedural default rule in such circumstances, the ICJ reasoned, “prevented [courts] from attaching any legal significance” to the fact that the violation of Article 36 kept the foreign governments from assisting in their nationals’ defense. LaGrand, supra, at 497, ¶ 91; see also Avena, supra, at 57, ¶ 113.
Bustillo argues that LaGrand and Avena warrant revisiting the procedural default holding of Breard. In a similar vein, several amici contend that “the United States is obligated to comply with the Convention, as interpreted by the ICJ.” Brief for ICJ Experts 11 (emphasis added). We disagree. Although the ICJ’s interpretation deserves “respectful consideration,” Breard, supra, at 375, we conclude that it does not compel us to reconsider our understanding of the Convention in Breard.
Under our Constitution, “[t]he judicial Power of the United States” is “vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Art. Ill, § 1. That “judicial Power ... extend[s] to . . . Treaties.” Id., § 2. And, as Chief Justice Marshall famously explained, that judicial power includes the duty “to say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). If treaties are to be given effect as federal law under our legal system, determining their meaning as a matter of federal law “is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department,” headed by the “one supreme Court” established by the Constitution. Ibid.; see also Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 378-379 (2000) (opinion of Stevens, J.) (“At the core of [the judicial] power is the federal courts’ independent responsibility—independent from its coequal branches in the Federal Government, and independent from the separate authority of the several States— to interpret federal law”). It is against this background that the United States ratified, and the Senate gave its advice and consent to, the various agreements that govern referral of Vienna Convention disputes to the ICJ.
Nothing in the structure or purpose of the ICJ suggests that its interpretations were intended to be conclusive on our courts. The ICJ’s decisions have “no binding force except between the parties and in respect of that particular case,” Statute of the International Court of Justice, Art. 59, 59 Stat. 1062, T. S. No. 993 (1945) (emphasis added). Any interpretation of law the ICJ renders in the course of resolving particular disputes is thus not binding precedent even as to the ICJ itself; there is accordingly little reason to think that such interpretations were intended to be controlling on our courts. The ICJ’s principal purpose is to arbitrate particular disputes between national governments. Art. 1, id., at 1055 (ICJ is “the principal judicial organ of the United Nations”); see also Art. 34, id., at 1059 (“Only states [i e., countries] may be parties in cases before the Court”). While each member of the United Nations has agreed to comply with decisions of the ICJ “in any case to which it is a party,” United Nations Charter, Art. 94(1), 59 Stat. 1051, T. S. No. 993 (1945), the Charter’s procedure for noncompliance— referral to the Security Council by the aggrieved state— contemplates quintessential^ international remedies, Art. 94(2), ibid.
In addition, “[w]hile courts interpret treaties for themselves, the meaning given them by the departments of government particularly charged with their negotiation and enforcement is given great weight.” Kolovrat v. Oregon, 366 U. S. 187, 194 (1961). Although the United States has agreed to “discharge its international obligations” in having state courts give effect to the decision in Avena, it has not taken the view that the ICJ’s interpretation of Article 36 is binding on our courts. President Bush, Memorandum for the Attorney General (Feb. 28, 2005), App. to Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Medellin v. Dretke, O. T. 2004, No. 04-5928, p. 9a. Moreover, shortly after Avena, the United States withdrew from the Optional Protocol concerning Vienna Convention disputes. Whatever the effect of Avena and LaGrand before this withdrawal, it is doubtful that our courts should give decisive weight to the interpretation of a tribunal whose jurisdiction in this area is no longer recognized by the United States.
LaGrand and Avena are therefore entitled only to the “respectful consideration” due an interpretation of an international agreement by an international court. Breard, 523 U. S., at 375. Even according such consideration, the ICJ’s interpretation cannot overcome the plain import of Article 36. As we explained in Breará, the procedural rules of domestic law generally govern the implementation of an international treaty. Ibid. In addition, Article 36 makes clear that the rights it provides “shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State” provided that “full effect... be given to the purposes for which the rights accorded under this Article are intended.” Art. 36(2), 21 U. S. T., at 101. In the United States, this means that the rule of procedural default—which applies even to claimed violations of our Constitution, see Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 129 (1982)—applies also to Vienna Convention claims. Bustillo points to nothing in the drafting history of Article 36 or in the contemporary practice of other signatories that undermines this conclusion.
The IC J concluded that where a defendant was not notified of his rights under Article 36, application of the procedural default rule failed to give “full effect” to the purposes of Article 36 because it prevented courts from attaching “legal significance” to the Article 36 violation. LaGrand, 2001 I. C. J., at 497-498, ¶¶ 90-91. This reasoning overlooks the importance of procedural default rules in an adversary system, which relies chiefly on the parties to raise significant issues and present them to the courts in the appropriate manner at the appropriate time for adjudication. See Castro v. United States, 540 U. S. 375, 386 (2003) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“Our adversary system is designed around the premise that the parties know what is best for them, and are responsible for advancing the facts and arguments entitling them to relief”). Procedural default rules are designed to encourage parties to raise their claims promptly and to vindicate “the law’s important interest in the finality of judgments.” Massaro, 538 U. S., at 504. The consequence of failing to raise a claim for adjudication at the proper time is generally forfeiture of that claim. As a result, rules such as procedural default routinely deny “legal significance”—in the Avena and LaGrand sense—to otherwise viable legal claims.
Procedural default rules generally take on greater importance in an adversary system such as ours than in the sort of magistrate-directed, inquisitorial legal system characteristic of many of the other countries that are signatories to the Vienna Convention. “What makes a system adversarial rather than inquisitorial is . . . the presence of a judge who does not (as an inquisitor does) conduct the factual and legal investigation himself, but instead decides on the basis of facts and arguments pro and con adduced by the parties.” McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U. S. 171, 181, n. 2 (1991). In an inquisitorial system, the failure to raise a legal error can in part be attributed to the magistrate, and thus to the state itself. In our system, however, the responsibility for failing to raise an issue generally rests with the parties themselves.
The ICJ’s interpretation of Article 36 is inconsistent with the basic framework of an adversary system. Under the ICJ’s reading of “full effect,” Article 36 claims could trump not only procedural default rules, but any number of other rules requiring parties to present their legal claims at the appropriate time for adjudication. If the state’s failure to inform the defendant of his Article 36 rights generally excuses the defendant’s failure to comply with relevant procedural rules, then presumably rules such as statutes of limitations and prohibitions against filing successive habeas petitions must also yield in the face of Article 36 claims. This sweeps too broadly, for it reads the “full effect” proviso in a way that leaves little room for Article 36’s clear instruction that Article 36 rights “shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State.” Art. 36(2), 21 U. S. T., at 101.
Much as Sanchez-Llamas cannot show that suppression is an appropriate remedy for Article 36 violations under domestic law principles, so too Bustillo cannot show that normally applicable procedural default rules should be suspended in light of the type of right he claims. In this regard, a comparison of Article 36 and a suspect’s rights under Miranda disposes of Bustillo’s claim. Bustillo contends that applying procedural default rules to Article 36 rights denies such rights “full effect” because the violation itself—-1 e., the failure to inform defendants of their right to consular notification—prevents them from becoming aware of their Article 36 rights and asserting them at trial. Of course, precisely the same thing is true of rights under Miranda. Police are required to advise suspects that they have a right to remain silent and a right to an attorney. See Miranda, 384 U. S., at 479; see also Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 435. If police do not give such warnings, and counsel fails to object, it is equally true that a suspect may not be “aware he even had such rights until well after his trial had concluded.” Brief for Petitioner in No. 05-51, at 35. Nevertheless, it is well established that where a defendant fails to raise a Miranda claim at trial, procedural default rules may bar him from raising the claim in a subsequent postconviction proceeding. Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 87 (1977).
Bustillo responds that an Article 36 claim more closely resembles a claim, under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), that the prosecution failed to disclose exculpatory evidence—a type of claim that often can be asserted for the first time only in postconviction proceedings. See United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U. S. 74, 83, n. 9 (2004). The analogy is inapt. In the case of a Brady claim, it is impossible for the defendant to know as a factual matter that a violation has occurred before the exculpatory evidence is disclosed. By contrast, a defendant is well aware of the fact that he was not informed of his Article 36 rights, even if the legal significance of that fact eludes him.
Finally, relying on Massaro v. United States, 538 U. S. 500 (2003), Bustillo argues that Article 36 claims “are most appropriately raised post-trial or on collateral review.” Brief for Petitioner in No. 05-51, at 39. Massaro held that claims of ineffective assistance of counsel may be raised for the first time in a proceeding under 28 U. S. C. § 2255. That decision, however, involved the question of the proper forum for federal habeas claims. Bustillo, by contrast, asks us to require the States to hear Vienna Convention claims raised for the first time in state postconviction proceedings. Given that the Convention itself imposes no such requirement, we do not perceive any grounds for us to revise state procedural rules in this fashion. See Dickerson, supra, at 438.
We therefore conclude, as we did in Breará, that claims under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention may be subjected to the same procedural default rules that apply generally to other federal-law claims.
* * *
Although these cases involve the delicate question of the application of an international treaty, the issues in many ways turn on established principles of domestic law. Our holding in no way disparages the importance of the Vienna Convention. The relief petitioners request is, by any measure, extraordinary. Sanchez-Llamas seeks a suppression remedy for an asserted right with little if any connection to the gathering of evidence; Bustillo requests an exception to procedural rules that is accorded to almost no other right, including many of our most fundamental constitutional protections. It is no slight to the Convention to deny petitioners’ claims under the same principles we would apply to an Act of Congress, or to the Constitution itself.
The judgments of the Supreme Court of Oregon and the Supreme Court of Virginia are affirmed.
It is so ordered.
In its entirety, Article 36 of the Vienna Convention states:
“1. With a view to facilitating the exercise of consular functions relating to nationals of the sending State:
“(a) consular officers shall be free to communicate with nationals of the sending State and to have access to them. Nationals of the sending State shall have the same freedom with respect to communication with and access to consular officers of the sending State;
“(b) if he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner. Any communication addressed to the consular post by the person arrested, in prison, custody or detention shall also be forwarded by the said authorities without delay. The said authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this sub-paragraph;
“(e) consular officers shall have the right to visit a national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention, to converse and correspond with him and to arrange for his legal representation. They shall also have the right to visit any national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention in their district in pursuance of a judgment. Nevertheless, consular officers shall refrain from taking action on behalf of a national who is in prison, custody or detention if he expressly opposes such action.
“2. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State, subject to the proviso, however, that the said laws and regulations must enable full effect to be given to the purposes for which the rights accorded under this Article are intended.” 21 U. S. T., at 100-101.
Bustillo’s habeas petition also presented newly acquired evidence that tended to cast doubt on his conviction. Most notably, he produced a secretly recorded videotape in which Sirena admitted killing Merry and stated that Bustillo had been wrongly convicted. App. in No. 05-51, at 38, 54. In addition, Bustillo argued that the prosecution violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), by failing to disclose that on the night of the crime, police had questioned a man named “Julio C. Osorto,” who is now known to be the same man as “Sirena.” The police report concerning the encounter stated that Sirena appeared to have ketchup on his pants. Bustillo contends that these stains might in fact have been the victim’s blood. The Commonwealth disputes this. The state habeas court found “no evidence of any transfer of the victim’s blood to the assailant,” and concluded that the undisclosed encounter between police and Sirena was not material under Brady. App. in No. 05-51, at 167.
See Declaration of Ambassador Maura A. Harty, Annex 4 to Counter-Memorial of the United States in Case Concerning Avena and other Mexican Nationals (Mex. v. U. S.), 2004 I. C. J. No. 128, p. A386, ¶ 41 (Oct. 25, 2003) (Harty Declaration) (“With the possible exception of Brazil, we are not aware of a single country that has a law, regulation or judicial decision requiring that a statement taken before consular notification and access automatically must be excluded from use at trial” (footnote omitted)). According to the Harty Declaration, the American Embassy in Brazil has been advised that Brazil considers consular notification to be a right under the Brazilian Constitution. Neither the declaration nor the parties point to a case in which a Brazilian court has suppressed evidence because of a violation of that right.
In a few cases, as several amici point out, the United Kingdom and Australia appear to have applied a discretionary rule of exclusion for violations of domestic statutes implementing the Vienna Convention. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26, and n. 9; Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. as Amici Curiae 16-23. The dissent similarly relies on two cases from Australia, post, at 394 (opinion of Breyer, J.) (citing Tan Seng Kiah v. Queen (2001) 160 F. L. R. 26 (Crim. App. N. Terr.) and Queen v. Tan [2001] W. A. S. C. 275 (Sup. Ct. W. Aus. in Crim.)), where consular notification rights are governed by a domestic statute that provides rights beyond those required by Article 36 itself. See Crimes Act, No. 12, 1914, §23p (Australia). The Canadian case on which the dissent relies, post, at 394-395, denied suppression, and concerned only the court’s general discretionary authority to exclude a confession “whose admission would adversely affect the fairness of an accused’s trial.” Queen v. Partak [2001] 160 C. C. C. 3d 553, ¶ 61 (Ont. Super. Ct. of J.).
The dissent, in light of LaGrand and Avena, “would read Breard . . . as not saying that the Convention never trumps any procedural default rule.” Post, at 389 (opinion of Breyer, J.). This requires more than “reading an exception into Breard’,s language,” post, at 390, amounting instead to overruling Breard’s plain holding that the Convention does not trump the procedural default doctrine. While the appeal of such a course to a Breard dissenter may be clear, see 523 U. S., at 380 (Breyer, J., dissenting), “respectful consideration” of precedent should begin at home.
The dissent’s extensive list of lower court opinions that have “looked to the ICJ for guidance,” post, at 384-385, is less impressive than first appears. Many of the cited opinions merely refer to, or briefly describe, ICJ decisions without in any way relying on them as authority. See, e. g., Committee of United States Citizens Living in Nicaragua v. Reagan, 859 F. 2d 929, 932, 935 (CADC 1988); Conservation Law Foundation of New England v. Secretary of Interior, 790 F. 2d 965, 967 (CA1 1986); Narenji v. Civiletti, 617 F. 2d 745, 748 (CADC 1979); Diggs v. Richardson, 555 F. 2d 848, 849 (CADC 1976); Rogers v. Societe Internationale Pour Participations Industrielles et Commerciales, S. A., 278 F. 2d 268, 273, n. 3 (CADC 1960) (Fahy, J., dissenting). Others cite ICJ opinions alongside law review articles for general propositions about international law. See, e. g., McKesson Corp. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 52 F. 3d 346, 352 (CADC 1995); Princz v. Federal Republic of Germany, 26 F. 3d 1166, 1180, 1184 (CADC 1994) (Wald, J., dissenting); Sadat v. Mertes, 615 F. 2d 1176, 1187, n. 14 (CA7 1980) (per curiam); United States v. Postal, 589 F. 2d 862, 869 (CA5 1979). Moreover, all but two of the cited decisions from this Court concern technical issues of boundary demarcation. See post, at 384.
The dissent would read the ICJ’s decisions to require that procedural default rules give way only where “the State is unwilling to provide some other effective remedy, for example (if the lawyer acts incompetently in respect to Convention rights of which the lawyer was aware) an ineffective-assistanee-of-counsel claim.” Post, at 388 (opinion of Breyer, J.). But both LaGrand and Avena indicate that the availability of a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel is not an adequate remedy for an Article 36 violation. See LaGrand Case (F. R. G. v. U. S.), 2001 I. C. J. 466, 497, ¶ 91 (Judgment of June 27) (requiring suspension of state procedural default rule even though “United States courts could and did examine the professional competence of counsel assigned to the indigent LaGrands by reference to United States constitutional standards”); see also Case Concerning Avena and other Mexican Nationals (Mex. v. U. S.), 2004 I. C. J. 12, 63, ¶ 134 (Judgment of Mar. 31).
To the extent the dissent suggests that the ICJ’s decisions could be read to prevent application of procedural default rules where a defendant’s attorney is unaware of Article 36, see post, at 387-388 (opinion of Breyer, J.), this interpretation of the Convention is in sharp conflict with the role of counsel in our system. “Attorney ignorance or inadvertence is not ‘cause’ because the attorney is the petitioner’s agent when acting, or failing to act, in furtherance of the litigation, and the petitioner must ‘bear the risk of attorney error.’” Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 753 (1991) (quoting Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478, 488 (1986)). Under our system, an attorney’s lack of knowledge does not excuse the defendant’s default, unless the attorney’s overall representation falls below what is required by the Sixth Amendment. In any event, Bustillo himself does not argue that the applicability of procedural default rules hinges on whether a foreign national’s attorney was aware of Article 36. See Brief for Petitioner in No. 05-51, p. 38 (“A lawyer may not, consistent with the purposes of Article 36, unilaterally forfeit a foreign national’s opportunity to communicate with his consulate”). In fact, Bustillo has conceded that his “attorney at trial was aware of his client’s rights under the Vienna Convention.” App. in No. 05-51, at 203, n. 5. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state or territory of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed. | What is the state of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
42
] | sc_casesourcestate |
ALDRICH v. ALDRICH et al.
No. 55.
Argued October 24,1963.
Decided November 12, 1963, that questions be certified to Supreme Court of Florida.
Questions certified to Supreme Court of Florida December 16, 1963.—
Decided June 22, 1964.
Herman D. Rollins argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioner.
Submitted by Charles M. Love for respondents on the brief in opposition to the petition for writ of certiorari.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner, Marguerite Loretta Aldrich, was granted a divorce from M. S. Aldrich by the Circuit Court of Dade County, Florida, in 1945. The jurisdiction of that court to award the divorce was not contested then, nor is it contested in this action. M. S. Aldrich was ordered by the Court to pay petitioner $250 a month as permanent alimony, and the decree provided that “said monthly sum of $250.00 shall, upon the death of said defendant [husband], become a charge upon his estate during her [petitioner’s] lifetime . . . .” There was no prior express agreement between the parties that the estate would be bound. Subsequently, the husband petitioned the Florida court for a rehearing, which was denied, but the court reduced alimony from $250 to $215 per month. No appeal was taken by either party.
M. S. Aldrich died testate, a resident of Putnam County, West Virginia, on May 29, 1958. His will was duly probated in Putnam County and petitioner filed a claim against the estate for alimony which had accrued after the death of her former husband. The appraisal of the estate showed assets of $7,283.50. Petitioner commenced this action in the Circuit Court of Putnam County, West Virginia, in order to have her rights in the estate determined. She also demanded that certain allegedly fraudulent transfers of real and personal property made by M. S. Aldrich be set aside and the properties which were the subject of such transfers administered as a part of the estate, so as to be subject to her claim for alimony under the Florida divorce decree.
On motion for summary judgment by the defendants, the Circuit Court of Putnam County held that the decree of the Florida divorce court was invalid and unenforceable insofar as it purported to impose upon the estate of M. S. Aldrich an obligation to pay alimony accruing after his death. The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed the judgment, 147 W. Va. 269, 127 S. E. 2d 385. It characterized the controlling question in the case as
“whether the judgment ... to the extent that it awards alimony to accrue after the death of M. S. Aldrich and makes the alimony so accruing a charge upon his estate, is a valid judgment which is entitled to full faith and credit in the courts of this state; for if such judgment is not entitled to such full faith and credit the question of its enforcibility against the property and assets formerly owned by M. S. Aldrich becomes unimportant and need not be considered or discussed.” 147 W. Va., at 274, 127 S. E. 2d, at 388.
Recognizing that, as required by the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Art. IV, § 1, of the Federal Constitution, “a judgment of a court of another state has the same force and effect in this state as it has in the state in which it was pronounced,” 147 W. Va., at 275, 127 S. E. 2d, at 388, the court also noted that “ 'no greater effect is to be given to it than it would have in the state where it was rendered.’ ” Ibid., 127 S. E. 2d, at 389. Although apparently not questioning the power of Florida to impose a charge upon the estate, the court concluded that such a charge was, absent express agreement by the parties to the divorce, improper under Florida law and that “the judgment awarding such alimony was void and of no force and effect under the law of the State of Florida in which such judgment was rendered and will not be given full faith and credit in the courts of this state.” 147 W. Va., at 283, 127 S. E. 2d, at 393. We granted certiorari, 372 U. S. 963, to decide whether West Virginia had complied with the mandate of the Full Faith and Credit Clause.
Being uncertain regarding the relevant law of Florida and believing that law to be determinative of the effect to be given the Florida judgment, we certified (375 U. S. 75, 375 U. S. 249, 251-252) the following questions of state law to the Florida Supreme Court, pursuant to Rule 4.61 of the Florida Appellate Rules:
1. Is a decree of alimony that purports to bind the estate of a deceased husband permissible, in the absence of an express prior agreement between the two spouses authorizing or contemplating such a decree?
2. If such a decree is not permissible, does the error of the court entering it render that court without subject matter jurisdiction with regard to that aspect of the cause?
3. If subject matter jurisdiction is thus lacking, may that defect be challenged in Florida, after the time for appellate review has expired, (i) by the representatives of the estate of the deceased husband or (ii) by persons to whom the deceased husband has allegedly transferred part of his property without consideration?
4. If the decree is impermissible but not subject to such attack in Florida for lack of subject matter jurisdiction by those mentioned in subparagraph 3, may an attack be successfully based on this error of law in the rendition of the decree?
The Florida court, in answer to our certification, has determined that although the award of alimony purporting to bind the estate was not proper under Florida law, the court rendering the decree did not thereby lose its jurisdiction over that part of the case. It further decided that “when the husband failed to take an appeal and give a reviewing court the opportunity to correct the error, the decree of the Circuit Court on such question passed into verity, became final, and is not now subject to collateral attack.” 163 So. 2d 276, 284. Having given a negative answer to both the first two questions, the court believed it unnecessary to consider the latter two questions. We accordingly take the passage quoted above as meaning that collateral attack on any ground would not have been sustained.
Given the answers of the Florida court, it becomes plain that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, based as it was on a misapprehension regarding the law of a sister State, cannot stand. The Florida alimony decree must be treated as if it were perfectly correct under substantive principles of Florida law. It cannot be argued that a rule of law imposing a burden on the estate of a divorced man who has had his day in court violates due process, and if the judgment is binding upon him, it is also binding on those whom Florida law considers to be in privity with him, so long as Florida does not seek to bind those who cannot be bound consistent with due process. That West Virginia must give the decree of alimony as broad a scope as that it has in Florida is clear, see Johnson v. Muelberger, 340 U. S. 581, and is questioned neither by the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia nor by respondents.
The judgment below is reversed, and the case remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the petitioner of the case. The petitioner is the party who petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. This party is variously known as the petitioner or the appellant. Characterize the petitioner as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the petitioner by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the petitioner is actually single entity or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single petitioner, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the petitioner of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
181
] | sc_petitioner |
ROSADO et al. v. WYMAN, COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SERVICES OF NEW YORK, et al.
No. 540.
Argued November 19, 1969
Decided April 6, 1970
Lee A. Albert argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the brief were Carl Rachlin and Martin Garbus.
Philip Weinberg argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Louis J. Lejkowitz, Attorney-General of New York, Samuel A. Hirshowitz, First Assistant Attorney General, and Amy Juviler, Assistant Attorney General.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by Alan H. Levine, Melvin L. Wulf, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Martin M. Berger for the New York Civil Liberties Union et al.; by Karl D. Zukerman, Dorothy Coyle, and Mildred Shanley for the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York et al.; and by Floyd Sarisohn for People for Adequate Welfare.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed by Solicitor General Griswold, Assistant Attorney General Ruckelshaus, and Peter L, Strauss for the United States, and by Theodore L. Sendak, Attorney General, and Robert A. Zaban, Deputy Attorney General, for the State of Indiana.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The present controversy, which involves the compatibility of the New York Social Services Law (c. 184, L. 1969) with § 402 (a) (23) of the Social Security Act of 1935, as amended, 81 Stat. 898, 42 U. S. C. § 602 (a) (23) (1964 ed., Supp. IV), arises out of a pendent claim originally included in petitioners’ complaint bringing a class action challenging § 131-a of the same New York statute as violative of equal protection by virtue of its provision for lesser payments to Aid to Families With Dependent Children recipients in Nassau County than those allowed for New York City residents. Pursuant to the recommendation of Judge Weinstein, a three-judge court was convened on April 24, 1969, and a hearing was held. 304 F. Supp. 1350.
Before a decision was rendered New York State amended § 131-a to permit the State Commissioner of Social Services to make, in his discretion, grants to recipients in Nassau County equal to those provided for New York City residents. The three-judge panel in a memorandum opinion of May 12, 1969, concluded that the equal protection issue was “no longer justiciable” and that “[t]he constitutional attack on the provision [§ 131-a] as originally adopted has been rendered moot and any attack on the newly adopted subdivision would not be ripe for adjudication . . . until there [had] been opportunity for action by state officials . ...” That court further held that since there existed “no reason for continuing the three-judge court,” the “matter” should be “remanded to the single judge to whom the complaint was originally presented for such further proceedings as are appropriate.” 304 F. Supp. 1354, 1356. On the same day as the three-judge court dissolved itself, Judge Weinstein issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting respondents from reducing or discontinuing payments of “regular recurring grants and special grants,” payable under the predecessor welfare law, 304 F. Supp. 1356, and the State’s elimination of which from the computation of welfare benefits is the subject matter of the controversy now before this Court.
An interlocutory appeal was taken to the Court of Appeals and the case was granted a calendar preference. After hearing oral argument the Court of Appeals, on June 11, entered an order staying the preliminary injunction pending its disposition of the appeal and later converted its stay into an order staying the permanent injunction subsequently issued by the District Court when it granted summary judgment on June 18, 1969, 304 F. Supp. 1356, 1381. On July 16, 1969, the Court of Appeals panel announced its judgment of reversal, accompanied by three opinions. 414 F. 2d 170. Chief Judge Lumbard and Judge Hays agreed that the three-judge panel had properly dissolved itself and were of the view, for somewhat different reasons, that Judge Weinstein should not have ruled on the merits of petitioners’ statutory claim; they also expressed their opinion that the single-judge District Court (hereinafter District Court) erred on the merits. Judge Feinberg disagreed on all scores, expressing the view that the District Court properly reached and correctly decided the merits of the statutory claim.
Petitioners’ application to the author of this opinion, as Circuit Justice, for a stay and an accelerated review was referred by him to the entire Court, and on October 13, 1969, certiorari was granted. 396 U. S. 815. The request for a stay was denied but the case was set down for early argument.
We now reverse. For essentially those reasons stated in the opinion of the District Court and Circuit Judge Feinberg’s dissent, we think the District Court correctly exercised its discretion by proceeding to the merits. We are also unable to accept the conclusion reached by a majority of the Court of Appeals that § 402 (a) (23) does not affect States like New York that place no limitation on the level of payments of welfare benefits as determined by their standard of need. For reasons set forth in Part II, we conclude that the present New York program does not fulfill the requirements of § 402 (a) (23) of the federal statute.
I
A
We considerthe threshold matter jurisdiction was vested in the District Court to decide this federal statutory challenge to the New York Social Services Law.
That the three-judge court itself not only had jurisdiction but would have been obliged to adjudicate this statutory claim in preference to deciding the original constitutional claim in this case follows from King v. Smith, 392 U. S. 309 (1968), where, on an appeal from a three-judge court, we decided the statutory question in order to avoid a constitutional ruling. 392 U. S., at 312 n. 3. In the case before us the constitutional claim was declared moot prior to decision by the three-judge court and the question arises whether that circumstance removed not only the obligation but destroyed the power of a federal court to adjudicate the pendent claim. We think not. Jurisdiction over federal claims, constitutional or otherwise, is vested, exclusively or concurrently, in the federal district courts. Such courts usually sit as single-judge tribunals. While Congress has determined that certain classes of cases shall be heard in the first instance by a district court composed of three judges, that does not mean that the court qua court loses all jurisdiction over the complaint that is initially lodged with it. To the contrary, once petitioners filed their complaint alleging the unconstitutionality of § 131-a, the District Court sitting as a one-man tribunal, was properly seised of jurisdiction over the case under §§ 1343 (3) and (4) of Title 28 and could dispose of even the constitutional question either by dismissing the complaint for want of a substantial federal question, Ex parte Poresky, 290 U. S. 30 (1933), or by granting requested injunctive relief if “prior decisions [made] frivolous any claim that [the] state statute on its face [was] not unconstitutional.” Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U. S. 31, 33 (1962). Even had the constitutional claim not been declared moot, the most appropriate course may well have been to remand to the single district judge for findings and the determination of the statutory claim rather than encumber the district court, at a time when district court calendars are overburdened, by consuming the time of three federal judges in a matter that was not required to be determined by a three-judge court. See Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U. S. 111 (1966).
On remand the District Court correctly considered mootness a factor affecting its discretion, not its power, and balanced the policy considerations that have spawned the doctrine of pendency and the countervailing policy of federalism: the extent of the investment of judicial energy and the character of the claim. Not only had there been hearings and argument prior to dismissal of the constitutional claim, but the statutory question is so essentially one “of federal policy that the argument for exercise of pendent jurisdiction is particularly strong." United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 727 (1966).
Respondents analogize dismissal for mootness to dismissal for want of a substantial claim and rely on language in United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, to the effect that a federal court should not pass on a state claim when the federal claim falters at the threshold and is “dismissed before trial.” 383 U. S., at 726. The argument would appear to be that once a federal court loses power over the jurisdiction-conferring claim, it may not consider a pendent claim. They contend that mootness, like insubstantiality, is a threshold jurisdictional defect.
Whether or not the view that an insubstantial federal question does not confer jurisdiction — a maxim more ancient than analytically sound — should now be held to mean that a district court should be considered without discretion, as opposed to power, to hear a pendent claim, we think the respondents’ analogy fails. Unlike insub-stantiality, which is apparent at the outset, mootness, frequently a matter beyond the control of the parties, may not occur until after substantial time and energy have been expended looking toward the resolution of a dispute that plaintiffs were entitled to bring in a federal court.
We are not willing to defeat the commonsense policy of pendent jurisdiction — the conservation of judicial energy and the avoidance of multiplicity of litigation— by a conceptual approach that would require jurisdiction .over the primary claim at all stages as a prerequisite to resolution of the pendent claim. The Court has shunned this view. See Moore v. New York Cotton Exch., 270 U. S. 593 (1926); Hurn v. Oursler, 289 U. S. 238 (1933) (dictum).
B
A further reason given to support the contention that the District Court should have declined to exercise jurisdiction is that the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was the appropriate forum, at least in the first instance, for resolution on the merits of the questions before us, and that at the time this action came to Court HEW was “engaged in a study of the relationship between Section 602 (a) (23) and Section 131-a.” 414 F. 2d, at 176 (opinion of Judge Hays). Petitioners answer, we think correctly, that neither the principle of “exhaustion of administrative remedies” nor the doctrine of “primary jurisdiction” has any application to the situation before us. Petitioners do not seek review of an administrative order, nor could they have obtained an administrative ruling since HEW has no procedures whereby welfare recipients may trigger and participate in the Department’s review of state welfare programs. Cf. Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136 (1967); K. Davis, Administrative Law § 19.01 (1965); L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 425 (1965).
That these formal doctrines of administrative law do not preclude federal jurisdiction does not mean, however, that a federal court must deprive itself of the benefit of the expertise of the federal agency that is primarily concerned with these problems. Whenever possible the district courts should obtain the views of HEW in those eases where it has not set forth its views, either in a regulation or published opinion, or in cases where there is real doubt as to how the Department’s standards apply to the particular state regulation or program.
The District Court, in this instance, made considerable effort to learn the views of HEW. The possibility of HEW’s participation, either as a party or an amicus, was explored in the District Court and the Department at that stage determined to remain aloof. We cannot in these circumstances fault the District Court for proceeding to try the case.
II
We turn to the merits which may be broadly characterized as involving the interpretation of § 402 (a) (23) of the Social Security Amendments of 1967 and its application to certain changes inaugurated by New York in its method of computing welfare benefits that have resulted in reduced payments to these petitioners and, on a broader scale, decreased by some $40 million the State’s public assistance undertaking.
A
We begin with a brief review of the general structure of the Federal Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) program, one of the four “categorical assistance” programs established by the Social Security Act of 1935.
The general topography of the AFDC program was mapped in part by this Court in King v. Smith, 392 U. S. 309 (1968); and several lower court opinions, in addition to the opinion below, have surveyed the pertinent statutory and regulatory provisions. While participating States must comply with the terms of the federal legislation, see King v. Smith, supra, the program is basically voluntary and States have traditionally been at liberty to pay as little or as much as they choose, and there are, in fact, striking differences in the degree of aid provided among the States.
There are two basic factors that enter into the determination of what AFDC benefits will be paid. First, it is necessary to establish a “standard of need,” a yardstick for measuring who is eligible for public assistance. Second, it must be decided how much assistance will be given, that is, what “level of benefits” will be paid. On both scores Congress has always left to the States a great deal of discretion. King v. Smith, 392 U. S., at 318. Thus, some States include in their “standard of need” items that others do not take into account. Diversity also exists with respect to the level of benefits in fact paid. Some States impose so-called dollar máximums on the amount of public assistance payable to any one individual or family. Such máximums establish the upper limit irrespective of how far short the limitation may fall of the theoretical standard of need. Other States curtail the payments of benefits by a system of “ratable reductions” whereby all recipients will receive a fixed percentage of the standard of need. It is, of course, possible to pay 100% of need as defined. New York, in fact, purports to do so.
B
In 1967 the Administration introduced omnibus legislation to amend the social security laws. The relevant AFDC proposals provided for more adequate assistance to welfare recipients and set up several programs for education and training accompanied by child care provisions designed to permit AFDC parents to take advantage of the training programs. In the former respect the AFDC proposals paralleled other provisions that put forward amendments to adjust benefits to recipients of other categorical aid to reflect the rise in the cost of living. Thus, in its embryo stage the amendment to § 402 was § 202 (b) of the Administration bill, H. R. 5710, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967), which would have added to § 402 (a) of the Social Security Act the following clause:
“(14) provide (A), effective July 1, 1969, for meeting (in conjunction with other income that is not disregarded . . . under the plan and other resources) all the need, as determined in accordance with standards applicable under the plan for determining need, of individuals eligible to receive aid to families with dependent children (and such standards shall be no lower than the standards for determining need in effect on January 1, 1967), and (B), effective July 1, 1968, for an annual review of such standards and (to the extent prescribed by the Secretary) for up-dating such standards to take into account changes in living costs.” (Emphasis added.)
Section 202 (b), however, was stillborn and no such provision was contained in the ultimate bill reported out by the House Ways and Means Committee. See H. R. 12080, 90th Cong., 1st Sess.
The Administration’s renewed efforts, on behalf of a mandatory increase in benefit payments under the categorical assistance programs, met with only limited success, resulting in § 213 (a) of the Senate version, which provided for a mandatory $7.50 per month increase in the standards and benefits for the adult categories, and § 213 (b) which is, in substance, the present § 402 (a)(23). The Committee’s comment on § 213 (b), to the effect that States would be required “to price their standards ... to reflect changes in living costs,” tracks the statutory language.
The Conference Committee eliminated the Senate provision in § 213 which would have required an annual adjustment for cost of living, and § 402 (a) (23) was enacted. It now provides:
“[The States shall] provide that by July 1, 1969, the amounts used by the State to determine the needs of individuals will have been adjusted to reflect fully changes in living costs since such amounts were established, and any máximums that the State imposes on the amount of aid paid to families will have been proportionately adjusted.”
C
The background of § 402 (a) (23) reveals little except that we have before us a child born of the silent union of legislative compromise. Thus, Congress, as it frequently does, has voiced its wishes in muted strains and left it to the courts to discern the theme in the cacophony of political understanding. Our chief resources in this undertaking are the words of the statute and those commonsense assumptions that must be made in determining direction without a compass.
Reverting to the language of § 402 (a) (23) we find two separate mandates: first, the States must re-evaluate the component factors that compose their need equation; and, second, any “máximums” must be adjusted.
We think two broad purposes may be ascribed to § 402 (a) (23): First, to require States to face up realistically to the magnitude of the public assistance requirement and lay bare the extent to which their programs fall short of fulfilling actual need; second, to prod the States to apportion their payments on a more equitable basis. Consistent with this interpretation of §402 (a) (23), a State may, after recomputing its standard of need, pare down payments to accommodate budgetary realities by reducing the percent of benefits paid or switching to a percent reduction system, but it may not obscure the actual standard of need.
The congressional purpose we discern does not render § 402 (a) (23) a meaningless exercise in “bookkeeping.” Congress sometimes legislates by innuendo, making declarations of policy and indicating a preference while requiring measures that, though falling short of legislating its goals, serve as a nudge in the preferred directions. In § 402 (a) (23) Congress has spoken in favor of increases in AFDC payments. While Congress rejected the mandatory adjustment provision in the administration bill, it embodied in legislation the cost-of-living exercise which has both practical and political consequences.
It has the effect of requiring the States to recognize and accept the responsibility for those additional individuals whose income falls short of the standard of need as computed in light of economic realities and to place them among those eligible for the care and training provisions. Secondly, while it leaves the States free to effect downward adjustments in the level of benefits paid, it accomplishes within that framework the goal, however modest, of forcing a State to accept the political consequence of such a cutback and bringing to light the true extent to which actual assistance falls short of the minimum acceptable. Lastly, by imposing on those States that desire to maintain “máximums” the requirement of an appropriate adjustment, Congress has introduced an incentive to abandon a fiat “maximum” system, thereby encouraging those States desirous of containing their welfare budget to shift to a percentage system that will more equitably apportion those funds in fact allocated for welfare and also more accurately reflect the real measure of public assistance being given.
While we do not agree with the broad interpretation given §402 (a) (23) by the District Court, we cannot accept the conclusion reached by the two-judge majority in the Court of Appeals — that §402 (a) (23) does not affect New York. It follows from what we fathom to be the congressional purpose that a State may not redefine its standard of need in such a way that it skirts the requirement of re-evaluating its existing standard. This would render the cost-of-living reappraisal a futile, hollow, and, indeed, a deceptive gesture, and would avoid the consequences of increasing the numbers of those eligible and facing up to the failure to allocate sufficient funds to provide for them.
These conclusions, if not compelled by the words of the statute or manifested by legislative history, represent the natural blend of the basic axiom — that courts should construe all legislative enactments to give them some meaning — with the compromise origins of § 402 (a) (23), set forth above. This background, we think, precludes the more adventuresome reading that petitioners and the District Court would give the statute. See n. 17, supra. This reading is also buttressed by the fact that this construction has been placed on the statute by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. While, in view of Congress’ failure to track the Administration proposals and its substitution without comment of the present compromise section, HEW’s construction commands less than the usual deference that may be accorded an administrative interpretation based on its expertise, it is entitled to weight as the attempt of an experienced agency to harmonize an obscure enactment with the basic structure of a program it administers. Cf. Zuber v. Allen, 396 U. S. 168, 192 (1969); Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1 (1965).
D
While the application of the statute to the New York program is by no means simple, we think the evidence adduced supports the ultimate finding of the District Court, unquestioned by the Court of Appeals, that New York has, in effect, impermissibly lowered its standard of need by eliminating items that were included prior to the enactment of § 402 (a) (23).
Prior to March 31, 1969, New York computed its standard of need on an individualized basis. Schedules existed showing the cost of particular items of recurring need, for example, food and clothing required by children at given ages. Payments of “recurring” grants were made to families based on the number of children per household and the age of the oldest child. Additional payments, designated as “special needs grants,” were also made. Under an experiment in New York City instituted August 27, 1968, many allowances for special needs were eliminated and a flat grant of $100 per person was substituted.
Chapter 184 of the Session Laws, the present § 131-a, radically altered the New York approach. In lieu of individualized grants for “recurring” needs to be supplemented by special grants or the flat $100 grant, New York adopted a system fixing maximum allowances per family based on the number of individuals per household. The maximum dollar amounts were established by ascertaining “[t]he mean age of the oldest child in each size family.” See Memorandum of Law in Support of Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment 9-10. While these family máximums are exclusive of rent and fuel costs, the District Court found that “[s]pecial grants were seemingly not included in these computations. No attempt was made to average them out across the state and then to add that figure to that of the basic recurring grant.” 304 P. Supp., at 1368.
The impact of the new system has been to reduce substantially benefits paid to families of these petitioners and of those similarly situated, and to decrease benefits to New York City recipients by almost $40,000,000. 304 F. Supp., at 1369-1370. The effect of the new program on upstate cases is less severe, with gains to some families apparently cancelling out losses to others, but the net effect is a drastic reduction in overall payments since New York City recipients compose approximately 72% of the State’s welfare clientele. 304 F. Supp., at 1369.
E
Notwithstanding this $40,000,000 decrease in welfare payments after adjustment for increases in the cost of living, the State argues that the present § 131-a represents neither an attempt to circumvent federal requirements nor a reduction in the content of its former standard. The conversion to a flat grant maximum system is justified as an advance in administrative efficiency.
While § 402 (a) (23) does not prevent the States from pursuing what is beyond dispute the laudable goal of administrative efficiency, we think Congress has foreclosed them from achieving this purpose at the expense of significantly reducing the content of their standard of need. The findings and conclusions of the District Court, undisturbed by the Court of Appeals and supported by the record, clearly demonstrate that a significant reduction has here occurred. It is conceded by respondents that the present program does not include allowances for the items formerly covered by the so-called “special” grants.
We have no occasion to decide on the record before us whether we agree with that part of HEW's interpretation of § 402 (a)(23) that might approve elimination of grants for particular needs, without some averaging or other provision therefor such as direct payments to the provider of services. It suffices in this case that particular items, such as laundry and telephones, had formerly been deemed essential by New York, and were considered regular recurring expenses to a significant number of New York City welfare residents. We need look no farther than the state social service department’s own regulations and the action taken by the state administrators in providing the $25 per quarter cyclical grant to city residents in the 1968 pilot project.
Thus, the state social service department’s own regulations provided:
“An individual or family shall be deemed ‘in need’ when a budget deficit exists or when the budget surplus is inadequate to meet one or more non-budgeted special needs required by the case circumstances and included in the standards of assistance.” 18 NYCRR § 353.1 (c). (Emphasis added.)
This persuasive, if not conclusive, evidence of what constituted the standard of need is further supported by testimony of the administrators of New York’s welfare program to the effect that these grants covered costs for essentials of life for numerous welfare residents in New York City.
F
We reach our conclusions without relying on the finding made by the court below that in § 131-a New York was attempting to constrict its welfare payments. Speculation as to legislative and executive motive is to be shunned. Section 402 (a) (23) invalidates any state program that substantially alters the content of the standard of need in such a way 'that it is less than it was prior to the enactment of §402 (a) (23), unless a State can demonstrate that the items formerly included no longer constituted part of the reality of existence for the majority of welfare recipients. We do not, of course, hold that New York may not, consistently with the federal statutes, consolidate items on the basis of statistical averages. Obviously such averaging may affect some families adversely and benefit others. Moreover, it is conceivable that the net payout, assuming no change in the level of benefits, may be somewhat less under a streamlined program. Providing all factors in the old equation are accounted for and fairly priced and providing the consolidation on a statistical basis reflects a fair averaging, a State may, of course, consistently with § 402 (a)(23) redefine its method for determining need. A State may, moreover, as we have noted, accommodate any increases in its standard by reason of “cost-of-living” factors to its budget by reducing its level of benefits. What is at the heart of this dispute is the elimination of special grants in the New York program, not the system of maximum grants based on average age. Lest there be uncertainty we also reiterate that New York is not foreclosed from accounting for basic and recurring items of need formerly subsumed in the special grant category by an averaging system like that adopted in the 1968 New York City experiment with cyclical grants.
III
New York is, of course, in no way prohibited from using only state funds according to whatever plan it chooses, providing it violates no provision of the Constitution. It follows, however, from our conclusion that New York’s program is incompatible with §402 (a) (23), that petitioners are entitled to declaratory relief and an appropriate injunction by the District Court against the payment of federal monies according to the new schedules, should the State not develop a conforming plan within a reasonable period of time.
We have considered and rejected the argument that a federal court is without power to review state welfare provisions or prohibit the use of federal funds by the States in view of the fact that Congress has lodged in the Department of HEW the power to cut off federal funds for noncompliance with statutory requirements. We are most reluctant to assume Congress has closed the avenue of effective judicial review to those individuals most directly affected by the administration of its program. Cf. Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136 (1967); Association of Data Processing Service Organizations v. Camp, ante, p. 150; Barlow v. Collins, ante, p. 159. We adhere to King v. Smith, 392 U. S. 309 (1968), which implicitly rejected the argument that the statutory provisions for HEW review of plans should be read to curtail judicial relief and held Alabama’s “substitute father” regulation to be inconsistent with the federal statute. While King did not advert specifically to the remedial problem, the unarticulated premise was that the State had alternative choices of assuming the additional cost of paying benefits to families with substitute fathers or not using federal funds to pay welfare benefits according to a plan that was inconsistent with federal requirements.
The prayer in the District Court in Smith v. King, as in the case before us, was for declaratory and injunc-tive relief against the enforcement of the invalid provision. 277 F. Supp. 31 (D. C. M. D. Ala. 1967). We see no justification in principle for drawing a distinction between invalidating a single nonconforming provision or an entire program. In both circumstances federal funds are being allocated and paid in a manner contrary to that intended by Congress. In King the withholding of benefits based on the invalid state regulation resulted in overpayments to some recipients, assuming a constant state welfare budget, and a corresponding misallocation of matching federal resources. In the case before us, noncompliance with § 402 (a) (23) may result in limiting the welfare rolls unduly and thus channeling the matching federal grants in a way not intended by Congress. We may also assume that Congress would not countenance the circumnavigation of the political consequences of § 402 (a) (23), see Part II C, supra, by permitting States to use federal funds while obscuring the actual extent to which their programs fall short of the ideal.
Unlike King v. Smith, however, any incremental cost to the State, assuming a desire to comply with §402 (a) (23), is massive; nor is there a discrete and severable provision whose enforcement can be prohibited. Accordingly, we remand the case to the District Court to fix a date that will afford New York an opportunity to revise its program in accordance with the requirements of § 402 (a)(23) if the State wishes to do so. The District Court shall retain jurisdiction to review, taking into account the views of HEW should it care to offer its recommendations, any revised program adopted by the State, or, should New York choose not to submit a revamped program by the determined date, issue its order restraining the further use of federal monies pursuant to the present statute.
In conclusion, we add simply this. While we view with concern the escalating involvement of federal courts in this highly complicated area of welfare benefits, one that should be formally placed under the supervision of HEW, at least in the first instance, we find not the slightest indication that Congress meant to deprive federal courts of their traditional jurisdiction to hear and decide federal questions in this field. It is, of course, no part of the business of this Court to evaluate, apart from federal constitutional or statutory challenge, the merits or wisdom of any welfare programs, whether state or federal, in the large or in the particular. It is, on the other hand, peculiarly part of the duty of this tribunal, no less in the welfare field than in other areas of the law, to resolve disputes as to whether federal funds allocated to the States are being expended in consonance with the conditions that Congress has attached to their use. As Mr. Justice Cardozo stated, speaking for the Court in Helvering v. Davis, 301 U. S. 619, 645 (1937): “When [federal] money is spent to promote the general welfare, the concept of welfare or the opposite is shaped by Congress, not the states.” Cf. Lassen v. Arizona ex rel. Arizona Highway Dept., 385 U. S. 458 (1967).
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
A separate action was subsequently brought again challenging the disparity in payments between New York and Nassau County welfare recipients. See Rothstein v. Wyman, 303 F. Supp. 339 (D. C. S. D. N. Y. 1969), prob. juris, noted, post, p. 903.
Judge Hays expressed the view:
“Since the single judge at no time had jurisdiction over the constitutional claim there was never a claim before him to which the statutory claim could have been pendent. If the three-judge court had attempted to give the single judge power to adjudicate the statutory claim, it could not have done so, since with the dissolution of the three-judge court the statutory claim was no longer pendent to any claim at all, much less to any claim over which the single judge could exercise adjudicatory power.” 414 F. 2d, at 175.
Even if Poresky is read simply as a restatement of the truism that a court always has jurisdiction to determine its own jurisdiction, in view of the now settled rule that the insubstantiality of a federal question is the occasion for a jurisdictional dismissal as opposed to a dismissal on the merits for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, it still lends support to the proposition that jurisdiction is vested at the outset in the district court and not the three-judge panel.
We intimate no view as to whether the situation might have been different had the constitutional claim become moot before the District Court had invested substantial time in its resolution.
See United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 725, where the Court said:
“[I]f, considered without regard to their federal or state character, a plaintiff’s claims are such that he would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding, then, assuming substantiality of the federal issues, there is power in federal courts to hear the whole."
A persuasive analogy is to be found in the well-settled rule that a federal court does not lose jurisdiction over a diversity action which was well founded at the outset even though one of the parties may later change domicile or the amount recovered falls short of 110,000. See Smith v. Sperling, 354 U. S. 91, 93 n. 1 (1957); St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U. S. 283, 289-290 (1938); Smithers v. Smith, 204 U. S. 632 (1907); see generally C. Wright, Federal Courts §33, pp. 93-94 (1963).
Since we conclude that the District Court properly exercised its pendent jurisdiction, we have no occasion to consider whether, as urged by petitioners, this statutory claim satisfies the $10,000 amount-in-controversy requirement of the general federal jurisdiction provision, 28 U. S. C. § 1331, or whether it could be maintained under 28 TJ. S. C. § 1343 (3), which contains no amount-in-controversy limitation, as an action “[t]o redress the deprivation, under color of any State law ... of any right, privilege or immunity secured by . . . any Act of Congress providing for equal rights of citizens . . . .” See King v. Smith, 392 U. S., at 312 n. 3; see generally Note, Federal Judicial Review of State Welfare Practices, 67 Col. L. Rev. 84 (1967).
In order to evaluate this argument, it is necessary to understand the mechanism by which HEW reviews state plans under the AFDC program. States desiring to obtain federal funds available for AFDC programs are required to submit a plan to the Secretary of HEW for his approval. 42 U. S. C. § 601 (1964 ed., Supp. IV). Once initially approved, federal funds are provided to the State until a change in its plan is formally disapproved. 42 U. S. C. § 604 (a) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). The Secretary must afford the State notice of an alleged noncompliance with federal requirements and an opportunity for a hearing. Ibid. If, after notice and hearing, the Secretary finds that the State does not comply with the federal requirements, he is directed to make a total or partial cutoff of federal funds to the State. Ibid. 42 U. S. C. § 1316 (1964 ed., Supp. IV) describes the administrative procedures that the Secretary must afford a State before cutting off funds, and also provides for review in the courts of appeals of the Secretary’s action at the behest of the State. Whether HEW could provide a mechanism by which welfare recipients could theoretically get relief is immaterial. It has not done so, which means there is no basis for the refusal of federal courts to adjudicate the merits of these claims.
As we observed in Southwestern Sugar & Molasses Co., Inc. v. River Terminals Corp., 360 U. S. 411, 420 (1959), that an issue is “one appropriate ultimately for judicial rather than administrative resolution . . . does not mean that the courts must therefore deny themselves the enlightenment which may be had from a consideration of the relevant . . . facts which the administrative agency charged with regulation of the transaction ... is peculiarly well equipped to marshal and initially to evaluate.” See also Far East Conference v. United States, 342 U. S. 570, 574-575 (1952).
The four categorical assistance programs are the Old Age Assistance (OAA), 42 U. S. C. §301 et seq.; Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC), 42 U. S. C. §601 et seq.; Aid to the Blind (AB), 42 U. S. C. § 1201 et seq.; Aid For the Permanently and Totally Disabled (APTD), 42 U. S. C. §1351 et seq. 1384
See Lampton v. Bonin, 299 F. Supp. 336, 304 F. Supp. 1384 (D. C. E. D. La. 1969); Jefferson v. Hackney, 304 F. Supp. 1332 (D. C. N. D. Tex. 1969); Williams v. Dandridge, 297 F. Supp. 450 (1968 and 1969), prob. juris, noted, 396 U. S. 811 (1969), decided this date, post, p. 471.
According to information supplied by HEW in 1967, reported in the Explanation of Provisions of H. R. 5710, p. 36, $3,100 annually for a family of four marked the “poverty" level. According to the report, “Although a few States define need at or above the poverty level, no State pays as much as that amount.” It further appears that at that time 33 States provided less than their avowed standard of need which frequently fell short of the poverty mark. While New York purports to have paid its full standard, it would thus appear not to have paid enough to take a family out of poverty. See Hearings before the House Committee on Ways and Means on H. R. 5710, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, p. 118 (1967).
A maximum may either be fixed in relation to the number of persons on welfare, e. g., X dollars per child, no matter what age, or in terms of a family, X dollars per family unit, irrespective of the number of persons in the unit. This latter procedure has been challenged on equal protection grounds, see Williams v. Dandridge, supra. A “ratable reduction” represents a fixed percentage of the standard of need that will be paid to all recipients. In the event that there is some income that is first deducted, the ratable reduction is applied to the amount by which the individual or family income falls short of need.
See §§202 (a), (c), (d),and (e).
Secretary Gardner testified:
"The House bill does nothing to improve the level of State public assistance payments. As things stand today, the States are required to set assistance standards for needy persons in order to determine eligibility — but they need not make their assistance payments on the basis of these standards. The result is that welfare payments are much too low in a good many States. That is a widely accepted fact among all who are concerned with these programs; indeed it is probably the most widely agreed-upon fact among welfare experts today.
“We strongly urge you to adopt the administration’s proposal requiring States to meet need in full as they determine it in their own State assistance standards, and to update these standards periodically to keep pace with changes in the cost of living.” Hearings before the Senate Committee on Finance on H. R. 12080, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, p. 216 (1967). See also testimony of Undersecretary Cohen. Id., at 255-259.
The comment to § 213 in the Senate Report reads:
“Social security benefits have been increased 15 percent across the board by the committee with a minimum of $70, for an average increase of 20 percent. However, there is no similar across-the-board increase in the amount of benefits payable to aged welfare recipients. ... In view of this situation and the need to recognize that the increase in the cost of living since the last change made in the Federal matching formula in 1965 also is detrimental to the well-being of these recipients, the committee is recommending a further change in the law. It is proposed that the law be amended to provide that recipients of old-age assistance, aid to the blind, and aid to the permanently and totally disabled shall receive an average increase in assistance plus social security or assistance alone (for the recipients who do not receive social security benefits) of $7.50 a month. . . .
“To accomplish these changes, the States would have to adjust their standards and any máximums imposed on payments by July 1, 1968, so as to produce an average increase of $7.50 from assistance alone or assistance and social security benefits (or other income). Any State which wishes to do so can claim credit for any increase it may have made since December 31, 1966. Thus, no State needs to make an increase to the extent that it has recently done so.
'‘States would be required to price their standards used for determining the amount of assistance under the AFDC program by July 1, 1969 and to reprice them at least annually thereafter, adjusting the standards and any máximums imposed on payments to reflect changes in living costs.” S. Rep. No. 744, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 169-170 (1967); see also id.., at 293.
The District Court, while disclaiming any construction of § 402 (a) (23) that would preclude converting to a flat-grant system by averaging, concluded: “[S]ection 402 (a) (23) precludes a state from making changes resulting in either reduced standards of need or levels of payments.” 304 F. Supp., at 1377. (Emphasis added.) An extensive alteration in the basic underlying structure of an established program is not to be inferred from ambiguous language that is not clarified by legislative history. Such legislative history as there is suggests the opposite. The Senate’s failure to adopt the Administration’s proposals and its failure to provide for AFDC recipients an increase like that provided for the adult program, notwithstanding a proposed amendment to that effect by Senator McGovern, gives rise to an inference, not negatived by the noncommittal and unilluminating comments of the committee,, see n. 16, supra, that Congress had no such purpose. These considerations, we think, foreclose the broad construction adopted by the District Court.
While it might be technically said that there was no majority holding on the merits in the Court of Appeals, this overlooks Judge Hays’ preface to his discussion of the merits: “Although we are persuaded that the district judge had no power to adjudicate this action, wre turn to a brief discussion of the merits, since our decision does not rest solely on jurisdictional grounds.” 414 F. 2d, at 178. Chief Judge Lumbard disavowed reaching the merits but expressly disagreed with Judge Feinberg. 414 F. 2d, at 181. In these circumstances, it would be hypertechnieal to conclude that the merits had not been faced and decided below so as to make a remand desirable prior to review and decision by this Court. Cf. Barlow v. Collins, ante, p. 159.
The regulations and explanations are set forth in the Government’s Amicus Memorandum.
New York points to the preamble to § 131-a which sets forth as its purpose the streamlining of administration of the welfare grant system and relies on that part of the HEW program that invites the States to adopt administrative programs that curtail unnecessarily burdensome calculations and paperwork.
HEW's position, set forth in the Government’s Amicus Memorandum 12, seems to be that under its regulations, a “reduction of content” does not necessarily result from “reductions in the recognition of special needs.” The Department has, however, recognized both administratively and in the Government’s Memorandum that certain “special” needs should properly be regarded as part of the basic standard. Thus, while the memorandum suggests that payments for special diets or special attendants are extraordinary and not susceptible of averaging, it leaves open the question whether New York’s special grants have not been for recurring items which are basic.
See also former 18 NYCRR §351.2, Aspects of Eligibility. “Social investigation shall cover the following aspects of initial and continuing eligibility, (b) Need. Consideration shall be given to individual and family requirements for the items of basic maintenance and for items of special need. . . .” (Second emphasis added.)
The judiciary is being called upon with increasing frequency to review not only the viability of state welfare procedures, e. g., Goldberg v. Kelly, ante, p. 254, and Wheeler v. Montgomery, ante, p. 280; Wyman v. James, 303 F. Supp. 935 (D. C. S. D. N. Y. 1969), prob. juris, noted, post, p. 904 (inspections of the house), but also the substance and structure of state programs and the validity of innumerable individual provisions. See, e. g., Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969) (residence requirements); King v. Smith, supra (substitute father); Solman v. Shapiro, 300 F. Supp. 409, aff’d, 396 U. S. 5 (1969); Lewis v. Stark, 312 F. Supp. 197 (D. C. N. D. Cal. 1968), prob. juris, noted, 396 U. S. 900 (1969) (“man-in-the-house rule”). At least two other actions have been instituted to review various aspects of state programs in light of the statutory provisions involved in this case. See Lampton v. Bonin, 299 F. Supp. 336, 304 F. Supp. 1384 (D. C. E. D. La. 1969); Jefferson v. Hackney, 304 F. Supp. 1332 (D. C. N. D. Tex. 1969); cf. Rothstein v. Wyman, 303 F. Supp. 339 (D. C. S. D. N. Y. 1969); Dandridge V. Williams, decided today, post, p. 471. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. | What is the issue area of the decision? | [
"Criminal Procedure",
"Civil Rights",
"First Amendment",
"Due Process",
"Privacy",
"Attorneys",
"Unions",
"Economic Activity",
"Judicial Power",
"Federalism",
"Interstate Relations",
"Federal Taxation",
"Miscellaneous",
"Private Action"
] | [
1
] | sc_issuearea |
LEWIS et al. v. CITY OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 08-974.
Argued February 22, 2010 —
Decided May 24, 2010
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
John Payton argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Debo P. Adegbile, Matthew Colangelo, Joshua Civin, Clyde E. Murphy, Judson H. Miner, George F. Galland, Jr., Matthew J. Piers, Patrick O. Patterson, Jr., Fay Clayton, Cynthia H. Hyndman, and Bridget Arimond.
Deputy Solicitor General Katyal argued the cause for the United States as amicus curias supporting petitioners. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Kagan, Assistant Attorney General Perez, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bagenstos, Leondra R. Kruger, Dennis J. Dim-sey, Teresa Kwong, Lorraine C. Davis, and Anne Noel Occhialino.
Benna Ruth Solomon argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were Myriam Zreczny Kasper and Nadine Jean Wichern.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies by Kevin K. Russell, Amy Howe, Pamela S. Karlan, and Jeffrey L. Fisher; and for the National Partnership for Women & Families et al. by Helen Norton, Judith L. Licht-man, Marcia D. Greenberger, Audrey Wiggins, Sarah Crawford, and Michael L. Foreman.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the City of New York et al. by Michael A. Cardozo, Leonard J. Koerner, and Elizabeth Susan Natrella; and for the Equal Employment Advisory Council et al. by Rae T. Vann, Karen R. Horned, and Elizabeth Milito.
Sharon L. Browne filed a brief for the Pacific Legal Foundation as ami-cus curiae.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from using employment practices that cause a disparate impact on the basis of race (among other bases). 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(k)(l)(A)(i). It also requires plaintiffs, before beginning a federal lawsuit, to file a timely charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). §2000e-5(e)(l). We consider whether a plaintiff who does not file a timely charge challenging the adoption of a practice — here, an employer's decision to exclude employment applicants who did not achieve a certain score on an examination — may assert a disparate-impact claim in a timely charge challenging the employer’s later application of that practice.
I
In July 1995, the city of Chicago (City) administered a written examination to over 26,000 applicants seeking to serve in the Chicago Fire Department. After scoring the examinations, the City reported the results. It announced in a January 26,1996, press release that it would begin drawing randomly from the top tier of scorers, i. e., those who scored 89 or above (out of 100), whom the City called “well qualified.” Those drawn from this group would proceed to the next phase — a physical-abilities test, background check, medical examination, and drug test — and if they cleared those hurdles would be hired as candidate firefighters. Those who scored below 65, on the other hand, learned by letters sent the same day that they had failed the test. Each was told he had not achieved a passing score, would no longer be considered for a firefighter position, and would not be contacted again about the examination.
The applicants in-between — those who scored between 65 and 88, whom the City called “qualified” — were notified that they had passed the examination but that, based on the City’s projected hiring needs and the number of “well-qualified” applicants, it was not likely they would be called for further processing. Tlie individual notices added, however, that because it was not possible to predict how many applicants would be hired in the next few years, each “qualified” applicant’s name would be kept on the eligibility list maintained by the department of personnel for as long as that list was used. Eleven days later, the City officially adopted an “Eligible List” reflecting the breakdown described above.
On May 16,1996, the City selected its first class of applicants to advance to the next stage. It selected a second on October 1, 1996, and repeated the process nine more times over the next six years. As it had announced, in each round the City drew randomly from among those who scored in the “well-qualified” range on the 1995 test. In the last round it exhausted that pool, so it filled the remaining slots with “qualified” candidates instead.
On March 31, 1997, Crawford M. Smith, an African-American applicant who scored in the “qualified” range and had not been hired as a candidate firefighter, filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. Five others followed suit, and on July 28,1998, the EEOC issued all six of them right-to-sue letters. Two months later, they filed this civil action against the City, alleging (as relevant here) that its practice of selecting for advancement only applicants who scored 89 or above caused a disparate impact on African-Americans in violation of Title VII. The District Court certified a class— petitioners here — consisting of the more than 6,000 African-Americans who scored in the “qualified” range on the 1995 examination but had not been hired.
The City sought summary judgment on the ground that petitioners had failed to file EEOC charges within 300 days after their claims accrued. See §2000e-5(e)(l). The District Court denied the motion, concluding that the City’s “ongoing reliance” on the 1995 test results constituted a “continuing violation” of Title VIL App. to Pet. for Cert. 45a. The City stipulated that the 89-point cutoff had a “severe disparate impact against African Americans,” Pinal Pretrial Order, Record, Doc. 223, Schedule A, p. 2, but argued that its cutoff score was justified by business necessity. After an 8-day bench trial, the District Court ruled for petitioners, rejecting the City’s business-necessity defense. It ordered the City to hire 132 randomly selected members of the class (reflecting the number of African-Americans the court found would have been hired but for the City’s practices) and awarded backpay to be divided among the remaining class members.
The Seventh Circuit reversed. 528 F. 3d 488 (2008). It held that petitioners’ suit was untimely because the earliest EEOC charge was filed more than 300 days after the only discriminatory act: sorting the scores into the “well-qualified,” “qualified,” and “not-qualified” categories. The hiring decisions down the line were immaterial, it reasoned, because “[t]he hiring only of applicants classified 'well qualified’ was the automatic consequence of the test scores rather than the product of a fresh act of discrimination.” Id., at 491. We granted certiorari. 557 U. S. 965 (2009).
II
A
Before beginning a Title VII suit, a plaintiff must first file a timely EEOC charge. In this case, petitioners’ charges were due within 300 days “after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” § 2000e~5(e)(l). Determining whether a plaintiff’s charge is timely thus requires “identify[ing] precisely the ‘unlawful employment practice’ of which he complains.” Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U. S. 250, 257 (1980). Petitioners here challenge the City’s practice of picking only those who had scored 89 or above on the 1995 examination when it later chose applicants to advance. Setting aside the first round of selection in May 1996, which all agree is beyond the cutoff, no one disputes that the conduct petitioners challenge occurred within the charging period. The real question, then, is not whether a claim predicated on that conduct is timely, but whether the practice thus defined can be the basis for a disparate-impact claim at all.
We conclude that it can. As originally enacted, Title VII did not expressly prohibit employment practices that cause a disparate impact. That enactment made it an “unlawful employment practice” for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” §2000e-2(a)(l), or “to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of” any of the same reasons, § 2000e-2(a)(2). In Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424, 431 (1971), we interpreted the latter provision to “proscrib[e] not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation.”
Two decades later, Congress codified the requirements of the “disparate impact” claims Griggs had recognized. Pub. L. 102-166, §105, 105 Stat. 1074, 42 U.S.C. §2000e-2(k). That provision states:
“(1)(A) An unlawful employment practice based on disparate impact is established under this subchapter only if—
“(i) a complaining party demonstrates that a respondent uses a particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and the respondent fails to demonstrate that the challenged practice is job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity ... .”
Thus, a plaintiff establishes a prima facie disparate-impact claim by showing that the employer “uses a particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact” on one of the prohibited bases. Ibid, (emphasis added). See Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U. S. 557, 578 (2009).
Petitioners’ claim satisfies that requirement. Title VII does not define “employment practice,” but we think it clear that the term encompasses the conduct of which petitioners complain: the exclusion of passing applicants who scored below 89 (until the supply of scores 89 or above was exhausted) when selecting those who would advance. The City “use[dj” that practice in each round of selection. Although the City had adopted the eligibility list (embodying the score cutoffs) earlier and announced its intention to draw from that list, it made use of the practice of excluding those who scored 88 or below each time it filled a new class of firefighters. Petitioners alleged that this exclusion caused a disparate impact. Whether they adequately proved that is not before us. What matters is that their allegations, based on the City’s actual implementation of its policy, stated a cognizable claim.
The City argues that subsection (k) is inapposite because it does not address “accrual” of disparate-impact claims. Section 2000e-5(e)(l), it says, specifies when the time to file a charge starts running. That is true but irrelevant. Aside from the first round of selection in May 1996 (which all agree is beyond the 300-day charging period), the acts petitioners challenge — the City’s use of its cutoff score in selecting candidates — occurred within the charging period. Accordingly, no one disputes that if petitioners could bring new claims based on those acts, their claims were timely. The issue, in other words, is not when petitioners’ claims accrued, but whether they could accrue at all.
The City responds that subsection (k) does not answer that question either; that it speaks, as its title indicates, only to the plaintiff’s “[b]urden of proof in disparate impact cases,” not to the elements of disparate-impact claims, which the City says are be found in § 2000e-2(a)(2). That is incorrect. Subsection (k) does indeed address the burden of proof — not just who bears it, however, but also what it consists of. It does set forth the essential ingredients of a disparate-impact claim: It says that a claim “is established” if an employer “uses” an “employment practice” that “causes a disparate impact” on one of the enumerated bases. § 2000e-2(k)(l)(A)(i). That it also sets forth a business-necessity defense employers may raise, ibid., and explains how plaintiffs may prevail despite that defense, § 2000e-2(k)(l)(A)(ii), is irrelevant. Unless and until the defendant pleads and proves a business-necessity defense, the plaintiff wins simply by showing the stated elements.
B
Notwithstanding the text of § 2000e-2(k)(l)(A)(i) and petitioners’ description of the practice they claim was unlawful, the City argues that the unlawful employment practice here was something else entirely. The only actionable discrimination, it argues, occurred in 1996 when it “used the examination results to create the hiring eligibility list, limited hiring to the ‘well qualified’ classification, and notified petitioners.” Brief for Respondent 23. That initial decision, it concedes, was unlawful. But because no timely charge challenged the decision, that cannot now be the basis for liability. And because, the City claims, the exclusion of petitioners when selecting classes of firefighters followed inevitably from the earlier decision to adopt the cutoff score, no new violations could have occurred. The Seventh Circuit adopted the same analysis. See 528 F. 3d, at 490-491.
The City’s premise is sound, but its conclusion does not follow. It may be true that the City’s January 1996 decision to adopt the cutoff score (and to create a list of the applicants above it) gave rise to a freestanding disparate-impact claim. Cf. Connecticut v. Teal, 457 U. S. 440, 445-451 (1982). If that is so, the City is correct that since no timely charge was filed attacking it, the City is now “entitled to treat that past act as lawful.” United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U. S. 553, 558 (1977). But it does not follow that no new violation occurred — and no new claims could arise — when the City implemented that decision down the road. If petitioners could prove that the City “use[dj” the “practice” that “causes a disparate impact,” they could prevail.
The City, like the Seventh Circuit, see 528 F. 3d, at 490-491, insists that Evans and a fine of cases following it require a different result. See also Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U. S. 618 (2007); Lorance v. AT&T Technologies, Inc., 490 U. S. 900 (1989); Ricks, 449 U. S. 250. Those eases, we are told, stand for the proposition that present effects of prior actions cannot lead to Title VII liability.
We disagree. As relevant here, those cases establish only that a Title VII plaintiff must show a “present violation” within the limitations period. Evans, supra, at 558 (emphasis deleted). What that requires depends on the claim asserted. For disparate-treatment claims — and others for which discriminatory intent is required — that means the plaintiff must demonstrate deliberate discrimination within the limitations period. See Ledbetter, supra, at 624-629; Lorance, supra, at 904-905; Ricks, supra, at 256-258; Evans, supra, at 557-560; see also Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U. S. 6, 8 (1981) (per curiam). But for claims that do not require discriminatory intent, no such demonstration is needed. Cf. Ledbetter, supra, at 640; Lorance, supra, at 904, 908-909. Our opinions, it is true, described the harms of which the unsuccessful plaintiffs in those cases complained as “present effect[s]” of past discrimination. Ledbetter, supra, at 628; see also Lorance, supra, at 907; Chardon, supra, at 8; Ricks, supra, at 258; Evans, supra, at 558. But the reason they could not be the present effects of present discrimination was that the charged discrimination required proof of discriminatory intent, which had not even been alleged. That reasoning has no application when, as here, the charge is disparate impact, which does not require discriminatory intent.
The Seventh Circuit resisted this conclusion, reasoning that the difference between disparate-treatment and disparate-impact claims is only superficial. Both take aim at the same evil — discrimination on a prohibited basis — but simply seek to establish it by different means. 528 F. 3d, at 491-492. Disparate-impact liability, the Court of Appeals explained, “‘is primarily intended to lighten the plaintiff’s heavy burden of proving intentional discrimination after employers learned to cover their tracks.’” Id., at 492 (quoting Finnegan v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 967 F. 2d 1161, 1164 (CA7 1992)). But even if the two theories were directed at the same evil, it would not follow that their reach is therefore coextensive. If the effect of applying Title VII’s text is that some claims that would be doomed under one theory will survive under the other, that is the product of the law Congress has written. It is not for us to rewrite the statute so that it covers only what we think is necessary to achieve what we think Congress really intended. See Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U. S. 75, 79-80 (1998).
The City also argues that, even if petitioners could have proved a present disparate-impact violation, they never did so under the proper test. The parties litigated the merits— and the City stipulated that the cutoff score caused disparate impact — after the District Court adopted petitioners’ “continuing violation” theory. App. to Pet. for Cert. 45a. That theory, which petitioners have since abandoned, treated the adoption and application of the cutoff score as a single, ongoing wrong. As a result, the City says, “petitioners never proved, or even attempted to prove, that use of the [eligibility] list had disparate impact,” Brief for Respondent 32 (emphasis added), since the theory they advanced did not require them to do so. If the Court of Appeals determines that the argument has been preserved it may be available on remand. But it has no bearing here. The only question presented to us is whether the claim petitioners brought is cognizable. Because we conclude that it is, our inquiry is at an end.
C
The City and its amici warn that our reading will result in a host of practical problems for employers and employees alike. Employers may face new disparate-impact suits for practices they have used regularly for years. Evidence essential to their business-necessity defenses might be unavailable (or in the case of witnesses’ memories, unreliable) by the time the later suits are brought. And affected employees and prospective employees may not even know they have claims if they are unaware the employer is still applying the disputed practice.
Truth to tell, however, both readings of the statute produce puzzling results. Under the City’s reading, if an employer adopts an unlawful practice and no timely charge is brought, it can continue using the practice indefinitely, with impunity, despite ongoing disparate impact. Equitable tolling or estoppel may allow some affected employees or applicants to sue, but many others will be left out in the cold. Moreover, the City’s reading may induce plaintiffs aware of the danger of delay to file charges upon the announcement of a hiring practice, before they have any basis for believing it will produce a disparate impact.
In all events, it is not our task to assess the consequences of each approach and adopt the one that produces the least mischief. Our charge is to give effect to the law Congress enacted. By enacting §2000e-2(k)(l)(A)(i), Congress allowed claims to be brought against an employer who uses a practice that causes disparate impact, whatever the employer’s motives and whether or not he has employed the same practice in the past. If that effect was unintended, it is a problem for Congress, not one that federal courts can fix.
Ill
The City asserts that one aspect of the District Court’s judgment still must be changed. The first round of hiring firefighters occurred outside the charging period even for the earliest EEOC charge. Yet the District Court, applying the continuing-violation theory, awarded relief based on those acts. Petitioners do not disagree, and they do not oppose the City’s request for a remand to resolve this issue. We therefore leave it to the Seventh Circuit to determine, to the extent that point was properly preserved, whether the judgment must be modified in light of our decision.
* * *
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Certain paramedics who scored between 65 and 88 were deemed “well qualified” pursuant to a collective-bargaming agreement, and certain veterans in the “qualified” range had five points added to their scores and therefore became “well qualified.”
In addition to the class members, the African American Fire Fighters League of Chicago, Inc., also joined the suit as a plaintiff.
All agree that a 300-day deadline applies to petitioners’ charges pursuant to 29 CFR §§ 1601.13(a)(4), (b)(1), 1601.80 (2009). Cf. EEOC v. Commercial Office Products Co., 486 U. S. 107, 112, 114-122 (1988).
Because the District Court certified petitioners as a class, and because a court may award classwide relief even to unnamed class members who have not filed EEOC charges, see Franks v. Bowman Transp. Co., 424 U. S. 747, 771 (1976), petitioners assert and the City does not dispute that the date of the earliest EEOC charge filed by a named plaintiff — that filed by Smith on March 31,1997 — controls the timeliness of the class’s claims. We assume without deciding that this is correct. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether administrative action occurred in the context of the case prior to the onset of litigation. The activity may involve an administrative official as well as that of an agency. To determine whether administration action occurred in the context of the case, consider the material which appears in the summary of the case preceding the Court's opinion and, if necessary, those portions of the prevailing opinion headed by a I or II. Action by an agency official is considered to be administrative action except when such an official acts to enforce criminal law. If an agency or agency official "denies" a "request" that action be taken, such denials are considered agency action. Exclude: a "challenge" to an unapplied agency rule, regulation, etc.; a request for an injunction or a declaratory judgment against agency action which, though anticipated, has not yet occurred; a mere request for an agency to take action when there is no evidence that the agency did so; agency or official action to enforce criminal law; the hiring and firing of political appointees or the procedures whereby public officials are appointed to office; attorney general preclearance actions pertaining to voting; filing fees or nominating petitions required for access to the ballot; actions of courts martial; land condemnation suits and quiet title actions instituted in a court; and federally funded private nonprofit organizations. | Did administrative action occur in the context of the case? | [
"No",
"Yes"
] | [
1
] | sc_adminaction_is |
Ricky Lee SMITH, Petitioner
v.
Nancy A. BERRYHILL, Acting Commissioner of Social Security
No. 17-1606
Supreme Court of the United States.
Argued March 18, 2019
Decided May 28, 2019
Eugene R. Fidell, Yale Law School, Supreme Court Clinic, New Haven, CT, Wolodymyr Cybriwsky, Cybriwsky Wolodymyr, Law Office, Prestonsburg, KY, Andrew J. Pincus, Paul W. Hughes, Charles A. Rothfeld, Michael B. Kimberly, Mayer Brown LLP, Washington, DC, for Petitioner.
Noel J. Francisco, Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
Noel J. Francisco, Solicitor General, Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Edwin S. Kneedler, Deputy Solicitor General, Michael R. Huston, Assistant to the Solicitor, General, Charles W. Scarborough, Sarah Carroll, Attorneys, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Social Security Act allows for judicial review of "any final decision ... made after a hearing" by the Social Security Administration (SSA). 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). Petitioner Ricky Lee Smith was denied Social Security benefits after a hearing by an administrative law judge (ALJ) and later had his appeal from that denial dismissed as untimely by the SSA's Appeals Council-the agency's final decisionmaker. This case asks whether the Appeals Council's dismissal of Smith's claim is a "final decision ... made after a hearing" so as to allow judicial review under § 405(g). We hold that it is.
I
A
Congress enacted the Social Security Act in 1935, responding to the crisis of the Great Depression. 49 Stat. 620; F. Bloch, Social Security Law and Practice 13 (2012). In its early days, the program was administered by a body called the Social Security Board; that role has since passed on to the Board's successor, the SSA.
In 1939, Congress amended the Act, adding various provisions that-subject to changes not at issue here-continue to govern cases like this one. See Social Security Act Amendments of 1939, ch. 666, 53 Stat. 1360. First, Congress gave the agency "full power and authority to make rules and regulations and to establish procedures ... necessary or appropriate to carry out" the Act. § 405(a). Second, Congress directed the agency "to make findings of fac[t] and decisions as to the rights of any individual applying for a payment" and to provide all eligible claimants-that is, people seeking benefits-with an "opportunity for a hearing with respect to such decision[s]." § 405(b)(1). Third, and most centrally, Congress provided for judicial review of "any final decision of the [agency] made after a hearing." § 405(g). At the same time, Congress made clear that review would be available only "as herein provided"-that is, only under the terms of § 405(g). § 405(h) ; see Heckler v. Ringer , 466 U.S. 602, 614-615, 104 S.Ct. 2013, 80 L.Ed.2d 622 (1984).
In 1940, the Social Security Board created the Appeals Council, giving it responsibility for overseeing and reviewing the decisions of the agency's hearing officers (who, today, are ALJs). Though the Appeals Council originally had just three members, its ranks have since swelled to include over 100 individuals serving as either judges or officers. The Appeals Council remains a creature of regulatory rather than statutory creation.
Today, the Social Security Act provides disability benefits under two programs, known by their statutory headings as Title II and Title XVI. See § 401 et seq. (Title II); § 1381 et seq. (Title XVI). Title II "provides old-age, survivor, and disability benefits to insured individuals irrespective of financial need." Bowen v. Galbreath , 485 U.S. 74, 75, 108 S.Ct. 892, 99 L.Ed.2d 68 (1988). Title XVI provides supplemental security income benefits "to financially needy individuals who are aged, blind, or disabled regardless of their insured status." Ibid. The regulations that govern the two programs are, for today's purposes, equivalent. See Sims v. Apfel , 530 U.S. 103, 107, n. 2, 120 S.Ct. 2080, 147 L.Ed.2d 80 (2000). Likewise, § 405(g) sets the terms of judicial review for each. See § 1383(c)(3).
Modern-day claimants must generally proceed through a four-step process before they can obtain review from a federal court. First, the claimant must seek an initial determination as to his eligibility. Second, the claimant must seek reconsideration of the initial determination. Third, the claimant must request a hearing, which is conducted by an ALJ. Fourth, the claimant must seek review of the ALJ's decision by the Appeals Council. See 20 CFR § 416.1400. If a claimant has proceeded through all four steps on the merits, all agree, § 405(g) entitles him to judicial review in federal district court.
The tension in this case stems from the deadlines that SSA regulations impose for seeking each successive stage of review. A party who seeks Appeals Council review, as relevant here, must file his request within 60 days of receiving the ALJ's ruling, unless he can show "good cause for missing the deadline." § 416.1468.
The Appeals Council's review is discretionary: It may deny even a timely request without issuing a decision. See § 416.1481. If a claimant misses the deadline and cannot show good cause, however, the Appeals Council does not deny the request but rather dismisses it. § 416.1471. Dismissals are "binding and not subject to further review" by the SSA. § 416.1472. The question here is whether a dismissal for untimeliness, after the claimant has had an ALJ hearing, is a "final decision ... made after a hearing" for purposes of allowing judicial review under § 405(g).
B
Petitioner Ricky Lee Smith applied for disability benefits under Title XVI in 2012. Smith's claim was denied at the initial-determination stage and upon reconsideration. Smith then requested an ALJ hearing, which the ALJ held in February 2014 before issuing a decision denying Smith's claim on the merits in March 2014.
The parties dispute what happened next. Smith's attorney says that he sent a letter requesting Appeals Council review in April 2014, well within the 60-day deadline. The SSA says that it has no record of receiving any such letter. In late September 2014, Smith's attorney sent a copy of the letter that he assertedly had mailed in April. The SSA, noting that it had no record of prior receipt, counted the date of the request as the day that it received the copy. The Appeals Council accordingly determined that Smith's submission was untimely, concluded that Smith lacked good cause for missing the deadline, and dismissed Smith's request for review.
Smith sought judicial review of that dismissal in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. The District Court held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear his suit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, maintaining that "an Appeals Council decision to refrain from considering an untimely petition for review is not a 'final decision' subject to judicial review in federal court." Smith v. Commissioner of Social Security , 880 F. 3d 813, 814 (2018).
Smith petitioned this Court for certiorari. Responding to Smith's petition, the Government stated that while the Sixth Circuit's decision accorded with the SSA's longstanding position, the Government had "reexamined the question and concluded that its prior position was incorrect." Brief for Respondent on Pet. for Cert. 15.
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals. 586 U.S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 451, 202 L.Ed.2d 345 (2018). Because the Government agrees with Smith that the Appeals Council's dismissal meets § 405(g)'s terms, we appointed Deepak Gupta as amicus curiae to defend the judgment below. 586 U.S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 451, 202 L.Ed.2d 345 (2018). He has ably discharged his duties.
II
Section 405(g), as noted above, provides for judicial review of "any final decision ... made after a hearing." This provision, the Court has explained, contains two separate elements: first, a "jurisdictional" requirement that claims be presented to the agency, and second, a "waivable ... requirement that the administrative remedies prescribed by the Secretary be exhausted." Mathews v. Eldridge , 424 U.S. 319, 328, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). This case involves the latter, nonjurisdictional element of administrative exhaustion. While § 405(g) delegates to the SSA the authority to dictate which steps are generally required, see Sims , 530 U.S. at 106, 120 S.Ct. 2080, exhaustion of those steps may not only be waived by the agency, see Weinberger v. Salfi , 422 U.S. 749, 767, 95 S.Ct. 2457, 45 L.Ed.2d 522 (1975), but also excused by the courts, see Bowen v. City of New York , 476 U.S. 467, 484, 106 S.Ct. 2022, 90 L.Ed.2d 462 (1986) ; Eldridge , 424 U.S. at 330, 96 S.Ct. 893.
The question here is whether a dismissal by the Appeals Council on timeliness grounds after a claimant has received an ALJ hearing on the merits qualifies as a "final decision ... made after a hearing" for purposes of allowing judicial review under § 405(g). In light of the text, the context, and the presumption in favor of the reviewability of agency action, we conclude that it does.
A
We begin with the text. Taking the first clause ("any final decision") first, we note that the phrase "final decision" clearly denotes some kind of terminal event, and Congress' use of the word "any" suggests an intent to use that term "expansive[ly]," see Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons , 552 U.S. 214, 218-219, 128 S.Ct. 831, 169 L.Ed.2d 680 (2008). The Appeals Council's dismissal of Smith's claim fits that language: Under the SSA's own regulations, it was the final stage of review. See 20 CFR § 416.1472.
Turning to the second clause ("made after a hearing"), we note that this phrase has been the subject of some confusion over the years. On the one hand, the statute elsewhere repeatedly uses the word "hearing" to signify an ALJ hearing, which suggests that, in the ordinary case, the phrase here too denotes an ALJ hearing. See, e.g. , IBP , Inc.v.Alvarez , 546 U.S. 21, 34, 126 S.Ct. 514, 163 L.Ed.2d 288 (2005) (noting "the normal rule of statutory interpretation that identical words used in different parts of the same statute are generally presumed to have the same meaning"). On the other hand, the Court's precedents make clear that an ALJ hearing is not an ironclad prerequisite for judicial review. See, e.g. , City of New York , 476 U.S. at 484, 106 S.Ct. 2022 (emphasizing the Court's " 'intensely practical' " approach to the applicability of the exhaustion requirement and disapproving "mechanical application" of a set of factors).
There is no need today to give § 405(g) a definition for all seasons, because, in any event, this is a mine-run case and Smith obtained the kind of hearing that § 405(g) most naturally suggests: an ALJ hearing on the merits. In other words, even giving § 405(g) a relatively strict reading, Smith appears to satisfy its terms.
Smith cannot, however, satisfy § 405(g)'s "after a hearing" requirement as a matter of mere chronology. In Califano v. Sanders , 430 U.S. 99, 97 S.Ct. 980, 51 L.Ed.2d 192 (1977), the Court considered whether the SSA's denial of a claimant's petition to reopen a prior denial of his claim for benefits qualified as a final decision under § 405(g). Id ., at 102-103, 107-109, 97 S.Ct. 980. The Court concluded that it did not, reasoning that a petition to reopen was a matter of agency grace that could be denied without a hearing altogether and that allowing judicial review would thwart Congress' own deadline for seeking such review. See id. , at 108-109, 97 S.Ct. 980. That the SSA's denial of the petition to reopen (1) was conclusive and (2) postdated an ALJ hearing did not, alone, bring it within the meaning of § 405(g).
Here, by contrast, the SSA's "final decision" is much more closely tethered to the relevant "hearing." Unlike a petition to reopen, a primary application for benefits may not be denied without an ALJ hearing (assuming the claimant timely requests one, as Smith did). § 405(b)(1). Moreover, the claimant's access to this first bite at the apple is indeed a matter of legislative right rather than agency grace. See id ., at 108, 97 S.Ct. 980. And, again unlike the situation in Sanders , there is no danger here of thwarting Congress' own deadline, given that the only potential untimeliness here concerns Smith's request for Appeals Council review-not his request for judicial review following the agency's ultimate determination.
B
The statutory context weighs in Smith's favor as well. Appeals from SSA determinations are, by their nature, appeals from the action of a federal agency, and in the separate administrative-law context of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), an action is "final" if it both (1) "mark[s] the 'consummation' of the agency's decisionmaking process" and (2) is "one by which 'rights or obligations have been determined,' or from which 'legal consequences will flow.' " Bennett v. Spear , 520 U.S. 154, 177-178, 117 S.Ct. 1154, 137 L.Ed.2d 281 (1997). Both conditions are satisfied when a Social Security claimant has reached the fourth and final step of the SSA's four-step process and has had his request for review dismissed as untimely. It is consistent to treat the Appeals Council's dismissal of Smith's claim as a final decision as well.
To be clear, "the doctrine of administrative exhaustion should be applied with a regard for the particular administrative scheme at issue," Salfi , 422 U.S. at 765, 95 S.Ct. 2457, and we leave this axiom undisturbed today. The Social Security Act and the APA are different statutes, and courts must remain sensitive to their differences. See, e.g. , Sullivan v. Hudson , 490 U.S. 877, 885, 109 S.Ct. 2248, 104 L.Ed.2d 941 (1989) (observing that "[a]s provisions for judicial review of agency action go, § 405(g) is somewhat unusual" in that its "detailed provisions ... suggest a degree of direct interaction between a federal court and an administrative agency alien to" APA review). But at least some of these differences suggest that Congress wanted more oversight by the courts in this context rather than less, see ibid. , and the statute as a whole is one that "Congress designed to be 'unusually protective' of claimants," City of New York , 476 U.S. at 480, 106 S.Ct. 2022.
We note further that the SSA is a massive enterprise, and mistakes will occur. See Brief for National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives as Amicus Curiae 13 (collecting examples). The four steps preceding judicial review, meanwhile, can drag on for years. While mistakes by the agency may be admirably rare, we do not presume that Congress intended for this claimant-protective statute, see City of New York , 476 U.S. at 480, 106 S.Ct. 2022, to leave a claimant without recourse to the courts when such a mistake does occur-least of all when the claimant may have already expended a significant amount of likely limited resources in a lengthy proceeding.
C
Smith's entitlement to judicial review is confirmed by "the strong presumption that Congress intends judicial review of administrative action." Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians , 476 U.S. 667, 670, 106 S.Ct. 2133, 90 L.Ed.2d 623 (1986). "That presumption," of course, "is rebuttable: It fails when a statute's language or structure demonstrates that Congress wanted an agency to police its own conduct." Mach Mining , LLCv.EEOC , 575 U.S. 480, ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct. 1645, 1651, 191 L.Ed.2d 607 (2015). But the burden for rebutting it is " 'heavy,' " id. , at ----, 135 S.Ct. at 1651, and that burden is not met here. While Congress left it to the SSA to define the procedures that claimants like Smith must first pass through, see Sims , 530 U.S. at 106, 120 S.Ct. 2080, Congress has not suggested that it intended for the SSA to be the unreviewable arbiter of whether claimants have complied with those procedures. Where, as here, a claimant has received a claim-ending timeliness determination from the agency's last-in-line decisionmaker after bringing his claim past the key procedural post (a hearing) mentioned in § 405(g), there has been a "final decision ... made after a hearing" under § 405(g).
III
Amicus ' arguments to the contrary have aided our consideration of this case, but they have not dissuaded us from concluding that the Appeals Council's dismissal of Smith's claim satisfied § 405(g).
Amicus first argues that the phrase "final decision ... made after a hearing" refers to a conclusive disposition, after exhaustion, of a benefits claim on the merits-that is, on a basis for which the Social Security Act entitles a claimant to a hearing. This reading follows, amicus argues, from the Court's observations that § 405(g) generally requires exhaustion, and moreover from Sanders ' suggestion, see 430 U.S. at 108, 97 S.Ct. 980, that review is not called for where a claimant loses on an agency-determined procedural ground that is divorced from the substantive matters for which a hearing is required. Even if Smith did receive a hearing on the merits, amicus argues, the conclusive determination was not on that basis, and "[i]t would be unnatural to read the statute as throwing open the gates to judicial review of any final decision, no matter how collateral," just because such a hearing occurred. Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 34.
We disagree. First, as noted above, the Court's precedents do not make exhaustion a pure necessity, indicating instead that while the SSA is empowered to define the steps claimants must generally take, the SSA is not also the unreviewable arbiter of whether a claimant has sufficiently complied with those steps. See supra , at 1773 - 1774, and n. 7. Second, the Appeals Council's dismissal is not merely collateral; such a dismissal calls an end to a proceeding in which a substantial factual record has already been developed and on which considerable resources have already been expended. See supra , at 1776, and n. 16. Accepting amicus ' argument would mean that a claimant could make it to the end of the SSA's process and then have judicial review precluded simply because the Appeals Council stamped "untimely" on the request, even if that designation were patently inaccurate. While there may be contexts in which the law is so unforgiving, this is not one. See supra , at 1775 - 1777.
Smith's case, as noted above, is also distinct from Sanders . See supra , at 1775. Sanders , after all, involved the SSA's denial of a petition for reopening-a second look that the agency had made available to claimants as a matter of grace. See 430 U.S. at 101-102, 107-108, 97 S.Ct. 980. But Smith is not seeking a second look at an already-final denial; he argues that he was wrongly prevented from continuing to pursue his primary claim for benefits. That primary claim, meanwhile, is indeed a matter of statutory entitlement. See § 405(b).
Amicus also emphasizes that the SSA handles a large volume of claims, such that a decision providing for greater judicial review could risk a flood of litigation. That result seems unlikely for a few reasons. First, the number of Appeals Council untimeliness dismissals is comparatively small-something on the order of 2,500 dismissals out of 160,000 dispositions per year. Second, the interpretation that Smith and the Government urge has been the law since 1983 in the Eleventh Circuit, and the data there do not bear out amicus ' warning. See Reply Brief for Respondent 14-15 (collecting statistics). Third, while amicus flags related contexts that could be informed by today's ruling, see Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 36-40, those issues are not before us. We therefore do not address them other than to reinforce that such questions must be considered in the light of "the particular administrative scheme at issue." See Salfi , 422 U.S. at 765, 95 S.Ct. 2457. Today's decision, therefore, hardly knocks loose a line of dominoes.
Finally, amicus argues that the meaning of § 405(g) is ambiguous and that the SSA's longstanding interpretation of § 405(g) -prior to its changed position during the pendency of this case-is entitled to deference under Chevron U.S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. , 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). The Government and Smith maintain that the statute unambiguously supports the Government's new position, and Smith further asserts that deference is inappropriate where the Government itself has rejected the interpretation in question in its filings.
We need not decide whether the statute is unambiguous or what to do with the curious situation of an amicus curiae seeking deference for an interpretation that the Government's briefing rejects. Chevron deference " 'is premised on the theory that a statute's ambiguity constitutes an implicit delegation from Congress to the agency to fill in the statutory gaps.' " Kingv.Burwell , 576 U.S. ----, ----, 135 S.Ct. 2480, 2488, 192 L.Ed.2d 483 (2015). The scope of judicial review, meanwhile, is hardly the kind of question that the Court presumes that Congress implicitly delegated to an agency.
Indeed, roughly six years after Chevron was decided, the Court declined to give Chevron deference to the Secretary of Labor's interpretation of a federal statute that would have foreclosed private rights of action under certain circumstances. See Adams Fruit Co. v. Barrett , 494 U.S. 638, 649-650, 110 S.Ct. 1384, 108 L.Ed.2d 585 (1990). As the Court explained, Congress' having created "a role for the Department of Labor in administering the statute" did "not empower the Secretary to regulate the scope of the judicial power vested by the statute." Id. , at 650, 110 S.Ct. 1384. Rather, "[a]lthough agency determinations within the scope of delegated authority are entitled to deference, it is fundamental 'that an agency may not bootstrap itself into an area in which it has no jurisdiction.' " Ibid . Here, too, while Congress has empowered the SSA to create a scheme of administrative exhaustion, see Sims , 530 U.S. at 106, 120 S.Ct. 2080, Congress did not delegate to the SSA the power to determine "the scope of the judicial power vested by" § 405(g) or to determine conclusively when its dictates are satisfied. Adams Fruit Co. , 494 U.S. at 650, 110 S.Ct. 1384. Consequently, having concluded that Smith and the Government have the better reading of § 405(g), we need go no further.
IV
Although they agree that § 405(g) permits judicial review of the Appeals Council's dismissal in this case, Smith and the Government disagree somewhat about the scope of review on remand. Smith argues that if a reviewing court disagrees with the procedural ground for dismissal, it can then proceed directly to the merits, while the Government argues that the proper step in such a case would be to remand. We largely agree with the Government.
To be sure, there would be jurisdiction for a federal court to proceed to the merits in the way that Smith avers. For one, as noted above, exhaustion itself is not a jurisdictional prerequisite. See supra , at 1773 - 1774. Moreover, § 405(g) states that a reviewing "court shall have power to enter, upon the pleadings and transcript of the record, a judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the Commissioner of Social Security, with or without remanding the cause for a rehearing"-a broad grant of authority that reflects the high "degree of direct interaction between a federal court and an administrative agency" envisioned by § 405(g). Hudson , 490 U.S. at 885, 109 S.Ct. 2248. In short, there is no jurisdictional bar to a court's reaching the merits.
Fundamental principles of administrative law, however, teach that a federal court generally goes astray if it decides a question that has been delegated to an agency if that agency has not first had a chance to address the question. See, e.g. , INS v. Orlando Ventura , 537 U.S. 12, 16, 18, 123 S.Ct. 353, 154 L.Ed.2d 272 (2002) (per curiam ); ICC v. Locomotive Engineers , 482 U.S. 270, 283, 107 S.Ct. 2360, 96 L.Ed.2d 222 (1987) ; cf. SEC v. Chenery Corp. , 318 U.S. 80, 88, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943) ("For purposes of affirming no less than reversing its orders, an appellate court cannot intrude upon the domain which Congress has exclusively entrusted to an administrative agency"). The Court's cases discussing exhaustion in the Social Security context confirm the prudence of applying this general principle here, where the agency's final decisionmaker has not had a chance to address the merits at all. See City of New York , 476 U.S. at 485, 106 S.Ct. 2022 ("Because of the agency's expertise in administering its own regulations, the agency ordinarily should be given the opportunity to review application of those regulations to a particular factual context"); Salfi , 422 U.S. at 765, 95 S.Ct. 2457 (explaining that exhaustion serves to "preven[t] premature interference with agency processes" and to give the agency "an opportunity to correct its own errors," "to afford the parties and the courts the benefit of its experience and expertise," and to produce "a record which is adequate for judicial review"). Accordingly, in an ordinary case, a court should restrict its review to the procedural ground that was the basis for the Appeals Council dismissal and (if necessary) allow the agency to address any residual substantive questions in the first instance.
V
We hold that where the SSA's Appeals Council has dismissed a request for review as untimely after a claimant has obtained a hearing from an ALJ on the merits, that dismissal qualifies as a "final decision ... made after a hearing" within the meaning of § 405(g). The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
See Koch & Koplow, The Fourth Bite at the Apple: A Study of the Operation and Utility of the Social Security Administration's Appeals Council, 17 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 199, 234-235 (1990) (Koch & Koplow).
See id ., at 235.
SSA, Brief History and Current Information About the Appeals Council, https://www.ssa.gov/appeals/about_ac.html (all Internet materials as last visited May 22, 2019).
Because Smith seeks benefits under Title XVI, we cite to the regulations that govern Title XVI, which are located at 20 CFR pt. 416 (2018). The regulations that govern Title II are located at 20 CFR pt. 404.
Of course, if the result at any of the four preceding stages is fully favorable, there is generally no need to proceed further.
Seven Courts of Appeals have held that there is no judicial review under these circumstances, while two have held that there is. Compare Brandtner v. Department of Health & Human Servs. , 150 F. 3d 1306, 1307 (CA10 1998) ; Bacon v. Sullivan , 969 F. 2d 1517, 1520 (CA3 1992) ; Matlock v. Sullivan , 908 F. 2d 492, 494 (CA9 1990) ; Harper v. Bowen , 813 F. 2d 737, 743 (CA5 1987) ; Adams v. Heckler , 799 F. 2d 131, 133 (CA4 1986) ; Smith v. Heckler , 761 F. 2d 516, 518 (CA8 1985) ; Dietsch v. Schweiker , 700 F. 2d 865, 867 (CA2 1983), with Casey v. Berryhill , 853 F. 3d 322, 326 (CA7 2017) ; Bloodsworth v. Heckler , 703 F. 2d 1233, 1239 (CA11 1983).
While Califano v. Sanders , 430 U.S. 99, 97 S.Ct. 980, 51 L.Ed.2d 192 (1977), can be read to cabin Eldridge and Salfi to only constitutional claims, the Court's subsequent decision in City of New York demonstrates that this understanding of § 405(g) can extend to cases lacking Eldridge 's and Salfi 's constitutional character. See City of New York , 476 U.S. at 474-475, and n. 5, 482-484, 106 S.Ct. 2022 ; see also City of New York v. Heckler , 578 F. Supp. 1109, 1124-1125 (EDNY 1984) (ruling that the agency's actions violated the Social Security Act and its own regulations and thus declining to reach the plaintiffs' constitutional argument).
See 5 Oxford English Dictionary 920 (2d ed. 1989) (Final: "Marking the last stage of a process; leaving nothing to be looked for or expected; ultimate"); 4 Oxford English Dictionary 222 (1933) (same); see also Webster's New World College Dictionary 542 (5th ed. 2016) (Final: "leaving no further chance for action, discussion, or change; deciding; conclusive"); Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 469 (11th ed. 2011) (Final: "coming at the end: being the last in a series, process, or progress").
See 42 U.S.C. § 405(b)(1) (entitling claimants to a hearing on the merits); § 405(b)(2) (discussing "reconsideration" of certain findings "before any hearing under paragraph (1) on the issue of such entitlement"); § 405(g) (discussing factual findings and evidence resulting from such a "hearing"); § 405(h) (discussing binding effect of decision "after a hearing"); see also §§ 1383(c)(1)(A), (3) (similar).
We note as well that the "hearing" referred to in § 405(g) cannot be a hearing before the Appeals Council. Congress provided for a hearing in § 405(b) and for judicial review "after a hearing" in § 405(g) before the Appeals Council even existed. See supra, at 1771 - 1772. Moreover, the Appeals Council makes many decisions without a hearing-e.g., denying a petition for review without giving reasons-that are nevertheless plainly reviewable. See 20 CFR §§ 416.1400(a)(5), 416.1467, 416.1481. Accordingly, the fact that there was no Appeals Council hearing-much like the fact that there was no reasoned Appeals Council decision on the merits-does not bar review.
We return below to the possibility, suggested by amicus , that "final decision ... made after a hearing" could signify a final decision "on a matter on which the Act requires a hearing." Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 13; see infra , at 1777- - 1778. Here, we note only that while Congress certainly could have written something like "final decision on the merits ... made after a hearing," it did not.
The alternative risks untenable breadth. The Battle of Yorktown predates our ruling today, but no one would describe today's opinion as a "decision made after the Battle of Yorktown." As we explain, however, the dismissal of Smith's claim is tethered to Smith's hearing in a way that more distant events are not.
The noteworthy counterpoint is § 405(h), which withdraws federal-court jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1346. While that provision clearly serves "to route review through" § 405(g), see Sanders , 430 U.S. at 103, n. 3, 97 S.Ct. 980 ; see also Heckler v. Ringer , 466 U.S. 602, 614-615, 104 S.Ct. 2013, 80 L.Ed.2d 622 (1984), that routing choice does not simultaneously constrict the route that Congress did provide.
For example, the agency receives roughly 2.5 million new disability claims per year. See SSA, Annual Performance Report Fiscal Years 2017-2019, p. 32 (Feb. 12, 2018), https://www.ssa.gov/budget/FY19Files/2019APR.pdf.
See also Koch & Koplow 257 (noting that each Appeals Council member "typically spends only ten to fifteen minutes reviewing an average case" given "the pressures of the caseload").
See SSA, FY 2020 Congressional Justification 9 (Mar. 2019) (estimating 2019 average processing time for the first three steps at 113 days, 105 days, and 515 days, respectively), https://www.ssa.gov/budget/FY20Files/FY20-JEAC.pdf; Brief for National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives as Amicus Curiae 11.
A different question would be presented by a claimant who assertedly faltered at an earlier step-e.g., whose request for an ALJ hearing was dismissed as untimely and who then appealed that determination to the Appeals Council before seeking judicial review. While such a claimant would not have received a "hearing" at all, the Court's precedents also make clear that a hearing is not always required. See supra, at 1773 - 1774. Because such a situation is not before us, we do not address it.
See Brief for Respondent 43, n. 17 (number of timeliness dismissals); SSA, Annual Statistical Supplement 2018 (Table 2.F11) (number of dispositions), https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/ 2018/2f8-2f11.pdf.
The parties agree, as do we, on the standard of review: abuse of discretion as to the overall conclusion, and "substantial evidence" "as to any fact." See § 405(g) ; see also Brief for Respondent 43-44; Tr. of Oral Arg. 5; cf. Bowen v. City of New York , 476 U.S. 467, 483, 106 S.Ct. 2022, 90 L.Ed.2d 462 (1986) ("Ordinarily, the Secretary has discretion to decide when to waive the exhaustion requirement").
We make no statement, by contrast, regarding the applicability of this line of cases to situations in which the Appeals Council has had a chance to address the merits. Cf. Sims v. Apfel , 530 U.S. 103, 110-112, 120 S.Ct. 2080, 147 L.Ed.2d 80 (2000) (plurality opinion) (discussing why the inquisitorial nature of SSA proceedings counsels against imposing an issue-exhaustion requirement).
By the same token, remand may be forgone in rarer cases, such as where the Government joins the claimant in asking the court to reach the merits or where remand would serve no meaningful purpose. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the bases on which the Supreme Court rested its decision with regard to the legal provision that the Court considered in the case. Consider "judicial review (national level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of the federal government, including an interstate compact. Consider "judicial review (state level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of a state or local government. Consider "statutory construction" for cases where the majority interpret a federal statute, treaty, or court rule; if the Court interprets a federal statute governing the powers or jurisdiction of a federal court; if the Court construes a state law as incompatible with a federal law; or if an administrative official interprets a federal statute. Do not consider "statutory construction" where an administrative agency or official acts "pursuant to" a statute, unless the Court interprets the statute to determine if administrative action is proper. Consider "interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order" if the majority treats federal administrative action in arriving at its decision.Consider "diversity jurisdiction" if the majority said in approximately so many words that under its diversity jurisdiction it is interpreting state law. Consider "federal common law" if the majority indicate that it used a judge-made "doctrine" or "rule; if the Court without more merely specifies the disposition the Court has made of the case and cites one or more of its own previously decided cases unless the citation is qualified by the word "see."; if the case concerns admiralty or maritime law, or some other aspect of the law of nations other than a treaty; if the case concerns the retroactive application of a constitutional provision or a previous decision of the Court; if the case concerns an exclusionary rule, the harmless error rule (though not the statute), the abstention doctrine, comity, res judicata, or collateral estoppel; or if the case concerns a "rule" or "doctrine" that is not specified as related to or connected with a constitutional or statutory provision. Consider "Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction" otherwise (i.e., the residual code); for issues pertaining to non-statutorily based Judicial Power topics; for cases arising under the Court's original jurisdiction; in cases in which the Court denied or dismissed the petition for review or where the decision of a lower court is affirmed by a tie vote; or in workers' compensation litigation involving statutory interpretation and, in addition, a discussion of jury determination and/or the sufficiency of the evidence. | What is the basis of the Supreme Court's decision? | [
"judicial review (national level)",
"judicial review (state level)",
"Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction",
"statutory construction",
"interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order",
"diversity jurisdiction",
"federal common law"
] | [
3
] | sc_authoritydecision |
OREGON v. MITCHELL, ATTORNEY GENERAL
No. 43,
Orig.
Argued October 19, 1970 —
Decided December 21, 1970
' Black, J., delivered an opinion announcing the judgments of the Court and expressing his own view of the cases. Douglas, J., filed a separate opinion, post, p. 135. HARLAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 152. BreNNAN, White, and Marshall, JJ., filed an opinion dissenting from the judgments in part and concurring in the judgments in part, post, p. 229. Stewart, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Burger, C. J., and BlackmuN, J., joined, post, p. 281.
Lee Johnson, Attorney General of Oregon, argued the cause for plaintiff in No. 43, Orig. With him on the briefs were Diarrriuid F. O’Scannlain, Deputy Attorney General, Jacob B. Tanzer, Solicitor General, and Al J. Laue and Thomas H. Denney, Assistant Attorneys General. Charles Alan Wright argued the cause for plaintiff in No. 44, Orig. With him on the brief were Crawford C. Martin, Attorney General of Texas, Nola White, First Assistant Attorney General, Alfred Walker, Executive Assistant Attorney General, and J. C. Davis, W. O. Shultz II, and John Reeves, Assistant Attorneys General.
Solicitor General Griswold argued the cause for defendant in Nos. 43, Orig., and 44, Orig., and for the United States in Nos. 46, Orig., and 47, Orig. With him on the briefs were Attorney General Mitchell, pro se, Assistant Attorney General Leonard, Peter L. Strauss, and Samuel Huntington.
Gary K. Nelson, Attorney General of Arizona, and John M. McGowan II, Special Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause and filed a brief for defendant in No. 46, Qrig. Robert M. Robson, Attorney General of Idaho, argued the cause for defendant in No. 47, Orig. With him on the brief was Richard H. Greener, Assistant Attorney General.
Brief of amicus curiae in all cases was filed by A. F. Summer, Attorney General, Delos Burks, First Assistant Attorney General, William A. Attain, Assistant Attorney General, and Charles B. Henley for the State of Mississippi. Briefs of amici curiae in Nos. 43, Orig., 46, Orig., and 47, Orig., were filed by Melvin L. Wulf for the American Civil Liberties Union, and by John R. Cosgrove for Citizens for Lowering the Voting Age et al.„ Brief of amicus curiae in Nos. 43, Orig., and 46, Orig., was filed by William A. Dobrovir, Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., David Rubin, Stephen I. Schlossberg, John A. Fillion, Nathaniel R. Jones, Clarence Mitchell, and J. Francis Pohlhaus for the Youth Franchise Coalition et al. Briefs of amici curiae in No. 43, Orig., were filed by Joseph A. Califano', Jr., and Clifford L. Alexander for the Democratic National Committee, and by Messrs. Jones, Mitchell, and Pohlhaus for the Department of Armed Services and Veterans Affairs of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Brief of amicus curiae for the State of Indiana in support of plaintiff in No. 44, Orig., was filed by Theodore L. Sendak-, Attorney General, Richard C. Johnson, Chief Deputy Attorney General, and William F. Thompson, Assistant Attorney General, joined by the Attorneys General for their respective States, as follows: Joe Purcell of Arkansas, Robert M. Robson of Idaho, Jack P. F. Gremillion of Louisiana, Clarence A. H. Meyer of Nebraska, Warren B. Rudman of New Hampshire, Robert Morga-h of North Carolina, Helgi Johanneson of North Dakota, Paul W. Brown of Ohio, Gordon Mydland of South Dakota, Vernon B. Romney of Utah, Slade Gorton of Washington, Chauncey H. Browning, Jr., of West Virginia, and James E., Barrett of Wyoming. Brief of amicus curiae in No. 47, Orig., was filed by Andrew P. Miller, Attorney General, and Anthony F. Troy and Walter A. McFarlahe,- Assistant Attorneys General, for' the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Together with No. 44, Orig., Texas v. Mitchell, Attorney General, No. 46, Orig., United States v. Arizona, and No. 47, Orig., United States v. Idaho, also on bills of complaint.
Mr. Justice Black,
announcing the judgments of the Court in an opinion expressing his own view of the cases.
In these suits certain States resist compliance with the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, Pub. L. 91-285, 84 Stat. 314, because they believe that the Act takes away from them powers reserved to the States by the Constitution to control their own elections. By its terms the Act does three things. First: It lowers the minimum age of voters in both state and federal elections from 21 to 18. Second: Based upon a finding by Congress that literacy tests have been used to discriminate against voters on account of their color, the Act enforces the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments by barring the use of such tests in all elections, state and national, for a five-year period. Third: The Act forbids States-from disqualifying voters in national elections for presidential and vice-presidential electors because they have not met state residency requirements.
For the reasons set out in Part I of this opinion, I believe Congress can fix the age of voters in national elections, such as congressional, senatorial, vice-presidential and presidential elections, but cannot set the voting age in state and local elections. For reasons expressed in separate opinions, my Brothers Douglas, Brennan, White, and Marshall join me in concluding that Congress can enfranchise 18-year-old citizens in national elections, but dissent from the judgment that Congress cannot extend the franchise to 18-year-old citizens in state and local elections. For reasons expressed in separate opinions, my Brothers The Chief Justice, Harlan, Stewart, and Blackmun join me in concluding that Congress cannot interfere with the age for voters set by the States for state and local elections. They, however, dissent from the judgment that Congress can control voter qualifications in federal elections. In summary, it is the judgment of the Court that the 18-year-old vote provisions of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 are constitutional and enforceable insofar as they pertain to federal elections and unconstitutional and unenforceable insofar as they pertain to state and local elections.
For the reasons set out ifi Part II of this opinion, I believe that Congress, in the exercise of its power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, can prohibit the use of literacy tests or other devices used to discriminate against voters on account, of their race in both state and federal elections. For reasons expressed in separate opinions, all of my Brethren join me in this judgment. Therefore the litéracy-test provisions of the Act are upheld.
For the reasons set out in Part III of this opinion, I believe Congress can set residency requirements and provide for absentee balloting in elections for presidential and vice-presidential electors. For reasons expressed in separate opinions, my Brothers The Chief Justice, Douglas, Brennan,' Stewart, White, Marshall, and Blackmun concur in. this judgment. My Brother Harlan, for the reasons stated in his separate opinion, considers that the residency provisions of the statute are unconstitutional. Therefore the residency and absentee balloting provisions of the Act are upheld.
Let judgments be entered accordingly.
I
The Framers of our Constitution provided in Art. I, §2, that members of the House of Representatives should be elected by the people and that the voters for Representatives should have “the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” Senators were originally to be elected by the state legislatures, but under the Seventeenth Amend- . ment Senators are also elected by the people, and voters for Senators have the same qualifications as voters for Representatives. In the very beginning the responsibility of the States for setting the qualifications of voters in congressional elections was made subject to the power of Congress to make or alter such regulations if it deemed it advisable to do so. This was done in Art. I, § 4, of the Constitution which provides:
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Lavj make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Moreover, the power of Congress to make election regulations in national elections is augmented by the Necessary and Proper Clause. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819). In United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299 (1941), where the Court upheld congressional power to regulate party primaries, Mr. Justice Stone speaking for the Court construed the interrelation of these clauses of the Constitution, stating:
“While, in a loose sense, the right to vote for representatives in Congress is sometimes spoken of as a right derived from the states . . . this statement is true only in the sense that the states are authorized by the Constitution, to legislate on the subject as provided by § 2 of Art. I, to the extent that Congress has not restricted state action by the exercise of its powers to regulate elections under § 4 and its more general power under Article I, § 8, clause 18 of the Constitution 'to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.’ ” 313 U. S., at 315.
See also Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371 (1880); Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651 (1884); Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U. S. 487 (1902); Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U. S. 58 (1900).
The breadth of power granted to Congress to make or alter election regulations in national elections, including the qualifications of voters, is demonstrated by the fact that the Framers of the' Constitution and the state • legislatures which ratified it intended to grant to Congress the power to lay out or alter the boundaries of the congressional districts. In the ratifying conventions speakers “argued that the power given Congress in Art. I, § 4, was meant to be used to vindicate the people’s right to equality of representation in the House,” Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S. 1, 16 (1964), and that Congreswould “ 'most probably . . . lay the state off into districts.’ ” And in Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549 (1946), no Justice of this Court doubted Congress’ power to rearrange the congressional districts according to population; the fight in that case revolved about the judicial power to compel redistricting.
Surely no voter qualification was more important to the Framers than the geographical qualification embodied in the concept of congressional districts. The Framers expected Congress to use this power to eradicate “rotten boroughs,” and Congress has in fact used its power to prevent States from electing all Congressmen at large. There can be no doubt that the power to alter congressional district lines is vastly more significant in its effect than the power to permit 18-year-old citizens to go to the polls and vote in all federal elections.
Any doubt about the powers of Congress to regulate congressional elections, including the age and other qualifications of the voters, should be dispelled by the opinion of this Court in Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355 (1932). There, Chief Justice Hughes writing for a unanimous Court discussed the scope of congressional power under § 4 at some length. He said:
“The subject matter is the ‘times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives.’ It cannot be doubted that these comprehensive words embrace authority to provide a complete code for congressional elections, not only as to times and places, but in relation to notices, registration, supervision of voting, protection of voters, prevention of fraud and corrupt practices, counting of votes, duties of inspectors and canvassers, and making and publication of election returns; in short, to enact the numerous requirements as to procedure and safeguards which experience shows are necessary in order to enforce the fundamental right involved. . . .
“This view is confirmed by the second clause of Article I, section 4, which provides that ‘the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such' regulations/ with the single exception stated. The phrase 'such regulations’ plainly refers to regulations of the same general character that the legislature of the State is authorized to prescribe with respect to congressional elections. In exercising this .power, the Congress may supplement these state regulations or may substitute its own. ... It ‘has a general supervisory power over the whole subject.’ ” Id., at 366-367.
In short, the Constitution allotted to the States the power to make laws regarding national elections, but .provided that if Congress became dissatisfied with the state laws, Congress could alter them. A newly created national government could hardly have been expected to survive without the ultimate power to. rule itself and to fill its offices under its own laws. The Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 now before this Court evidence dissatisfaction of Congress with the voting age set by many of the States for national elections. I would hold, as have a long line of decisions in this Court, that Congress has ultimate supervisory power over congressional elections. Similarly, it is the prerogative of Congress to oversee the conduct of presidential and vice-presidential elections and to set the qualifications for voters for electors for those offices. It cannot be seriously contended that Congress has less power over the conduct of presidential elections than it has over, congressional elections.
On the other hand, the Constitution was also intended to preserve to the States the power that even the Colonies had to establish and maintain their own separate and independent governments, except insofar as the Constitution itself commands otherwise. My Brother Harlan has persuasively demonstrated that the Framers of the Constitution intended the States to keep for themselves, as provided in the Tenth Amendment, the power to regulate elections. My major disagreement with my Brother Harlan is that, while I agree as to the States’ power to regulate the elections of their own officials, I believe, contrary to his view, that Congress has the final authority over federal elections. No function is more essential to the separate and independent existence of the States and their governments than the power to determine within the limits of the Constitution the qualifications of their own voters for state, county, and municipal offices and the nature of their own machinery for filling local public offices. Pope v. Williams, 193 U. S. 621 (1904); Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162 (1875). Moreover, Art. I, § 2,' is a clear indication that the Framers intended the States to determine the qualifications of their own voters for state offices, because those qualifications were adopted for federal offices unless Congress directs otherwise under Art. I, § 4. It is a plain fact of history that the Framers never imagined that the national Congress would set the qualifications for^ voters in every election from President to local constable or village alderman. It is obvious, that the whole Constitution reserves to the States the power to set voter qualifications in state and local elections, except to the limited extent that the people through constitutional amendments have specifically narrowed the powers of the States. Amendments Fourteen, Fifteen, Nineteen, and Twenty-four, each of which has assumed that the States had general supervisory power over state elections, are examples of express limitations on the power of the States to govern themselves. And the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to destroy the States’ power to govern themselves, making the Nineteenth and Twenty-fourth Amendments superfluous. My Brother Brennan’s opinion, if carried to its logical conclusion, would, under the guise of insuring equal • protection, blot out all state power, leaving the 50 States as little more than impotent figureheads. In interpreting what the Fourteenth Amendment means, the Equal Protection Clause should not be stretched to nullify the States’ powers over elections which they had before the Constitution was adopted and which they have retained throughout our history.
Of course, the original design of the Founding Fathers was altered by the Civil War Amendments and various' other amendments to the Constitution. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments have expressly authorized Congress to “enforce” the limited prohibitions of those amendments by “appropriate legislation.” The Solicitor General contends in these cases that Congress can set the age qualifications for voters in state elections under its power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Above all else, the framers of the Civil War Amendments intended to deny- to the States the power to discriminate against persons on account of their race. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967); Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960); Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954); Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 71-72 (1873). While this Court has recognized that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in some instances protects against discrim-inations other than those on account of race, see Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964); Hadley v. Junior College District, 397 U. S. 50 (1970); see also Kotch v. Board of River Port Pilots, 330 U. S. 552 (1947), and cases cited therein, it cannot be successfully argued that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to strip the States. of their power, carefully preserved in the original Constitution, to govern themselves. The' Fourteenth Amendment was surely not intended to make every discrimination between groups of people á constitutional denial of. equal .protection. Nor was the Enforcement Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment intended to permit Congress to prohibit every discrimination between groups of people. On the other hand, the Civil War Amendments were unquestionably designed to condemn and forbid every distinction, however trifling, on account of race. .
To .fulfill their goal of ending racial discrimination and to prevent direct or indirect state legislative encroachment on the rights guaranteed by the amendments, the Framers gave Congress power to enforce each of the Civil War Amendments. These enforcement powers are broad. In Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409, 439 (1968), the Court held that § 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment “clothed ‘Congress with power to pass all laws necessary and pro'per for abolishing all badges, and..incidents of slavery in the United States.’” In construing § 5 of the Fourteenth' Amendment, the Court has 'stated:
“It is not said the judicial power of the general government shall extend to enforcing the prohibitions and to protecting the rights and. immunities, guaranteed. It is not said that branch of the government shall be authorized to declare void, any action of a State in violation of the prohibitions. It is the power of Congress which. has been enlarged.” Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 345 (1880). (Emphasis added in part.)
And in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301 (1966) (Black, J., dissenting on other grounds), the Court upheld the literacy test ban of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 437, under Congress’ Fifteenth Amendment enforcement power.
As broad as the congressional enforcement power is, it is not unlimited: Specifically, there are at least three limitations upon Congress’ power to enforce the guarantees of the Civil War Amendments. First, Congress may not by legislation repeal other' provisions of the Constitution. Second, the power granted to Congress was not intended to strip the States of their power to govern themselves or to convert our national government of enumerated powers into a central government of unrestrained authority over every inch of the whole Nation. Third, Congress may only “enforce” the provisions of the amendments and may do so only by “appropriate legislation.” Congress has no power under the enforcement sections to undercut the amendments’ guar-anteés of personal equality and freedom from discrimination, see Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641, 651 n. 10 (1966), or to undermine those protections of the Bill of Rights which we have held the Fourteenth Amendment made applicable to the States.
Of course, we have upheld congressional legislation under the Enforcement Clauses in some cases where Congress has interfered with state regulation of the local electoral process. In Katzenbach v. Morgan, supra, the Court upheld a statute which outlawed New York’s requirement of literacy in English as a prerequisite to voting as this requirement was applied to Puerto Ricans with certain educational qualifications. The New York statute overridden by Congress applied to all elections. And in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra (Black, J., dissenting on other grounds), the Court upheld the literacy test ban of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That Act proscribed the use of the literacy test in all elections in certain areas. But division of power between state and national governments, like every provision of the Constitution, was expressly qualified by the Civil War Amendments’ ban on racial discrimination. Where Congress attempts to remedy racial discrimination under its enforcement powers, its authority is enhanced by the avowed intention of the framers of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Cf. Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U. S. 663, 670 (1966) (Black, J., dissenting).
In enacting the 18-year-old vote provisions of the. Act now before the Court, Congress made no legislative findings that the 21-year-old vote requirement was used by the States to disenfranchise voters on account of race. I seriously doubt that such a finding, if made, could be supported by substantial evidence. Since Congress has attempted to invade an area preserved to the States by the Constitution without a foundation for enforcing the Civil War Amendments' ban on racial discrimination, .1 would, hold that Congress has exceeded its powers in attempting to lower the voting age in state and local elections. On the other hand, where Congress legislates in a domain not exclusively reserved by the Constitution to the States, its enforcement power need not-be tied so closely to the goal of eliminating discrimination on account of race.
To invalidate part of the Voting Rights Act Amendr ments of 1970, .however, does not mean that the entire Act must fall or that the constitutional part of the 18-year-old vote provision cannot be given effect. In passing the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, ■Congress recognized that the limits of its power under the Enforcement Clauses were largely undetermined, and therefore included a broad severability provision:
“If any provision of this Act or the application of any provision thereof to any person or circumstance is judicially determined to be invalid, the remainder of this Act or the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected by such determination.” 84 Stat. 318.
In this case,.it is the judgment of the Court that Title III, lowering the voting age to 18, is invalid as applied to voters in state- and local elections. .It is also the judgment of the Court that Title III is valid with respect to national elections. We would fail to follow the express will of Congress in interpreting its own statute if we refused to sever these two distinct aspects of Title III. Moreover, it is a longstanding canon of statutory-construction that legislative enactments are to be enforced to the extent that they are not inconsistent with the Constitution, particularly where the valid portion of the statute does not depend upon the invalid part. See, e. g., Watson v. Buck, 313 U. S. 387 (1941); Marsh v. Buck, 313 U. S. 406 (1941). Here, of course, the enforcement of the 18-year-old vote in national elections is in no way dependent upon its enforcement in state and local elections.
II
In Title I of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 Congress extended the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which ban the use of literacy tests in certain States upon the finding of certain conditions by the United States Attorney General. The Court upheld the provisions of the 1965 Act over my partial dissent in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra, and Gaston County v. United States, 395 U. S. 285 (1969). The constitutionality of Title I is not raised by any of the parties to these suits.
In Title II of the Amendments Congress prohibited until August 6, 1975, the use of any test or device resembling a literacy test in any national, state, or local election in any area of the United States where such test is not already proscribed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The State of Arizona maintains that Title II cannot be enforced to the extent that it is inconsistent with Arizona’s literacy test requirement, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 16-101.A.4, 16-101.A.5 (1956). I would hold that the literacy test ban of the 1970 Amendments is constitutional under the Enforcement Clause of the Fifteenth Amendment and that it supersedes Arizona’s conflicting statutes under the Supremacy Clause of the Federal Constitution.
In enacting the literacy test ban of Title II Congress had before it a long histdry of the discriminatory use of literacy .tests to disfranchise voters on account of their race. Congress could have found that as late as the summer of 1968, the percentage registration of nonwhite voters in seven Southern States was substantially below the percentage registration of white voters. Moreover, Congress had before it striking evidence to show that the provisions of the 1965 Act had had in the span of four years a remarkable impact on minority group voter registration. Congress also had evidence to show that voter registration in areas with large Spanish-American populations was consistently below the state and national averages. In Arizona, for example, only two counties out of eight with Spanish surname populations in excess of 15% showed a voter registration equal to the statewide .average. Arizona' also has a serious, problem of deficient voter registration among Indians. Congressional concern over the use of a literacy test to disfranchise Puerto Ricans in New York State is already a matter of record in this Court. Katzenbach v. Morgan, supra. And as to the Nation as a whole, Congress had before it statistics .which demonstrate that voter registration and voter participation are consistently greater in States without literacy tests.
Congress also had before it this country’s history of discriminatory educational opportunities in both the North and the South. The children who were denied an equivalent education by the “separate but equal” rule of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537 (1896), overruled in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), are now old enough to vote. There is substantial, if not overwhelming, evidence from which Congress could have concluded that it is a denial of equal protection to condition. the political participation of children educated in a dual school system upon their educational achievement. Moreover, the history of this legislation suggests that concern with educational, inequality was perhaps uppermost in the minds of the congressmen who sponsored the Act. The hearings are filled with references to educational inequality. Faced with this and other evidence that literacy tests reduce voter participation in a discriminatory manner not only in the South but throughout, the Nation, Congress was supported by substantial evidence in concluding that a nationwide ban on literacy tests was appropriate to enforce the Civil War amendments.
Finally, there is yet another reason for upholding the literacy test provisions of this Act. In imposing a nationwide ban on literacy tests, Congress has recognized a national problem for what it is — a serious national dilemma that touches every corner of our land. In this legislation Congress has recognized that discrimination on account of color and racial origin is not confined to the South, but exists in variofis parts of the .country. Congress has decided that the way to solve the problems of racial discrimination is to deal with nationwide discrimination with nationwide legislation. Compare South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra, and Gaston County v. United States, supra.
III
In Title II of the Voting Rights Act Amendments Congress also provided that in presidential and vice-presidential elections, no voter could be denied his right to cast a ballot because he had not lived in the jurisdiction long enough to meet its residency requirements. -Furthermore, Congress provided uniform national rules for absentee toting in presidential and vice-presidential elections. In enacting these regulations Congress was attempting to insure a fully effective voice to all citizens in national elections. What I said in Part I of this opinion applies with equal force here. Acting under its broad authority to create and maintain a national government, Congress unquestionably has power under the Constitution to regulate federal elections. The Framers of our Constitution were vitally concerned with setting up a national government that could survive. Essential to the survival and to the growth of our national government is its power to fill its elective offices and to insure' that the officials who fill those offices are as responsive as possible to the will of the people whom they represent.
IV
Our judgments today give the Federal Government the power the Framers conferred upon it, that is, the final control of the elections of its own officers. Our j udgments also, save for the States the power to control state and local elections which the Constitution originally reserved to them and which no subsequent amendment has taken from them. The generalities of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment were not designed or adopted to render the States impotent to set voter qualifications in elections for their own local officials and agents in the absence of some specific constitutional limitations.
In Nos. 43, Orig., and 44, Orig., Oregon and Texas, respectively, invoke the original jurisdiction of this Court to sue the United States Attorney General seeking an injunction against the enforcement of Title III (18-year-old vote) of the Act. In No. 46, Orig., the United States invokes our original jurisdiction seeking to enjoin Arizona from enforcing its laws to the extent that they conflict with the Act, and directing the officials of Arizona to comply with the provisions of Title II (nationwide literacy test ban), § 201, 84 Stat. 315, and Title III (18-year-old vote), §§301,' 302, 84 Stat. 318, of the Act. In No. 47, Orig., the United States invokes our original jurisdiction seeking to enjoin Idaho from enforcing its laws to the extent that they conflict with Title II (abolition of residency requirements in presidential and vice-presidential elections), §202, 84 Stat. 316, and Title III (18-year-old vote) of the Act. No question has been raised concerning the standing of the parties or the jurisdiction of this Court.
Article I, § 4, was a compromise between those delegates to the Constitutional Convention who Wanted the States to have final authority over the election of all state and federal officers and those who wanted Congress to make laws governing national elections, 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 280-292 (1st ed. 1833). The contemporary interpretation of this compromise reveals that those who favored national authority over national elections prevailed. Six States included in their resolutions of ratification the recommendation that a constitutional amendment be adopted to curtail the power of the Federal Government to regulate national elections. Such an amendment was' never adopted.
A majority of the delegates to the Massachusetts ratifying convention must have assumed that Art. I, § 4, gave very broad powers to Congress. Otherwise that convention would not have recommended an amendment providing:
“That Congress do not exercise the powers vested in them by the 4th section of the 1st article, but in cases where ■ a state shall neglect or refuse to make the regulations therein mentioned, or shall make regulations subversive of the rights of the people to a free and equal representation in Congress, agreeably to the Constitution.” 2 J. Elliot’s Debates on the Federal Constitution 177 (1876).
The speech of Mr. Cabot, one delegate to the Massachusetts convention, who argued that Art. I, § 4, was “to be as highly prized as any in the Constitution,” expressed a view of the breadth of that section which must have been shared by most of his colleagues:
“[I]f the state legislatures are suffered to regulate conclusively the elections of the democratic branch, they may . . . finally annihilate that control of the general government, which the people ought always to have . . . .” Id., at 26.
And Cabot was supported by Mr. Parsons, who added:
“They might make an unequal and partial division of the states into districts for the election of representatives, or' they might even disqualify one third of the electors. Without these powers in Congress, the people can have no remedy; but the 4th section provides a remedy, a controlling power in a legislature, composed of senators and representatives of twelve states, without the influence of our commotions and factions, who will hear impartially, and preserve and restore to the people their equal and sacred rights of election.” Id., at 27.
See Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S. 1, 14-16 (1964).
See, e. g., Act of Aug. 8, 1911, 37 Stat. 13.
My Brother Stewart has cited the debates of the Constitutional Convention to show that Ellsworth, Mason, Madison, and Franklin successfully opposed granting Congress the power to regulate federal elections, including the qualifications of voters, in the original Constitution. I read the history of our Constitution differently. Mr. Madison, for example, explained Art. I, § 4, to the Virginia ratifying convention as follows:
“[I]t was thought that the regulation of time, place, and manner, of electing the representatives, should be uniform throughout the continent. Some States might regulate the elections on the principles of equality, and others might regulate them otherwise. This diversity would be obviously unjust. . . . Should the people of any state by any means be deprived of the right of suffrage, it was judged proper that it should be remedied by the general government.” 3 J. Elliot’s Debates on the Federal Constitution 367 (1876).
And Mr. Mason, who was supposedly successful in opposing a broad grant of power to Congress to regulate federal elections, still found it necessary to support an unsuccessful Virginia proposal to curb the power of Congress under Art. I, § 4. Id., at 403.
See, e. g., Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371 (1880); Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651 (1884); United States v. Mosley, 238 U. S. 383 (1915); United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299 (1941).
With reference to the selection of the President and Vice President, Art. II, § 1, provides: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress . . . .” But this Court in Burroughs v. United States, 290 U. S..534 (1934), upheld the power of Congress to regulate certain aspects of elections for presidential and vice-presidential electors, specifically rejecting a construction of Art. II, § 1, that would have curtailed the power of Congress to regulate such elections. Finally, and most important, inherent in the very concept of a supreme national government with national officers is a residual power in. Congress to insure that those officers represent their national constituency as responsively as- possible. This power arises from the nature of our constitutional system of government and from the Necessary and Proper Clause.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” U. S. Const., Amdt. X.
“The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.”
My Brother BrennaN relies upon Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89 (1965); Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U. S. 701 (1969); and Evans v. Cornman, 398 U. S. 419 (1970). These typical equal protection cases in which I joined are not relevant or material to our decision in the eases before us. The establishment of voter age qualifications is a matter of legislative judgment which cannot be properly decided under the Equal Protection Clause. The crucial question here is not who is denied equal protection, but, rather, which political body, state or federal, is empowered to fix the minimum age of voters. The Framers intended the States to make the voting age decision in all elections with the provision that Congress could .override state judgments' concerning the qualifications of voters in federal elections.
See: the First Amendment, e. g., Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652 (1925); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940); Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229 (1963); the Fourth Amendment, Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961); the Fifth Amendment, Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226 (1897); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1 (1964); Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784 (1969); the Sixth Amendment, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965); Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U. S. 213 (1967); Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968); and the Eighth Amendment, Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660 (1962).
Yuma County, Arizona, is presently subject to the literacy-test ban of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 pursuant to a determination of the Attorney General under § 4 (a) of the 1965 Act. I do not understand Arizona to contest the application of the 1965 Act or its extension to that county. Arizona- “does not question” Congress’ authority to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments “when Congress possesses a ‘special legislative competence’”; and cites South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301 (1966), and Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641 (1966), With approval. Answer and Brief for Arizona, No. 46, Orig., O. T. 1970.
Hearings on H. R. 4249, H. R. 5538, and Similar Proposals before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., Ser. 3, p. 14 (1969).
Id., at 93.
Hearings on S. 818, S. 2456, S. 2507, and Title IV of S. 2029 before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 1st and 2d Sess., 406 (1969-1970).
Id., at 401.
That these views, are not novel is demonstrated by Mr. Justice Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, vol. 2, pp. 284-285 (1st ed. 1833):
“There is, too, in the nature of such a provision [Art. I, § 4], something incongruous, if not absurd. What would be said of a clause introduced into the national constitution to regulate the state elections of the members of the state legislatures? It would be deemed a most unwarrantable tiansfer of power, indicating a premeditated design to destroy the state governments. It would be deemed so flagrant a violation of principle, as to require no comment. It would be said, and justly, that the state governments ought to possess the power of self-existence and self-organization, independent of the pleasure of the national government. Why does not'the same reasoning apply to the national government? What reason is there to suppose, that the state governments will bé more true to the Union,, than the national government will be to the state governments?” (Emphasis added.) (Footnote omitted.)
The state of facts'necessary to justify a legislative discrimination will of course., vary with the nature of the discrimination involved. When we have been faced with statutes- involving nothing more than state regulation of business practices, we have often found mere administrative convenience sufficient to justify the discrimination. E. g., Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 487, 488-489 (1955). But when a discrimination has the; effect of denying or inhibiting the exercise of fundamental constitutional rights, we have required that it be not merely conveniént, but necessary. Kramer v. Union School District, 395 U. S., at 627; Car-rington v. Rash, 380 U. S., at 96; see United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 377 (1968); United States v. Jackson, 390 U. S. 570, 582-583 (1968). And we have required as well that it be necessary to promote not merely a constitutionally permissible state interest, but a state interest of substantial importance. Kramer v. Union School District, supra; Carrington v. Rash, supra; Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 487-490 (1960); see United States v. O’Brien, supra. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the bases on which the Supreme Court rested its decision with regard to the legal provision that the Court considered in the case. Consider "judicial review (national level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of the federal government, including an interstate compact. Consider "judicial review (state level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of a state or local government. Consider "statutory construction" for cases where the majority interpret a federal statute, treaty, or court rule; if the Court interprets a federal statute governing the powers or jurisdiction of a federal court; if the Court construes a state law as incompatible with a federal law; or if an administrative official interprets a federal statute. Do not consider "statutory construction" where an administrative agency or official acts "pursuant to" a statute, unless the Court interprets the statute to determine if administrative action is proper. Consider "interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order" if the majority treats federal administrative action in arriving at its decision.Consider "diversity jurisdiction" if the majority said in approximately so many words that under its diversity jurisdiction it is interpreting state law. Consider "federal common law" if the majority indicate that it used a judge-made "doctrine" or "rule; if the Court without more merely specifies the disposition the Court has made of the case and cites one or more of its own previously decided cases unless the citation is qualified by the word "see."; if the case concerns admiralty or maritime law, or some other aspect of the law of nations other than a treaty; if the case concerns the retroactive application of a constitutional provision or a previous decision of the Court; if the case concerns an exclusionary rule, the harmless error rule (though not the statute), the abstention doctrine, comity, res judicata, or collateral estoppel; or if the case concerns a "rule" or "doctrine" that is not specified as related to or connected with a constitutional or statutory provision. Consider "Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction" otherwise (i.e., the residual code); for issues pertaining to non-statutorily based Judicial Power topics; for cases arising under the Court's original jurisdiction; in cases in which the Court denied or dismissed the petition for review or where the decision of a lower court is affirmed by a tie vote; or in workers' compensation litigation involving statutory interpretation and, in addition, a discussion of jury determination and/or the sufficiency of the evidence. | What is the basis of the Supreme Court's decision? | [
"judicial review (national level)",
"judicial review (state level)",
"Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction",
"statutory construction",
"interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order",
"diversity jurisdiction",
"federal common law"
] | [
0
] | sc_authoritydecision |
HUDDLESTON v. UNITED STATES
No. 72-1076.
Argued November 7, 1973
Decided March 26, 1974
BlacicmuN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burger, C. J., and BreNNAN, Stewart, White, Marshall, Powell, and Rehnquist, JJ., joined. Douglas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 833.
Harvey I. Saferstein argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.
Danny J. Boggs argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Bork, .Assistant Attorney General Petersen, and Jerome M. Feit.
Mr. Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the issue whether IS U. S. C. § 922 (a) (6), declaring that it is unlawful knowingly to make a false statement “in connection with the acquisition . . . of any firearm . . . from a . . . licensed dealer,” covers the redemption of a firearm from a pawnshop.
I
On October 6, 1971, petitioner, William C. Huddleston, Jr., pawned his wife’s Winchester 30-30-caliber rifle for $25 at a pawnshop in Oxnard, California. On the following October 15 and on December 28, he pawned at the same shop two other firearms, a Russian. 7.62-caliber rifle and a Remington .22-caliber rifle, belonging to his wife. For these he received loans of $10 and $15, respectively. The owner of the pawnshop was a federally licensed firearms dealer.
Some weeks later, on February 1, 1972, and on March 10, Huddleston redeemed the weapons. In connection with each of the redemptions, the pawnbroker required petitioner to complete Treasury Form 4473, entitled “Firearms Transaction Record.” This is a form used in the enforcement of the gun control provision of Title IV of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub. L. 90-351, 82 Stat. 225, as amended by the Gun Control Act of 1968, Pub. L. 90-618, 82 Stat. 1213, of which the above-cited 18 U. S. C. § 922 (a) (6) is a part. Question 8b of the form is:
“Have you been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year? (Note: The actual sentence given by the judge does not matter — a yes answer is necessary if the judge could have given a sentence of more than one year.)”
The question is derived from the statutory prohibition against a dealer's selling or otherwise disposing of a firearm to any person who “has been convicted in any court of ... a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.” 18 U. S. C. §922 (d)(1). Petitioner answered “no” to Question 8b on each of the three Forms 4473. He then affixed his signature to each form's certification that the answers were true and correct, that he understood that a person who answers any of the questions in the affirmative is prohibited by federal law from “purchasing and/or possessing a firearm,” and that he also understood that the making of any false statement with respect to the transaction is a crime punishable as a felony.
In fact, Huddleston, six years earlier, had been convicted in a California state court for writing checks without sufficient funds, an offense punishable under California law by a maximum term of 14 years. This fact, if revealed to the pawnshop proprietor, would have precluded the proprietor from selling or otherwise disposing of any of the rifles to the petitioner because of the proscription in 18 U. S. C. § 922 (d) (1).
Huddleston was charged in a three-count indictment with violating 18 U. S. C. §§922 (a) (6) and 924 (a). He moved to dismiss the indictment, in part on the ground that § 922 (a)(6) was never intended to apply, and should not apply, to a pawnor’s redemption of a weapon he had pawned. This motion was denied. Petitioner then pleaded not guilty and waived a jury trial.
The Government’s evidence consisted primarily of the three Treasury Forms 4473 Huddleston had signed; the record of his earlier California felony conviction; and the pawnbroker’s federal license. A Government agent also testified that petitioner, after being arrested and advised of his rights, made statements admitting that he had known, when filling out the forms, that he was a felon and that he had lied each time when he answered Question 8b in the negative.
Huddleston testified in his own defense. He stated that he did not knowingly make a false statement; that he did not read the form and simply answered “no” upon prompting from the pawnbroker; and that he was unaware that his California conviction was punishable by a term exceeding one year.
The District Judge found the petitioner guilty on all counts. He sentenced Huddleston to three concurrent three-year terms. The sentences were suspended, however, except for 20 days to be served on weekends. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, by a divided vote, affirmed the conviction. 472 F. 2d 592 (1973). The dissenting judge agreed that the statute was constitutional as applied, but concluded that what Huddleston did was to “reacquire” the rifles, and that “reacquire” is not necessarily included within the statute’s term “acquire.” Id,., at 593. We granted cer-tiorari, 411 U. S. 930 (1973), to resolve an existing conflict among the circuits on the issue whether the prohibition against making false statements in connection with the acquisition of a firearm covers a firearm’s redemption from a pawnshop.
II
Petitioner’s assault on the statute under which he was convicted is two pronged. First, it is argued that both the statute’s language and its legislative history indicate that Congress did not intend a pawnshop redemption of a firearm to be an “acquisition” covered by the statute. Second, it is said that even if Congress did intend a pawnshop redemption to be a covered “acquisition,” the statute is so ambiguous that its construction is controlled by the maxim that ambiguity in a criminal statute is to be resolved in favor of the defendant.
We turn first to the language and structure of the Act. Reduced to a minimum, § 922 (a) (6) relates to any false statement made “in connection with the acquisition . . . of any firearm” from a licensed dealer and intended or likely to deceive the dealer “with respect to any fact material to the lawfulness of the sale or other disposition of such firearm.”
Petitioner attaches great significance to the word “acquisition.” He urges that it suggests only a sale-like transaction. Since Congress in § 922 (a) (6) did not use words of transfer or delivery, as it did in other sections of the Act, he argues that “acquisition” must have a narrower meaning than those terms. Moreover, since a pawn transaction is only a temporary bailment of personal property, with the pawnshop having merely a security interest in the pledged property, title or ownership is constant in the pawnor, and the pawn-plus-redemption transaction is no more than an interruption in the pawnor’s possession. The pawnor simply repossesses his own property, and he does not “acquire” any new title or interest in the object pawned. At most, he “reacquires” the object, and reacquisition, as the dissenting judge in the Court of Appeals noted, is not necessarily included in the statutory term “acquisition.”
On its face, this argument might be said to have some force. A careful look at the statutory language and at complementary provisions of the Act, however, convinces us that the asserted ambiguity is contrived. Petitioner is mistaken in focusing solely on the term “acquisition” and in enshrouding it with an extra-statutory “legal title” or “ownership” analysis. The word “acquire” is defined to mean simply “to come into possession, control, or power of disposal of.” Webster’s New International Dictionary (3d ed., 1966, unabridged); United States v. Laisure, 460 F. 2d 709, 712 n. 3 (CA5 1972). There is no intimation here that title or ownership would be necessary for possession, or control, or disposal power, and there is nothing else in the statute that justifies the imposition of that gloss. Moreover, a full reading of § 922 (a) (6) clearly demonstrates that the false statements that are prohibited are those made with respect to the lawfulness of the sale • “or other disposition” of a firearm by a licensed dealer. The word “acquisition,” therefore, cannot be considered apart from the phrase “sale or other disposition.” As the Government suggests, and indeed as the petitioner implicitly reasoned at oral argument, Tr. of Oral Arg. 11, if the pawnbroker “sells” or “disposes” under § 922 (a)(6), the transferee necessarily “acquires.” These words, as used in the statute, are correlatives. The focus of our inquiry, therefore, should be to determine whether a “sale or other disposition” of a firearm by a pawnbroker encompasses the redemption of the firearm by a pawnor.
Clearly, a redemption is not a “sale” for the simple reason that a sale has definite connotations of ownership and title. Some “other disposition” of a firearm, however, could easily encompass a pawnshop redemption. We believe that it does.
It is the dealer who sells or disposes of the firearm. The statute defines the dealer to be:
“(A) any person engaged in the business of selling firearms or ammunition at wholesale or retail, (B) any person engaged in the business of repairing firearms or of making or fitting special barrels, stocks, or trigger mechanisms to firearms, or (C) any person who is a pawnbroker.” 18 U. S. C. § 921 (a) (11) (emphasis supplied).
It defines a “pawnbroker” as “any person whose business or occupation includes the taking or receiving, by way of pledge or pawn, of any firearm or ammunition as security for the payment or repayment of money.” 18 U. S. C. §921 (a) (12) (emphasis supplied).
These definitions surely suggest that a “sale or other disposition” of a firearm in a pawnshop is covered by the statute. This, of course, does not of itself resolve the question as to exactly what “other disposition” by a pawnbroker is included. It should be apparent, however, that if Congress had intended to include only a pawnbroker’s default sales of pledged or pawned goods, or his wholesale and retail sales of nonpawned goods, and to exclude the redemption of pawned articles, then the explicit inclusion of the pawnbroker in the definition of “dealer” would serve no purpose, since part (A) of the definition, covering wholesale and retail sales, would otherwise reach all such sales. United States v. Rosen, 352 F. Supp. 727, 729 (Idaho 1973). At oral argument counsel suggested that the specific reference to a pawnbroker might have been intended to include “disposition” by barter, swap, trade, or gift. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5-7. This interpretation strains belief. Trades or gifts are not peculiar to pawnbrokers. Wholesalers and retailers may indulge in such dispositions. There is nothing in the legislative history to indicate that this interpretation prompted the specific mention of a pawnbroker in part (C) of the definition. To the contrary, the committee reports indicate that part (C) “specifically provides that a pawnbroker dealing in firearms shall be considered a dealer.” H. R. Rep. No. 1577, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 11 (1968) (emphasis supplied). See also S. Rep. No. 1501, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 30 (1968).
We also cannot ignore the explicit reference to a firearm transaction “by way of pledge or pawn” in the statutory definition of “pawnbroker” in §921 (a) (12). Had Congress’ desire been to exempt a transaction of this kind, it would have artfully worded the definition so as to exclude it. We are equally impressed by Congress’ failure to exempt redemptive transactions from the prohibitions of the Act when it so carefully carved out exceptions for a dealer “returning a firearm” and for an individual mailing a firearm to a dealer “for the sole purpose of repair or customizing.” § 922 (a)(2)(A). Petitioner contends that a redemptive transaction is no different from the return of a gun left for repair. His argument is that the pawned weapon is simply “returned” to the individual who left it and represents a mere restoration to its original status. We believe, however, that it was not unreasonable for Congress to choose to view the pawn transaction as something more than the mere interruption in possession typical of repair. The fact that Congress thought it necessary specifically to exempt the repair transaction indicates that it otherwise would have been covered and, if this were so, clearly a pawn transaction likewise would be covered.
Other provisions of the Act also make it clear that the statute generally covers all transfers of firearms by dealers to recipients. Section 922 (a)(1) makes it unlawful for any person, except a licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer, to engage in the business of “dealing” in firearms, or in the course of such business “to ship, transport, or receive any firearm.” Section 922 (b)(1) makes it unlawful for a dealer “to sell or deliver” firearms of specified types to persons under 18 or 21 years of age. Section 922 (b) (2) makes it unlawful for a dealer to “sell or deliver” a weapon to a person in any State where “at the place of sale, delivery or other disposition,” the transfer would violate local law. Section 922 (d) makes it unlawful for a dealer “to sell or otherwise dispose of” a firearm to a person under a felony indictment, a felon, a fugitive, a narcotic addict, or a mental defective. Section 923 (g) requires that each licensed dealer maintain “records of importation, production, shipment, receipt, sale, or other disposition, of firearms.”
In sum, the word “acquisition,” as used in § 922 (a) (6), is not ambiguous, but clearly includes any person, by definition, who “come[s] into possession, control, or power of disposal” of a firearm. As noted above, “acquisition” and “sale or other disposition” are correlatives. It is reasonable to conclude that a pawnbroker might “dispose” of a firearm through a redemptive transaction. And because Congress explicitly included pawnbrokers in the Act, explicitly mentioned pledge and pawn transactions involving firearms, and clearly failed to include them among the statutory exceptions, we are not at liberty to tamper with the obvious reach of the statute in proscribing the conduct in which the petitioner engaged.
Ill
The legislative history, too, supports this reading of the statute. This is apparent from the aims and purposes of the Act and from the method Congress adopted to achieve those objectives. When Congress enacted the provisions under which petitioner was convicted, it was concerned with the widespread traffic in firearms and with their general availability to those whose possession thereof was contrary to the public interest. Pub. L. 90-351, § 1201, 82 Stat. 236, as amended by Pub. L. 90-618, §301 (a)(1), 82 Stat. 1236, 18 U. S. C. App. § 1201. Congress determined that the ease with which firearms could be obtained contributed significantly to the prevalence of lawlessness and violent crime in the United States. S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 108 (1968). The principal purpose of the federal gun control legislation, therefore, was to curb crime by keeping “firearms out of the hands of those not legally entitled to possess them because of age, criminal background, or incompetency.” S. Rep. No. 1501, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 22 (1968).
Title IV of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 are thus aimed at restricting public access to firearms. Commerce in firearms is channeled through federally licensed importers, manufacturers, and dealers in an attempt to halt mail-order and interstate consumer traffic in these weapons. The principal agent of federal enforcement is the dealer. He is licensed, §§922 (a)(1) and 923 (a); he is required to keep records of “sale ... or other disposition,” § 923 (g); and he is subject to a criminal penalty for disposing of a weapon contrary to the provisions of the Act, § 924.
Section 922 (a)(6), the provision under which petitioner was convicted, was enacted as a means of providing adequate and truthful information about firearms transactions. Information drawn from records kept by-dealers was a prime guarantee of the Act’s effectiveness in keeping “these lethal weapons out of the hands of criminals, drug addicts, mentally disordered persons, juveniles, and other persons whose possession of them is too high a price in danger to us all to allow.” 114 Cong. Rec. 13219 (1968) (remarks of Sen. Tydings). Thus, any false statement with respect to the eligibility of a person to obtain a firearm from a licensed dealer was made subject to a criminal penalty.
From this outline of the Act, it is apparent that the focus of the federal scheme is the federally licensed firearms dealer, at least insofar as the Act directly controls access to weapons by users. Firearms are channeled through dealers to eliminate the mail order and the generally widespread'commerce in them, and to insure that, in the course of sales or other dispositions by these dealers, weapons could not be obtained by individuals whose possession of them would be contrary to the public interest. Thus, the conclusion we reached above with respect to the language and structure of the Act, that firearms redemptions in pawnshops are covered, is entirely consonant with the achievement of this congressional objective and method of enforcing the Act.
Moreover, as was said in United States v. Bramblett, 348 U. S. 503, 507 (1955), “There is no indication in either the committee reports or in the congressional debates that the scope of the statute was to be in any way restricted” (footnotes omitted). Indeed, the committee reports indicate that the proscription under § 922 (d) on the sale of other disposition of a firearm to a felon “goes to all types of sales or dispositions— over-the-counter as well as mail order.” S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 115 (1968). See S. Rep. No. 1501, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 34 (1968). As far as the parties have informed us, and as far as our independent research has revealed, there is no discussion of the actual meaning of “acquisition” or of “sale or other disposition” in the legislative history. Previous legislation relating to the particular term “other disposition” sheds some light, however, and prudence calls on us to look to it in ascertaining the legislative purpose. United States v. Katz, 271 U. S. 354, 357 (1926). The term apparently had its origin in § 1 (k) of the National Firearms Act, Pub. L. 474, 48 Stat. 1236 (1934). That Act set certain conditions on the “transfer” of machine guns and other dangerous weapons. As defined by the Act, “transfer” meant “to sell, assign, pledge, lease, loan, give away, or otherwise dispose of.” The term “otherwise dispose of” in that context was aimed at providing maximum coverage. The interpretation we adopt here’ accomplishes the same objective.
There also can be no doubt of Congress' intention to deprive the juvenile, the mentally incompetent, the criminal, and the fugitive of the use of firearms. Senator Tydings stated:
“Title IV, the concealed weapons amendment, is a very limited, stripped-down, bare-minimum gun-traffic control bill, primarily designed to reduce access to handguns for criminals, juveniles, and fugitives .... I can fairly say that this concealed weapons amendment does not significantly inconvenience hunters and sportsmen in any way. The people it does frustrate are the juveniles, felons, and fugitives who today can, with total anonymity and impunity, obtain guns by mail or by crossing into neighboring States with lax or no gun laws at all, regardless of the law of their own State.” 114 Cong. Rec. 13647 (1968).
Congressman Celler, the House Manager, stated:
“Mr. Chairman, none of us who support Federal firearms controls believe that any bill or any system of control can guarantee that society will be safe from firearms misuse. But we are convinced that a strengthened system can significantly contribute to reducing the danger of crime in the United States. No one can dispute the need to prevent drug addicts, mental incompetents, persons with a history of mental disturbances, and persons convicted of certain offenses, from buying, owning, or possessing firearms. This bill seeks to maximize the possibility of keeping firearms out of the hands of such persons.” Id., at 21784.
Congressman McCulloch, a senior member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, in referring specifically to § 922 (a)(6), stated, “[The bill] makes it unlawful . . . [f]or any person, in connection with obtaining a firearm or ammunition from a licensee, to make a false representation material to such acquisition.” Id., at 21789. Given these statements of congressional purpose, it would be unwarranted to except pawnship redemptions when, by virtue of the statutory language itself, such re-demptions would be covered. Otherwise every evil Congress hoped to cure would continue unabated.
IV
Petitioner urges that the intention to include pawn redemptions is so ambiguous and uncertain that the statute should be narrowly construed in his favor. Reliance is placed upon the maxim that an “ambiguity concerning the ambit of criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of lenity.” Rewis v. United States, 401 U. S. 808, 812 (1971); United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336,347 (1971). This rule of narrow construction is rooted in the concern of the law for individual rights, and in the belief that fair warning should be accorded as to what conduct is criminal and punishable by deprivation of liberty or property. United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95 (1820); United States v. Bass, 404 U. S., at 348. The rule is also the product of an awareness that legislators and not the courts should define criminal activity. Zeal in forwarding these laudable policies, however, must not be permitted to shadow the understanding that “[sjound rules of statutory interpretation exist to discover and not to direct the Congressional will.” United States ex rel. Marcus v. Hess, 317 U. S. 537, 542 (1943). Although penal laws are to be construed strictly, they “ought not to be construed so strictly as to defeat the obvious intention of the legislature.” American Fur Co. v. United States, 2 Pet. 358, 367 (1829); United States v. Wiltberger, supra; United States v. Morris, 14 Pet. 464, 475 (1840); United States v. Lacker, 134 U. S. 624 (1890); United States v. Bramblett, 348 U. S., at 510; United States v. Bass, 404 U. S., at 351.
We perceive no grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the language and structure of the Act. The statute in question clearly proscribes petitioner’s conduct and accorded him fair warning of the sanctions the law placed on that conduct. Huddleston was not short of notice that his actions were unlawful. The question he answered untruthfully was preceded by a warning in boldface type that “an untruthful answer may subject you to criminal prosecution.” The question itself was forthright and direct, stating that it was concerned with conviction of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year and that this meant the term which could have been imposed and not the sentence actually given. Finally, petitioner was required to certify by his signature that his answers were true and correct and that he understood that “the making of any false oral or written statement . . . with respect to this transaction is a crime punishable as a felony.” This warning also was in boldface type. Clearly, petitioner had adequate notice and warning of the consequences of his action.
Our reading of the statute cannot be viewed as judicial usurpation of the legislative function. The statute’s language reveals an unmistakable attempt to include pawnshop transactions, by pledge or pawn, among the transactions covered by the Act. And Congress unquestionably made it unlawful for dealers, including pawnbrokers, “to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm” to a convicted felon, a juvenile, a drug addict, or a mental defective. § 922 (d). Under these circumstances we will not blindly incant the rule of lenity to “destroy the spirit and force of the law which the legislature intended to [and did] enact.” American Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister, 207 U. S. 284, 293 (1907); United States v. Katz, 271 U. S., at 357.
Y
The petitioner suggests, lastly, that the application of § 922 (a) (6) to a pawn redemption would raise constitutional questions of some moment, and that these would not arise if the statute were narrowly construed. We fail to see the presence of issues of that import. There was no taking of Huddleston’s property without just compensation. The rifles, in fact, were not his but his wife’s. Moreover, Congress has determined that a convicted felon may not lawfully obtain weapons of that kind. Nor were petitioner’s false answers in any way coerced. United States v. Knox, 396 U. S. 77, 79 (1969); Bryson v. United States, 396 U. S. 64, 72 (1969). Finally, no interstate commerce nexus need be demonstrated. Congress intended, and properly so, that §§ 922 (a) (6) and (d)(1), in contrast to 18 U. S. C. App. § 1202 (a)(1), see United States v. Bass, supra, were to reach transactions that are wholly intrastate, as the Court of Appeals correctly reasoned, “on the theory that such transactions affect interstate commerce.” 472 F. 2d, at 593. See also United States v. Menna, 451 F. 2d 982, 984 (CA9 1971), cert. denied, 405 U. S. 963 (1972), and United States v. O’Neill, 467 F. 2d 1372, 1373-1374 (CA2 1972).
We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Ҥ 922. Unlawful acts.
“(a) It shall be unlawful—
“ (6) for any person in connection with the acquisition ... of any firearm . . . from a . . . licensed dealer . . . knowingly to make any false or fictitious oral or written statement . . . intended or likely to deceive such . . . dealer . . . with respect to any fact material to the lawfulness of the sale or other disposition of such firearm . . . under the provisions of this chapter.”
Ҥ 922. Unlawful acts.
“(d) It shall be unlawful for any . . . licensed dealer ... to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm ... to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person—
“(1) is under indictment for, or has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.”
Cal. Penal Code § 476a (1970). The California complaint against Huddleston was in six counts and contained an allegation that he had been convicted previously in the State of Iowa of an offense which, if committed in California, would have been a violation of § 476 of the California Penal Code. He was eventually sentenced on the check charge to 30 days in jail.
Ҥ 924. Penalties.
“(a) Whoever violates any provision of this chapter or knowingly makes any false statement or representation with respect to the information required by the provisions of this chapter to be kept in the records of a person licensed under this chapter, . . . shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both, and shall become eligible for parole as the Board of Parole shall determine.”
Huddleston at first testified that his California attorney and his probation officer there told him that when he completed his probation period and made restitution, “it would go on record as a misdemeanor,” and that the attorney had told him he “couldn’t get over a year.” App. 37, 39. Upon inquiry by the court, he testified that when he was arraigned he thought he “could get more than one year,” and was so informed. Id., at 41.
In agreement with the Ninth Circuit’s decision is United States v. Beebe, 467 F. 2d 222 (CA10 1972). To the contrary is United States v. Laisure, 460 F. 2d 709 (CA5 1972).
James Y. Bennett, then Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, in Senate testimony offered a “case study” vividly illustrating non-sale situations that would qualify as a firearms “disposition” or “acquisition.” One of his illustrations was the following:
“On September 26, 1958, a 20-year-old youth shot and seriously wounded a teller during the course of a bank robbery in St. Paul; only a week previously he had bought the revolver, a .357 Smith & Wesson, in a Minneapolis sporting goods store, pawned it the same day, and on the day of the robbery redeemed it with money obtained from check forgeries.”
Mr. Bennett concluded his testimony with the observation, “No responsible and thoughtful citizen can, in my opinion, seriously object to measures which would discourage youngsters, the mentally ill, and criminals from coming into possession of handguns.” Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 14, pp. 3369, 3377 (1963).
Testimony by then Attorney General Ramsey Clark also supports the rejection of petitioner’s suggestion that the language of the statute be given a restrictive meaning:
“Mr. Donohue. Do you not think, Mr. Attorney General, to attain the real objective and purpose of this bill, it should not only deal with the sale, but whoever sells or delivers?
“Mr. Clark. It covers delivery, too.
“Mr. Donohue. Where?
“Mr. Clark. Well, generally, through the bill when you talk about — well, it would be unlawful for any licensed importer to sell or deliver. Any licensed dealer to sell or deliver.
“Mr. Donohue. It is not restricted to just sale for consideration?
“Mr. Clark. No. The delivery, too.”
Hearings on an Anti-Crime Program before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 260 (1967).
It should be apparent from these statements that Congress was not so much concerned with guaranteeing no interference with the ownership of weapons as it was in distinguishing between law-abiding citizens and those whose possession of weapons would be contrary to the public interest. Hunting, target practice, gun collecting, and the legitimate use of guns for individual protection are not proscribed by the Act. Ownership of a weapon, however, may be interfered with by seizure and forfeiture under the Act for any violation of its provisions. Section 924 (d) incorporates the seizure and forfeiture provisions of the Internal Revenue Code when there is any violation of the provisions of the chapter or any rule or regulation thereunder. The Act itself thus contemplates interference with the ownership of weapons when those weapons fall into the hands of juveniles, criminals, drug addicts, and mental incompetents.
What few references there are to pawnbrokers in the debates indicate that Congress was definitely interested in curbing firearms traffic between pawnbrokers and convicted felons. Senator Tydings, a strong proponent of the bill which became the Act, expressed his concern when he compared the bill to a proposal that was offered as an alternative:
“[O]ne reading through the amendment for the first time would assume that pawnbrokers are covered by the critically important provisions of the affidavit-waiting period procedure. But, if a pawnbroker only receives secondhand weapons as security for the repayment of a loan and does not deal in new firearms, he is not transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm in interstate or foreign commerce. Used weapons presumably will have come to rest in the hands of the borrower, and the transaction will be wholly intrastate. Such a pawnbroker would not need a Federal firearms license to conduct over-the-counter transactions in firearms. And, accordingly, he would not be a ‘licensed dealer’ required to comply with the affidavit-waiting period procedure for his over-the-counter sales in handguns. Now, if this analysis is correct, and I believe it is, this is no small omission. Surely the great bulk of criminally irresponsible purchasers of pistols and revolvers buy their weapons secondhand, and many of them from pawnshops. We all have seen the virtual arsenals displayed in the windows of pawnshop dealers in all of the major cities of the country. To say that we have effectively regulated traffic in firearms when we will not have touched the great bulk of these pawnbroker operations is a complete and utter hypocrisy.” 114 Cong. Rec. 13222 (1968).
See also Memorandum placed in the record by Senator Dodd. Id., at 13320. Senator Tydings made this further comparison:
“[I]t is obvious that many persons with criminal records purchase from pawnbrokers, and there are many occasions when the pawnbroker knows the criminal background of the client. Under Amendment No. 708, many of these pawnbrokers will not be required to be licensed. They would not need to comply with the affidavit procedure. And even if they were licensed, there would be no prohibition on their selling firearms to known criminals. Under title IV, on the other hand, all of these pawnbrokers would be required to be licensed — because all dealers and manufacturers must be licensed whether or not they ship, receive, or transport in commerce — and all of them would be under direct Federal sanction not to sell firearms to known criminals. I ask you, which bill is likely to be more effective?” Id., at 13223.
It must be conceded that these remarks refer to “selling” firearms, but we do not credit this fact as significant for purposes of determining whether a pawnshop redemption is covered by the Act. The plain language of the statute as enacted prohibits a dealer from “selling or disposing of” firearms to felons, and petitioner’s counsel at oral argument intimated that a pawnbroker, under this language, could dispose of a firearm other than by sale and be covered by the Act. Tr. of Oral Arg. 4r-5. References in the legislative debate, moreover, are replete with shorthand language and this is merely an instance of its use. Had the legislators been engaged in a colloquy on the actual meaning of “sale or other disposition of,” we might be more receptive to the interpretation proffered by the petitioner.
We also note that the President of the Pawnbrokers’ Association of the City of New York testified during congressional hearings that almost all firearm transactions by pawnshops are by pledge and redemption, and contended, therefore, that pawnbrokers should not be included as dealers under the Act. Hearings on a Federal Firearms Act before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 1062-1065 (1967). Thus, informed of the fact that almost all firearms transactions by pawnbrokers were through pledge and redemption, and faced with the argument that pawnbrokers should not be considered as “dealers,” Congress clearly chose to retain pawnbrokers as firearms dealers.
Finally, the language of the committee reports indicates that a “sale or disposition” includes “all types of sales or dispositions.” S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 115 (1968).
The decision today does not ignore the admonition of the Court in United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 349 (1971), that “[i]n traditionally sensitive areas, such as legislation affecting the federal balance, the requirement of clear statement assures that the legislature has in fact faced, and intended to bring into issue, the critical matters involved in the judicial decision.” This statute did affect the federal balance and it did so intentionally. As Senator Tydings explained:
“This concealed weapons amendment does not violate any State’s right to make its own gun laws. Quite the contrary, title IV provides the controls on interstate gun traffic which only the Federal Government can apply, and without which no State gun law is worth the paper it is written on. . . . Without such Federal assistance, any State gun law can be subverted by any child, fugitive, or felon who orders a gun by mail or buys one in a neighboring State which has lax gun laws.” 114 Cong. Rec. 13647 (1968). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed. If the case arose under the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, note the source as "United States Supreme Court". If the case arose in a state court, note the source as "State Supreme Court", "State Appellate Court", or "State Trial Court". Do not code the name of the state. | What is the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed? | [
"U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals",
"U.S. Court of International Trade",
"U.S. Court of Claims, Court of Federal Claims",
"U.S. Court of Military Appeals, renamed as Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces",
"U.S. Court of Military Review",
"U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals",
"U.S. Customs Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit",
"U.S. Tax Court",
"Temporary Emergency U.S. Court of Appeals",
"U.S. Court for China",
"U.S. Consular Courts",
"U.S. Commerce Court",
"Territorial Supreme Court",
"Territorial Appellate Court",
"Territorial Trial Court",
"Emergency Court of Appeals",
"Supreme Court of the District of Columbia",
"Bankruptcy Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit (includes the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia but not the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which has local jurisdiction)",
"Alabama Middle U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Northern U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Southern U.S. District Court",
"Alaska U.S. District Court",
"Arizona U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Western U.S. District Court",
"California Central U.S. District Court",
"California Eastern U.S. District Court",
"California Northern U.S. District Court",
"California Southern U.S. District Court",
"Colorado U.S. District Court",
"Connecticut U.S. District Court",
"Delaware U.S. District Court",
"District Of Columbia U.S. District Court",
"Florida Middle U.S. District Court",
"Florida Northern U.S. District Court",
"Florida Southern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Middle U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Northern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Guam U.S. District Court",
"Hawaii U.S. District Court",
"Idaho U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Central U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Northern U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Southern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Northern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Southern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Northern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Southern U.S. District Court",
"Kansas U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Western U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Middle U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Western U.S. District Court",
"Maine U.S. District Court",
"Maryland U.S. District Court",
"Massachusetts U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Western U.S. District Court",
"Minnesota U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Northern U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Southern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Western U.S. District Court",
"Montana U.S. District Court",
"Nebraska U.S. District Court",
"Nevada U.S. District Court",
"New Hampshire U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"New Mexico U.S. District Court",
"New York Eastern U.S. District Court",
"New York Northern U.S. District Court",
"New York Southern U.S. District Court",
"New York Western U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Middle U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"North Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Northern Mariana Islands U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Northern U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Southern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Northern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Western U.S. District Court",
"Oregon U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Middle U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Western U.S. District Court",
"Puerto Rico U.S. District Court",
"Rhode Island U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina U.S. District Court",
"South Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Middle U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Western U.S. District Court",
"Texas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Northern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Southern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Western U.S. District Court",
"Utah U.S. District Court",
"Vermont U.S. District Court",
"Virgin Islands U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Western U.S. District Court",
"Washington Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Washington Western U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Northern U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Western U.S. District Court",
"Wyoming U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana U.S. District Court",
"Washington U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"Alabama U.S. District Court",
"U.S. District Court for the Canal Zone",
"Georgia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois U.S. District Court",
"Indiana U.S. District Court",
"Iowa U.S. District Court",
"Michigan U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi U.S. District Court",
"Missouri U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey Eastern U.S. District Court (East Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New Jersey Western U.S. District Court (West Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New York U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina U.S. District Court",
"Ohio U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee U.S. District Court",
"Texas U.S. District Court",
"Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Norfolk U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky U.S. Distrcrict Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"California U.S. District Court",
"Florida U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas U.S. District Court",
"District of Orleans U.S. District Court",
"State Supreme Court",
"State Appellate Court",
"State Trial Court",
"Eastern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Middle Circuit (of the United States)",
"Southern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Alabama U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Alabama",
"Arkansas U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Arkansas",
"California U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of California",
"Connecticut U.S. Circuit for the District of Connecticut",
"Delaware U.S. Circuit for the District of Delaware",
"Florida U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Florida",
"Georgia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Georgia",
"Illinois U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Illinois",
"Indiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Indiana",
"Iowa U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Iowa",
"Kansas U.S. Circuit for the District of Kansas",
"Kentucky U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Kentucky",
"Louisiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Louisiana",
"Maine U.S. Circuit for the District of Maine",
"Maryland U.S. Circuit for the District of Maryland",
"Massachusetts U.S. Circuit for the District of Massachusetts",
"Michigan U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Michigan",
"Minnesota U.S. Circuit for the District of Minnesota",
"Mississippi U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Mississippi",
"Missouri U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Missouri",
"Nevada U.S. Circuit for the District of Nevada",
"New Hampshire U.S. Circuit for the District of New Hampshire",
"New Jersey U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New Jersey",
"New York U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New York",
"North Carolina U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of North Carolina",
"Ohio U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Ohio",
"Oregon U.S. Circuit for the District of Oregon",
"Pennsylvania U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Pennsylvania",
"Rhode Island U.S. Circuit for the District of Rhode Island",
"South Carolina U.S. Circuit for the District of South Carolina",
"Tennessee U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Tennessee",
"Texas U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Texas",
"Vermont U.S. Circuit for the District of Vermont",
"Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Virginia",
"West Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of West Virginia",
"Wisconsin U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Wisconsin",
"Wyoming U.S. Circuit for the District of Wyoming",
"Circuit Court of the District of Columbia",
"Nebraska U.S. Circuit for the District of Nebraska",
"Colorado U.S. Circuit for the District of Colorado",
"Washington U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Washington",
"Idaho U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Idaho",
"Montana U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Montana",
"Utah U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Utah",
"South Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of South Dakota",
"North Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of North Dakota",
"Oklahoma U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Oklahoma",
"Court of Private Land Claims"
] | [
27
] | sc_casesource |
ARMSTRONG v. MANZO et ux.
No. 149.
Argued March 9, 1965.
Decided April 27, 1965.
Ewell Lee Smith, Jr., argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were Eugene L. Smith and Ed M. Brown.
William Duncan argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief was Eugene T. Edwards.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner, R. Wright Armstrong, Jr., and his wife were divorced by a Texas court in 1959. Custody of their only child, Molly Page Armstrong, was awarded to Mrs. Armstrong, and the petitioner was granted “the privilege of visiting with said child at reasonable times, places, and intervals.” The divorce decree ordered the petitioner to pay $50 a month for his daughter’s support. In 1960 Mrs. Armstrong married the respondent, Salvatore E. Manzo. Two years later the Manzos filed a petition for adoption in the District Court of El Paso County, Texas, seeking to make Salvatore Manzo the legal father of Molly Page Armstrong.
Texas law provides that an adoption such as this one shall not be permitted without the written consent of the child’s natural father, except in certain specified circumstances. One such exceptional circümstance is if the father. “shall have not contributed substantially to the support of such child during [a] period of two (2) years commensurate with his financial ability.” In that event, the written consent of the judge of the juvenile court of the county of the child’s residence may be accepted by the adoption court in lieu of the father’s consent.
Preliminary to filing the adoption petition, Mrs. Manzo filed an affidavit in the juvenile court, alleging in con-clusory terms that the petitioner had “failed to contribute to the support of” Molly Page Armstrong “for a period in excess of two years preceding this date.” No notice was given to the petitioner of the filing of this affidavit, although the Manzos well knew his precise whereabouts in Fort Worth, Texas. On the basis of the affidavit, and without, so far as the record shows, a hearing of any kind, the juvenile court judge promptly issued his consent to the adoption. In the adoption petition, filed later the same day, the Manzos alleged that “consent of the natural father, R. W. Armstrong, Jr., to the adoption herein sought is not necessary upon grounds that the said father has not contributed to the support of said minor child commensurate with his ability to do so for a period in excess of two (2) years, and the Judge of a Juvenile Court of El Paso County, Texas . . . has consented in writing to said adoption.” No notice of any kind was given to the petitioner of the filing or pendency of this adoption petition.
An investigator appointed by the coúrt made a detailed written report recommending the adoption, and a few weeks later the adoption decree was entered. The decree provided in accord with Texas law that “all legal relationship and all rights and duties between such Child and the natural father shall cease and determine, and such Child is hereafter deemed and held to be for every purpose the child of its parent by adoption, as fully as though naturally born to him in lawful wedlock,” and further provided that “the said Molly Page Armstrong shall be known by the Christian and Surname as Molly Page Manzo, from this day forward.”
During this entire period the petitioner was not given, and did not have, the slightest inkling of the'pendency of these adoption proceedings. On the day the decree was entered, however, Salvatore Manzo wrote to the petitioner’s father, advising him that “I have this date completed court action to adopt Molly Page as my daughter and to change her name to Molly Page Manzo.” The petitioner’s father immediately relayed this news to the petitioner, who promptly filed a motion in the District Court of El Paso County, asking that the adoption decree be “set aside and annulled and a new trial granted,” upon the ground that he had been given no notice of the adoption proceedings.
The court did not vacate the adoption decree, but set a date for hearing on the motion. At that hearing the petitioner introduced evidence, through witnesses and by depositions, in an effort to show that he had not failed to contribute to his daughter’s support “commensurate with his financial ability.” At the conclusion of the hearing the court entered an order denying the petitioner’s motion and providing that the “adoption decree entered herein is in all things confirmed.”
The petitioner appealed to the appropriate Texas court of civil appeals, upon the ground, among others, that the trial court had erred in not setting aside the adoption decree, because the entry of the decree without notice to the petitioner had deprived him “of his child without due process of law.” The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s judgment, and the Supreme Court of Texas refused an application for writ of error.
We granted certiorari. 379 U. S. 816. The questions before us are whether failure to notify the petitioner of the pendency of the adoption proceedings deprived him of due process of law so as to render the adoption decree constitutionally invalid, and, if so, whether the subsequent hearing on the petitioner’s motion to set aside the decree served to cure its constitutional invalidity.
In disposing of the first issue, there is no occasion to linger long. It is clear that failure to give the petitioner notice of the pending adoption proceedings violated the most rudimentary demands of due process of law. “Many controversies have raged about the cryptic and abstract words of the Due Process Clause but there can be no doubt that at a minimum they require that deprivation of life, liberty or property by adjudication be preceded by notice and opportunity for hearing appropriate to the nature of the case.” Mullane v. Central Hanover Tr. Co., 339 U. S. 306, at 313. “An elementary and fundamental requirement of due process in any proceeding which is to be accorded finality is notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections. Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457; Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U. S. 385; Priest v. Las Vegas, 232 U. S. 604; Roller v. Holly, 176 U. S. 398. . . .” Id., at 314. Questions frequently arise as to the adequacy of a particular form of notice in a particular case. See, e. g., Schroeder v. City of New York, 371 U. S. 208; New York v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 344 U. S. 293; Walker v. Hutchinson City, 352 U. S. 112; Mullane v. Central Hanover Tr. Co., supra. But as to the basic requirement of notice itself there can be no doubt, where, as here, the result of the judicial proceeding was permanently to deprive a legitimate parent of all that parenthood implies. Cf. May v. Anderson, 345 U. S. 528, 533.
The Texas Court of Civil Appeals implicitly recognized this constitutional rule, but held, in accord with its understanding of the Texas precedents, that whatever constitutional infirmity resulted from the failure to give the petitioner notice had been cured by the hearing subsequently afforded to him upon his motion to set aside the decree. 371 S. W. 2d, at 412. We cannot agree.
Had the petitioner been given the timely notice which the Constitution requires, the Manzos, as the moving parties, would have had the burden of proving their case as against whatever defenses the petitioner might have interposed. See Jones v. Willson, 285 S. W. 2d 877; Ex parte Payne, 301 S. W. 2d 194. It would have been incumbent upon them to show not only that Salvatore Manzo met all the requisites of an adoptive parent under Texas law, but also to prove why the petitioner’s consent to the adoption was not required. Had neither side offered any evidence, those who initiated the adoption proceedings could not have prevailed.
Instead, the petitioner was faced on his first appearance in the courtroom with the task of overcoming an adverse decree entered by one judge, based upon a finding of nonsupport made by another judge. As the record shows, there was placed upon the petitioner the burden of affirmatively showing that he had contributed to the support of his daughter to the limit of his financial ability over the period involved. The burdens thus placed upon the petitioner were real,, not purely theoretical. For “it is plain that where the burden of proof lies may be decisive of the outcome.” Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 525. Yet these burdens would not have been imposed upon him had he been given timely notice in accord with the Constitution.
A fundamental requirement of due process is “the opportunity to be heard.” Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U. S. 385, 394. It is an opportunity which must be granted at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. The trial court could have fully accorded this right to the petitioner only by granting his motion to set aside the decree and consider the case anew. Only that would have wiped the slate clean. Only that would have restored the petitioner to the position he would have occupied had due process of law been accorded to him in the first place. His motion should have been granted.
For the reasons stated, the judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mrs. Manzo joined the petition in order to manifest her consent to the adoption, and also filed a separate written consent.
Vernon’s Ann. Civ. Stat., Art. 46a, § 6, provides in pertinent part as follows:
“Except as otherwise provided in this Section, no adoption shall be permitted except with the written consent of the living parents of the child; provided, however, that if a living parent or parents shall voluntarily abandon and desert a child sought to be adopted, for a period of two (2) yeárs/and shall have left such child to the care, custody, control and management of other persons, or if such parent or parents shall have not contributed substantially to the support of such child during such period of two (2) years commensurate with his financial ability, then, in either event, it shall not be necessary to obtain the written consent of the living parent or parents in such default, and in such cases adoption shall be permitted on the written consent of the Judge of the Juvenile Court of the county of such child’s residence; or if there be no Juvenile Court, then on the written consent of the Judge of the County Court of the county of such child’s residence.”
The petitioner does not here question the constitutional validity of the substantive provisions of this statute.
Vernon’s Ann. Civ. Stat., Art. 46a, § 9.
The third paragraph of the petitioner’s motion was as follows:
“At the time the above entitled and numbered proceeding came on to be heard and judgment rendered, your Petitioner had never been advised or given notice, actual or constructive, as required by the laws of Texas, that this proceeding was to be heard or that it was even pending or of the judgment herein until after the rendition of the judgment, nor was any attempt made to notify Petitioner in any way of this proceeding although his address and whereabouts were well known to the parties, in fact the parties to this proceeding deliberately and wrongfully withheld all notice from Petitioner for the expressed purpose of denying him any opportunity to appear, contest and present his defenses to this proceeding; and that Petitioner was prevented from appearing and presenting his defenses not by his own fault or negligence but rather by the deliberate and wrongful acts of the parties to this proceeding.”
The prayer of the motion was as follows:
“Wherefore, Petitioner prays that the judgment and decree entered in this proceeding be in all things vacated, set aside and annulled and a new trial granted.”
See note 2, supra.
371 S. W. 2d 407.
See Lee v. Purvin, 285 S. W. 2d 405; Dendy v. Wilson, 142 Tex. 460, 179 S. W. 2d 269; DeWitt v. Brooks, 143 Tex. 122, 182 S. W. 2d 687; Johnston v. Chapman, 279 S. W. 2d 597. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed. If the case arose under the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, note the source as "United States Supreme Court". If the case arose in a state court, note the source as "State Supreme Court", "State Appellate Court", or "State Trial Court". Do not code the name of the state. | What is the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed? | [
"U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals",
"U.S. Court of International Trade",
"U.S. Court of Claims, Court of Federal Claims",
"U.S. Court of Military Appeals, renamed as Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces",
"U.S. Court of Military Review",
"U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals",
"U.S. Customs Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit",
"U.S. Tax Court",
"Temporary Emergency U.S. Court of Appeals",
"U.S. Court for China",
"U.S. Consular Courts",
"U.S. Commerce Court",
"Territorial Supreme Court",
"Territorial Appellate Court",
"Territorial Trial Court",
"Emergency Court of Appeals",
"Supreme Court of the District of Columbia",
"Bankruptcy Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit (includes the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia but not the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which has local jurisdiction)",
"Alabama Middle U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Northern U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Southern U.S. District Court",
"Alaska U.S. District Court",
"Arizona U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Western U.S. District Court",
"California Central U.S. District Court",
"California Eastern U.S. District Court",
"California Northern U.S. District Court",
"California Southern U.S. District Court",
"Colorado U.S. District Court",
"Connecticut U.S. District Court",
"Delaware U.S. District Court",
"District Of Columbia U.S. District Court",
"Florida Middle U.S. District Court",
"Florida Northern U.S. District Court",
"Florida Southern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Middle U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Northern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Guam U.S. District Court",
"Hawaii U.S. District Court",
"Idaho U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Central U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Northern U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Southern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Northern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Southern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Northern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Southern U.S. District Court",
"Kansas U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Western U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Middle U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Western U.S. District Court",
"Maine U.S. District Court",
"Maryland U.S. District Court",
"Massachusetts U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Western U.S. District Court",
"Minnesota U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Northern U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Southern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Western U.S. District Court",
"Montana U.S. District Court",
"Nebraska U.S. District Court",
"Nevada U.S. District Court",
"New Hampshire U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"New Mexico U.S. District Court",
"New York Eastern U.S. District Court",
"New York Northern U.S. District Court",
"New York Southern U.S. District Court",
"New York Western U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Middle U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"North Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Northern Mariana Islands U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Northern U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Southern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Northern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Western U.S. District Court",
"Oregon U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Middle U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Western U.S. District Court",
"Puerto Rico U.S. District Court",
"Rhode Island U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina U.S. District Court",
"South Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Middle U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Western U.S. District Court",
"Texas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Northern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Southern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Western U.S. District Court",
"Utah U.S. District Court",
"Vermont U.S. District Court",
"Virgin Islands U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Western U.S. District Court",
"Washington Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Washington Western U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Northern U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Western U.S. District Court",
"Wyoming U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana U.S. District Court",
"Washington U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"Alabama U.S. District Court",
"U.S. District Court for the Canal Zone",
"Georgia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois U.S. District Court",
"Indiana U.S. District Court",
"Iowa U.S. District Court",
"Michigan U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi U.S. District Court",
"Missouri U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey Eastern U.S. District Court (East Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New Jersey Western U.S. District Court (West Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New York U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina U.S. District Court",
"Ohio U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee U.S. District Court",
"Texas U.S. District Court",
"Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Norfolk U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky U.S. Distrcrict Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"California U.S. District Court",
"Florida U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas U.S. District Court",
"District of Orleans U.S. District Court",
"State Supreme Court",
"State Appellate Court",
"State Trial Court",
"Eastern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Middle Circuit (of the United States)",
"Southern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Alabama U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Alabama",
"Arkansas U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Arkansas",
"California U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of California",
"Connecticut U.S. Circuit for the District of Connecticut",
"Delaware U.S. Circuit for the District of Delaware",
"Florida U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Florida",
"Georgia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Georgia",
"Illinois U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Illinois",
"Indiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Indiana",
"Iowa U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Iowa",
"Kansas U.S. Circuit for the District of Kansas",
"Kentucky U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Kentucky",
"Louisiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Louisiana",
"Maine U.S. Circuit for the District of Maine",
"Maryland U.S. Circuit for the District of Maryland",
"Massachusetts U.S. Circuit for the District of Massachusetts",
"Michigan U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Michigan",
"Minnesota U.S. Circuit for the District of Minnesota",
"Mississippi U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Mississippi",
"Missouri U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Missouri",
"Nevada U.S. Circuit for the District of Nevada",
"New Hampshire U.S. Circuit for the District of New Hampshire",
"New Jersey U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New Jersey",
"New York U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New York",
"North Carolina U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of North Carolina",
"Ohio U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Ohio",
"Oregon U.S. Circuit for the District of Oregon",
"Pennsylvania U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Pennsylvania",
"Rhode Island U.S. Circuit for the District of Rhode Island",
"South Carolina U.S. Circuit for the District of South Carolina",
"Tennessee U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Tennessee",
"Texas U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Texas",
"Vermont U.S. Circuit for the District of Vermont",
"Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Virginia",
"West Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of West Virginia",
"Wisconsin U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Wisconsin",
"Wyoming U.S. Circuit for the District of Wyoming",
"Circuit Court of the District of Columbia",
"Nebraska U.S. Circuit for the District of Nebraska",
"Colorado U.S. Circuit for the District of Colorado",
"Washington U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Washington",
"Idaho U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Idaho",
"Montana U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Montana",
"Utah U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Utah",
"South Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of South Dakota",
"North Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of North Dakota",
"Oklahoma U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Oklahoma",
"Court of Private Land Claims"
] | [
158
] | sc_casesource |
WILLIAMS v. FLORIDA
No. 927.
Argued March 4, 1970
Decided June 22, 1970
Richard Kanner argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.
Jesse J. McCrary, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of Florida, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Earl Faircloth, Attorney General, and Ronald W. Sabo, Assistant Attorney General.
Jack Greenberg and Michael Meltsner filed a brief for Virgil Jenkins as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Prior to his trial for robbery in the State of Florida, petitioner filed a “Motion for a Protective Order,” seeking to be excused from the requirements of Rule 1.200 of the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure. That rule requires a defendant, on written demand of the prosecuting attorney, to give notice in advance of trial if the defendant intends to claim an alibi, and to furnish the prosecuting attorney with information as to the place where he claims to have been and with the names and addresses of the alibi witnesses he intends to use. In his motion petitioner openly declared his intent to claim an alibi, but objected to the further disclosure requirements on the ground that the rule “compels the Defendant in a criminal case to be a witness against himself” in violation of his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The motion was denied. Petitioner also filed a pretrial motion to impanel a 12-man jury instead of the six-man jury provided by Florida law in all but capital cases. That motion too was denied. Petitioner was convicted as charged and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The District Court of Appeal affirmed, rejecting petitioner’s claims that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights had been violated. We granted certiorari. 396 U. S. 955 (1969).
I
Florida’s notice-of-alibi rule is in essence a requirement that a defendant submit to a limited form of pretrial discovery by the State whenever he intends to rely at trial on the defense of alibi. In exchange for the defendant’s disclosure of the witnesses he proposes to use to establish that defense, the State in turn is required to notify the defendant of any witnesses it proposes to offer in rebuttal to that defense. Both sides are under a continuing duty promptly to disclose the names and addresses of additional witnesses bearing on the alibi as they become available. The threatened sanction for failure to comply is the exclusion at trial of the defendant’s alibi evidence — except for his own testimony — or, in the case of the State, the exclusion of the State’s evidence offered in rebuttal of the alibi.
In this case, following the denial of his Motion for a Protective Order, petitioner complied with the alibi rule and gave the State the name and address of one Mary Scotty. Mrs. Scotty was summoned to the office of the State Attorney on the morning of the trial, where she gave pretrial testimony. At the trial itself, Mrs. Scotty, petitioner, and petitioner’s wife all testified that the three of them had been in Mrs. Scotty’s apartment during the time of the robbery. On two occasions during cross-examination of Mrs. Scotty, the prosecuting attorney confronted her with her earlier deposition in which she had given dates and times that in some respects did not correspond with the dates and times given at trial. Mrs. Scotty adhered to her trial story, insisting that she had been mistaken in her earlier testimony. The State also offered in rebuttal the testimony of one of the officers investigating the robbery who claimed that Mrs. Scotty had asked him for directions on the afternoon in question during the time when she claimed to have been in her apartment with petitioner and his wife.
We need not linger over the suggestion that the discovery permitted the State against petitioner in this case deprived him of “due process” or a “fair trial.” Florida law provides for liberal discovery by the defendant against the State, and the notice-of-alibi rule is itself carefully hedged with reciprocal duties requiring state disclosure to the defendant. Given the ease with which an alibi can be fabricated, the State’s interest in protecting itself against an eleventh-hour defense is both obvious and legitimate. Reflecting this interest, notice-of-alibi provisions, dating at least from 1927, are now in existence in a substantial number of States. The adversary system of trial is hardly an end in itself; it is not yet a poker game in which players enjoy an absolute right always to conceal their cards until played. We find ample room in that system, at least as far as “due process” is concerned, for the instant Florida rule, which is designed to enhance the search for truth in the criminal trial by insuring both the defendant and the State ample opportunity to investigate certain facts crucial to the determination of guilt or innocence.
Petitioner’s major contention is that he was “compelled ... to be a witness against himself” contrary to the commands of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments because the notice-of-alibi rule required him to give the State the name and address of Mrs. Scotty in advance of trial and thus to furnish the State with information useful in convicting him. No pretrial statement of petitioner was introduced at trial; but armed with Mrs. Scotty’s name and address and the knowledge that she was to be petitioner’s alibi witness, the State was able to take her deposition in advance of trial and to find rebuttal testimony. Also, requiring him to reveal the elements of his defense is claimed to have interfered with his right to wait until after the State had presented its case to decide how to defend against it. We conclude, however, as has apparently every other court that has considered the issue, that the privilege against self-incrimination is not violated by a requirement that the defendant give notice of an alibi defense and disclose his alibi witnesses.
■ The defendant in a criminal trial is frequently forced to testify himself and to call other witnesses in an effort to reduce the risk of conviction. When he presents his witnesses, he must reveal their identity and submit them to cross-examination which in itself may prove incriminating or which may furnish the State with leads to incriminating rebuttal evidence. That the defendant faces such a dilemma demanding a choice between complete silence and presenting a defense has never been thought an invasion of the privilege against compelled self-incrimination. The pressures generated by the State's evidence may be severe but they do not vitiate the defendant’s choice to present an alibi defense and witnesses to prove it, even though the attempted defense ends in catastrophe for the defendant. However “testimonial” or “incriminating” the alibi defense proves to be, it cannot be considered “compelled” within the meaning of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Very similar constraints operate on the defendant when the State requires pretrial notice of alibi and the naming of alibi witnesses. Nothing in such a rule requires the defendant to rely on an alibi or prevents him from abandoning the defense; these matters are left to his unfettered choice. That choice must be made, but the pressures that bear on his pretrial decision are of the same nature as those that would induce him to call alibi witnesses at the trial: the force of historical fact beyond both his and the State’s control and the strength of the State’s case built on these facts. Response to that kind of pressure by offering evidence or testimony is not compelled self-incrimination transgressing the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments..
In the case before us, the notice-of-alibi rule by itself in no way affected petitioner’s crucial decision to call alibi witnesses or added to the legitimate pressures leading to that course of action. At most, the rule only compelled petitioner to accelerate the timing of his disclosure, forcing him to divulge at an earlier date information that the petitioner from the beginning planned to divulge at trial. Nothing in the Fifth Amendment privilege entitles a defendant as a matter of constitutional right to await the end of the State’s case before announcing the nature of his defense, any more than it entitles him to await the jury’s verdict on the State’s case-in-chief before deciding whether or not to take the stand himself.
Petitioner concedes that absent the notice-of-alibi rule the Constitution would raise no bar to the court’s granting the State a continuance at trial on the ground of surprise as soon as the alibi witness is called. Nor would there be self-incrimination problems if, during that continuance, the State was permitted to do precisely what it did here prior to trial: take the deposition of the witness and find rebuttal evidence. But if so utilizing a continuance is permissible under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, then surely the same result may be accomplished through pretrial discovery, as it was here, avoiding the necessity of a disrupted trial. We decline to hold that the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination guarantees the defendant the right to surprise the State with an alibi defense.
II
In Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968), we held that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a right to trial by jury in all criminal cases that — were they to be tried in a federal court — would come within the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee. Petitioner’s trial for robbery on July 3, 1968, clearly falls within the scope of that holding. See Baldwin v. New York, ante, p. 66; DeStefano v. Woods, 392 U. S. 631 (1968). The question in this case then is whether the constitutional guarantee of a trial by “jury” necessarily requires trial by exactly 12 persons, rather than some lesser number — in this case six. We hold that the 12-man panel is not a necessary ingredient of “trial by jury,” and that respondent’s refusal to impanel more than the six members provided for by Florida law did not violate petitioner’s Sixth Amendment rights as applied to the States through the Fourteenth.
We had occasion in Duncan v. Louisiana, supra, to review briefly the oft-told history of the development of trial by jury in criminal cases. That history revealed a long tradition attaching great importance to the concept of relying on a body of one’s peers to determine guilt or innocence as a safeguard against arbitrary law enforcement. That same history, however, affords little insight into the considerations that gradually led the size of that body to be generally fixed at 12. Some have suggested that the number 12 was fixed upon simply because that was the number of the presentment jury from the hundred, from which the petit jury developed. Other, less circular but more fanciful reasons for the number 12 have been given, “but they were all brought forward after the number was fixed,” and rest on little more than mystical or superstitious insights into the significance of “12.” Lord Coke’s explanation that the “number of twelve is much respected in holy writ, as 12 apostles, 12 stones, 12 tribes, etc.,” is typical. In short, while sometime in the 14th century the size of the jury at common law came to be fixed generally at 12, that particular feature of the jury system appears to have been a historical accident, unrelated to the great purposes which gave rise to the jury in the first place. The question before us is whether this accidental feature of the jury has been immutably codified into our Constitution.
This Court’s earlier decisions have assumed an affirmative answer to this question. The leading case so construing the Sixth Amendment is Thompson v. Utah, 170 U. S. 343 (1898). There the defendant had been tried and convicted by a 12-man jury for a crime committed in the Territory of Utah. A new trial was granted, but by that time Utah had been admitted as a State. The defendant’s new trial proceeded under Utah’s Constitution, providing for a jury of only eight members. This Court reversed the resulting conviction, holding that Utah’s constitutional provision was an ex post facto law as applied to the defendant. In reaching its conclusion, the Court announced that the Sixth Amendment was applicable to the defendant’s trial when Utah was a Territory, and that the jury referred to in the Amendment was a jury “constituted, as it was at common law, of twelve persons, neither more nor less.” 170 U. S., at 349. Arguably unnecessary for the result, this announcement was supported simply by referring to the Magna Carta, and by quoting passages from treatises which noted — what has already been seen— that at common law the jury did indeed consist of 12. Noticeably absent was any discussion of the essential step in the argument: namely, that every feature of the jury as it existed at common law — whether incidental or essential to that institution — was necessarily included in the Constitution wherever that document referred to a “jury.” Subsequent decisions have reaffirmed the announcement in Thompson, often in dictum and usually by relying — where there was any discussion of the issue at all — solely on the fact that the common-law jury consisted of 12. See Patton v. United States, 281 U. S. 276, 288 (1930); Rassmussen v. United States, 197 U. S. 516, 519 (1905); Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581, 586 (1900).
While “the intent of the Framers” is often an elusive quarry, the relevant constitutional history casts considerable doubt on the easy assumption in our past decisions that if a given feature existed in a jury at common law in 1789, then it was necessarily preserved in the Constitution. Provisions for jury trial were first placed in the Constitution in Article Ill’s provision that “[t]he Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed.” The “very scanty history [of this provision] in the records of the Constitutional Convention” sheds little light either way on the intended correlation between Article Ill’s “jury” and the features of the jury at common law. Indeed, pending and after the adoption of the Constitution, fears were expressed that Article Ill’s provision failed to preserve the common-law right to be tried by a “jury of the vicinage.” That concern, as well as the concern to preserve the right to jury in civil as well as criminal cases, furnished part of the impetus for introducing amendments to the Constitution that ultimately resulted in the jury trial provisions of the Sixth and Seventh Amendments. As introduced by James Madison in the House, the Amendment relating to jury trial in criminal cases would have provided that:
“The trial of all crimes . . . shall be by an impartial jury of freeholders of the vicinage, with the requisite of unanimity for conviction, of the right of challenge, and other accustomed requisites . ..
The Amendment passed the House in substantially this form, but after more than a week of debate in the Senate it returned to the House considerably altered. While records of the actual debates that occurred in the Senate are not available, a letter from Madison to Edmund Pendleton on September 14, 1789, indicates that one of the Senate’s major objections was to the “vicinage” requirement in the House version. A conference committee was appointed. As reported in a second letter by Madison on September 23, 1789, the Senate remained opposed to the vicinage requirement, partly because in its view the then-pending judiciary bill — which was debated at the same time as the Amendments — adequately preserved the common-law vicinage feature, making it unnecessary to freeze that requirement into the Constitution. “The Senate,” wrote Madison:
“are . . . inflexible in opposing a definition of the locality of Juries. The vicinage they contend is either too vague or too strict a term; too vague if depending on limits to be fixed by the pleasure of the law, too strict if limited to the county. It was proposed to insert after the word Juries, 'with the accustomed requisites,’ leaving the definition to be construed according to the judgment of professional men. Even this could not be obtained. . . . The Senate suppose, also, that the provision for vicinage in the Judiciary bill will sufficiently quiet the fears which called for an amendment on this point.”
The version that finally emerged from the Committee was the version that ultimately became the Sixth Amendment, ensuring an accused:
“the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law . . . .”
Gone were the provisions spelling out such common-law features of the jury as “unanimity,” or “the accustomed requisites.” And the “vicinage” requirement itself had been replaced by wording that reflected a compromise between broad and narrow definitions of that term, and that left Congress the power to determine the actual size of the “vicinage” by its creation of judicial districts.
Three significant features may be observed in this sketch of the background of the Constitution’s jury trial provisions. First, even though the vicinage requirement was as much a feature of the common-law jury as was the 12-man requirement, the mere reference to “trial by jury” in Article III was not interpreted to include that feature. Indeed, as the subsequent debates over the Amendments indicate, disagreement arose over whether the feature should be included at all in its common-law sense, resulting in the compromise described above. Second, provisions that would have explicitly tied the “jury” concept to the “accustomed requisites” of the time were eliminated. Such action is concededly open to the explanation that the “accustomed requisites” were thought to be already included in the concept of a “jury.” But that explanation is no more plausible than the contrary one: that the deletion had some substantive effect. Indeed, given the clear expectation that a substantive change would be effected by the inclusion or deletion of an explicit “vicinage” requirement, the latter explanation is, if anything, the more plausible. Finally, contemporary legislative and constitutional provisions indicate that where Congress wanted to leave no doubt that it was incorporating existing common-law features of the jury system, it knew how to use express language to that effect. Thus, the Judiciary bill, signed by the President on the same day that the House and Senate finally agreed on the form of the Amendments to be submitted to the States, provided in certain cases for the narrower “vicinage” requirements that the House had wanted to include in the Amendments. And the Seventh Amendment, providing for jury trial in civil cases, explicitly added that “no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”
We do not pretend to be able to divine precisely what the word “jury” imported to the Framers, the First Congress, or the States in 1789. It may well be that the usual expectation was that the jury would consist of 12, and that hence, the most likely con-elusion to be drawn is simply that little thought was actually given to the specific question we face today. But there is absolutely no indication in “the intent of the Framers” of an explicit decision to equate the constitutional and common-law characteristics of the jury. Nothing in this history suggests, then, that we do violence to the letter of the Constitution by turning to other than purely historical considerations to determine which features of the jury system, as it existed at common law, were preserved in the Constitution. The relevant inquiry, as we see it, must be the function that the particular feature performs and its relation to the purposes of the jury trial. Measured by this standard, the 12-man requirement cannot be regarded as an indispensable component of the Sixth Amendment.
The purpose of the jury trial, as we noted in Duncan, is to prevent oppression by the Government. “Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge.” Duncan v. Louisiana, supra, at 156. Given this purpose, the essential feature of a jury obviously lies in the interposition between the accused and his accuser of the commonsense judgment of a group of laymen, and in the community participation and shared responsibility that results from that group’s determination of guilt or innocence. The performance of this role is not a function of the particular number of the body that makes up the jury. To be sure, the number should probably be large enough to promote group deliberation, free from outside attempts at intimidation, and to provide a fair possibility for obtaining a representative cross-section of the community. But we find little reason to think that these goals are in any meaningful sense less likely to be achieved when the jury numbers six, than when it numbers 12 — particularly if the requirement of unanimity is retained. And, certainly the reliability of the jury as a factfinder hardly seems likely to be a function of its size.
It might be suggested that the 12-man jury gives a defendant a greater advantage since he has more “chances” of finding a juror who will insist on acquittal and thus prevent conviction. But the advantage might just as easily belong to the State, which also needs only one juror out of twelve insisting on guilt to prevent acquittal. What few experiments have occurred — usually in the civil area — indicate that there is no discernible difference between the results reached by the two different-sized juries. In short, neither currently available evidence nor theory suggests that the 12-man jury is necessarily more advantageous to the defendant than a jury composed of fewer members.
Similarly, while in theory the number of viewpoints represented on a randomly selected jury ought to increase as the size of the jury increases, in practice the difference between the 12-man and the six-man jury in terms of the cross-section of the community represented seems likely to be negligible. Even the 12-man jury cannot insure representation of every distinct voice in the community, particularly given the use of the peremptory challenge. As long as arbitrary exclusions of a particular class from the jury rolls are forbidden, see, e. g., Carter v. Jury Commission, 396 U. S. 320, 329-330 (1970), the concern that the cross-section will be significantly diminished if the jury is decreased in size from 12 to six seems an unrealistic one.
We conclude, in short, as we began: the fact that the jury at common law was composed of precisely 12 is a historical accident, unnecessary to effect the purposes of the jury system and wholly without significance “except to mystics.” Duncan v. Louisiana, supra, at 182 (Harlan, J., dissenting). To read the Sixth Amendment as forever codifying a feature so incidental to the real purpose of the Amendment is to ascribe a blind formalism to the Framers which would require considerably more evidence than we have been able to discover in the history and language of the Constitution or in the reasoning of our past decisions. We do not mean to intimate that legislatures can never have good reasons for concluding that the 12-man jury is preferable to the smaller jury, or that such conclusions — reflected in the provisions of most States and in our federal system— are in any sense unwise. Legislatures may well have their own views about the relative value of the larger and smaller juries, and may conclude that, wholly apart from the jury’s primary function, it is desirable to spread the collective responsibility for the determination of guilt among the larger group. In capital cases, for example, it appears that no State provides for less than 12 jurors— a fact that suggests implicit recognition of the value of the larger body as a means of legitimating society’s decision to impose the death penalty. Our holding does no more than leave these considerations to Congress and the States, unrestrained by an interpretation of the Sixth Amendment that would forever dictate the precise number that can constitute a jury. Consistent with this holding, we conclude that petitioner’s Sixth Amendment rights, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, were not violated by Florida’s decision to provide a six-man rather than a 12-man jury. The judgment of the Florida District Court of Appeal is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Blackmun took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT
Fla. Rule Crina. Proc. 1.200:
“Upon the written demand of the prosecuting attorney, specifying as particularly as is known to such prosecuting attorney, the place, date and time of the commission of the crime charged, a defendant in a criminal case who intends to offer evidence of an alibi in his defense shall, not less than ten days before trial or such other time as the court may direct, file and serve upon such prosecuting attorney a notice in writing of his intention to claim such alibi, which notice shall contain specific information as to the place at which the defendant claims to have been at the time of the alleged offense and, as particularly as is known to defendant or his attorney, the names and addresses of the witnesses by whom he proposes to establish such alibi. Not less than five days after receipt of defendant's witness list, or such other times as the court may direct, the prosecuting attorney shall file and serve upon the defendant the names and addresses (as particularly as are known to the prosecuting attorney) of the witnesses the State proposes to offer in rebuttal to discredit the defendant’s alibi at the trial of the cause. Both the defendant and the prosecuting attorney shall be under a continuing duty to promptly disclose the names and addresses of additional witnesses which come to the attention of either party subsequent to filing their respective witness lists as provided in this rule. If a defendant fails to file and serve a copy of such notice as herein required, the court may exclude evidence offered by such defendant for the purpose of proving an alibi, except the testimony of the defendant himself. If such notice is given by a defendant, the court may exclude the testimony of any witness offered by the defendant for the purpose of proving an alibi if the name and address of such witness as particularly as is known to defendant or his attorney is not stated in such notice. If the prosecuting attorney fails to file and serve a copy on the defendant of a list of witnesses as herein provided, the court may exclude evidence offered by the state in rebuttal to the defendant’s alibi evidence. If such notice is given by the prosecuting attorney, the court may exclude the testimony of any witness offered by the prosecuting attorney for the purpose of rebutting the defense of alibi if the name and address of such witness as particularly as is known to the prosecuting attorney is not stated in such notice. For good cause shown the court may waive the requirements of this rule.”
The full text of the -rule is set out in the appendix to this opinion, infra, at 104. Subsequent references to an appendix are to the separately bound appendix filed with the briefs in this case [hereinafter “App.”].
See App. 5.
Fla. Stat. §913.10 (1) (1967):
“Twelve men shall constitute a jury to try all capital cases, and six men shall constitute a jury to try all other criminal cases.”
See App. 82.
The Supreme Court of Florida had earlier held that it was without jurisdiction to entertain petitioner’s direct appeal from the trial court. See id., at 92. Under Florida law, the District Court of Appeal became the highest court from which a decision could be had. See Fla. Const., Art. V, § 4 (2); Fla. App. Rule 2.1a (5) (a); Ansin v. Thurston, 101 So. 2d 808, 810 (1958).
“For good cause shown” the court may waive the requirements of the rule. Fla. Rule Crim. Proc. 1.200.
See App. 58-60.
Id., at 65-66.
See Fla. Rule Crim. Proc. 1.220. These discovery provisions were invoked by petitioner in the instant case. See App. 3, 4, 8.
See Epstein, Advance Notice of Alibi, 55 J. Crim. L. C. & P. S. 29, 32 (1964).
In addition to Florida, at least 15 States appear to have alibi-notice requirements of one sort or another. See Ariz. Rule Crim. Proc. 192 B (1956); Ind. Ann. Stat. §§9-1631 to 9-1633 (1956); Iowa Code §777.18 (1966); Kan. Stat. Ann. §62-1341 (1964); Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 768.20, 768.21 (1948); Minn. Stat. § 630.14 (1967); N. J. Rule 3:5-9 (1958); N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. §295-1 (1958); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2945.58 (1954); Okla. Stat., Tit. 22, § 585 (1969); Pa. Rule Crim. Proc. 312 (1970); S. D. Comp. Laws §§ 23-37-5, 23-37-6 (1967); Utah Code Ann. § 77-22-17 (1953); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 13, §§ 6561, 6562 (1959); Wis. Stat. § 955.07 (1961). See generally 6 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 18556 (3d ed. 1940).
We do not, of course, decide that each of these alibi-notice provisions is necessarily valid in all respects; that conclusion must await a specific context and an inquiry, for example, into whether the defendant enjoys reciprocal discovery against the State.
See, e. g., Brennan,, The Criminal Prosecution: Sporting Event or Quest for Truth?, 1963 Wash. U. L. Q. 279, 292.
E. g., State v. Stump, 254 Iowa 1181, 119 N. W. 2d 210, cert. denied, 375 U. S. 853 (1963); State v. Baldwin, 47 N. J. 379, 221 A. 2d 199, cert. denied, 385 U. S. 980 (1966); People v. Rakiec, 260 App. Div. 452, 457-458, 23 N. Y. S. 2d 607, 612-613 (1940); Commonwealth v. Vecchiolli, 208 Pa. Super. 483, 224 A. 2d 96 (1966); see Jones v. Superior Court, 58 Cal. 2d 56, 372 P. 2d 919 (1962); Louisell, Criminal Discovery and Self-Incrimination: Roger Traynor Confronts the Dilemma, 53 Calif. L. Rev. 89 (1965); Traynor, Ground Lost and Found in Criminal Discovery, 39 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 228 (1964); Comment, The Self-Incrimination Privilege: Barrier to Criminal Discovery?, 51 Calif. L. Rev. 135 (1963); 76 Harv. L. Rev. 838 (1963).
We emphasize that this case does not involve the question of the validity of the threatened sanction, had petitioner chosen not to comply with the notice-of-alibi rule. Whether and to what extent a State can enforce discovery rules against a defendant who fails to comply, by excluding relevant, probative evidence is a question raising Sixth Amendment issues which we have no occasion to explore. Cf. Brief for Amicus Curiae 17-26. It is enough that no such penalty was exacted here.
Petitioner’s apparent suggestion to the contrary is simply not borne out by the facts of this case. The mere requirement that petitioner disclose in advance his intent to rely on an alibi in no way “fixed” his defense as of that point in time. The suggestion that the State, by referring to petitioner’s proposed alibi in opening or closing statements might have “compelled” him to follow through with the defense in order to avoid an unfavorable inference is a hypothetical totally without support in this record. The first reference to the alibi came from petitioner’s own attorney in his opening remarks; the State’s response did not come until after the defense had finished direct examination of Mrs. Scotty. Petitioner appears to raise this issue as a possible defect in alibi-notice requirements in general, without seriously suggesting that his choice of defense at trial in this case would have been different but for his prior compliance with the rule. Indeed, in his Motion for a Protective Order, petitioner freely disclosed his intent to rely on an alibi; his only objection was to the further requirement that he disclose the nature of the alibi and the name of the witness. On these facts, then, we simply are not confronted with the question of whether a defendant can be compelled in advance of trial to select a defense from which he can no longer deviate. We do not mean to suggest, though, that such a procedure must necessarily raise serious constitutional problems. See State ex rel. Simos v. Burke, 41 Wis. 2d 129, 137, 163 N. W. 2d 177, 181 (1968) (“[i]f we are discussing the right of a defendant to defer until the moment of his testifying the election between alternative and inconsistent alibis, we have left the concept of the trial as a search for truth far behind”).
See Reply Brief for Petitioner 2 and n. 1.
It might also be argued that the “testimonial” disclosures protected by the Fifth Amendment include only statements relating to the historical facts of the crime, not statements relating solely to what a defendant proposes to do at trial.
See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 151-154 (1968).
In tracing the development of the jury from the time when the jury performed a different, “inquisitory” function, James R. Thayer notes the following:
“In early times the inquisition had no fixed number. In the Frankish empire we are told of 66, 41, 20, 17, 13, 11, 8, 7, 53, 15, and a great variety of other numbers. So also among the Normans it varied much, and ‘twelve has not even the place of the prevailing grundzahl;’ the documents show all sorts of numbers — 4, 5„ 6, 12, 13-18, 21, 27, 30, and so on. It seems to have been the recognitions under Henry II. that established twelve as the usual number; even then the number was not uniform.” The Jury and Its Development, 5 Harv. L. Rev. 295 (1892) (citations omitted).
See J. Thayer, A Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common Law 85 (1898).
Similarly, Professor Scott writes:
“At the beginning of the thirteenth century twelve was indeed the usual but not the invariable number. But by the middle of the fourteenth century the requirement of twelve had probably become definitely fixed. Indeed this number finally came to be regarded with something like superstitious reverence.” A. Scott, Fundamentals of Procedure in Actions at Law 75-76 (1922) (footnotes omitted).
W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 325 (1927); Wells, The Origin of the Petty Jury, 27 L. Q. Rev. 347, 357 (1911). The latter author traces the development of the 12-man petit jury through the following four stages. The first stage saw the development of the presentment jury, made up generally of 12 persons from the hundred, whose function was simply to charge the accused with a crime; the test of his guilt or innocence was by some other means, such as trial by ordeal, battle, or wager of law. In the second stage, the presentment jury began to be asked for its verdict on the guilt or innocence of the person it had accused, and hence began to function as both a petit and a grand jury. In the third stage, “combination juries” were formed to render the verdict in order to broaden the base of representation beyond the local hundred, or borough, to include the county. These juries were formed by adding one or more presentment juries from one or more hundreds, as well as certain officials such as coroners or knights. “These combination juries numbered from twenty-four to eighty-four jurors, and the number became embarrassingly large and unwieldy, and the sense of the personal responsibility of each juror was in danger of being lost.” Id., at 356. The obvious fourth step was the creation of a special jury “formed by selecting one or more jurors from each of several of the presentment juries of the hundreds, until the number twelve is reached . . . probably because that was the number of the presentment jury from the hundred. Therefore, just as the presentment jury represented the voice of the hundred in making the accusation, so the jury of ‘the country’, with the same number, represented the whole county in deciding whether the accused was guilty or not.” Id., at 357.
Neither of these authors hazards a guess as to why the presentment jury itself numbered 12.
Id., at 357.
1 E. Coke, Institutes of the Laws of England *155a (1st Amer. ed. 1812).
Thus John Proffatt in his treatise on jury trials notes that the reasons why the number of the petit jury is 12, are “quaintly given” in Duncombe’s Trials per Pais, as follows:
“[T]his number is no less esteemed by our own law than by holy writ. If the twelve apostles on their twelve thrones must try us in our eternal state, good reason hath the law to appoint the number twelve to try us in our temporal. The tribes of Israel were twelve, the patriarchs were twelve, and Solomon’s officers were twelve.” Trial by Jury 112 n. 4 (1877), quoting G. Duncombe, 1 Trials per Pais 92-93 (8th ed. 1766).
Attempts have also been made to trace the number 12 to early origins on the European Continent, particularly in Scandinavia. See F. Busch, 1 Law and Tactics in Jury Trials §24 (1959). See generally W. Forsyth, History of Trial by Jury 4 (1852); T. Repp, Trial by Jury (1832). But even as to the continental practice, no better reasons are discovered for the number 12. Thus Proffatt, in discussing the ancient Scandinavian tribunals, comments:
“Twelve was not only the common number throughout Europe, but was the favorite number in every branch of the polity and jurisprudence of the Gothic nations.
“The singular unanimity in the selection of the number twelve to compose certain judicial bodies, is a remarkable fact in the history of many nations. Many have sought to account for this general custom, and some have based it on religious grounds. One of the ancient kings of Wales, Morgan of Gla-Morgan, to whom is accredited the adoption of the trial by jury in A. D. 725, calls it the 'Apostolic Law.’ ‘For,’ said he, ‘as Christ and his twelve apostles were finally to judge the world, so human tribunals should be composed of the king and twelve wise men.’ ” Proffatt, Trial by Jury 11 n. 2 (1877) (citations omitted).
See also 1 L. Pike, A History of Crime in England 122 (1873).
In this connection it is interesting to note the following oath, required of the early 12-man jury:
“Hear this, ye Justices! that I will speak the truth of that which ye shall ask of me on the part of the king, and I will do faithfully to the best of my endeavour. So help me God, and these holy Apostles.” W. Forsyth, Trial by Jury 197 (1852).
See Proffatt, supra, at 42.
See supra, n. 19.
P. Devlin, Trial by Jury 8 (1956); F. Heller, The Sixth Amendment 64 (1951); W. Willoughby, Principles of Judicial Administration 503 (1929); Tamm, The Five-Man Civil Jury: A Proposed Constitutional Amendment, 51 Geo. L. J. 120, 128-130 (1962); Wiehl, The Six Man Jury, 4 Gonzaga L. Rev. 35, 38-39 (1968); see Thayer, supra, n. 19, at 89-90; White, Origin and Development of Trial by Jury, 29 Tenn. L. Rev. 8, 15-16, 17 (1959).
At the time of the crime and at the first trial the statutes of the Territory of Utah — wholly apart from the Sixth Amendment— ensured Thompson a 12-man jury. See 170 U. S., at 345. The Court found the ex post facto question easy to resolve, once it was assumed that Utah’s subsequent constitutional provision deprived Thompson of a right previously guaranteed him by the United States Constitution; the possibility that the same result might have been reached solely on the basis of the rights formerly accorded Thompson under the territorial statute was hinted at, but was not explicitly considered.
Whether or not the Magna Carta’s reference to a judgment by one's peers was a reference to a “jury” — a fact that historians now dispute, see, e. g., 1 F. Pollock & F. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, p. 173 n. 3 (2d ed. 1909); Frankfurter & Corcoran, Petty Federal Offenses and the Constitutional Guaranty of Trial by Jury, 39 Harv. L. Rev. 917, 922 n. 14 (1926) (criticizing Thompson v. Utah’s reliance on the document “long after scholars had exposed this ancient error”)— it seems clear that the Great Charter is not authority for fixing the number of the jury at 12. See W. McKechnie, Magna Carta 134-138, 375-382 (1958); Scott, Trial by Jury and the Reform of Civil Procedure, 31 Harv. L. Rev. 669, 672 (1918).
As the text indicates, the question is not whether the 12-man jury is traced to 1215 or to 1789, but whether that particular feature must be accepted as a sine qua non of the jury trial guaranteed by the Constitution. See Heller, supra, n. 25, at 64.
The Thompson opinion also reasoned that if a jury can be reduced from 12 to eight, then there was nothing to prevent its similarly being reduced to four or two or even zero, thus dispensing with the jury altogether. See 170 U. S., at 353. That bit of “logic,” resurrected today in Mr. Justice Harlan’s concurring opinion, post, at 126, suffers somewhat as soon as one recognizes that he can get off the “slippery slope” before he reaches the bottom. We have no occasion in this case to determine what minimum number can still constitute a “jury,” but we do not doubt that six is above that minimum.
A ruling that the Sixth Amendment refers to a common-law jury was essential to the holding in Rassmussen v. United States, 197 U. S. 516 (1905), where the Court held invalid a conviction by a six-man jury in Alaska. The ruling was accepted at the Government’s concession without discussion or citation; the major focus of the case was on the question whether the Sixth Amendment was applicable to the territory in question at all. See 197 U. S., at 519.
Similarly, cases interpreting the jury trial provisions of the Seventh Amendment generally leap from the fact that the jury possessed a certain feature at common law to the conclusion that that feature must have been preserved by the Amendment’s simple reference to trial by “jury.” E. g., Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1, 13-14 (1899); American Publishing Co. v. Fisher, 166 U. S. 464, 468 (1897). While much of our discussion in this case may be thought to bear equally on the interpretation of the Seventh Amendment’s jury trial provisions, we emphasize that the question is not before us; we do not decide whether, for example, additional references to the “common law" that occur in the Seventh Amendment might support a different interpretation. See infra, at 97 and n. 44.
The Patton opinion furnishes an interesting illustration of the Court’s willingness to re-examine earlier assertions about the nature of “jury trial” in almost every respect except the 12-man-jury requirement. Patton reaffirmed the 12-man requirement with a simple citation to Thompson v. Utah, while at the same time discarding as “dictum” the equally dogmatic assertion in Thompson that the requirement could not be waived. See 281 U. S., at 293.
U. S. Const., Art. III, § 2, cl. 3.
Frankfurter & Corcoran, supra, n. 27, at 969.
The only attention given the jury trial provisions involved such questions as whether the right should also be extended to civil cases, see Henderson, The Background of the Seventh Amendment, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 289, 292-294 (1966), whether the wording should embrace the “trial of all crimes” or the “trial of all criminal offenses,” see Frankfurter & Corcoran, swpra, n. 27, at 969, and how to provide for the trial of crimes not committed in any State, id., at 969 n. 244. See 2 M. Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention 144, 173, 187, 433, 438, 676, 587-588, 601, 628 (1911). See also 4 id., at 121 (1937) (indexing all references to Art. Ill, §2, cl. 3 in Farrand’s records).
See Heller, supra, n. 25, at 31-33, 93; Warren, New Light on the History of the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789, 37 Harv. L. Rev. 49, 105 (1923). Technically, “vicinage” means neighborhood, and “vicin-age of the jury” meant jury of the neighborhood or, in medieval England, jury of the county. See 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *350-351. While Article III provided for venue, it did not impose the explicit juror-residence requirement associated with the concept of “vicinage.” See Maryland v. Brown, 295 F. Supp. 63, 80 (1969). In the Virginia Convention, Madison conceded that the omission was deliberate and defended it as follows:
“It was objected yesterday, that there was no provision for a jury from the vicinage. If it could have been done with safety, it would not have been opposed. It might so happen that a trial would be impracticable in the county. Suppose a rebellion in a whole district, would it not be impossible to get a jury? The trial by jury is held as sacred in England as in America. There are deviations of it in England: yet greater deviations have happened here since we established our independence, than have taken place there for a long time, though it be left to the legislative discretion. It is a misfortune in any case that this trial should be departed from, yet in some cases it is necessary. It must be therefore left to the discretion of the legislature to modify it according to circumstances. This is a complete and satisfactory answer.” 3 M. Far-rand, Records of the Federal Convention 332 (1911).
1 Annals of Cong. 435 (1789).
The Senate Journal indicates that every clause in the House version of the proposed Amendment was deleted except the clause relating to grand jury indictment. Senate Journal, Sept. 4, 1789, 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 71. A subsequent motion to restore the words providing for trial “by an impartial jury of the vicinage, with the requisite of unanimity for conviction, the right of challenge, and other accustomed requisites” failed of adoption. Senate Journal, Sept. 9, 1789, 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 77.
The principal source of information on the proceedings of the Senate in the First Congress is the Journal of Senator Maclay of Pennsylvania, who unfortunately was ill during the Senate debate on the amendments. See Journal of William Maclay 144-151 (1927); Heller, supra, n. 25, at 31-32.
Madison writes:
“The Senate have sent back the plan of amendments with some alterations, which strike, in my opinion, at the most salutary articles. In many of the States, juries, even in criminal cases, are taken from the State at large; in others, from districts of considerable extent; in very few from the County alone. Hence a dislike to the restraint with respect to vicinage, which has produced a negative on that clause. . . . Several others have had a similar fate.” Letter from James Madison to Edmund Pendleton, Sept. 14, 1789, in 1 Letters and Other Writings of James Madison 491 (1865).
Letter from James Madison to Edmund Pendleton, Sept. 23, 1789, in id., at 492-493. See generally Heller, supra, n. 25, at 28-34; Warren, supra, n. 35, at 118-132.
See Heller, supra, n. 25, at 93.
Proffatt, supra, n. 23, at 119; 1 G. Curtis, History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States 23 (1863).
The Act provided in. § 29:
“That in cases punishable with death, the trial shall be had in the county where the offence was committed, or where that cannot be done without great inconvenience, twelve petit jurors at least shall be summoned from thence.” Act of Sept. 24, 1789, § 29, 1 Stat. 88.
Similarly, the First Continental Congress resolved in October 1774:
“That the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage, according to the course of that law.” 1 Journals of the Continental Congress 69 (C. Ford ed. 1904) (emphasis added). And the Northwest Ordi-nanee of 1787 declared that the inhabitants of that Territory should ‘‘always be entitled to the benefits of the writs of habeas corpus, and of the trial by jury . . . and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law.” Ordinance of 1787, Art. II, 1 U. S. C. xxxviii (emphasis added). See Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1, 5-8 (1899) (concluding from these sources that the explicit reference to the “common law” in the Seventh Amendment, referred to the rules of the common law of England, not the rules as modified by local or state practice).
One scholar, however, in investigating the reception of the English common law by the early American colonies, notes that the process:
“was not so simple as the legal theory would lead us to assume. While their general legal conceptions were conditioned by, and their terminology derived from, the common law, the early colonists were far from applying it as a technical system,, they often ignored it or denied its subsidiary force, and they consciously departed from many of its most essential principles.” Reinsch, The English Common Law in the Early American Colonies, in 1 Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History 367, 415 (1907).
With respect to the jury trial in particular, while most of the colonies adopted the institution in its English form at an early date, more than one appears to have accepted the institution at various stages only with “various modifications.” See id., at 412. Thus Connecticut permitted majority decision in case of continued failure to agree, id., at 386, Virginia expressed regret at being unable to retain the “vicinage” requirement of the English jury, id., at 405, Pennsylvania permitted majority verdicts and employed juries of six or seven, id., at 398, and the Carolinas discontinued the unanimity requirement, 5 F. Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions 2781 (1909) (Art. 69, “Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina”). See also Heller, supra, n. 25, at 13-21.
The States that had adopted Constitutions by the time of the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 appear for the most part to have either explicitly provided that the jury would consist of 12, see Va. Const, of 1776, § 8, in 7 F. Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions 3813 (1909), or to have subsequently interpreted their jury trial provisions to include that requirement. In at least one instance involving conviction by eight jurors, a subsequent South Carolina decision interpreting the provision for trial by “jury,” refused to declare the 12-man requirement an essential feature of that institution, immune from change by the legislature. See State v. Starling, 15 Rich. 120, 134 (S. C. Ct. of Errors 1867). The conviction was affirmed without deciding the question, since the State had by that time adopted a Constitution specifically empowering the legislature to determine the number of jurors in certain inferior courts. South Carolina remains today one of apparently five States, including Florida, that provide for juries of less than 12 in felony eases where imprisonment for more than one year may be imposed. See La. Const., Art. 7, §41; La. Crim. Proc. Code Ann., Art. 779 (Supp. 1969); S. C. Const., Art. 1, §§ 18, 25; Art. 5, §22; S. C. Code Ann. §§ 15-618, 15-612 (1962); Tex. Const., Art. 1, §§10, 15; Art. 5, § 17; Tex. Code Crim. Proc., Arts. 4.07, 37.02 (1966); Tex. Pen. Code, Art. 1148 (1961); Utah Const., Art. 1, §§ 10, 12; Utah Code Ann. §78-46-5 (1953).
In addition, it appears that at least nine States presently provide for less than 12-man juries in trials of certain offenses carrying maximum penalties of one year’s imprisonment. See Brief for Appellee A13-A15, Baldwin v. New York, ante, p. 66 (collecting statutory provisions). See also 17 Mass. L. Q. No. 4, p. 12 (1932) (noting States that have interpreted the “right of trial by jury” to permit trial by less than 12 in certain cases). For a “poll of state practice,” see Mr. Justice Harlan’s concurring opinion, post, at 122, 136-137, and App.
intimate no view whether or not the requirement of unanimity is an indispensable element of the Sixth Amendment jury trial. While much of the above historical discussion applies as well to the unanimity as to the 12-man requirement, the former, unlike the latter, may well serve an important role in the jury function, for example, as a device for insuring that the Government bear the heavier burden of proof. See Hibdon v. United States, 204 F. 2d 834, 838 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1953); Tamm, supra, n. 25, at 139. But cf. Comment, Waiver of Jury Unanimity — Some Doubts About Reasonable Doubt, 21 U. Chi. L. Rev. 438, 441-443 (1954). See generally American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Trial by Jury 42-45 (Approved Draft 1968).
It is true, of course, that the “hung jury” might be thought to result in a minimal advantage for the defendant, who remains uncon-victed and who enjoys the prospect that the prosecution will eventually be dropped if subsequent juries also “hang.” Thus a 100-man jury would undoubtedly be more favorable for defendants than a 12-man jury. But when the comparison is between 12 and six, the odds of continually “hanging” the jury seem slight, and the numerical difference in the number needed to convict seems unlikely to inure perceptibly to the advantage of either side.
See Wiehl, supra, n. 25, at 40-41; Tamm, supra, n. 25, at 134-136; Cronin, Six-Member Juries in District Courts, 2 Boston B. J. No. 4, p. 27 (1958); Six-Member Juries Tried in Massachusetts District Court, 42 J. Am. Jud. Soc. 136 (1958). See also New Jersey Experiments with Six-Man Jury, 9 Bull, of the Section of Jud. Admin, of the ABA (May 1966); Phillips, A Jury of Six in All Cases, 30 Conn. B. J. 354 (1956).
Studies of the operative factors contributing to small group deliberation and decisionmaking suggest that jurors in the minority on the first ballot are likely to be influenced by the proportional size of the majority aligned against them. See H. Kalven & H. Zeisel, The American Jury 462-463, 488-489 (1966); C. Hawkins, Interaction and Coalition Realignments in Consensus-Seeking Groups: A Study of Experimental Jury Deliberations 13, 146, 156, Aug. 17, 1960 (unpublished thesis on file at Library of Congress); cf. Asch, Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgments, in Readings in Social Psychology 2 (G. Swanson, T. Newcomb & E. Hartley et al., eds., 1952). See generally Note, On Instructing Deadlocked Juries, 78 Yale L. J. 100, 108 and n. 30 (and authorities cited), 110-111 (1968). Thus if a defendant needs initially to persuade four jurors that the State has not met its burden of proof in order to escape ultimate conviction by a 12-man jury, he arguably escapes by initially persuading half that number in a six-man jury; random reduction, within limits, of the absolute number of the jury would not affect the outcome. See also C. Joiner, Civil Justice and the Jury 31, 83 (1962) (concluding that the deliberative process should be the same in either the six- or 12-man jury).
See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 23 (b) (“[j]uries shall be of 12”). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether administrative action occurred in the context of the case prior to the onset of litigation. The activity may involve an administrative official as well as that of an agency. To determine whether administration action occurred in the context of the case, consider the material which appears in the summary of the case preceding the Court's opinion and, if necessary, those portions of the prevailing opinion headed by a I or II. Action by an agency official is considered to be administrative action except when such an official acts to enforce criminal law. If an agency or agency official "denies" a "request" that action be taken, such denials are considered agency action. Exclude: a "challenge" to an unapplied agency rule, regulation, etc.; a request for an injunction or a declaratory judgment against agency action which, though anticipated, has not yet occurred; a mere request for an agency to take action when there is no evidence that the agency did so; agency or official action to enforce criminal law; the hiring and firing of political appointees or the procedures whereby public officials are appointed to office; attorney general preclearance actions pertaining to voting; filing fees or nominating petitions required for access to the ballot; actions of courts martial; land condemnation suits and quiet title actions instituted in a court; and federally funded private nonprofit organizations. | Did administrative action occur in the context of the case? | [
"No",
"Yes"
] | [
0
] | sc_adminaction_is |
WOOD v. MILYARD, WARDEN, et al.
No. 10-9995.
Argued February 27, 2012
Decided April 24, 2012
Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Scalia, J., joined, post, p. 475.
Kathleen A. Lord argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.
Daniel D. Domenico, Solicitor General of Colorado, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were John W. Suthers, Attorney General, John D. Seidel and John J. Fuerst III, Senior Assistant Attorneys General, William S. Consovoy, and Thomas fi. McCarthy.
Melissa Arbus Sherry argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae supporting affirmance. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Verrilli, Assistant Attorney General Breuer, and Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben.
A brief of amici curiae urging affirmance was filed for the State of Texas et al. by Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas, Daniel T. Hodge, First Assistant Attorney General, Don Clemmer, Deputy Attorney General, Jonathan F. Mitchell, Solicitor General, and James P. Sullivan, Assistant Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Luther Strange of Alabama, Tom Horne of Arizona, Pamela Jo Bondi of Florida, Leonardo M. Rapadas of Guam, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Derek Schmidt of Kansas, Steve Bullock of Montana, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Jeffrey S. Chiesa of New Jersey, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Marty J. Jackley of South Dakota, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, Robert M. McKenna of Washington, and Gregory A. Phillips of Wyoming.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the authority of a federal court to raise, on its own motion, a statute of limitations defense to a ha-beas corpus petition. After state prisoner Patrick Wood filed a federal habeas corpus petition, the State twice informed the U. S. District Court that it “[would] not challenge, but [is] not conceding, the timeliness of Wood’s habeas petition.” App. 70a; see id., at 87a. Thereafter, the District Court rejected Wood’s claims on the merits. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit directed the parties to brief the question whether Wood’s federal petition was timely. Post-briefing, the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of Wood’s petition, but solely on the ground that it was untimely.
Our precedent establishes that a court may consider a statute of limitations or other threshold bar the State failed to raise in answering a habeas petition. Granberry v. Greer, 481 U. S. 129, 134 (1987) (exhaustion defense); Day v. McDonough, 547 U. S. 198, 202 (2006) (statute of limitations defense). Does court discretion to take up timeliness hold when a State is aware of a limitations defense, and intelligently chooses not to rely on it in the court of first instance? The answer Day instructs is “no”: A court is not at liberty, we have cautioned, to bypass, override, or excuse a State’s deliberate waiver of a limitations defense. Id., at 202, 210, n. 11. The Tenth Circuit, we accordingly hold, abused its discretion by resurrecting the limitations issue instead of reviewing the District Court’s disposition on the merits of Wood’s claims.
I
In the course of a 1986 robbery at a pizza shop in a Colorado town, the shop’s assistant manager was shot and killed. Petitioner Patrick Wood was identified as the perpetrator. At a bench trial in January 1987, Wood was convicted of murder, robbery, and menacing, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed Wood’s convictions and sentence on direct appeal in May 1989, and the Colorado Supreme Court denied Wood’s petition for cer-tiorari five months later. Wood did not ask this Court to review his conviction in the 90 days he had to do so.
Wood then pursued posteonviction relief, asserting constitutional infirmities in his trial, conviction, and sentence. Prior to the federal petition at issue here, which was filed in 2008, Wood, proceeding pro se, twice sought relief in state court. First, in 1995, he filed a motion to vacate his conviction and sentence pursuant to Colorado Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(c) (1984). He also asked the Colorado trial court to appoint counsel to aid him in pursuit of the motion. When some months passed with no responsive action, Wood filed a request for a ruling on his motion and accompanying request for counsel. The state court then granted Wood’s plea for the appointment, of counsel, but the record is completely blank on any further action regarding the 1995 motion. Second, Wood filed a new pro se motion for post-conviction relief in Colorado court in 2004. On the first page of his second motion, he indicated that “[n]o other postconviction proceedings [had been] filed.” Record in No. 08-cv-00247 (D Colo.), Doc. 15-5 (Exh. E), p. 1. The state court denied Wood’s motion four days after receiving it.
Wood filed a federal habeas petition in 2008, which the District Court initially dismissed as untimely. App. 41a-46a. On reconsideration, the District Court vacated the dismissal and instructed the State to file a preanswer response “limited to addressing the affirmative defenses of timeliness . . . and/or exhaustion of state court remedies.” Id., at 64a-65a. On timeliness, the State represented in its preanswer response: “Respondents will not challenge, but are not conceding, the timeliness of Wood’s [federal] habeas petition.” Id., at 70a. Consistently, in its full answer to Wood’s federal petition, the State repeated: “Respondents are not challenging, but do not concede, the timeliness of the petition.” Id., at 87a.
Disposing of Wood’s petition, the District Court dismissed certain claims for failure to exhaust state remedies, and denied on the merits Wood’s two remaining claims — one alleging a double jeopardy violation and one challenging the validity of Wood’s waiver of his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. Id., at 96a-111a. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit ordered the parties to brief, along with the merits of Wood’s double jeopardy and Sixth Amendment claims, “the timeliness of Wood’s application for [federal habeas relief].” Id., at 129a. After briefing, the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of Wood’s petition without addressing the merits; instead, the Tenth Circuit held the petition time barred. 403 Fed. Appx. 335 (2010). In so ruling, the Court of Appeals concluded it had authority to raise timeliness on its own motion. Id., at 337, n. 2. It further ruled that the State had not taken that issue off the table by declining to interpose a statute of limitations defense in the District Court. Ibid.
We granted review, 564 U. S. 1066 (2011), to resolve two issues: first, whether a court of appeals has the authority to address the timeliness of a habeas petition on the court’s own initiative; second, assuming a court of appeals has such authority, whether the State’s representations to the District Court in this case nonetheless precluded the Tenth Circuit from considering the timeliness of Wood’s petition.
> — i ) — I
A
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 110 Stat. 1214, a state prisoner has one year to file a federal petition for habeas corpus relief, starting from “the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review.” 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(1)(A). For a prisoner whose judgment became final before AEDPA was enacted, the one-year limitations period runs from AEDPA’s effective date: April 24,1996. See Serrano v. Williams, 383 F. 3d 1181, 1183 (CA10 2004). “The one-year clock is stopped, however, during the time the petitioner’s ‘properly filed’ application for state postconviction relief ‘is pending.’ ” Day, 547 U. S., at 201 (quoting 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(2)).
The state judgment against Wood became final on direct review in early 1990. See supra, at 466. Wood’s time for filing a federal petition therefore began to run on the date of AEDPA’s enactment, April 24,1996, and expired on April 24, 1997, unless Wood had a “properly filed” application for state postconvietion relief “pending” in Colorado state court during that period. Wood maintains he had such an application pending on April 24, 1996: the Rule 35(c) motion he filed in 1995. That motion, Wood asserts, remained pending (thus continuing to suspend the one-year clock) until at least August 2004, when he filed his second motion for postconviction relief in state court. The 2004 motion, the State does not contest, was “properly filed.” Wood argues that this second motion further tolled the limitations period until February 5, 2007, exactly one year before he filed the federal petition at issue here. If Wood is correct that his 1995 motion remained “pending” in state court from April 1996 until August 2004, his federal petition would be timely.
In its preanswer response to Wood’s petition, the State set forth its comprehension of the statute of limitations issue. It noted that Wood’s “time for filing a [habeas] petition began to run on April 24, 1996, when the AEDPA became effective,” and that Wood “had until April 24,1997, plus any tolling periods, to timely file his habeas petition.” App. 69a-70a. The State next identified the crucial question: Did Wood’s 1995 state petition arrest the one-year statute of limitations period from 1996 until 2004? Id., at 70a. “[I]t is certainly arguable,” the State then asserted, “that the 1995 postconviction motion was abandoned before 1997 and thus did not toll the AEDPA statute of limitations at all.” Ibid. But rather than inviting a decision on the statute of limitations question, the State informed the District Court it would “not challenge” Wood’s petition on timeliness grounds; instead, the State simply defended against Wood’s double jeopardy and Sixth Amendment claims on the merits.
B
“Ordinarily in civil litigation, a statutory time limitation is forfeited if not raised in a defendant’s answer or in an amendment thereto.” Day, 547 U. S., at 202 (citing Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 8(c), 12(b), and 15(a)). See also Habeas Corpus Rule 5(b) (requiring the State to plead a statute of limitations defense in its answer). An affirmative defense, once forfeited, is “exclu[ded] from the case,” 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1278, pp. 644-645 (3d ed. 2004), and, as a rule, cannot be asserted on appeal. See Day, 547 U. S., at 217 (Scalia, J., dissenting); Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 764 (1975); McCoy v. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology, 950 F. 2d 13, 22 (CA1 1991) (“It is hornbook law that theories not raised squarely in the district court cannot be surfaced for the first time on appeal.”).
In Granberry v. Greer, we recognized a modest exception to the rule that a federal court will not consider a forfeited affirmative defense. 481 U. S., at 134. The District Court in Granberry denied a-federal habeas petition on the merits. Id., at 180. On appeal, the State argued for the first time that the petition should be dismissed because the petitioner had failed to exhaust relief available in state court. Ibid. See Habeas Corpus Rule 5(b) (listing “failure to exhaust state remedies” as a threshold bar to federal habeas relief). Despite the State’s failure to raise the nonexhaustion argument in the District Court, the Seventh Circuit accepted the argument and ruled for the State on that ground. We granted certiorari to decide whether a court of appeals has discretion to address a nonexhaustion defense that the State failed to raise in the district court. Id., at 130.
Although “expressing] our reluctance to adopt rules that allow a party to withhold raising a defense until after the ‘main event’ ... is over,” id., at 132, we nonetheless concluded that the bar to court of appeals’ consideration of a forfeited habeas defense is not absolute, id., at 133. The exhaustion doctrine, we noted, is founded on concerns broader than those of the parties; in particular, the doctrine fosters respectful, harmonious relations between the state and federal judiciaries. Id., at 133-135. With that comity interest in mind, we held that federal appellate courts have discretion, in “exceptional cases,” to consider a nonexhaustion argument “inadverten[tly]” overlooked by the State in the District Court. Id., at 132, 134.
In Day, we affirmed a federal district court’s authority to consider a forfeited habeas defense when extraordinary circumstances so warrant. 547 U. S., at 201. There, the State miscalculated a timespan, specifically, the number of days running between the finality of Day’s state-court conviction and the filing of his federal habeas petition. Id., at 203. As a result, the State erroneously informed the District Court that Day’s petition was timely. Ibid. A Magistrate Judge caught the State’s computation error and recommended that the petition be dismissed as untimely, notwithstanding the State’s timeliness concession. Id., at 204. The District Court adopted the recommendation, and the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s sua sponte dismissal of the petition as untimely. Ibid.
Concluding that it would make “scant sense” to treat AEDPA’s statute of limitations differently from other threshold constraints on federal habeas petitioners, we held “that district courts are permitted, but not obliged, to consider, sua sponte, the timeliness of a state prisoner’s habeas petition.” Id., at 209; ibid, (noting that Habeas Corpus Rule 5(b) places “ ‘a statute of limitations’ defense on a par with ‘failure to exhaust state remedies, a procedural bar, [and] non-retroactivity’”). Affording federal courts leeway to consider a forfeited timeliness defense was appropriate, we again reasoned, because AEDPA’s statute of limitations, like the exhaustion doctrine, “implicates] values beyond the concerns of the parties.” Day, 547 U. S., at 205 (quoting Acosta v. Artuz, 221 F. 3d 117, 123 (CA2 2000)); 547 U. S., at 205-206 (“The AEDPA statute of limitation promotes judicial efficiency and conservation of judicial resources, safeguards the accuracy of state court judgments by requiring resolution of constitutional questions while the record is fresh, and lends finality to state court judgments within a reasonable time.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
We clarified, however, that a federal court does not have carte blanche to depart from the principle of party presentation basic to our adversary system. See Greenlaw v. United States, 554 U. S. 237, 243-244 (2008). Only where the State does not “strategically withh[o]ld the [limitations] defense or cho[o]se to relinquish it,” and where the petitioner is accorded a fair opportunity to present his position, may a district court consider the defense on its own initiative and “ ‘determine whether the interests of justice would be better served’ by addressing the merits or by dismissing the petition as time barred.” Day, 547 U. S., at 210-211 (quoting Granberry, 481 U. S., at 136; internal quotation marks omitted). It would be “an abuse of discretion,” we observed, for a court “to override a State’s deliberate waiver of a limitations defense.” 547 U. S., at 202. In Day’s case itself, we emphasized, the State’s concession of timeliness resulted from “inadvertent error,” id., at 211, not from any deliberate decision to proceed straightaway to the merits.
Consistent with Granberry and Day, we decline to adopt an absolute rule barring a court of appeals from raising, on its own motion, a forfeited timeliness defense. The institutional interests served by AEDPA’s statute of limitations are also present when a habeas case moves to the court of appeals, a point Granberry recognized with respect to a nonex-haustion defense. We accordingly hold, in response to the first question presented, see supra, at 468, that courts of appeals, like district courts, have the authority — though not the obligation — to raise a forfeited timeliness defense on their own initiative.
C
We turn now to the second, case-specific, inquiry. See ibid. Although a court of appeals has discretion to address, sua sponte, the timeliness of a habeas petition, appellate courts should reserve that authority for use in exceptional cases. For good reason, appellate courts ordinarily abstain from entertaining issues that have not been raised and preserved in the court of first instance. See supra, at 470. That restraint is all the more appropriate when the appellate court itself spots an issue the parties did not air below, and therefore would not have anticipated in developing their arguments on appeal.
Due regard for the trial court’s processes and time investment is also a consideration appellate courts should not overlook. It typically takes a district court more time to decide a habeas case on the merits than it does to resolve a petition on threshold procedural grounds. See Dept, of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, R. Hanson & H. Daley, Federal Habeas Corpus Review: Challenging State Court Criminal Convictions 23 (NCJ-155504, 1995) (district courts spent an average of 477 days to decide a habeas petition on the merits, and 268 days to resolve a petition on procedural grounds). When a court of appeals raises a procedural impediment to disposition on the merits, and disposes of the case on that ground, the district court’s labor is discounted and the appellate court acts not as a court of review but as one of first view.
In light of the foregoing discussion of the relevant considerations, we hold that the Tenth Circuit abused its discretion when it dismissed Wood’s petition as untimely. In the District Court, the State was well aware of the statute of limitations defense available to it and of the arguments that could be made in support of the defense. See supra, at 467. Yet the State twice informed the District Court that it “will not challenge, but [is] not conceding” the timeliness of Wood’s petition. Ibid. Essentially, the District Court asked the State: Will you oppose the petition on statute of limitations grounds? The State answered: Such a challenge would be supportable, but we won’t make the challenge here.
“[W]aiver is the ‘intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.’” Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443, 458, n. 13 (2004) (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U. S. 725, 733 (1993)). The State’s conduct in this case fits that description. Its decision not to contest the timeliness of Wood’s petition did not stem from an “inadvertent error,” as did the State’s concession in Day. See 547 U. S., at 211. Rather, the State, after expressing its clear and accurate understanding of the timeliness issue, see supra, at 469-470, deliberately steered the District Court away from the question and toward the merits of Wood’s petition. In short, the State knew it had an “arguable” statute of limitations defense, see Ibid., yet it chose, in no uncertain terms, to refrain from interposing a timeliness “challenge” to Wood’s petition. The District Court therefore reached and decided the merits of the petition. The Tenth Circuit should have done so as well.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Colorado Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(c) (1984) provides, in relevant part: “[E]very person convicted of a crime is entitled as a matter of right to make application for postconviction review upon the groun[d]... [t]hat the conviction was obtained or sentence imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or the constitution or laws of this state.”
The Tenth Circuit’s conclusion that it had authority to raise an AEDPA statute of limitations defense sua sponte conflicts with the view of the Eighth Circuit. Compare 403 Fed. Appx. 335, 337, n. 2 (CA10 2010) (ease below), with Sasser v. Norris, 553 F. 3d 1121, 1128 (CA8 2009) (“The discretion to consider the statute of limitations defense sua sponte does not extend to the appellate level.”).
The one-year clock may also be stopped- — or “tolled” — for equitable reasons, notably when an “extraordinary circumstance” prevents a prisoner from filing his federal petition on time. See Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631 (2010). Wood does not contend that the equitable tolling doctrine applies to his case. App. 144a, n. 5.
We note here the distinction between defenses that are “waived” and those that are “forfeited.” A waived claim or defense is one that a party has knowingly and intelligently relinquished; a forfeited plea is one that a party has merely failed to preserve. Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443, 458, n. 13 (2004); United States v. Olano, 507 U. S. 725, 733 (1993). That distinction is key to our decision in Wood’s ease.
Although our decision in Granberry v. Greer, 481 U. S. 129 (1987), did not expressly distinguish between forfeited and waived defenses, we made clear in Day v. McDonough, 547 U. S. 198 (2006), that a federal court has the authority to resurrect only forfeited defenses. See infra, at 472-473. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the bases on which the Supreme Court rested its decision with regard to the legal provision that the Court considered in the case. Consider "judicial review (national level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of the federal government, including an interstate compact. Consider "judicial review (state level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of a state or local government. Consider "statutory construction" for cases where the majority interpret a federal statute, treaty, or court rule; if the Court interprets a federal statute governing the powers or jurisdiction of a federal court; if the Court construes a state law as incompatible with a federal law; or if an administrative official interprets a federal statute. Do not consider "statutory construction" where an administrative agency or official acts "pursuant to" a statute, unless the Court interprets the statute to determine if administrative action is proper. Consider "interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order" if the majority treats federal administrative action in arriving at its decision.Consider "diversity jurisdiction" if the majority said in approximately so many words that under its diversity jurisdiction it is interpreting state law. Consider "federal common law" if the majority indicate that it used a judge-made "doctrine" or "rule; if the Court without more merely specifies the disposition the Court has made of the case and cites one or more of its own previously decided cases unless the citation is qualified by the word "see."; if the case concerns admiralty or maritime law, or some other aspect of the law of nations other than a treaty; if the case concerns the retroactive application of a constitutional provision or a previous decision of the Court; if the case concerns an exclusionary rule, the harmless error rule (though not the statute), the abstention doctrine, comity, res judicata, or collateral estoppel; or if the case concerns a "rule" or "doctrine" that is not specified as related to or connected with a constitutional or statutory provision. Consider "Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction" otherwise (i.e., the residual code); for issues pertaining to non-statutorily based Judicial Power topics; for cases arising under the Court's original jurisdiction; in cases in which the Court denied or dismissed the petition for review or where the decision of a lower court is affirmed by a tie vote; or in workers' compensation litigation involving statutory interpretation and, in addition, a discussion of jury determination and/or the sufficiency of the evidence. | What is the basis of the Supreme Court's decision? | [
"judicial review (national level)",
"judicial review (state level)",
"Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction",
"statutory construction",
"interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order",
"diversity jurisdiction",
"federal common law"
] | [
3
] | sc_authoritydecision |
FRAZIER v. CUPP, WARDEN.
No. 643.
Argued February 26, 1969.
Decided April 22, 1969.
Howard M. Feuerstein argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief was R. A. Nahstoll.
Arlen Specter argued the cause for respondent. On the brief were Robert Y. Thornton, Attorney General of Oregon, and David H. Blunt, Assistant Attorney General.
Mr. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was convicted in an Oregon state court of second-degree murder in connection with the September 22, 1964, slaying of one Russell Anton Marleau. After the Supreme Court of Oregon had affirmed his conviction, 245 Ore. 4, 418 P. 2d 841 (1966), petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. The District Court granted the writ, but the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, 388 F. 2d 777 (1968). We granted certiorari to consider three contentions of error raised by petitioner. 393 U. S. 821 (1968). Although petitioner’s case has been ably briefed and argued by appointed counsel, we find none of these allegations sufficient to warrant reversal.
I.
Petitioner’s first argument centers on certain allegedly prejudicial remarks made during the prosecutor’s opening statement. Petitioner had been indicted jointly with his cousin, Jerry Lee Rawls, who pleaded guilty to the same offense. Prior to petitioner’s trial, petitioner’s defense counsel told the prosecutor that Rawls would invoke his privilege against self-incrimination if he were called to the stand; defense counsel warned the prosecutor not to rely in his opening statement upon Rawls’ expected testimony. The prosecutor replied that he would act on the basis of “all of the information I have concerning [Rawls’] testimony.” Before trial, he consulted with a police officer who had spoken to Rawls and with Rawls’ probation officer; each indicated his belief that Rawls would testify. Similar information came, through a sheriff’s report, from some of Rawls’ close relatives. Because of these reports, the prosecutor concluded that Rawls would testify if asked to do so. The court below felt that the prosecutor also relied on the fact that Rawls had pleaded guilty and was awaiting sentence. This would give him reason, the court felt, to cooperate with the prosecutor.
In any case, after the trial began the prosecutor included in his opening statement a summary of the testimony he expected to receive from Rawls. The summary was not emphasized in any particular way; it took only a few minutes to recite and was sandwiched between a summary of petitioner’s own confession and a description of the circumstantial evidence the State would introduce.
At one point the prosecutor referred to a paper he was holding in his hands to refresh his memory about something Rawls had said. Although the State admitted in argument here that the jury might fairly have believed that the prosecutor was referring to Rawls’ statement, he did not explicitly tell the jury that this paper was Rawls’ confession, nor did he purport to read directly from it. A motion for a mistrial was made at the close of the opening statement, but it was denied. Later, the prosecutor called Rawls to the stand. Rawls informed the court that he intended to assert his privilege against self-incrimination in regard to every question concerning his activities on the morning of September 22,1964. The matter was not further pursued, and Rawls was dismissed from the stand. His appearance could not have lasted more than two or three minutes. The motion for mistrial was renewed and once again denied.
Petitioner argues that this series of events placed the substance of Rawls’ statement before the jury in a way that “may well have been the equivalent in the jury’s mind of testimony,” Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 415, 419 (1965), and that, as in Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, 128 (1968), the statement “added substantial, perhaps even critical, weight to the Government’s case in a form not subject to cross-examination . . . .” In this way, petitioner claims he was denied his constitutional right of confrontation, guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. See Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965). Although the judge did caution the jurors that they “must not regard any statement made by counsel in your presence during the proceedings concerning the facts of this case as evidence,” petitioner contends that Bruton v. United States, supra, disposes of the contention that limiting instructions of this sort can be relied upon to cure the error which occurred. Although the question thus posed is not an easy one, we cannot agree with petitioner’s conclusion.
First of all, it is clear that this case is quite different from either Douglas or Bruton. In Douglas, the prosecutor called the defendant’s coconspirator to the stand and read his alleged confession to him; the coconspirator was required to assert his privilege against self-incrimination repeatedly as the prosecutor asked him to confirm or deny each statement. The Court found that this procedure placed powerfully incriminating evidence before the jury in a manner which effectively denied the right of cross-examination. Here, Rawls was on the stand for a very short time and only a paraphrase of the statement was placed before the jury. This was done not during the trial, while the person making the statement was on the stand, but in an opening statement. In addition, the jury was told that the opening statement should not be considered as evidence. Certainly the impact of the procedure used here was much less damaging than was the case in Douglas. And unlike the situation in Bruton, the jury was not being asked to perform the mental gymnastics of considering an incriminating statement against only one of two defendants in a joint trial. Moreover, unlike the situation in either Douglas or Bruton, Rawls’ statement was not a vitally important part of the prosecution’s case.
We believe that in these circumstances the limiting instructions given were sufficient to protect petitioner’s constitutional rights. As the Court said in Bruton, 391 U. S., at 135, “Not every admission of inadmissible hearsay or other evidence can be considered to be reversible error unavoidable through limiting instructions; instances occur in almost every trial where inadmissible evidence creeps in, usually inadvertently.” See Hopt v. Utah, 120 U. S. 430, 438 (1887). It may be that some remarks included in an opening or closing statement could be so prejudicial that a finding of error, or even constitutional error, would be unavoidable. But here we have no more than an objective summary of evidence which the prosecutor reasonably expected to produce. Many things might happen during the course of the trial which would prevent the presentation of all the evidence described in advance. Certainly not every variance between the advance description and the actual presentation constitutes reversible error, when a proper limiting instruction has been given. Even if it is unreasonable to assume that a jury can disregard a coconspirator’s statement when introduced against one of two joint defendants, it does not seem at all remarkable to assume that the jury will ordinarily be able to limit its consideration to the evidence introduced during the trial. At least where the anticipated, and unproduced, evidence is not touted to the jury as a crucial part of the prosecution’s case, “it is hard for us to imagine that the minds of the jurors would be so influenced by such incidental statements during this long trial that they would not appraise the evidence objectively and dispassionately.” United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 239 (1940).
The Court of Appeals seemed to feel that this aspect of the case turned on whether or not the prosecutor acted “in a good faith expectation that Rawls would testify.” 388 F. 2d, at 780-781. While we do not believe that the prosecutor’s good faith, or lack of it, is controlling in determining whether a defendant has been deprived of the right of confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, we agree with the Court of Appeals’ factual determination in this case. The evidence presented in the record is sufficient to support the Oregon Supreme Court’s conclusion that “the state could reasonably expect [Rawls] to testify in line with his previous statements.” 245 Ore., at 9, 418 P. 2d, at 843, Accordingly, there is no need to decide whether the type of prosecutorial misconduct alleged to have occurred would have been sufficient to constitute reversible constitutional error. Cf. Miller v. Pate, 386 U. S. 1 (1967). Therefore, because we find neither prosecutorial misconduct nor a deprivation of the right of confrontation, we agree with the Court of Appeals that nothing which occurred during the prosecution’s opening statement would warrant federal habeas relief.
II.
Petitioner’s second argument concerns the admission into evidence of his own confession. The circumstances under which the confession was obtained can be summarized briefly. Petitioner was arrested about 4:15 p. m. on September 24, 1964. He was taken to headquarters where questioning began at about 5 p. m. The interrogation, which was tape-recorded, ended slightly more than an hour later, and by 6:45 p. m. petitioner had signed a written version of his confession.
After the questioning had begun and after a few routine facts were ascertained, petitioner was questioned briefly about the location of his Marine uniform. He was next asked where he was on the night in question. Although he admitted that he was with his cousin Rawls, he denied being with any third person. Then petitioner was given a somewhat abbreviated description of his constitutional rights. He was told that he could have an attorney if he wanted one and that anything he said could be used against him at trial. Questioning thereafter became somewhat more vigorous, but petitioner continued to deny being with anyone but Rawls. At this point, the officer questioning petitioner told him, falsely, that Rawls had been brought in and that he had confessed. Petitioner still was reluctant to talk, but after the officer sympathetically suggested that the victim had started a fight by making homosexual advances, petitioner began to spill out his story. Shortly after he began he again showed signs of reluctance and said, “I think I had better get a lawyer before I talk any more. I am going to get into trouble more than I am in now.” The officer replied simply, “You can’t be in any more trouble than you are in now,” and the questioning session proceeded. A full confession was obtained and, after further warnings, a written version was signed.
Since petitioner was tried after this Court’s decision in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478 (1964), but before the decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), only the rule of the former case is directly applicable. Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719 (1966). Petitioner argues that his statement about getting a lawyer was sufficient to bring Escobedo into play and that the police should immediately have stopped the questioning and obtained counsel for him. We might agree were Miranda applicable to this case, for in Miranda this Court held that “[i]f . . . [a suspect] indicates in any manner and at any stage of the process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking there can be no questioning.” 384 U. S., at 444-445. But Miranda does not apply to this case. This Court in Johnson v. New Jersey pointedly rejected the contention that the specific commands of Miranda should apply to all post-Escobedo cases. The Court recognized “[t]he disagreements among other courts concerning the implications of Escobedo,” Johnson v. New Jersey, supra, at 734, and concluded that the States, although free to apply Miranda to post-Escobedo cases, id., at 733, were not required to do so. The Oregon Supreme Court, in affirming petitioner’s conviction, concluded that the confession was properly introduced into evidence. Under Johnson, we would be free to disagree with this conclusion only if we felt compelled to do so by the specific holding of Escobedo.
We do not believe that Escobedo covers this case. Petitioner's statement about seeing an attorney was neither as clear nor as unambiguous as the request Escobedo made. The police in Escobedo were unmistakably informed of their suspect’s wishes; in fact Escobedo’s attorney was present and repeatedly requested permission to see his client. Here, on the other hand, it is possible that the questioning officer took petitioner’s remark not as a request that the interrogation cease but merely as a passing comment. Petitioner did not pursue the matter, but continued answering questions. In this context, we cannot find the denial of the right to counsel which was found so crucial in Escobedo.
Petitioner also presses the alternative argument that his confession was involuntary and that it should have been excluded for that reason. The trial judge, after an evidentiary hearing during which the tape recording was played, could not agree with this contention, and our reading of the record does not lead us to a contrary conclusion. Before petitioner made any incriminating statements, he received partial warnings of his constitutional rights; this is, of course, a circumstance quite relevant to a finding of voluntariness. Davis v. North Carolina, 384 U. S. 737, 740-741 (1966). The questioning was of short duration, and petitioner was a mature individual of normal intelligence. The fact that the police misrepresented the statements that Rawls had made is, while relevant, insufficient in our view to make this otherwise voluntary confession inadmissible. These cases must be decided by viewing the “totality of the circumstances,” see, e. g., Clewis v. Texas, 386 U. S. 707, 708 (1967), and on the facts of this case we can find no error in the admission of petitioner’s confession.
III.
Petitioner’s final contention can be dismissed rather quickly. He argues that the trial judge erred in permitting some clothing seized from petitioner’s duffel bag to be introduced into evidence. This duffel bag was being used jointly by petitioner and his cousin Rawls and it had been left in Rawls’ home. The police, while arresting Rawls, asked him if they could have his clothing. They were directed to the duffel bag and both Rawls and his mother consented to its search. During this search, the officers came upon petitioner’s clothing and it was seized as well. Since Rawls was a joint user of the bag, he clearly had authority to consent to its search. The officers therefore found evidence against petitioner while in the course of an otherwise lawful search. Under this Court’s past decisions, they were clearly permitted to seize it. Harris v. United States, 390 U. S. 234 (1968); Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294 (1967). Petitioner argues that Rawls only had actual permission to use one compartment of the bag and that he had no authority to consent to a search of the other compartments. We will not, however, engage in such metaphysical subtleties in judging the efficacy of Rawls’ consent. Petitioner, in allowing Rawls to use the bag and in leaving it in his house, must be taken to have assumed the risk that Rawls would allow someone else to look inside. We find no valid search and seizure claim in this case.
Because we find none of petitioner’s contentions meritorious, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Affirmed.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren and Mr. Justice Douglas concur in the result.
Mr. Justice Fortas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
A more specific limiting instruction might have been desirable, but none was requested. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue of the Court's decision. Determine the issue of the case on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. | What is the issue of the decision? | [
"involuntary confession",
"habeas corpus",
"plea bargaining: the constitutionality of and/or the circumstances of its exercise",
"retroactivity (of newly announced or newly enacted constitutional or statutory rights)",
"search and seizure (other than as pertains to vehicles or Crime Control Act)",
"search and seizure, vehicles",
"search and seizure, Crime Control Act",
"contempt of court or congress",
"self-incrimination (other than as pertains to Miranda or immunity from prosecution)",
"Miranda warnings",
"self-incrimination, immunity from prosecution",
"right to counsel (cf. indigents appointment of counsel or inadequate representation)",
"cruel and unusual punishment, death penalty (cf. extra legal jury influence, death penalty)",
"cruel and unusual punishment, non-death penalty (cf. liability, civil rights acts)",
"line-up",
"discovery and inspection (in the context of criminal litigation only, otherwise Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations)",
"double jeopardy",
"ex post facto (state)",
"extra-legal jury influences: miscellaneous",
"extra-legal jury influences: prejudicial statements or evidence",
"extra-legal jury influences: contact with jurors outside courtroom",
"extra-legal jury influences: jury instructions (not necessarily in criminal cases)",
"extra-legal jury influences: voir dire (not necessarily a criminal case)",
"extra-legal jury influences: prison garb or appearance",
"extra-legal jury influences: jurors and death penalty (cf. cruel and unusual punishment)",
"extra-legal jury influences: pretrial publicity",
"confrontation (right to confront accuser, call and cross-examine witnesses)",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: confession of error",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: conspiracy (cf. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure: conspiracy)",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: entrapment",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: exhaustion of remedies",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: fugitive from justice",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: presentation, admissibility, or sufficiency of evidence (not necessarily a criminal case)",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: stay of execution",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: timeliness",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: miscellaneous",
"Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: assault",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: bank robbery",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: conspiracy (cf. subconstitutional fair procedure: conspiracy)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: escape from custody",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: false statements (cf. statutory construction of criminal laws: perjury)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: financial (other than in fraud or internal revenue)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: firearms",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: fraud",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: gambling",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: Hobbs Act; i.e., 18 USC 1951",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: immigration (cf. immigration and naturalization)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: internal revenue (cf. Federal Taxation)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: Mann Act and related statutes",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: narcotics includes regulation and prohibition of alcohol",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: obstruction of justice",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: perjury (other than as pertains to statutory construction of criminal laws: false statements)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: Travel Act, 18 USC 1952",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: war crimes",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: sentencing guidelines",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: miscellaneous",
"jury trial (right to, as distinct from extra-legal jury influences)",
"speedy trial",
"miscellaneous criminal procedure (cf. due process, prisoners' rights, comity: criminal procedure)"
] | [
21
] | sc_issue_1 |
BROWN v. WESTERN RAILWAY OF ALABAMA.
No. 43.
Argued October 19, 1949.
Decided November 21, 1949.
Richard M. Maxwell argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief was Thomas J. Lewis.
Herman Heyman argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Arthur Heyman and Hugh Howell, Sr.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner brought this action in a Georgia state court claiming damages from the respondent railroad under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. 45 U. S. C. § 51 et seq. Respondent filed a general demurrer to the complaint on the ground that it failed to “set forth a cause of action and is otherwise insufficient in law.” The trial court sustained the demurrer and dismissed the cause of action. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 77 Ga. App. 780, 49 S. E. 2d 833, and the Supreme Court of Georgia denied certiorari. It is agreed that under Georgia law the dismissal is a final adjudication barring recovery in any future state proceeding. The petition for certiorari here presented the question of whether the complaint did set forth a cause of action sufficient to survive a general demurrer resulting in final dismissal. Certiorari was granted because the implications of the dismissal were considered important to a correct and uniform application of the federal act in the state and federal courts. See Brady v. Southern R. Co., 320 U. S. 476.
First. The Georgia Court of Appeals held that “Stripped of its details, the petition shows that the plaintiff was injured while in the performance of his duties when he stepped on a large clinker lying alongside the track in the railroad yards. . . . The mere presence of a large clinker in a railroad yard can not be said to constitute an act of negligence. ... In so far as the allegations of the petition show, the sole cause of the accident was the act of the plaintiff in stepping on this large clinker, which he was able to see and could have avoided.” 77 Ga. App. 783, 49 S. E. 2d 835. The court reached the foregoing conclusions by following a Georgia rule of practice to construe pleading allegations “most strongly against the pleader.” Following this local rule of construction the court said that “In the absence of allegations to the contrary, the inference arises that the plaintiff’s vision was unobscured and that he could have seen and avoided the clinker.” 77 Ga. App. 783, 49 S. E. 2d 835. Under the same local rule the court found no precise allegation that the particular clinker on which petitioner stumbled was beside the tracks due to respondent’s negligence.
It is contended that this construction of the complaint is binding on us. The argument is that while state courts are without power to detract from “substantive rights” granted by Congress in FELA cases, they are free to follow their own rules of “practice” and “procedure.” To what extent rules of practice and procedure may themselves dig into “substantive rights” is a troublesome question at best as is shown in the very case on which respondent relies. Central Vermont R. Co. v. White, 238 U. S. 507. Other cases in this Court point up the impossibility of laying down a precise rule to distinguish “substance” from “procedure.” Fortunately, we need not attempt to do so. A long series of cases previously decided, from which we see no reason to depart, makes it our duty to construe the allegations of this complaint ourselves in order to determine whether petitioner has been denied a right of trial granted him by Congress. This federal right cannot be defeated by the forms of local practice. See American Ry. Exp. Co. v. Levee, 263 U. S. 19, 21. And we cannot accept as final a state court’s interpretation of allegations in a complaint asserting it. First National Bank v. Anderson, 269 U. S. 341, 346; Davis v. Wechsler, 263 U. S. 22, 24; Covington Turnpike Co. v. Sandford, 164 U. S. 578, 595-596. This rule applies to FELA cases no less than to other types. Reynolds v. Atlantic C. L. R. Co., 336 U. S. 207; Anderson v. A., T. & S. F. R. Co., 333 U. S. 821; cf. Lillie v. Thompson, 332 U. S. 459.
Second. We hold that the allegations of the complaint do set forth a cause of action which should not have been dismissed. It charged that respondent had allowed “clinkers” and other debris “to collect in said yards along the side of the tracks”; that such debris made the “yards unsafe”; that respondent thus failed to supply him a reasonably safe place to work, but directed him to work in said yards “under the conditions above described”; that it was necessary for petitioner “to cross over all such material and debris”; that in performing his duties he “ran around” an engine and “stepped on a large clinker lying beside the tracks as aforesaid which caused petitioner to fall and be injured”; that petitioner’s injuries were “directly and proximately caused in whole or in part by the negligence of the defendant ... (a) In failing to furnish plaintiff with a reasonably safe place in which to work as herein alleged, (b) In leaving clinkers . . . and other debris along the side of track in its yards as aforesaid, well knowing that said yards in such condition were dangerous for use by brakemen, working therein and that petitioner would have to perform his duties with said yards in such condition.”
Other allegations need not be set out since the foregoing if proven would show an injury of the precise kind for which Congress has provided a recovery. These allegations, fairly construed, are much more than a charge that petitioner “stepped on a large clinker lying alongside the track in the railroad yards.” They also charge that the railroad permitted clinkers and other debris to be left along the tracks, “well knowing” that this was dangerous to workers; that petitioner was compelled to “cross over” the clinkers and debris; that in doing so he fell and was injured; and that all of this was in violation of the railroad’s duty to furnish petitioner a reasonably safe place to work. Certainly these allegations are sufficient to permit introduction of evidence from which a jury might infer that petitioner’s injuries were due to the railroad’s negligence in failing to supply a reasonably safe place to work. Bailey v. Central Vermont R. Co., 319 U. S. 350, 353. And we have already refused to set aside a judgment coming from the Georgia courts where the jury was permitted to infer negligence from the presence of clinkers along the tracks in the railroad yard. Southern R. Co. v. Puckett, 244 U. S. 571, 574, affirming 16 Ga. App. 551, 554, 85 S. E. 809, 811.
Here the Georgia court has decided as a matter of law that no inference of railroad negligence could be drawn from the facts alleged in this case. Rather the court itself has drawn from the pleadings the reverse inference that the sole proximate cause of petitioner’s injury was his own negligence. Throughout its opinion the appellate court clearly reveals a preoccupation with what it deemed* to be petitioner’s failure to take proper precautions. But as that court necessarily admits, contributory negligence does not preclude recovery under the FELA.
Strict local rules of pleading cannot be used to impose unnecessary burdens upon rights of recovery authorized by federal laws. “Whatever springes the State may set for those who are endeavoring to assert rights that the State confers, the assertion of federal rights, when plainly and reasonably made, is not to be defeated under the name of local practice.” Davis v. Wechsler, supra, at 24. Cf. Maty v. Grasselli Chemical Co., 303 U. S. 197. Should this Court fail to protect federally created rights from dismissal because of over-exacting local requirements for meticulous pleadings, desirable uniformity in adjudication of federally created rights could not be achieved. See Brady v. Southern R. Co., 320 U. S. 476, 479.
Upon trial of this case the evidence offered may or may not support inferences of negligence. We simply hold that under the facts alleged it was error to dismiss the complaint and that petitioner should be allowed to try his case. Covington Turnpike Co. v. Sandford, supra, at 596; Anderson v. A., T. & S. F. R. Co., 333 U. S. 821.
The cause is reversed and remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Angel v. Bullington, 330 U. S. 183; Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99; Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., 317 U. S. 239; St. Louis, S. F. & T. R. Co. v. Seale, 229 U. S. 156, 157; and see same case 148 S. W. 1099; Toledo, St. L. & W. R. Co. v. Slavin, 236 U. S. 454, 457-458; and see same case 88 Ohio St. 536, 106 N. E. 1077. Compare Brinkmeier v. Missouri P. R. Co., 224 U. S. 268, with Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Renn, 241 U. S. 290.
That court among other things said: “In the absence of allegations to the contrary, the inference arises that the plaintiff’s vision was unobscured and that he could have seen and avoided the clinker. . . . In so far as the allegations of the petition show, the sole cause of the accident was the act of the plaintiff in stepping on this large clinker, which he was able to see and could have avoided. It was he who, without any outside intervention, failed to look, stepped on the clinker, and fell.” 77 Ga. App. 783, 49 S. E. 2d 835. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. | What is the issue area of the decision? | [
"Criminal Procedure",
"Civil Rights",
"First Amendment",
"Due Process",
"Privacy",
"Attorneys",
"Unions",
"Economic Activity",
"Judicial Power",
"Federalism",
"Interstate Relations",
"Federal Taxation",
"Miscellaneous",
"Private Action"
] | [
7
] | sc_issuearea |
POLLARD v. UNITED STATES.
No. 38.
Argued December 3, 1956.
Decided February 25, 1957.
Bennett Boskey, acting under appointment by the Court, 350 U. S. 980, argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioner.
Philip Elman argued the cause for the United States. On the brief were Solicitor General Rankin, Assistant Attorney General Olney, Ralph S. Spritzer, Beatrice Rosenberg and Robert G. Maysack.
Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the validity of a sentence imposed on petitioner in September 1954. On September 8, 1952, petitioner pleaded guilty in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota to an information charging him with the unlawful taking and embezzlement of a United States Treasury check in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1702. The district judge deferred imposition of sentence pending presentence investigation. On October 3, 1952, petitioner appeared before the trial judge at 10 a. m. for sentencing. He was then serving a sentence in a Minnesota state prison, from which he was eligible for parole the following month. The judge stated that the probation report showed that petitioner had taken an active interest in the Alcoholics Anonymous organization in prison, and petitioner told him that he contemplated continuing that interest when he was released from the state prison. The judge added that he was impressed by the fact that petitioner, who had stolen the check after a two-week drinking spree, had revealed what he had done to an officer of Alcoholics Anonymous and to the FBI without any effort to minimize the offense. He advised petitioner to join Alcoholics Anonymous immediately on his release from the state prison. He then said:
“. . . if you want to revert to drinking, you will be back here again because you will commit some federal offense, and I won’t be talking to you this way if you are ever before me again.
“So, good luck to you and I hope the parole board will give you an opportunity.
“That is all.”
The judge then turned to other business.
It is clear that no explicit reference to petitioner’s sentence had been made during this colloquy. But before the court adjourned at 10:30 a. m., when petitioner apparently had left the courtroom, an assistant United States District Attorney handling the matter said:
“Going back to the matter of Thomas E. Pollard who appeared this morning — I didn’t quite understand that clearly — is there to be a probationary period after his release from Stillwater, or any type of sentencing?
“The Court: It is to commence at the expiration of sentencing at Stillwater.
“Mr. Hachey: Probation to commence after expiration of his sentencing at Stillwater- — for how long?
“The Court: Three years.”
A judgment and order of probation was then entered suspending imposition of sentence and placing petitioner on probation for that term. The Government concedes that the judgment and order was invalid because of petitioner’s absence from the courtroom when probation was imposed. Fed.'Rules Crim. Proc., 43.
Petitioner did not receive a copy of this order, despite a direction of the court, but learned of the probation from state prison officials the following month when he was paroled. On his release he began reporting to the federal probation officer. Nearly two years later, on September 1, 1954, the trial judge issued a bench warrant for petitioner’s arrest on the basis of the probation officer’s report that petitioner had violated the terms of his probation. Petitioner was arrested and brought before the court on September 21, 1954. After waiver of counsel by-petitioner, the following occurred at the hearing:
“The Court: What I am going to do in your case, because of the record, is to sentence you in the first instance: It’s the judgment of the Court that you be confined in an institution to be selected by the Attorney General of the United States for a period of two years. That’s all.
“Mr. Evarts [Asst. U. S. Attorney]: Now, Your Honor, as you recall, the record shows that he was, sentence was imposed on October 3, 1952, and I would suggest to the Court that an Order be made setting aside the judgment and commitment that was entered at that time so that the record will now truly reflect the status of the events.
“The Court: All right.”
A formal judgment and commitment was then entered, sentencing petitioner to two years’ imprisonment and setting aside the judgment and order of probation entered on October 3,1952.
Petitioner’s motion to vacate this sentence under 28 U. S. C. § 2255 was based upon a misapprehension of the basis for the sentence of 1954. He contended that, since his 1952 probation sentence was invalid, his 1954 prison sentence was also invalid because it was for probation violation. Actually, of course, it was punishment for the embezzlement. The District Court denied the motion on the ground that “[Petitioner] was initially sentenced upon September 21, 1954, and the files and records in the case conclusively show that said judgment was within the jurisdiction of the court and the sentence imposed was valid and in accordance with law.” Petitioner filed a notice of appeal and a motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. The District Court denied this motion “in all respects.” Petitioner then filed a motion for leave to appeal in forma pauperis in the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. After examination of the record in the District Court, the Court of Appeals denied this motion without opinion. This Court granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis, and, deeming the issues as to the validity of the 1954 sentence of importance in the proper administration of the criminal law, granted certio-rari. 350 U. S. 965. We also appointed counsel for petitioner. 350 U. S. 980.
Petitioner was released from federal prison in March 1956, after his petition for certiorari had been granted. He relies on United States v. Morgan, 346 U. S. 502, 512-513, and Fiswick v. United States, 329 U. S. 211, 220-223, as meeting the question of mootness that this fact suggests. Those cases are not entirely on all fours with this one, since petitioner is challenging the legality not of any determination of guilt, but instead of the sentence imposed. But those cases recognize that convictions may entail collateral legal disadvantages in the future. Appeals from convictions are allowed only after sentences. Fed. Rules Crim. Proc., 37. The determination of guilt and the sentence are essential for imprisonment. We think that petitioner’s reference to the above cases sufficiently satisfies the requirement that review in this Court will be allowed only where its judgment will have some material effect. Cf. St. Pierre v. United States, 319 U. S. 41. The possibility of consequences collateral to the imposition of sentence is sufficiently substantial to justify our dealing with the merits.
The petition for certiorari, pro se, sought reversal of the order of the Court of Appeals denying petitioner’s motion for appeal in forma pauperis and also release from his then incarceration. Petitioner contended that the 1954 sentence was unconstitutional because it was imposed for violation of the invalid probation order.
Petitioner now, in his brief, claims that the trial judge determined on October 3, 1952, that no imprisonment and no probation should be imposed, and that consequently the imposition of sentence in September 1954 violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. He claims alternatively that the imposition of sentence in September 1954 in the circumstances under which it took place constituted a serious departure from proper standards of criminal law administration and violated his rights to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment and to due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. The record now before us adequately states the facts for a final determination of the basic issues. Since the Court of Appeals’ denial of petitioner’s appeal involved an adjudication of the merits, i. e., that there was no adequate basis for allowance of appeal in forma pauperis, we think the validity of the 1954 sentence for embezzlement should now be decided. And we conclude that it is proper that we deal with the questions as to legality of the 1954 sentence that petitioner now raises, although, had petitioner been represented by counsel in the courts below and upon his petition for certiorari, we might well have considered those questions neither preserved below nor raised in the petition. Cf. Price v. Johnston, 334 U. S. 266, 292.
I. The contention that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment forbids the 1954 sentence may be shortly answered. It depends upon the assertion that the trial court determined in 1952 that petitioner “should not be subject to imprisonment or probation” on his plea of guilty to embezzlement. Without such a determination, there could not be double jeopardy. The transcript of evidence, all pertinent parts of which are quoted in the first part of this opinion, shows no such determination. The petitioner cites no words upon which he relies. The only sentence that was entered at the 1952 hearing was the one of probation, admittedly invalid because of petitioner’s absence.
It is clear to us, too, that the District Court did not by implication intend to acquit or dismiss the defendant. Within the morning session of court, when his failure to make explicit the sentence was called to his attention, the judge directed entry of the order suspending sentence and instituting probation. There is no occasion here for distinguishing between an oral pronouncement of sentence and its entry on the records of the court. Cf. Spriggs v. United States, 225 F. 2d 865, 868. Nor does the situation call for a determination of the correctness of petitioner’s assertion that a federal judge has power, under a statute without minimum penalties, to release or discharge an accused absolutely after conviction or plea of guilty without sentence, suspension of sentence or grant of probation. It is unfortunate for inadvertencies to lead to confusion in criminal trials, but such misunderstanding as petitioner may have drawn from the occurrences at the 1952 sentence is not a basis for vacating the later sentence. The mishap of the prisoner’s absence when the first sentence was pronounced cannot be a basis for vacating the 1954 sentence here involved. If the probation sentence had been valid, petitioner on its violation would have been subject to the sentence actually imposed in 1954. 18 U. S. C. § 3653; Roberts v. United States, 320 U. S. 264, 268.
II. Petitioner’s other contentions relate to violations of constitutional rights of speedy trial and due process, and significant departure from proper standards of criminal law administration. It is not disputed that a court has power to enter sentence.at a succeeding term where a void sentence had been previously imposed. Miller v. Aderhold, 288 U. S. 206; cf. Bozza v. United States, 330 U. S. 160, 166. To hold otherwise would allow the guilty to escape punishment through a legal accident.
Petitioner argues that the 1954 sentence violated his right under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution to a “speedy” trial. He takes this position on the assumption that the case remained, as we have held above, uncompleted after the 1952 trial. We will assume arguendo that sentence is part of the trial for purposes of the Sixth Amendment. The time for sentence is of course not at the will of the judge. Rule 32 (a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure requires the imposition of sentence “without unreasonable delay.”
Whether delay in completing a prosecution such as here occurred amounts to an unconstitutional deprivation of rights depends upon the circumstances. See, e. g., Beavers v. Haubert, 198 U. S. 77, 87; Frankel v. Woodrough, 7 F. 2d 796, 798. The delay must not be purposeful or oppressive. It was not here. It was accidental and was promptly remedied when discovered. Nothing in the record indicates any delay in sentencing after discovery of the 1952 error. From the issuance of the warrant in September 1954 for the violation of probation, the normal inference would be that the error was still unknown to the court, although petitioner states he had known of it since November 1952. We do not have in this case circumstances akin to those in United States v. Provoo, 17 F. R. D. 183, 201, aff’d mem. 350 U. S. 857, where Judge Thomsen found the delay “caused by the deliberate act of the government” which the accused attempted to correct. The same situation existed in United States v. McWilliams, 82 U. S. App. D. C. 259, 163 F. 2d 695, where the Government’s failure to be ready for trial persisted for nearly two years despite defendant’s motions for trial. In these circumstances, we do not view the lapse of time before correction of the error as a violation of the Sixth Amendment or of Rule 32 (a). Error in the course of a prosecution resulting in conviction calls for the correction of the error, not the release of the accused. Dowd v. Cook, 340 U. S. 206, 210.
Petitioner contends also that, in sentencing him for the embezzlement in 1954, the judge disregarded the standards prescribed for such a proceeding. He points out that the transcript of evidence shows that the prosecuting attorney in open court, instead of the judge, inquired of petitioner as to waiver of his right to counsel. He suggests that this violates Rule 44 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. On the same transcript authority, he makes the suggestion that Rules 32 (a) and 37 (a) (2) were disregarded concerning opportunity “to make a statement in his own behalf and to present any information in mitigation of punishment” and advice to a defendant “not represented by counsel ... of his right to appeal.” Petitioner argues that these irregularities constitute a denial of due process. While we do not impose on persons unlearned in the law the same high standards of the legal art that we might place on the members of the legal profession, we think that these issues are too far afield from the questions that petitioner raised in the courts below and in his petition for certiorari for them properly to be before us. In any case, the formal commitment papers signed by the judge show that these steps, except that of advising petitioner of his right to appeal, were actually taken. We are not willing to conclude from the transcript of evidence covering only such notes as were “taken at the above time and place” that the above purely routine statutory requirements were not followed.
This leaves unresolved the question whether the Court of Appeals’ denial of leave to appeal was proper. Since we conclude that petitioner must lose on the merits, nothing could be gained by a remand to the Court of Appeals even if we should be of the opinion that the Court of Appeals erred in denying leave to appeal.
Affirmed.
Cf. Pino v. Landon, 349 U. S. 901, reversing 215 F. 2d 237.
Such an order is reviewable on certiorari. Wells v. United States, 318 U. S. 257.
No question is raised as to the length of the 1954 sentence. Cf. Roberts v. United States, 320 U. S. 264.
“In a criminal case final judgment means sentence; and a void order purporting permanently to suspend sentence is neither a final nor a valid judgment.” Miller v. Aderhold, 288 U. S. 206, 210-211. Cf. Korematsu v. United States, 319 U. S. 432, 434; Hill v. Wampler, 298 U. S. 460, 464; Berman v. United States, 302 U. S. 211, 212.
The statute upon which the information was based reads:
“. . . [an embezzler] shall be fined not more than $2,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.” 18 U. S. C. § 1702.
See 18 U. S. C. § 3651; Fed. Rules Crim. Proc., 32 (a), (b), (e).
Fed. Rules Crim. Proc., 48 (b), provides for enforcement of this right: “If there is unnecessary delay in presenting the charge to a grand jury or in filing an information against a defendant who has been held to answer to the district court, or if there is unnecessary delay in bringing a defendant to trial, the court may dismiss the indictment, information or complaint.”
We note that petitioner made no motion to secure a prompt proper sentence, often considered important in questions involving the Speedy Trial Clause. See cases cited in Petition of Provoo, 17 F. R. D. 183.
“If the defendant appears in court without counsel, the court shall advise him of his rightdo counsel and assign counsel to represent him at every stage of the proceeding unless he elects to proceed without counsel or is able to obtain counsel.” | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the petitioner of the case. The petitioner is the party who petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. This party is variously known as the petitioner or the appellant. Characterize the petitioner as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the petitioner by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the petitioner is actually single entity or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single petitioner, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the petitioner of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
54
] | sc_petitioner |
GUNN, SHERIFF, et al. v. UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE TO END THE WAR IN VIET NAM et al.
No. 7.
Argued January 13-14, 1969
Reargued April 29-30, 1970—
Decided June 29, 1970
David W. Louisell argued the cause for appellants on the original argument and on the reargument. With him on the brief on the reargument were Crawford C. Martin, Attorney General of Texas, Nola White, First Assistant Attorney General, Robert C. Flowers and Howard M. Fender, Assistant Attorneys General, and Charles Alan Wright. On the brief on the original argument were Messrs. Martin, Flowers, and Fender, and Miss White.
Sam Houston Clinton, Jr., argued the cause for appel-lees on the original argument and on the reargument. With him on the brief were Morton Stavis, Arthur Kinoy, and William M. Kunstler.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On December 12, 1967, President Lyndon Johnson made a speech in Bell County, Texas, to a crowd of some 25,000 people, including many servicemen from nearby Fort Hood. The individual appellees arrived at the edge of the crowd with placards signifying their strong opposition to our country’s military presence in Vietnam. Almost immediately after their arrival, they were set upon by members of the crowd, subjected to some physical abuse, promptly removed from the scene by military police, turned over to Bell County officers, and taken to jail. Soon afterwards, they were brought before a justice of the peace on a complaint signed by a deputy sheriff, charging them with “Dist the Peace.” They pleaded not guilty, were returned briefly to jail, and were soon released on $500 bond.
Nine days later they brought this action in a federal district court against Bell County officials, asking that a three-judge court be convened, that enforcement of the state disturbing-the-peace statute be temporarily and permanently enjoined, and that the statute be declared unconstitutional on its face, “and/or as applied to the conduct of the Plaintiffs herein.” The statute in question is Article 474 of the Texas Penal Code, which then provided as follows:
“Whoever shall go into or near any public place, or into or near any private house, and shall use loud and vociferous, or obscene, vulgar or indecent language or swear or curse, or yell or shriek or expose his or her person to another person of the age of sixteen (16) years or over, or rudely display any pistol or deadly weapon, in a manner calculated to disturb the person or persons present at such place or house, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding Two Hundred Dollars ($200).”
A few days after institution of the federal proceedings the state charges were dismissed upon motion of the county attorney, because the appellees’ conduct had taken place within a military enclave over which Texas did not have jurisdiction. After dismissal of the state charges the defendants in the federal court filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the ground that “no useful purpose could now be served by the granting of an injunction to prevent the prosecution of these suits because same no longer exists.” The appellees filed a memorandum in opposition to this motion, conceding that there was no remaining controversy with respect to the prosecution of the state charges, but asking the federal court nonetheless to retain jurisdiction and to grant in-junctive and declaratory relief against the enforcement of Article 474 upon the ground of its unconstitutionality. A stipulation of facts was submitted by the parties, along with memoranda, affidavits, and other documentary material.
With the case in that posture, the three-judge District Court a few weeks later rendered a per curiam opinion, expressing the view that Article 474 is constitutionally invalid, 289 F. Supp. 469. The opinion ended with the following final paragraph:
“We reach the conclusion that Article 474 is impermissibly and unconstitutionally broad. The Plaintiffs herein are entitled to their declaratory judgment to that effect, and to injunctive relief against the enforcement of Article 474 as now worded, insofar as it may affect rights guaranteed under the First Amendment. However, it is the Order of this Court that the mandate shall be stayed and this Court shall retain jurisdiction of the cause pending the next session, special or general, of the Texas legislature, at which time the State of Texas may, if it so desires, enact such disturbing-the-peace statute as will meet constitutional requirements.” 289 F. Supp., at 475.
The defendants took a direct appeal to this Court, relying upon 28 U. S. C. § 1253, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 393 U. S. 819. The case was originally argued last Term, but was, on June 16, 1969, set for reargument at the 1969 Term. 395 U. S. 956. Reargument was held on April 29 and 30, 1970. We now dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
The jurisdictional statute upon which the parties rely, 28 U. S. C. § 1253, provides as follows:
“Except as otherwise provided by law, any party may appeal to the Supreme Court from an order granting or denying, after notice and hearing, an interlocutory or permanent injunction in any civil action, suit or proceeding required by any Act of Congress to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges.”
The statute is thus explicit in authorizing a direct appeal to this Court only from an order of a three-judge district court “granting or denying ... an interlocutory or permanent injunction.” Earlier this Term we had occasion to review the history and construe the meaning of this statute in Goldstein v. Cox, 396 U. S. 471. In that case a divided Court held that the only interlocutory orders that this Court has power to review under § 1253 are those granting or denying preliminary injunctions. The present case, however, involves no such refined a question as did Goldstein. For here there was no order of any kind either granting or denying an injunction — interlocutory or permanent. Cf. Rockefeller v. Catholic Medical Center, 397 U. S. 820; Mitchell v. Donovan, 398 U. S. 427. All that the District Court did was to write a rather discursive per curiam opinion, ending with the paragraph quoted above. Although the Texas Legislature at its next session took no action with respect to Article 474, the District Court entered no further order of any kind. And even though the question of this Court’s jurisdiction under § 1253 was fully exposed at the original oral argument of this case, the District Court still entered no order and no injunction during the 15-month period that elapsed before the case was argued again.
What we deal with here is no mere technicality. In Goldstein v. Cox, supra, we pointed out that: “This Court has more than once stated that its jurisdiction under the Three-Judge Court Act is to be narrowly construed since ‘any loose construction of the requirements of [the Act] would defeat the purposes of Congress . . . to keep within narrow confines our appellate docket.’ Phillips v. United States [312 U. S. 246], at 250. See Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U. S. 368, 375 (1949); Moore v. Fidelity & Deposit Co., 272 U. S. 317, 321 (1926).” 396 U. S., at 478. But there are underlying policy considerations in this case more fundamental than mere economy of judicial resources.
One of the basic reasons for the limit in 28 U. S. C. § 1253 upon our power of review is that until a district court issues an injunction, or enters an order denying one, it is simply not possible to know with any certainty what the court has decided — a state of affairs that is conspicuously evident here. The complaint in this case asked for an injunction “[restraining the appropriate Defendants, their agents, servants, employees and attorneys and all others acting in concert with them from the enforcement, operation or execution of Article 474.” Is that the “injunctive relief” to which the District Court thought the appellees were “entitled”? If not, what less was to be enjoined, or what more? And against whom was the injunction to run? Did the District Court intend to enjoin enforcement of all the provisions of the statute? Or did the court intend to hold the statute unconstitutional only as applied to speech, including so-called symbolic speech? Or was the court confining its attention to that part of the statute that prohibits the use, in certain places and under certain conditions, of “loud and vociferous . . . language”? The answers to these questions simply cannot be divined with any degree of assurance from the per curiam opinion.
Rule 65 (d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that any order granting an injunction “shall be specific in terms” and “shall describe in reasonable detail . . . the act or acts sought to be restrained.” As we pointed out in International Longshoremen’s Assn. v. Philadelphia Marine Trade Assn., 389 U. S. 64, 74, the “Rule . . . was designed to prevent precisely the sort of confusion with which this District Court clouded its command.” An injunctive order is an extraordinary writ, enforceable by the power of contempt. “The judicial contempt power is a potent weapon. When it is founded upon a decree too vague to be understood, it can be a deadly one. Congress responded to that danger by requiring that a federal court frame its orders so that those who must obey them will know what the court intends to require and what it means to forbid.” Id., at 76.
That requirement is essential in cases where private conduct is sought to be enjoined, as we held in the Longshoremen’s case. It is absolutely vital in a case where a federal court is asked to nullify a law duly enacted by a sovereign State. Cf. Watson v. Buck, 313 U. S. 387.
The absence of an injunctive order in this case has, in fact, been fully recognized by the parties. In their motion for a new trial, the appellants pointed out to the District Court that it had given no more than “an advisory opinion.” And the appellees, in their brief in this Court, emphasized that “[n]o final relief — of any kind — has been ordered below.” Accordingly, they said, “no question is now properly raised as to the precise form of federal remedy which may be granted.” They asserted that “the issuance of declaratory and injunctive relief will ... be appropriate at an appropriate time, to wit, on remand to the court below.” But it is precisely because the District Court has issued neither an injunction, nor an order granting or denying one, that we have no power under § 1253 either to “remand to the court below” or deal with the merits of this case in any way at all.
The restraint and tact that evidently motivated the District Court in refraining from the entry of an injunc-tive order in this case are understandable. But when a three-judge district court issues an opinion expressing the view that a state statute should be enjoined as unconstitutional — and then fails to follow up with an injunction — the result is unfortunate at best. For when confronted with such an opinion by a federal court, state officials would no doubt hesitate long before disregarding it. Yet in the absence of an injunctive order, they are unable to know precisely what thé three-judge court intended to enjoin, and unable as well to appeal to this Court.
It need hardly be added that any such result in the present case was doubtless unintended or inadvertent. We make the point only for the guidance of future three-judge courts when they are asked to enjoin the enforcement of state laws as unconstitutional.
The appeal is dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
It is so ordered.
Me. Justice Blackmun took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The appellee University Committee to End the War in Viet Nam is an unincorporated association centered in Austin, Texas. The individual appellees are two members of the association and one nonmember who is sympathetic with its purposes.
The court did also write an “addendum” in response to a motion for a new trial. 289 F. Supp., at 475.
Rule 65 (d) reads as follows:
“(d) Form and Scope of Injunction or Restraining Order. Every order granting an injunction and every restraining order shall set forth the reasons for its issuance; shall be specific in terms; shall describe in reasonable detail, and not by reference to the complaint or other document, the act or acts sought to be restrained; and is binding only upon the parties to the action, their officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and upon those persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of the order by personal service or otherwise.”
This is not to suggest that lack of specificity in an injunctive order would alone deprive the Court of jurisdiction under § 1253. But the absence of any semblance of effort by the District Court to comply with Rule 65 (d) makes clear that the court did not think that its per curiam opinion itself constituted an order granting an injunction.
Even if the opinion and subsequent inaction of the District Court could be considered a denial of an injunction because the injunctive relief demanded was not forthcoming, the appellants could not appeal from an order in their favor. Public Service Comm’n v. Brashear Freight Lines, Inc., 306 U. S. 204 (1939).
“We do not decide whether the District Court’s opinion might-have constituted a “judgment” so as to be appealable to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Cf. United States v. Hark, 320 U. S. 531, 534; United States v. Schaefer Brewing Co., 356 U. S. 227, 232-233; Burns v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 252, 254-257. See R. Robertson & F. Kirkham, Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States § 45 (Wolfson & Kurland ed. 1951). In any event, we assume the District Court will now take formal action of sufficient precision and clarity to insure to any aggrieved party the availability of an appeal. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state associated with the petitioner. If the petitioner is a federal court or federal judge, note the "state" as the United States. The same holds for other federal employees or officials. | What state is associated with the petitioner? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
50
] | sc_petitionerstate |
No. 335.
General Electric Co. et al. v. Washington.
Argued February 2, 1954.
Decided February 8, 1954.
Max Isenbergh argued the cause for appellants. With him on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Stern, Assistant Attorney General Holland and F. Gerald Toye.
Jennings P. Felix, Assistant Attorney General of Washington, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Don Eastvold, Attorney General, and E. P. Donnelly.
Per Curiam:
The judgment is reversed. Carson v. Roane-Anderson Co., 342 U. S. 232. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the respondent of the case. The respondent is the party being sued or tried and is also known as the appellee. Characterize the respondent as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the respondent by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the respondent is actually single entitiy or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single respondent, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the respondent of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
27
] | sc_respondent |
H. P. HOOD & SONS, INC. v. Du MOND, COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE AND MARKETS.
No. 92.
Argued December 13-14, 1948.
Decided April 4, 1949.
Warren F. Farr argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioner.
Nathaniel L. Goldstein, Attorney General of New York, and Robert G. Blabey submitted on brief for respondent.
Mr. Justice Jackson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the power of the State of New York to deny additional facilities to acquire and ship milk in interstate commerce where the grounds of denial are that such limitation upon interstate business will protect and advance local economic interests.
H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc., a Massachusetts corporation, has long distributed milk and its products to inhabitants of Boston. That city obtains about 90% of its fluid milk from states other than Massachusetts. Dairies located in New York State since about 1900 have been among the sources of Boston’s supply, their contribution having varied but during the last ten years approximating 8%. The area in which Hood has been denied an additional license to make interstate purchases has been developed as a part of the Boston milkshed from which both the Hood Company and a competitor have shipped to Boston.
The state courts have held and it is conceded here that Hood’s entire business in New York, present and proposed, is interstate commerce. This Hood has conducted for some time by means of three receiving depots, where it takes raw milk from farmers. The milk is not processed in New York but is weighed, tested and, if necessary, cooled and on the same day shipped as fluid milk to Boston. These existing plants have been operated under license from the State and are not in question here as the State has licensed Hood to continue them. The controversy concerns a proposed additional plant for the same kind of operation at Greenwich, New York.
Article 21 of the Agriculture and Markets Law of New York forbids a dealer to buy milk from producers unless licensed to do so by the Commissioner of Agriculture and Markets. For the license he must pay a substantial fee and furnish a bond to assure prompt payment to producers for milk. Under § 258, the Commissioner may not grant a license unless satisfied “that the applicant is qualified by character, experience, financial responsibility and equipment to properly conduct the proposed business.” The Hood Company concededly has met all the foregoing tests and license for an additional plant was not denied for any failure to comply with these requirements.
The Commissioner’s denial was based on further provisions of this section which require him to be satisfied “that the issuance of the license will not tend to a destructive competition in a market already adequately served, and that the issuance of the license is in the public interest.”
Upon the hearing pursuant to the statute, milk dealers competing with Hood as buyers in the area opposed licensing the proposed Greenwich plant. They complained that Hood, by reason of conditions under which it sold in Boston, had competitive advantages under applicable federal milk orders, Boston health regulations, and OPA ceiling prices. There was also evidence of a temporary shortage of supply in the Troy, New York market during the fall and winter of 1945-46. The Commissioner was urged not to allow Hood to compete for additional supplies of milk or to take on producers then delivering to other dealers.
The Commissioner found that Hood, if licensed at Greenwich, would permit its present suppliers, at their option, to deliver at the new plant rather than the old ones and for a substantial number this would mean shorter hauls and savings in delivery costs. The new plant also would attract twenty to thirty producers, some of whose milk Hood anticipates will or may be diverted from other buyers. Other large milk distributors have plants within the general area and dealers serving Troy obtain milk in the locality. He found that Troy was inadequately supplied during the preceding short season.
In denying the application for expanded facilities, the Commissioner states his grounds as follows:
“If applicant is permitted to equip and operate another milk plant in this territory, and to take on producers now delivering to plants other than those which it operates, it will tend to reduce the volume of milk received at the plants which lose those producers, and will tend to increase the cost of handling milk in those plants.
“If applicant takes producers now delivering milk to local markets such as Troy, it will have a tendency to deprive such markets of a supply needed during the short season.
“There is no evidence that any producer is without a market for his milk. There is no evidence that any producers not now delivering milk to applicant would receive any higher price, were they to deliver their milk to applicant’s proposed plant.
“The issuance of a license to applicant which would permit it to operate an additional plant, would tend to a destructive competition in a market already adequately served, and would not be in the public interest.”
Denial of the license was sustained by the Court of Appeals over constitutional objections duly urged under the Commerce Clause and, because of the importance of the questions involved, we brought the case here by certiorari.
Production and distribution of milk are so intimately related to public health and welfare that the need for regulation to protect those interests has long been recognized and is, from a constitutional standpoint, hardly controversial. Also, the economy of the industry is so eccentric that economic controls have been found at once necessary and difficult. These have evolved detailed, intricate and comprehensive regulations, including' price-fixing. They have been much litigated but were generally sustained by this Court as within the powers of the State over its internal commerce as against the claim that they violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S. 502; Hegeman Farms Corp. v. Baldwin, 293 U. S. 163; Borden’s Co. v. Ten Eyck, 297 U. S. 251. But see Mayflower Farms v. Ten Eyck, 297 U. S. 266. As the states extended their efforts to control various phases of export and import also, questions were raised as to limitations on state power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
Pennsylvania enacted a law including provisions to protect producers which were very similar to those of this New York Act. A concern which operated a receiving-plant in Pennsylvania from which it shipped milk to the New York City market challenged the Act upon grounds thus defined by this Court: “The respondent contends that the act, if construed to require it to obtain a license, to file a bond for the protection of producers, and to pay the farmers the prices prescribed by the Board, unconstitutionally regulates and burdens interstate commerce.” Milk Board v. Eisenberg Co., 306 U. S. 346, 350. This Court, specifically limiting its judgment to the Act’s provisions with respect to license, bond and regulation of prices to be paid to producers, id. at 352, considered their effect on interstate commerce “incidental and not forbidden by the Constitution, in the absence of regulation by Congress.” Id. at 353.
The present controversy begins where the Eisenberg decision left off. New York’s regulations, designed to assure producers a fair price and a responsible purchaser, and consumers a sanitary and modernly equipped handler, are not challenged here but have been complied with. It is only additional restrictions, imposed for the avowed purpose and with the practical effect of curtailing the volume of interstate commerce to aid local economic interests, that are in question here, and no such measures were attempted or such ends sought to be served in the Act before the Court in the Eisenberg case.
Our decision in a milk litigation most relevant to the present controversy deals with the converse of the present situation. Baldwin v. Seelig, 294 U. S. 511. In that case, New York placed conditions and limitations on the local sale of milk imported from Vermont designed in practical effect to exclude it, while here its order proposes to limit the local facilities for purchase of additional milk so as to withhold milk from export. The State agreed then, as now, that the Commerce Clause prohibits it from directly curtailing movement of milk into or out of the State. But in the earlier case, it contended that the same result could be accomplished by controlling delivery, bottling and sale after arrival, while here it says it can do so by curtailing facilities for its purchase and receipt before it is shipped out. In neither case is the measure supported by health or safety considerations but solely by protection of local economic interests, such as supply for local consumption and limitation of competition. This Court unanimously rejected the State’s contention in the Seelig case and held that the Commerce Clause, even in the absence of congressional action, prohibits such regulations for such ends.
The opinion was by Mr. Justice Cardozo, experienced in the milk problems of New York and favorably disposed toward the efforts of the State to control the industry. Hegeman Farms Corp. v. Baldwin, 293 U. S. 163; Borden’s Co. v. Baldwin, 293 U. S. 194, concurrence at 213; Mayflower Farms v. Ten Eyck, 297 U. S. 266, dissent at 274. It recognized, as do we, broad power in the State to protect its inhabitants against perils to health or safety, fraudulent traders and highway hazards, even by use of measures which bear adversely upon interstate commerce. But it laid repeated emphasis upon the principle that the State may not promote its own economic advantages by curtailment or burdening of interstate commerce.
The Constitution, said Mr. Justice Cardozo for the unanimous Court, “was framed upon the theory that the peoples of the several states must sink or swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and salvation are in union and not division.” He reiterated that the economic objective, as distinguished from any health, safety and fair-dealing purpose of the regulation, was the root of its invalidity. The action of the State would “neutralize the economic consequences of free trade among the states.”* “Such a power, if exerted, will set a barrier to traffic between one state and another as effective as if customs duties, equal to the price differential, had been laid upon the thing transported.” “If New York, in order to promote the economic welfare of her farmers, may guard them against competition with the cheaper prices of Vermont, the door has been opened to rivalries and reprisals that were meant to be averted by subjecting commerce between the states to the power of the nation.” And again, “Neither the power to tax nor the police power may be used by the state of destination with the aim and effect of establishing an economic barrier against competition with the products of another state or the labor of its residents. Restrictions so contrived are an unreasonable clog upon the mobility of commerce. They set up what is equivalent to a rampart of customs duties designed to neutralize advantages belonging to the place of origin. They are thus hostile in conception as well as burdensome in result.”
This distinction between the power of the State to shelter its people from menaces to their health or safety and from fraud, even when those dangers emanate from interstate commerce, and its lack of power to retard, burden or constrict the flow of such commerce for their economic advantage, is one deeply rooted in both our history and our law.
When victory relieved the Colonies from the pressure for solidarity that war had exerted, a drift toward anarchy and commercial warfare between states began. “. . . each State would legislate according to its estimate of its own interests, the importance of its own products, and the local advantages or disadvantages of its position in a political or commercial view.” This came “to threaten at once the peace and safety of the Union.” Story, The Constitution, §§ 259, 260. See Fiske, The Critical Period of American History, 144; Warren, The Making of the Constitution, 567. The sole purpose for which Virginia initiated the movement which ultimately produced the Constitution was “to take into consideration the trade of the United States; to examine the relative situations and trade of the said States; to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to their common interest and their permanent harmony” and for that purpose the General Assembly of Virginia in January of 1786 named commissioners and proposed their meeting with those from other states. Documents, Formation of the Union, H. R. Doc. No. 398, 12 H. Docs., 69th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 38.
The desire of the Forefathers to federalize regulation of foreign and interstate commerce stands in sharp contrast to their jealous preservation of the state's power over its internal affairs. No other federal power was so universally assumed to be necessary, no other state power was so readily relinquished. There was no desire to authorize federal interference with social conditions or legal institutions of the states. Even the Bill of Rights amendments were framed only as a limitation upon the powers of Congress. The states were quite content with their several and diverse controls over most matters but, as Madison has indicated, “want of a general power over Commerce led to an exercise of this power separately, by the States, wch [sic] not only proved abortive, but engendered rival, conflicting and angry regulations.” 3 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, 547.
The necessity of centralized regulation of commerce among the states was so obvious and so fully recognized that the few words of the Commerce Clause were little illuminated by debate. But the significance of the clause was not lost and its effect was immediate and salutary. We are told by so responsible an authority as Mr. Jefferson’s first appointee to this Court that “there was not a State in the Union, in which there did not, at that time, exist a variety of commercial regulations; concerning which it is too much to suppose, that the whole ground covered by those regulations was immediately assumed by actual legislation, under the authority of the Union. But where was the existing statute on this subject, that a State attempted to execute? or by what State was it ever thought necessary to repeal those statutes? By common consent, those laws dropped lifeless from their statute books, for want of the sustaining power, that had been relinquished to Congress.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, concurring opinion at 226.
The Commerce Clause is one of the most prolific sources of national power and an equally prolific source of conflict with legislation of the state. While the Constitution vests in Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states, it does not say what the states may or may not do in the absence of congressional action, nor how to draw the line between what is and what is not commerce among the states. Perhaps even more than by interpretation of its written word, this Court has advanced the solidarity and prosperity of this Nation by the meaning it has given to these great silences of the Constitution.
Baldwin v. Seelig, 294 U. S. 511, is an explicit, impressive, recent and unanimous condemnation by this Court of economic restraints on interstate commerce for local economic advantage, but it does not stand alone. This Court consistently has rebuffed attempts of states to advance their own commercial interests by curtailing the movement of articles of commerce, either into or out of the state, while generally supporting their right to impose even burdensome regulations in the interest of local health and safety. As most states serve their own interests best by sending their produce to market, the cases in which this Court has been obliged to deal with prohibitions or limitations by states upon exports of articles of commerce are not numerous. However, in a leading case, Oklahoma v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 221 U. S. 229, the Court denied constitutional validity to a statute by which Oklahoma, by regulation of gas companies and pipe lines, sought to restrict the export of natural gas. The Court held that when a state recognizes an article to be a subject of commerce, it cannot prohibit it from being a subject of interstate commerce; that the right to engage in interstate commerce is not the gift of a state, and that a state cannot regulate or restrain it.
Later West Virginia, by act of the Legislature, undertook regulation of pipe-line companies intended to keep within West Virginia all natural gas there produced that might be required for local needs. This Court held that the State could not accord to its own consumers a preferred right of purchase over consumers in other states and in language applicable to the case before us now said, “Much of the business is interstate and has grown up through a course of years. West Virginia encouraged and sanctioned the development of that part of the business and has profited greatly by it. Her present effort, rightly understood, is to subordinate that part to the local business within her borders. In other words, it is in effect an attempt to regulate the interstate business to the advantage of the local consumers. But this she may not do.” Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553, at 597, 598.
In Foster Packing Co. v. Haydel, 278 U. S. 1, the Court cited these two cases as authority for the proposition that “A State is without power to prevent privately owned articles of trade from being shipped and sold in interstate commerce on the ground that they are required to satisfy local demands or because they are needed by the people of the State.” 278 U. S. 1, 10. The Court also pointed out that “the purpose [of the statute there involved] is not to retain the shrimp for the use of the people of Louisiana; it is to favor the canning of the meat and the manufacture of bran in Louisiana . . . .” Id., at 13. Thus in the Foster case, and in the companion case Johnson v. Haydel, 278 U. S. 16, although the articles sought to be regulated were shrimp and oysters, which under ordinary conditions might not be considered subjects of commerce, the Court invalidated state enactments attempting to promote local interests at the expense of interstate commerce.
In Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341, California's restrictions on sales of raisins within the State to those who were there processing and packing them were attacked as invalid because approximately 95% of the crop would find its way into interstate commerce after processing and packing. However, the Court said: “. . . no case has gone so far as to hold that a state could not license or otherwise regulate the sale of articles within the state because the buyer, after processing and packing them, will, in the normal course of business, sell and ship them in interstate commerce. . . . The regulation is thus applied to transactions wholly intrastate before the raisins are ready for shipment in interstate commerce.” 317 U. S. 341, at 361. This regulation of sale to local processors was distinguished from those which were held invalid in Lemke v. Farmers Grain Co., 258 U. S. 50, and Shafer v. Farmers Grain Co., 268 U. S. 189, because the regulation in the earlier cases was “of the business of those who purchaséd grain within the state for immediate shipment out of it.” Ibid. In those cases, the regulation was of interstate commerce itself. Another element in the Parker case which led the Court to sustain the California regulation was that it was one which the policy of Congress was to aid and encourage, and the Secretary of Agriculture had approved the State program by loans.
The most recent case of this kind, Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385, involved, among other things, a South Carolina requirement that the owners of shrimp boats fishing off its shores dock at a South Carolina port and unload, pack and stamp their catch with a tax stamp before shipping or transporting it to another state. It was considered that the effect of this section of the statute was to divert to South Carolina employment and business which might otherwise go to other states, and the Court pointed out that “the necessary tendency of the statute is to impose an artificial rigidity on the economic pattern of the industry.” 334 U. S. 385, 403-404. It was held that the Commerce Clause was violated by such a provision.
This principle that our economic unit is the Nation, which alone has the gamut of powers necessary to control of the economy, including the vital power of erecting customs barriers against foreign competition, has as its corollary that the states are not separable economic units. As the Court said in Baldwin v. Seelig, 294 U. S. 541, 527, “what is ultimate is the principle that one state in its dealings with another may not place itself in a position of economic isolation.” In so speaking it but followed the principle that the state may not use its admitted powers to protect the health and safety of its people as a basis for suppressing competition. In Buck v. Kuykendall, 267 U. S. 307, the Court struck down a state act because, in the language of Mr. Justice Brandéis, “Its primary purpose is not regulation with a view to safety or to conservation of the highways, but the prohibition of competition.” The same argument here advanced, that limitation of competition would itself contribute to safety and conservation, and therefore indirectly serve an end permissible to the State, was there declared “not sound.” 267 U. S. 307, 315. It is no better here. This Court has not only recognized this disability of the state to isolate its own economy as a basis for striking down parochial legislative policies designed to do so, but it has recognized the incapacity of the state to protect its own inhabitants from competition as a reason for sustaining particular exercises of the commerce power of Congress to reach matters in which states were so disabled. Cf. Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U. S. 548; Carmichael v. Southern Coal Co., 301 U. S. 495; Helvering v. Davis, 301 U. S. 619.
The material success that has come to inhabitants of the states which make up this federal free trade unit has been the most impressive in the history of commerce, but the established interdependence of the states only emphasizes the necessity of protecting interstate movement of goods against local burdens and repressions. We need only consider the consequences if each of the few states that produce copper, lead, high-grade iron ore, timber, cotton, oil or gas should decree that industries located in that state shall have priority. What fantastic rivalries and dislocations and reprisals would ensue if such practices were begun! Or suppose that the field of discrimination and retaliation be industry. May Michigan provide that automobiles cannot be taken out of that State until local dealers’ demands are fully met? Would she not have every argument in the favor of such a statute that can be offered in support of New York’s limiting sales of milk for out-of-state shipment to protect the economic interests of her competing dealers and local consumers? Could Ohio then pounce upon the rubber-tire industry, on which she has a substantial grip, to retaliate for Michigan’s auto monopoly?
Our system, fostered by the Commerce Clause, is that every farmer and every craftsman shall be encouraged to produce by the certainty that he will have free access to every market in the Nation, that no home embargoes will withhold his exports, and no foreign state will by customs duties or regulations exclude them. Likewise, every consumer may look to the free competition from every producing area in the Nation to protect him from exploitation by any. Such was the vision of the Founders; such has been the doctrine of this Court which has given it reality.
The State, however, insists that denial of the license for a new plant does not restrict or obstruct interstate commerce, because petitioner has been licensed at its other plants without condition or limitation as to the quantities it may purchase. Hence, it is said, all that has been denied petitioner is a local convenience — that of being able to buy and receive at Greenwich quantities of milk it is free to buy at Eagle Bridge and Salem. It suggests that, by increased efficiency or enlarged capacity at its other plants, petitioner might sufficiently increase its supply through those facilities.
The weakness of this contention is that a buyer has to buy where there is a willing seller, and the peculiarities of the milk business necessitate location of a receiving and cooling station for nearby producers. The Commissioner has not made and there is nothing to persuade us that he could have made findings that petitioner can obtain such additional supplies through its existing facilities; indeed he found that “applicant has experienced some difficulty during the flush season because of the inability of the plant facilities to handle the milk by 9:00 a. m.,” the time its receipt is required by Boston health authorities unless it is cooled by the farmer before delivery, and a substantial part of it is not.
But the argument also asks us to assume that the Commissioner’s order will not operate in the way he found that it would as a reason for making it. He found that petitioner, at its new plant, would divert milk from the plants of some other large handlers in the vicinity, which plants “can handle more milk.” This competition he did not approve. He also found it would tend to deprive local markets of needed supplies during the short season. In the face of affirmative findings that the proposed plant would increase petitioner’s supply, we can hardly be asked to assume that denial of the license will not deny petitioner access to such added supplies. While the state power is applied in this case to limit expansion by a handler of milk who already has been allowed some purchasing facilities, the argument for doing so, if sustained, would be equally effective to exclude an entirely new foreign handler from coming into the State to purchase.
The State, however, contends that such restraint or obstruction as its order imposes on interstate commerce does not violate the Commerce Clause because the State regulation coincides with, supplements and is part of the federal regulatory scheme. This contention that Congress has taken possession of “the field” but shared it with the State, it is to be noted, reverses the contention usually made in comparable cases, which is that Congress has not fully occupied the field and hence the State may fill the void.
Congress, as a part of its Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act, authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to issue orders regulating the handling of several agricultural products, including milk, when they are within the reach of its commerce power. As to milk, it sets up, § 8c (5), 7 U. S. C. § 608c (5), a rather complicated system of fixing prices to be paid to producers through equalization pools which distribute the total value of all milk sold in a specified market among the producers supplying that market. This federal regulation was sustained and explained in United States v. Rock Royal Co-operative, 307 U. S. 533; H. P. Hood & Sons v. United States, 307 U. S. 588; see also Stark v. Wickard, 321 U. S. 288. Section 10 of the Federal Act also authorizes federal officials to engage in conferences, joint hearings and cooperation with the state authorities.
New York State, in its present and antecedent statutes, has authorized its state authorities to confer with federal officials on milk control problems and a series of conferences and joint hearings have been held. The two authorities formalized their collaboration in 1938 by signing a “Memorandum of the Principles of Cooperation to be Observed in the Formulation and Administration of Complementary Orders for Milk for Marketing Areas Located Within the State of New York to be Issued Concurrently by the Secretary of Agriculture and the Commissioner of Agriculture and Markets.”
But no federal approval or responsibility for the challenged features of this order appears in any of these provisions or arrangements. The “memorandum of the principles of cooperation” relates only to marketing areas in New York, while the marketing area served by Hood is entirely outside of New York and is controlled by Federal Order No. 4, applicable to the greater Boston market. Federal Order No. 27 is applicable to the New York metropolitan market and it is as to this order that the State of New York'is recognized by the memorandum as entitled to consultation. There is no such financial support as was given in Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341.
The Congressional regulation contemplates and permits a wide latitude in which the State may exercise its police power over the local facilities for handling milk. We assume, though it is not necessary to decide, that the Federal Act does not preclude a state from placing restrictions and obstructions in the way of interstate commerce for the ends and purposes always held permissible under the Commerce Clause. But here the challenge is only to a denial of facilities for interstate commerce upon the sole and specific grounds that it will subject others to competition and take supplies needed locally, an end, as we have shown, always held to be precluded by the Commerce Clause. We have no doubt that Congress in the national interest could prohibit or curtail shipments of milk in interstate commerce, unless and until local demands are met. Nor do we know of any reason why Congress may not, if it deems it in the national interest, authorize the states to place similar restraints on movement of articles of commerce. And the provisions looking to state cooperation may be sufficient to warrant the state in imposing regulations approved by the federal authorities, even if they otherwise might run counter to the decisions that coincidence is as fatal as conflict when Congress acts. See Bethlehem, Steel Co. v. New York State Labor Relations Board, 330 U. S. 767. It is, of course, a quite different thing if Congress through its agents finds such restrictions upon interstate commerce advance the national welfare, than if a locality is held free to impose them because it, judging its own cause, finds them in the interest of local prosperity.
When it is considered that the Federal Act was passed expressly to overcome “disruption of the orderly exchange of commodities in interstate commerce” and conditions found to “burden and obstruct the normal channels of interstate commerce,” 7 U. S. C. § 601, it seems clear that we can not sustain the State’s argument that its restrictions here involved supplement and further the federal scheme.
Moreover, we can hardly assume that the challenged provisions of this order advance the federal scheme of regulation because Congress forbids inclusion of such a policy in a federal milk order. Section 8c (5) (G) of the Act provides:
“No marketing agreement or order applicable to milk and its products in any marketing area shall prohibit or in any manner limit, in the case of the products of milk, the marketing in that area of any milk or product thereof produced in any production area in the United States.”
While there may be difference of opinion as to whether this authorizes the Federal Order to limit, so long as it does not prohibit, interstate shipment of milk, see Bailey Farm Dairy Co. v. Anderson, 157 F. 2d 87, 96; Bailey Farm Dairy Co. v. Jones, 61 F. Supp. 209, 221 — a question upon which we express no opinion — it is clear that the policy of the provision is inconsistent with the State’s contention that it may, in its own interest, impose such a limitation as a coincident or supplement to federal regulation.
The only federal restriction of handlers’ purchases from new producers, found in §8c(5) (B), authorizes inclusion, in orders concerning milk or milk products, of a clause providing that for deliveries made during the first sixty days a new producer shall be paid only the minimum price applicable for milk of the particular use classification, subject to adjustments not relevant here. This provision was included in the 1935 amendment, “to prevent assaults upon the price structure by the sporadic importation of milk from new producing areas, while permitting the orderly and natural expansion of the area supplying any market . . . .” S. Rep. No. 1011, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 11. And, it was added, “this is the only limitation upon the entry of new producers — wherever located — into a market, and it can remain effective only for the specified . . . period.” Ibid. The bill originally provided for a ninety-day minimum price period but in conference the less restrictive sixty-day period was adopted. H. R. Rep. No. 1757, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 21.
These sections and reports indicate that it is the deliberate policy of the Congress to prevent federal officers from placing barriers in the way of the interstate flow of milk. While a statutory prohibition against federal interference with certain phases of it may not always imply that the state too is precluded, it is obvious that a state limitation on export for the benefit of its own consumers is not authorized by this Federal Act. The purpose as expressed in § 1, 7 U. S. C. § 601, is to avoid conditions which burden and obstruct the normal channels of interstate commerce. The object of the federal program to raise and stabilize the price of products was to stimulate interstate commerce. The order of the Commissioner avows itself to have the opposite effect. It can claim neither federal sponsorship nor congressional sanction.
Since the statute as applied violates the Commerce Clause and is not authorized by federal legislation pursuant to that Clause, it cannot stand. The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The New York Court of Appeals described the geographical situation with respect to petitioner’s present and proposed plants as follows: “The extension would have permitted petitioner to operate a milk receiving plant at Greenwich, New York, in addition to petitioner’s other similar plants already licensed and operating at Eagle Bridge, Salem and Norfolk, in this State. Eagle Bridge is in Rensselaer County and Salem and Greenwich are in Washington County, Rensselaer County being adjacent to Washington County on the south, and both these counties being on the easterly edge of New York State, bordering on Massachusetts and Vermont. Petitioner’s Norfolk establishment is in St. Lawrence County in another part of New York State, and serves a different area and a different group of milk producers. The present Eagle Bridge and Salem depots, however, are quite close together and the proposed Greenwich plant, for which a license has been refused, is ten miles from Salem and twelve miles from Eagle Bridge.” 297 N. Y. 209, 212; 78 N. E. 2d 476, 477.
Laws of 1934, c. 126.
Section 258-c provides in pertinent part as follows:
“No license shall be granted to a person not now engaged in business as a milk dealer except for the continuation of a now existing business, and no license shall be granted to authorize the extension of an existing business by the operation of an additional plant or other new or additional facility, unless the commissioner is satisfied that the applicant is qualified by character, experience, financial responsibility and equipment to properly conduct the proposed business, that the issuance of the license will not tend to a destructive competition in a market already adequately served, and that the issuance of the license is in the public interest. . . .”
This finding follows the statutory language. See Note 3.
297 N. Y. 209, 78 N. E. 2d 476.
U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3, granting Congress power “To regulate Commerce . . . among the several States ...”
335 U. S. 808.
“. . . nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The Court said: “The Commonwealth [of Pennsylvania] does not essay to regulate or to restrain the shipment of the respondent’s milk into New York 306 U. S. 346, 352.
294 U. S. 511,523.
Id., 526.
Id., 521.
Id., 522.
Id., 527.
Act of June 3, 1937, c. 296, 50 Stat. 246, as amended, 7 U. S. C. § 601 et seq.
7 U. S. C. § 610 (i).
See Laws of 1937, c. 798, § 258-n.
7 C. F. R. §§ 904-904.202 (1947 Supp.).
7 C. F. R. §§927-927.202 (1947 Supp.).
7 U. S. C. § 608c (5) (G).
See 7 U. S. C. § 608c (5) (B).
The Act of August 24, 1935, 49 Stat. 750, amended the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, 48 Stat. 31. Section 8c first appeared in the 1935 Act, which was amended and reenacted by the 1937 Act, 50 Stat. 246, cited in note 15.
See also H. R. Rep. No. 1241, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 7-11. And see debates at 79 Cong. Rec. 9461-63; 9572-73; 9602-04; 11134-41; and 13022. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the respondent of the case. The respondent is the party being sued or tried and is also known as the appellee. Characterize the respondent as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the respondent by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the respondent is actually single entitiy or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single respondent, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the respondent of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
18
] | sc_respondent |
ERNST & ERNST v. HOCHFELDER et al.
No. 74-1042.
Argued December 3, 1975
Decided March 30, 1976
Powell, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burgee, C. J., and Stewart, White, Marshall, and Rehnquist, JJ., joined. Blackmun, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Brennan, J., joined, post, p. 215. Stevens, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Robert L. Berner, Jr., argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Francis D. Morrissey, Michael J. Madda, and Kenneth H. Lang.
Willard L. King argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents Hochfelder et al. Willard J. Lassers argued the cause for respondents Allison et al. With him on the brief were Donald L. Vetter, Leon M. Despres, and Alex Elson.
Paul Gonson argued the cause for the Securities and Exchange Commission as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Bork, Deputy Solicitor General Friedman, Lawrence E. Nerheim, and Charles E. H. Luedde
Kenneth J. Bialkin and Louis A. Craco filed a brief for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Mr. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this case is whether an action for civil damages may lie under § 10 (b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (1934 Act), 48 Stat. 891, 15 U. S. C. § 78j (b), and Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5, 17 CFR § 240.1Ob-5 (1975), in the absence of an allegation of intent to deceive, manipulate, or defraud on the part of the defendant.
I
Petitioner, Ernst & Ernst, is an accounting firm. From 1946 through 1967 it was retained by First Securities Company of Chicago (First Securities), a small brokerage firm and member of the Midwest Stock Exchange and of the National Association of Securities Dealers, to perform periodic audits of the firm's books and records. In connection with these audits Ernst & Ernst prepared for filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission) the annual reports required of First Securities under § 17 (a) of the 1934 Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78q (a). It also prepared for First Securities responses to the financial questionnaires of the Midwest Stock Exchange (Exchange).,
Respondents were customers of First Securities who invested in a fraudulent securities scheme perpetrated by Leston B. Nay, president of the firm and owner of 92% of its stock. Nay induced the respondents to invest funds in “escrow” accounts that he represented would yield a high rate of return. Respondents did so from 1942 through 1966, with the majority of the transactions occurring in the 1950’s. In fact, there were no escrow accounts as Nay converted respondents’ funds to his own use immediately upon receipt. These transactions were not in the customary form of dealings between First Securities and its customers. The respondents drew their personal checks payable to Nay or a designated bank for his account. No such escrow accounts were reflected on the books and records of First Securities, and none was shown on its periodic accounting to respondents in connection with their other investments. Nor were they included in First Securities’ filings with the Commission or the Exchange.
This fraud came to light in 1968 when Nay committed suicide, leaving a note that described First Securities as bankrupt and the escrow accounts as “spurious.” Respondents subsequently filed this action for damages against Ernst & Ernst in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois under § 10 (b) of the 1934 Act. The complaint charged that Nay's escrow scheme violated § 10 (b) and Commission Rule 10b-5, and that Ernst & Ernst had “aided and abetted” Nay’s violations by its “failure” to conduct proper audits of First Securities. As revealed through discovery, respondents’ cause of action rested on a theory of negligent nonfeasance. The premise was that Ernst & Ernst had failed to utilize “appropriate auditing procedures” in its audits of First Securities, thereby failing to discover internal practices of the firm said to prevent an effective audit. The practice principally relied on was Nay’s rule that only he could open mail addressed to him at First Securities or addressed to First Securities to his attention, even if it arrived in his absence. Respondents contended that if Ernst & Ernst had conducted a proper audit, it would have discovered this “mail rule.” The existence of the rule then would have been disclosed in reports to the Exchange and to the Commission by Ernst & Ernst as an irregular procedure that prevented an effective audit. This would have led to an investigation of Nay that would have revealed the fraudulent scheme. Respondents specifically disclaimed the existence of fraud or intentional misconduct on the part of Ernst & Ernst.
After extensive discovery the District Court granted Ernst & Ernst's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the action. The court rejected Ernst & Ernst's contention that a cause of action for aiding and abetting a securities fraud could not be maintained under § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5 merely on allegations of negligence. It concluded, however, that there was no genuine issue of material fact with respect to whether Ernst & Ernst had conducted its audits in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards.
The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded, holding that one who breaches a duty of inquiry and disclosure owed another is liable in damages for aiding and abetting a third party's violation of Rule 10b-5 if the fraud would have been discovered or prevented but for the breach. 503 F. 2d 1100 (1974). The court reasoned that Ernst & Ernst had a common-law and statutory duty of inquiry into the adequacy of First Securities’ internal control system because it had contracted to audit First Securities and to prepare for filing with the Commission the annual report of First Securities’ financial condition required under § 17 of the 1934 Act and Rule 17a-5. The court further reasoned that respondents were beneficiaries of the statutory duty to inquire and the related duty to disclose any material irregularities that were discovered. 503 F. 2d, at 1105-1111. The court concluded that there were genuine issues of fact as to whether Ernst & Ernst’s failure to discover and comment upon Nay’s mail rule constituted a breach of its duties of inquiry and disclosure, id., at 1111, and whether inquiry and disclosure would have led to the discovery or prevention of Nay’s fraud. Id., at 1115.
We granted certiorari to resolve the question whether a private cause of action for damages will lie under § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5 in the absence of any allegation of “scienter” — intent to deceive, manipulate, or defraud. 421 U. S. 909 (1975). We ednclude that it will not and therefore we reverse.
II
Federal regulation of transactions in securities emerged as part of the aftermath of the market crash in 1929. The Securities Act of 1933 (1933 Act), 48 Stat. 74, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 77a et seq., was designed to provide investors with full disclosure of material information concerning public offerings of securities in commerce, to protect investors against fraud and, through the imposition of specified civil liabilities, to promote ethical standards of honesty and fair dealing. See H. R. Rep. No. 85, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., 1-5 (1933). The 1934 Act was intended principally to protect investors against manipulation of stock prices through regulation of transactions upon securities exchanges and in over-the-counter markets, and to impose regular reporting requirements on companies whose stock is listed on national securities exchanges. See S. Rep. No. 792, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1-5 (1934). Although the Acts contain numerous carefully drawn express civil remedies and criminal penalties, Congress recognized that efficient regulation of securities trading could not be accomplished under a rigid statutory program. As part of the 1934 Act Congress created the Commission, which is provided with an arsenal of flexible enforcement powers. See, e. g., 1933 Act §§ 8, 19, 20, 15 U. S. C. §§ 77h, 77s, 77t; 1934 Act §§ 9, 19, 21, 15 U. S. C. §§ 78i, 78s, 78u.
Section 10 of the 1934 Act makes it “unlawful for any person . . . (b) [t]o use or employ, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security . . . any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention of such rules and regulations as the Commission may prescribe as necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.” 15 U. S. C. § 78j. In 1942, acting pursuant to the power conferred by § 10 (b), the Commission promulgated Rule 10b-5, which now provides:
“Employment of manipulative and deceptive devices.
“It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, by the use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails or of any facility of any national securities exchange,
“(a) To employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud,
“(b) To make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading, or
“(c) To engage in any act, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person,
“in connection with the purchase or sale of any security.”
Although § 10 (b) does not by its terms create an express civil remedy for its violation, and there is no indication that Congress, or the Commission when adopting Rule 10b-5, contemplated such a remedy, the existence of a private cause of action for violations of the statute and the Rule is now well established. Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U. S. 723, 730 (1975); Affiliated Ute Citizens v. United States, 406 U. S. 128, 150-154 (1972); Superintendent of Insurance v. Bankers Life & Cas. Co., 404 U. S. 6, 13 n. 9 (1971). During the 30-year period since a private cause of action was first implied under § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5, a substantial body of case law and commentary has developed as to its elements. Courts and commentators long.-have differed with regard to whether scienter is a necessary element of such a cause of action, or whether negligent conduct alone is sufficient. In addressing this question, we turn first to the language of § 10(b), for “[t]he starting point in every case involving construction of a statute is the language itself.” Blue Chip Stamps, supra, at 756 (Powell, J., concurring); see FTC v. Bunte Bros., Inc., 312 U. S. 349, 350 (1941).
A
Section 10 (b) makes unlawful the use or employment of “any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance” in contravention of Commission rules. The words “manipulative or deceptive” used in conjunction with “device or contrivance” strongly suggest that § 10 (b) was intended to proscribe knowing or intentional misconduct. See SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co., 401 F. 2d 833, 868 (CA2 1968) (Friendly, J., concurring), cert. denied sub nom. Coates v. SEC, 394 U. S. 976 (1969); Loss, Summary Remarks, 30 Bus. Law. 163, 165 (Special Issue 1975). See also Kohn v. American Metal Climax, Inc., 458 F. 2d 255, 280 (CA3 1972) (Adams, J., concurring and dissenting).
In its amicus curiae brief, however, the Commission contends that nothing in the language “manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance” limits its operation to knowing or intentional practices. In support of its view, the Commission cites the overall congressional purpose in the 1933 and 1934 Acts to protect investors against false and deceptive practices that might injure them. See Affiliated Ute Citizens v. United States, supra, at 151; Superintendent of Insurance v. Bankers Life & Cas. Co., supra, at 11-12; J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426, 432-433 (1964). See also SEC v. Capital Gains Res. Bur., 375 U. S. 180, 195 (1963). The Commission then reasons that since the “effect” upon investors of given conduct is the same regardless of whether the conduct is negligent or intentional, Congress must have intended to bar all such practices and not just those done knowingly or intentionally. The logic of this effect-oriented approach would impose liability for wholly faultless conduct where such conduct results in harm to investors, a result the Commission would be unlikely to support. But apart from where its logic might lead, the Commission would add a gloss to the operative language of the statute quite different from its commonly accepted meaning. See, e. g., Addison v. Holly Hill Fruit Products, Inc., 322 U. S. 607, 617-618 (1944). The argument simply ignores the use of the words “manipulative,” “device,” and “contrivance” — terms that make unmistakable a congressional intent to proscribe a type of conduct quite different from negligence. Use of the word “manipulative” is especially significant. It is and was virtually a term of art when used in connection with securities markets. It connotes intentional or willful conduct designed to deceive or defraud investors by controlling or artificially affecting the price of securities.
In addition to relying upon the Commission’s argument with respect to the operative language of the statute, respondents contend that since we are dealing with "remedial legislation/’ Tcherepnin v. Knight, 389 U. S. 332, 336 (1967), it must be construed “ 'not technically and restrictively, but flexibly to effectuate its remedial purposes.’ ” Affiliated Ute Citizens v. United States, 406 U. S., at 151, quoting SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bureau, supra, at 195. They argue that the “remedial purposes” of the Acts demand a construction of § 10 (b) that embraces negligence as a standard of liability. But in seeking to accomplish its broad remedial goals, Congress did not adopt uniformly a negligence standard even as to express civil remedies. In some circumstances and with respect to certain classes of defendants, Congress did create express liability predicated upon a failure to exercise reasonable care. E. g., 1933 Act § 11 (b)(3) (B), 48 Stat. 82, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 77k (b) (3) (B) (liability of “experts,” such as accountants, for misleading statements in portions of registration statements for which they are responsible). But in other situations good faith is an absolute defense. 1934 Act § 18, 48 Stat. 897, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 78r (misleading statements in any document filed pursuant to the 1934 Act). And in still other circumstances Congress created express liability regardless of the defendant’s fault, 1933 Act § 11 (a), 15 U. S. C. § 77k (a) (issuer liability for misleading statements in the registration statement).
It is thus evident that Congress fashioned standards of fault in the express civil remedies in the 1933 and 1934 Acts on a particularized basis. Ascertainment of congressional intent with respect to the standard of liability created by a particular section of the Acts must therefore rest primarily on the language of that section. Where, as here, we deal with a judicially implied liability, the statutory language certainly is no less important. In view of the language of § 10 (b), which so clearly connotes intentional misconduct, and mindful that the language of a statute controls when sufficiently clear in its context, United States v. Oregon, 366 U. S. 643, 648 (1961); Packard Motor Car Co. v. NLRB, 330 U. S. 485, 492 (1947), further inquiry may be unnecessary. We turn now, nevertheless, to the legislative history of the 1934 Act to ascertain whether there is support for the meaning attributed to § 10 (b) by the Commission and respondents.
B
Although the extensive legislative history of the 1934 Act is bereft of any explicit explanation of Congress' intent, we think the relevant portions of that history support our conclusion that § 10 (b) was addressed to practices that involve some element of scienter and cannot be read to impose liability for negligent conduct alone.
The original version of what would develop into the 1934 Act was contained in identical bills introduced by Senator Fletcher and Representative Rayburn. S. 2693, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. (1934); H. R. 7852, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. (1934). Section 9 (c) of the bills, from which present § 10 (b) evolved, proscribed as unlawful the use of “any device or contrivance which, or any device or contrivance in a way or manner which the Commission may by its rules and regulations find detrimental to the public interest or to the proper protection of investors.” The other subsections of proposed § 9 listed specific practices that Congress empowered the Commission to regulate through its rulemaking power. See §§ 9 (a) (short sale), (b) (“stop-loss order”). Soon after the hearings on the House bill were held, a substitute bill was introduced in both Houses which abbreviated and modified §9 (c)’s operative language to read “any manipulative device or contrivance.” H. R. 8720, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., § 9 (c) (1934); see S. 3420, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., § 10 (b) (1934). Still a third bill, retaining the Commission's power to regulate the specific practices enumerated in the prior bills, and omitting all reference to the Commission’s authority to prescribe rules concerning manipulative or deceptive devices in general, was introduced and passed in the House. H. R. 9323, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., § 9 (1934). The final language of § 10 is a modified version of a Senate amendment to this last House bill. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1838, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 32-33 (1934).
Neither the intended scope of § 10 (b) nor the reasons for the changes in its operative language are revealed explicitly in the legislative history of the 1934 Act, which deals primarily with other aspects of the legislation. There is no indication, however, that § 10 (b) was intended to proscribe conduct not involving scienter. The extensive hearings that preceded passage of the 1934 Act touched only briefly on § 10, and most of the discussion was devoted to the enumerated devices that the Commission is empowered to proscribe under § 10 (a). The most relevant exposition of the provision that was to become § 10 (b) was by Thomas G. Corcoran, a spokesman for the drafters. Corcoran indicated:
“Subsection (c) [§ 9 (c) of H. R. 7852 — later § 10 (b) ] says, ‘Thou shalt not devise any other cunning devices.’
“Of course subsection (c) is a catch-all clause to prevent manipulative devices. I do not think there is any objection to that kind of clause. The Commission should have the authority to deal with new manipulative devices.” Hearings on H. R. 7852 and H. R. 8720 before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 115 (1934).
This brief explanation of § 10 (b) by a spokesman for its drafters is significant. The section was described rightly as a “catchall” clause to enable the Commission “to deal with new manipulative [or cunning] devices.” It is difficult to believe that any lawyer, legislative draftsman, or legislator would use these words if the intent was to create liability for merely negligent acts or omissions. Neither the legislative history nor the briefs supporting respondents identify any usage or authority for construing “manipulative [or cunning] devices” to include negligence.
The legislative reports do not address the scope of § 10 (b) or its catchall function directly. In considering specific manipulative practices left to Commission regulation, however, the reports indicate that liability would not attach absent scienter, supporting the conclusion that Congress intended no lesser standard under § 10 (b). The Senate Report of S. 3420 discusses generally the various abuses that precipitated the need for the legislation and the inadequacy of self-regulation by the stock exchanges. The Report then analyzes the component provisions of the statute, but does not parse § 10. The only specific reference to § 10 is the following:
“In addition to the discretionary and elastic powers conferred on the administrative authority, effective regulation must include several clear statutory provisions reinforced by penal and civil sanctions, aimed at those manipulative and deceptive practices which have been demonstrated to fulfill no useful function. These sanctions are found in sections 9,10 and 16.” S. Rep. No. 792, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 6 (1934).
In the portion of the general-analysis section of the Report entitled Manipulative Practices, however, there is a discussion of specific practices that were considered so inimical to the public interest as to require express prohibition, such as “wash” sales and “matched” orders, and of other practices that might in some cases serve legitimate purposes, such as stabilization of security prices and grants of options. Id., at 7-9. These latter practices were left to regulation by the Commission. 1934 Act §§ 9 (a) (6), (c), 48 Stat. 890, 15 U. S. C. §§ 78i (a)(6), (c). Significantly, we think, in the discussion of the need to regulate even the latter category of practices when they are manipulative, there is no indication that any type of criminal or civil liability is to attach in the absence of scienter. Furthermore, in commenting on the express civil liabilities provided in the 1934 Act, the Report explains:
“[I]f air investor has suffered loss by reason of illicit practices, it is equitable that he should be allowed to recover damages from the guilty party.... [T]he bill provides that any person who unlawfully manipulates the price of a security, or who induces transactions in a security by means of false or misleading statements, or who makes a false or misleading statement in the report of a corporation, shall be liable in damages to those who have bought or sold the security at prices affected by such violation or statement. In such case the burden is on the plaintiff to show the violation or the fact that the statement was false or misleading, and that he relied thereon to his damage. The defendant may escape liability by showing that the statement was made in good faith.” S. Rep. No. 792, supra, at 12-13 (emphasis supplied).
The Report therefore reveals with respect to the specified practices, an overall congressional intent to prevent “manipulative and deceptive practices which . . . fulfill no useful function” and to create private actions for damages stemming from “illicit practices,” where the defendant has not acted in good faith. The views expressed in the House Report are consistent with this interpretation. H. R. Rep. No. 1383, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 10-11, 20-21 (1934) (H. R. 9323). There is no indication that Congress intended anyone to be made liable for such practices unless he acted other than in good faith. The catchall provision of § 10 (b) should be interpreted no more broadly.
C
The 1933 and 1934 Acts constitute interrelated components of the federal regulatory scheme governing transactions in securities. See Blue Chip Stamps, 421 U. S., at 727-730. As the Court indicated in SEC v. National Securities, Inc., 393 U. S. 453, 466 (1969), “the interdependence of the various sections of the securities laws is certainly a relevant factor in any interpretation of the language Congress has chosen . . . .” Recognizing this, respondents and the Commission contrast § 10 (b) with other sections of the Acts to support their contention that civil liability may be imposed upon proof of negligent conduct. We think they misconceive the significance of the other provisions of the Acts.
The Commission argues that Congress has been explicit in requiring willful conduct when that was the standard of fault intended, citing § 9 of the 1934 Act, 48 Stat. 889, 15 U. S. C. § 78i, which generally proscribes manipulation of securities prices. Sections 9(a)(1) and (a)(2), for example, respectively prohibit manipulation of security prices “[f]or the purpose of creating a false or misleading appearance of active trading in any security . . . or . . . with respect to the market for any such security,” and “for the purpose of inducing the purchase or sale of such security by others.” See also § 9 (a)(4). Section 9 (e) then imposes upon “[a]ny person who willfully participates in any act or transaction in violation of” other provisions of § 9 civil liability to anyone who purchased or sold a security at a price affected by the manipulative activities. From this the Commission concludes that since § 10 (b) is not by its terms explicitly restricted to willful, knowing, or purposeful conduct, it should not be construed in all cases to require more than negligent action or inaction as a precondition for civil liability.
The structure of the Acts does not support the Commission’s argument. In each instance that Congress created express civil liability in favor of purchasers or sellers of securities it clearly specified whether recovery was to be premised on knowing or intentional conduct, negligence, or entirely innocent mistake. See 1933 Act, §§11, 12, 15, 48 Stat. 82, 84, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §§ 77k, 771, 77o; 1934 Act §§ 9, 18, 20, 48 Stat. 889, 897, 899, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §§ 78i, 78r, 78t. For example, § 11 of the 1933 Act unambiguously creates a private action for damages when a registration statement includes untrue statements of material facts or fails to state material facts necessary to make the statements therein not misleading. Within the limits specified by § 11 (e), the issuer of the securities is held absolutely liable for any damages resulting from such misstatement or omission. But experts such as accountants who have prepared portions of the registration statement are accorded a “due diligence” defense. In effect, this is a negligence standard. An expert may avoid civil liability with respect to the portions of the registration statement for which he was responsible by showing that “after reasonable investigation” he had “reasonable ground [s] to believe” that the statements'for which he was responsible were true and there was no omission of a material fact. § 11 (b) (3) (B) (i). See, e. g., Escott v. Barchris Constr. Corp., 283 F. Supp. 643, 697-703 (SDNY 1968). The express recognition of a cause of action premised on negligent behavior in § 11 stands in sharp contrast to the language of § 10 (b), and significantly undercuts the Commission’s argument.
We also consider it significant that each of the express civil remedies in the 1933 Act allowing recovery for negligent conduct, see §§ 11, 12 (2), 15, 15 U. S. C. §§ 77k, 771 (2), 77o, is subject to significant procedural restrictions not applicable under § 10 (b). Section 11 (e) of the 1933 Act, for example, authorizes the court to require a plaintiff bringing a suit under § 11, § 12 (2), or § 15 thereof to post a bond for costs, including attorneys’ fees, and in specified circumstances to assess costs at the conclusion of the litigation. Section 13 specifies a statute of limitations of one year from the time the violation was or should have been discovered, in no event to exceed three years from the time of offer or sale, applicable to actions brought under § 11, § 12 (2), or § 15. These restrictions, significantly, were imposed by amendments to the 1933 Act adopted as part of the 1934 Act. Prior to amendment § 11 (e) contained no provision for payment of costs. Act of May 27, 1933, c. 38, § 11 (e), 48 Stat. 83. See Act of June 6, 1934, c. 404, § 206 (e), 48 Stat. 907. The amendments also substantially shortened the statute of limitations provided by § 13. Compare § 13, 48 Stat. 84, with 15 U. S. C. § 77m. See 1934 Act, § 207, 48 Stat. 908. We think these procedural limitations indicate that the judicially created private damages remedy under § 10 (b) — which has no comparable restrictions — cannot be extended, consistently with the intent of Congress, to actions premised on negligent wrongdoing. Such extension would allow causes of action covered by §§ 11, 12 (2), and 15 to be brought instead under § 10 (b) and thereby nullify the effectiveness of the carefully drawn procedural restrictions on these express actions. See, e. g., Fisch man v. Raytheon Mfg. Co., 188 F. 2d 783, 786-787 (CA2 1951); SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co., 401 F. 2d, at 867-868 (Friendly, J., concurring); Rosenberg v. Globe Aircraft Corp., 80 F. Supp. 123, 124 (ED Pa. 1948); 3 Loss, supra, n. 17, at 1787-1788; R. Jennings & H. Marsh, Securities Regulation 1070-1074 (3d ed. 1972). We would be unwilling to bring about this result absent substantial support in the legislative history, and there is none.
D
We have addressed, to this point, primarily the language and history of § 10(b). The Commission contends, however, that subsections (b) and (c) of Rule 10b-5 are cast in language which — if standing alone— could encompass both intentional and negligent behavior. These subsections respectively provide that it is unlawful “[t]o make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading . . and “[t]o engage in any act, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person . . . Viewed in isolation the language of subsection (b), and arguably that of subsection (c), could be read as proscribing, respectively, any type of material misstatement or omission, and any course of conduct, that has the effect of defrauding investors, whether the wrongdoing was intentional or not.
We note first that such a reading cannot be harmonized with the administrative history of the Rule, a history making clear that when the Commission adopted the Rule it was intended to apply only to activities that involved scienter. More importantly, Rule 10b-5 was adopted pursuant to authority granted the Commission under § 10 (b). The rulemaking power granted to an administrative agency charged with the administration of a federal statute is not the power to make law. Rather, it is “ ‘the power to adopt regulations to carry into effect the will of Congress as expressed by the statute.’ ” Dixon v. United States, 381 U. S. 68, 74 (1965), quoting Manhattan General Equipment Co. v. Commissioner, 297 U. S. 129, 134 (1936). Thus, despite the broad view of the Rule advanced by the Commission in this case, its scope cannot exceed the power granted the Commission by Congress under § 10 (b). For the reasons stated above, we think the Commission’s original interpretation of Rule 10b-5 was compelled by the language and history of § 10 (b) and related sections of the Acts. See, e. g., Gerstle v. Gamble-Skogmo, Inc., 478 F. 2d 1281, 1299 (CA2 1973); Lanza v. Drexel & Co., 479 F. 2d 1277, 1304-1305 (CA2 1973); SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co., 401 F. 2d, at 868 (Friendly, J., concurring); 3 Loss, supra, n. 17, at 1766; 6 id., at 3883-3885. When a statute speaks so specifically in terms of manipulation and deception, and of implementing devices and contrivances — the commonly understood terminology of intentional wrongdoing — and when its history reflects no more expansive intent, we are quite unwilling to extend the scope of the statute to negligent conduct.
III
Recognizing that § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5 might be held to require proof of more than negligent nonfeasance by Ernst & Ernst as a precondition to the imposition of civil liability, respondents further contend that the case should be remanded for trial under whatever standard is adopted. Throughout the lengthy history of this case respondents have proceeded on a theory of liability premised on negligence, specifically disclaiming that Ernst & Ernst had engaged in fraud or intentional misconduct. In these circumstances, we think it inappropriate to remand the action for further proceedings.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Section 17 (a) requires that securities brokers or dealers “make . . . and preserve . . . such accounts . . . books, and other records, and make such reports, as the Commission by its rules and regulations may prescribe as necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.” During the period relevant here, Commission Rule 17a-5, 17 CER §240.17a-5 (1975), required that First Securities file an annual report of its financial condition that included a certificate stating “clearly the opinion of the accountant with respect to the financial statement covered by the certificate and the accounting principles and practices reflected therein.” See SEC Release No. 3338 (Nov. 28, 1942), X-17A-5 (h). The Rule required Ernst & Ernst to state in its certificate, inter alia, “whether the audit was made in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards applicable in the circumstances” and provided that nothing in the Rule should “be construed to imply authority for the omission of any procedure which independent accountants would ordinarily employ in the course of an audit for the purpose of expressing the opinions required” by the Rule.
Two separate, but substantially identical, complaints initially were filed by different members of the present group of respondents. Subsequently the respondents jointly filed a First Amended Complaint. The two cases were treated by the District Court as if they were consolidated, and they were consolidated formally on appeal.
The first count of the complaint was directed against the Exchange, charging that through its acts and omissions it had aided and abetted Nay’s fraud. Summary judgment in favor of the Exchange was affirmed on appeal. Hochfelder v. Midwest Stock Exchange, 503 F. 2d 364 (CA7), cert. denied, 419 U. S. 875 (1974).
Immediately after Nay's suicide the Commission commenced receivership proceedings against First Securities. In those proceedings all of the respondents except two asserted claims based on the fraudulent escrow accounts. These claims ultimately were allowed in SEC v. First Securities Co., 463 F. 2d 981, 986 (CA7), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 880 (1972), where the court held that Nay’s conduct violated § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5, and that First Securities was liable for Nay's fraud as an aider and abettor. The question of Ernst & Ernst’s liability was not considered in that case.
In their response to interrogatories in the District Court respondents conceded that they did “not accuse Ernst & Ernst of deliberate, intentional fraud,” merely with “inexcusable negligence.” App. 81.
The District Court also held that respondents' action was barred by the doctrine of equitable estoppel and the applicable Illinois statute of limitations of three years. See n. 29, infra. As customers of First Securities respondents were sent confirmation forms as required under § 17 (a) and Rule 17a-5 requesting that they verify the accuracy of the statements and notify Ernst & Ernst as to any exceptions. Although the confirmation forms contained no reference to the escrow accounts, Ernst & Ernst was not notified of this fact. The last audit of First Securities by Ernst & Ernst was completed in December 1967 and the first complaint in this action was not filed until February 1971.
In support of this holding, the Court of Appeals cited its decision in Hochfelder v. Midwest Stock Exchange, supra, where it detailed the elements necessary to establish a claim under Rule 10b-5 based on a defendant’s aiding and abetting a securities fraud solely by inaction. See n. 3 supra. In such a case the plaintiff must show “that the party charged with aiding and abetting had knowledge of or, but for a breach of a duty of inquiry, should have had knowledge of the fraud, and that possessing such knowledge the party failed to act due to an improper motive or breach of a duty of disclosure.” 503 F. 2d, at 374. The court explained in the instant case that these “elements comprise a flexible standard of liability which should be amplified according to the peculiarities of each case.” Id., at 1104. In view of our holding that an intent to deceive, manipulate, or defraud is required for civil liability under § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5, we need not consider whether civil liability for aiding and abetting is appropriate under the section and the Rule, nor the elements necessary to establish such a cause of action. See, e. g., Brennan v. Midwestern United Life Ins. Co., 259 F. Supp. 673 (1966) and 286 F. Supp. 702 (ND Ind. 1968), aff’d, 417 F. 2d 147 (CA7 1969), cert. denied, 397 U. S. 989 (1970) (defendant held liable for giving active and knowing assistance to a third party engaged in violations of the securities laws). See generally Ruder, Multiple Defendants in Securities Law Fraud Cases: Aiding and Abetting, Conspiracy, In Pari Delicto, Indemnification and Contribution, 120 U. Pa. L. Rev. 597, 620-645 (1972).
See n. 1, supra.
The court concluded that the duty of inquiry imposed on Ernst & Ernst under § 17 (a) was “grounded on a concern for the protection of investors such as [respondents],” without reaching the question whether the statute imposed a “direct duty” to the respondents. 503 F. 2d, at 1105. The court held that Ernst & Ernst owed no common-law duty of inquiry to respondents arising from its contract with First Securities since Ernst & Ernst did not specifically foresee that respondents’ limited class might suffer from a negligent audit, compare Glanzer v. Shepard, 233 N. Y. 236, 135 N. E. 275 (1922), with Ultramares Corp. v. Touche, 255 N. Y. 170, 174 N. E. 441 (1931); see, e. g., Rhode Island Hospital Trust Nat. Bank v. Swartz, 455 F. 2d 847, 851 (CA4 1972). Moreover, respondents conceded that they did not rely on the financial statements and reports prepared by Ernst & Ernst or on its certificate of opinion. 503 F. 2d, at 1107.
In their briefs respondents allude to several other alleged failings by Ernst & Ernst in its audit of First Securities, principally its failure to inquire into the collectibility of certain loans by First Securities to Nay and and its failure to follow up on a 1965 memorandum that characterized First Securities’ overall system of internal control as weak because of the centralization of functions in the cashier. The Court of Appeals mentioned none of these alleged deficiencies in its opinion in this case, although it did discuss the loans to Nay and certain other related matters in its opinion in Hochfelder v. Midwest Stock Exchange, 503 F. 2d, at 370-371, holding that the existence of these facts was insufficient to put the Exchange on notice that further inquiry into First Securities’ financial affairs was required.
The Court of Appeals also reversed the District Court’s holding with respect to equitable estoppel and the statute of limitations. See n. 6, supra. In view of our disposition of the case we need not address these issues.
Although the verbal formulations of the standard to be applied have varied, several Courts of Appeals have held in substance that negligence alone is sufficient for civil liability under § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5. See, e. g., White v. Abrams, 495 F. 2d 724, 730 (CA9 1974) (“flexible duty” standard); Myzel v. Fields, 386 F. 2d 718, 735 (CA8 1967), cert. denied, 390 U. S. 951 (1968) (negligence sufficient); Kohler v. Kohler Co., 319 F. 2d 634, 637 (CA7 1963) (knowledge not required). Other Courts of Appeals have held that some type of scienter — i. e., intent to defraud, reckless disregard for the truth, or knowing use of some practice to defraud — is necessary in such an action. See, e. g., Clegg v. Conk, 507 F. 2d 1351, 1361— 1362 (CA10 1974), cert. denied, 422 U. S. 1007 (1975) (an element of “scienter or conscious fault”); Lanza v. Drexel & Co., 479 F. 2d 1277, 1306 (CA2 1973) (“willful or reckless disregard” of the truth). But few of the decisions announcing that some form of negligence suffices for civil liability under § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5 actually have involved only negligent conduct. Smallwood v. Pearl Brewing Co., 489 F. 2d 579, 606 (CA5), cert. denied, 419 U. S. 873 (1974); Kohn v. American Metal Climax, Inc., 458 F. 2d 255, 286 (CA3 1972) (Adams, J., concurring and dissenting); Bucklo, Scienter and Rule 10b-5, 67 Nw. U. L. Rev. 562, 568-570 (1972).
In this opinion the term “scienter” refers to a mental state embracing intent to deceive, manipulate, or defraud. In certain areas of the law recklessness is considered to be a form of intentional conduct for purposes of imposing liability for some act. We need not address here the question whether, in some circumstances, reckless behavior is sufficient for civil liability under § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5.
Since this case concerns an action for damages we also need not consider the question whether scienter is a necessary element in an action for injunctive relief under § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5. Cf. SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bureau, 375 U. S. 180 (1963).
Respondents further contend that Ernst & Ernst owed them a direct duty under § 17 (a) of the 1934 Act and Rule 17a-5 to conduct a proper audit of First Securities and that they may base a private cause of action against Ernst & Ernst for violation of that duty. Respondents' cause of action, however, was premised solely on the alleged violation of § 10 (b) and Rule 10b-5. During the lengthy history of this litigation they have not amended their original complaint to aver a cause of action under § 17 (a) and Rule 17a-5. We therefore do not consider that a claim of liability under § 17 (a) is properly before us even assuming respondents could assert such a claim independently of §10 (b).
See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 792, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 5-6 (1934); Note, Implied Liability Under the Securities Exchange Act, 61 Harv. L. Rev. 858, 860 (1948).
SEC Release No. 3230 (May 21, 1942); Birnbaum v. Newport Steel Corp., 193 F. 2d 461, 463 (CA2), cert. denied, 343 U. S. 956 (1952).
Kardon v. National Gypsum Co., 69 F. Supp. 512 (ED Pa. 1946).
See cases cited in n. 12, supra. Compare, e. g., Comment, Scienter and Rule 10b-5, 69 Col. L. Rev. 1057, 1080-1081 (1969); Note, Negligent Misrepresentations under Rule 10b-5, 32 U. Chi. L. Rev. 824, 839-844 (1965); Note, Securities Acts, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 938, 947 (1969); Note, Civil Liability Under Section 10B and Rule 10B-5: A Suggestion for Replacing the Doctrine of Privity, 74 Yale L. J. 658, 682-689 (1965), with, e. g., 3 L. Loss, Securities Regulation 1766 (2d ed. 1961); 6 id., at 3883-3885 (1969).
The Commission would not permit recovery upon proof of negligence in all cases. In order to harmonize civil liability under § 10 (b) with the express civil remedies contained in the 1933 and 1934 Acts, the Commission would limit the circumstances in which civil liability could be imposed for negligent violation of Rule 10b-5 to situations in which (i) the defendant knew or reasonably could foresee that the plaintiff would rely on his conduct, (ii) the plaintiff did in fact so rely, and (iii) the amount of the plaintiff’s damages caused by the defendant’s conduct was definite and ascertainable. Brief for SEC as Amicus Curiae 23-33. The Commission concludes that the present record does not establish these conditions since Ernst & Ernst could not reasonably have foreseen that the financial statements of First Securities would induce respondents to invest in the escrow accounts, respondents in fact did not rely on Ernst & Ernst's audits, and the amount of respondents’ damages was unascertainable. Id., at 33-36. Respondents accept the Commission's basic analysis of the operative language of the statute and Rule, but reject these additional requirements for recovery for negligent violations.
“To let general words draw nourishment from their purpose is one thing. To draw on some unexpressed spirit outside the bounds of the normal meaning of words is quite another. . . . After all, legislation when not expressed in technical terms is addressed to the common run of men and is therefore to be understood according to the sense of the thing, as the ordinary man has a right to rely on ordinary words addressed to him.” Addison v. Holly Hill Fruit Products, Inc., 322 U. S., at 617-618. See Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Col. L. Rev. 527, 536-537 (1947).
Webster’s International Dictionary (2d ed. 1934) defines “device” as “[t]hat which is devised, or formed by design; a contrivance; an invention; project; scheme; often, a scheme to deceive; a stratagem; an artifice,” and “contrivance” in pertinent part as “[a] thing contrived or used in contriving; a scheme, plan, or artifice.” In turn, “contrive” in pertinent part is defined as “[t]o devise; to plan; to plot . . . [t]o fabricate . . . design; invent ... to scheme . . . .” The Commission also ignores the use of the terms “[t]o use or employ,” language that is supportive of the view that Congress did not intend § 10 (b) to embrace negligent conduct.
Webster’s International Dictionary, supra, defines “manipulate” as “to manage or treat artfully or fraudulently; as to manipulate accounts .... 4. Exchanges. To force (prices) up or down, as by matched orders, wash sales, fictitious reports . . . ; to rig.”
See infra, at 208, and n. 26.
See n. 21, supra.
In support of its position the Commission cites statements by Corcoran in the Senate hearings that “in modern society there are many things you have to make crimes which are sheer matters of negligence” and "intent is not necessary for every crime.” Hearings before the Subcommittee on Stock Exchange Practices before the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 6509-6510 (1934). The comments, taken in context, shed no light on the meaning of § 10 (b). Corcoran’s remarks were made during a discussion of whether criminal violations could arise under § S (a) (3) of S. 2693, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., which in material part was incorporated in § 9 of the 1934 Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78i, in the absence of specific intent to influence security prices for personal gain. The remarks, moreover, were not addressed to the scope of § 8, but were general observations concerning activity society might proscribe under criminal law. Ferdinand Pecora, counsel to the committee and a draftsman of S. 2693, Foremost-McKesson, Inc. v. Provident Securities Co., 423 U. S. 232, 249-250, n. 24 (1976), described the language as “[excluding from its scope an act that is not done with any ulterior motives or purposes, as set forth in the act.” Hearings before the Subcommittee on Stock Exchange Practices, supra, at 6510. Further, prior to the passage of the 1934 Act, proposed § 8 was amended to require willful behavior as a prerequisite to civil liability for violations. Compare § 9 (e) of the 1934 Act with § 8 (c) of S. 2693. See H. R. Rep. No. 1383, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 21 (1934).
The Commission also relies on objections to a draft version of § 10 (b) — § 9 (c) of S. 2693 and H. R. 7852, see supra, at 201-202 — raised by representatives of the securities industry in the House and Senate hearings. They warned that the language was so vague that the Commission might outlaw anything. E. g., Hearings before the Subcommittee on Stock Exchange Practices, supra, at 6988; Hearings on H. R. 7852 and H. R. 8720 before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 258 (1934). Remarks of this kind made in the course of legislative debate or hearings other than by persons responsible for the preparation or the drafting of a bill are entitled to little weight. See, e. g., United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 276-277 (1947); United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U. S. 110, 125 (1942). This is especially so with regard to the statements of legislative opponents who “[i]n their zeal to defeat a bill . . . understandably tend to overstate its reach.” NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58, 66 (1964). See Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U. S. 384, 394-395 (1951).
“Wash” sales are transactions involving no change in beneficial ownership. “Matched” orders are orders for the purchase/sale of a security that are entered with the knowledge that orders of substantially the same size, at substantially the same time and price, have been or will be entered by the same or different persons for the sale/purchase of such security. Section 9 (a)(1) of the 1934 Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78i (a)(1), proscribes wash sales and matched orders when effectuated “[f]or the purpose of creating a false or misleading appearance of active trading in any.security registered on a national securities exchange, or . . . with respect to the market for any such security.” See In re J. A. Latimer & Co., 38 S. E. C. 790 (1958); In re Thornton & Co., 28 S. E. C. 208 (1948).
Other individuals who sign the registration statement, directors of the issuer, and the underwriter of the securities similarly are accorded a complete defense against civil liability based on the exercise of reasonable investigation and a reasonable belief that the registration statement was not misleading. §§ 11 (b) (3) (A), (C), (D), (c). See, e. g., Feit v. Leasco Data Processing Equipment Corp., 332 F. Supp. 544, 575-583 (EDNY 1971) (underwriters, but not officer-directors, established their due-diligence defense). See generally R. Jennings & H. Marsh, Securities Regulation 1018-1027 (3d ed. 1972), and sources cited therein; Folk, Civil Liabilities Under the Federal Securities Acts: The Barchris Case, 55 Va. L. Rev. 199 (1969).
Section 12 (2) creates potential civil liability for a seller of securities in favor of the purchaser for misleading statements or omissions in connection with the transaction. The seller is exculpated if he proves that he did not know, or, in the exercise of reasonable care, could not have known of the untruth or omission. Section 15 of the 1933 Act, as amended by § 208 of Title II of the 1934 Act, malees persons who “control” any person liable under § 11 or § 12 liable jointly and severally to the same extent as the controlled person, unless he “had no knowledge of or reasonable ground to believe in the existence of the facts by reason of which the liability of the controlled person is alleged to exist.” 15 U. S. C. § 77o. See Act of June 6, 1934, c. 404, § 208, 48 Stat. 908.
Each of the provisions of the 1934 Act that expressly create civil liability, except those directed to specific classes of individuals such as directors, officers, or 10% beneficial holders of securities, see § 16 (b), 15 U. S. C. §78p (b), Foremost-McKesson, Inc. v. Provident Securities Co., 423 U. S. 232 (1976); Kern County Land Co. v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 411 U. S. 582 (1973), contains a state-of-mind condition requiring something more than negligence. Section 9 (e) creates potential civil liability for any person who “willfully participates” in the manipulation of securities on a national exchange. 15 U. S. C. §78i (e). Section 18 creates potential civil liability for misleading statements filed with the Commission, but provides the defendant with the defense that “he acted in good faith and had no knowledge that such statement was false or misleading.” 15 U. S. C. §78r. And §20, which imposes liability upon “controlling person [s]” for violations of the Act by those they control, exculpates a defendant who “acted in good faith and did not . . . induce the act . . . constituting the violation ...” 15 U. S. C. § 78t. Emphasizing the important difference between the operative language and purpose of § 14 (a) of the 1934 Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78n (a), as contrasted with §10 (b), however, some courts have concluded that proof of scienter is unnecessary in an action for damages by the shareholder recipients of a materially misleading proxy statement against the issuer corporation. Gerstle v. Gamble-Skogmo, Inc., 478 F. 2d 1281, 1299 (CA2 1973). See also Kohn v. American Metal Climax, Inc., 458 F. 2d, at 289-290 (Adams, J., concurring and dissenting).
Since no statute of limitations is provided for civil actions under § 10 (b), the law of limitations of the forum State is followed as in other cases of judicially implied remedies. See Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392, 395 (1946), and cases cited therein. Although it is not always certain which state statute of limitations should be followed, such statutes of limitations usually are longer than the period provided under § 13. 3 Loss, supra, n. 17, at 1773-1774. As to costs see n. 30, infra.
Congress regarded these restrictions on private damages actions as significant. In introducing Title II of the 1934 Act, Senator Fletcher indicated that the amendment to § 11 (e) of the 1933 Act, providing for potential payment of costs, including attorneys’ fees, “is the most important [amendment] of all.” 78 Cong. Rec. 8669 (1934). One of its purposes was to deter actions brought solely for their potential settlement value. See ibid.; H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1838, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 42 (1934); Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U. S. 723, 740-741 (1975). This deterrent is lacking in the § 10 (b) context, in which a district court’s power to award attorneys’ fees is sharply circumscribed. See Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 (1975) (“bad faith” requirement); F. D. Rich Co. v. United States ex rel. Industrial Lumber Co., 417 U. S. 116, 129 (1974).
Section 18 of the 1934 Act creates a private cause of action against persons, such as accountants, who “make or cause to be made” materially misleading statements in reports or other documents filed with the Commission. 15 U. S. C. § 78r. We need not consider the question whether a cause of action may be maintained under § 10 (b) on the basis of actions that would constitute a violation of § 18. Under § 18 liability extends to persons who, in reliance on such statements, purchased or sold a security whose price was affected by the statements. Liability is limited, however, in the important respect that the defendant is accorded the defense that he acted in “good faith and had no knowledge that such statement was false or misleading.” Consistent with this language the legislative history of the section suggests something more than negligence on the part of the defendant is required for recovery. The original version of § 18 (a), § 17 (a) of S. 2693, H. R. 7852 and H. R. 7855, see supra, at 201-202, provided that the defendant would not be liable if “he acted in good faith and in the exercise of reasonable care had no ground to believe that such statement was false or misleading.” The accounting profession objected to this provision on the ground that liability would be created for honest errors in judgment. See Senate Hearings on Stock Exchange Practices, supra, n. 24, at 7175-7183; House Hearings on H. R. 7852 and H. R. 8720, supra, n. 24, at 653. In subsequent drafts the current formulation was adopted. It is also significant that actions under § 18 are limited by a relatively short statute of limitations similar to that provided in §13 of the 1933 Act. § 18(c). Moreover, as under § 11 (e) of the 1933 Act a district court is authorized to require the plaintiff to post a bond for costs, including attorneys’ fees, and to assess such costs at the conclusion of the litigation. § 18 (a).
Apparently the Rule was a hastily drafted response to a situation clearly involving intentional misconduct. The Commission’s Regional Administrator in Boston had reported to the Director of the Trading and Exchange Division that the president of a corporation was telling the other shareholders that the corporation was doing poorly and purchasing their shares at the resultant depressed prices, when in fact the business was doing exceptionally well. The Rule was drafted and approved on the day this report was received. See Conference on Codification of the Federal Securities Laws, 22 Bus. Law. 793, 922 (1967) (remarks of Milton Freeman, one of the Rule’s codrafters); Blue Chip Stamps, supra, at 767 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). Although adopted pursuant to § 10 (b), the language of the Rule appears to have been derived in significant part from § 17 of the 1933 Act, 15 U. S. C. § 77q. E. g., Blue Chip Stamps, supra, at 767 (Blackmun, J., dissenting); SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co., 401 F. 2d 833, 867 (CA2 1968) (Friendly, J., concurring), cert. denied sub nom. Coates v. SEC, 394 U. S. 976 (1969). There is no indication in the administrative history of the Rule that any of the subsections was intended to proscribe conduct not involving scienter. Indeed the Commission’s release issued contemporaneously with the Rule explained:
“The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the adoption of a rule prohibiting fraud by any person in connection with the purchase of securities. The previously existing rules against fraud in the purchase of securities applied only to brokers and dealers. The new rule closes a loophole in the protections against fraud administered by the Commission by prohibiting individuals or companies from buying securities if they engage in fraud in their purchase.” SEC Release No. 3230 (May 21, 1942).
That same year, in its Annual Report, the Commission again stated that the purpose of the Rule was to protect investors against “fraud”:
“During the fiscal year the Commission adopted Rule X-10B-5 as an additional protection to investors. The new rule prohibits fraud by any person in connection with the purchase of securities, while the previously existing rules against fraud in the purchase of securities applied only to brokers and dealers.” 1942 Annual Report of the Securities Exchange Commission 10.
As we find the language and history of § 10 (b) dispositive of the appropriate standard of liability, there is no occasion to examine the additional considerations of “policy,” set forth by the parties, that may have influenced the lawmakers in their formulation of the statute. We do note that the standard urged by respondents would significantly broaden the class of plaintiffs who may seek to impose liability upon accountants and other experts who perform services or express opinions with respect to matters under the Acts. Last Term, in Blue Chip Stamps, 421 U. S., at 747-748, the Court pertinently observed:
“While much of the development of the law of deceit has been the elimination of artificial barriers to recovery on just claims, we are not the first court to express concern that the inexorable broadening of the class of plaintiff who may sue in this area of the law will ultimately result in more harm than good. In Ultramares Corp. v. Touche, 255 N. Y. 170, 174 N. E. 441 (1931), Chief Judge Cardozo observed with respect to ‘a liability in an indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class:
“ ‘The hazards of a business conducted on these terms are so extreme as to enkindle doubt whether a flaw may not exist in the implication of a duty that exposes to these consequences.' Id., at 179-180, 174 N. E., at 444.”
This case, on its facts, illustrates the extreme reach of the standard urged by respondents. As investors in transactions initiated by Nay, not First Securities, they were not foreseeable users of the financial statements prepared by Ernst & Ernst. Respondents conceded that they did not rely on either these financial statements or Ernst & Ernst’s certificates of opinion. See n. 9, supra. The class of persons eligible to benefit from such a standard, though small in this case, could be numbered in the thousands in other cases. Acceptance of respondents’ view would extend to new frontiers the “hazards” of rendering expert advice under the Acts, raising serious policy questions not yet addressed by Congress.
See 503 F. 2d, at 1104, 1119; n. 5, supra. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations | What is the ideological direction of the decision reviewed by the Supreme Court? | [
"Conservative",
"Liberal",
"Unspecifiable"
] | [
1
] | sc_lcdispositiondirection |
NORTHERN CHEYENNE TRIBE v. HOLLOWBREAST et al.
No. 75-145.
Argued March 29, 1976
Decided May 19, 1976
BRENNAN, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Blackmun, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 660.
Steven H. Chestnut argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.
Lewis E. Brueggemann argued the cause and filed a brief for the respondent class of Northern Cheyenne Indians. Steven L. Bunch argued the cause pro hac vice for respondents Williamson et al., and with him on the brief was Neil Haight.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question to be decided is whether the Northern Cheyenne Allotment Act, Act of June 3, 1926, 44 Stat. 690, gave the allottees of surface lands vested rights in the mineral deposits underlying those lands. The District Court for the District of Montana held that the Act did not grant the allottees vested rights in the mineral deposits. 349 F. Supp. 1302 (1972). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. 505 F. 2d 268 (1974). We granted certiorari. 423 U. S. 891 (1975). We agree with the District Court and reverse.
I
The 1926 Act statutorily established the Northern Cheyenne Reservation pursuant to the federal policy expressed in the General Allotment Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 388, and provided for the allotment of tracts of land to individual tribal members. Section 1 of the Act declared the lands constituting the reservation “to be the property of [the Northern Cheyenne] Indians, subject to such control and management of said property as the Congress of the United States may direct.” Section 2 set up a procedure for allotment of agricultural and grazing lands. Section 3, 44 Stat. 691, upon which the question for decision in this case turns, reads as follows:
“That the timber, coal or other minerals, including oil, gas, and other natural deposits, on said reservation are hereby reserved for the benefit of the tribe and may be leased with the consent of the Indian council under such rules and regulations as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribq: Provided, That at the expiration of fifty years from the date of the approval of this Act the coal or other minerals, including oil, gas, and other natural deposits, of said allotments shall become the property of the respective allottees or their heirs: Provided further, That the unallotted lands of said tribe of Indians shall be held in common, subject to the control and management thereof as Congress may deem expedient for the benefit of said Indians.”
On its face, § 3 provides that title to the mineral deposits would pass to the allottees, or their heirs, 50 years after approval of the Act, or in 1976. But the phrasing might also be read to imply a reserved power in Congress to terminate the allottees’ interest before that date. Thus, the critical question is whether Congress could, as it purports to have done in 1968, terminate the grant without rendering the United States constitutionally liable to pay the allottees just compensation.
A supervening event of particular significance was the considerable increase in value of coal reserves under the allotted lands that occurred in the 1960’s due to increasing energy demand and the concomitant need for new sources of energy. Until this occurred, the reservation of the deposits until 1976 for the benefit of the Tribe had not significantly benefited it, because mining of most of the coal was not economically feasible. There was also substantial concern that, because one-third of the allottees did not live on the reservation, if control of strip mining passed in 1976 to the individual allottees, serious adverse consequences might be suffered by the Indians living on the reservation. In addition, Congress believed that injustice might result if the benefits to be realized by individual Indians depended upon whether coal was found under particular allotted lands. S. Rep. No. 1145, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1968); H. R. Rep. No. 1292, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1968). These considerations led Congress in 1968 to terminate the grant to allottees and to reserve the mineral rights “in perpetuity for the benefit of the Tribe.” Act of July 24, 1968, Pub. L. 90-424, 82 Stat. 424. The termination was, however, expressly conditioned upon a prior judicial determination that the allottees had not been granted vested rights to the mineral deposits by the 1926 Act. Congress so conditioned the termination to avoid the possibility of a successful claim for damages against the United States by the allottees under the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The 1968 amendment authorized the Tribe to commence an action against the allottees in the District Court for Montana “to determine whether under [the 1926 Act] the allottees, their heirs or devisees, have received a vested property right in the minerals which is protected by the fifth amendment,” and provided that the reservation of the minerals in perpetuity for the benefit of the Tribe “shall cease to have any force or effect” if the court determines that “the allottees, their heirs or devisees, have a vested interest in the minerals which is protected by the fifth amendment.”
II
Both the Tribe and the allottees argue that the plain meaning of § 3 of the 1926 Act, providing that the mineral deposits “shall become the property of the respective allottees” 50 years after the effective date of the Act, compels a declaratory judgment in their favor. The Tribe argues that this provision can only be read to grant an expectancy, while the allottees maintain that it unequivocally grants a vested future interest. Both interpretations are consistent with the wording of the Act, and we therefore must determine the intent of Congress by looking to the legislative history against the background of principles governing congressional power to alter allotment plans.
The District Court agreed with the Tribe, reading “unallotted lands” in § 3 as including the mineral deposits, since the Act expressly severed the mineral deposits from the surface of the allotted lands and subjected unallotted lands “to the control and management thereof as Congress may deem expedient for the benefit of said Indians.” 349 F. Supp., at 1309-1310. The Court of Appeals rejected the District Court’s interpretation of “unallotted lands” as including the severed mineral deposits, rendering them subject to congressional control and management; rather, it read § 3 to be an “unconditional, noncontingent grant of [the mineral] deposits to the allottees,” and noted the absence of any “clear expression of Congress’s retained power.” 505 F. 2d, at 271-272.
The Court of Appeals erred in its basic approach to construction of the 1926 Act. Its view was that Congress must be regarded as having relinquished its control over Indian lands in the absence of an express statement of its intent to retain the power. Just the opposite is true. The Court has consistently recognized the wide-ranging congressional power to alter allotment plans until those plans are executed. E. g., Chase v. United States, 256 U. S. 1, 7 (1921); United States v. Rowell, 243 U. S. 464, 468 (1917); Sizemore v. Brady, 235 U. S. 441, 449-450 (1914); Gritts v. Fisher, 224 U. S. 640, 648 (1912); Stephens v. Cherokee Nation, 174 U. S. 445, 484 (1899). This principle has specifically been applied to uphold congressional imposition on allottees of restraints against alienation of their interests or expansion of the class of beneficiaries under an allotment Act. E. g., United States v. Jim, 409 U. S. 80 (1972); Brader v. James, 246 U. S. 88 (1918). The extensiveness of this congressional authority, as well as “Congress’ unique obligation toward the Indians,” Morton v. Mancari, 417 U. S. 535, 555 (1974), underlies the judicially fashioned canon of construction that these statutes are to be read to reserve Congress’ powers in the absence of a clear expression by Congress to the contrary. Chippewa Indians v. United States, 307 U. S. 1, 5 (1939).
Read in this light, the statutory history of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation allotment supports the District Court’s reading of the Act. Although prior to 1925 allotment Acts had been enacted for nearly all Indian reservations, none yet applied to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. The Tribe in 1925 petitioned Senator Walsh of Montana to have the reservation allotted. The petition read in pertinent part:
“We, the undersigned members of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Tribe, of the State of Montana, do hereby humbly beseech you to do all in your power to have a Bill introduced and passed in Congress, to have an allotment of not less than 320 acres of tillable farm land made to each and every member of the Northern Cheyenne Indians.
“To reserve all mineral, timber, and coal lands for the benefit of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Tribe, said tribe to have absolute control of same,”
Thus, the Tribe from the outset sought allotment provisions that would retain, for the benefit of the entire Tribe, the rights to the coal and other minerals underlying the reservation.
Shortly thereafter Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior, sent Representative Leavitt of Montana, Chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs, a proposed draft of an allotment bill for the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. An accompanying letter reiterated the Tribe's desire to give individual Indians agricultural and grazing lands. Secretary Work also suggested that a survey of the land be made and further proposed that “[i]n the event any of the land listed for allotting is found to contain coal or other minerals, it is contemplated to reserve all such minerals for the tribe and to allot the surface only.” H. R. Rep. No. 383, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1926).
The proposed bill (H. R. 9658) introduced in the House two days later by Representative Leavitt followed this suggestion. Section 2 of this bill provided for a geological survey and required that
“if any of the land shall be found to contain coal or other minerals, only the surface thereof may be allotted, and all minerals on said lands are hereby reserved for the benefit of the tribe.”
This language is clear evidence of an intent to sever the surface estate from the interest in the minerals, at least wherever minerals are found to exist. But nothing appears in the legislative history explaining the object of the proviso:
“Provided, That at the expiration of fifty years from the date of the approval of this Act, the coal or other mineral deposits of said allotments shall become the property of the respective allottees or their heirs or assigns.”
We are persuaded for several reasons that it was not intended to grant the allottees a vested future interest in the mineral deposits and thereby relinquish congressional “control and management thereof as Congress may deem expedient for the benefit of said Indians.”
The proposed bill plainly reveals a purpose to sever the mineral rights from the surface estate; “only the surface . . . may be allotted” under the bill. In fact, the limited object of the bill, as stated in its title, was “to provide for allotting in severalty agricultural lands” within the reservation. This limited object carries out Secretary Work’s suggestion, and honors the Tribe’s request, to limit the allotment to the surface lands to enable the Tribe to enjoy the full benefit of the mineral rights. Nothing in the legislative history shows any congressional purpose not to follow the Secretary’s proposal; every indication is to the contrary. Only the surface lands were to be subject to allotment. The House Committee’s amendments to the bill make this purpose even clearer; the Committee retained the language that limited the allotment to surface lands but omitted the language imposing this limitation only in the event that minerals were found on the land. H. R. Rep. No., 383, supra, at 1. The House passed the bill as amended by the Committee. 67 Cong. Rec. 6522 (1926).
The Senate Committee reported out the House bill with several amendments, two of which have significance in support of our conclusion. S. Rep. No. 638, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. (1926). A new opening section, eventually § 1 of the Act, see supra, at 651, confirmed the Tribe’s title to the reservation lands and expressly retained Congress’ authority to manage those lands. The Committee also rewrote § 2 of the House bill and substituted the following as § 3 of its bill:
“That the timber, coal or other minerals, including oil, gas, and other natural deposits on said reservation, are hereby reserved for the benefit of the tribe: Provided, That at the expiration of fifty years from the date of the approval of this act the coal or other minerals, including oil, gas, and other natural deposits of said allotments shall become the property of the respective allottees or their heirs: Provided further, That the unallotted lands of said tribe of Indians shall be held in common, subject to the control and management thereof as Congress may deem expedient for the benefit of said Indians.”
The changes from the House bill indicate no difference in purpose. The coal and other mineral rights were still “reserved for the benefit of the tribe,” with no suggestion from the Senate Committee that it attached any more import to the 50-year provision than had the House. Most significantly, and a critical fact supporting the District Court’s construction of § 3, the Committee added an express reservation of congressional authority over “unallotted lands.” Since the House bill clearly allotted only the surface lands, we are compelled to conclude that when both Houses adopted the-bill as amended by the Senate, “unallotted lands” in § 3 included the mineral deposits. See British-American Oil Co. v. Board of Equalization, 299 U. S. 159, 164-165 (1936).
The conclusion we reach is also supported by the wording of the allotment trust patents. The patents “reserved for the benefit of the Northern Cheyenne Indians, all the coal or other minerals, including oil, gas, and all natural deposits in said land,” without any reference to the allottees’ future interest. Thus, the agency charged with executing the Act construed it as not granting the allottees any vested rights. “While not conclusive, this construction given to the [allotment] act in the course of its actual execution is entitled to great respect.” La Roque v. United States, 239 U. S. 62, 64 (1915). See United States v. Jackson, 280 U. S. 183, 193 (1930); Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes v. Nordwick, 378 F. 2d 426, 432 (CA9 1967), cert. denied, 389 U. S. 1046 (1968).
Reversed.
The objects of this policy were to end tribal land ownership and to substitute private ownership, on the view that private ownership by individual Indians would better advance their assimilation as self-supporting members of our society and relieve the Federal Government of the need to continue supervision of Indian affairs. See Comment, Tribal Self-Government and the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, 70 Mich. L. Rev. 955, 959 (1972).
In 1961 Congress amended the Act to add the allottees' devisees as beneficiaries. Act of Sept. 22, 1961, Pub. L. 87-287, 75 Stat. 586. At the same time Congress amended § 3 to permit the Tribe to lease mineral rights beyond 1976 and provided that any interest that might be taken by the allottees would be “subject to any outstanding leases.” Congress also prohibited the allottees from conveying their future interest and voided any conveyances entered into prior to 1961. Previously § 3 had been amended to grant the allottees the timber on the allotted lands. Act of July 24, 1947, e. 314, 61 Stat. 418.
Petitioner informs us that its "conservative” estimate of the value of the coal reserves is $2 billion, based on a recent offer for coal under the Crow Reservation, which adjoins the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.
The full text of § 3, as amended, is:
“(a) The coal or other minerals, including oil, gas, and other natural deposits, on said reservation are hereby reserved in perpetuity for the benefit of the tribe and may be leased with the consent of the Indian council for mining purposes in accordance with the provisions of the Act of May 11, 1938 (52 Stat. 347 ; 25 U. S. C. [§] 396a-f), under such rules, regulations, and conditions as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe.
“(b) The unallotted lands of said tribe of Indians shall be held in common, subject to the control and management thereof as Congress may deem expedient for the benefit of said Indians.” Congress rejected the possibility of extending the Tribe’s interest for a term of years, rather than in perpetuity, on the recommendation of the Department of the Interior. The Department took the view that an extension for a number of years — the original bill proposed 42 years — would create difficult and costly administrative problems in determining the heirs of the allottees; Congress accordingly extended the interest in perpetuity. H. R. Rep. No. 1292, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1968); S. Rep. No. 1145, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1968).
Section 2 of the amendment, 82 Stat. 425, provides as follows:
“The Northern Cheyenne Tribe is authorized to commence in the United States District Court for the District of Montana an action against the allottees who received allotments pursuant to the Act of June 3, 1926, as amended, their heirs or devisees, either individually or as a class, to determine whether under the provisions of the Act of June 3, 1926, as amended, the allottees, their heirs or devisees, have received a vested property right in the minerals which is protected by the fifth amendment. The United States District Court for the District of Montana shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine the action and an appeal from its judgment may be taken as provided by law. If the court determines that the allottees, their heirs or devisees, have a vested interest in the minerals which is protected by the fifth amendment, or if the tribe does not commence an action as here authorized within two years from the date of this Act, the first section of this Act shall cease to have any force or effect, and the provisions of section 3 of the Act of June 3, 1926, as amended by the Acts of July 24, 1947, and September 21 [sic], 1961, shall thereupon be carried out as fully as if section 3 had not been amended by this Act.”
The Tribe sued 10 allottees, individually and as representatives of the class of allottees, heirs, and devisees, and sought a declaratory judgment that the class had no vested rights and that the Tribe owned the coal and other minerals in perpetuity. We shall refer to the class as “allottees.”
Respondents Williamson and Bowen also argue that the unusual review provision accompanying the 1968 amendment evidences “a formidable Congressional apprehension” concerning the constitutionality of extending the Tribe's interest in perpetuity. On the contrary, Congress merely recognized that a plausible argument might be made on behalf of the allottees and desired its merit to be judicially determined. The House Committee, however, expressly stated its belief that the allottees had only an expectancy. H. R. Rep. No. 1292, supra, at 3. Moreover, the concerns assertedly felt by Congress in 1968 undoubtedly were not present in 1961; in that year Congress gave the Tribe authority to encumber the allottees’ interest by signing long-term leases, expanded the class of beneficiaries to include devisees, and prohibited the allottees from conveying their future interests. See n. 2, supra.
The court also relied on the canon that “statutes passed for the benefit of the Indians are to be liberally construed and all doubts are to be resolved in their favor.” 505 F. 2d, at 272. But this eminently sound and vital canon has no application here; the contesting parties are an Indian tribe and a class of individuals consisting primarily of tribal members.
Documents on deposit in the National Archives show that Representative Leavitt’s proposed bill was identical to the Secretary’s draft, and the 50-year provision is thus even mo-re clearly not intended to grant vested rights. Secretary Work’s summary of the draft bill stated the intention “to reserve all . . . minerals for the tribe” and did not mention the allottees’ future interest.
The bill as reported by the Committee, with the deleted language in brackets, reads:
“[and if any of the land shall be found to contain coal or other minerals,] only the surface of any lands in this reservation may be allotted, and all minerals on said lauds are hereby reserved for the benefit of the tribe . . . .”
The balance of the provision was unchanged. See supra, at 657.
The bill was also amended before final passage fo permit the Tribe to lease the reserved mineral estates, 67 Cong. Rec. 9735 (1926), and to require that all income from the minerals be held by the United States for the benefit of the Tribe, id., at 9962.
A reasonable explanation for the provision that the mineral rights would become the property of the allottees after 50 years is that it may have been thought to further the policy of assimilation underlying the allotment policy, see n. 1, supra; the provision is consistent with a desire to give the mineral rights to the allottees after they became assimilated. On the other hand, the vesting of an irrevocable future interest in 1926 would not be wholly consistent with that policy, particularly since the policy as reflected in allotment statutes was already losing its appeal by 1926, and Congress might more logically be expected to have been reluctant to surrender its power to modify the Act. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the treatment the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed, that is, whether the court below the Supreme Court (typically a federal court of appeals or a state supreme court) affirmed, reversed, remanded, denied or dismissed the decision of the court it reviewed (typically a trial court). Adhere to the language used in the "holding" in the summary of the case on the title page or prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. Exceptions to the literal language are the following: where the Court overrules the lower court, treat this a petition or motion granted; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing refuses to enforce or enjoins the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as reversed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing enforces the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as affirmed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing sets aside the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as vacated; if the decision is set aside and remanded, treat it as vacated and remanded. | What treatment did the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"modify",
"remand",
"unusual disposition"
] | [
2
] | sc_lcdisposition |
BYRNE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF SUFFOLK COUNTY, et al. v. KARALEXIS et al.
No. 83.
Argued April 30, 1970 Reargued November 17, 1970
Decided February 23, 1971
Robert H. Quinn, Attorney General of Massachusetts, pro se, reargued the cause for appellants. With him on the brief were Joseph J. Hurley, First Assistant Attorney General, John J. Irwin, Jr., Ruth I. Abrams, and Lawrence P. Cohen, Assistant Attorneys General, Garrett H. Byrne, pro se, and Theodore A. Glynn, Jr.
Nathan Lewin and Alan M. Dershowitz argued the cause for appellees on the reargument. Edward de Grazia and Mr. Lewin argued the cause for appellees on the original argument. With them on the brief was Herbert S. Swartz.
Peter L. Strauss argued the cause for the United States on the reargument as amicus curiae urging reversal. Francis X. Beytagh, Jr., argued the cause for the United States on the original argument. With them on the brief were Solicitor General Griswold, Assistant Attorney General Wilson, Jerome M. Feit, and Roger A. Pauley.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by Stanley Fleishman and Sam Rosenwein for National General Corp. et alv and by Thomas R. Asher, Michael Schneiderman, and Melvin L. Wulf for the American Civil Liberties Union et al.
Per Curiam.
This is an appeal from the order of a three-judge court granting a preliminary injunction against any civil or criminal proceedings in state courts against the appellees. Appellant Byrne is the district attorney of Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The appellees own and operate a motion picture theater in Boston. As a result of exhibiting the film entitled “I am Curious (Yellow)” at their theater, appellees were charged by District Attorney Byrne with violating Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 272, § 28A, which prohibits the possession of obscene films for the purpose of exhibition.
After the filing of the original state .indictments against them appellees brought the present action in federal court. They sought an injunction against both pending and future prosecutions under the Massachusetts obscenity law, and a declaration that the state obscenity law was unconstitutional on its face and as applied. The three-judge District Court held that appellees had a probability of success in having the statute declared unconstitutional, that abstention would be improper, and that appellees might suffer irreparable injury .if they were unable to show the film. The three-judge court, one judge dissenting, therefore granted a preliminary injunction, forbidding the initiation of any future prosecutions or the execution of the sentence imposed in the state proceedings then pending. 306 F. Supp. 1363 (1969). The district attorney appealed. We granted a stay of the district court order, 396 U. S. 976 (1969), and subsequently noted probable jurisdiction, 397 U. S. 985 (1970).
In discussing the subject of irreparable injury, the court said:
“We do not agree with defendant’s contention that there is no indication of irreparable injury. Even if money damages could be thought in some cases adequate compensation for delay, this defendant will presumably be immune. We agree with plaintiffs that the box office receipts, if there is a substantial delay, can be expected to be smaller. A moving picture may well be a diminishing asset. It has been said, also, that in assessing injury the chilling effect upon the freedom of expression of others is to be considered. See Dombrowski v. Pfister, 1965, 380 U. S. 479, 486-489.” 306 F. Supp., at 1367.
There was, however, no finding by the District Court that the threat to appellees’ federally protected rights is “one that cannot be eliminated by [their] defense against a single criminal prosecution.” Younger v. Harris, ante, p. 37, at 46. Because the District Court, in considering the propriety of injunctive and declaratory relief in this case, was without the guidance provided today by our decisions in Younger v. Harris, supra, and Samuels v. Mackell, ante, p. 66, we vacate the judgment below and remand for reconsideration in light of those decision
it is so ordered
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this appeal.
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart, see ante, p. 54.]
Mass. Gen. Laws, c. 272, §28A, provides:
“Importing, printing, distributing or possessing obscene things.
“Whoever imports, prints, publishes, sells or distributes a pamphlet, ballad, printed paper, phonographic record, or other thing which is obscene, indecent or impure, or an obscene, indecent or impure print, picture, figure, image or description, or buys, procures, receives or has in his possession any such pamphlet, ballad, printed paper, phonographic record, obscene, indecent or impure print, picture, figure, image or other thing, for the purpose of sale, exhibition, loan or circulation, shall be punished . . . .”
While the federal action was pending those indictments were dismissed for defects under Massachusetts law and new state indictments were returned. Under these circumstances we treat the state prosecution as pending at the time the federal suit was initiated.
The appellees’ prayer for relief, as amended, read as follows:
“Wherefore, plaintiffs pray:
“(1) That a preliminary injunction and a permanent injunction be granted prohibiting the defendant, his agents or servants, from any further seizures of prints of the motion picture ‘I Am Curious (Yellow)’ without a prior adversary proceeding in an appropriate court in Massachusetts as to the alleged obscenity of the motion picture.
“(2) That the Court order the defendant to return to the plaintiffs herein the print of the motion picture ‘I Am Curious (Yellow)’ seized by the defendant, his agents or servants, on Thursday, May 29, 1969; that the Court order the suppression of its evidence in the cases now pending against the plaintiffs herein in Suffolk Superior Court as aforesaid; both for the reason that there was no prior adversary proceeding before seizure of the print, which was then exhibited to the Grand Jury and the basis upon which indictments were returned.
“(3) That this Court order a preliminary injunction, and that following appropriate hearing, a permanent injunction, against the defendant, his agents or servants, from any further continuation of the prosecution of the plaintiffs herein in the said six actions now pending in the Suffolk Superior Court (Docket numbers 42587, through 42592) until such time as the said Sections 32 and 28A of Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 272, have been appropriately altered and amended.
“(4) Your plaintiffs further pray that an injunction issue restraining this prosecution of the motion picture T Am Curious (Yellow),’ or any further prosecution in this jurisdiction of the motion picture T Am Curious (Yellow)’ on the grounds that it is ‘allegedly obscene.’ Plaintiffs contend and pray herein on the basis that any such prosecution is 'without hope of success.’ . . .
“(5) That this Court declare and say that Section 28A of Chapter 272 of the Massachusetts General Laws is unconstitutional of [sic] its face, and unconstitutional in its application to the plaintiffs herein, all in accordance with Title 28 U. S. C., Section 2201.
“(6) That this Court declare and say that the motion picture ‘I Am Curious (Yellow)’ is not obscene within the constitutional definition of obscenity as set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Redrup v. New York, 386 U. S. 767 (1967). . . .
“(7) That this Court restrain any future prosecutions of the motion picture ‘I Am Curious (Yellow)’ on the grounds that it is ‘allegedly obscene’ within the terms of Section 28A of Chapter 272, for the reason that there is no way that any future defendant in such prosecution could ‘know the work to be obscene.’
“(8) That any further prosecutions of the motion picture T Am Curious (Yellow)’ on the grounds that it is ‘allegedly obscene’ and therefore violative of Section 28A of Chapter 272 of Massachusetts General Laws be restrained until such time as the Massachusetts courts affirm that the standards for finding a work obscene within the constitutional definition of obscenity as set forth in Redrup v. New York, supra, are that — (1) That the work was being shown to those under the age of 18; (2) Or that the work was an invasion of privacy; or (3) That the work was being advertised in a ‘pandering’ manner.
“(9) That this Court issue an injunction restraining any further prosecutions of the plaintiffs herein for the showing of the motion picture ‘I Am Curious (Yellow)’ on the grounds that any prosecution is ‘without hope of success’ ....
“(10) For such other and further relief as this Court shall deem essential or proper in accordance with Equity and Law.” | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the reason, if any, given by the court for granting the petition for certiorari. | What reason, if any, does the court give for granting the petition for certiorari? | [
"case did not arise on cert or cert not granted",
"federal court conflict",
"federal court conflict and to resolve important or significant question",
"putative conflict",
"conflict between federal court and state court",
"state court conflict",
"federal court confusion or uncertainty",
"state court confusion or uncertainty",
"federal court and state court confusion or uncertainty",
"to resolve important or significant question",
"to resolve question presented",
"no reason given",
"other reason"
] | [
0
] | sc_certreason |
Denard STOKELING, Petitioner
v.
UNITED STATES.
No. 17-5554.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued Oct. 9, 2018.
Decided Jan. 15, 2019.
Brenda G. Bryn, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Petitioner.
Frederick Liu, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
Amir H. Ali, Roderick & Solange, MacArthur Justice Center, Washington, DC, Michael Caruso, Federal Public Defender, Brenda G. Bryn, Andrew L. Adler, Assistant Federal Public Defenders, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Petitioner.
Noel J. Francisco, Solicitor General, Brian A. Benczkowski, Assistant Attorney General, Eric J. Feigin, Frederick Liu, Assistants to the Solicitor General, John M. Pellettieri, Attorney, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires us to decide whether a robbery offense that has as an element the use of force sufficient to overcome a victim's resistance necessitates the use of "physical force" within the meaning of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i). We conclude that it does.
I
In the early hours of July 27, 2015, two people burgled the Tongue & Cheek restaurant in Miami Beach, Florida. Petitioner Denard Stokeling was an employee of the restaurant, and the Miami Beach Police identified him as a suspect based on surveillance video from the burglary and witness statements. After conducting a criminal background check, police learned that Stokeling had previously been convicted of three felonies-home invasion, kidnaping, and robbery. When confronted, Stokeling admitted that he had a gun in his backpack. The detectives opened the backpack and discovered a 9-mm semiautomatic firearm, a magazine, and 12 rounds of ammunition.
Stokeling pleaded guilty in federal court to possessing a firearm and ammunition after having been convicted of a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The probation office recommended that Stokeling be sentenced as an armed career criminal under ACCA, which provides that a person who violates § 922(g) and who has three previous convictions for a "violent felony" shall be imprisoned for a minimum of 15 years. § 924(e). ACCA defines "violent felony" as "any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year" that
"(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or
"(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another." § 924(e)(2)(B).
As relevant here, Stokeling objected that his 1997 Florida robbery conviction was not a predicate offense under ACCA. This conviction, he argued, did not qualify under the first clause-the "elements clause"-because Florida robbery does not have "as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force."
Under Florida law, robbery is defined as "the taking of money or other property ... from the person or custody of another, ... when in the course of the taking there is the use of force, violence, assault, or putting in fear." Fla. Stat. § 812.13(1) (1995). The Florida Supreme Court has explained that the "use of force" necessary to commit robbery requires "resistance by the victim that is overcome by the physical force of the offender." Robinson v. State, 692 So.2d 883, 886 (1997).
Instead of applying a categorical approach to the elements clause, the District Court evaluated whether the facts of Stokeling's robbery conviction were serious enough to warrant an enhancement. The court concluded that, although Stokeling " 'grabbed [the victim] by the neck and tried to remove her necklaces' " as she " 'held onto' " them, his actions did not "justify an enhancement." Sentencing Hearing in 15-cv-20815 (SD Fla.), Doc. 45, pp. 10-11. The court then sentenced Stokeling to less than half of the mandatory minimum 15-year term of imprisonment provided by ACCA.
The Eleventh Circuit reversed. 684 Fed.Appx. 870 (2017). It held that the District Court erred in making its own factual determination about the level of violence involved in Stokeling's particular robbery offense. Id., at 871. The court also rejected Stokeling's argument that Florida robbery does not categorically require sufficient force to constitute a violent felony under ACCA's elements clause. Id., at 871-872.
We granted certiorari to address whether the "force" required to commit robbery under Florida law qualifies as "physical force" for purposes of the elements clause. 584 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 1438, 200 L.Ed.2d 716 (2018). We now affirm.
II
Construing the language of the elements clause in light of the history of ACCA and our opinion in Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 130 S.Ct. 1265, 176 L.Ed.2d 1 (2010), we conclude that the elements clause encompasses robbery offenses that require the criminal to overcome the victim's resistance.
A
As originally enacted, ACCA prescribed a 15-year minimum sentence for any person who received, possessed, or transported a firearm following three prior convictions "for robbery or burglary." 18 U.S.C. App. § 1202(a) (1982 ed., Supp. II). Robbery was defined in relevant part as "any felony consisting of the taking of the property of another from the person or presence of another by force or violence ." § 1202(c)(8) (1982 ed., Supp. II) (emphasis added).
The statute's definition mirrored the elements of the common-law crime of robbery, which has long required force or violence. At common law, an unlawful taking was merely larceny unless the crime involved "violence." 2 J. Bishop, Criminal Law § 1156, p. 860 (J. Zane & C. Zollman eds., 9th ed. 1923). And "violence" was "committed if sufficient force [was] exerted to overcome the resistance encountered." Id., at 861.
A few examples illustrate the point. Under the common law, it was robbery "to seize another's watch or purse, and use sufficient force to break a chain or guard by which it is attached to his person, or to run against another, or rudely push him about, for the purpose of diverting his attention and robbing him." W. Clark & W. Marshall, Law of Crimes 554 (H. Lazell ed., 2d ed. 1905) (Clark & Marshall) (footnotes omitted). Similarly, it was robbery to pull a diamond pin out of a woman's hair when doing so tore away hair attached to the pin. See 2 W. Russell, Crimes and Indictable Misdemeanors 68 (2d ed. 1828). But the crime was larceny, not robbery, if the thief did not have to overcome such resistance.
In fact, common-law authorities frequently used the terms "violence" and "force" interchangeably. See ibid. (concluding that "if any injury be done to the person, or there be any struggle by the party to keep possession of the property before it be taken from him, there will be a sufficient actual 'violence' " to establish robbery); Clark & Marshall 553 ("Sufficient force must be used to overcome resistance.... If there is any injury to the person of the owner, or if he resists the attempt to rob him, and his resistance is overcome, there is sufficient violence to make the taking robbery, however slight the resistance" (emphasis added)). The common law also did not distinguish between gradations of "violence." If an act physically overcame a victim's resistance, "however slight" that resistance might be, it necessarily constituted violence. Ibid. ; 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 242 (1769) (distinguishing "taking ... by force" from "privately stealing," and stating that the use of this "violence" differentiates robbery from other larcenies); see also 3 id., at 120 (explaining, in the battery context, that "the law cannot draw the line between different degrees of violence, and therefore totally prohibits the first and lowest stage of it").
The overlap between "force" and "violence" at common law is reflected in modern legal and colloquial usage of these terms. "Force" means "[p]ower, violence, or pressure directed against a person or thing," Black's Law Dictionary 656 (7th ed. 1999), or "unlawful violence threatened or committed against persons or property," Random House Dictionary of the English Language 748 (2d ed. 1987). Likewise, "violence" implies force, including an "unjust or unwarranted use of force." Black's Law Dictionary, at 1564; accord, Random House Dictionary, at 2124 ("rough or injurious physical force, action, or treatment," or "an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws").
Against this background, Congress, in the original ACCA, defined robbery as requiring the use of "force or violence"-a clear reference to the common law of robbery. See Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S. 305, 320, n. 13, 130 S.Ct. 2278, 176 L.Ed.2d 1047 (2010) ("Congress 'is understood to legislate against a background of common-law ... principles' "). And the level of "force" or "violence" needed at common law was by this time well established: "Sufficient force must be used to overcome resistance ... however slight the resistance." Clark & Marshall 553.
In 1986, Congress amended the relevant provisions of ACCA to their current form. The amendment was titled Expansion of Predicate Offenses for Armed Career Criminal Penalties. See Career Criminals Amendment Act of 1986, § 1402, 100 Stat. 3207 -39. This amendment replaced the two enumerated crimes of "robbery or burglary" with the current elements clause, a new enumerated-offenses list, and a (now-defunct) residual clause. See Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015). In the new statute, robbery was no longer enumerated as a predicate offense. But the newly created elements clause extended ACCA to cover any offense that has as an element "the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force ." 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) (2012 ed.) (emphasis added).
" '[I]f a word is obviously transplanted from another legal source, whether the common law or other legislation, it brings the old soil with it.' " Hall v. Hall, 584 U.S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 1118, 1128, 200 L.Ed.2d 399 (2018) (quoting Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum. L. Rev. 527, 537 (1947)). That principle supports our interpretation of the term "force" here. By retaining the term "force" in the 1986 version of ACCA and otherwise "[e]xpan[ding]" the predicate offenses under ACCA, Congress made clear that the "force" required for common-law robbery would be sufficient to justify an enhanced sentence under the new elements clause. We can think of no reason to read "force" in the revised statute to require anything more than the degree of "force" required in the 1984 statute. And it would be anomalous to read "force" as excluding the quintessential ACCA-predicate crime of robbery, despite the amendment's retention of the term "force" and its stated intent to expand the number of qualifying offenses.
The symmetry between the 1984 definition of robbery (requiring the use of "force or violence") and the 1986 elements clause (requiring the use of "physical force") is striking. By replacing robbery as an enumerated offense with a clause that has "force" as its touchstone, Congress made clear that "force" retained the same common-law definition that undergirded the original definition of robbery adopted a mere two years earlier. That conclusion is reinforced by the fact that the original 1984 statute defined "robbery" using terms with well-established common-law meanings.
Our understanding of "physical force" is further buttressed by the then widely accepted definitions of robbery in the States. In 1986, a significant majority of the States defined nonaggravated robbery as requiring force that overcomes a victim's resistance. The Government counts 43 States that measured force by this degree, 5 States that required "force" to cause bodily injury, and 2 States and the District of Columbia that permitted force to encompass something less, such as purse snatching. App. B to Brief for United States. Stokeling counters that, at most, 31 States defined force as overcoming victim resistance. Reply Brief 21. We need not declare a winner in this numbers game because, either way, it is clear that many States' robbery statutes would not qualify as ACCA predicates under Stokeling's reading.
His reading would disqualify more than just basic-robbery statutes. Departing from the common-law understanding of "force" would also exclude other crimes that have as an element the force required to commit basic robbery. For instance, Florida requires the same element of "force" for both armed robbery and basic robbery. See Fla. Stat. § 812.13(2)(a) (distinguishing armed robbery from robbery by requiring the additional element of "carr[ying] a firearm or other deadly weapon" during the robbery). Thus, as Stokeling's counsel admitted at oral argument, "armed robbery in Florida" would not qualify under ACCA if his view were adopted. Tr. of Oral Arg. 3-4; see United States v. Lee, 886 F.3d 1161, 1163, n. 1 (C.A.11 2018) (treating "Florida strong-arm robbery [i.e., basic robbery], armed robbery, and attempted robbery ... the same for purposes of analyzing the ACCA's elements clause").
Where, as here, the applicability of a federal criminal statute requires a state conviction, we have repeatedly declined to construe the statute in a way that would render it inapplicable in many States. See, e.g., United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S. 157, 167, 134 S.Ct. 1405, 188 L.Ed.2d 426 (2014) (reading "physical force" to include common-law force, in part because a different reading would render 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9)"ineffectual in at least 10 States"); Voisine v. United States, 579 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 2272, 2280, 195 L.Ed.2d 736 (2016) (declining to interpret § 912(a)(33)(A) in a way that would "risk rendering § 922(g)(9) broadly inoperative" in 34 States and the District of Columbia). That approach is appropriate here as well.
B
Our understanding of "physical force" comports with Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 130 S.Ct. 1265, 176 L.Ed.2d 1 (2010). There, the Court held that " 'actua[l] and intentiona[l] touching' "-the level of force necessary to commit common-law misdemeanor battery-did not require the "degree of force" necessary to qualify as a "violent felony" under ACCA's elements clause. Id., at 138, 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265. To reach this conclusion, the Court parsed the meaning of the phrase "physical force." First, it explained that the modifier "physical" "plainly refers to force exerted by and through concrete bodies-distinguishing physical force, from, for example, intellectual force or emotional force." Id., at 138, 130 S.Ct. 1265. The Court then considered "whether the term 'force' in [the elements clause] has the specialized meaning that it bore in the common-law definition of battery." Id., at 139, 130 S.Ct. 1265. After reviewing the context of the statute, the Court rejected the Government's suggestion that "force" encompassed even the "slightest offensive touching." Ibid. Instead, it held that "physical force" means "violent force-that is, force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person." Id., at 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265. Applying that standard to a Florida battery law criminalizing "any intentional physical contact," the Court concluded that the law did not require the use of "physical force" within the meaning of ACCA. Ibid.
Stokeling argues that Johnson rejected as insufficient the degree of "force" required to commit robbery under Florida law because it is not "substantial force." We disagree. The nominal contact that Johnson addressed involved physical force that is different in kind from the violent force necessary to overcome resistance by a victim. The force necessary for misdemeanor battery does not require resistance or even physical aversion on the part of the victim; the "unwanted" nature of the physical contact itself suffices to render it unlawful. See State v. Hearns, 961 So.2d 211, 216 (Fla.2007).
By contrast, the force necessary to overcome a victim's physical resistance is inherently "violent" in the sense contemplated by Johnson, and "suggest[s] a degree of power that would not be satisfied by the merest touching." 559 U.S., at 139, 130 S.Ct. 1265. This is true because robbery that must overpower a victim's will-even a feeble or weak-willed victim-necessarily involves a physical confrontation and struggle. The altercation need not cause pain or injury or even be prolonged; it is the physical contest between the criminal and the victim that is itself "capable of causing physical pain or injury." Id., at 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265. Indeed, Johnson itself relied on a definition of "physical force" that specifically encompassed robbery: " '[f]orce consisting in a physical act, esp. a violent act directed against a robbery victim .' " Id., at 139, 130 S.Ct. 1265 (quoting Black's Law Dictionary 717 (9th ed. 2009); emphasis added). Robbery thus has always been within the " 'category of violent, active crimes' " that Congress included in ACCA. 559 U.S., at 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265.
To get around Johnson, Stokeling cherry picks adjectives from parenthetical definitions in the opinion, insisting that the level of force must be "severe," "extreme," "furious," or "vehement." These adjectives cannot bear the weight Stokeling would place on them. They merely supported Johnson 's actual holding: that common-law battery does not require "force capable of causing physical pain or injury." Ibid . Johnson did not purport to establish a force threshold so high as to exclude even robbery from ACCA's scope. Moreover, Stokeling ignores that the Court also defined "violence" as " 'unjust or improper force.' " Ibid. (emphasis added). As explained above, the common law similarly linked the terms "violence" and "force." Overcoming a victim's resistance was per se violence against the victim, even if it ultimately caused minimal pain or injury. See Russell, Crimes and Indictable Misdemeanors, at 68.
C
In the wake of Johnson, the Court has repeated its holding that "physical force" means " 'force capable of causing physical pain or injury.' " Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 138 S.Ct. 1204, 1220, 200 L.Ed.2d 549 (2018) (quoting Johnson, supra, at 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265 ); see also Castleman, supra, at 173-174, 134 S.Ct. 1405 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
Finding this definition difficult to square with his position, Stokeling urges us to adopt a new, heightened reading of physical force: force that is "reasonably expected to cause pain or injury." For the reasons already explained, that definition is inconsistent with the degree of force necessary to commit robbery at common law. Moreover, the Court declined to adopt that standard in Johnson, even after considering similar language employed in a nearby statutory provision, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)(C)(ii). 559 U.S., at 143, 130 S.Ct. 1265. The Court instead settled on "force capable of causing physical pain or injury." Id., at 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265 (emphasis added). "Capable" means "susceptible" or "having attributes ... required for performance or accomplishment" or "having traits conducive to or features permitting." Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 203 (1983); see also Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus 180 (2d ed. 2009) ("having the ability or quality necessary to do"). Johnson thus does not require any particular degree of likelihood or probability that the force used will cause physical pain or injury; only potentiality.
Stokeling's proposed standard would also prove exceedingly difficult to apply. Evaluating the statistical probability that harm will befall a victim is not an administrable standard under our categorical approach. Crimes can be committed in many different ways, and it would be difficult to assess whether a crime is categorically likely to harm the victim, especially when the statute at issue lacks fine-tuned gradations of "force." We decline to impose yet another indeterminable line-drawing exercise on the lower courts.
Stokeling next contends that Castleman held that minor uses of force do not constitute "violent force," but he misreads that opinion. In Castleman, the Court noted that for purposes of a statute focused on domestic-violence misdemeanors, crimes involving relatively "minor uses of force" that might not "constitute 'violence' in the generic sense" could nevertheless qualify as predicate offenses. 572 U.S., at 165, 134 S.Ct. 1405. The Court thus had no need to decide more generally whether, under Johnson, conduct that leads to relatively minor forms of injury-such as "a cut, abrasion, [or] bruise"-"necessitate[s]" the use of "violent force." 572 U.S., at 170, 134 S.Ct. 1405. Only Justice Scalia's separate opinion addressed that question, and he concluded that force as small as "hitting, slapping, shoving, grabbing, pinching, biting, and hair pulling," id., at 182, 134 S.Ct. 1405 (alterations omitted), satisfied Johnson 's definition. He reasoned that "[n]one of those actions bears any real resemblance to mere offensive touching, and all of them are capable of causing physical pain or injury." 572 U.S., at 182, 134 S.Ct. 1405. This understanding of "physical force" is consistent with our holding today that force is "capable of causing physical injury" within the meaning of Johnson when it is sufficient to overcome a victim's resistance. Such force satisfies ACCA's elements clause.
III
We now apply these principles to Florida's robbery statute to determine whether it "has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another." 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i). We conclude that it does.
As explained, Florida law defines robbery as "the taking of money or other property ... from the person or custody of another, ... when in the course of the taking there is the use of force, violence, assault, or putting in fear." Fla. Stat. § 812.13(1). The Florida Supreme Court has made clear that this statute requires "resistance by the victim that is overcome by the physical force of the offender." Robinson v. State, 692 So.2d 883, 886 (1997). Mere "snatching of property from another" will not suffice. Ibid.
Several cases cited by the parties illustrate the application of the standard articulated in Robinson . For example, a defendant who grabs the victim's fingers and peels them back to steal money commits robbery in Florida. Sanders v. State, 769 So.2d 506, 507-508 (Fla.App.2000). But a defendant who merely snatches money from the victim's hand and runs away has not committed robbery. Goldsmith v. State, 573 So.2d 445 (Fla.App.1991). Similarly, a defendant who steals a gold chain does not use " 'force,' within the meaning of the robbery statute," simply because the victim "fe[els] his fingers on the back of her neck." Walker v. State, 546 So.2d 1165, 1166-1167 (Fla.App.1989). It is worth noting that, in 1999, Florida enacted a separate "sudden snatching" statute that proscribes this latter category of conduct; under that statute, it is unnecessary to show either that the defendant "used any amount of force beyond that effort necessary to obtain possession of the money or other property" or that "[t]here was any resistance by the victim to the offender." Fla. Stat. § 812.131 (1999).
Thus, the application of the categorical approach to the Florida robbery statute is straightforward. Because the term "physical force" in ACCA encompasses the degree of force necessary to commit common-law robbery, and because Florida robbery requires that same degree of "force," Florida robbery qualifies as an ACCA-predicate offense under the elements clause. Cf. Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S. 254, 261, 133 S.Ct. 2276, 186 L.Ed.2d 438 (2013) ("If the relevant statute has the same elemen[t]," "then the prior conviction can serve as an ACCA predicate").
IV
In sum, "physical force," or "force capable of causing physical pain or injury," Johnson, 559 U.S., at 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265 includes the amount of force necessary to overcome a victim's resistance. Robbery under Florida law corresponds to that level of force and therefore qualifies as a "violent felony" under ACCA's elements clause. For these reasons, we affirm the judgment of the Eleventh Circuit.
It is so ordered.
Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Justice GINSBURG, and Justice KAGAN join, dissenting.
In Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 130 S.Ct. 1265, 176 L.Ed.2d 1 (2010), this Court ruled that the words "physical force" in the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2), denote a heightened degree of force, rather than the minimal contact that would have qualified as "force" for purposes of the common-law crime of battery. Id., at 139-140, 130 S.Ct. 1265. This case asks whether Florida robbery requires such "physical force," and thus qualifies as a "violent felony" under the ACCA, even though it can be committed through use of only slight force. See § 924(e)(2)(B). Under Johnson, the answer to that question is no. Because the Court's contrary ruling distorts Johnson, I respectfully dissent.
I
As the majority explains, petitioner Denard Stokeling pleaded guilty in 2016 to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The Government and the probation department argued for an increased sentence under the ACCA. Stokeling objected.
The ACCA imposes a 15-year mandatory-minimum sentence on any § 922(g) offender who has been convicted of at least three qualifying predicate convictions. § 924(e)(1). As relevant here, a past conviction can qualify as an ACCA predicate if it is what ACCA calls a "violent felony"-that is, "any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year" that
"(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or
"(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another." § 924(e)(2)(B).
Clause (i) is often called the "elements clause" (or "force clause"), because it requires each qualifying crime to have an element involving force. The first part of clause (ii) is often called the "enumerated clause," because it enumerates certain generic crimes-such as burglary-that Congress sought to cover. The final part of clause (ii), often called the "residual clause," once offered a catchall to sweep in otherwise uncovered convictions, but the Court struck it down as unconstitutionally vague in 2015. See Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ----, ----, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 2563, 192 L.Ed.2d 569. So the elements clause and the enumerated clause are now the only channels by which a prior conviction can qualify as an ACCA "violent felony."
Whether Stokeling is subject to the ACCA's 15-year mandatory minimum hinges on whether his 1997 conviction for Florida robbery, see App. 10, qualifies under the elements clause. To determine whether a conviction qualifies as a violent felony under the ACCA, courts apply a method called the categorical approach. See Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600-602, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990). In the elements-clause context, that method requires asking whether the least culpable conduct covered by the statute at issue nevertheless "has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another." See § 924(e)(2) ; Johnson, 559 U.S., at 137, 130 S.Ct. 1265. If it does not, then the statute is too broad to qualify as a "violent felony." In determining what a state crime covers for purposes of this federal sentencing enhancement, federal courts look to, and are constrained by, state courts' interpretations of state law. See id., at 138, 130 S.Ct. 1265.
As relevant here, Florida law defines robbery as "the taking of money or other property ... from the person or custody of another ... when in the course of the taking there is the use of force, violence, assault, or putting in fear." Fla. Stat. § 812.13(1) (2017). The Florida Supreme Court has interpreted the statute's reference to force to require "force sufficient to overcome a victim's resistance." Robinson v. State, 692 So.2d 883, 887 (1997). Otherwise, the "degree of force used is immaterial." Montsdoca v. State, 84 Fla. 82, 86, 93 So. 157, 159 (1922). If the resistance is minimal, the force need only be minimal as well.
II
Florida robbery, as interpreted and applied by the Florida courts, covers too broad a range of conduct to qualify as a "violent felony" under the ACCA. Both the text and purpose of the ACCA-particularly as they have already been construed by our precedents-demonstrate why.
A
In considering the text of the ACCA, we do not write on a clean slate. As everyone seems to agree, the key precedent here is this Court's decision in Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 130 S.Ct. 1265, 176 L.Ed.2d 1. See ante, at 549, 552. But while the majority claims to honor Johnson, ante, at 552 - 554, it does so in the breach.
Johnson concerned whether Florida battery qualified as an ACCA predicate under the elements clause. This Court held that it did not. To arrive at that answer, the Court was required to interpret what exactly Congress meant when it used the words "physical force" to define the kind of "violent felony" that should be captured by the ACCA's elements clause. See 559 U.S., at 138-143, 130 S.Ct. 1265.
Rather than parsing "cherry pick[ed] adjectives," ante, at 553, it is instructive to look to how Johnson actually answered that question. Writing for the Court, Justice Scalia explained:
"We think it clear that in the context of a statutory definition of 'violent felony,' the phrase 'physical force' means violent force-that is, force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person. See Flores v. Ashcroft, 350 F.3d 666, 672 (C.A.7 2003) (Easterbrook, J.). Even by itself, the word 'violent' in § 924(e)(2)(B) connotes a substantial degree of force. Webster's Second 2846 (defining 'violent' as '[m]oving, acting, or characterized, by physical force, esp. by extreme and sudden or by unjust or improper force; furious; severe; vehement ...'); 19 Oxford English Dictionary 656 (2d ed. 1989) ('[c]haracterized by the exertion of great physical force or strength'); Black's [Law Dictionary] 1706 [ (9th ed. 2009) ] ('[o]f, relating to, or characterized by strong physical force'). When the adjective 'violent' is attached to the noun 'felony,' its connotation of strong physical force is even clearer. See id., at 1188 (defining 'violent felony' as '[a] crime characterized by extreme physical force, such as murder, forcible rape, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon'); see also United States v. Doe, 960 F.2d 221, 225 (C.A.1 1992) (Breyer, C.J.) ('[T]he term to be defined, "violent felony," ... calls to mind a tradition of crimes that involve the possibility of more closely related, active violence')." 559 U.S., at 140-141, 130 S.Ct. 1265.
In other words, in the context of a statute delineating "violent felon[ies]," the phrase "physical force" signifies a degree of force that is "violent, " "substantial," and "strong"-"that is, force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person." See id., at 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265 ; see also id., at 142, 130 S.Ct. 1265 ("As we have discussed ... the term 'physical force' itself normally connotes force strong enough to constitute 'power'-and all the more so when it is contained in a definition of 'violent felony' ").
The majority, slicing Johnson up, concentrates heavily on the phrase "capable of causing physical pain or injury" and emphasizes the dictionary definition of the word "capable" to suggest that Johnson "does not require any particular degree of likelihood or probability" of "pain or injury"-merely, as with any law professor's eggshell-victim hypothetical, "potentiality." Ante, at 10-11. Our opinions, however, should not be "parsed as though we were dealing with the language of a statute," Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U.S. 330, 341, 99 S.Ct. 2326, 60 L.Ed.2d 931 (1979), and in any event, the majority's parsing goes astray. It is clear in context that the Court in Johnson did not mean the word "capable" in the way that the majority uses it today, because Johnson rejected an interpretation of "physical force" that would have included a crime of battery that could be satisfied by "[t]he most 'nominal contact,' such as a 'ta[p] ... on the shoulder without consent.' " 559 U.S., at 138, 130 S.Ct. 1265. As any first-year torts student (or person with a shoulder injury) quickly learns, even a tap on the shoulder is "capable of causing physical pain or injury" in certain cases. So the Court could not have meant "capable" in the "potentiality" sense that the majority, see ante, at 554, ascribes to it. Rather, it meant it in the sense that its entire text indicates: "force capable of causing physical pain or injury" in the sense that a "strong" or "substantial degree of force" can cause physical pain or injury. See Johnson, 559 U.S., at 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265. The phrase denoted, that is, a heightened degree of force.
Florida robbery, as interpreted by the Florida Supreme Court, cannot meet Johnson 's definition of physical force. As noted above, Florida robbery requires "force sufficient to overcome a victim's resistance." Robinson, 692 So.2d, at 887. But that can mean essentially no force at all. See McCloud v. State, 335 So.2d 257, 258 (Fla.1976) ("Any degree of force suffices to convert larceny into a robbery"); Montsdoca, 84 Fla., at 86, 93 So., at 159 ("The degree of force used is immaterial"). For example, the force element of Florida robbery is satisfied by a pickpocket who attempts to pull free after the victim catches his arm. See Robinson, 692 So.2d, at 887, n. 10 (citing Colby v. State, 46 Fla. 112, 113, 35 So. 189, 190 (1903) ). Florida courts have held the same for a thief who pulls cash from a victim's hand by " 'peel[ing] [his] fingers back,' " regardless of "[t]he fact that [the victim] did not put up greater resistance." Sanders v. State, 769 So.2d 506, 507 (Fla.App.2000). The Government concedes, similarly, that a thief who grabs a bag from a victim's shoulder also commits Florida robbery, so long as the victim instinctively holds on to the bag's strap for a moment. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 32-34; see also Benitez-Saldana v. State, 67 So.3d 320, 322-323 (Fla.App.2011). And Stokeling points to at least one person who was convicted of Florida robbery after causing a bill to rip while pulling cash from a victim's hand. See App. B to Brief for Petitioner.
While these acts can, of course, be accomplished with more than minimal force, they need not be. The thief who loosens an already loose grasp or (assuming the angle is right) tears the side of a $5 bill has hardly used any force at all. Nor does the thief who simply pulls his arm free from a store employee's weak grasp or snatches a handbag onto which a victim fleetingly holds use "force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person" in the sense that Johnson meant the phrase, because he does not use "a substantial degree of force" or "strong physical force." See Johnson, 559 U.S., at 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265. By providing that "[a]ny degree of force suffices to convert larceny into a robbery," McCloud, 335 So.2d, at 258 -and thus making robbers out of thieves who use minimal force-Florida expands its law beyond the line that Johnson drew. The least culpable conduct proscribed by Fla. Stat. § 812.13 does not entail "physical force," § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), as this Court properly construed that phrase in Johnson .
B
The purpose underlying the ACCA confirms that a robbery statute that sweeps as broadly as Florida's does not qualify as an ACCA predicate.
As noted above, the ACCA prescribes a 15-year mandatory-minimum prison term for anyone convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm so long as that person has three qualifying past convictions. In Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137, 128 S.Ct. 1581, 170 L.Ed.2d 490 (2008), this Court explained that, "[a]s suggested by its title, the Armed Career Criminal Act focuses upon the special danger created when a particular type of offender-a violent criminal or drug trafficker-possesses a gun." Id., at 146, 128 S.Ct. 1581. The ACCA, that is to say, does not look to past crimes simply to get a sense of whether a particular defendant is generally a recidivist; rather, it looks to past crimes to determine specifically "the kind or degree of danger the offender would pose were he to possess a gun." Ibid.
Begay considered whether a New Mexico felony conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) qualified as an ACCA predicate under the now-defunct residual clause. See id., at 141-142, 128 S.Ct. 1581. Felony DUI, the Court explained, did not fit with the types of crimes that Congress was trying to capture, because while it "reveal[ed] a degree of callousness toward risk," it did not "show an increased likelihood that the offender is the kind of person who might deliberately point [a] gun and pull the trigger." Id., at 146, 128 S.Ct. 1581. The Court had "no reason to believe that Congress intended a 15-year mandatory prison term where that increased likelihood does not exist." Ibid.
The same is true here. The lower grade offenders whom Florida still chooses to call "robbers" do not bear the hallmarks of being the kind of people who are likely to point a gun and pull the trigger, nor have they committed the more aggravated conduct-pointing a weapon, inflicting bodily injury-that most people think of when they hear the colloquial term "robbery." Under Florida law, "robbers" can be glorified pickpockets, shoplifters, and purse snatchers. No one disputes that such an offender, if later discovered illegally in possession of a firearm, will in many cases merit greater punishment as a result of the past offense; unless it occurred far in the past, such a conviction will typically increase that defendant's advisory sentencing range under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. See Rosales-Mireles v. United States, 585 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 138 S.Ct. 1897, 1903-1904, 201 L.Ed.2d 376 (2018) ; United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §§ 1B1.1(a)(6)-(7), 4A1.1, 4A1.2(e) (Nov. 2018). But there is "no reason to believe that Congress intended a 15-year mandatory prison term" for such offenders, who do not present the increased risk of gun violence that more aggravated offenders present. See Begay, 553 U.S., at 146, 128 S.Ct. 1581.
III
Unable to rely heavily on text, precedent, or purpose to support its holding that Florida robbery qualifies as an ACCA "violent felony," the majority turns to the common law, to legislative and statutory history, and finally to what it perceives as the consequences of ruling for Stokeling. None of these rationales is persuasive.
A
The majority observes that Florida's statute requires no less force than was necessary to commit common-law robbery. That may well be true: The majority notes, for example, that at common law "it was robbery to pull a diamond pin out of a woman's hair when doing so tore away hair attached to the pin," ante, at 550, and as anyone who has ever pulled a bobby pin out of her hair knows, hair can break from even the most minimal force. In the majority's telling, however, the ACCA itself "encompasses the degree of force necessary to commit common-law robbery."
Ante, at 555. That proposition is flatly inconsistent with Johnson .
In explaining its interpretation of "physical force," the Court in Johnson expressly rejected the common law's definition of "force," see 559 U.S., at 139, 130 S.Ct. 1265 instead recognizing that the phrase should be "give[n] ... its ordinary meaning," id., at 138, 130 S.Ct. 1265. At common law, "force" could be "satisfied by even the slightest offensive touching." Id., at 139, 130 S.Ct. 1265. But as the Court observed, "[a]lthough a common-law term of art should be given its established common-law meaning, we do not assume that a statutory word is used as a term of art where that meaning does not fit." Ibid. (citation omitted). Rather, "context determines meaning," ibid., and, "in the context of a statutory definition of 'violent felony,' " the ordinary rather than the common-law meaning of "force" was what fit, id., at 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265.
The majority now says that while Johnson rejected the common-law meaning of force with regard to battery, it nevertheless meant somehow to preserve the common-law meaning of force with regard to robbery. See ante, at 550 - 551, 552 - 554. In other words, to reach its conclusion, the majority must construe "physical force" in § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) to bear two different meanings-Johnson 's and the majority's-depending on the crime to which it is being applied. That is a radical and unsupportable step.
To be clear, the majority does not simply rule that the phrase "physical force" carries the common-law meaning in one place but a different meaning in another statutory provision. There would certainly be precedent for that. See, e.g., United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S. 157, 162-168, 134 S.Ct. 1405, 188 L.Ed.2d 426 (2014) (explaining why the phrase "physical force" took on a common-law meaning, rather than its ACCA meaning under Johnson, in the context of a statute defining a " 'misdemeanor crime of domestic violence' "). Johnson, in fact, expressly reserved the question whether "physical force" might mean something different in the context of a different statutory definition. See 559 U.S., at 143-144, 130 S.Ct. 1265.
What Johnson did not do, however, was suggest that "physical force" in a single clause-the elements clause-that Johnson addressed might mean two different things for two different crimes. See id., at 143, 130 S.Ct. 1265 ("We have interpreted the phrase 'physical force' only in the context of a statutory definition of 'violent felony' "); see also id., at 138-142, 130 S.Ct. 1265. Johnson had good reason not to say so: because that is not how we have said that statutory interpretation works. See, e.g., Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 378, 125 S.Ct. 716, 160 L.Ed.2d 734 (2005) (observing that a single statutory word or phrase "cannot ... be interpreted to do" two different things "at the same time"); Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 143, 114 S.Ct. 655, 126 L.Ed.2d 615 (1994) (similar).
Starting today, however, the phrase "physical force" in § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) will apparently lead a Janus-faced existence. When it comes to battery, that phrase will look toward ordinary meaning; when it comes to robbery, that same piece of statutory text will look toward the common law. To the extent that is a tenable construction, the majority has announced a brave new world of textual interpretation. To the extent that a phrase so divided cannot stand, meanwhile, one could be forgiven for thinking that the majority, though it claims to praise Johnson, comes instead to bury it.
B
To shore up its argument that the ACCA's use of the phrase "physical force," at least in the context of robbery, takes on the common-law meaning of "force," the majority invokes the history of the ACCA. Statutory history is no help to the majority here.
As the majority notes, a precursor to the ACCA prescribed a mandatory-minimum sentence for people convicted of firearm offenses who had three qualifying prior convictions "for robbery or burglary." 18 U.S.C. App. § 1202(a) (1982 ed., Supp. II). That statute defined robbery, as relevant, as "the taking of the property of another ... by force or violence." § 1202(c)(8) (1982 ed., Supp. II). See ante, at 549 - 550. In other words, it is undisputed that at one point, in a previous statute, Congress enumerated robbery as a qualifying predicate and used the words "force or violence" to describe a generic version of the crime.
Then, in 1986, Congress changed the statute, substituting instead the language we know today. See Career Criminals Amendment Act of 1986, § 1402, 100 Stat. 3207 -39. Gone was any explicit reference to "robbery"; in its place came not only the elements clause (our focus here) but also the enumerated clause (which retained an express reference to "burglary" but omitted "robbery") and the capacious residual clause (struck down in 2015). See ante, at 551; supra, at 556; see also Taylor, 495 U.S., at 582-584, 110 S.Ct. 2143. So Congress did two salient things: It expanded the predicates in general, and it deleted an express reference to robbery.
The majority reasons that because (1) the old law's definition of "robbery" as a taking involving "force or violence" matched various common-law definitions of robbery, (2) Congress kept the word "force" (though not "or violence") in the new law's elements clause while deleting the word "robbery," and (3) Congress meant to expand the enhancement's reach in a general sense, Congress must have meant for the phrase "physical force" in the new law also to carry the common-law meaning of robbery. See ante, at 550 - 552. The conclusion that the majority draws from these premises does not follow, for at least four reasons.
First, as already discussed, the question whether Congress' use of the phrase "physical force" in the new law-that is, in the ACCA's elements clause-carries the common-law meaning of "force" was already asked and answered by Johnson : It does not. See 559 U.S., at 138-143, 145, 130 S.Ct. 1265 ; supra, at 559 - 560. This part of the majority's argument may be couched in statutory history, but it is no more than an attempt to relitigate Johnson .
Second, Congress deleted the word "robbery" from the statute altogether while still enumerating robbery's former neighbor, "burglary," in the enumerated clause. See supra, at 556, 561. When Congress keeps one piece of statutory text while deleting another, we generally "have no trouble concluding that" it does so with purpose, see, e.g., Director of Revenue of Mo. v. CoBank ACB, 531 U.S. 316, 324, 121 S.Ct. 941, 148 L.Ed.2d 830 (2001), absent some reason to believe that the missing term simply got "lost in the shuffle," United States v. Wilson, 503 U.S. 329, 336, 112 S.Ct. 1351, 117 L.Ed.2d 593 (1992). See also, e.g., Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23-24, 104 S.Ct. 296, 78 L.Ed.2d 17 (1983) ("Where Congress includes limiting language in an earlier version of a bill but deletes it prior to enactment, it may be presumed that the limitation was not intended"). Here, it is inconceivable that Congress simply lost track of robbery, one of only two generic crimes that it enumerated in the old statute. Accordingly, if Congress had wanted to retain the old statute's specific emphasis on robbery, the natural reading is that it would have accomplished that goal the same way it did with burglary: by making it an enumerated offense. That it did not do so is telling.
Third, the fact that Congress wished to "expan[d] the predicate offenses triggering the sentence enhancement," Taylor, 495 U.S., at 582, 110 S.Ct. 2143 is entirely consistent with paring back the statute's sweep with regard to robbery specifically. I may wish to expand the contents of my refrigerator, but that does not mean that I will buy more of every single item that is currently in it the next time that I go shopping. Here, the ACCA-with its (new, generalized) elements clause, its (augmented) enumerated clause, and (until recently) its highly capacious residual clause-undeniably expanded the precursor statute's bare enumeration of robbery and burglary, regardless of how many robbery statutes qualify as predicates specifically under the elements clause.
Fourth, even assuming that Congress wanted robbery to remain largely encompassed by the ACCA despite deleting the word from the precursor statute, that intent is fully consistent with properly applying Johnson here. The majority, by focusing on the elements clause, ignores the residual clause, which-until it was declared unconstitutional in 2015-provided a home for many crimes regardless of whether they included an element of violent "physical force." Hewing to a proper reading of Johnson, in other words, does not require assuming that Congress constricted the precursor statute's application to robbery when it enacted today's ACCA; whatever robberies would have qualified under the old statute presumably could have still qualified under the residual clause during its nearly 20-year existence.
In short, the statutory history does not undermine the conclusion that the ACCA's elements clause, under our precedents, is not broad enough to encompass Florida's robbery statute. Congress deleted the word "robbery," kept the word "burglary," supplemented burglary with the catchall residual clause that still captured many robberies outside the elements clause, and used the phrase "physical force" in the elements clause to define a type of "violent felony," which Johnson tells us requires more force than the term's common-law meaning denotes. See 559 U.S., at 138-143, 145, 130 S.Ct. 1265. Statutory history cannot get the majority past both the text and the force of stare decisis here.
C
That leaves the majority with only the practical consequences that it asserts would follow if this Court were to hold that Florida robbery does not qualify under the ACCA's elements clause. See ante, at 551 - 552. While looking to how an interpretation of a federal statute would affect the applicability of related state statutes can be a useful approach in these cases, see, e.g., Castleman, 572 U.S., at 167, 134 S.Ct. 1405 the results that follow from a proper reading of Johnson are not nearly as incongruous as the majority suggests.
To begin, take the majority's assertion "that many States' robbery statutes would not qualify as ACCA predicates," ante, at 551, if the Court were to apply Johnson as it was written. The accuracy of this statement is far less certain than the majority's opinion lets on. While Stokeling and the Government come close to agreeing that at least 31 States' robbery statutes do have an overcoming-resistance requirement, see ante, at 551, that number is not conclusive because neither Stokeling nor the Government has offered an accounting of how many of those States allow minimal force to satisfy that requirement, as Florida does. Because robbery laws vary from State to State, and because even similarly worded statutes may be construed differently by different States' courts, some of those 31 States may well require more force than Florida does. See, e.g., United States v. Doctor, 842 F.3d 306, 312 (C.A.4 2016) (ruling that "there is no indication that South Carolina robbery by violence"-a statute cited by the Government here-"can be committed with minimal actual force"); see also Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U.S. 183, 193, 127 S.Ct. 815, 166 L.Ed.2d 683 (2007) (explaining that the categorical approach "requires a realistic probability, not a theoretical possibility, that the State would apply its statute to conduct that falls outside the generic definition of a crime").
Furthermore, even if it is true "that many States' robbery statutes would not qualify as ACCA predicates" under a faithful reading of Johnson, see ante, at 551, that outcome would stem just as much (if not more) from the death of the residual clause as from a decision in this case. As discussed above, various state robbery statutes qualified under that expansive clause for nearly 20 years, until vagueness problems led this Court to strike the clause down as unconstitutional. See supra, at 562 - 563, and n. 2; see also Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ----, 130 S.Ct. 1265, 176 L.Ed.2d 1 (2015). The fall of that clause would therefore be an independent cause of any drop in qualifying predicates, regardless of what this Court decides today. (A drop in robbery statutes qualifying as ACCA predicates could also, of course, be traceable to Congress' decision not to continue enumerating robbery when it enacted the ACCA in the first place.) In short, the majority, fearful for the camel, errs in blaming the most recent straw.
Separately, even if a number of simple robbery statutes were to cease qualifying as ACCA predicates, that does not mean-as the majority implies, see ante, at 552-that the same fate necessarily would befall most or even many aggravated robbery statutes. The majority offers the single example of Florida aggravated robbery, noting that "Florida requires the same element of 'force' for both armed robbery and basic robbery." Ibid . But while the majority accurately describes Florida law, there is scant reason to believe that a great many other States' statutes would be similarly affected, because the effect that hewing to Johnson would have on Florida aggravated robbery stems from the idiosyncrasy that Florida aggravated robbery requires neither displaying a weapon nor threatening or inflicting bodily injury. The result for Florida aggravated robbery therefore sheds little light on what would happen to other aggravated-robbery statutes, the vast majority of which do (and did at the time of the ACCA's enactment) appear to provide for convictions on such grounds-and whose validity as ACCA predicates would not necessarily turn on the question the Court faces today. The majority mistakes one anomalous result for a reason not to apply Johnson as it was written.
IV
This Court's decision in Johnson tells us that when Congress wrote the words "physical force" in the context of a statute targeting "violent felon [ies]," it eschewed the common-law meaning of those words and instead required a higher degree of force. See 559 U.S., at 138-143, 145, 130 S.Ct. 1265. Johnson resolves this case. Florida law requires no more than minimal force to commit Florida robbery, and Florida law therefore defines that crime more broadly than Congress defined the elements clause.
The crime that most people think of when they think of "robbery" is a serious one. That is all the more reason, however, that this Court should not allow a dilution of the term in state law to drive the expansion of a federal statute targeted at violent recidivists. Florida law applies the label "robbery" to crimes that are, at most, a half-notch above garden-variety pickpocketing or shoplifting. The Court today does no service to Congress' purposes or our own precedent in deeming such crimes to be "violent felonies"-and thus predicates for a 15-year mandatory-minimum sentence in federal prison.
I respectfully dissent.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337, 26 S.Ct. 282, 50 L.Ed. 499.
The Government did not argue that Florida robbery should qualify under § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), presumably because robbery is not among the enumerated offenses and the Court held the "residual clause" unconstitutionally vague in Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 2563, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015).
Of course, whether Congress wished to pull back the throttle with regard to robbery across the whole ACCA is less certain. (Recall that Congress also enacted the capacious residual clause.) But that is why the statutory history cannot tell us what the majority claims that it can about the elements clause specifically. Instead, the more reliable guide is the new text that Congress enacted to replace the old. Cf. West Virginia Univ. Hospitals, Inc. v. Casey, 499 U.S. 83, 98, 111 S.Ct. 1138, 113 L.Ed.2d 68 (1991) ("The best evidence of [Congress'] purpose is the statutory text adopted by both Houses of Congress and submitted to the President"). And here, Congress omitted generic robbery altogether and made the "violent felony" clause at issue require "physical force." See supra, at 556, 557 - 558, 561.
In fact, the case in which this Court ruled that its decision striking down the residual clause applied retroactively on collateral review centered on a Florida robbery conviction under § 812.13(1). See Welch v. United States, 578 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 136 S.Ct. 1257, 1262-1263, 194 L.Ed.2d 387 (2016). The Eleventh Circuit, reviewing the defendant's ACCA enhancement on direct appeal, had ruled that Florida robbery (including when, under previous law, it could be accomplished merely "by sudden snatching") qualified as an ACCA predicate under the residual clause without deciding whether it also qualified under the elements clause. See United States v. Welch, 683 F.3d 1304, 1310-1314 (2012). Other Circuits likewise ruled, in the years before the clause's demise, that other state robbery statutes qualified under the residual clause. See, e.g., United States v. Mitchell, 743 F.3d 1054, 1062-1063 (C.A.6 2014) (collecting cases).
The majority is able to suggest that following Johnson would beget a larger practical effect because it frames the question presented more broadly than is warranted. The majority avers that "[t]his case requires us to decide whether a robbery offense that has as an element the use of force sufficient to overcome a victim's resistance necessitates the use of 'physical force' within the meaning of the [ACCA]." Ante, at 548. But this case hinges on the fact that the Florida courts have ruled that the amount of resistance offered-and therefore the amount of force necessary to overcome it-is irrelevant. See supra, at 558 - 559. In other words, this case presents only the narrower question whether a robbery offense that has as an element the use of force sufficient to overcome a victim's resistance-even if that resistance is minimal-necessitates the use of "physical force" within the meaning of the ACCA. See also Brief for Petitioner i. If a state robbery statute's overcoming-resistance requirement were pegged under state law to more than minimal resistance, this would be a different case.
The majority's doubling down on Johnson 's "capable of causing physical pain or injury" language, see ante, at 533 - 554, suggests nostalgia for the residual clause (which reads: "otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another," 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B) ). Congress could, at any time, re-enumerate robbery (and any other crimes it might have intended the residual clause to cover) if it so chose. The majority's decision today, meanwhile-with its endorsement of the mere "potentiality" of injury, see ante, at 554-risks sowing confusion in the lower courts for years to come.
Specifically, hewing to a proper reading of Johnson would also affect Florida's aggravated robbery statute because the crime's only element involving force is the one that it shares with Florida simple robbery. See Fla. Stat. § 812.13(1). In Florida, robbery becomes aggravated if the defendant "carrie[s]" a weapon, see § 812.13(2), but that means that the crime sweeps in offenders who never brandished, used, or otherwise intimated that they were armed, see, e.g., State v. Burris, 875 So.2d 408, 413 (Fla.2004), and therefore prevents the crime from necessarily involving the "threatened use of physical force," see 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i). See also Tr. of Oral Arg. 4 (explaining this point).
See, e.g., Ala. Code § 13A-8-41(a)(2) (2015) ; Alaska Stat. §§ 11.41.500(a)(2)-(3) (2016) ; Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-1904(A)(2) (2018); Ark. Code Ann. §§ 5-12-103(a)(2)-(3) (2013); Cal. Penal Code Ann. §§ 12022.53, 12022.7 (West 2018 Cum. Supp.); Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18-4-302(1)(b) (2018) ; Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 53a-134(a)(1), (3) (2017); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 11, §§ 832(a)(1)-(3) (2015); Ga. Code Ann. § 16-8-41(a) (2018); Haw. Rev. Stat. §§ 708-840(1)(a), (b)(ii) (2014); Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 720, §§ 5/18-1(b)(1), 5/18-2(a)(3)-(4) (2018 Cum. Supp.); Ind. Code § 35-42-5-1 (2018 Cum. Supp.); Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-5420(b)(2) (Supp. 2017); Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 515.020(1)(a), (c) (Lexis 2014); La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 14:64.1(A), 14:64.3, 14:64.4(A)(1) (West 2016); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 17-A, § 651(1)(D) (2018 Cum. Supp.); Md. Crim. Law Code Ann. § 3-403(a)(2) (2012); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 750.529 (West 2004) ; Minn. Stat. § 609.245(2) (2018) ; Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-79 (2014) ; Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 570.023(1)(1), (3)-(4) (2016) ; Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 28-324, 28-1205 (2015) ; N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 636:1(III)(b) (2016) ; N.Y. Penal Law Ann. §§ 160.10(2)(a)-(b), 160.15(1), (3)-(4) (West 2015); N.D. Cent. Code Ann. §§ 12.1-22-01(1)-(2) (2012); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 2911.01(A)(1), (3) (Lexis 2014); Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 21, §§ 797(1)-(3), 801 (2015); Ore. Rev. Stat. §§ 164.405(1)(a), 164.415(1)(b)-(c) (2017); 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 3701(a)(1)(i)-(ii), (iv) (2015); R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-39-1(a) (2002) ; S.D. Codified Laws § 22-30-6 (2017) ; Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 39-13-402(a), 39-13-403(a) (2011); Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 29.03(a) (West 2011); Utah Code §§ 76-6-302(1)(a)-(b) (2017) ; Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 13, § 608(c) (2009); Va. Code Ann. §§ 18.2-53.1, 18.2-58 (2014) ; Wash. Rev. Code §§ 9A.56.200(1)(a)(ii)-(iii) (2015); W. Va. Code Ann. § 61-2-12(a) (Lexis 2014); Wis. Stat. § 943.32(2) (2005); Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 6-2-401(c) (2017) ; see also Reply Brief 22-23; App. to Reply Brief 9a-18a (listing 29 States with aggravated-robbery statutes that could have qualified at the time of the ACCA's enactment because of a weapon-using, weapon-displaying, or weapon-representing element; an additional 10 States, excluding duplicates, that could have potentially qualified at that time because of a physical-injury element; and an additional 15 States, some duplicative, with potentially qualifying statutes that have been enacted since). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the disposition of the case, that is, the treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed. The information relevant to this variable may be found near the end of the summary that begins on the title page of each case, or preferably at the very end of the opinion of the Court. For cases in which the Court granted a motion to dismiss, consider "petition denied or appeal dismissed". There is "no disposition" if the Court denied a motion to dismiss. | What is the disposition of the case, that is, the treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed (includes modified)",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"certification to or from a lower court",
"no disposition"
] | [
1
] | sc_casedisposition |
BUTLER et al. v. WHITEMAN.
No. 200,
Misc.
Decided April 14, 1958.
Per Curiam.
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded for trial. We hold that the petitioner's evidence presented an evi-dentiary basis for jury findings as to (1) whether or not the tug G. W. Whiteman was in navigation, Senko v. LaCrosse Dredging Corp., 352 U. S. 370, 373; Carumbo v. Cape Cod S. S. Co., 123 F. 2d 991; (2) whether or not the petitioner’s decedent was a seaman and member of the crew of the tug within the meaning of the Jones Act, 41 Stat. 1007, 46 U. S. C. § 688; Senko v. LaCrosse Dredging Corp., supra; Gianfala v. Texas Co., 350 U. S. 879; South Chicago Co. v. Bassett, 309 U. S. 251; Grimes v. Raymond Concrete Pile Co., 356 U. S. 252; and (3) whether or not employer negligence played a part in producing decedent’s death. Ferguson v. Moor e-McCormack Lines, 352 U. S. 521; Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 500; Schulz v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 350 U. S. 523.
For reasons set forth in his opinion in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 500, 524, Mr. Justice Frankfurter is of the view that the writ of certiorari is improvidently granted. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. | What is the issue area of the decision? | [
"Criminal Procedure",
"Civil Rights",
"First Amendment",
"Due Process",
"Privacy",
"Attorneys",
"Unions",
"Economic Activity",
"Judicial Power",
"Federalism",
"Interstate Relations",
"Federal Taxation",
"Miscellaneous",
"Private Action"
] | [
7
] | sc_issuearea |
UNITED STATES v. JEFFERS.
No. 3.
Argued October 15, 1951.
Decided November 13, 1951.
Beatrice Rosenberg argued the cause for the United States. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Perlman, Assistant Attorney General Mclnerney and John F. Davis.
T. Emmett McKenzie argued the cause for respondent. With him.-on the brief was James K. Hughes.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Here we are faced with troublesome questions as to the exclusion from evidence, on motion of the accused, of contraband narcotics claimed by him which were seized on the premises of other persons in the course of a search without a warrant. On the basis of the seized narcotics, the accused, respondent here, was convicted of violation of the narcotics laws, 26 U. S. C. § 2553 (a) and 21 U. S. C. § 174. Prior to trial the District Court had denied respondent’s motion to suppress, as evidence at the trial, the property seized. The Court of Appeals reversed the conviction by a divided court, '88 U. S. App. D. C. 58, 187 F. 2d 498. Since a determination of the question is important in the administration of criminal justice, we brought the case here. 340 U. S. 951.
The evidence showed that one Roberts came to the Dunbar Hotel in the District of Columbia on Monday, September 12, 1949, at about 3,p. m., sought out the house detective, Scott, and offered him $500 to let him into a room in the hotel occupied by respondent’s two aunts, the Misses Jeffries. Roberts told Scott that respondent had “some stuff stashed” in the room. The house detective told Roberts to. call back later in the evening and he would *see about it. He then immediately reported the incident to Lieut. Karper, in charge, of the narcotics squad of the Metropolitan Police, who came to the hotel about 4 p. m. Karper went with Scott to the room occupied by the Missed Jeffries. When there was no answer to their knock on the door the two officers then went to the assistant manager, and obtained a key to the room. Although neither officer had either a search or an arrest warrant they unlocked the door, entered the room and, in the absence of the Misses Jeffries as well as the respondent, proceeded to conduct a detailed search thereof. On the top shelf of a closet they discovered a pasteboard box containing 19 bottles of cocaine, of which only two had U. S. tax stamps attached, and one bottle, of codeine, also without stamps. The bottles were seized and taken to Scott’s office, where Lieut. Karper telephoned the federal narcotics agent and upon the latter’s arrival turned the seized articles over to him. Respondent was arrested the following day on the charges before us, at which time he claimed ownership of the narcotics seized.
It appeared from the evidence at the pretrial hearing that the Misses Jeffries had given respondent, a key to their room, that he had their permission to use the room at will, and that, he often entered the room for various purposes. They had not given him permission to store narcotics there and had no knowledge that any were so stored. The hotel records reflected that the room was assigned to and paid for by them alone.
We agree with the Court of Appeals that the seizure was made in violation of the Fourth Amendment and on motion of respondent its fruits should have been excluded as evidence on his trial.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits both unreasonable searches and unreasonable seizures, and its protection extends to both “houses” and “effects.” Over and again this Court has "emphasized that the mandate of the Amendment requires adherence to judicial processes. See Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 (1914); Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20 (1925). Only where incident to a valid arrest, United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56 (1950), or in “exceptional circumstances,” Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10 (1948), may an exemption lie, and then the burden is on those seeking the exemption to show the need for it, McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 456 (1948). In so doing the Amendment does not place an unduly oppressive weight on law enforcement officers but merely interposes an orderly procedure under the aegis of judicial impartiality that is necessary to attain the beneficent purposes intended. Johnson v. United States, supra. Officers instead of obeying this mandate have too often, as shown by the numerous cases in this Court, taken matters into their own hands and invaded the security of the people against unreasonable search and seizure.
The law does not prohibit evéry entry, without a warrant, into a hotel room. Circumstances might make exceptions and certainly implied or express permission is given to sueh persons as maids, janitors or repairmen in the performance of their duties. But here the Government admits that the search of the hotel room, as to the Misses Jeffries, was unlawful. They were not even present when the entry, search and seizure were conducted; nor were exceptional circumstances present to justify the action of. the officers. There was no question of violence, no movable vehicle was involved, nor was there an arrest or imminent destruction, removal, or concealment of the property intended to be seized. In fact, the officers admit they could have easily prevented any such destruction or removal by merely guarding the door. Instead, in entering the room and making the search for the sole purpose of seizing respondent’s narcotics, the officers not only proceeded without a warrant or other legal authority, but their intrusion was conducted surreptitiously and by mearis denounced as criminal.
The Government argues, however, that the search did not invade respondent’s privacy and that he, therefore, lacked the necessary standing to suppress the evidence seized. The significant act, it says, is the seizure of the goods of the respondent without a warrant. We do not believe the events are so easily isolable. Rather they are bound together by one sole purpose — to locate and seize the narcotics of respondent. The search and seizure are, therefore, incapable of being untied. To hold that this search and seizure were lawful as to the respondent would permit a quibbling distinction to overturn a principle which was designed to protect a fundamental right. The respondent unquestionably had standing to object to the seizure made without warrant or arrest unless the contraband nature of the narcotics seized precluded his assertion, fof purposes of the exclusionary rule, of a property interest therein.
It is urgently contended by the Government that no property rights within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment exist in the narcotics seized here, because they are contraband goods in which Congress has declared that “no property rights shall exist.” The Government made the same contention in Trupiano v. United States, 334 U. S. 699 (1948). See Brief for the United States, pp. 24-45. This Court disposed of the contention saying:
“It follows that it was error to refuse petitioners’ motion to exclude and suppress the property which was improperly seized. But since this property was contraband, they have no right to have it returned to them.” 334 U. S. at 710.
The same section declaring that “no property rights shall exist” in contraband goods provides for the issuance of search warrants “for the seizure” of such property. The Government’s view in Trupiano was that the latter provision applies “when the entry must be made to seize”; but not “where, after a lawful entry for anothSr purpose, the contraband property is before the eyes of the enforcing officers.” This construction would make it necessary for the officers to have a search warrant here. We are of the opinion that Congress, in abrogating property rights in such goods,, merely intended to aid in their forfeiture and thereby prevent the spread of the traffic in drugs rather than to abolish the exclusionary rule formulated by the courts in furtherance of the high purposes of the Fourth Amendment. See In re Fried, 161 F. 2d 453 (1947).
Since the evidence illegally seized- was contraband the respondent was not entitled to have it returned .to him. It being his property, for purposes of the exclusionary rule, he was entitled on motion to have.it suppressed as evidence on his trial.
Affirmed.
The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Reed dissent.
Mr. Justice Minton took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“It shall be unlawful for any person to purchase, sell, dispense, or distribute any of the drugs mentioned in section 2550 (a) except in the original stamped package or from the original stamped package; and the absence of appropriate tax-paid' stamps from any of the aforesaid drugs shall be prima facie evidence of a violation of this subsection by the person in whose possession same may be found; . . . .” 26 U. S. C. § 2553 (a).
“If any person fraudulently or knowingly imports or brings any narcotic drug into the United States or any territory under its control or jurisdiction, contrary to law, or assists in so doing or receives, conceals, buys, sells or in any manner facilitates the transportation, concealment, or sale of any such narcotic drug after being imported or brought in, knowing the same to have been imported contrary to law, such person shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $5,000 and imprisoned for not more than ten years. Whenever on trial for a violation of this section the defendant is shown to have or to have had possession of the narcotic drug, such possession shall be deemed sufficient evidence to authorize conviction unless the defendant explains the possession to the satisfaction of the jury.” 21 U. S. C. § 174.
“The right of the people to be secure in their, persons, houses; papers, and effects, .against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
“It shall be unlawful to have or possess any liquor or property intended for use in violating the provisions of this part, „or the internal-revenue laws, or regulations prescribed under such part, or laws, .or which has been so used, and no property rights shall exist in any such liquor or property. A search warrant may issue as provided in Title XI of the act of June 15, 1917, 40 Stat. 228 (U. S. C., Title 18, §§ 611-633) [since superseded by Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 41], for the seizure of such liquor or property. Nothing in this section shall in any manner limit or affect any criminal or forfeiture provision of the internal-revenue laws, or of any other law. The seizure and forfeiture of any liquor or property under the provisions of this part, and the .disposition of such liquor or property subsequent to seizure and forfeiture, or the disposition of the proceeds from the sale of such liquor or property, shall be in accordance with existing laws or those hereafter in existence relating to seizures, forfeitures, and disposition of property or proceeds, for violation of the internal-revenue laws.” 26. U. S. C. § 3116.
Brief for the United States, pp. 35-36 (emphasis added). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state of the court in which the case originated. Consider the District of Columbia as a state. | What is the state of the court in which the case originated? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
9
] | sc_caseoriginstate |
SHAW et al. v. MURPHY
No. 99-1613.
Argued January 16, 2001
Decided April 18, 2001
David L. Ohler, Special Assistant Attorney General of Montana, argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Joseph P. Mazurek, Attorney General, and Diana Leibinger-Koch, Special Assistant Attorney General.
Patricia A. Millett argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Ogden, Deputy Solicitor General Underwood, Gregory G. Garre, Barbara L. Herwig, and John Hoyle.
Jeffrey T. Renz argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Florida et al. by Robert A Butterworth, Attorney General of Florida, Thomas E. Warner, Solicitor General, and Cecilia Bradley, Assistant Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, James E. Ryan of Illinois, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, Richard P. leyoub of Louisiana, Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Philip T. McLaughlin of New Hampshire, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Betty D. Montgomery of Ohio, W. A Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Jan Graham of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, and Mark L. Earley of Virginia; and for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger and Charles L. Hobson.
Daniel L. Greenberg, John Boston, Elizabeth Alexander, Margaret Winter, David C. Fathi, and Stephen Bright filed a brief for the Legal Aid Society of the City of New York et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under our decision in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), restrictions on prisoners’ communications to other inmates are constitutional if the restrictions are “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” Id., at 89. In this case, we are asked to decide whether prisoners possess a First Amendment right to provide legal assistance that enhances the protections otherwise available under Turner. We hold that they do not.
I
While respondent Kevin Murphy was incarcerated at the Montana State Prison, he served as an “inmate law clerk,” providing legal assistance to fellow prisoners. Upon learning that inmate Pat Tracy had been charged with assaulting Correctional Officer Glen Galle, Murphy decided to assist Tracy with his defense. Prison rules prohibited Murphy’s assignment to the case, but he nonetheless investigated the assault. After discovering that other inmates had complained about Officer Galle’s conduct, Murphy sent Tracy a letter, which included the following:
“I do want to help you with your ease against Galle. It wasn’t your fault and I know he provoked whatever happened! Don’t plead guilty because we can get at least 100 witnesses to testify that Galle is an over zealous guard who has a personal agenda to punish and harrass [sic] inmates. He has made homo-sexual [sic] advances towards certain inmates and that can be brought up into the record. There are petitions against him and I have tried to get the Unit Manager to do something about what he does in Close II, but all that happened is that I received two writeups from him myself as retaliation. So we must pursue this out of the prison system. I am filing a suit with everyone in Close I and II named against him. So you can use that too!
"Another poiont [sic] is that he grabbed you from behind. You tell your lawyer to get ahold of me on this. Don’t take a plea bargain unless it’s for no more time.” App. 50.
In accordance with prison policy, prison officials intercepted the letter, and petitioner Robert Shaw, an officer in the maximum-security unit, reviewed it. Based on the accusations against Officer Galle, Shaw cited Murphy for violations of the prison’s rules prohibiting insolence, interference with due process hearings, and conduct that disrupts or interferes with the security and orderly operation of the institution. After a hearing, Murphy was found guilty of violating the first two prohibitions. The hearings officer sanctioned him by imposing a suspended sentence of 10 days’ detention and issuing demerits that could affect his custody level.
In response, Murphy brought this action, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U, S. C. §1983. The case was styled as a class action, brought on behalf of himself, other inmate law clerks, and other prisoners. The complaint alleged that the disciplining of Murphy violated due process, the rights of inmates to access the courts, and, as relevant here, Murphy’s First Amendment rights, including the right to provide legal assistance to other inmates.
After discovery, the District Court granted petitioners’ motion for summary judgment on all of Murphy’s claims. On the First Amendment claim, the court found that Murphy was not formally acting as an inmate law clerk when he wrote the letter, and that Murphy’s claims should therefore “be analyzed without consideration of any privilege that law clerk status might provide.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 24. The District Court then applied our decision in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), which held that a prison regulation impinging on inmates’ constitutional rights is valid “if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests,” id., at 89. Finding a “valid, rational connection between the prison inmate correspondence policy and the objectives of prison order, security, and inmate rehabilitation,” the District Court rejected Murphy’s First Amendment claim. App. to Pet. for Cert. 25.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. It premised its analysis on the proposition that “inmates have a First Amendment right to assist other inmates with their legal claims.” 195 F. 3d 1121, 1124 (1999). Murphy enjoyed this right of association, the court concluded, because he was providing legal advice that potentially was relevant to Tracy’s defense. The Court of Appeals then applied our decision in Turner, but it did so only against the backdrop of this First Amendment right, which, the court held, affected the balance of the prisoner’s interests against the government’s interests. Concluding that the balance tipped in favor of Murphy, the Court of Appeals upheld Murphy’s First Amendment claim.
Other Courts of Appeals have rejected similar claims. See, e. g., Gibbs v. Hopkins, 10 F. 3d 373, 378 (CA6 1993) (no constitutional right to assist other inmates with legal claims); Smith v. Maschner, 899 F. 2d 940, 950 (CA10 1990) (same); Gassier v. Rayl, 862 F. 2d 706, 707-708 (CA8 1988) (same). To resolve the conflict, we granted certiorari. 580 U.S. 1308 (2000).
II
In this case, we are not asked to decide whether prisoners have any First Amendment rights when they send legal correspondence to one another. In Turner, we held that restrictions on inmate-to-inmate communications pass constitutional muster only if the restrictions are reasonably related to legitimate and neutral governmental objectives. 482 U.S., at 89. We did not limit our holding to nonlegal correspondence, and petitioners do not ask us to construe it that way. Instead, the question presented here simply asks whether Murphy possesses a First Amendment right to provide legal advice that enhances the protections otherwise available under Turner. The effect of such a right, as the Court of Appeals described it, 195 F. 3d, at 1127, would be that inmate-to-inmate correspondence that includes legal assistance would receive more First Amendment protection than correspondence without any legal assistance. We conclude that there is no such special right.
Traditionally, federal courts did not intervene in the internal affairs of prisons and instead “adopted a broad hands-off attitude toward problems of prison administration.” Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U. S. 396, 404 (1974). Indeed, for much of this country’s history, the prevailing view was that a prisoner was a mere “slave of the State,” who “not only forfeited his liberty, but all his personal rights except those which the law in its humanity accords him.” Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union, Inc., 433 U.S. 119, 139 (1977) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (quoting Ruffin v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. 790, 796 (1871)) (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). In recent decades, however, this Court has determined that incarceration does not divest prisoners of all constitutional protections. Inmates retain, for example, the right to he free from racial discrimination, Lee v. Washington, 390 U.S. 333 (1968) (per curiam), the right to due process, Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 639 (1974), and, as relevant here, certain protections of the First Amendment,. Turner, supra.
We nonetheless have maintained that the constitutional rights that prisoners possess are more limited in scope than the constitutional rights held by individuals in society at large. In the First Amendment context, for instance, some rights are simply inconsistent with the status of a prisoner or "with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system,” Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 822 (1974). We have thus sustained proscriptions of media interviews with individual inmates, see id., at 833-835, prohibitions on the activities of a prisoners’ labor union, see North Carolina Prisoners’Labor Union, Inc., supra, at 133, and restrictions on inmate-to-inmate written correspondence, see Turner, supra, at 93. Moreover, because the “problems of prisons in America are complex and intractable,” and because courts are particularly “ill equipped” to deal with these problems, Martinez, supra, at 404-405, we generally have deferred to the judgments of prison officials in upholding these regulations against constitutional challenge.
Reflecting this understanding, in Turner we adopted a unitary, deferential standard for reviewing prisoners’ constitutional elaims: “[W]hen a prison regulation impinges on inmates’ constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” 482 U. S., at 89. Under this standard, four factors are relevant. First and foremost, “there must be a Valid, rational connection’ between the prison regulation and the legitimate [and neutral] governmental interest put forward to justify it.” Ibid, (quoting Block v. Rutherford, 468 U.S. 576, 586 (1984)). If the connection between the regulation and the asserted goal is “arbitrary or irrational,” then the regulation fails, irrespective of whether the other factors tilt in its favor. 482 U.S., at 89-90. In addition, courts should consider three other factors: the existence of “alternative means of exercising the right” available to inmates; “the impact accommodation of the asserted constitutional right will have on guards and other inmates, and on the allocation of prison resources generally”; and “the absence of ready alternatives” available to the prison for achieving the governmental objectives. Id., at 90.
Because Turner provides the test for evaluating prisoners’ First Amendment challenges, the issue before us is whether Turner permits an increase in constitutional protection whenever a prisoner’s communication includes legal advice. We conclude that it does not. To increase the constitutional protection based upon the content of a communication first requires an assessment of the value of that content. But the Turner test, by its terms, simply does not accommodate valuations of content. On the contrary, the Turner factors concern only the relationship between the asserted penological interests and the prison regulation. Id., at 89.
Moreover, under Turner and its predecessors, prison officials are to remain the primary arbiters of the problems that arise in prison management. Ibid.; see also Martinez, supra, at 405 (“[Cjourts are ill equipped to deal with the increasingly urgent problems of prison administration and reform”). If courts were permitted to enhance constitutional protection based on their assessments of the content of the particular communications, courts would be in a position to assume a greater role in decisions affecting prison administration. Seeking to avoid “‘unnecessarily perpetu-at[ing] the involvement of the federal courts in affairs of prison administration,’” Turner, 482 U.S., at 89 (quoting Martinez, supra, at 407) (alteration in original), we reject an alteration of the Turner analysis that would entail additional federal-court oversight.
Finally, even if we were to consider giving special protection to particular kinds of speeeh based upon content, we would not do so for speech that includes legal advice. Augmenting First Amendment protection for inmate legal advice would undermine prison officials’ ability to address the “complex and intractable” problems of prison administration. Turner, supra, at 84. Although supervised inmate legal assistance programs may serve valuable ends, it is “indisputable” that inmate law clerks “are sometimes a menace to prison discipline” and that prisoners have an “acknowledged propensity ... to abuse both the giving and the seeking of [legal] assistance.” Johnson v. Avery, 393 U.S. 483, 488, 490 (1969). Prisoners have used legal correspondence as a means for passing contraband and communicating instructions on how to manufacture drugs or weapons. See Brief for State of Florida et al. as Amici Curiae 6-8; see also Turner, supra, at 93 (“[P]risoners could easily write in jargon or codes to prevent detection of their real messages”). The legal text also could be an excuse for making clearly inappropriate comments, which “may be expected to circulate among prisoners,” Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 412 (1989), despite prison measures to screen individual inmates or officers from the remarks.
We thus decline to cloak the provision of legal assistance with any First Amendment protection above and beyond the protection normally accorded prisoners’ speech. Instead, the proper constitutional test is the one we set forth in Turner. Irrespective of whether the correspondence contains legal advice, the constitutional analysis is the same.
HH KH
Under Turner, the question remains whether the prison regulations, as applied to Murphy, are “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” 482 U.S., at 89. To prevail, Murphy must overcome the presumption that the prison officials acted within their “broad discretion.” Abbott, supra, at 413. Petitioners ask us to answer, rather than remand, the question whether Murphy has satisfied this heavy burden. We decline petitioners’ request, however, because we granted certiorari only to decide whether inmates possess a special First Amendment right to provide legal assistance to fellow inmates.
* H= *
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Tracy had requested that Murphy be assigned to his case. App. 84. Prison officials, however, denied that request because prison policy forbade high-security inmates, such as Murphy, from meeting with maximum-seeurity inmates, including Tracy. App. to Pet. for Cert. 19. Prison officials offered Tracy another law clerk to assist him. App. 84.
The Court of Appeals made such an assessment when it “ ‘balance[d] the importance of the prisoner’s infnnged right against the importance of the penological interest served by the rule.’” 195 F. 3d 1121, 1127 (CA9 1999) (quoting Bradley v. Hall, 64 F. 3d 1276, 1280 (CA9 1995)).
Murphy suggests that the right to provide legal advice follows from a right to receive legal advice. However, even if one right followed from the other, Murphy is incorrect in his assumption that there is a freestanding right to receive legal advice. Under our right-of-access precedents, inmates have a right to receive legal advice from other inmates only when it is a necessary “means for ensuring a ‘reasonably adequate opportunity to present claimed violations of fundamental constitutional rights to the courts.' ” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 350-351 (1996) (quoting Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 825 (1977)). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether the petitioning party (i.e., the plaintiff or the appellant) emerged victorious. The victory the Supreme Court provided the petitioning party may not have been total and complete (e.g., by vacating and remanding the matter rather than an unequivocal reversal), but the disposition is nonetheless a favorable one. Consider that the petitioning party lost if the Supreme Court affirmed or dismissed the case, or denied the petition. Consider that the petitioning party won in part or in full if the Supreme Court reversed, reversed and remanded, vacated and remanded, affirmed and reversed in part, affirmed and reversed in part and remanded, or vacated the case. | Consider that the petitioning party lost if the Supreme Court affirmed or dismissed the case, or denied the petition. Consider that the petitioning party won in part or in full if the Supreme Court reversed, reversed and remanded, vacated and remanded, affirmed and reversed in part, affirmed and reversed in part and remanded, or vacated the case. Did the petitioning win the case? | [
"Yes",
"No"
] | [
0
] | sc_partywinning |
DelCOSTELLO v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS et al.
No. 81-2386.
Argued April 25, 1983
Decided June 8, 1983
Brennan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burger, C. J., and White, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell, and Rehnquist, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., post, p. 172, and O’Connor, J., post, p. 174, filed dissenting opinions.
William H. Zinman argued the cause for petitioner in No. 81-2386. With him on the briefs was Paul A. Levy. Robert M. Weinberg argued the cause for petitioners in No. 81-2408. With him on the briefs were Michael H. Gottesman, Bernard Kleiman, Carl Frankel, and Laurence Gold.
Bernard S. Goldfarb argued the cause for respondents in No. 81-2386 and filed a brief for respondent Anchor Motor Freight, Inc. Isaac N. Groner, by appointment of the Court, 459 U. S. 1143, argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents in No. 81-2408. Carl S. Yaller and Bernard W. Ruben-stein filed a brief for respondent Local 557, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America in No. 81-2386.
Together with No. 81-2408, United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO-CLC, et al. v. Flowers et al., on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Steven C. Kahn and Stephen A. Bokat filed a brief for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal in both cases. Alan B. Morrison filed a brief for Teamsters for a Democratic Union as amicus curiae urging reversal in No. 81-2386.
David Previant, Robert M. Baptiste, and Roland P. Wilder, Jr., filed a brief for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Ware-housemen and Helpers of America as amicus curiae urging affirmance in No. 81-2386.
Michael L. Boylan and Teddy B. Gordon filed a brief for Gordon L. Higgins as amicus curiae in No. 81-2408.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Each of these cases arose as a suit by an employee or employees against an employer and a union, alleging that the employer had breached a provision of a collective-bargaining agreement, and that the union had breached its duty of fair representation by mishandling the ensuing grievance-and-arbitration proceedings. See infra, at 162; Bowen v. USPS, 459 U. S. 212 (1983); Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171 (1967); Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554 (1976). The issue presented is what statute of limitations should apply to such suits. In United Parcel Service, Inc. v. Mitchell, 451 U. S. 56 (1981), we held that a similar suit was governed by a state statute of limitations for vacation of an arbitration award, rather than by a state statute for an action on a contract. We left two points open, however. First, our holding was limited to the employee’s claim against the employer; we did not address what state statute should govern the claim against the union. Second, we expressly limited our consideration to a choice between two state statutes of limitations; we did not address the contention that we should instead borrow a federal statute of limitations, namely, § 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 160(b). These cases present these two issues. We conclude that § 10(b) should be the applicable statute of limitations governing the suit, both against the employer and against the union.
I
A
Philip DelCostello, petitioner in No. 81-2386, was employed as a driver by respondent Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., and represented by respondent Teamsters Local 557. On June 27,1977, he quit or was discharged after refusing to drive a tractor-trailer that he contended was unsafe. He took his complaint to the union, which made unsuccessful informal attempts to get DelCostello reinstated and then brought a formal grievance under the collective-bargaining agreement. A hearing was held before a regional joint union-management committee. The committee concluded that the grievance was without merit. DelCostello was informed of that decision in a letter dated August 19, 1977, forwarding the minutes of the hearing and stating that the minutes would be presented for approval at the committee’s meeting on September 20. DelCostello responded in a letter, but the minutes were approved without change. Under the collective-bargaining agreement, the committee’s decision is final and binding on all parties.
On March 16, 1978, DelCostello filed this suit in the District of Maryland against the employer and the union. He alleged that the employer had discharged him in violation of the collective-bargaining agreement, and that the union had represented him in the grievance procedure “in a discriminatory, arbitrary and perfunctory manner,” App. in No. 81-2386, p. 19, resulting in an unfavorable decision by the joint committee. Respondents asserted that the suit was barred by Maryland’s 30-day statute of limitations for actions to vacate arbitration awards. The District Court disagreed, holding that the applicable statute was the 3-year state statute for actions on contracts. 510 F. Supp. 716 (1981). On reconsideration following our decision in Mitchell, however, the court granted summary judgment for respondents, concluding that Mitchell compelled application of the 30-day statute to both the claim against the employer and the claim against the union. 524 F. Supp. 721 (1981). The Court of Appeals affirmed on the basis of the District Court’s order. 679 F. 2d 879 (CA4 1982) (mem.).
B
Donald C. Flowers and King E. Jones, respondents in No. 81-2408, were employed as craft welders by Bethlehem Steel Corp. and represented by petitioner Steelworkers Local 2602. In 1975 and 1976 respondents filed several grievances asserting that the employer had violated the collective-bargaining agreement by assigning certain welding duties to employees in other job categories and departments of the plant, with the result that respondents were laid off or assigned to noncraft work. The union processed the grievances through the contractually established procedure and, failing to gain satisfaction, invoked arbitration. On February 24, 1978, the arbitrator issued an award for the employer, ruling that the employer’s job assignments were permitted by the collective-bargaining agreement.
Respondents filed this suit in the Western District of New York on January 9, 1979, naming both the employer and the union as defendants. The complaint alleged that the company’s work assignments violated the collective-bargaining agreement, and that the union’s “preparation, investigation and handling” of respondents’ grievances were “so inept and careless as to be arbitrary and capricious,” in violation of the union’s duty of fair representation. App. in No. 81-2408, p. 10. The District Court dismissed the complaint against both defendants, holding that the entire suit was governed by New York’s 90-day statute of limitations for actions to vacate arbitration awards. The Court of Appeals reversed on the basis of its prior holding in Mitchell v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 624 F. 2d 394 (CA2 1980), that such actions are governed by New York’s 6-year statute for actions on contracts. Flowers v. Local 2602, United Steel Workers of America, 622 F. 2d 573 (CA2 1980) (mem.). We granted certiorari and vacated and remanded for reconsideration in light of our reversal in Mitchell. Steelworkers v. Flowers, 451 U. S. 965 (1981). On remand, the Court of Appeals rejected the argument that the 6-month period of § 10(b) applies. Accordingly, following our decision in Mitchell, it applied the 90-day arbitration statute and affirmed the dismissal as to the employer. As to the union, however, the court reversed, concluding that the correct statute to apply was New York’s 3-year statute for malpractice actions. 671 F. 2d 87 (CA2 1982).
C
In this Court, petitioners in both cases contend that suits under Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171 (1967), and Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554 (1976), should be governed by the 6-month limitations period of § 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 160(b). Alternatively, the Steelworkers, petitioners in No. 81-2408, argue that the state statute for vacation of arbitration awards should apply to a claim against a union as well as to one against an employer. We granted certiorari in both cases and consolidated them for argument. 459 U. S. 1034 (1982).
l-H
A
As is often the case in federal civil law, there is no federal statute of limitations expressly applicable to this suit. In such situations we do not ordinarily assume that Congress intended that there be no time limit on actions at all; rather, our task is to “borrow” the most suitable statute or other rule of timeliness from some other source. We have generally concluded that Congress intended that the courts apply the most closely analogous statute of limitations under state law. “The implied absorption of State statutes of limitation within the interstices of the federal enactments is a phase of fashioning remedial details where Congress has not spoken but left matters for judicial determination within the general framework of familiar legal principles.” Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392, 395 (1946). See, e. g., Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160, 180-182 (1976); Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97, 101-105 (1971); Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U. S. 696 (1966); Chattanooga Foundry v. Atlanta, 203 U. S. 390 (1906); Campbell v. Haverhill, 155 U. S. 610 (1895).
In some circumstances, however, state statutes of limitations can be unsatisfactory vehicles for the enforcement of federal law. In those instances, it may be inappropriate to conclude that Congress would choose to adopt state rules at odds with the purpose or operation of federal substantive law.
“[T]he Court has not mechanically applied a state statute of limitations simply because a limitations period is absent from the federal statute. State legislatures do not devise their limitations periods with national interests in mind, and it is the duty of the federal courts to assure that the importation of state law will not frustrate or interfere with the implementation of national policies. ‘Although state law is our primary guide in this area, it is not, to be sure, our exclusive guide.’” Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355, 367 (1977), quoting Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U. S. 454, 465 (1975).
Hence, in some cases we have declined to borrow state statutes but have instead used timeliness rules drawn from federal law — either express limitations periods from related federal statutes, or such alternatives as laches. In Occidental, for example, we declined to apply state limitations periods to enforcement suits brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, reasoning that such application might unduly hinder the policy of the Act by placing too great an administrative burden on the agency. In McAllister v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 357 U. S. 221 (1958), we applied the federal limitations provision of the Jones Act to a seaworthiness action under general admiralty law. We pointed out that the two forms of claim are almost invariably brought together. Hence, “with an eye to the practicalities of admiralty personal injury litigation,” id., at 224, we held inapplicable a shorter state statute governing personal injury suits. Again, in Holmberg, we held that state statutes of limitations would not apply to a federal cause of action lying only in equity, because the principles of federal equity are hostile to the “mechanical rules” of statutes of limitations. 327 U. S., at 396.
Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp. was a straightforward suit under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 185, for breach of a collective-bargaining agreement by an employer. Unlike the present cases, Hoosier did not involve any agreement to submit disputes to arbitration, and the suit was brought by the union itself rather than by an individual employee. We held that the suit was governed by Indiana’s 6-year limitations period for actions on unwritten contracts; we resisted the suggestion that we establish some uniform federal period. Although we recognized that “the subject matter of § 301 is ‘peculiarly one that calls for uniform law/” 383 U. S., at 701, quoting Teamsters v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U. S. 95, 103 (1962), we reasoned that national uniformity is of less importance when the case does not involve “those consensual processes that federal labor law is chiefly designed to promote — the formation of the collective agreement and the private settlement of disputes under it,” 383 U. S., at 702. We also relied heavily on the obvious and close analogy between this variety of § 301 suit and an ordinary breach-of-contract case. We expressly reserved the question whether we would apply state law to § 301 actions where the analogy was less direct or the relevant policy factors different:
“The present suit is essentially an action for damages caused by an alleged breach of an employer’s obligation embodied in a collective bargaining agreement. Such an action closely resembles an action for breach of contract cognizable at common law. Whether other §301 suits different from the present one might call for the application of other rules on timeliness, we are not required to decide, and we indicate no view whatsoever on that question. See, e. g., Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392 ....” 383 U. S., at 705, n. 7.
Justice Stewart, who wrote the Court’s opinion in Hoosier, took this caution to heart in Mitchell. He concurred separately in the judgment, arguing that the factors that compelled adoption of state law in Hoosier did not apply to suits under Vaca and Hines, and that in the latter situation we should apply the federal limitations period of § 10(b). 451 U. S., at 65-71. As we shall explain, we agree.
B
It has long been established that an individual employee may bring suit against his employer for breach of a collective-bargaining agreement. Smith v. Evening News Assn., 371 U. S. 195 (1962). Ordinarily, however, an employee is required to attempt to exhaust any grievance or arbitration remedies provided in the collective-bargaining agreement. Republic Steel Corp. v. Maddox, 379 U. S. 650 (1965); cf. Clayton v. Automobile Workers, 451 U. S. 679 (1981) (exhaustion of intraunion remedies not always required). Subject to very limited judicial review, he will be bound by the result according to the finality provisions of the agreement. See W. R. Grace & Co. v. Rubber Workers, 461 U. S. 757, 764 (1983); Steelworkers v. Enterprise Corp., 363 U. S. 593 (1960). In Vaca and Hines, however, we recognized that this rule works an unacceptable injustice when the union representing the employee in the grievance/arbitration procedure acts in such a discriminatory, dishonest, arbitrary, or perfunctory fashion as to breach its duty of fair representation. In such an instance, an employee may bring suit against both the employer and the union, notwithstanding the outcome or finality of the grievance or arbitration proceeding. Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171 (1967); Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554 (1976); United Parcel Service, Inc. v. Mitchell, 451 U. S. 56 (1981); Bowen v. USPS, 459 U. S. 212 (1983); Czosek v. O’Mara, 397 U. S. 25 (1970). Such a suit, as a formal matter, comprises two causes of action. The suit against the employer rests on § 301, since the employee is alleging a breach of the collective-bargaining agreement. The suit against the union is one for breach of the union’s duty of fair representation, which is implied under the scheme of the National Labor Relations Act. “Yet the two claims are inextricably interdependent. ‘To prevail against either the company or the Union, . . . [employee-plaintiffs] must not only show that their discharge was contrary to the contract but must also carry the burden of demonstrating breach of duty by the Union.’” Mitchell, supra, at 66-67 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment), quoting Hines, supra, at 570-571. The employee may, if he chooses, sue one defendant and not the other; but the case he must prove is the same whether he sues one, the other, or both. The suit is thus not a straightforward breach-of-contract suit under §301, as was Hoosier, but a hybrid § 301/fair representation claim, amounting to “a direct challenge to ‘the private settlement of disputes under [the collective-bargaining agreement].”’ Mitchell, supra, at 66 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment), quoting Hoosier, 383 U. S., at 702. Also unlike the claim in Hoosier, it has no close analogy in ordinary state law. The analogies suggested in Mitchell both suffer from flaws, not only of legal substance, but more important, of practical application in view of the policies of federal labor law and the practicalities of hybrid § 301/fair representation litigation.
In Mitchell, we analogized the employee’s claim against the employer to an action to vacate an arbitration award in a commercial setting. We adhere to the view that, as between the two choices, it is more suitable to characterize the claim that way than as a suit for breach of contract. Nevertheless, the parallel is imperfect in operation. The main difference is that a party to commercial arbitration will ordinarily be represented by counsel or, at least, will have some experience in matters of commercial dealings and contract negotiation. Moreover, an action to vacate a commercial arbitral award will rarely raise any issues not already presented and contested in the arbitration proceeding itself. In the labor setting, by contrast, the employee will often be unsophisticated in collective-bargaining matters, and he will almost always be represented solely by the union. He is called upon, within the limitations period, to evaluate the adequacy of the union’s representation, to retain counsel, to investigate substantial matters that were not at issue in the arbitration proceeding, and to frame his suit. Yet state arbitration statutes typically provide very short times in which to sue for vacation of arbitration awards. Concededly, the very brevity of New York’s 90-day arbitration limitations period was a major factor why, in Mitchell, we preferred it to the 6-year statute for breach of contract, 451 U. S., at 63-64; but it does not follow that because 6 years is too long, 90 days is long enough. See also Hoosier, swpra, at 707, n. 9. We conclude that state limitations periods for vacating arbitration awards fail to provide an aggrieved employee with a satisfactory opportunity to vindicate his rights under § 301 and the fair representation doctrine.
Moreover, as Justice Stevens pointed out in his opinion in Mitchell, analogy to an action to vacate an arbitration award is problematic at best as applied to the employee’s claim against the union:
“The arbitration proceeding did not, and indeed, could not, resolve the employee’s claim against the union. Although the union was a party to the arbitration, it acted only as the employee’s representative; the [arbitration panel] did not address or resolve any dispute between the employee and the union .... Because no arbitrator has decided the primary issue presented by this claim, no arbitration award need be undone, even if the employee ultimately prevails.” 451 U. S., at 73 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part) (footnotes omitted).
Justice Stevens suggested an alternative solution for the claim against the union: borrowing the state limitations period for legal malpractice. Id., at 72-75; see post, at 174 (Stevens, J., dissenting);post, at 175 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). The analogy here is to a lawyer who mishandles a commercial arbitration. Although the short limitations period for vacating the arbitral award would protect the interest in finality of the opposing party to the arbitration, the misrepresented party would retain his right to sue his lawyer for malpractice under a longer limitations period. This solution is admittedly the closest state-law analogy for the claim against the union. Nevertheless, we think that it too suffers from objections peculiar to the realities of labor relations and litigation.
The most serious objection is that it does not solve the problem caused by the too-short time in which an employee could sue his employer under borrowed state law. In a commercial setting, a party who sued his lawyer for bungling an arbitration could ordinarily recover his entire damages, even if the statute of limitations foreclosed any recovery against the opposing party to the arbitration. The same is not true in the § 301/fair representation setting, however. vWe held in Vaca, and reaffirmed this Term in Bowen, that the union may be held liable only for “increases if any in [the employee’s] damages caused by the union’s refusal to process the grievance.” 386 U. S., at 197-198; 459 U, S., at 223-224; see Czosek, 397 U. S., at 29. Thus, if we apply state limitations periods, a large part of the damages will remain uncollectible in almost every case unless the employee sues within the time allotted for his suit against the employer.
Further, while application of a short arbitration period as against employers would endanger employees’ ability to recover most of what is due them, application of a longer malpractice statute as against unions would preclude the relatively rapid final resolution of labor disputes favored by federal law — a problem not present when a party to a commercial arbitration sues his lawyer. In No. 81-2408, for example, the holding of the Court of Appeals would permit a suit as long as three years after termination of the grievance proceeding; many States provide for periods even longer. What we said in Mitchell about the 6-year contracts statute urged there can as easily be said here:
“It is important to bear in mind the observations made in the Steelworkers Trilogy that ‘the grievance machinery under a collective bargaining agreement is at the very heart of the system of industrial self-government. . . . The processing . . . machinery is actually a vehicle by which meaning and content are given to the collective bargaining agreement.’ Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U. S. 574, 581 (1960). Although the present case involves a fairly mundane and discrete wrongful-discharge complaint, the grievance and arbitration procedure often processes disputes involving interpretation of critical terms in the collective-bargaining agreement affecting the entire relationship between company and union.... This system, with its heavy emphasis on grievance, arbitration, and the ‘law of the shop,’ could easily become unworkable if a decision which has given ‘meaning and content’ to the terms of an agreement, and even affected subsequent modifications of the agreement, could suddenly be called into question as much as [three] years later.” 451 U. S., at 63-64.
See also Hoosier, 383 U. S., at 706-707; Machinists v. NLRB, 362 U. S. 411, 425 (1960).
These objections to the resort to state law might have to be tolerated if state law were the only source reasonably available for borrowing, as it often is. In this case, however, we have available a federal statute of limitations actually designed to accommodate a balance of interests very similar to that at stake here — a statute that is, in fact, an analogy to the present lawsuit more apt than any of the suggested state-law parallels. We refer to § 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, which establishes a 6-month period for making charges of unfair labor practices to the NLRB.
The NLRB has consistently held that all breaches of a union’s duty of fair representation are in fact unfair labor practices. E. g., Miranda Fuel Co., 140 N. L. R. B. 181 (1962), enf. denied, 326 F. 2d 172 (CA2 1963). We have twice declined to decide the correctness of the Board’s position, and we need not address that question today. Even if not all breaches of the duty are unfair labor practices, however, the family resemblance is undeniable, and indeed there is a substantial overlap. Many fair representation claims (the one in No. 81-2386, for example) include allegations of discrimination based on membership status or dissident views, which would be unfair labor practices under § 8(b)(1) or (2). Aside from these clear cases, duty of fair representation claims are allegations of unfair, arbitrary, or discriminatory treatment of workers by unions — as are virtually all unfair labor practice charges made by workers against unions. See generally R. Gorman, Labor Law 698-701 (1976). Similarly, it may be the case that alleged violations by an employer of a collective-bargaining agreement will also amount to unfair labor practices. See id., at 729-734.
At least as important as the similarity of the rights asserted in the two contexts, however, is the close similarity of the considerations relevant to the choice of a limitations period. As Justice Stewart observed in Mitchell:
“In § 10(b) of the NLRA, Congress established a limitations period attuned to what it viewed as the proper balance between the national interests in stable bargaining relationships and finality of private settlements, and an employee’s interest in setting aside what he views as an unjust settlement under the collective-bargaining system. That is precisely the balance at issue in this case. The employee’s interest in setting aside the ‘final and binding’ determination of a grievance through the method established by the collective-bargaining agreement unquestionably implicates ‘those consensual processes that federal labor law is chiefly designed to promote — the formation of the . . . agreement and the private settlement of disputes under it.’ Hoosier, 383 U. S., at 702. Accordingly, ‘[t]he need for uniformity’ among procedures followed for similar claims, ibid., as well as the clear congressional indication of the proper balance between the interests at stake, counsels the adoption of § 10(b) of the NLRA as the appropriate limitations period for lawsuits such as this.” 451 U. S., at 70-71 (opinion concurring in judgment) (footnote omitted).
We stress that our holding today should not be taken as a departure from prior practice in borrowing limitations periods for federal causes of action, in labor law or elsewhere. We do not mean to suggest that federal courts should eschew use of state limitations periods anytime state law fails to provide a perfect analogy. See, e. g., Mitchell, 451 U. S., at 61, n. 3. On the contrary, as the courts have often discovered, there is not always an obvious state-law choice for application to a given federal cause of action; yet resort to state law remains the norm for borrowing of limitations periods. Nevertheless, when a rule from elsewhere in federal law clearly provides a closer analogy than available state statutes, and when the federal policies at stake and the practicalities of litigation make that rule a significantly more appropriate vehicle for interstitial lawmaking, we have not hesitated to turn away from state law. See Part II-A, swpra. As Justice Goldberg cautioned: “[I]n this Court’s fashioning of a federal law of collective bargaining, it is of the utmost importance that the law reflect the realities of industrial life and the nature of the collective bargaining process. We should not assume that doctrines evolved in other contexts will be equally well adapted to the collective bargaining process.” Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335, 358 (1964) (opinion concurring in result).
Ill
In No. 81-2408, it is conceded that the suit was filed more than 10 months after respondents’ causes of action accrued. The Court of Appeals held the suit timely under a state 3-year statute for malpractice actions. Since we hold that the suit is governed by the 6-month provision of § 10(b), we reverse the judgment.
The situation is less clear in No. 81-2386. Depending on when the joint committee’s decision is thought to have been rendered, the suit was filed some seven or eight months afterwards. Petitioner DelCostello contends, however, that certain events operated to toll the running of the statute of limitations until about three months before he filed suit. Since the District Court applied a 30-day limitations period, it expressly declined to consider any tolling issue. 524 F. Supp., at 725. Hence, the judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Only the employer sought certiorari in Mitchell. Hence, the case did not present the question of what limitations period should be applied to the employee’s claim against the union. See 451 U. S., at 60; id,., at 71-75, and n. 1 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
49 Stat. 453. That section provides in pertinent part:
“Provided... no complaint shall issue based upon any unfair labor practice occurring more than six months prior to the filing of the charge with the Board and the service of a copy thereof upon the person against whom such charge is made . . . .”
The petition for certiorari in Mitchell presented only the question of which state statute of limitations should apply. The parties did not contend in this Court or below that a federal limitations period should be used instead of analogous state law. Only an amicus suggested that it would be more appropriate to use § 10(b); moreover, application of § 10(b) rather than the state arbitration statute of limitations would not have changed the outcome of the case. Hence, we declined to address the issue. 451 U. S., at 60, n. 2.
Justice Stewart, concurring in the judgment, would have reached the issue and would have applied § 10(b) rather than any state limitations period. Id., at 65-71. See also id., at 64-65 (Blackmun, J., concurring); but see id., at 75-76, and nn. 8, 9 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
The employer contends that DelCostello’s refusal to perform his work assignment was a “voluntary quit”; DelCostello contends that he was wrongfully discharged. The joint grievance committee upheld the employer’s view.
Md. Cts. & Jud. Proc. Code Ann. § 3-224 (1980).
§5-101.
Respondents argue that DelCostello did not raise the argument below that the applicable limitations period is the 6-month period of § 10(b). He did raise the § 10(b) point perfunctorily in opposition to respondents’ motion for reconsideration, however, App. in No. 81-2386, p. 264, and he briefed it more thoroughly in the Court of Appeals, id., at 282-290. Respondents likewise addressed the § 10(b) issue fully on the merits in the Court of Appeals; they did not raise any contention that DelCostello had waived the assertion. Brief for Appellees in No. 81-2086 (CA4), pp. 41-45.
The other petitioner is the United Steelworkers of America, with which the Local is affiliated. The two labor organizations will be treated as one party for purposes of this case. Bethlehem Steel Corp. was a defendant below but is not before this Court in the present proceeding.
N. Y. Civ. Prac. Law § 7511(a) (McKinney 1980).
§213(2).
§214(6).
DelCostello (petitioner in No. 81-2386) also contends that, if we decide that application of state law is appropriate, our decision in Mitchell should not be applied retroactively. We need not reach this contention.
In some instances, of course, there may be some direct indication in the legislative history suggesting that Congress did in fact intend that state statutes should apply. More often, however, Congress has not given any express consideration to the problem of limitations periods. In such cases, the general preference for borrowing state limitations periods could more aptly be called a sort of fallback rule of thumb than a matter of ascertaining legislative intent; it rests on the assumption that, absent some sound reason to do otherwise, Congress would likely intend that the courts follow their previous practice of borrowing state provisions. See also Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U. S. 696, 703-704 (1966).
Justice Stewart pointed out in Mitchell that this line of reasoning makes more sense as applied to a cause of action expressly created by Congress than as applied to one found by the courts to be implied in a general statutory scheme — especially when that general statutory scheme itself contains a federal statute of limitations for a related but separate form of relief. 451 U. S., at 68, n. 4 (opinion concurring in judgment); see also McAllister v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 357 U. S. 221, 228-229 (1958) (Brennan, J., concurring). The suits at issue here, of course, are amalgams, based on both an express statutory cause of action and an implied one. See infra, at 164-165, and n. 14. We need not address whether, as a general matter, such cases should be treated differently; even if this action were considered as arising solely under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 185, the objections to use of state law and the availability of a well-suited limitations period in § 10(b) would call for application of the latter rule.
Respondents in No. 81-2386 argue that the Rules of Decision Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1652, mandates application of state statutes of limitations whenever Congress has provided none. The argument begs the question, since the Act authorizes application of state law only when federal law does not “otherwise require or provide.” As we recognized in Hoosier, supra, at 701, the choice of a limitations period for a federal cause of action is itself a question of federal law. If the answer to that question (based on the policies and requirements of the underlying cause of action) is that a timeliness rule drawn from elsewhere in federal law should be applied, then the Rules of Decision Act is inapplicable by its own terms. As we said in United States v. Little Lake Misere Land Co., 412 U. S. 580 (1973):
“There will often be no specific federal legislation governing a particular transaction . . . ; here, for example, no provision of the . . . Act guides us to choose state or federal law in interpreting . . . agreements under the Act. . . . But silence on that score in federal legislation is no reason for limiting the reach of federal, law .... To the contrary, the inevitable incompleteness presented by all legislation means that interstitial federal lawmaking is a basic responsibility of the federal courts. ‘At the very least, effective Constitutionalism requires recognition of power in the federal courts to declare, as a matter of common law or “judicial legislation,” rules which may be necessary to fill in interstitially or otherwise effectuate the statutory patterns enacted in the large by Congress. In other words, it must mean recognition of federal judicial competence to declare the governing law in an area comprising issues substantially related to an established program of government operation.’” Id., at 598, quoting Mishkin, The Variousness of “Federal Law”: Competence and Discretion in the Choice of National and State Rules for Decision, 105 U. Pa. L. Rev. 797, 800 (1957).
See also Westen & Lehman, Is There Life for Erie After the Death of Diversity?, 78 Mich. L. Rev. 311, 352-359, and nn. 122 and 142, 368-370, 377-378, 380, n. 207, 381-385 (1980); n. 21, infra.
Respondents in No. 81-2386 rely on a few turn-of-the-century cases suggesting that the Rules of Decision Act compels application of state limitations periods. See also post, at 173, n. 1 (Stevens, J., dissenting). These cases, however, predate our recognition in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), that “the purpose of the section was merely to make certain that, in all matters except those in which some federal law is controlling, the federal courts exercising jurisdiction in diversity of citizenship cases would apply as their rules of decision the law of the State, unwritten as well as written.” Id., at 72-73 (footnote omitted); see also Warren, New Light on the History of the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789, 37 Harv. L. Rev. 49, 81-88 (1923). Since Erie, no decision of this Court has held or suggested that the Act requires borrowing state law to fill gaps in federal substantive statutes. Of course, we have continued since Erie to apply state limitations periods to many federal causes of action; but we made clear in Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392, 394-395 (1946), that we do so as a matter of interstitial fashioning of remedial details under the respective substantive federal statutes, and not because the Rules of Decision Act or the Erie doctrine requires it. “The considerations that urge adjudication by the same law in all courts within a State when enforcing a right created by that State are hardly relevant for determining the rules which bar enforcement of [a] . . . right created not by a State legislature but by Congress.” 327 U. S., at 394; see also Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99, 101 (1945); Board of Comm’rs v. United States, 308 U. S. 343, 349-352 (1939); Hoosier, 383 U. S., at 703-704; id., at 709 (White, J., dissenting); Employees v. Westinghouse Corp., 348 U. S. 437, 463 (1955) (Reed, J., concurring).
We do not suggest that the Erie doctrine is wholly irrelevant to all federal causes of action. On the contrary, where Congress directly or impliedly directs the courts to look to state law to fill in details of federal law, Erie will ordinarily provide the framework for doing so. See, e. g., Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U. S. 456, 463-465 (1967) (applying Erie rules as to the proper source of state law in a tax case); 1A J. Moore, W. Taggart, A. Vestal, & J. Wicker, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 0.325 (2d ed. 1982); 19 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4515 (1982); Westen & Lehman, supra. But, as Holmberg recognizes, neither Erie nor the Rules of Decision Act can now be taken as establishing a mandatory rule that we apply state law in federal interstices. Indeed, the contrary view urged by respondents cannot be reconciled with the numerous cases that have declined to borrow state law, see infra, at 162-163, nor with our suggestion in Hoosier that we might not apply state limitations periods in a different case, 383 U. S., at 705, n. 7, 707, n. 9.
The duty of fair representation exists because it is the policy of the National Labor Relations Act to allow a single labor organization to represent collectively the interests of all employees within a unit, thereby depriving individuals in the unit of the ability to bargain individually or to select a minority union as their representative. In such a system, if individual employees are not to be deprived of all effective means of protecting their own interests, it must be the duty of the representative organization “to serve the interests of all members without hostility or discrimination toward any, to exercise its discretion with complete good faith and honesty, and to avoid arbitrary conduct.” Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 177 (1967). See generally Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U. S. 192 (1944); Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330, 337 (1953); Syres v. Oil Workers, 350 U. S. 892 (1955); Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335, 342 (1964); R. Gorman, Labor Law 695-728 (1976). The duty stands “as a bulwark to prevent arbitrary union conduct against individuals stripped of traditional forms of redress by the provisions of federal labor law.” Vaca, supra, at 182.
The majority of States require filing within 90 days (22 States and the District of Columbia) or 3 months (7 States). See also 9 U. S. C. § 12. Only two States have longer periods — one for one year, the other for 100 days. Other statutes allow 30 days (6 States), 20 days (3 States), or 10 days (2 States). The remainder of the States either impose time limits based on terms of court or have no statutory provision on point.
Besides its brevity, use of an arbitration limitations period raises knotty problems of categorization and consistency. Application of an arbitration statute seems straightforward enough when a grievance has run its full course, culminating in a formal award by a neutral arbitrator. But the union’s breach of duty may consist of a wrongful failure to pursue a grievance to arbitration, as in Vaca and Bowen, or a refusal to pursue it through even preliminary stages. The parallel to vacation of an arbitral award seems tenuous at best in these situations; it is doubtful that many state arbitration statutes would themselves cover such a case in a commercial setting. Yet if it were thought necessary to apply different state rules to these different possibilities, the result would be radical variation in the treatment of cases that are not significantly different with regard to the principles of Vaca, Hines, and Mitchell. Moreover, the difficulty of de-teeting and mustering evidence to show the union’s breach of duty may be even greater in these situations, and it may not be an easy task to ascertain when the cause of action accrues — obviously a matter of great importance when the statute of limitations may be as short as 30 days.
Inability to sue the employer would also foreclose use of such equitable remedies as an order to arbitrate. See Vaca, 386 U. S., at 196.
One State’s limitations period for legal malpractice is 10 years. Other statutes allow six years (10 States); five years .[4 States); four years (5 States); three years (10 States and the District of Columbia); two years (16 States); and one year (4 States).
The solution proposed by Justice Stevens also has the unfortunate effect of establishing different limitations periods for the two halves of a § 301/fair representation suit. A very similar consideration led us to reject borrowing of a state statute in McAllister v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 357 U. S. 221 (1958). See also Vaca, supra, at 186-188, and n. 12; Clayton v. Automobile Workers, 451 U. S. 679, 694-695 (1981).
This is not to say that the sole options available are a federal statute of limitations or a state one. As Holmberg and Occidental show, see supra, at 161,162, we have sometimes concluded that Congress’ intention can best be carried out by imposing no predefined limitations period at all.
Justice Stevens suggested in Mitchell that use of § 10(b) is inappropriate because there is no indication in its language or history that Congress intended the section to be applied in the present context. 451 U. S., at 75-76, and nn. 8, 9 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). With all respect, we think that this observation, while undoubtedly correct, is beside the point. The same could be said with equal or greater accuracy about the intent of the New York and Maryland Legislatures when they enacted their respective arbitration or malpractice statutes of limitations. See Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355, 367 (1977); n. 12, supra. In either situation we are applying a statute of limitations to a different cause of action, not because the legislature enacting that limitations provision intended that it apply elsewhere, but because it is the most suitable source for borrowing to fill a gap in federal law. See also Mitchell, 451 U. S., at 61, n. 3; n. 13, supra.
Vaca, supra, at 186; Humphrey, 375 U. S., at 344; see Mitchell, 451 U. S., at 67-68, n. 3 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. | What is the issue area of the decision? | [
"Criminal Procedure",
"Civil Rights",
"First Amendment",
"Due Process",
"Privacy",
"Attorneys",
"Unions",
"Economic Activity",
"Judicial Power",
"Federalism",
"Interstate Relations",
"Federal Taxation",
"Miscellaneous",
"Private Action"
] | [
6
] | sc_issuearea |
MISSISSIPPI et al. v. LOUISIANA et al.
No. 91-1158.
Argued November 9, 1992
Decided December 14, 1992
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
James W. McCartney argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Robert R. Bailess, Charles Alan Wright, Mike Moore, Robert E. Sanders, and Richard H. Page.
Gary L. Key ser, Assistant Attorney General of Louisiana, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Richard R Ieyoub, Attorney General of Louisiana, and E. Kay Kirkpatrick, Assistant Attorney General.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This action was originally commenced by private plaintiffs suing other private defendants in the District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi to quiet title to certain land riparian to the Mississippi River. The State of Louisiana intervened in the action and filed a third-party complaint against the State of Mississippi seeking to determine the boundary between the two States in the vicinity of the disputed land. We hold that 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a), granting to this Court original and exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies between two States, deprived the District Court of jurisdiction of Louisiana’s third-party complaint against Mississippi.
The land in question lies along the west bank of the Mississippi River near Lake Providence, Louisiana. The private plaintiffs, known as the Houston Group, alleged that they own the land in fee simple as a result of a homestead patent issued by the United States in 1888 and a deed issued by Mississippi in 1933. Louisiana and the Lake Providence Port Commission intervened in the title dispute and filed a third-party complaint against Mississippi seeking a determination of the boundary between the States. Louisiana then sought leave to file a bill of complaint against Mississippi in this Court. Mississippi opposed the motion in view of the pendency of the District Court action, and also emphasized that the case was originally a dispute between private parties: “Houston brought the suit to establish the boundary line to their land. It is incidental that the boundary line is also alleged to be the State line.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 86a. We denied leave to file, Louisiana v. Mississippi, 488 U. S. 990 (1988).
The District Court thereafter found that the thalweg, frozen by an avulsive shift in the river, was to the west of the disputed land and thus placed it within Mississippi. Alternatively, the District Court concluded that the disputed land was part of Mississippi because “Louisiana has acquiesced in the exercise of the exclusive jurisdiction over the island by ... Mississippi.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 40a. Having found the land to be part of Mississippi, the District Court then considered the ownership question and quieted title in the Houston Group.
The Court of Appeals reversed, rejecting the District Court’s rulings both on the location of the thalweg and on acquiescence, Houston v. Thomas, 937 F. 2d 247 (CA5 1991). We granted certiorari on these two questions and on a third that we formulated: “Did the District Court properly assert jurisdiction over respondents’ third-party complaint against petitioner State of Mississippi?” 503 U. S. 935 (1992). We now reverse.
The constitutional and statutory provisions necessary to our decision are these:
Article III, § 2, of the Constitution:
“The judicial Power [of the United States] shall extend ... to Controversies between two or more States; ....
“In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.”
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1331: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.”
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a): “The Supreme Court shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies between two or more States.”
Mississippi, even though its contentions as to the boundary between itself and Louisiana were rejected by the Court of Appeals, urges us to find that the District Court had jurisdiction of the third-party complaint that Louisiana brought against it. Mississippi argues that our refusal to allow Louisiana to file an original complaint to determine the boundary between the two States must, by implication, have indicated that the District Court was a proper forum for the resolution of that question. This is particularly true, Mississippi argues, since its opposition to Louisiana’s motion to file its complaint in this Court was premised in part on the contention that the boundary question could be determined in the then-pending action, between the private landowners in the District Court. Mississippi asserts that that court had jurisdiction by virtue of 28 U. S. C. § 1331, which confers jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under federal law on the. District Court.
If it were not for the existence of 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a), Mississippi’s arguments would be quite plausible. We have said more than once that our original jurisdiction should be exercised only “sparingly.” See Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502 U. S. 437, 450 (1992); Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 739 (1981); Arizona v. New Mexico, 425 U. S. 794, 796 (1976). Indeed, Chief Justice Fuller wrote nearly a century ago that our original “jurisdiction is of so delicate and grave a character that it was not contemplated that it would be exercised save when the necessity was absolute.” Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U. S. 1, 15 (1900). Recognizing the “delicate and grave” character of our original jurisdiction, we have interpreted the Constitution and 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a) as making our original jurisdiction “obligatory only in appropriate cases,” Illinois v. City of Milwaukee, 406 U. S. 91, 93 (1972), and as providing us “with substantial discretion to make case-by-case judgments as to the practical necessity of an original forum in this Court,” Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U. S. 554, 570 (1983).
We first exercised this discretion not to accept original actions in cases within our nonexclusive original jurisdiction, such as actions by States against citizens of other States, see Ohio v. Wyandotte Chemicals Corp., 401 U. S. 493 (1971), and actions between the United States and a State, see United States v. Nevada, 412 U. S. 534 (1973). But we have since carried over its exercise to actions between two States, where our jurisdiction is exclusive. See Arizona v. New Mexico, supra; California v. West Virginia, 454 U. S. 1027 (1981); Texas v. New Mexico, supra. Determining whether a case is “appropriate” for our original jurisdiction involves an examination of two factors. First, we look to “the nature of the interest of the complaining State,” Massachusetts v. Missouri, 308 U. S. 1, 18 (1939), focusing on the “seriousness and dignity of the claim,” City of Milwaukee, supra, at 93. “The model case for invocation of this Court’s original jurisdiction is a dispute between States of such seriousness that it would amount to casus belli if the States were fully sovereign.” Texas v. New Mexico, supra, at 571, n. 18. Second, we explore the availability of an alternative forum in which the issue tendered can be resolved. City of Milwaukee, supra, at 93. In Arizona v. New Mexico, for example, we declined to exercise original jurisdiction of an action by Arizona against New Mexico challenging a New Mexico electricity tax because of a pending state-court action by three Arizona utilities challenging the same tax: “[W]e are persuaded that the pending state-court action provides an appropriate forum in which the issues tendered here may be litigated.” 425 U. S., at 797 (emphasis in original).
But Mississippi’s argument for jurisdiction in the District Court here founders on the uncompromising language of 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a), which gives to this Court “original and exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies between two or more States” (emphasis added). Though phrased in terms of a grant of jurisdiction to this Court, the description of our jurisdiction as “exclusive” necessarily denies jurisdiction of such cases to any other federal court. This follows from the plain meaning of “exclusive,” see Webster’s New International Dictionary 890 (2d ed. 1942) (“debar from possession”), and has been remarked upon by opinions in our original jurisdiction cases, e. g., California v. Arizona, 440 U. S. 59, 63 (1979) (“[A] district court could not hear [California’s] claims against Arizona, because this Court has exclusive jurisdiction over such claims”).
Because the District Court lacked jurisdiction over Louisiana’s third-party complaint against Mississippi, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed insofar as it purports to grant any relief to Louisiana against Mississippi. The District Court is conceded to have had jurisdiction over the claims of the private plaintiffs against the private defendants, and in deciding questions of private title to riparian property, it may be necessary to decide where the boundary lies between the two States. Adjudicating such a question in a dispute between private parties does not violate § 1251(a), because that section speaks not in terms of claims or issues, but in terms of parties. The States, of course, are not bound by any decision as to the boundary between them which was rendered in a lawsuit between private litigants. See Durfee v. Duke, 375 U. S. 106, 115 (1963).
Because both the District Court and the Court of Appeals in this case intermixed the questions of title to real property and of the location of the state boundary, we are not in a position to say whether on this record the claims of title may fairly be decided without additional proceedings in the District Court. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals insofar as it adjudicated the complaint filed by Louisiana against Mississippi, with instructions that it direct the District Court to dismiss the complaint for want of jurisdiction. We remand the balance of the case to the Court of Appeals for the necessary inquiry as to whether further proceedings are required in order to adjudicate the claims of title in this action.
It is so ordered.
Neither party disputes Congress’ authority to make our original jurisdiction exclusive in some cases and concurrent in others. This distinction has existed since the Judiciary Act of 1789, §13, 1 Stat. 80-81, and has. never been questioned by this Court, see Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657, 722 (1838); Ames v. Kansas ex rel. Johnston, 111 U. S. 449, 469 (1884).
Mississippi and Louisiana do not question the District Court’s jurisdiction over Louisiana’s intervention in the title dispute. Louisiana’s intervention is also unaffected by § 1251(a) because it does not seek relief against Mississippi. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the manner in which the Court took jurisdiction. The Court uses a variety of means whereby it undertakes to consider cases that it has been petitioned to review. The most important ones are the writ of certiorari, the writ of appeal, and for legacy cases the writ of error, appeal, and certification. For cases that fall into more than one category, identify the manner in which the court takes jurisdiction on the basis of the writ. For example, Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), an original jurisdiction and a mandamus case, should be coded as mandamus rather than original jurisdiction due to the nature of the writ. Some legacy cases are "original" motions or requests for the Court to take jurisdiction but were heard or filed in another court. For example, Ex parte Matthew Addy S.S. & Commerce Corp., 256 U.S. 417 (1921) asked the Court to issue a writ of mandamus to a federal judge. Do not code these cases as "original" jurisdiction cases but rather on the basis of the writ. | What is the manner in which the Court took jurisdiction? | [
"cert",
"appeal",
"bail",
"certification",
"docketing fee",
"rehearing or restored to calendar for reargument",
"injunction",
"mandamus",
"original",
"prohibition",
"stay",
"writ of error",
"writ of habeas corpus",
"unspecified, other"
] | [
0
] | sc_jurisdiction |
TREVINO v. TEXAS
No. 91-6751.
Decided April 6, 1992
Per Curiam.
I
The State of Texas charged petitioner Joe Mario Trevino for the murder and rape of Blanche Miller, a capital offense. On February 1, 1984, before jury selection, petitioner filed a “Motion to Prohibit the State from Using Peremptory Chai-lenges to Strike Members of a Cognizable Group.” The motion recited:'
“The Accused requests of the Court that the State of Texas be prohibited from its use of peremptory challenges to strike prospective jurors merely based on the fact of race. The prosecution, the State of Texas, historically and habitually uses its peremptory challenges to strike black people and other minorities who are otherwise qualified. These peremptory challenges are exercised by the State of Texas to strike prospective black jurors in its effort to produce an ethnically pure, all white, jury. This common use of the State’s peremptory challenge in a criminal trial deprives the Accused of due process and a fair trial. This practice deprives the Accused of a jury representing a fair cross-section of the community in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
“A hearing is requested on this Motion.” 1A Record 280.
The trial court delayed ruling on the motion until the voir dire. During the course of voir dire, the prosecution exercised its peremptory challenges to excuse the only three black members of the venire. After each of these peremptory strikes, petitioner, who is Hispanic, renewed his motion, asking that the prosecution state its reasons for striking the jurors. The first time petitioner renewed the motion, the court stated: “I know of no requirement yet for either party to announce his reasons for exercising a preemptory [sic] challenge. Can you cite me some law on that?” 11 Record 356. In response, petitioner’s counsel cited McCray v. Abrams, 576 P. Supp. 1244 (EDNY), aff’d in part and rev’d in part, 750 F. 2d 1113 (CA2 1984). He went on to note that when we denied the petition for a writ of certiorari in McCray v. New York, 461 U. S. 961 (1983), five Justices expressed the view that Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 202 (1965), ought to be reexamined. 11 Record 356. The trial court denied petitioner’s motion, and denied it again after two more black venire members were excluded.
The all-white jury returned a verdict of guilty and after a sentencing hearing returned affirmative answers to the two special questions posed by the court. See Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262, 267-269 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). As required under such circumstances, see ibid., the trial court sentenced petitioner to death. Petitioner appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, filing his brief on December 19, 1985. This is the cause now before us. He cited 24 errors in the guilt and punishment phases of the trial court proceedings. The only one of concern now is the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges based on race.
Petitioner contended in the Court of Criminal Appeals that the prosecution’s race based use of challenges violated his “rights to due process of law and to an impartial jury fairly drawn from a representative cross section of the community.” Brief for Appellant in No. 69337, p. 11. He found these rights in “the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution,” as well as provisions of the Texas Constitution. Ibid. He asserted he was renewing the objections pressed at trial. Ibid. He acknowledged that under Swain v. Alabama, the use of peremptory challenges to discriminate in a single case would not be an equal protection violation but noted that in Batson v. Kentucky, cert. granted, 471 U. S. 1052 (1985), we would reconsider the question under the Sixth Amendment. When his brief was filed, we had heard oral argument in Batson but had not announced our decision. Petitioner urged that even if Bat-son did not alter the requirement of alleging an overall scheme of discrimination, the Court of Criminal Appeals should prohibit peremptory challenges based on race as a matter of state law.
On April 30, 1986, not long after petitioner filed his brief in the Court of Criminal Appeals, our decision in Batson came down. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79. The case announced the now familiar rule that when a defendant makes a prima facie showing that the State has exercised its peremptory challenges to exclude members of the defendant’s racial group, the State bears the burden of coming forward with a race neutral justification. Just over a month after Batson was decided, the State filed its brief in the Court of Criminal Appeals. The State argued Batson could not avail petitioner because he is not a member of the same race as the excluded jurors. According to the State, petitioner’s claim could not be considered an equal protection claim but was instead a claim that he was entitled to a jury composed of a “fair cross-section” of the community. Brief for Appellee in No. 69337, pp. 15-17. In drawing this distinction, the State relied on the view that a criminal defendant does not state an equal protection claim unless he alleges that the excluded jurors are members of the same protected class as he. We rejected this view last Term in Powers v. Ohio, 499 U. S. 400 (1991).
The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, sitting en banc, affirmed petitioner’s conviction and sentence on June 12, 1991, and denied petitioner’s application for rehearing on September 18, 1991. The opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals does not set forth the reason for the delay of over five years between the submission of briefs and the resolution of the appeal. With respect to the peremptory challenge question, the court stated that the argument was foreclosed by Holland v. Illinois, 493 U. S. 474 (1990), in which we held that the Sixth Amendment does not prohibit the prosecution from exercising its peremptory challenges to exclude potential jurors based on race. 815 S. W. 2d 592, 598. In a footnote, the Court of Criminal Appeals stated that the arguments in petitioner’s brief did not amount to reliance on the Equal Protection Clause. Id., at 598, n. 3. The court’s opinion cited neither Powers nor Ford v. Georgia, 498 U. S. 411, which we decided on February 19, 1991. We now grant certiorari.
II
In Ford v. Georgia, we addressed what steps a defendant in a criminal case was required to take to preserve an equal protection objection to the State’s race based use of peremptory challenges during the pre-Batson era. Here we consider whether petitioner took those steps.
In Ford, the petitioner filed a pretrial “Motion to Restrict Racial Use of Peremptory Challenges,” 498 U. S., at 413, wording which is in all material respects parallel to the present petitioner’s pretrial “Motion to Prohibit the State from Using Peremptory Challenges to Strike Members of a Cognizable Group.” The ultimate issue in Ford concerned the validity of a state procedural rule, but before reaching it we ruled on a preliminary issue, and that ruling is dispositive here. We stated:
“The threshold issues are whether and, if so, when petitioner presented the trial court with a cognizable Batson claim that the State’s exercise of its peremptory challenges rested on the impermissible ground of race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We think petitioner must be treated as having raised such a claim, although he certainly failed to do it with the clarity that appropriate citations would have promoted. The pretrial motion made no mention of the Equal Protection Clause, and the later motion for a new trial cited the Sixth Amendment, not the Fourteenth.” Id., at 418.
Despite the inartfulness of the Ford petitioner’s assertion of his rights, we held he had presented his claim to the trial court. We noted that his reference in his motion to exclusion of black jurors “ ‘over a long period of time,’ ” and his argument to the same effect “could reasonably have been intended and interpreted to raise a claim under the Equal Protection Clause on the evidentiary theory articulated in Batson’s antecedent, Swain v. Alabama.” Id., at 419. We placed this interpretation on the reference to history because the standard of proof for an equal protection violation under Swain required a showing of racial exclusion in “case after case.” 380 U. S., at 223.
In the matter now before us petitioner also relied on a claim of a historical pattern of discriminatory use of peremptory challenges. That alone would have been sufficient under Ford to place the equal protection claim before the trial court. Of course, petitioner did more. He made an express reference to Swain in his argument to the trial court. 11 Record 356. In fact, petitioner argued that we would modify Swain’s burden of proof and that the Texas courts should anticipate our decision. We decide that petitioner presented his equal protection claim to the trial court.
We determine further that petitioner preserved his equal protection claim before the Court of Criminal Appeals. His argument caption made an express reference to the Fourteenth Amendment, and the issue presented for review was the very one that he had raised before the trial court.
The State in its brief to the Court of Criminal Appeals recognized that petitioner’s argument contained an equal protection claim, albeit one which the State believed to lack merit. The State did not argue that petitioner was not making an equal protection claim but that petitioner’s equal protection claim had no legal support. Given our later holding in Powers v. Ohio, supra, the State’s contention is incorrect.
We cannot ignore the fact that were we to hold petitioner had forfeited his equal protection claim by failing to state it with sufficient precision, we would be applying a stricter standard than applied in Batson itself. There petitioner had conceded in the state courts that Swain foreclosed a direct equal protection claim, and he based his argument on the Sixth Amendment and a provision of the Kentucky Constitution. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S., at 83. Yet we treated his allegation of a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment as sufficient to present the question. Id., at 84-85, n. 4. Because petitioner’s case is here on direct review, he is entitled to the rule we announced in Batson. Compare Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U. S. 314 (1987) (giving retroactive application to Batson for cases pending on direct review or not yet final when Batson was decided), with Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288, 296 (1989) (denying similar application for cases on collateral review).
The motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is granted. The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the bases on which the Supreme Court rested its decision with regard to the legal provision that the Court considered in the case. Consider "judicial review (national level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of the federal government, including an interstate compact. Consider "judicial review (state level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of a state or local government. Consider "statutory construction" for cases where the majority interpret a federal statute, treaty, or court rule; if the Court interprets a federal statute governing the powers or jurisdiction of a federal court; if the Court construes a state law as incompatible with a federal law; or if an administrative official interprets a federal statute. Do not consider "statutory construction" where an administrative agency or official acts "pursuant to" a statute, unless the Court interprets the statute to determine if administrative action is proper. Consider "interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order" if the majority treats federal administrative action in arriving at its decision.Consider "diversity jurisdiction" if the majority said in approximately so many words that under its diversity jurisdiction it is interpreting state law. Consider "federal common law" if the majority indicate that it used a judge-made "doctrine" or "rule; if the Court without more merely specifies the disposition the Court has made of the case and cites one or more of its own previously decided cases unless the citation is qualified by the word "see."; if the case concerns admiralty or maritime law, or some other aspect of the law of nations other than a treaty; if the case concerns the retroactive application of a constitutional provision or a previous decision of the Court; if the case concerns an exclusionary rule, the harmless error rule (though not the statute), the abstention doctrine, comity, res judicata, or collateral estoppel; or if the case concerns a "rule" or "doctrine" that is not specified as related to or connected with a constitutional or statutory provision. Consider "Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction" otherwise (i.e., the residual code); for issues pertaining to non-statutorily based Judicial Power topics; for cases arising under the Court's original jurisdiction; in cases in which the Court denied or dismissed the petition for review or where the decision of a lower court is affirmed by a tie vote; or in workers' compensation litigation involving statutory interpretation and, in addition, a discussion of jury determination and/or the sufficiency of the evidence. | What is the basis of the Supreme Court's decision? | [
"judicial review (national level)",
"judicial review (state level)",
"Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction",
"statutory construction",
"interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order",
"diversity jurisdiction",
"federal common law"
] | [
6
] | sc_authoritydecision |
KENTUCKY, dba BUREAU OF STATE POLICE v. GRAHAM et al.
No. 84-849.
Argued April 16, 1985
Decided June 28, 1985
Marshall, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
George M. Geoghegan, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of Kentucky, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were David L. Armstrong, Attorney General, and Cathy Cravens Snell.
Jack M. Lowery, Jr., argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief was Hollis L. Searcy.
Joyce Holmes Benjamin, H. Bartow Farr III, Paul M. Smith, and Joseph N. Onek filed a brief for the National League of Cities et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.
Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether 42 U. S. C. §1988 allows attorney’s fees to be recovered from a governmental entity when a plaintiff sues governmental employees only in their personal capacities and prevails.
I
On November 7, 1979, a Kentucky state trooper was murdered. Suspicion quickly focused on Clyde Graham, whose stepmother’s car was found near the site of the slaying and whose driver’s license and billfold were discovered in nearby bushes. That evening, 30 to 40 city, county, and state police officers converged on the house of Graham’s father in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Without a warrant, the police entered the home twice and eventually arrested all the occupants, who are the six respondents here. Graham was not among them. According to respondents, they were severely beaten, terrorized, illegally searched, and falsely arrested. Kenneth Brandenburgh, the Commissioner of the State Police and the highest ranking law enforcement officer in Kentucky, allegedly was directly involved in carrying out at least one of the raids. An investigation by the Kentucky Attorney General’s office later concluded that the police had used excessive force and that a “complete breakdown” in police discipline had created an “uncontrolled” situation. App. to Brief for Respondents 21-22.
Alleging a deprivation of a number of federal rights, respondents filed suit in Federal District Court. Their complaint sought only money damages and named as defendants various local and state law enforcement officers, the city of Elizabethtown, and Hardin County, Kentucky. Also made defendants were Commissioner Brandenburgh, “individually and as Commissioner of the Bureau of State Police,” and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The Commonwealth was sued, not for damages on the merits, but only for attorney’s fees should the plaintiffs eventually prevail. Shortly after the complaint was filed, the District Court, relying on the Eleventh Amendment, dismissed the Commonwealth as a party. Based on its Attorney General’s report, the Commonwealth refused to defend any of the individual defendants, including Commissioner Brandenburgh, or to pay their litigation expenses.
On the second day of trial, the case was settled for $60,000. The settlement agreement, embodied in a court order dismissing the case, barred respondents from seeking attorney’s fees from any of the individual defendants but specifically preserved respondents’ right to seek fees and court costs from the Commonwealth. Respondents then moved, pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1988, that the Commonwealth pay their costs and attorney’s fees. At a hearing on this motion, the Commonwealth argued that the fee request had to be denied as a matter of law, both because the Commonwealth had been dismissed as a party and because the Eleventh Amendment, in any event, barred such an award. Rejecting these arguments, the District Court ordered the Commonwealth to pay $58,521 in fees and more than $6,000 in costs and expenses. In a short per curiam opinion relying solely on this Court’s decision in Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678 (1978), the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. Graham v. Wilson, 742 F. 2d 1455 (1984).
We granted certiorari to address the proposition, rejected by at least two Courts of Appeals, that fees can be recovered from a governmental entity when a plaintiff prevails in a suit against government employees in their personal capacities. 469 U. S. 1156 (1985). We now reverse.
H — I I
This case requires us to unravel once again the distinctions between personal- and official-capacity suits, see Brandon v. Holt, 469 U. S. 464 (1985), this time in the context of fee awards under 42 U. S. C. § 1988. The relevant portion of § 1988, enacted as the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976, 90 Stat. 2641, provides:
“In any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of sections 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, and 1986 of this title, title IX of Public Law 92-318, or title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs” (emphasis added).
If a plaintiff prevails in a suit covered by § 1988, fees should be awarded as costs “unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust.” S. Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 4 (1976); see Supreme Court of Virginia v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 446 U. S. 719, 737 (1980). Section 1988 does not in so many words define the parties who must bear these costs. Nonetheless, it is clear that the logical place to look for recovery of fees is to the losing party — the party legally responsible for relief on the merits. That is the party who must pay the costs of the litigation, see generally Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 54(d), and it is clearly the party who should also bear fee liability under § 1988.
We recognized as much in Supreme Court of Virginia, supra. There a three-judge District Court had found the Virginia Supreme Court and its chief justice in his official capacity liable for promulgating, and refusing to amend, a State Bar Code that violated the First Amendment. The District Court also awarded fees against these defendants pursuant to § 1988. We held that absolute legislative immunity shielded these defendants for acts taken in their legislative capacity. We then vacated the fee award, stating that we found nothing “in the legislative history of the Act to suggest that Congress intended to permit an award of attorney’s fees to be premised on acts for which defendants would enjoy absolute legislative immunity.” 446 U. S., at 738. Thus, liability on the merits and responsibility for fees go hand in hand; where a defendant has not been prevailed against, either because of legal immunity or on the merits, § 1988 does not authorize a fee award against that defendant. Cf. Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U. S. 522, 543-544 (1984) (state judge liable for injunctive and declaratory relief under § 1988 also liable for fees under § 1988).
A
Proper application of this principle in damages actions against public officials requires careful adherence to the distinction between personal- and official-capacity suits. Because this distinction apparently continues to confuse lawyers and confound lower courts, we attempt to define it more clearly through concrete examples of the practical and doctrinal differences between personal- and official-capacity actions.
Personal-capacity suits seek to impose personal liability upon a government official for actions he takes under color of state law. See, e. g., Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232, 237-238 (1974). Official-capacity suits, in contrast, “generally represent only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent.” Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658, 690, n. 55 (1978). As long as the government entity receives notice and an opportunity to respond, an official-capacity suit is, in all respects other than name, to be treated as a suit against the entity. Brandon, 469 U. S., at 471-472. It is not a suit against the official personally, for the real party in interest is the entity. Thus, while an award of damages against an official in his personal capacity can be executed only against the official’s personal assets, a plaintiff seeking to recover on a damages judgment in an official-capacity suit must look to the government entity itself.
On the merits, to establish personal liability in a § 1983 action, it is enough to show that the official, acting under color of state law, caused the deprivation of a federal right. See, e. g., Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961). More is required in an official-capacity action, however, for a governmental entity is liable under § 1983 only when the entity itself is a “ ‘moving force’ ” behind the deprivation, Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312, 326 (1981) (quoting Monell, supra, at 694); thus, in an official-capacity suit the entity’s “policy or custom” must have played a part in the violation of federal law. Monell, supra; Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U. S. 808, 817-818 (1985); id., at 827-828 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment). When it comes to defenses to liability, an official in a personal-capacity action may, depending on his position, be able to assert personal immunity defenses, such as objectively reasonable reliance on existing law. See Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409 (1976) (absolute immunity); Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547 (1967) (same); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800 (1982) (qualified immunity); Wood v. Strickland, 420 U. S. 308 (1975) (same). In an official-capacity action, these defenses are unavailable. Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S. 622 (1980); see also Brandon v. Holt, 469 U. S. 464 (1985). The only immunities that can be claimed in an official-capacity action are forms of sovereign immunity that the entity, qua entity, may possess, such as the Eleventh Amendment. While not exhaustive, this list illustrates the basic distinction between personal- and official-capacity actions.
With this distinction in mind, it is clear that a suit against a government official in his or her personal capacity cannot lead to imposition of fee liability upon the governmental entity. A victory in a personal-capacity action is a victory against the individual defendant, rather than against the entity that employs him. Indeed, unless a distinct cause of action is asserted against the entity itself, the entity is not even a party to a personal-capacity lawsuit and has no opportunity to present a defense. That a plaintiff has prevailed against one party does not entitle him to fees from another party, let alone from a nonparty. Cf. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S. 424 (1983). Yet that would be the result were we to hold that fees can be recovered from a governmental entity following victory in a personal-capacity action against government officials.
B
Such a result also would be inconsistent with the statement in Monell, supra, that a municipality cannot be made liable under 42 U. S. C. §1983 on a respondeat superior basis. Nothing in the history of § 1988, a statute designed to make effective the remedies created in § 1983 and similar statutes, suggests that fee liability, unlike merits liability, was intended to be imposed on a respondeat superior basis. On the contrary, just as Congress rejected making § 1983 a “mutual insurance” scheme, 436 U. S., at 694, Congress sought to avoid making § 1988 a “‘relief fund for lawyers.’” Hensley, supra, at 446 (opinion of Brennan, J.) (quoting 122 Cong. Rec. 33314 (1976) (remarks of Sen. Kennedy)). Section 1988 does not guarantee that lawyers will recover fees anytime their clients sue a government official in his personal capacity, with the governmental entity as ultimate insurer. Instead, fee liability runs with merits liability; if federal law does not make the government substantively liable on a respondeat superior basis, the government similarly is not liable for fees on that basis under §1988. Section 1988 simply does not create fee liability where merits liability is nonexistent.
Ill
We conclude that this case was necessarily litigated as a personal-capacity action and that the Court of Appeals therefore erred in awarding fees against the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In asserting the contrary, respondents point out that the complaint expressly named Commissioner Bran-denburgh in both his “individual” and “official” capacities and that the Commonwealth of Kentucky was named as a defendant for the limited purposes of a fee award. Nonetheless, given Eleventh Amendment doctrine, there can be no doubt that this damages action did not seek to impose monetary liability on the Commonwealth.
The Court has held that, absent waiver by the State or valid congressional override, the Eleventh Amendment bars a damages action against a State in federal court. See, e. g., Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U. S. 459, 464 (1945). This bar remains in effect when state officials are sued for damages in their official capacity. Cory v. White, 457 U. S. 85, 90 (1982); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 663 (1974). That is so because, as discussed above, “a judgment against a public servant ‘in his official capacity’ imposes liability on the entity that he represents . . . .” Brandon, supra, at 471.
Given this understanding of the law, an official-capacity action for damages could not have been maintained against Commissioner Brandenburgh in federal court. Although respondents fail to acknowledge this point, they freely concede that money damages were never sought from the Commonwealth and could not have been awarded against it; respondents cannot reach this same end simply by suing state officials in their official capacity. Nor did respondents’ action on the merits become a suit against Kentucky when the Commonwealth was named a defendant on the limited issue of fee liability. There is no cause of action against a defendant for fees absent that defendant’s liability for relief on the merits. See swpra, at 167-168. Naming the Commonwealth for fees did not create, out of whole cloth, the cause of action on the merits necessary to support this fee request. Thus, no claim for merits relief capable of being asserted in federal court was asserted against the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In the absence of such a claim, the fee award against the Commonwealth must be reversed.
<1
Despite the Court of Appeals’ contrary view, the result we reach today is fully consistent with Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678 (1978). Hutto holds only that, when a State in a § 1983 action has been prevailed against for relief on the merits, either because the State was a proper party defendant or because state officials properly were sued in their official capacity, fees may also be available from the State under § 1988. Hutto does not alter the basic philosophy of §1988, namely, that fee and merits liability run together. As a result, Hutto neither holds nor suggests that fees are available from a governmental entity simply because a government official has been prevailed against in his or her personal capacity.
Respondents vigorously protest that this holding will “effectively destro[y]” § 1988 in cases such as this one. Brief for Respondents 19. This fear is overstated. Fees are unavailable only where a governmental entity cannot be held liable on the merits; today we simply apply the fee-shifting provisions of §1988 against a pre-existing background of substantive liability rules.
V
Only in an official-capacity action is a plaintiff who prevails entitled to look for relief, both on the merits and for fees, to the governmental entity. Because the Court’s Eleventh Amendment decisions required this case to be litigated as a personal-capacity action, the award of fees against the Commonwealth of Kentucky must be reversed.
It is so ordered.
Clyde Graham was killed by a Kentucky state trooper a month later at a motel in Illinois.
Respondents asserted causes of action under 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983, 1985, 1986, and 1988, as well as the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eleventh, and Fourteenth Amendments. Complaint ¶ 13. Because the case was settled, there has been no need below to separate out or distinguish any of these purported causes of action. Before this Court, the parties briefed and argued the case as if it had been brought simply as a § 1983 action and we, accordingly, analyze it the same way. Our discussion throughout is therefore not meant to express any view on suits brought under any provision of federal law other than § 1983.
The complaint states:
“Pursuant to the provisions of 42 U. S. C. Sec. 1988, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, d/b/a Bureau of State Police is liable for the payment of reasonable attorney fees incurred in this action.” Complaint ¶ 4(D).
According to respondents, “[paragraph 4(D). . . states the sole basis for including the Commonwealth as a named party.” Brief for Respondents 14.
Five thousand dollars came from the city and $10,000 from the county. The remaining $45,000 was to be paid by Commissioner Brandenburgh, both personally and as agent for the “Kentucky State Police Legal Fund.” The latter was not a named defendant but presumably represented the interests of the individual officers sued.
Petitioner did not appeal from the award of costs and expenses, and we therefore have no occasion to consider the appropriateness of these portions of the award.
Berry v. McLemore, 670 F. 2d 30 (CA5 1982) (municipal officials); Morrison v. Fox, 660 F. 2d 87 (CA3 1981) (same). At least one Court of Appeals appears to have reached the same result as that of the lower court in this case. See Glover v. Alabama Department of Corrections, 753 F. 2d 1569 (CA11 1985).
See 6 J. Moore, W. Taggart, & J. Wicker, Moore’s Federal Practice § 54.70[1], p. 1301 (1985) (“Costs” are awarded “against the losing party and as an incident of the judgment”); 10 C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure §2666, p. 173 (1983) (“‘Costs’ refers to those charges that one party has incurred and is permitted to have reimbursed by his opponent as part of the judgment in the action”).
We did hold that the court and its chief justice in his official capacity could be enjoined from enforcing the State Bar Code and suggested that fees could be recovered from these defendants in their enforcement roles. Because the fee award had clearly been made against the defendants in their legislative roles, however, the award had to be vacated and the case remanded for further proceedings. That fees could be awarded against the Virginia Supreme Court and its chief justice pursuant to an injunction against enforcement of the Code further illustrates that fee liability is tied to liability on the merits.
The rules are somewhat different with respect to prevailing defendants. Prevailing defendants generally are entitled to costs, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 54(d), but are entitled to fees only where the suit was vexatious, frivolous, or brought to harass or embarrass the defendant. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S. 424, 429, n. 2 (1983).
We express no view as to the nature or degree of success necessary to make a plaintiff a prevailing party. See Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S. 122 (1980).
Personal-capacity actions are sometimes referred to as individual-capacity actions.
Should the offical die pending final resolution of a personal-capacity action, the plaintiff would have to pursue his action against the decedent’s estate. In an official-capacity action in federal court, death or replacement of the named official will result in automatic substitution of the official’s successor in office. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 25(d)(1); Fed. Rule App. Proc. 43(c)(1); this Court’s Rule 40.3.
See Monell, 436 U. S., at 694 (“[A] local government may not be sued under § 1983 for an injury inflicted solely by its employees or agents. Instead, it is when execution of a government’s policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy, inflicts the injury that the government as an entity is responsible under § 1983”).
In addition, punitive damages are not available under § 1983 from a municipality, Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U. S. 247 (1981), but are available in a suit against an official personally, see Smith v. Wade, 461 U. S. 30 (1983).
There is no longer a need to bring official-capacity actions against local government officials, for under Monell, supra, local government units can be sued directly for damages and injunctive or declaratory relief. See, e. g., Memphis Police Dept. v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1 (1985) (decided with Tennessee v. Gamer) (damages action against municipality). Unless a State has waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity or Congress has overridden it, however, a State cannot be sued directly in its own name regardless of the relief sought. Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U. S. 781 (1978) (per curiam). Thus, implementation of state policy or custom may be reached in federal court only because official-capacity actions for prospective relief are not treated as actions against the State. See Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908).
In many cases, the complaint will not clearly specify whether officials are sued personally, in their official capacity, or both. “The course of proceedings” in such eases typically will indicate the nature of the liability sought to be imposed. Brandon v. Holt, 469 U. S. 464, 469 (1985).
The city and county were sued directly as entities, but that aspect of the case is not before us.
See also n. 3, supra.
The Court has held that § 1983 was not intended to abrogate a State’s Eleventh Amendment immunity. Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S. 332 (1979); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974). Because this action comes to us as if it arose solely under § 1983, see n. 2, supra, we cannot conclude that federal law authorized an official-capacity action for damages against Commissioner Brandenburgh to be brought in federal court.
As to legislative waiver of immunity, petitioners assert that the Commonwealth of Kentucky has not waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity. This contention is not disputed, and we therefore accept it for purposes of this case.
In an injunctive or declaratory action grounded on federal law, the State’s immunity can be overcome by naming state officials as defendants. See Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89 (1984); see also Ex parte Young, supra. Monetary relief that is “ancillary” to in-junctive relief also is not barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Edelman v. Jordan, supra, at 667-668.
No argument has been made that the Commonwealth waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity by failing specifically to seek dismissal of that portion of the damages action that named Commissioner Brandenburgh in his official capacity. Nor is the Commonwealth alleged to have done so by allowing him to enter the settlement agreement; the Commonwealth did not even have notice of the settlement negotiations.
Brief for Respondents 17; Tr. of Oral Arg. 18. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the treatment the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed, that is, whether the court below the Supreme Court (typically a federal court of appeals or a state supreme court) affirmed, reversed, remanded, denied or dismissed the decision of the court it reviewed (typically a trial court). Adhere to the language used in the "holding" in the summary of the case on the title page or prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. Exceptions to the literal language are the following: where the Court overrules the lower court, treat this a petition or motion granted; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing refuses to enforce or enjoins the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as reversed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing enforces the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as affirmed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing sets aside the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as vacated; if the decision is set aside and remanded, treat it as vacated and remanded. | What treatment did the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"modify",
"remand",
"unusual disposition"
] | [
1
] | sc_lcdisposition |
VORCHHEIMER v. SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PHILADELPHIA et al.
No. 76-37.
Argued February 22, 1977
Decided April 19, 1977
Sharon K. Wallis argued the cause for petitioner. With her on the briefs were Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Melvin L. Wulf.
Alan H. Gilbert argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief was Edward B. Soken.
Solicitor General Bork filed a brief for the United States as amicus curiae.
Per Curiam.
The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether the petitioning party (i.e., the plaintiff or the appellant) emerged victorious. The victory the Supreme Court provided the petitioning party may not have been total and complete (e.g., by vacating and remanding the matter rather than an unequivocal reversal), but the disposition is nonetheless a favorable one. Consider that the petitioning party lost if the Supreme Court affirmed or dismissed the case, or denied the petition. Consider that the petitioning party won in part or in full if the Supreme Court reversed, reversed and remanded, vacated and remanded, affirmed and reversed in part, affirmed and reversed in part and remanded, or vacated the case. | Consider that the petitioning party lost if the Supreme Court affirmed or dismissed the case, or denied the petition. Consider that the petitioning party won in part or in full if the Supreme Court reversed, reversed and remanded, vacated and remanded, affirmed and reversed in part, affirmed and reversed in part and remanded, or vacated the case. Did the petitioning win the case? | [
"Yes",
"No"
] | [
1
] | sc_partywinning |
TAGUE v. LOUISIANA
No. 79-5386.
Decided January 21, 1980
Per Curiam.
Petitioner was charged with armed robbery in violation of La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14:64 (West 1974). He was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 65 years at hard labor without benefit of parole. His conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Louisiana in a brief per curiam opinion. 372 So. 2d 555, 556 (1979). On rehearing, a divided court reaffirmed petitioner’s conviction. Ibid. It rejected his contention that an inculpatory statement made to the arresting officer and introduced at trial had been obtained in violation of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966).
At the suppression hearing in the trial court, the arresting officer testified that he read petitioner his Miranda rights from a card, that he could not presently remember what those rights were, that he could not recall whether he asked petitioner whether he understood the rights as read to him, and that he “couldn’t say yes or no” whether he rendered any tests to determine whether petitioner was literate or otherwise capable of understanding his rights. 372 So. 2d, at 557.
A majority of the Supreme Court of Louisiana held that an arresting officer is not
“compelled to give an intelligence test to a person who has been advised of his rights to determine if he understands them. . . .
“Absent a clear and readily apparent lack thereof, it can be presumed that a person has capacity to understand, and the burden is on the one claiming a lack of capacity to show that lack. LSA — C. C. arts. 25 and 1782_” Id., at 557-558.
Justice Dennis in dissent wrote that
“[c]ontrary to the explicit requirements of the United States Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, . . . the majority today creates a presumption that the defendant understood his constitutional rights and places the burden of proof upon the defendant, instead of the state, to demonstrate whether the defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to retained or appointed counsel.” Id., at 558.
We agree. The majority’s error is readily apparent. Miranda v. Arizona clearly stated the principles that govern once the required warnings have been given.
“If the interrogation continues without the presence of an attorney and a statement is taken, a heavy burden rests on the government to demonstrate that the defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to retained or appointed counsel. Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478, 490, n. 14. This Court has always set high standards of proof for the waiver of constitutional rights, Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938), and we re-assert these standards as applied to in-custody interrogation. Since the State is responsible for establishing the isolated circumstances under which the interrogation takes place and has the only means of making available corroborated evidence of warnings given during incommunicado interrogation, the burden is rightly on its shoulders.” 384 U. S., at 475.
Just last Term, in holding that a waiver of Miranda rights need not be explicit but may be inferred from the actions and words of a person interrogated, we firmly reiterated that
“[t]he courts must presume that a defendant did not waive his rights; the prosecution’s burden is great. . . .” North Carolina v. Butler, 441 U. S. 369, 373 (1979).
In this case no evidence at all was introduced to prove that petitioner knowingly and intelligently waived his rights before making the inculpatory statement. The statement was therefore inadmissible.
Accordingly, the motion for leave to proceed in forma pau-peris and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted, the judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Supreme Court of Louisiana for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
The Chief Justice would set the case for oral argument.
Me. Justice Rehnquist dissents. He thinks that, under the circumstances described in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, the judgment of that court was fully consistent with North Carolina v. Butler, 441 U. S. 369 (1979), and not inconsistent with any other decision of this Court. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue of the Court's decision. Determine the issue of the case on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. | What is the issue of the decision? | [
"involuntary confession",
"habeas corpus",
"plea bargaining: the constitutionality of and/or the circumstances of its exercise",
"retroactivity (of newly announced or newly enacted constitutional or statutory rights)",
"search and seizure (other than as pertains to vehicles or Crime Control Act)",
"search and seizure, vehicles",
"search and seizure, Crime Control Act",
"contempt of court or congress",
"self-incrimination (other than as pertains to Miranda or immunity from prosecution)",
"Miranda warnings",
"self-incrimination, immunity from prosecution",
"right to counsel (cf. indigents appointment of counsel or inadequate representation)",
"cruel and unusual punishment, death penalty (cf. extra legal jury influence, death penalty)",
"cruel and unusual punishment, non-death penalty (cf. liability, civil rights acts)",
"line-up",
"discovery and inspection (in the context of criminal litigation only, otherwise Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations)",
"double jeopardy",
"ex post facto (state)",
"extra-legal jury influences: miscellaneous",
"extra-legal jury influences: prejudicial statements or evidence",
"extra-legal jury influences: contact with jurors outside courtroom",
"extra-legal jury influences: jury instructions (not necessarily in criminal cases)",
"extra-legal jury influences: voir dire (not necessarily a criminal case)",
"extra-legal jury influences: prison garb or appearance",
"extra-legal jury influences: jurors and death penalty (cf. cruel and unusual punishment)",
"extra-legal jury influences: pretrial publicity",
"confrontation (right to confront accuser, call and cross-examine witnesses)",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: confession of error",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: conspiracy (cf. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure: conspiracy)",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: entrapment",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: exhaustion of remedies",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: fugitive from justice",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: presentation, admissibility, or sufficiency of evidence (not necessarily a criminal case)",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: stay of execution",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: timeliness",
"subconstitutional fair procedure: miscellaneous",
"Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: assault",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: bank robbery",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: conspiracy (cf. subconstitutional fair procedure: conspiracy)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: escape from custody",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: false statements (cf. statutory construction of criminal laws: perjury)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: financial (other than in fraud or internal revenue)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: firearms",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: fraud",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: gambling",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: Hobbs Act; i.e., 18 USC 1951",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: immigration (cf. immigration and naturalization)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: internal revenue (cf. Federal Taxation)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: Mann Act and related statutes",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: narcotics includes regulation and prohibition of alcohol",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: obstruction of justice",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: perjury (other than as pertains to statutory construction of criminal laws: false statements)",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: Travel Act, 18 USC 1952",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: war crimes",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: sentencing guidelines",
"statutory construction of criminal laws: miscellaneous",
"jury trial (right to, as distinct from extra-legal jury influences)",
"speedy trial",
"miscellaneous criminal procedure (cf. due process, prisoners' rights, comity: criminal procedure)"
] | [
9
] | sc_issue_1 |
BABBITT, GOVERNOR OF ARIZONA, et al. v. UNITED FARM WORKERS NATIONAL UNION et al.
No. 78-225.
Argued February 21, 1979 —
Decided June 5, 1979
White, J., delivered the opinion for the Court, in which Burger, C. J., and Stewart, BlackmuN, Powell, Rehnquist, and SteveNS, JJ., joined. BrenNAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Marshall, J., joined, post, p. 314.
Rex E. Lee, Special Assistant Attorney General of Arizona, argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were Robert Corbin, Attorney General, John A. LaSota, Jr., former Attorney General, Charles E. Jones, Jon L. Kyi, and John B. Weldon, Jr.
Jerome Cohen argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was James Rutkowski
;Joseph Herman filed a brief for the Agricultural Producers Labor Committee et al. as amici curiaé urging reversal.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by Mark D. Rosen-baum, Fred Okrand, and Dennis M. Perluss for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California et al.; and by J. Albert Woll and Laurence Gold for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Marvin J. Brenner and Ellen Lake filed a brief for the Agricultural Labor Relations Board as amicus curiae.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we review the decision of a three-judge District Court setting aside as unconstitutional Arizona’s farm labor statute. The District Court perceived particular constitutional problems with five provisions of the Act; deeming these provisions inseparable from the remainder of the Act, the court declared the entire Act unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement. We conclude that the challenges to two of the provisions specifically invalidated did not present a case or controversy within the jurisdiction of a federal court and hence should not have been adjudicated. Although the attacks on two other provisions were justiciable, we conclude that the District Court should have abstained from deciding the federal issues posed until material, unresolved questions of state law were determined by the Arizona courts. Finally, we believe that the District Court properly reached the merits of the fifth provision but erred in invalidating it. Acordingly, we reverse the judgment of the District Court.
I
In 1972, the Arizona Legislature enacted a comprehensive scheme for the regulation of agricultural employment relations. Arizona Agricultural Employment Relations Act, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§23-1381 to 23-1395 (Supp. 1978). The statute designates procedures governing the election of employee bargaining representatives, establishes various rights of agricultural employers and employees, proscribes a range of employer and union practices, and establishes a civil and criminal enforcement scheme to ensure compliance with the substantive provisions of the Act.
Appellees — the United Farm Workers National Union (UFW), an agent of the UFW, named farmworkers, and a supporter of the UFW — commenced suit in federal court to secure a declaration of the unconstitutionality of various sections of the Act, as well as of the entire Act, and an injunction against its enforcement. A three-judge District Court was convened to entertain the action. On the basis of past instances of enforcement of the Act and in light of the provision for imposition of criminal penalties for “violation of] any provision” of the Act, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 23-1392 (Supp. 1978), the court determined that appellees’ challenges were presently justiciable. Reaching the merits of some of the claims, the court ruled unconstitutional five distinct provisions of the Act. Specifically, the court disapproved the section specifying election procedures, § 23-1389, on the ground that, by failing to account for seasonal employment peaks, it precluded the consummation of elections before most workers dispersed and hence frustrated the associational rights of agricultural employees. The court was also of the view that the Act restricted unduly the class of employees technically eligible to vote for bargaining representatives and hence burdened the workers’ freedom of association in this second respect.
The court, moreover, ruled violative of the First and Fourteenth Amendments the provision limiting union publicity-directed at consumers of agricultural products, § 23-1385 (B)(8), because as it construed the section, it proscribed innocent as well as deliberately false representations. The same section was declared infirm for the additional reason that it prohibited any consumer publicity, whether true or false, implicating a product trade name that “may include” agricultural products of an employer other than the employer with whom the protesting labor organization is engaged in a primary dispute.
The court also struck down the statute’s criminal penalty provision, § 23-1392, on vagueness grounds, and held unconstitutional the provision excusing the employer from furnishing to a labor organization any materials, information, time, or facilities to enable the union to communicate with the employer’s employees. § 23-1385 (C). The court thought that the latter provision permitted employers to prevent access by unions to migratory farmworkers residing on their property, in violation of the guarantees of free speech and association.
Finally, the court disapproved a provision construed as mandating compulsory arbitration, § 23-1393 (B), on the ground that it denied employees due process and the right to a jury trial, which the District Court found guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment. The remainder of the Act fell “by reason of its inseparability and inoperability apart from the provisions found to be invalid.” 449 F. Supp. 449, 467 (Ariz. 1978).
Appellants sought review by this Court of the judgment below. Because of substantial doubts regarding the justicia-bility of appellees’ claims, we postponed consideration of our jurisdiction to review the merits. 439 U. S. 891 (1978). We now hold that, of the five provisions specifically invalidated by the District Court, only the sections pertaining to election of bargaining representatives, consumer publicity, and imposition of criminal penalties are susceptible of judicial resolution at this time. We further conclude that the District Court should have abstained from adjudicating appellees’ challenge to the consumer publicity and criminal penalty provisions, although we think the constitutionality of the election procedures was properly considered even lacking a prior construction by the Arizona courts. We are unable to sustain the District Court’s declaration, however, that the election procedures are facially unconstitutional.
II
We address first the threshold question whether appellees have alleged a case or controversy within the meaning of Art. Ill of the Constitution or only abstract questions not currently justiciable by a federal court. The difference between an abstract question and a “case or controversy” is one of degree, of course, and is not discernible by any precise test. See Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U. S. 270, 273 (1941). The basic inquiry is whether the “conflicting contentions of the parties . . . present a real, substantial controversy between parties having adverse legal interests, a dispute definite and concrete, not hypothetical or abstract.” Railway Mail Assn. v. Corsi, 326 U. S. 88, 93 (1945); see Evers v. Dwyer, 358 U. S. 202, 203 (1958); Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., supra.
A plaintiff who challenges a statute must demonstrate a realistic danger of sustaining a direct injury as a result of the statute’s operation or enforcement. O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 494 (1974). But “[o]ne does not have to await the consummation of threatened injury to obtain preventive relief. If the injury is certainly impending that is enough.” Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553, 593 (1923); see Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U. S. 102, 143 (1974); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 526 (1925).
When contesting the constitutionality of a criminal statute, “it is not necessary that [the plaintiff] first expose himself to actual arrest or prosecution to be entitled to challenge [the] statute that he claims deters the exercise of his constitutional rights.” Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 459 (1974); see Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97 (1968); Evers v. Dwyer, supra, at 204. When the plaintiff has alleged an intention to engage in a course of conduct arguably affected with a constitutional interest, but proscribed by a statute, and there exists a credible threat of prosecution thereunder, he “should not be required to await and undergo a criminal prosecution as the sole means of seeking relief.” Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179, 188 (1973). But “persons having no fears of state prosecution except those that are imaginary or speculative, are not to be accepted as appropriate plaintiffs.” Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 42 (1971); Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103 (1969). When plaintiffs “do not claim that they have ever been threatened with prosecution, that a prosecution is likely, or even that a prosecution is remotely possible,” they do not allege a dispute susceptible to resolution by a federal court. Younger v. Harris, supra, at 42.
Examining the claims adjudicated by the three-judge court against the foregoing principles, it is our view that the challenges to the provisions regulating election procedures, consumer publicity, and criminal sanctions — but only those challenges — present a case or controversy. As already noted, appellees’ principal complaint about the statutory election procedures is that they entail inescapable delays and so preclude conducting an election promptly enough to permit participation by many farmworkers engaged in the production of crops having short seasons. Appellees also assail the assert-edly austere limitations on who is eligible to participate in elections under the Act. Appellees admittedly have not invoked the Act’s election procedures in the past nor have they expressed any intention of doing so in the future. But, as we see it, appellees’ reluctance in this respect does not defeat the justiciability of their challenge in view of the nature of their claim.
Appellees insist that agricultural workers are constitutionally entitled to select representatives to bargain with their employers over employment conditions. As appellees read the statute, only representatives duly elected under its provisions may compel an employer to bargain with them. But appellees maintain, and have adduced evidence tending to prove, that the statutory election procedures frustrate rather than facilitate democratic selection of bargaining representatives. And the UFW has declined to pursue those procedures, not for lack of interest in representing Arizona farmworkers in negotiations with employers, but due to the procedures’ asserted futility. Indeed, the UFW has in the past sought to represent Arizona farmworkers and has asserted in its complaint a desire to organize such workers and to represent them in collective bargaining. Moreover, the UFW has participated in nearly 400 elections in California under procedures thought to be amenable to prompt and fair elections. The lack of a comparable opportunity in Arizona is said to impose a continuing burden on appellees’ associational rights.
Even though a challenged statute is sure to work the injury alleged, however, adjudication might be postponed until “a better factual record might be available.” Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, supra, at 143. Thus, appellants urge that we should decline to entertain appellees’ challenge until they undertake to invoke the Act’s election procedures. In that way, the Court might acquire information regarding how the challenged procedures actually operate, in lieu of the predictive evidence that appellees introduced at trial. We are persuaded, however, that awaiting appellees’ participation in an election would not assist our resolution of the threshold question whether the election procedures are subject to scrutiny under the First Amendment at all. As we regard that question dispositive to appellees’ challenge — as elaborated below — we think there is no warrant for postponing adjudication of the election claim.
Appellees’ twofold attack on the Act’s limitation on consumer publicity is also justiciable now. Section 23-1385 (B) (8) makes it an unfair labor practice “[t]o induce or encourage the ultimate consumer of any agricultural product to refrain from purchasing, consuming or using such agricultural product by the use of dishonest, untruthful and deceptive publicity.” And violations of that section may be criminally punishable. § 23-1392. Appellees maintain that the consumer publicity provision unconstitutionally penalizes inaccuracies inadvertently uttered in the course of consumer appeals.
The record shows that the UFW has actively engaged in consumer publicity campaigns in the past in Arizona, and appellees have alleged in their complaint an intention to continue to engage in boycott activities in that State. Although appellees do not plan to propagate untruths, they contend— as we have observed — that “erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 271 (1964). They submit that to avoid criminal prosecution they must curtail their consumer appeals, and thus forgo full exercise of what they insist are their First Amendment rights. It is urged, accordingly, that their challenge to the limitation on consumer publicity plainly poses an actual case or controversy.
Appellants maintain that the criminal penalty provision has not yet been applied and may never be applied to commissions of unfair labor practices, including forbidden consumer publicity. But, as we have noted, when fear of criminal prosecution under an allegedly unconstitutional statute is not imaginary or wholly speculative a plaintiff need not “first expose himself to actual arrest or prosecution to be entitled to challenge [the] statute.” Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S., at 459. The consumer publicity provision on its face proscribes dishonest, untruthful, and deceptive publicity, and the criminal penalty provision applies in terms to “[a]ny person . . . who violates any provision” of the Act. Moreover, the State has not disavowed any intention of invoking the criminal penalty provision against unions that commit unfair labor practices. Appellees are thus not without some reason in fearing prosecution for violation of the ban on specified forms of consumer publicity. In our view, the positions of the parties are sufficiently adverse with respect to the consumer publicity provision proscribing misrepresentations to present a case or controversy within the jurisdiction of the District Court.
Section 23-1385 (B) (8) also is said to limit consumer appeals to those directed at products with whom the labor organization involved has a primary dispute; as appellees construe it, it proscribes “publicity directed against any trademark, trade name or generic name which may include agricultural products of another producer or user of such trademark, trade name or generic name” Appellees challenge that limitation as unduly restricting protected speech. Ap-pellees have in the past engaged in appeals now arguably prohibited by the statute and allege an intention to continue to do the same. For the reasons that appellees’ challenge to the first aspect of the consumer publicity provision is justiciable, we think their claim directed against the second aspect may now be entertained as well.
We further conclude that the attack on the criminal penalty provision, itself, is also subject to adjudication at this time. Section 23-1392 authorizes imposition of criminal sanctions against “'[a]ny person . . . who violates any provision” of the Act. Appellees contend that the penalty provision is unconstitutionally vague in that it does not give notice of what conduct is made criminal. Appellees aver that they have previously engaged, and will in the future engage, in organizing, boycotting, picketing, striking, and collective-bargaining activities regulated by various provisions of the Act. They assert that they cannot be sure whether criminal sanctions may be visited upon them for pursuing any such conduct, much of which is allegedly constitutionally protected. As we have noted, it is clear that appellees desire to engage at least in consumer publicity campaigns prohibited by the Act; accordingly, we think their challenge to the precision of the criminal penalty provision, itself, was properly entertained by the District Court and may be raised here on appeal. If the provision were truly vague, appellees should not be expected to pursue their collective activities at their peril.
Appellees’ challenge to the access provision, however, is not justiciable. The provision, § 23-1385 (C), stipulates that “[n]o employer shall be required to furnish or make available to a labor organization . . . information, time, or facilities to enable such . . . labor organization ... to communicate with employees of the employer, members of the labor organization, its supporters, or adherents.” Appellees insist, and the District Court held, that this provision deprives the Arizona Employment Relations Board — charged with responsibility for enforcing the Act — -of any discretion to compel agricultural employers to furnish materials, information, time, or facilities to labor organizations desirous of communicating with workers located on the employers’ property and that the section for this reason violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
It may be accepted that the UFW will inevitably seek access to employers’ property in order to organize or simply to communicate with farmworkers. But it is conjectural to anticipate that access will be denied. More importantly, appellees’ claim depends inextricably upon the attributes of the situs involved. They liken farm labor camps to the company town involved in Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501 (1946), in which the First Amendment was held to operate. Yet it is impossible to know whether access will be denied to places fitting appellees’ constitutional claim. We can only hypothesize that such an event will come to pass, and it is only on this basis that the constitutional claim could be adjudicated at this time. An opinion now would be patently advisory; the adjudication of appellees’ challenge to the access provision must therefore await at least such time as appellees can assert an interest in seeking access to particular facilities as well as a palpable basis for believing that access will be refused.
Finally, the constitutionality of the allegedly compulsory arbitration provision was also improperly considered by the District Court. That provision specifies that an employer may seek and obtain an injunction “upon the filing of a verified petition showing that his agricultural employees are unlawfully on strike or are unlawfully conducting a boycott, or are unlawfully threatening to strike or boycott, and that the resulting cessation of work or conduct of a boycott will result in the prevention of production or the loss, spoilage, deterioration, or reduction in grade, quality or marketability of an agricultural commodity or commodities for human consumption in commercial quantities.” § 23-1393 (B). If an employer invokes a court’s jurisdiction to issue a temporary restraining order to enjoin a strike, the employer “must as a condition thereto agree to submit the dispute to binding arbitration as the means of settling the unresolved issues.” And if the parties cannot agree on an arbitrator, the court must appoint one.
On the record, before us, there is an insufficiently real and concrete dispute with respect to application of this provision. Appellees themselves acknowledge that, assuming an arguably unlawful strike will occur, employers may elect to pursue a range of responses other than seeking an injunction and agreeing to arbitrate. Moreover, appellees have never contested the constitutionality of the arbitration clause. They declare that “[t]he three judge court below on its own motion found the binding arbitration provision of § 1393 (B) viola-tive of substantive due process and the Seventh Amendment.” Brief for Appellees 71 n. 153. Appellees, instead, raised other challenges to the statute’s civil enforcement scheme, which we do not consider on this appeal. See n. 10, supra. It is clear, then, that any ruling on the compulsory arbitration provision would be wholly advisory.
Ill
Appellants contend that, even assuming any of appellees’ claims are justiciable, the District Court should have abstained from adjudicating those claims until the Arizona courts might authoritatively construe the provisions at issue. We disagree that appellees’ challenge to the statutory election procedures should first be submitted to the Arizona courts, but we think that the District Court should have abstained from considering the constitutionality of the criminal penalty provision and the consumer publicity provision pending review by the state courts.
As we have observed, “'[ajbstention . . . sanctions . . . escape [from immediate decision] only in narrowly limited “special circumstances.” ’ ” Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U. S. 51, 54 (1973), quoting Lake Carriers’ Assn. v. MacMullan, 406 U. S. 498, 509 (1972). “The paradigm of the 'special circumstances’ that make abstention appropriate is a case where the challenged state statute is susceptible of a construction by the state judiciary that would avoid or modify the necessity of reaching a federal constitutional question.” Kusper v. Pontikes, supra, at 54; see Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241, 249 (1967); Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U. S. 167, 176-177 (1959); Railroad Comm’n v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496 (1941). Of course, the abstention doctrine “contemplates that deference to state court adjudication only be made where the issue of state law is uncertain.” Harman v. Forssenius, 380 U. S. 528, 534 (1965). But when the state statute at issue is “fairly subject to an interpretation which will render unnecessary or substantially modify the federal constitutional question,” id., at 535, abstention may be required “in order to avoid unnecessary friction in federal-state relations, interference with important state functions, tentative decisions on questions of state law, and premature constitutional adjudication,” id., at 534.
We think that a state-court construction of the provision governing election procedures would not obviate the need for decision of the constitutional issue or materially alter the question to be decided. As we shall discuss, our resolution of the question whether the statutory election procedures are affected with a First Amendment interest at all is dispositive of appellees’ challenge. And insofar as it bears on that matter, the statute is pointedly clear. Accordingly, we perceive no basis for declining to decide appellees’ challenge to the election procedures, notwithstanding the absence of a prior state-court adjudication.
We conclude, however, that the District Court should have postponed resolution of appellees’ challenge to the criminal penalty provision. That section provides in pertinent part that “[a]ny person . . . who violates any provision of [the Act] is guilty of a . . . misdemeanor.” § 23-1392. Ap-pellees maintain that the penalty provision leaves substantial doubt regarding what activities will elicit criminal sanctions. The District Court so concluded, observing that “[ considering the enormous variety of activities covered by the Act, [the penalty section] is clearly a statutory provision so vague that men of common intelligence can only guess at its meaning.” 449 F. Supp., at 453. The court elaborated: “There is no way for anyone to guess whether criminal provisions will apply to any particular conduct, in advance, and it is clear that the statute is unconstitutionally vague and does not adequately define prohibited conduct and is, therefore, in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Ibid.
Appellants, themselves, do not argue that the criminal penalty provision is unambiguous. Indeed, they insist that until the provision is enforced “it is impossible to know what will be considered a 'violatio[n]’ of the Act.” Brief for Appellants 37. Appellants submit that various unfair labor practices, for example, have not been treated as yet as criminal violations.
It is possible, however, that the penalty provision might be construed broadly as applying to all sections of the Act that affirmatively proscribe or command courses of conduct. In terms it reaches “[a]ny person . . . who violates any provision of” the Act. Alternatively, the Arizona courts might conclude that only limited portions of the Act are susceptible of being “violated” and thus narrowly define the reach of the penalty section. In either case, it is evident that the statute is reasonably susceptible of constructions that might undercut or modify appellees’ vagueness attack. It may be that, if construed broadly, the penalty provision would operate in conjunction with substantive provisions of the Act to restrict unduly the pursuit of First Amendment activities. But it is at least evident that an authoritative construction of the penalty provision may significantly alter the constitutional questions requiring resolution.
We have noted, of course, that when “extensive adjudications, under the impact of a variety of factual situations, [would be required in order to bring a challenged statute] within the bounds of permissible constitutional certainty,” abstention may be inappropriate. Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360, 378 (1964). But here the Arizona courts may determine in a single proceeding what substantive provisions the penalty provision modifies. In this case, the “uncertain issue of state law [turns] upon a choice between one or several alternative meanings of [the] state statute.” Ibid. Accordingly, we think the Arizona courts should be “afforded a reasonable opportunity to pass upon” the section under review. Harrison v. NAACP, supra, at 176.
The District Court should have abstained with respect to appellees’ challenges to the consumer publicity provision as well. Appellees have argued that Arizona’s proscription of misrepresentations by labor organizations in the course of appeals to consumers intolerably inhibits the exercise of their First Amendment right freely to discuss issues concerning the employment of farm laborers and the production of crops. Appellants submit, however, that the statutory ban on untruthful consumer publicity might fairly be construed by an Arizona court as proscribing only misrepresentations made with knowledge of their falsity or in reckless disregard of truth or falsity. As that is the qualification that appellees insist the prohibition of misstatements must include, a construction to that effect would substantially affect the constitutional question presented.
It is reasonably arguable that the consumer publicity provision is susceptible of the construction appellants suggest. Section 23-1385 (B) (8) makes it unlawful “[t]o induce or encourage the ultimate consumer of any agricultural product to refrain from purchasing, consuming or using such agricultural product by use of dishonest, untruthful and deceptive publicity.” (Emphasis added.) On its face, the statute does not forbid the propagation of untruths without more. Rather, to be condemnable, consumer publicity must be “dishonest” and “deceptive” as well as untruthful. And the Arizona courts may well conclude that a “dishonest” and “untruthful” statement is one made with knowledge of falsity or in reckless disregard of falsity.
To be sure, the consumer publicity provision further provides that “[permissible inducement or encouragement . . . means truthful, honest and nondeceptive publicity. . . (Emphasis added.) That phrase may be read to indicate that representations not having all three attributes are prohibited under the Act. But it could be held that the phrase denotes only that “truthful, honest and nondeceptive publicity” is permissible, not that any other publicity is prohibited. When read in conjunction with the prohibitory clause preceding it, the latter phrase thus introduces an ambiguity suitable for state-court resolution. In sum, we think adjudication of appellees’ attack on the statutory limitation on untruthful consumer appeals should await an authoritative interpretation of that limitation by the Arizona courts.
We further conclude that the District Court should have abstained from adjudicating appellees’ additional contention that the consumer publicity provision unconstitutionally precludes publicity not directed at the products of employers with whom the protesting labor organization has a primary dispute. We think it is by no means clear that the statute in fact prohibits publicity solely because it is directed at the products of particular employers. As already discussed, § 23-1385 (B) (8) declares it an unfair labor practice to induce or encourage the ultimate consumer of agricultural products to refrain from purchasing products “by the use of dishonest, untruthful and deceptive publicity.” The provision then stipulates:
“Permissible inducement or encouragement within the meaning of this section means truthful, honest and non-deceptive publicity which identifies the agricultural product produced by an agricultural employer with whom the labor organization has a primary dispute. Permissible inducement or encouragement does not include publicity directed against any trademark, trade name or generic name which may include agricultural products of another producer or user of such trademark, trade name or generic name.”
The section nowhere proscribes publicity directed at products of employers with whom a labor organization is not engaged in a primary dispute. It indicates only that publicity ranging beyond a primary disagreement is not ¡ accorded affirmative statutory protection The Arizona courts might reasonably determine that the language in issue does no more than that and might thus ameliorate appellees’ concerns.
Moreover, § 23-1385 (B) (8) might be construed, in light of §23-1385 (C), to prohibit only threatening speech. The latter provision states in pertinent part that ‘‘[t]he expressing of any views, argument, opinion or the making of any statement ... or the dissemination of such views whether in written, printed, graphic, visual or auditory form, if such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit, shall not constitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice . . .On its face, § 23-1385 (C) would appear to qualify § 23-1385 (B) (8), as the latter identifies “an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents.” Were the consumer publicity provision interpreted to intercept only those expressions embodying a threat of force, the issue of its constitutional validity would assume a character wholly different from the question posed by appellees’ construction.
Thus, we conclude that the District Court erred in entertaining all aspects of appellees’ challenge to the consumer publicity section without the benefit of a construction thereof by the Arizona courts. We are sensitive to appellees’ reluctance to repair to the Arizona courts after extensive litigation in the federal arena. We nevertheless hold that in this case the District Court should not have adjudicated substantial constitutional claims with respect to statutory provisions that are patently ambiguous on their face.
IV
The merits of appellees’ challenge to the statutory election procedures remain to be considered. Appellees contend, and the District Court concluded, that the delays assertedly attending the statutory election scheme and the technical limitations on who may vote in unit elections severely curtail appellees’ freedom of association. This freedom, it is said, entails the liberty not only to join or sustain a labor union and collectively to express a position to an agricultural employer, but also to create or elect an organization entitled to invoke the statutory provision requiring an employer to bargain collectively with the certified representative of his employees. As we see it, however, these general complaints that the statutory election procedures are ineffective are matters for the Arizona Legislature and not the federal courts.
Accepting that the Constitution guarantees workers the right individually or collectively to voice their views to their employers, see Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School Dist., 439 U. S. 410 (1979); cf. Madison School Dist. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, 429 U. S. 167, 173-175 (1976), the Constitution does not afford such employees the right to compel employers to engage in a dialogue or even to listen. Accordingly, Arizona was not constitutionally obliged to provide a procedure pursuant to which agricultural employees, through a chosen representative, might compel their employers to negotiate. That it has undertaken to do so in an assertedly niggardly fashion, then, presents as a general matter no First Amendment problems. Moreover, the Act does not preclude voluntary recognition of a labor organization by an agricultural employer. Thus, in the event that an employer desires to bargain with a representative chosen by his employees independently of the statutory election procedures, such bargaining may readily occur. The statutory procedures need be pursued only if farm-workers desire to designate exclusive bargaining representatives and to compel their employer to bargain — rights that are conferred by statute rather than the Federal Constitution. Accordingly, at this time, we are unable to discern any First Amendment difficulty with the Arizona statutory election scheme, whether or not the procedures are as fair or efficacious as appellees would like.
Reversed and remanded.
The complaint asserted that the Act as a whole was invalid because it was pre-empted by the federal labor statutes, imposed an impermissible burden on commerce, denied appellees equal protection, and amounted to a bill of attainder. In addition, various constitutional challenges were made to one or more parts of 15 provisions of the Act.
The District Court did not analyze section by section why a case or controversy existed with respect to each of the challenged sections. Rather, from instances of private and official enforcement detailed in a stipulation filed by the parties, the court concluded that the ease was not “hypothetical, abstract, or generalized.” 449 F. Supp. 449, 452 (Ariz. 1978). It did, however, focus specifically on § 23-1392. That provision makes it a crime to violate any other provision of the Act; and although the District Court deemed this section severable from the rest of the Act, it relied heavily on its conclusion that it had jurisdiction to adjudicate the validity of this section to justify its considering the constitutionality of other sections of the Act. See 449 F. Supp., at 454. In proceeding to do so, it ruled that evidence would be considered only in connection with § 23-1389 dealing with the election of bargaining representatives and with respect to §23-1385 (C) limiting union access to employer properties, although evidence was introduced at trial relative to other provisions.
The court did not explain the basis for selecting from all of the challenges presented the five provisions on which it passed judgment.
Section 23-1389 declares that representatives selected by a secret ballot for the purpose of collective bargaining by the majority of agricultural employees in an appropriate bargaining unit shall be the exclusive representatives of all agricultural employees in such unit for the purpose of collective bargaining. And it requires the Agricultural Employment Relations Board to ascertain the unit appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining. The section further provides that the Board shall investigate any petition alleging facts specified in § 23-1389 indicating that a question of representation exists and schedule an appropriate hearing when the Board has reasonable cause to believe that a question of representation does exist. If the hearing establishes that such a question exists, the Board is directed to order an election by secret ballot and to certify the results thereof. Section 23-1389 details the manner in which an election is to be conducted. The section further provides for procedures by which an employer might challenge a petition for an election. Additionally, § 23-1389 stipulates that no election shall be directed or conducted in any unit within which a valid election has been held in the preceding 12 months.
Section 23-1389 also sets down certain eligibility requirements regarding participation in elections conducted thereunder. And it imposes obligations on employers to furnish information to the Board, to be made available to interested unions and employees, concerning bargaining-unit employees qualified to vote. Finally, the section specifies procedures whereby agricultural employees may seek to rescind the representation authority of a union currently representing those employees.
The election provision contemplates voting by “agricultural employees,” §23-1389 (A), which is defined in §23-1382 (1) so as to exclude workers having only a brief history of employment with an agricultural employer.
Section 23-1385 (B) (8) makes it an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents:
“To induce or encourage the ultimate consumer of any agricultural product to refrain from purchasing, consuming or using such agricultural product by the use of dishonest, untruthful and deceptive publicity. Permissible inducement or encouragement within the meaning of this section means truthful, honest and nondeceptive publicity which identifies the agricultural product produced by an agricultural employer with whom the labor organization has a primary dispute. Permissible inducement or encouragement does not include publicity directed against any trademark, trade name or generic name which may include agricultural products of another producer or user of such trademark, trade name or generic name.”
Section 23-1392 provides:
“Any person who knowingly resists, prevents, impedes or interferes with any member of the board or any of its agents or agencies in the performance of duties pursuant to this article, or who violates any provision of this article is guilty of a class 1 misdemeanor. The provisions of this section shall not apply to any activities carried on outside the state of Arizona.”
Section 23-1385 (C) provides in part:
“No employer shall be required to furnish or make available to a labor organization, and no labor organization shall be required to furnish or make available to an employer, materials, information, time, or facilities to enable such employer or labor organization, as the case may be, to communicate with employees of the employer, members of the labor organization, its supporters, or adherents.”
Section 23-1393 (B) provides:
“In the case of a strike or boycott, or threat of a strike or boycott, against an agricultural employer, the court may grant, and upon proper application shall grant as provided in this section, a ten-day restraining order enjoining such a strike or boycott, provided that if an agricultural employer invokes the court’s jurisdiction to issue the ten-day restraining order to enjoin a strike as provided by this subsection, said employer must as a condition thereto agree to submit the dispute to binding arbitration as the means of settling the unresolved issues. In the event the parties cannot agree on an arbitrator within two days after the court awards a restraining order, the court shall appoint one to decide the unresolved issues. Any agricultural employer shall be entitled to injunctive relief accorded by Rule 65 of the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure upon the filing of a verified petition showing that his agricultural employees are unlawfully on strike or are unlawfully conducting a boycott, or are unlawfully threatening to strike or boycott, and that the resulting cessation of work or conduct of a boycott will result in the prevention of production or the loss, spoilage, deterioration, or reduction in grade, quality or marketability of an agricultural commodity or commodities for human consumption in commercial quantities. For the purpose of this subsection, an agricultural commodity or commodities for human consumption with a market value of five thousand dollars or more shall constitute commercial quantities.”
Appellees challenged numerous provisions before the District Court not expressly considered by that court. After disapproving the five provisions that we address on this appeal, the court concluded that “there is obviously no need to rule on plaintiffs’ other contentions including the claimed equal protection violation.” 449 F. Supp., at 466. The court then enjoined enforcement of the Act in its entirety, finding the provisions not explicitly invalidated to be inseparable from those actually adjudieated. Id., at 467. We find insufficient reason to consider in this Court in the first instance appellees’ challenges to the provisions on which the District Court did not specifically pass judgment.
Although appellants have contested the justiciability of appellees’ several challenges to the Act’s provisions, they have not contended that the standing of any particular appellee is more dubious than the standing of any other. We conclude that at least the UFW has a “sufficient ‘personal stake’ in a determination of the constitutional validity of [the three aforementioned provisions] to present ‘a real and substantial controversy admitting of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character.’ ” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 12 (1976) (footnote omitted), quoting Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227, 241 (1937). See NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 458 (1958). Accordingly, we do not assess the standing of the remaining appellees. See Buckley v. Valeo, supra, at 12.
Though waiting until appellees invoke unsuccessfully the statutory election procedures would remove any doubt about the existence of concrete injury resulting from application of the election provision, little could be done to remedy the injury incurred in the particular election. Challengers to election procedures often have been left without a remedy in regard to the most immediate election because the election is too far underway or actually consummated prior to judgment. See, e. g., Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330, 333 n. 2 (1972); Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U. S. 814, 816 (1969); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 34-35 (1968). Justi-ciability in such cases depends not so much on the fact of past injury but on the prospect of its occurrence in an impending or future election. See, e. g., Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 737 n. 8 (1974); Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752, 756 n. 5 (1973); Dunn v. Blumstein, supra, at 333 n. 2. There is value in adjudicating election challenges notwithstanding the lapse of a particular election because “[t]he construction of the statute, an understanding of its operation, and possible constitutional limits on its application, will have the effect of simplifying future challenges, thus increasing the likelihood that timely filed cases can be adjudicated before an election is held.” Storer v. Brown, supra, at 737 n. 8 (emphasis added).
Even independently of criminal sanctions, § 23-1385 (B) (8) affirmatively prohibits the variety of consumer publicity specified therein. We think that the prospect of issuance of an administrative cease-and-desist order, §23-1390 (0), or a court-ordered injunction, §§ 23-1390 (E), (J), (K), against such prohibited conduct provides substantial additional support for the conclusion that appellees’ challenge to the publicity provision is justiciable.
E. g., §23-1385 (C) (access to employer’s property); §23-1385 (B) (7) (boycotts); § 23-1385 (B) (12) (picketing and boycotts); §23-1385 (B)(13) (striking by minorities); §§23-1384, 23-1385 (D) (collective bargaining).
The dissent suggests that § 23-1392 is unambiguous and needs no construction and that abstention is therefore improper. But the District Court invalidated §23-1392 on vagueness grounds, and the State’s position with respect to the issue is such that we are reluctant to conclude that appellees’ challenge to § 23-1392 on vagueness grounds is without substance and hence that it contains no ambiguity warranting abstention.
If there were to be no abstention regarding § 23-1392 on the basis that it clearly criminalizes any departure from the command of any provision of the Act, adequate consideration of whether the section is unconstitutionally overbroad would require inquiry into whether some conduct prohibited by the Act is constitutionally shielded from criminal punishment. But that would entail dealing with the validity of provisions about which there may be no case or controversy or with respect to which abstention is the proper course.
Although construing the section in this manner would apparently satisfy appellees, we should not be understood as declaring that the section and its criminal sanction would be unconstitutional if they proscribed damaging falsehoods perpetrated unknowingly or without recklessness. We have not adjudicated the role of the First Amendment in suits by private parties against nonmedia defendants, nor have we considered the constitutional implications of causes of action for injurious falsehoods outside the area of defamation and the ground covered by Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374 (1967). Linn v. Plant Guard Workers, 383 U. S. 53 (1966), holding that application of state defamation remedies for speech uttered in a labor dispute is dependent upon a showing of knowledge or recklessness, was grounded in federal labor policy, though the case had constitutional overtones.
Furthermore, we express no view on whether the section would be vulnerable to constitutional attack if it declared false consumer publicity, whether innocent or culpable, to be an unfair labor practice and had as its only sanction a prospective cease-and-desist order or court injunction directing that the defendant cease publishing material already determined to be false.
Were the section construed to prohibit all appeals directed against the products of agricultural employers whose employees the labor organization did not actually represent, its constitutionality would be substantially in doubt. Even picketing may not be so narrowly circumscribed. AFL v. Swing, 312 U. S. 321 (1941). Additional difficulties would arise were the section interpreted to intercept publicity by means other than picketing. Although we have previously concluded that picketing aimed at discouraging trade across the board with a truly neutral employer may be barred compatibly with the Constitution, Carpenters v. Ritter’s Cafe, 315 U. S. 722 (1942); cf. NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58 (1964), we have noted that, for First Amendment purposes, picketing is qualitatively “different from other modes of communication.” Hughes v. Superior Court, 339 U. S. 460, 465 (1950); see Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S., at 17; Teamsters v. Vogt, Inc., 354 U. S. 284 (1957).
It has been suggested that the impact of abstention on appellees’ pursuit of constitutionally protected activities should be reduced by directing the District Court to protect appellees against enforcement of the state statute pending a definitive resolution of issues of state law by the Arizona courts. See Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U. S. 167, 178-179 (1959). But this is a matter that is best addressed by the District Court in the first instance.
We do not consider whether the election procedures deny any of the appellees equal protection of the law. Although appellees have challenged other provisions of the Act on equal protection grounds, they have not directed such an argument in this Court against the section governing election procedures. We understand appellees’ equal protection challenge to embrace the sections pertaining to access to an employer’s property and consumer publicity. But we have determined that appellees’ assault on the first provision is premature and that appellees’ attack on the second should be held in abeyance pending resort to the Arizona courts. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed. If the case arose under the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, note the source as "United States Supreme Court". If the case arose in a state court, note the source as "State Supreme Court", "State Appellate Court", or "State Trial Court". Do not code the name of the state. | What is the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed? | [
"U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals",
"U.S. Court of International Trade",
"U.S. Court of Claims, Court of Federal Claims",
"U.S. Court of Military Appeals, renamed as Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces",
"U.S. Court of Military Review",
"U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals",
"U.S. Customs Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit",
"U.S. Tax Court",
"Temporary Emergency U.S. Court of Appeals",
"U.S. Court for China",
"U.S. Consular Courts",
"U.S. Commerce Court",
"Territorial Supreme Court",
"Territorial Appellate Court",
"Territorial Trial Court",
"Emergency Court of Appeals",
"Supreme Court of the District of Columbia",
"Bankruptcy Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit (includes the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia but not the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which has local jurisdiction)",
"Alabama Middle U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Northern U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Southern U.S. District Court",
"Alaska U.S. District Court",
"Arizona U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Western U.S. District Court",
"California Central U.S. District Court",
"California Eastern U.S. District Court",
"California Northern U.S. District Court",
"California Southern U.S. District Court",
"Colorado U.S. District Court",
"Connecticut U.S. District Court",
"Delaware U.S. District Court",
"District Of Columbia U.S. District Court",
"Florida Middle U.S. District Court",
"Florida Northern U.S. District Court",
"Florida Southern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Middle U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Northern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Guam U.S. District Court",
"Hawaii U.S. District Court",
"Idaho U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Central U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Northern U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Southern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Northern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Southern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Northern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Southern U.S. District Court",
"Kansas U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Western U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Middle U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Western U.S. District Court",
"Maine U.S. District Court",
"Maryland U.S. District Court",
"Massachusetts U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Western U.S. District Court",
"Minnesota U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Northern U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Southern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Western U.S. District Court",
"Montana U.S. District Court",
"Nebraska U.S. District Court",
"Nevada U.S. District Court",
"New Hampshire U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"New Mexico U.S. District Court",
"New York Eastern U.S. District Court",
"New York Northern U.S. District Court",
"New York Southern U.S. District Court",
"New York Western U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Middle U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"North Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Northern Mariana Islands U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Northern U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Southern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Northern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Western U.S. District Court",
"Oregon U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Middle U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Western U.S. District Court",
"Puerto Rico U.S. District Court",
"Rhode Island U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina U.S. District Court",
"South Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Middle U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Western U.S. District Court",
"Texas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Northern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Southern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Western U.S. District Court",
"Utah U.S. District Court",
"Vermont U.S. District Court",
"Virgin Islands U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Western U.S. District Court",
"Washington Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Washington Western U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Northern U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Western U.S. District Court",
"Wyoming U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana U.S. District Court",
"Washington U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"Alabama U.S. District Court",
"U.S. District Court for the Canal Zone",
"Georgia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois U.S. District Court",
"Indiana U.S. District Court",
"Iowa U.S. District Court",
"Michigan U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi U.S. District Court",
"Missouri U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey Eastern U.S. District Court (East Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New Jersey Western U.S. District Court (West Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New York U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina U.S. District Court",
"Ohio U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee U.S. District Court",
"Texas U.S. District Court",
"Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Norfolk U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky U.S. Distrcrict Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"California U.S. District Court",
"Florida U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas U.S. District Court",
"District of Orleans U.S. District Court",
"State Supreme Court",
"State Appellate Court",
"State Trial Court",
"Eastern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Middle Circuit (of the United States)",
"Southern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Alabama U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Alabama",
"Arkansas U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Arkansas",
"California U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of California",
"Connecticut U.S. Circuit for the District of Connecticut",
"Delaware U.S. Circuit for the District of Delaware",
"Florida U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Florida",
"Georgia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Georgia",
"Illinois U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Illinois",
"Indiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Indiana",
"Iowa U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Iowa",
"Kansas U.S. Circuit for the District of Kansas",
"Kentucky U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Kentucky",
"Louisiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Louisiana",
"Maine U.S. Circuit for the District of Maine",
"Maryland U.S. Circuit for the District of Maryland",
"Massachusetts U.S. Circuit for the District of Massachusetts",
"Michigan U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Michigan",
"Minnesota U.S. Circuit for the District of Minnesota",
"Mississippi U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Mississippi",
"Missouri U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Missouri",
"Nevada U.S. Circuit for the District of Nevada",
"New Hampshire U.S. Circuit for the District of New Hampshire",
"New Jersey U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New Jersey",
"New York U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New York",
"North Carolina U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of North Carolina",
"Ohio U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Ohio",
"Oregon U.S. Circuit for the District of Oregon",
"Pennsylvania U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Pennsylvania",
"Rhode Island U.S. Circuit for the District of Rhode Island",
"South Carolina U.S. Circuit for the District of South Carolina",
"Tennessee U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Tennessee",
"Texas U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Texas",
"Vermont U.S. Circuit for the District of Vermont",
"Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Virginia",
"West Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of West Virginia",
"Wisconsin U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Wisconsin",
"Wyoming U.S. Circuit for the District of Wyoming",
"Circuit Court of the District of Columbia",
"Nebraska U.S. Circuit for the District of Nebraska",
"Colorado U.S. Circuit for the District of Colorado",
"Washington U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Washington",
"Idaho U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Idaho",
"Montana U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Montana",
"Utah U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Utah",
"South Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of South Dakota",
"North Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of North Dakota",
"Oklahoma U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Oklahoma",
"Court of Private Land Claims"
] | [
35
] | sc_casesource |
BROADRICK et al. v. OKLAHOMA et al.
No. 71-1639.
Argued March 26, 1973 —
Decided June 25, 1973
White, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BurgeR, C. J., and BlackmuN, Powell, and RehNQIjist, JJ., joined. Douglas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 618. BreNNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stewart and Marshall, JJ., joined, post, p. 621.
John C. Buckingham argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs was Terry Shipley.
Mike D. Martin, Assistant Attorney General of Oklahoma, argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Larry Derryberry, Attorney General, and Paul C. Duncan, Assistant Attorney General.
Me. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 818 of Oklahoma’s Merit System of Personnel Administration Act, Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 74, § 801 et seq., restricts the political activities of the State’s classified civil servants in much the same manner that the Hatch Act proscribes partisan political activities of federal employees. Three employees of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission who are subject to the proscriptions of § 818 seek to have two of its paragraphs declared unconstitutional on their face and enjoined because of asserted vagueness and overbreadth. After a hearing, the District Court upheld the provisions and denied relief. 338 F. Supp. 711. We noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal, 409 U. S. 1058, so that appellants’ claims could be considered together with those of their federal counterparts in CSC v. Letter Carriers, ante, p. 548. We affirm the judgment of the District Court.
Section 818 was enacted in 1959 when the State first established its Merit System of Personnel Administration. The section serves roughly the same function as the analogous provisions of the other 49 States, and is patterned on § 9 (a) of the Hatch Act. Without question, a broad range of political activities and conduct is proscribed by the section. Paragraph six, one of the contested portions, provides that “[n]o employee in the classified service . . . shall, directly or indirectly, solicit, receive, or in any manner be concerned in soliciting or receiving any assessment ... or contribution for any political organization, candidacy or other political purpose.” Paragraph seven, the other challenged paragraph, provides that no such employee “shall be a member of any national, state or local committee of a political party, or an officer or member of a committee of a partisan political club, or a candidate for nomination or election to any paid public office.” That paragraph further prohibits such employees from “tak[ing] part in the management or affairs of any political party or in any political campaign, except to exercise his right as a citizen privately to express his opinion and to cast his vote.” As a complementary proscription (not challenged in this lawsuit) the first paragraph prohibits any person from “in any way” being “favored or discriminated against with respect to employment in the classified service because of his political . . . opinions or affiliations.” Responsibility for maintaining and enforcing § 818’s proscriptions is vested in the State Personnel Board and the State Personnel Director, who is appointed by the Board. Violation of § 818 results in dismissal from employment and possible criminal sanctions and limited state employment ineligibility. Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 74, §§ 818 and 819.
Appellants do not question Oklahoma's right to place even-handed restrictions on the partisan political conduct of state employees. Appellants freely concede that such restrictions serve valid and important state interests, particularly with respect to attracting greater numbers of qualified people by insuring their job security, free from the vicissitudes of the elective process, and by protecting them from “political extortion.” See United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 99-103 (1947). Rather, appellants maintain that however permissible, even commendable, the goals of § 818 may be, its language is unconstitutionally vague and its prohibitions too broad in their sweep, failing to distinguish between conduct that may be proscribed and conduct that must be permitted. For these and other reasons, appellants assert that the sixth and seventh paragraphs of § 818 are void in toto and cannot be enforced against them or anyone else.
We have held today that the Hatch Act is not im-permissibly vague. CSC v. Letter Carriers, ante, p. 548. We have little doubt that § 818 is similarly not so vague that “men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning.” Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U. S. 385, 391 (1926). See Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 108-114 (1972); Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U. S. 104, 110-111 (1972); Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U. S. 611, 616 (1968). Whatever other problems there are with § 818, it is all but frivolous to suggest that the section fails to give adequate warning of what activities it proscribes or fails to set out “explicit standards” for those who must apply it. Grayned v. City of Rockford, supra, at 108. In the plainest language, it prohibits any state classified employee from being “an officer or member” of a “partisan political club” or a candidate for “any paid public office.” It forbids solicitation of contributions “for any political organization, candidacy or other political purpose” and taking part “in the management or affairs of any political party or in any political campaign.” Words inevitably' contain germs of uncertainty and, as with the Hatch Act, there may be disputes over the meaning of such terms in § 818 as “partisan,” or “take part in,” or “affairs of” political parties. But what was said in Letter Carriers, ante, at 578-579, is applicable here: “there are limitations in the English language with respect to being both specific and manageably brief, and it seems to us that although the prohibitions may not satisfy those intent on finding fault at any cost, they are set out in terms that the ordinary person exercising ordinary common sense can sufficiently understand and comply with, without sacrifice to the public interest.” Moreover, even if the outermost boundaries of § 818 may be imprecise, any such uncertainty has little relevance here, where appellants’ conduct falls squarely within the “hard core” of the statute’s proscriptions and appellants concede as much. See Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 491-492 (1965); United States v. National Dairy Products Corp., 372 U. S. 29 (1963); Williams v. United States, 341 U. S. 97 (1951); Robinson v. United States, 324 U. S. 282, 286 (1945); United States v. Wurzbach, 280 U. S. 396 (1930).
Shortly before appellants commenced their action in the District Court, they were charged by the State Personnel Board with patent violations of § 818. According to the Board's charges, appellants actively participated in the 1970 re-election campaign of a Corporation Commissioner, appellants’ superior. All three allegedly asked other Corporation Commission employees (individually and in groups) to do campaign work or to give referrals to persons who might help in the campaign. Most of these requests were made at district offices of the Commission's Oil and Gas Conservation Division. Two of the appellants were charged with soliciting money for the campaign from Commission employees and one was also charged with receiving and distributing campaign posters in bulk. In the context of this type of obviously covered conduct, the statement of Mr. Justice Holmes is particularly appropriate: “if there is any difficulty ... it will be time enough to consider it when raised by someone whom it concerns.” United States v. Wurzbach, supra, at 399.
Appellants assert that § 818 has been construed as applying to such allegedly protected political expression as the wearing of political buttons or the displaying of bumper stickers. But appellants did not engage in any such activity. They are charged with actively engaging in partisan political activities — including the solicitation of money — among their coworkers for the benefit of their superior. Appellants concede — and correctly so, see Letter Carriers, supra — that § 818 would be constitutional as applied to this type of conduct. They nevertheless maintain that the statute is overbroad and purports to reach protected, as well as unprotected conduct, and must therefore be struck down on its face and held to be incapable of any constitutional application. We do not believe that the overbreadth doctrine may appropriately be invoked in this manner here.
Embedded in the traditional rules governing constitutional adjudication is the principle that a person to whom a statute may constitutionally be applied will not be heard to challenge that statute on the ground that it may conceivably be applied unconstitutionally to others, in other situations not before the Court. See, e. g., Austin v. The Aldermen, 7 Wall. 694, 698-699 (1869); Supervisors v. Stanley, 105 U. S. 305, 311-315 (1882); Hatch v. Reardon, 204 U. S. 152, 160-161 (1907); Yazoo & M. V. R. Co. v. Jackson Vinegar Co., 226 U. S. 217, 219-220 (1912); United States v. Wurzbach, supra, at 399; Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U. S. 495, 513 (1937); United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17 (1960). A closely related principle is that constitutional rights are personal and may not be asserted vicariously. See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 429-430 (1961). These principles rest on more than the fussiness of judges. They reflect the conviction that under our constitutional system courts are not roving commissions assigned to pass judgment on the validity of the Nation’s laws. See Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 52 (1971). Constitutional judgments, as Mr. Chief Justice Marshall recognized, are justified only out of the necessity of adjudicating rights in particular cases between the litigants brought before the Court:
"So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 178 (1803).
In the past, the Court has recognized some limited exceptions to these principles, but only because of the most “weighty countervailing policies.” United States v. Raines, 362 U. S., at 22-23. One such exception is where individuals not parties to a particular suit stand to lose by its outcome and yet have no effective avenue of preserving their rights themselves. See Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 444-446 (1972); NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449 (1958). Another exception has been carved out in the area of the First Amendment.
It has long been recognized that the First Amendment needs breathing space and that statutes attempting to restrict or burden the exercise of First Amendment rights must be narrowly drawn and represent a considered legislative judgment that a particular mode of expression has to give way to other compelling needs of society. Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242, 258 (1937); Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 488 (1960); GrAyned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S., at 116-117. As a corollary, the Court has altered its traditional rules of standing to permit — in the First Amendment area — “attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a statute drawn with the requisite narrow specificity.” Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S., at 486. Litigants, therefore, are permitted to challenge a statute not because their own rights of free expression are violated, but because of a judicial prediction or assumption that the statute’s very existence may cause others not before the court to refrain from constitutionally protected speech or expression.
Such claims of facial overbreadth have been entertained in cases involving statutes which, by their terms, seek to regulate “only spoken words.” Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518, 520 (1972). See Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15 (1971); Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576 (1969); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444 (1969); Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568 (1942). In such cases, it has been the judgment of this Court that the possible harm to society in permitting some unprotected speech to go unpunished is outweighed by the possibility that protected speech of others may be muted and perceived grievances left to fester because of the possible inhibitory effects of overly broad statutes. Overbreadth attacks have also been allowed where the Court thought rights of association were ensnared in statutes which, by their broad sweep, might result in burdening innocent associations. See Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S. 589 (1967); United States v. Robel, 389 U. S. 258 (1967); Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500 (1964); Shelton v. Tucker, supra. Facial overbreadth claims have also been entertained where statutes, by their terms, purport to regulate the time, place, and manner of expressive or communicative conduct, see Grayned v. City of Rockford, supra, at 114-121; Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U. S., at 617-619; Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241, 249-250 (1967); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 (1940), and where such conduct has required official approval under laws that delegated stand-ardless discretionary power to local functionaries, resulting in virtually unreviewable prior restraints on First Amendment rights. See Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147 (1969); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 553-558 (1965); Kunz v. New York, 340 U. S. 290 (1951); Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444 (1938).
The consequence of our departure from traditional rules of standing in the First Amendment area is that any enforcement of a statute thus placed at issue is totally forbidden until and unless a limiting construction or partial invalidation so narrows it as to remove the seeming threat or deterrence to constitutionally protected expression. Application of the overbreadth doctrine in this manner is, manifestly, strong medicine. It has been employed by the Court sparingly and only as a last resort. Facial overbreadth has not been invoked when a limiting construction has been or could be placed on the challenged statute. See Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S., at 491; Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569 (1941); United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U. S. 363 (1971); cf. Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U. S. 622 (1951). Equally important, overbreadth claims, if entertained at all, have been curtailed when invoked against ordinary criminal laws that are sought to be applied to protected conduct. In Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940), Jesse Cantwell, a Jehovah’s Witness, was convicted of common-law breach of the peace for playing a phonograph record attacking the Catholic Church before two Catholic men on a New Haven street. The Court reversed the judgment affirming Cantwell’s conviction, but only on the ground that his conduct, “considered in the light of the constitutional guarantees,” could not be punished under “the common law offense in question.” Id., at 311 (footnote omitted). The Court did not hold that the offense “known as breach of the peace” must fall in toto because it was capable of some unconstitutional applications, and, in fact, the Court seemingly envisioned its continued use against “a great variety of conduct destroying or menacing public order and tranquility.” Id., at 308. See Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U. S. 157, 202-203, 205 (1961) (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment). Similarly, in reviewing the statutory breach-of-the-peace convictions involved in Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229 (1963), and Cox v. Louisiana, supra, at 544-552, the Court considered in detail the State’s evidence and in each case concluded that the conduct at issue could not itself be punished under a breach-of-the-peace statute. On that basis, the judgments affirming the convictions were reversed. See also Teamsters Union v. Vogt, Inc., 354 U. S. 284 (1957). Additionally, overbreadth scrutiny has generally been somewhat less rigid in the context of statutes regulating conduct in the shadow of the First Amendment, but doing so in a neutral, noncensorial manner. See United States v. Harriss, 347 U. S. 612 (1964); United States v. CIO, 335 U. S. 106 (1948); cf. Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367 (1969); Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 565 n. 1 (1968); Eastern Railroad Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc., 365 U. S. 127 (1961).
It remains a "matter of no little difficulty” to determine when a law may properly be held void on its face and when “such summary action” is inappropriate. Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U. S. 611, 617 (1971) (opinion of Black, J.). But the plain import of our cases is, at the very least, that facial overbreadth adjudication is an exception to our traditional rules of practice and that its function, a limited one at the outset, attenuates as the otherwise unprotected behavior that it forbids the State to sanction moves from “pure speech” toward conduct and that conduct — even if expressive — falls within the scope of otherwise valid criminal laws that reflect legitimate state interests in maintaining comprehensive controls over harmful, constitutionally unprotected conduct. Although such laws, if too broadly worded, may deter protected speech to some unknown extent, there comes a point where that effect — at best a prediction — cannot, with confidence, justify invalidating a statute on its face and so prohibiting a State from enforcing the statute against conduct that is admittedly within its power to proscribe. Cf. Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165, 174—175 (1969). To put the matter another way, particularly where conduct and not merely speech is involved, we believe that the overbreadth of a statute must not only be real, but substantial as well, judged in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep. It is our view that § 818 is not substantially overbroad and that whatever overbreadth may exist should be cured through case-by-case analysis of the fact situations to which its sanctions, assertedly, may not be applied.
Unlike ordinary breach-of-the-peace statutes or other broad regulatory acts, § 818 is directed, by its terms, at political expression which if engaged in by private persons would plainly be protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. But at the same time, § 818 is not a censorial statute, directed at particular groups or viewpoints. Cf. Keyishian v. Board of Regents, supra. The statute, rather, seeks to regulate political activity in an even-handed and neutral manner. As indicated, such statutes have in the past been subject to a less exacting overbreadth scrutiny. Moreover, the fact remains that § 818 regulates a substantial spectrum of conduct that is as manifestly subject to state regulation as the public peace or criminal trespass. This much was established in United Public Workers v. Mitchell, and has been unhesitatingly reaffirmed today in Letter Carriers, supra. Under the decision in Letter Carriers, there is no question that § 818 is valid at least insofar as it forbids classified employees from: soliciting contributions for partisan candidates, political parties, or other partisan political purposes; becoming members of national, state, or local committees of political parties, or officers or committee members in partisan political clubs, or candidates for any paid public office; taking part in the management or affairs of any political party’s partisan political campaign; serving as delegates or alternates to caucuses or conventions of political parties; addressing or taking an active part in partisan political rallies or meetings; soliciting votes or assisting voters at the polls or helping in a partisan effort to get voters to the polls; participating in the distribution of partisan campaign literature; initiating or circulating partisan nominating petitions; or riding in caravans for any political party or partisan political candidate.
These proscriptions are taken directly from the contested paragraphs of § 818, the Rules of the State Personnel Board and its interpretive circular, and the authoritative opinions of the State Attorney General. Without question, the conduct appellants have been charged with falls squarely within these proscriptions.
Appellants assert that § 818 goes much farther than these prohibitions. According to appellants, the statute’s prohibitions are not tied tightly enough to partisan political conduct and impermissibly relegate employees to expressing their political views “privately.” The State Personnel Board, however, has construed § 818’s explicit approval of “private” political expression to include virtually any expression not within the context of active partisan political campaigning, and the State’s Attorney General, in plain terms, has interpreted § 818 as prohibiting “clearly partisan political activity” only. Surely a court cannot be expected to ignore these authoritative pronouncements in determining the breadth of a statute. Law Students Research Council v. Wadmond, 401 U. S. 154, 162-163 (1971). Appellants further point to the Board’s interpretive rules purporting to restrict such allegedly protected activities as the wearing of political buttons or the use of bumper stickers. It may be that such restrictions are impermissible and that § 818 may be susceptible of some other improper applications. But, as presently construed, we do not believe that § 818 must be discarded in toto because some persons’ arguably protected conduct may or may not be caught or chilled by the statute. Section 818 is not substantially over-broad and is not, therefore, unconstitutional on its face.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The section reads as follows :
“[1] No person in the classified service shall be appointed to, or demoted or dismissed from any position in the classified service, or in any way favored or discriminated against with respect to employment in the classified service because of his political or religious opinions or affiliations, or because of race, creed, color or national origin or by reason of any physical handicap so long as the physical handicap does not prevent or render the employee less able to do the work for which he is employed.
“[2] No person shall use or promise to use, directly or indirectly, any official authority or influence, whether possessed or anticipated, to secure or attempt to secure for any person an appointment or advantage in appointment to a position in the classified service, or an increase in pay or other advantage in employment in any such position, for the purpose of influencing the vote or political action of any person, or for consideration; provided, however, that letters of inquiry, recommendation and reference by public employees of public officials shall not be considered official authority or influence unless such letter contains a threat, intimidation, irrelevant, derogatory or false information.
“[3] No person shall make any false statement, certificate, mark, rating, or report with regard to any test, certification or appointment made under any provision of this Act or in any manner commit any fraud preventing the impartial execution of this Act and rules made hereunder.
“[4] No employee of the department, examiner, or other person shall defeat, deceive, or obstruct any person in his or her right to examination, eligibility, certification, or appointment under this law, or furnish to any person any special or secret information for the purpose of effecting [sic] the rights or prospects of any person with respect to employment in the classified service.
“[5] No person shall, directly or indirectly, give, render, pay, offer, solicit, or accept any money, service, or other valuable consideration for or on account of any appointment, proposed appointment, promotion, or proposed promotion to, or any advantage in, a position in the classified service.
“[6] No employee in the classified service, and no member of the Personnel Board shall, directly or indirectly, solicit, receive, or in any manner be concerned in soliciting or receiving any assessment, subscription or contribution for any political organization, candidacy or other political purpose; and no state officer or state employee in the unclassified service shall solicit or receive any such assessment, subscription or contribution from an employee in the classified service.
“[7] No employee in the classified service shall be a member of any national, state or local committee of a political party, or an officer or member of a committee of a partisan political club, or a candidate for nomination or election to any paid public office, or shall take part in the management or affairs of any political party or in any political campaign, except to exercise his right as a citizen privately to express his opinion and to cast his vote.
“[8] Upon a showing of substantial evidence by the Personnel Director that any officer or employee in the state classified service, has knowingly violated any of the provisions of this Section, the State Personnel Board shall notify the officer or employee so charged and the appointing authority under whose jurisdiction the officer or employee serves. If the officer or employee so desires, the State Personnel Board shall hold a public hearing, or shall authorize the Personnel Director to hold a public hearing, and submit a transcript thereof, together with a recommendation, to the State Personnel Board. Relevant witnesses shall be allowed to be present and testify at such hearings. If the officer or employee shall be found guilty by the State Personnel Board of the violation of any provision of this Section, the Board shall direct the appointing authority to dismiss such officer or employee; and the appointing authority so directed shall comply.” Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 74, § 818 (1965) (paragraph enumeration added).
See Ala. Code, Tit. 55, § 317 (1958); Alaska Stat. § 39.25.160 (1962); Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-1301 (1956), Merit System Regulations and Merit System Board Procedures § 1511 (1966); Ark. Stat. Ann. § 83-119 (1947); Cal. Govt. Code §§ 19730-19735 (1963 and Supp. 1973); Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 26-5-31 (1963), Civil Service Comm’n Rules and Regulations, Art. XIV, § 1; Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. § 5-266 (Supp. 1969), Regulations of the Civil Service Comm’n Concerning Employees in the State Classified Service § 14^13; Del. Code Ann., Tit. 31, § 110 (1953); Fla. Stat. Ann. § 110.092 (1973); Ga. Merit System of Personnel Administration, Rules and Regulations, Rule 3, ¶¶ 3.101-3.106; Hawaii Rev. Stat. §§ 76-1,76-91 (1968); Idaho Code § 67-5311 (1973); Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 24%, § 38t (1971); Ind. Ann. Stat. § 60-1341 (1962); Iowa Code Ann. § 19A.18 (Supp. 1973); Kan. Stat. Ann. §75-2953 (1969); Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §18.310 (1971); La. Const., Art. 14, § 15 (N) (1955); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 5, § 679 (1964); Md. Merit System Rules for Grant-in-Aid Agencies § 602.2; Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., c. 55, §§ 1-15, c. 56, §§ 35-36 (1958 and Supp. 1973); Mich. Rules of Civil Service Comm’n §7 (1965); Minn. Stat. Ann. §43.28 (1970); Miss. Merit System Rules, Dept, of Public Welfare, Art. XVI (1965); Mo. Ann. Stat. § 36.150 (1969); Mont. Rev. Codes Ann. §§94-1439, 94^1440, 94-1447,94-1476 (1947); Neb. Rev. Stat. § 81-1315 (1971), Neb. Joint Merit System Regulations for a Merit System, Art. XVI (1963); Nev. Rules for State Personnel Administration, Rules XVI, XIII (1963); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§98:18, 98:19 (1964); N. J. Stat. Ann. § 11:17-2 (1960); N. M. Stat. Ann. § 5-4r-42 (1953 and Supp. 1971); N. Y. Civ. Serv. Law § 107 (1973); N. C. Gen. Stat. §§ 126-13 to 126-15 (Supp. 1971); Rules and Regulations of N. D. Merit Systems, Art. XVI; Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 143.41, 143.44, 143.45, 143.46 (1969); Ore. Rev. Stat. § 260.432 (1971); Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 71, § 741.904 (Supp. 1973-1974); R. I. Gen. Laws Ann. §§ 36-4^51 to 36-4^53 (1969); S. C. Merit System Rules and Regulations, Civil Defense Council, Art. XIV, § 1; S. D. Merit System Regulations, Art. XVI, § 1 (1963); Tenn. Code Ann. §8-3121 (Supp. 1971), Tenn. Rules and Regulations for Administering the Civil Service Act §2.3 (1963); Tex. Penal Code, Arts. 195-197 (1952); Utah Code Ann. § 67-13-13 (1968); Vt. Rules and Regulations for Personnel Administration §3.02; Va. Supp. to Rules for the Administration of the Va. Personnel Act, Rule 15.14 (A); Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 41-06-250 (1969); W. Va. Code Ann. § 29-6-19 (1971); Wis. Stat. Ann. § 16.30 (1972); Wyo. Rev. Rules and Regulations, Rule XIII (1960). (For compilation of state rules and regulations, see 2 Commission on Political Activity of Government Personnel, Research 122 et seq. (1967).)
5 U. S. C. § 7324 (a). See generally CSC v. Letter Carriers, ante, p. 548.
Brief for Appellants 22.
Appellants also claim that § 818 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by singling out classified service employees for restrictions on partisan political expression while leaving unclassified personnel free from such restrictions. The contention is somewhat odd in the context of appellants’ principal claim, which is that § 818 reaches too far rather than not far enough. In any event, the legislature must have some leeway in determining which of its employment positions require restrictions on partisan political activities and which may be left unregulated. See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420 (1961). And a State can hardly be faulted for attempting to limit the positions upon which such restrictions are placed.
Only the sixth and seventh paragraphs of § 818 are at issue in this lawsuit. Hereinafter, references to § 818 should be understood to be limited to those paragraphs, unless we indicate to the contrary.
It is significant in this respect to note that § 818 does not create a “regulatory maze” where those uncertain may become hopelessly lost. See Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S. 589, 604 (1967). Rather, the State Personnel Board is available to rule in advance on the permissibility of particular conduct under the explicit standards set out in and under § 818. See Tr. of Rec. 237. See CSC v. Letter Carriers, ante, at 580.
Tr. of Oral Arg. 48-49.
The District Court initially requested the parties to brief the question whether appellants were required to complete the Board’s proceedings prior to bringing their action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. The Board, however, on appellants’ application, ordered its proceedings stayed pending adjudication of the federal constitutional questions in the District Court. When advised of the Board’s decision, and in the absence of any objections from appellees, the District Court proceeded. On this record, we need not consider whether appellants would have been required to proceed to hearing before the Board prior to pursuing their § 1983 action. Cf. Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U. S. 564, 574-575 (1973); H. Hart & H. Wechsler, The Federal Courts and The Federal System 983-985 (2d ed. 1973).
The State Personnel Board has so interpreted § 818. See Merit System of Personnel Administration Rules § 1641; the Board's official circular, Tr. of Rec. 237.
Tr. of Oral Arg. 48-49.
See generally Hart & Wechsler, supra, at 184-214; Sedler, Standing to Assert Constitutional Jus Tertii in the Supreme Court, 71 Yale L. J. 599 (1962); Note, The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 844 (1970).
In both Edwards and Cox, at the very end of the discussions, the Court also noted that the statutes would be facially unconstitutional for overbreadth. See 372 U. S. 229, 238; 379 U. S. 536, 551—552. In Cox, the Court termed this discussion an “additional reason” for its reversal. 379 U. S., at 551. These “additional” holdings were unnecessary to the dispositions of the cases, so much so that only one Member of this Court relied on Cox’s “additional” holding in Brown v. Louisiana, 383 U. S. 131 (1966), which involved convictions under the very same breach-of-the-peace statute. See id., at 143-150 (BreNNAN, J., concurring in judgment).
My Brother BhennaN asserts that in some sense a requirement of substantial overbreadth is already implicit in the doctrine. Post, at 630. This is a welcome, observation. It perhaps reduces our differences to our differing views of whether the Oklahoma statute is substantially overbroad. The dissent also insists that Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U. S. 611 (1971), must be taken as overruled. But we are unpersuaded that Coates stands as a barrier to a rule that would invalidate statutes for overbreadth only when the flaw is a substantial concern in the context of the statute as a whole. Our judgment is that the Oklahoma statute, when authoritative administrative constructions are accepted, is not invalid under such a rule.
The Board's interpretive circular states (Tr. of Rec. 237): “The right to express political opinions is reserved to all such persons. Note: This reservation is subject to the prohibition that such persons may not take active part in political management or in political campaigns.”
Op. Atty. Gen. Okla., No. 68-356, p. 4 (1968). The District Court similarly interpreted § 818 as intending to permit public expressions of political opinion “so long as the employee does not channel his activity towards party success.” 338 F. Supp. 711, 716. Although the Court’s interpretation is obviously not binding oh state authorities, see United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U. S. 363, 369 (1971), a federal court must determine what a state statute means before it can judge its facial constitutionality. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state associated with the respondent. If the respondent is a federal court or federal judge, note the "state" as the United States. The same holds for other federal employees or officials. | What state is associated with the respondent? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
41
] | sc_respondentstate |
HEIDER, ADMINISTRATOR v. MICHIGAN SUGAR CO.
No. 48.
Argued December 8, 1966.
Decided December 12, 1966.
Gregory M. Pillon argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Thomas C. Mayer.
Harry M. Plotkin argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Carl H. Smith.
Per Curiam.
The writ is dismissed as improvidently granted. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the petitioner of the case. The petitioner is the party who petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. This party is variously known as the petitioner or the appellant. Characterize the petitioner as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the petitioner by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the petitioner is actually single entity or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single petitioner, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the petitioner of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
136
] | sc_petitioner |
PIPER et al. v. CHRIS-CRAFT INDUSTRIES, INC.
No. 75-353.
Argued October 6, 1976
Decided February 23, 1977
Burger, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stewart, White, Marshall, Powell, and Rehnquist, JJ., joined. Blackmun, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 48. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Brennan, J., joined, post, p. 53.
Paul G. Pennoyer, Jr., argued the cause for petitioners in No. 75-353. With him on the briefs was Zachary Shimer. David W. Peck argued the cause for petitioner in No. 75-354. With him on the briefs were Arthur H. Dean, John F. Arning, John L. Warden, Charles W. Sullivan, and Louis Loss. Lloyd N. Cutler argued the cause for petitioners in No. 75-355. With him on the briefs were Manuel F. Cohen, Louis R. Cohen, Stephen F. Black, William T. Lake, Michael S. Helfer, William J. Kolasky, Jr., James V. Ryan, Roger L. Waldman, Charles Alan Wright, Dudley C. Phillips, and John J. Martin.
Arthur L. Liman argued the cause for respondent in all three cases. With him on the brief were Simon H. Rifkind, Stuart Robinowitz, and Jack C. Auspitz.
Together with No. 75-354, First Boston Corp. v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., and No. 75-355, Bangor Punta Corp. et al. v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., also on certiorari to the same court.
Harvey L. Pitt and David Ferber filed a brief for the Securities and Exchange Commission as amicus curiae urging affirmance in all cases.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in these cases, 425 U. S. 910 (1976), to consider, among other issues, whether an unsuccessful tender offeror in a contest for control of a corporation has an implied cause of action for damages under § 14 (e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as added by § 3 of the Williams Act of 1968, 82 Stat. 457, 15 U. S. C. § 78n (e), or under Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 10b-6, 17 CFR § 240.10b-6 (1976), based on alleged antifraud violations by the successful competitor, its investment adviser, and individuals constituting the management of the target corporation.
I
Background
The factual background of this complex contest for control, including the protracted litigation culminating in the cases now before us, is essential to a full understanding of the contending parties’ claims.
The three petitions present questions of first impression, arising out of a “sophisticated and hard fought contest” for control of Piper Aircraft Corp., a Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of light aircraft. Piper’s management consisted principally of members of the Piper family, who owned 31% of Piper’s outstanding stock. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., a diversified manufacturer of recreational products, attempted to secure voting control of Piper through cash and exchange tender offers for Piper common stock. Chris-Craft’s takeover attempt failed, and Bangor Punta Corp. (Bangor or Bangor Punta), with the support of the Piper family, obtained control of Piper in September 1969. Chris-Craft brought suit under § 14 (e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-6 alleging that Bangor Punta achieved control of the target corporation as a result of violations of the federal securities laws by the Piper family, Bangor Punta, and Bangor Punta’s underwriter, First Boston Corp., who together had sucessfully repelled Chris-Craft’s takeover attempt.
The struggle for control of Piper began in December 1968. At that time, Chris-Craft began making cash purchases of Piper common stock. By January 22, 1969, Chris-Craft had acquired 203,700 shares, or approximately 13% of Piper’s 1,644,790 outstanding shares. On the next day, following unsuccessful preliminary overtures to Piper by Chris-Craft’s president, Herbert Siegel, Chris-Craft publicly announced a cash tender offer for up to 300,000 Piper shares at $65 per share, which was approximately $12 above the then-current market price. Responding promptly to Chris-Craft’s bid, Piper’s management met on the same day with the company’s investment banker, First Boston, and other advisers. On January 24, the Piper family decided to oppose Chris-Craft’s tender offer. As part of its resistance to Chris-Craft’s takeover campaign, Piper management sent several letters to the company’s stockholders during January 25-27, arguing against acceptance of Chris-Craft’s offer. On January 27, a letter to shareholders from W. T. Piper, Jr., president of the company, stated that the Piper Board “has carefully studied this offer and is convinced that it is inadequate and not in the best interests of Piper’s shareholders.”
In addition to communicating with shareholders, Piper entered into an agreement with Grumman Aircraft Corp. on January 29, whereby Grumman agreed to purchase 300,000 authorized but unissued Piper shares at $65 per share. The agreement increased the amount of stock necessary for Chris-Craft to secure control and thus rendered Piper less vulnerable to Chris-Craft’s attack. A Piper press release and letter to shareholders announced the Grumman transaction but failed to state either that Grumman had a “put” or option to sell the shares back to Piper at cost, plus interest, or that Piper was required to maintain the proceeds of the transaction in a separate fund free from liens.
Despite Piper’s opposition, Chris-Craft succeeded in acquiring 304,606 shares by the time its cash tender offer expired on February 3. To obtain the additional 17% of Piper stock needed for control, Chris-Craft decided to make an exchange offer of Chris-Craft securities for Piper stock. Although Chris-Craft filed a registration statement and preliminary prospectus with the SEC in late February 1969, the exchange offer did not go into effect until May 15, 1969.
In the meantime, Chris-Craft made cash purchases of Piper stock on the open market until Mr. Siegel, the company’s president, was expressly warned by SEC officials that such purchases, when made during the pendency of an exchange offer, violated SEC Rule 10b-6. At Mr. Siegel’s direction, Chris-Craft immediately complied with the SEC’s directive and canceled all outstanding orders for purchases of Piper stock.
While Chris-Craft’s exchange offer was in registration, Piper in March 1969 terminated the agreement with Grumman and entered into negotiations with Bangor Punta. Bangor had initially been contacted by First Boston about the possibility of a Piper takeover in the wake of Chris-Craft’s initial cash tender offer in January. With Grumman out of the picture, the Piper family agreed on May 8, 1969, to exchange their 31% stockholdings in Piper for Bangor Punta securities. Bangor also agreed to use its best efforts to achieve control of Piper by means of an exchange offer of Bangor securities for Piper common stock. A press release issued the same day announced the terms of the agreement, including a provision that the forthcoming exchange offer would involve Bangor securities to be valued, in the judgment of First Boston, “at not less than $80 per Piper share.”
While awaiting the effective date of its exchange offer, Bangor in mid-May 1969 purchased 120,200 shares of Piper stock in privately negotiated, off-exchange transactions from three large institutional investors. All three purchases were made after the SEC’s issuance of a release on May 5 announcing proposed Rule 10b-13, a provision which, upon becoming effective in November 1969, would expressly prohibit a tender offeror from making purchases of the target company’s stock during the pendency of an exchange offer. The SEC release stated that the proposed rule was “in effect, a codification of existing interpretations under Rule 10b-6,” the provision invoked by SEC officials against Mr. Siegel of Chris-Craft a month earlier. Bangor officials, although aware of the release at the time of the three off-exchange purchases, made no attempt to secure an exemption for the transactions from the SEC, as provided by Rule 10b-6 (f). The SEC, however, took no action concerning these purchases as it had with respect to Chris-Craft’s open-market transactions.
With these three block purchases, amounting to 7% of Piper stock, Bangor Punta in mid-May took the lead in the takeover contest. The contest then centered upon the competing exchange offers. Chris-Craft’s first exchange offer, which began in mid-May 1969, failed to produce tenders of the specified minimum number of Piper shares (80,000). Meanwhile, Bangor Punta’s exchange offer, which had been announced on May 8, became effective on July 18. The registration materials which Bangor filed with the SEC in connection with the exchange offer included financial statements, reviewed by First Boston, representing that one of Bangor’s subsidiaries, the Bangor & Aroostock Railroad (BAR), had a value of $18.4 million. This valuation was based upon a 1965 appraisal by investment bankers after a proposed sale of the BAR failed to materialize. The financial statements did not indicate that Bangor was considering the sale of the BAR or that an offer to purchase the railroad for $5 million had been received.
In the final phase of the see-saw of competing offers, Chris-Craft modified the terms of its previously unsuccessful exchange offer to make it more attractive. The revised offer succeeded in attracting 112,089 additional Piper shares, while Bangor’s exchange offer, which terminated on July 29, resulted in the tendering of 110,802 shares. By August 4, 1969, at the conclusion of both offers, Bangor Punta owned a total of 44.5%, while Chris-Craft owned 40.6% of Piper stock. The remainder of Piper stock, 14.9%, remained in the hands of the public.
After completion of their respective exchange offers, both companies renewed market purchases of Piper stock, but Chris-Craft, after purchasing 29,200 shares for cash in mid-August, withdrew from competition. Bangor Punta continued making cash purchases until September 5, by which time it had acquired a majority interest in Piper. The final tally in the nine-month takeover battle showed that Bangor Punta held over 50% and Chris-Craft held 42% of Piper stock.
II
Before either side had achieved control, the contest moved from the marketplace to the courts. Then began more than seven years of complex litigation growing out of the contest for control of Piper Aircraft.
A
Chris-Craft’s Initial Suit May 22, 1969
On May 22, 1969, Chris-Craft filed suit seeking both damages and injunctive relief in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Chris-Craft alleged that Bangor’s block purchases of 120,200 Piper shares in mid-May violated Rule 10b-6 and that Bangor’s May 8 press release, announcing an $80 valuation of Bangor securities to be offered in the forthcoming exchange offer, violated SEC “gun-jumping” provisions, 15 U. S. C. § 77e (c), and SEC Rule 135, 17 CFR § 230.135 (1976). Chris-Craft sought to enjoin Bangor from voting the Piper shares purchased in violation of Rule 10b-6 and from accepting any shares tendered by Piper stockholders pursuant to the exchange offer.
B
District Court Decision on Preliminary Injunction August 19, 1969
On July 22, 1969, Chris-Craft moved for a preliminary injunction against Bangor. In an opinion filed August 19, 1969, United States District Judge Charles Tenney denied relief. Judge Tenney concluded, first, that the May 8 press release had not violated the gun-jumping provisions, and, second, that Bangor’s block purchases of Piper stock were not inconsistent with Rule 10b-6.
“Bangor Punta’s cash purchases . . . , effected neither on the Exchange nor from or through a broker or dealer, were obviously not designed to place market pressures on the distribution price of Piper, so as to create an artificially high price for this security.” 303 F. Supp. 191, 198. (Emphasis supplied.)
Judge Tenney, accordingly, concluded that neither irreparable injury nor likelihood of probable success on the merits had been established, particularly since the contest for control was still open.
“[B]oth the Chris-Craft and Bangor Punta exchange offers have expired. Neither party has gained control of Piper, and both are still in a position to do so.” Id., at 199.
C
Court of Appeals’ Decision on Preliminary Injunction April 28, 1970
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed Judge Tenney’s denial of injunctive relief. 426 F. 2d 569 (1970). In an opinion by Judge Waterman, the court held that Bangor had properly been allowed to continue soliciting Piper stock.
“Chris-Craft was free [at the time of the District Court’s decision] to compete equally with Bangor Punta for the remaining Piper shares, and it did so. We do not understand Chris-Craft to allege that prior misdeeds of Bangor Punta so determined the course of the competition . . . that Chris-Craft was placed at any real disadvantage.” Id., at 573.
The court concluded, however, that Bangor had violated SEC “gun-jumping” provisions and Rule 10b-6, unless the three block purchases fell within an established exemption to the Rule.
Chief Judge Lumbard in dissent agreed that injunctive relief was unwarranted, but also accepted the District Court’s determination that Bangor had not violated the securities laws. Id., at 579.
The Court of Appeals remanded the case for further proceedings, so that Bangor, among other things, could attempt to establish that its block purchases fell within an exemption to Rule 10b-6.
D
District Court Decision on SEC Injunction August 25, 1971
While Chris-Craft’s private suit was pending, the SEC sought an injunction against Bangor on account of the BAR omission in Bangor’s registration statement. The SEC sought both an offer of rescission to Piper shareholders who accepted Bangor’s exchange offer and an injunction against Bangor from violating the Securities Act of 1933 and the 1934 Act.
In an opinion by Judge Pollack, the District Court concluded that Bangor’s registration statement was unintentionally misleading by virtue of the failure to disclose the fact that an offer had been received for the sale of the BAR. Accordingly, the court required Bangor to offer rescission to tendering Piper shareholders; however, the District Court refused to grant an injunction against future violations of the securities laws on the ground that the SEC had failed to establish that Bangor and its officials had a “propensity or natural inclination to violate the securities law.” SEC v. Bangor Punta Corp., 331 F. Supp. 1154, 1163 (1971).
E
District Court Decision on Liability December 10, 1971
On remand from the Court of Appeals, Chris-Craft’s private action also came before Judge Pollack. Although its second amended complaint, which added a claim based on the BAR omission, sought both damages and injunctive relief, Chris-Craft at a pretrial hearing expressly abandoned its prayer for equitable relief; the case was thereafter treated solely as an action for damages. 337 F. Supp. 1128, 1136 n. 8.
Following trial before the District Court without a jury, Judge Pollack in December 1971 dismissed Chris-Craft’s complaint against all defendants. In an exhaustive opinion, he concluded that Chris-Craft had standing to seek damages for Bangor’s Rule 10b-6 violations, 337 F. Supp., at 1133, but found it unnecessary to decide whether § 14 (e) could be invoked by one competitor for corporate control against another. 337 F. Supp., at 1134.
On the merits, the District Court held that the Piper communications characterizing Chris-Craft’s cash tender offer as “inadequate” were not misleading. The court concluded that the “more rational” view was that the statements referred to factors other than price, such as Piper’s views as to the quality of Chris-Craft’s management. Id., at 1135. The court also rejected Chris-Craft’s contention that it had been injured by the omission in the Grumman press release concerning the “put” or option provision in the agreement. The District Court concluded that Piper’s complete description of the provision in a listing application with the New York Stock Exchange, coupled with Chris-Craft’s major acquisitions of Piper stock after learning of the “put,” undermined Chris-Craft’s claim that it was misled or otherwise injured by the announcement of the Grumman transaction. Ibid.
With respect to the May 8 press release, which the Court of Appeals had held violative of the “gun-jumping” rules, the District Court held that the release, although technically a violation, was not false or misleading. Moreover, Chris-Craft had failed to show that it was injured or disadvantaged by the release in its efforts to acquire Piper stock. Id., at 1137.
As to the claim of a misleading valuation of the BAR, Judge Pollack held that Chris-Craft failed to show either scienter or causation as required in a damages action under the 1934 Act’s antifraud provisions. Scienter was not established, the court concluded, since the BAR omission was “mere negligent omission or misstatement of fact.” Id., at 1140. As to causation, the District Court specifically distinguished this Court’s decision in Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U. S. 375 (1970), which established a presumption of causation in a § 14 (a) suit by minority shareholders challenging misleading proxy materials. The omission in the proxy statement in that case, the District Court reasoned, directly affected the shareholders on whose behalf the suit was brought:
“It was in that particular context that the Supreme Court deemed sufficient a set of facts under which shareholders could be misled. This does not aid Chris-Craft as it is seeking to recover because of the effect which a misstatement allegedly had on third parties.” 337 F. Supp., at 1139. (Emphasis in original.) (Footnote omitted.)
Given the differences between the instant case and Mills, the District Court went on to hold that proof of actual causation was required:
“There is no proof that a single exchanging Piper shareholder would have refrained from the exchange and taken an offer for his shares from Chris-Craft instead of that from Bangor Punta. In a damage suit, as distinct from one for equitable relief, such proof is essential to sustain a 10b-5 claim.” Ibid. (Emphasis in original.)
On Chris-Craft’s Rule 10b-6 claim, Judge Pollack held that, although the block purchases did not fall within any exemption to the Rule, Chris-Craft had no right to recovery:
“Even granting that the block purchases resulted arithmetically in Bangor Punta’s achievement of control, there is no basis for concluding that, absent Bangor Punta’s acquisition of these blocks, Chris-Craft would have achieved its goal of control.” Id., at 1142.
Based on its findings with respect to Piper and Bangor Punta, the District Court also held in favor of First Boston; the court specifically exonerated the firm of having “committed, or engaged in any course of conduct which operated as a fraud or deceit upon Chris-Craft or the public shareholders of Piper.” Id., at 1145.
F
Court of Appeals Decision on Liability March 16, 1973
Chris-Craft appealed, and the SEC sought review of the District Court’s denial of injunctive relief against Bangor Punta. In the Court of Appeals, each member of the panel wrote separately. All three members of the panel agreed that Chris-Craft had standing to sue for damages under § 14 (e) and that a claim for damages had been established. However, Judges Gurfein and Mansfield, over Judge Timbers’ dissent, sustained the District Court’s denial of an injunction against Bangor.
Court of Appeals Majority Opinion
The Court of Appeals directly answered the question concerning Chris-Craft’s standing under § 14 (e), which the District Court had not decided. The Court of Appeals based its holding “on the statute itself [§ 14(e)] and such decisional law as there is that has touched on the question.” 480 F. 2d 341, 358. The opinion noted that the Second Circuit had on four occasions addressed the issue whether a private cause of action might be implied under § 14(e). Although acknowledging that no case represented a square holding in this respect, the court interpreted the cases to intimate “that such an implied right of action would be reasonable.” 480 F. 2d, at 360. The court then noted that Chris-Craft could likely state a common-law tort claim in state court for “interference with a ‘prospective advantage.’ ” Ibid.
“We will not infer from the silence of the statute that Congress intended to deny a federal remedy and to extinguish a liability which, under established principles of tort law, normally attends the doing of a proscribed act.” Id., at 360-361.
With respect to the legislative history of § 14 (e), the Court of Appeals expressly acknowledged that the focus of congressional concern was the protection of public shareholders. Given this purpose, the court concluded:
“We can conceive of no more effective means of furthering the general objective of § 14 (e) than to grant a victim of violations of the statute standing to sue for damages. . . . Particularly in light of the enforcement rationale of [J. I. Case Co. v.] Borak, [377 U. S. 426 (1964),] we believe it is both necessary and appropriate that [Chris-Craft] should be granted standing to sue for damages.” 480 F. 2d, at 361.
The court next reviewed the alleged § 14 (e) violations for which Chris-Craft sought damages. In contrast to the District Court's conclusions, the Court of Appeals held that Piper’s description of the Chris-Craft offer as “inadequate” and the failure to disclose the “put” provision in the Grumman agreement constituted actionable violations of § 14 (e). 480 F. 2d, at 364-365. As to Bangor Punta, the Court of Appeals agreed with Judge Pollack's determination that Chris-Craft had not been injured by the “gun-jumping” press release of May 8; on the other hand, the court held that the BAR omission in Bangor’s registration statement was actionable. The Court of Appeals expressly rejected Judge Pollack's conclusion that the registration statement was “unintentionally in error.” On the contrary, the Court of Appeals held that Bangor Punta’s officers “showed reckless disregard” in failing to disclose the BAR negotiations, although the court conceded that the officers were not shown to have had an “intent to defraud.” Id., at 369. First Boston was likewise held culpable because its certification of the registration statement “amounted to an almost complete abdication of its responsibility [as an underwriter] . . . .” Id., at 373.
The Court of Appeals also disagreed with the District Court’s analysis of causation. Although agreeing that Chris-Craft failed to show that it would have won the takeover battle, the court relied upon Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U. S. 375 (1970), as establishing a presumption of reliance and causation applicable to Chris-Craft. Under Mills, so the court held, “we must presume that [Bangor’s] offer was not so appealing, considering the BAR loss, as to have attracted any takers.” 480 F. 2d, at 375.
“Since [Bangor] eventually acquired only about 51% of the outstanding Piper shares, it is clear that the 7% acquired through its exchange offer was critical to its success. Reliance and causation have been shown.” Ibid.
In addition to the § 14 (e) claim, the Court of Appeals held that Chris-Craft could recover damages for Bangor’s Rule 10b-6 violations; the three block purchases had a “presumptively . . . stimulating effect . . . which misled the public.” 480 F. 2d, at 378. Since those purchases amounted to 7% of Piper stock, “[e]ven arithmetically, it is apparent that the block purchases [by Bangor Punta] . . . were essential to achieve control.” Id., at 379.
The Court of Appeals then remanded with directions to the District Court to award damages in the amount of “the reduction in the appraisal value of [Chris-Craft’s] Piper holdings attributable to [Bangor Punta’s] taking a majority position and reducing [Chris-Craft] to a minority position. . . .” Id., at 380. Damages were to be awarded against all defendants jointly and severally. In addition, without discussing Chris-Craft’s abandonment of its claim for equitable relief, the court instructed the District Court to enjoin Bangor for a period of at least five years from voting the Piper shares acquired through the exchange offer and in violation of Rule 10b-6. Ibid.
Finally, Judge Timbers, writing in dissent on this issue, disagreed with the conclusion of Judges Mansfield and Gurfein that the SEC request for an injunction against future violations by Bangor Punta had properly been refused. In Judge Timbers’ view, the District Court employed an improper legal standard in denying the SEC injunctive relief against Bangor.
The cash tender offer indicated that Chris-Craft reserved the right to purchase shares in excess of the 300,000 specified amount.
Rule 10b-6 provides in pertinent part:
“(a) It shall constitute a ‘manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance’ as used in section 10 (b) of the act for any person,
“(1) Who is an underwriter or prospective underwriter in a particular distribution of securities, or
“(2) Who is the issuer or other person on whose behalf such a distribution is being made, or
“(3) Who is a broker, dealer, or other person who has agreed to participate or is participating in such a distribution, directly or indirectly, by the use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails, or of any facility of any national securities exchange, either alone or with one or more other persons, to bid for or purchase for any account in which he has a beneficial interest, any security which is the subject of such distribution, or any security of the same class and series, or any right to purchase any such security, or to attempt to induce any person to purchase any such security or right, until after he has completed his participation in such distribution.”
Less than three weeks later, the SEC brought an action in Federal District Court charging that the Bangor press release violated “gun-jumping” provisions, 15 U. S. C. § 77e (c), and Rule 135, 17 CFR § 230.135 (1975), by stating a specific dollar valuation for unregistered securities. Without admitting any of the allegations, Bangor and Piper consented to a permanent injunction against similar releases before the effective date of Bangor’s registration statement.
SEC Release No. 8595, May 5, 1969, CCH Fed. Sec. L. Rep. ¶ 77,706, p. 83,617.
Shortly after the contest for control was completed, Bangor entered into an agreement to sell the BAR for $5 million, thereby resulting in a $13.8 million book loss.
Since the respective distributions of securities pursuant to the exchange offers had been completed at this point, the legality of these market purchases was unchallenged.
The reason for Chris-Craft’s withdrawal from the contest is a matter in dispute. According to one view, espoused by Judge Mansfield at one stage in the ensuing litigation, Chris-Craft had “ ‘shot its bolt' in the financial sense by early February 1969 . . . . It was in no position to purchase for cash any appreciable amount of Piper shares over and above the 304,606 tendered in response to its initial cash offer.” 480 F. 2d 341, 402 (CA2 1973).
Chris-Craft’s earlier purchases, which were challenged by the SEC on the basis of Rule 10b-6, were open-market purchases. Mr. Siegel promptly stopped the purchases at the SEC’s behest. Supra, at 6.
Rule 10b-6 is set out in part at n. 2, supra. The Rule, among other things, prohibits an issuer or underwriter from purchasing any security which is the subject of a distribution. Eleven separate exemptions are created, however, including “unsolicited privately negotiated purchases [of stock] . . . effected neither on a securities exchange nor from or through a broker or dealer . . . .” 17 CFR § 240.10b-6 (a) (3) (ii) (1975).
Two other judges wrote separately. Judge Moore expressed doubts as to the majority’s legal conclusions concerning Bangor’s alleged violations. He stated that he would not pass on any issue other than the propriety of the denial of injunctive relief. Judge Anderson, while concurring, expressed separate views concerning the materiality of the $80 valuation estimate in the May 8 press release.
Judge Pollack avoided the § 14 (e) issue by ruling against Chris-Craft on the merits of its antifraud claims under Rule 10b-5, with respect to which Chris-Craft’s standing was assumed. 337 F. Supp., at 1134.
Judge Pollack “assumed” that Chris-Craft had standing under Rule 10b-5, but the Court of Appeals expressly avoided passing on that issue, since it determined that Chris-Craft had standing under § 14 (e).
Electronic Specialty Co. v. International Controls Corp., 409 F. 2d 937 (1969) (suit by a target corporation against a tender offeror for injunctive relief); Butler Aviation Int’l, Inc. v. Comprehensive Designers, Inc., 425 F. 2d 842 (1970) (suit for a preliminary injunction by a target corporation against a tender offeror); Crane Co. v. Westinghouse Air Brake Co., 419 F. 2d 787 (1969) (action for an injunction under § 10 (b) by a tender offeror against the target corporation); Iroquois Industries, Inc. v. Syracuse China Corp., 417 F. 2d 963 (1969), cert. denied, 399 U. S. 909 (1970) (action under § 10 (b) by a tender offeror against the target corporation).
The District Court had looked to whether Chris-Craft would have succeeded in securing control even if Bangor had abided by the securities laws. In its analysis of causation, the Court of Appeals expressly agreed that Chris-Craft “failed to show with reasonable certainty that it would have obtained a controlling position in Piper had it not been for the violations . . .” of Bangor and First Boston. 480 F. 2d, at 373. Nonetheless, causation was found. See generally Note, Chris-Craft: The Uncertain Evolution of Section 14 (e), 76 Colum. L. Rev. 634, 650-658 (1976). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. | What is the issue area of the decision? | [
"Criminal Procedure",
"Civil Rights",
"First Amendment",
"Due Process",
"Privacy",
"Attorneys",
"Unions",
"Economic Activity",
"Judicial Power",
"Federalism",
"Interstate Relations",
"Federal Taxation",
"Miscellaneous",
"Private Action"
] | [
7
] | sc_issuearea |
FEDERAL MARITIME COMMISSION v. SOUTH CAROLINA STATE PORTS AUTHORITY et al.
No. 01-46.
Argued February 25, 2002 —
Decided May 28, 2002
Phillip Christopher Hughey argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were David R. Miles, Amy Wright Larson, and Carol J. Neustadt.
Deputy Solicitor General Clement argued the cause for the United States, respondent under this Court’s Rule 12.6, urging reversal. On the briefs were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant Attorney General McCollum, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Malcolm L. Stewart, Mark B. Stern, and Alisa B. Klein. Warren L. Dean, Jr., argued the cause for respondent South Carolina State Ports Authority. With him on the brief were David Seidman, Jordan B. Cherrick, Elizabeth Herlong Campbell, and Susan Taylor Wall
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations by Jonathan P. Hiatt, Laurence Gold, and David L. Shapiro; for the National Association of Waterfront Employers by Charles T. Carroll, Jr., and Carl Larsen Taylor; for the United States Maritime Alliance Limited et al. by C. Peter Lambos and Donato Caruso; and for Senator Edward M. Kennedy et al. by Lloyd N. Cutler, A Stephen Hut, Jr., and Christopher J. Meade.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of Maryland et al. by J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, and Andrew H. Baida, Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Bruce M. Botelho of Alaska, Bill Lockyer of California, Ken Salazar of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Robert A Butterworth of Florida, Robert H. Kono of Guam, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Earl I. Anzai of Hawaii, James E. Ryan of Illinois, Steve Carter of Indiana, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana, G. Steven Rowe of Maine, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, John J. Farmer, Jr., of New Jersey, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Betty D. Montgomery of Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, D. Michael Fisher of Pennsylvania, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Charles M. Condon of South Carolina, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, John Cornyn of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Randolph A. Beales of Virginia, Christine O. Gregoire of Washington, Darrell V. Mc-Graw of West Virginia, and Hoke MacMillan of Wyoming; for the Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority by C. Jonathan Benner; and for the National Governors Association et al. by Richard Ruda and James I. Crowley.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether state sovereign immunity precludes petitioner Federal Maritime Commission (FMC or Commission) from adjudicating a private party’s complaint that a state-run port has violated the Shipping Act of 1984, 46 U. S. C. App. § 1701 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. V). We hold that state sovereign immunity bars such an adjudicative proceeding.
I
On five occasions, South Carolina Maritime Services, Inc. (Maritime Services), asked respondent South Carolina State Ports Authority (SCSPA) for permission to berth a cruise ship, the M/V Tropic Sea, at the SCSPA’s port facilities in Charleston, South Carolina. Maritime Services intended to offer cruises on the M/V Tropic Sea originating from the Port of Charleston. Some of these cruises would stop in the Bahamas while others would merely travel in international waters before returning to Charleston with no intervening ports of call. On all of these trips, passengers would be permitted to participate in gambling activities while on board.
The SCSPA repeatedly denied Maritime Services’ requests, contending; that it had an established policy of denying berths in the Port of Charleston to vessels whose primary purpose was gambling. As a result, Maritime Serv-. ices filed a complaint with the FMC, contending that the SCSPA’s refusal to provide berthing space to the M/V Tropic Sea violated the Shipping Act. Maritime Services alleged in its complaint that the SCSPA had implemented its anti-gambling policy in a discriminatory fashion by providing berthing space in Charleston to two Carnival Cruise Lines vessels even though Carnival offered gambling activities on these ships. Maritime Services therefore complained that the SCSPA had unduly and unreasonably preferred Carnival over Maritime Services in violation of 46 U. S. C. App. § 1709(d)(4) (1994 ed., Supp. V), and unreasonably refused to deal or negotiate with Maritime Services in violation of § 1709(b)(10). App. 14-15. It further alleged that the SCSPA’s unlawful actions had inflicted upon Maritime Services a “loss of profits, loss of earnings, loss of sales, and loss of business opportunities.” Id., at 15.
To remedy its injuries, Maritime Services prayed that the FMC: (1) seek a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina “enjoining [the SCSPA] from utilizing its discriminatory practice to refuse to provide berthing space and passenger services to Maritime Services;” (2) direct the SCSPA to pay reparations to Maritime Services as well as interest and reasonable attorneys’ fees; (3) issue an order commanding, among other things, the SCSPA to cease and desist from violating the Shipping Act; and (4) award Maritime Services “such other and further relief as is just and proper.” Id., at 16.
Consistent with the FMC’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, Maritime Services’ complaint was referred to an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). See 46 CFR §502.223 (2001). The SCSPA then filed an answer, maintaining, inter alia, that it had adhered to its antigambling policy in a nondiscriminatory manner. It also filed a motion to dismiss, asserting, as relevant, that the SCSPA, as an arm of the State of South Carolina, was “entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity” from Maritime Services’ suit. App. 41. The SCSPA argued that “the Constitution prohibits Congress from passing a statute authorizing Maritime Services to file [this] Complaint before the Commission and, thereby, sue the Staté of South Carolina for damages and injunctive relief.” Id., at 44.
The ALJ agreed, concluding that recent decisions of this Court “interpreting the 11th Amendment and State sovereign immunity from private suits . . . require[d] that [Maritime Services’] complaint be dismissed.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 49a (emphasis in original). Relying on Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44 (1996), in which we held that Congress, pursuant to its Article I powers, cannot abrogate state sovereign immunity, the ALJ reasoned that “[i]f federal courts that are established under Article III of the Constitution must respect States’ 11th Amendment immunity and Congress is powerless to override the States’ immunity under Article I of the Constitution, it is irrational to argue that an agency like the Commission, created under an Article I statute, is free to disregard the 11th Amendment or its related doctrine of State immunity from private suits.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 59a (emphasis in original). The ALJ noted, however, that his decision did not deprive the FMC of its “authority to look into [Maritime Services’] allegations of Shipping Act violations and enforce the Shipping Act.” Id., at 60a. For example, the FMC could institute its own formal investigatory proceeding, see 46 CFR §502.282 (2001), or refer Maritime Services’ allegations to its Bureau of Enforcement, App. to Pet. for Cert. 60a-61a.
While Maritime Services did not appeal the ALJ’s dismissal of its complaint, the FMC on its own motion decided to review the ALJ’s ruling to consider whether state sovereign immunity from private suits extends to proceedings before the Commission. Id., at 29a-30a. It concluded that “[t]he doctrine of state sovereign immunity ... is meant to cover proceedings before judicial tribunals, whether Federal or state, not executive branch administrative agencies like the Commission.” Id., at 33a. As a result, the FMC held that sovereign immunity did not bar the Commission from adjudicating private complaints against state-run ports and reversed the ALJ’s decision dismissing Maritime Services’ complaint. Id., at 35a.
The SCSPA filed a petition for review, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed. Observing that “any proceeding where a federal officer adjudicates disputes between private parties and unconsenting states would not have passed muster at the time of the Constitution’s passage nor after the ratification of the Eleventh Amendment,” the Court of Appeals reasoned that “[s]uch an adjudication is equally as invalid today, whether the forum be a state court, a federal court, or a federal administrative agency.” 243 F. 3d 165, 173 (2001). Reviewing the “precise nature”, of the procedures employed by the FMC for resolving private complaints, the Court of Appeals concluded that the proceeding “walks, talks, and squawks very much like a lawsuit”, and that “[i]ts placement within the Executive Branch cannot blind us to the fact that the proceeding is truly an adjudication.” Id., at 174. The Court of Appeals therefore held that because the SCSPA is an arm of the State of South Carolina, sovereign immunity precluded the FMC from adjudicating Maritime Services’ complaint, and remanded the ease with instructions that it be dismissed. Id., at 179.
We granted the FMC’s petition for certiorari, 534 U. S. 971 (2001), and now affirm.
II
Dual sovereignty is a defining feature of our Nation’s constitutional blueprint. See Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 457 (1991). States, upon ratification of the Constitution, did not consent to become mere appendages of the Federal Government. Rather, they entered the Union “with their sovereignty intact.” Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U. S. 775, 779 (1991). An integral component of that “residuary and inviolable sovereignty,” The Federalist No. 39, p. 245 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison), retained by the States is their immunity from private suits. Reflecting the widespread understanding at the time the Constitution was drafted, Alexander Hamilton explained:
“It is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the suit of an individual without its consent. This is the general sense and the general practice of mankind; and the exemption, as one of the attributes of sovereignty, is now enjoyed by the government of every State of the Union. Unless, therefore, there is a surrender of this immunity in the plan of the convention, it will remain with the States . . . .” Id., No. 81, at 487-488 (emphasis in original).
States, in ratifying the Constitution, did surrender a portion of their inherent immunity by consenting to suits brought by sister States or by the Federal Government. See Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 755 (1999). Nevertheless, the Convention did not disturb States’ immunity from private suits, thus firmly enshrining this principle in our constitutional framework. “The leading advocates of the Constitution assured the people in no uncertain terms that the Constitution would not strip the States of sovereign immunity.” Id., at 716.
The States’ sovereign immunity, however, fell into peril in the early days of our Nation’s history when this Court held in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419 (1793), that Article III authorized citizens of one State to sue another State in federal court. The “decision ‘fell upon the country with a profound shock.’ ” Alden, supra, at 720 (quoting 1 C. Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History 96 (rev. ed. 1926)). In order to overturn Chisholm, Congress quickly passed the Eleventh Amendment and the States ratified it speedily. The Amendment clarified that “[t]he Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.” We have since acknowledged that the Chisholm decision was erroneous. See, e. g., Alden, 527 U. S., at 721-722.
Instead of explicitly memorializing the full breadth of the sovereign immunity retained by the States when the Constitution was ratified, Congress chose in the text of the Eleventh Amendment only to “address the specific provisions of the Constitution that had raised concerns during the ratification debates and formed the basis of the Chisholm decision.” Id., at 723. As a result, the Eleventh Amendment does not define the scope of the States’ sovereign immunity; it is but one particular exemplification of that immunity. Cf. Blatchford, supra, at 779 (“[W]e have understood the Eleventh Amendment to stand not so much for what it says, but for the presupposition of our constitutional structure which it confirms”).
Ill
We now consider whether the sovereign immunity enjoyed by States as part of our constitutional framework applies to adjudications conducted by the FMC. Petitioner FMC and respondent United States initially maintain that the Court of Appeals erred because sovereign immunity only shields States from exercises of “judicial power” and FMC adjudications are not judicial proceedings. As support for their position, they point to the text of the Eleventh Amendment and contend that “[t]he Amendment’s reference to ‘judicial Power’ and to ‘any suit in law or equity’ clearly mark it as an immunity from judicial process.” Brief for United States 15.
For purposes of this case, we will assume, arguendo, that in adjudicating complaints filed by private parties under the Shipping Act, the FMC does not exercise the judicial power of the United States. Such an assumption, however, does not end our inquiry as this Court has repeatedly held that the sovereign immunity enjoyed by the States extends beyond the literal text of the Eleventh Amendment. See, e. g., Alden, supra (holding that sovereign immunity shields States from private suits in state courts pursuant to federal causes of action); Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U. S. 775 (1991) (applying state sovereign immunity to suits by Indian tribes); Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313 (1934) (applying state sovereign immunity to suits by foreign nations); Ex parte New York, 256 U. S. 490 (1921) (applying state sovereign immunity to admiralty proceedings); Smith v. Reeves, 178 U. S. 436 (1900) (applying state sovereign immunity to suits by federal corporations); Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890) (applying state sovereign immunity to suits by a State’s own citizens under federal-question jurisdiction). Adhering to that well-reasoned precedent, see Part II, supra, we must determine whether the sovereign immunity embedded in our constitutional structure and retained by the States when they joined the Union extends to FMC adjudicative proceedings.
A
“[L]ook[ing] first to evidence of the original understanding of the Constitution,” Alden, 527 U. S., at 741, as well as early congressional practice, see id., at 748-744, we find a relatively barren historical record, from which the parties draw radically different conclusions. Petitioner FMC, for instance, argues that state sovereign immunity should not extend to administrative adjudications because “[t]here is no evidence that state immunity from the adjudication of complaints by executive officers was an established principle at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.” Brief for Petitioner 28 (emphasis in original). The SCSPA, on the other hand, asserts that it is more relevant that “Congress did not attempt to subject the States to private suits before federal administrative tribunals” during the early days of our Republic. Brief for Respondent SCSPA 19.
In truth, the relevant history does not provide direct guidance for our inquiry. The Framers, who envisioned a limited Federal Government, could not have anticipated the vast growth of the administrative state. See Alden, supra, at 807 (Souter, J., dissenting) (“The proliferation of Government, State and Federal, would amaze the Framers, and the administrative state with its reams of regulations would leave them rubbing their eyes”). Because formalized administrative adjudications were all but unheard of in the late 18th century and early 19th century, the dearth of specific evidence indicating whether the Framers believed that the States’ sovereign immunity would apply in such proceedings is unsurprising.
This Court, however, has applied a presumption — first explicitly stated in Hans v. Louisiana, supra — that the Constitution was not intended to “raisfej up” any proceedings against the States that were “anomalous and unheard of when the Constitution was adopted.” Id., at 18. We therefore attribute great significance to the fact that States were not subject to private suits in administrative adjudications at the time of the founding or for many years thereafter. For instance, while the United States asserts that “state entities have long been subject to similar administrative enforcement proceedings,” Reply Brief for United States 12, the earliest example it provides did not occur until 1918, see id., at 14 (citing California Canneries Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., 51 I. C. C. 500 (1918)).
B
To decide whether the Hans presumption applies here, however, we must examine FMC adjudications to determine whether they are the type of proceedings from which the Framers would have thought the States possessed immunity when they agreed to enter the Union.
In another case asking whether an immunity present in the judicial context also applied to administrative adjudications, this Court considered whether ALJs share the same absolute immunity from suit as do Article III judges. See Butz v. Economou, 488 U. S. 478 (1978). Examining in that case the duties performed by an ALJ, this Court observed:
“There can be little doubt that the role of the modern federal hearing examiner or administrative law judge . . .' is ‘functionally comparable’ to that of a judge. His powers are often, if not generally, comparable to those of a trial judge: He may issue subpoenas, rule on proffers of evidence, regulate the course of the hearing, and make or recommend decisions. More importantly, the process of agency adjudication is currently structured so as to assure that the hearing examiner exercises his independent judgment on the evidence before him, free from pressures by the parties or other officials within the agency.” Id., at 513 (citation omitted).
Beyond the similarities between the role of an ALJ and that of a trial judge, this Court also noted the numerous common features shared by administrative adjudications and judicial proceedings:
“[Fjederal administrative law requires that agency adjudication contain many of the same safeguards as are available in the judicial process. The proceedings are adversary in nature. They are conducted before a trier of fact insulated from political" influence. A party is entitled to present his case by oral or documentary evidence, and the transcript of testimony and exhibits together with the pleadings constitute the exclusive record for decision. The parties are entitled to know the findings and conclusions on all of the issues of fact, law, or discretion presented on the record.” Ibid, (citations omitted).
This Court therefore concluded in Butz that AUs were “entitled to absolute immunity from damages liability for their judicial acts.” Id., at 514.
Turning to FMC adjudications specifically, neither the Commission nor the United States disputes the Court of Appeals’ characterization below that such a proceeding “walks, talks, and squawks very much like a lawsuit.” 243 F. 3d, at 174. Nor do they deny that the similarities identified in Butz between administrative adjudications and trial court proceedings are present here. See 46 CFR § 502.142 (2001).
A review of the FMC’s Rules of Practice and Procedure confirms that FMC administrative proceedings bear a remarkably strong resemblance to civil litigation in federal courts. For example, the FMC’s Rules governing pleadings are quite similar to those found in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. A case is commenced by the filing of a complaint. See 46 CFR § 502.61 (2001); Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 3. The defendant then must file an answer, generally within 20 days of the date of service of the complaint, see § 502.64(a); Rule 12(a)(1), and may also file a motion to dismiss, see § 502.227(b)(1); Rule 12(b). A defendant is also allowed to file counterclaims against the plaintiff. See § 502.64(d); Rule 13. If a defendant fails to respond to a complaint, default judgment may be entered on behalf of the plaintiff. See § 502.64(b); Rule 55. Intervention is also allowed. See §502.72; Rule 24.
Likewise, discovery in FMC adjudications largely mirrors discovery in federal civil litigation. See 46 U. S. C. App. § 1711(a)(1) (1994 ed.) (instructing that in FMC adjudicatory proceedings “discovery procedures ..., to the extent practicable, shall be in conformity with the rules applicable in civil proceedings in the district courts of the United States”). In both types of proceedings, parties may conduct depositions, see, e.g., 46 CFR §502.202 (2001); Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 28, which are governed by similar requirements. Compare §§502.202,502.203, and 502.204, with Rules 28,29,30, and 31. Parties may also discover evidence by: (1) serving written interrogatories, see §502.205; Rule 33; (2) requesting that another party either produce documents, see § 502.206(a)(1); Rule 34(a)(1), or allow entry on that party’s property for the purpose of inspecting the property or designated objects thereon, § 502.206(a)(2); Rule 34(a)(2); and (3) submitting requests for admissions, §502.207; Rule 36. And a party failing to obey discovery orders in either type of proceeding is subject to a variety of sanctions, including the entry of default judgment. See § 502.210(a); Rule 37(b)(2).
Not only are discovery procedures virtually indistinguishable, but the role of the ALJ, the impartial officer designated to hear a case, see §502.147, is similar to that of an Article III judge. An ALJ has the authority to “arrange and give notice of hearing.” Ibid. At that hearing, he may
“prescribe the order in which evidence shall be presented; dispose of procedural requests or similar matters; hear and rule upon motions; administer oaths and affirmations; examine witnesses; direct witnesses to testify or produce evidence available to them which will aid in the determination of any question of fact in issue; rule upon offers of proof... and dispose of any other matter that normally and properly arises in the course of proceedings.” Ibid.
The AU also fixes “the time and manner of filing briefs,” § 502.221(a), which contain findings of fact as well as legal argument, see § 502.221(d)(1). After the submission of these briefs, the ALJ issues a decision that includes “a statement of findings and conclusions, as well as the reasons or basis therefor, upon all the material issues presented on the record, and the appropriate rule, order, section, relief, or denial thereof.” §502.223. Such relief may include an order directing the payment of reparations to an aggrieved party. See 46 U. S. C. App. § 1710(g) (1994 ed., Supp. V); 46 CFR §502.251 (2001). The ALJ’s ruling subsequently becomes the final decision of the FMC unless a party, by filing exceptions, appeals to the Commission or the Commission decides to review the ALJ’s decision “on its own initiative.” § 502.227(a)(3). In cases where a complainant obtains reparations, an AU may also require the losing party to pay the prevailing party’s attorney’s fees. See 46 U. S. C. App. § 1710(g); 46 CFR §502.254 (2001).
In short, the similarities between FMC proceedings and civil litigation are overwhelming. In fact, to the extent that situations arise in the course of FMC adjudications “which are not covered by a specific Commission rule,” the FMC’s own Rules of Practice and Procedure specifically provide that “the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure will be followed to the extent that they are consistent with sound administrative practice. ” § 502.12.
c
The preeminent purpose of state sovereign immunity is to accord States the dignity that is consistent with their status as sovereign entities. See In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 505 (1887). “The founding generation thought it ‘neither becoming nor convenient that the several States of the Union, invested with that large residuum of sovereignty which had not been delegated to the United States, should be summoned as defendants to answer the complaints of private persons.’” Alden, 527 U.S., at 748 (quoting In re Ayers, supra, at 505).
Given both this interest in protecting States’ dignity and the strong similarities between FMC proceedings and civil litigation, we hold that state sovereign immunity bars the FMC from adjudicating complaints filed by a private party against a nonconsenting State. Simply put, if the Framers thought it an impermissible affront to a State’s dignity to be required to answer the complaints of private parties in federal courts, we cannot imagine that they would have found it acceptable to compel a State to do exactly the same thing before the administrative tribunal of an agency, such as the FMC. Cf. Alden, supra, at 749 (“Private suits against non-consenting States .. . present ‘the indignity of subjecting a State to the coercive process of judicial tribunals at the instance of private parties,’ regardless of the forum” (quoting In re Ayers, supra, at 505) (citations omitted; emphasis added)). The affront to a State’s dignity does not lessen when an adjudication takes place in an administrative tribunal as opposed to an Article III court. In both instances, a State is required to defend itself in an adversarial proceeding against a private party before an impartial federal officer. Moreover, it would be quite strange to prohibit Congress from exercising its Article I powers to abrogate state sovereign immunity in Article III judicial proceedings, see Seminole Tribe, 517 U. S., at 72, but permit the use of those same Article I powers to create court-like administrative tribunals where sovereign immunity does not apply.
D
The United States suggests two reasons why we should distinguish FMC administrative adjudications from judicial proceedings for purposes of state sovereign immunity. Both of these arguments are unavailing.
1
The United States first contends that sovereign immunity should not apply to FMC adjudications because the Commission’s orders are not self-executing. See Brief for United States 18-21. Whereas a court may enforce a judgment through the exercise of its contempt power, the FMC cannot enforce its own orders. Rather, the Commission’s orders can only be enforced by a federal district court. See, e. g., 46 U. S. C. App. § 1712(e) (1994 ed.) (enforcement of civil penalties); §§ 1713(c) and (d) (enforcement of nonreparation and reparation orders).
The United States presents a valid distinction between the authority possessed by the FMC and that of a court. For purposes of this case, however, it is a distinction without a meaningful difference. To the extent that the United States highlights this fact in order to suggest that a party alleged to have violated the Shipping Act is not coerced to participate in FMC proceedings, it is mistaken. The relevant statutory scheme makes it quite clear that, absent sovereign immunity, States would effectively be required to defend themselves against private parties in front of the FMC.
A State seeking to contest the merits of a complaint filed against it by a private party must defend itself in front of the FMC or substantially compromise its ability to defend itself at all. For example, once the FMC issues a nonreparation order, and either the Attorney General or the injured private party seeks enforcement of that order in a federal district court, the sanctioned party is not permitted to litigate the merits of its position in that court. See § 1713(c) (limiting district court review to whether the relevant order “was properly made and duly issued”). Moreover, if a party fails to appear before the FMC, it may not then argue the merits of its position in an appeal of the Commission’s determination filed under 28 U. S. C. § 2342(3)(B)(iv). See United States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U. S. 33, 37 (1952) (“Simple fairness to those who are engaged in the tasks of administration, and to litigants, requires as a general rule that courts should not topple over administrative decisions unless the administrative body not only has erred but has erred against objection made at the time appropriate under its practice”).
Should a party choose to ignore an order issued by the FMC, the Commission may impose monetary penalties for each day of noncompliance. See 46 U. S. C. App. § 1712(a) (1994 ed., Supp. V). The Commission may then request that the Attorney General of the United States seek to recover the amount assessed by the Commission in federal district court, see § 1712(e) (1994 ed.), and a State’s sovereign immunity would not extend to that action, as it is one brought by the United States. Furthermore, once the FMC issues an order assessing a civil penalty, a sanctioned party may not later contest the merits of that order in an enforcement action brought by the Attorney General in federal district court. See ibid, (limiting review to whether the assessment of the civil penalty was “regularly made and duly issued”); United States v. Interlink Systems, Inc., 984 F. 2d 79, 83 (CA2 1993) (holding that review of whether an order was “regularly made and duly issued” does not include review of the merits of the FMC’s order).
Thus, any party, including a State, charged in a complaint by a private party with violating the Shipping Act is faced with the following options: appear before the Commission in a bid to persuade the FMC of the strength of its position or stand defenseless once enforcement of the Commission’s nonreparation order or assessment of civil penalties is sought in federal district court. To conclude that this choice does not coerce a State to participate in an FMC adjudication would be to blind ourselves to reality.
The United States and Justice Breyer maintain that any such coercion to participate in FMC proceedings is permissible because the States have consented to actions brought by the Federal Government. See Alden, 527 U. S., at 755-756 (“In ratifying the Constitution, the States consented to suits brought by . . . the Federal Government”). The Attorney General’s decision to bring an enforcement action against a State after the conclusion of the Commission’s proceedings, however, does not retroactively convert an FMC adjudication initiated and pursued by a private party into one initiated and pursued by the Federal Government. The prosecution of a complaint filed by a private party with the FMC is plainly not controlled by the United States, but rather is controlled by that private party; the only duty assumed by the FMC, and hence the United States, in conjunction with a private complaint is to assess its merits in an impartial manner. Indeed, the FMC does not even have the discretion to refuse to adjudicate complaints brought by private parties. See, e. g., 243 F. 3d, at 176 (“The FMC had no choice but to adjudicate this dispute”). As a result, the United States plainly does not “exercise ... political responsibility” for such complaints, but instead has impermissibly effected “a broad delegation to private persons to sue nonconsenting States.” Alden, supra, at 756.
2
The United States next suggests that sovereign immunity should not apply to FMC proceedings because they do not present the same threat to the financial integrity of States as do private judicial suits. See Brief for United States 21. The Government highlights the fact that, in contrast to a nonreparation order, for which the Attorney General may seek enforcement at the request of the Commission, a reparation order may be enforced in a United States district court only in an action brought by the private party to whom the award was made. See 46 U. S. C. App. § 1713(d)(1). The United States then points out that a State’s sovereign immunity would extend to such a suit brought by a private party. Brief for United States 21.
This argument, however, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the purposes of sovereign immunity. While state sovereign immunity serves the important function of shielding state treasuries and thus preserving “the States’ ability to govern in accordance with the will of their citizens,” Alden, supra, at 750-751, the doctrine’s central purpose is to “accord the States the respect owed them as” joint sovereigns. See Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U. S. 139, 146 (1993); see Part III-C, supra. It is for this reason, for instance, that sovereign immunity applies regardless of whether a private plaintiff’s suit is for monetary damages or some other type of relief. See Seminole Tribe, 517 U. S., at 58 (“[W]e have often made it clear that the relief sought by a plaintiff suing a State is irrelevant to the question whether the suit is barred by the Eleventh Amendment”).
Sovereign immunity does not merely constitute a defense to monetary liability or even to all types of liability. Rather, it provides an immunity from suit. The statutory scheme, as interpreted by the United States, is thus no more permissible than if Congress had allowed private parties to sue States in federal court for violations of the Shipping Act but precluded a court from awarding them any relief.
It is also worth noting that an FMC order that a State pay reparations to a private party may very well result in the withdrawal of funds from that State’s treasury. A State subject to such an order at the conclusion of an FMC adjudicatory proceeding would either have to make the required payment to the injured private party or stand in violation of the Commission’s order. If the State were willfully and knowingly to choose noncompliance, the Commission could assess a civil penalty of up to $25,000 a day against the State. See 46 U. S. C. App. § 1712(a) (1994 ed., Supp. V). And if the State then refused to pay that penalty, the Attorney General, at the request of the Commission, could seek to recover that amount in a federal district court; because that action would be one brought by the Federal Government, the State’s sovereign immunity would not extend to it.
To be sure, the United States suggests that the FMC’s statutory authority to impose civil penalties for violations of reparation orders is “doubtful.” Reply Brief for United States 7. The relevant statutory provisions, however, appear on their face to confer such authority. For while reparation orders and nonreparation orders are distinguished in other parts of the statutory scheme, see, e. g., 46 U. S. C. App. §§ 1713(c) and (d) (1994 ed.), the provision addressing civil penalties makes no such distinction. See § 1712(a) (1994 ed., Supp. V) (“Whoever violates ... a Commission order is liable to the United States for a civil penalty”). The United States, moreover, does not even dispute that the FMC could impose a civil penalty on a State for failing to obey a nonrep-aration order, which, if enforced by the Attorney General, would also result in a levy upon that State’s treasury.
IV
Two final arguments raised by the FMC and the United States remain to be addressed. Each is answered in part by reference to our decision in Seminole Tribe.
A
The FMC maintains that sovereign immunity should not bar the Commission from adjudicating Maritime Services’ complaint because “[t]he constitutional necessity of uniformity in the regulation of maritime commerce limits the States’ sovereignty with respect to the Federal Government’s authority to regulate that commerce.” Brief for Petitioner 29. This Court, however, has already held that the States’ sovereign immunity extends to cases concerning maritime commerce. See, e. g., Ex parte New York, 256 U. S. 490 (1921). Moreover, Seminole Tribe precludes us from creating a new “maritime commerce” exception to state sovereign immunity. Although the Federal Government undoubtedly possesses an important interest in regulating maritime commerce, see U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3, we noted in Seminole Tribe that “the background principle of state sovereign immunity embodied in the Eleventh Amendment is not so ephemeral as to dissipate when the subject of the suit is an area . . . that is under the exclusive control of the Federal Government,” 517 U. S., at 72. Thus, “[e]ven when the Constitution vests in Congress complete lawmaking authority over a particular area, the Eleventh Amendment prevents congressional authorization of suits by private parties against uncon-senting States.” Ibid. Of course, the Federal Government retains ample means of ensuring that state-run ports comply with the Shipping Act and other valid federal rules governing ocean-borne commerce. The FMC, for example, remains free to investigate alleged violations of the Shipping Act, either upon its own initiative or upon information supplied by a private party, see, e. g., 46 CFR § 502.282 (2001), and to institute its own administrative proceeding against a state-run port, see 46 U. S. C. App. § 1710(c) (1994 ed.); 46 CFR § 502.61(a) (2001). Additionally, the Commission “may bring suit in a district court of the United States to enjoin conduct in violation of [the Act].” 46 U. S. C. App. § 1710(h)(1). Indeed, the United States has advised us that the Court of Appeals’ ruling below “should have little practical effect on the FMC’s enforcement of the Shipping Act,” Brief for United States in Opposition 20, and we have no reason to believe that our decision to affirm that judgment will lead to the parade of horribles envisioned by the FMC.
B
Finally, the United States maintains that even if sovereign immunity were to bar the FMC from adjudicating a private party’s complaint against a state-run port for purposes of issuing a reparation order, the FMC should not be precluded from considering a private party’s request for other forms of relief, such as a cease-and-desist order. See Brief for United States 32-34. As we have previously noted, however, the primary function of sovereign immunity is not to protect state treasuries, see Part III-C, swpra, but to afford the States the dignity and respect due sovereign entities. As a result, we explained in Seminole Tribe that “the relief sought by a plaintiff suing a State is irrelevant to the question whether the suit is barred by the Eleventh Amendment.” 517 U. S., at 58. We see no reason why a different principle should apply in the realm of administrative adjudications.
* * *
While some might complain that our system of dual sovereignty is not a model of administrative convenience, see, e. g., post, at 785-786 (Breyer, J., dissenting), that is not its purpose. Rather, “[t]he ‘constitutionally mandated balance of power’ between the States and the Federal Government was adopted by the Framers to ensure the protection of ‘our fundamental liberties.’” Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 242 (1985) (quoting Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 572 (1985) (Powell, J., dissenting)). By guarding against encroachments by the Federal Government on fundamental aspects of state sovereignty, such as sovereign immunity, we strive to maintain the balance of power embodied in our Constitution and thus to “reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front.” Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S., at 458. Although the Framers likely did not envision the intrusion on state sovereignty at issue in today’s case, we are nonetheless confident that it is contrary to their constitutional design, and therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
See 46 U. S. C. App. § 1710(a) (1994 ed.) (“Any person may file with the Commission a sworn complaint alleging a violation of this chapter ... and may seek reparation for any injury caused to the complainant by that violation”).
Section 1709(d)(4) provides that “[n]o marine terminal operator may give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage or impose any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage with respect to any person.”
Section 1709(b)(10) prohibits a common carrier from “unreasonably refus[ing] to deal or negotiate.”
See § 1710(h)(1) (1994 ed.) (“In connection with any investigation conducted under this section, the Commission may bring suit in a district court of the United States to enjoin conduct in violation of this chapter. Upon a showing that standards for granting injunctive relief by courts of equity are met and after notice to the defendant, the court may grant a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction for a period not to exceed 10 days after the Commission has issued an order disposing of the issues under investigation. Any such suit shall be brought in a district in which the defendant resides or transacts business”).
See § 1710(g) (1994 ed., Supp. V) (“For any complaint filed within 3 years after the cause of action accrued, the Commission shall, upon petition of the complainant and after notice and hearing, direct payment of reparations to the complainant for actual injury (which, for purposes of this subsection, also includes the loss of interest at commercial rates compounded from the date of injury) caused by a violation of this chapter plus reasonable attorney’s fees”).
The SCSPA was created by the State of South Carolina “as an instrumentality of the State,” for, among other purposes, “developing] and improving] the harbors or seaports of Charleston, Georgetown and Port Royal for the handling of water-borne commerce from and to any part of [South Carolina] and other states and foreign countries.” S. C. Code Ann. §54-3-130 (1992). The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has ruled that the SCSPA is protected by South Carolina’s sovereign immunity because it is an arm of the State, see, e. g., Ristow v. South Carolina Ports Authority, 58 F. 3d 1051 (1995), and no party to this case contests that determination.
While the United States is a party to this case and agrees with the FMC that state sovereign immunity does not preclude the Commission from adjudicating Maritime Services’ complaint against the SCSPA, it is nonetheless a respondent because it did not seek review of the Court of Appeals’ decision below. See this Court’s Rule 12.6. The United States instead opposed the FMC’s petition for certiorari. See Brief for United States in Opposition.
To the extent that Justice Breyer, looking to the text of the Eleventh Amendment, suggests that sovereign immunity only shields States from “the ‘[jludicial power of the United States,”’ post, at 777 (dissenting opinion), he “engage[s] in the type of ahistorical literalism we have rejected in interpreting the scope of the States’ sovereign immunity since the discredited decision in Chisholm,” Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 730 (1999). Furthermore, it is ironic that Justice Breyer adopts such a textual approach in defending the conduct of an independent agency that itself lacks any textual basis in the Constitution.
See 46 CFR §502.224 (2001) (requiring that AUs be shielded from political influence in a manner consistent with the Administrative Procedure Act).
In addition, “[u]nless inconsistent with the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and [the FMC’s Rules of Practice and Procedure], the Federal Rules of Evidence [are] applicable” in FMC adjudicative proceedings. § 502.156.
One, in fact, could argue that allowing a private party to haul a State in front of such an administrative tribunal constitutes a greater insult to a State’s dignity than requiring a State to appear in an Article III court presided over by a judge with life tenure nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate.
Contrary to the suggestion contained in Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion, our “basic analogy” is not “between a federal administrative proceeding triggered by a private citizen and a private citizen’s lawsuit against a State” in a State’s own courts. Post, at 779. Rather, as our discussion above makes clear, the more apt comparison is between a complaint filed by a private party against a State with the FMC and a lawsuit brought by a private party against a State in federal court.
While Justice Breyer asserts by use of analogy that this case implicates the First Amendment right of citizens to petition the Federal Government for a redress of grievances, see ibid,., the Constitution no more protects a citizen’s right to litigate against a State in front of a federal administrative tribunal than it does a citizen’s right to sue a State in federal court. Both types of proceedings were “anomalous and unheard of when the Constitution was adopted,” Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1, 18 (1890), and a private party plainly has no First Amendment right to haul a State in front of either an Article III court or a federal administrative tribunal.
A reparation order issued by the FMC, by contrast, may be enforced in a United States district court only in an action brought by the injured private party. See Part IV-B, infra. 46 U. S. C. App. § 1713(d) (1994 ed.).
While Justice Breyer argues that States’ access to “full judicial review” of the Commission’s orders mitigates any coercion to participate in FMC adjudicative proceedings, post, at 784, he earlier concedes that a State must appear before the Commission in order “to obtain full judicial review of an adverse agency decision in a court of appeals,” post, at 783. This case therefore does not involve a situation where Congress has allowed a party to obtain full de novo judicial review of Commission orders without first appearing before the Commission, and we express no opinion as to whether sovereign immunity would apply to FMC adjudicative proceedings under such circumstances.
Justice Breyer’s observation that private citizens may pressure the Federal Government in a variety of ways to take other actions that affect States is beside the point. See post, at 783-784. Sovereign immunity concerns are not implicated, for example, when the Federal Government enacts a rule opposed by a State. See post, at 784. It is an entirely different matter, however, when the Federal Government attempts to coerce States into answering the complaints of private parties in an adjudicative proceeding. See Part III-C, supra.
Moreover, a State obviously will not know ex ante whether the Attorney General will choose to bring an enforcement action. Therefore, it is the mere prospect that he may do so that coerces a State to participate in FMC proceedings. For if a State does not present its arguments to the Commission, it will have all but lost any opportunity to defend itself in the event that the Attorney General later decides to seek enforcement of a Commission order or the Commission’s assessment of civil penalties. See supra, at 762-764.
Justice Breyer apparently does not accept this proposition, see post, at 776-778, maintaining that it is not supported by the text of the Tenth Amendment. The principle of state sovereign immunity enshrined in our constitutional framework, however, is not rooted in the Tenth Amendment. See Part II, supra. Moreover, to the extent that Justice Breyer argues that the Federal Government’s Article I power “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, allows it to authorize private parties to sue nonconsenting States, see post, at 777-778, his quarrel is not with our decision today but with our decision in Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44 (1996). See id., at 72.
For these reasons, private parties remain “perfectly free to complain to the Federal Government about unlawful state activity” and “the Federal Government [remains] free to take subsequent legal action.” Post, at 776 (Breyer, J., dissenting). The only step the FMC may not take, consistent with this Court’s sovereign immunity jurisprudence, is to adjudicate a dispute between a private party and a nonconsenting State. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether administrative action occurred in the context of the case prior to the onset of litigation. The activity may involve an administrative official as well as that of an agency. To determine whether administration action occurred in the context of the case, consider the material which appears in the summary of the case preceding the Court's opinion and, if necessary, those portions of the prevailing opinion headed by a I or II. Action by an agency official is considered to be administrative action except when such an official acts to enforce criminal law. If an agency or agency official "denies" a "request" that action be taken, such denials are considered agency action. Exclude: a "challenge" to an unapplied agency rule, regulation, etc.; a request for an injunction or a declaratory judgment against agency action which, though anticipated, has not yet occurred; a mere request for an agency to take action when there is no evidence that the agency did so; agency or official action to enforce criminal law; the hiring and firing of political appointees or the procedures whereby public officials are appointed to office; attorney general preclearance actions pertaining to voting; filing fees or nominating petitions required for access to the ballot; actions of courts martial; land condemnation suits and quiet title actions instituted in a court; and federally funded private nonprofit organizations. | Did administrative action occur in the context of the case? | [
"No",
"Yes"
] | [
1
] | sc_adminaction_is |
GRAY, CHAIRMAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, et al. v. SANDERS.
No. 112.
Argued January 17, 1963.
Decided March 18, 1963.
B. D. Mur-phy and E. Freeman Leverett, Deputy-Assistant Attorneys General of Georgia, argued the cause for appellants. With them on the brief were Eugene Cook, Attorney General, and Lamar W. Sizemore.
Morris B. Abram argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Herman Heyman and Robert E. Hicks.
Attorney General Kennedy, by special leave of Court, argued the cause for the United States, as amicus curiae, urging affirmance. On the brief were Solicitor General Cox, Assistant Attorney General Marshall, Bruce J. Terris, Harold H. Greene, David Rubin and Howard A. Glickstein.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
I.
This suit was instituted by appellee, who is qualified to vote in primary and general elections in Fulton County, Georgia, to restrain appellants from using Georgia’s county unit system as a basis for counting votes in a Democratic primary for the nomination of a United States Senator and statewide officers, and for declaratory relief. Appellants are the Chairman and Secretary of the Georgia State Democratic Executive Committee, and the Secretary of State of Georgia. Appellee alleges that the use of the county unit system in counting, tabulating, consolidating, and certifying votes cast in primary elections for statewide offices violates the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Seventeenth Amendment. As the constitutionality of a state statute was involved and the question was a substantial one, a three-judge court was properly convened. See 28 U. S. C. § 2281; United States v. Georgia Public Service Comm’n, 371 U. S. 285.
Appellants moved to dismiss; and they also filed an answer denying that the county unit system was uncon-constitutional and alleging that it was designed “to achieve a reasonable balance as between urban and rural electoral power.”
Under Georgia law each county is given a specified number of representatives in the lower House of the General Assembly. This county unit system at the time this suit was filed was employed as follows in statewide primaries: (1) Candidates for nominations who received the highest number of popular votes in a county were considered to have carried the county and to be entitled to two votes for each representative to which the county is entitled in the lower House of the General Assembly; (2) the majority of the county unit vote nominated a United States Senator and Governor; the plurality of the county unit vote nominated the others.
Appellee asserted that the total population of Georgia in 1960 was 3,943,116; that the population of Fulton County, where he resides, was 556,326; that the residents of Fulton County comprised 14.11% of Georgia’s total population; but that, under the county unit system, the six unit votes of Fulton County constituted 1.46% of the total of 410 unit votes, or one-tenth of Fulton County’s percentage of statewide population. The complaint further alleged that Echols County, the least populous county in Georgia, had a population in 1960 of 1,876, or .05% of the State’s population, but the unit vote of Echols County was .48% of the total unit vote of all counties in Georgia, or 10 times Echols County’s statewide percentage of population. One unit vote in Echols County represented 938 residents, whereas one unit vote in Fulton County represented 92,721 residents. Thus, one resident in Echols County had an influence in the nomination of candidates equivalent to 99 residents of Fulton County.
On the same day as the hearing in the District Court, Georgia amended the statutes challenged in the complaint. This amendment modified the county unit system by allocating units to counties in accordance with a “bracket system” instead of doubling the number of representatives of each county in the lower House of the Georgia Assembly. Counties with from 0 to 15,000 people were allotted two units; an additional one unit was allotted for the next 5,000 persons; an additional unit for the next 10,000 persons; another unit for each of the next two brackets of 15,000 persons; and, thereafter, two more units for each increase of 30,000 persons. Under the amended Act, all candidates for statewide office (not merely for Senator and Governor as under the earlier Act) are required to receive a majority of the county unit votes to be entitled to nomination in the first primary. In addition, in order to be nominated in the first primary, a candidate has to receive a majority of the popular votes unless there are only two candidates for the nomination and each receives an equal number of unit votes, in which event the candidate with the popular majority wins. If no candidate receives both a majority of the unit votes and a majority of the popular votes, a second run-off primary is required between the candidate receiving the highest number of unit votes and the candidate receiving the highest number of popular votes. In the second primary, the candidate receiving the highest number of unit votes is to prevail. But again, if there is a tie in unit votes, the candidate with the popular majority wins.
Appellee was allowed to amend his complaint so as to challenge the amended Act. The District Court held that the amended Act had some of the vices of the prior Act. It stated that under the amended Act “the vote of each citizen counts for less and less as the population of the county of his residence increases.” 203 F. Supp. 158, 170, n. 10. It went on to say:
“There are 97 two-unit counties, totalling 194 unit votes, and 22 counties totalling 66 unit votes, altogether 260 unit votes, within 14 of a majority; but no county in the above has as much as 20,000 population. The remaining 40 counties range in population from 20,481 to 556,326, but they control altogether only 287 county unit votes. Combination of the units from the counties having the smallest population gives counties having population of one-third of the total in the state a clear majority of county units.” Ibid.
The District Court held that as a result of Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, it had jurisdiction, that a justiciable case was stated, that appellee had standing, and that the Democratic primary in Georgia is “state” action within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. It held that the county unit system as applied violates the Equal Protection Clause, and it issued an injunction, not against conducting any party primary election under the county unit system, but against conducting such an election under a county unit system that does not meet the requirements specified by the court. 203 F. Supp. 158. In other words, the District Court did not proceed on the basis that in a statewide election every qualified person was entitled to one vote and that all weighted voting was outlawed. Rather, it allowed a county unit system to be used in weighting the votes if the system showed no greater disparity against a county than exists against any State in the conduct of national elections. Thereafter the Democratic Committee voted to hold the 1962 primary election for the statewide offices mentioned on a popular vote basis. We noted probable jurisdiction. 370 U. S. 921.
II.
We agree with the District Court that the action of this party in the conduct of its primary constitutes state action within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Judge Sibley, writing for the court in Chapman v. King, 154 F. 2d 460, showed with meticulous detail the manner in which Georgia regulates the conduct of party primaries (id., pp. 463-464) and he concluded:
“We think these provisions show that the State, through the managers it requires, collaborates in the conduct of the primary, and puts its power behind the rules of the party. It adopts the primary as a part of the public election machinery. The exclusions of voters made by the party by the primary rules become exclusions enforced by the State.” Id., p. 464.
We agree with that result and conclude that state regulation of this preliminary phase of the election process makes it state action. See United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299; Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649.
We also agree that appellee, like any person whose right to vote is impaired (Smith v. Allwright, supra; Baker v. Carr, supra, pp. 204-208), has standing to sue.
Moreover, we think the case is not moot by reason of the fact that the Democratic Committee voted to hold the 1962 primary on a popular vote basis. But for the injunction issued below, the 1962 Act remains in force; and if the complaint were dismissed it would govern future elections. In addition, the voluntary abandonment of a practice does not relieve a court of adjudicating its legality, particularly where the practice is deeply rooted and long standing. For if the case were dismissed as moot appellants would be “free to return to . . . [their] old ways.” United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 632.
III.
On the merits we take a different view of the nature of the problem than did the District Court.
This case, unlike Baker v. Carr, supra, does not involve a question of the degree to which the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits the authority of a State Legislature in designing the geographical districts from which representatives are chosen either for the State Legislature or for the Federal House of Representatives. Nor does it include the related problems of Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, where “gerrymandering” was used to exclude a minority group from participation in municipal affairs. Nor does it present the question, inherent in the bicameral form of our Federal Government, whether a State may have one house chosen without regard to population. The District Court, however, analogized Georgia’s use of the county unit system in determining the results of a statewide election to phases of our federal system. It pointed out that under the electoral college, required by Art. II, § 1, of the Constitution and the Twelfth Amendment in the election of the President, voting strength “is not in exact proportion to population .... Recognizing that the electoral college was set up as a compromise to enable the formation of the Union among the several sovereign states, it still could hardly be said that such a system used in a state among its counties, assuming rationality and absence of arbitrariness in end result, could be termed invidious.” 203 F. Supp., at 169.
Accordingly the District Court as already noted held that use of the county unit system in counting the votes in a statewide election was permissible “if the disparity against any county is not in excess of the disparity that exists against any state in the most recent electoral college allocation.” 203 F. Supp., at 170. Moreover the District Court held that use of the county unit system in counting the votes in a statewide election was permissible “if the disparity against any county is not in excess of the disparity that exists . . . under the equal proportions formula for representation of the several states in the Congress.” Ibid. The assumption implicit in these conclusions is that since equality is not inherent in the electoral college and since precise equality among blocs of votes in one State or in the several States when it comes to the election of members of the House of Representatives is never possible, precise equality is not necessary in statewide elections.
We think the analogies to the electoral college, to dis-tricting and redistricting, and to other phases of the problems of representation in state or federal legislatures or conventions are inapposite. The inclusion of the electoral college in the Constitution, as the result of specific historical concerns, validated the collegiate principle despite its inherent numerical inequality, but implied nothing about the use of an analogous system by a State in a statewide election. No such specific accommodation of the latter was ever undertaken, and therefore no validation of its numerical inequality ensued. Nor does the question here have anything to do with the composition of the state or federal legislature. And we intimate no opinion on the constitutional phases of that problem beyond what we said in Baker v. Carr, supra. The present case is only a voting case. Cf. Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536; Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73; Smith v. Allwright, supra. Georgia gives every qualified voter one vote in a statewide election; but in counting those votes she employs the county unit system which in end result weights the rural vote more heavily than the urban vote and weights some small rural counties heavier than other larger rural counties.
States can within limits specify the qualifications of voters in both state and federal elections; the Constitution indeed makes voters’ qualifications rest on state law even in federal elections. Art. I, § 2. As we held in Lassiter v. Northampton Election Board, 360 U. S. 45, a State may if it chooses require voters to pass literacy tests, provided of course that literacy is not used as a cloak to discriminate against one class or group. But we need not determine all the limitations that are placed on this power of a State to determine the qualifications of voters, for appellee is a qualified voter.
The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits a State from denying or abridging a Negro’s right to vote. The Nineteenth Amendment does the same for women. If a State in a statewide election weighted the male vote more héavily than the female vote or the white vote more heavily than the Negro vote; none could successfully contend that that discrimination was allowable. See Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461. How then can one person be given twice or ten times the voting power of another person in a statewide election merely because he lives in a rural area or because he lives in the smallest rural county? Once the geographical unit for which a representative is to be chosen is designated, all who participate in the election are to have an equal vote — whatever their race, whatever their sex, whatever their occupation, whatever their income, and wherever their home may be in that geographical unit. This is required by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The concept of “we the people” under the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters but equality among those who meet the basic qualifications. The idea that every voter is equal to every other voter in his State, when he casts his ballot in favor of one of several competing candidates, underlies many of our decisions.
The Court has consistently recognized that all qualified voters have a constitutionally protected right “to cast their ballots and have them counted at Congressional elections.” United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 315; see Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651; Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U. S. 58; Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U. S. 487. Every voter’s vote is entitled to be counted once. It must be correctly counted and reported. As stated in United States v. Mosley, 238 U. S. 383, 386, “the right to have one’s vote counted” has the same dignity as “the right to put a ballot in a box.” It can be protected from the diluting effect of illegal ballots. Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371; United States v. Saylor, 322 U. S. 385. And these rights must be recognized in any preliminary election that in fact determines the true weight a vote will have. See United States v. Classic, supra; Smith v. Allwright, supra. The concept of political equality in the voting booth contained in the Fifteenth Amendment extends to all phases of state elections, see Terry v. Adams, supra; and, as previously noted, there is no indication in the Constitution that homesite or occupation affords a permissible basis for distinguishing between qualified voters within the State.
The only weighting of votes sanctioned by the Constitution concerns matters of representation, such as the allocation of Senators irrespective of population and the use of the electoral college in the choice of a President. Yet when Senators are chosen, the Seventeenth Amendment states the choice must be made “by the people.” Minors, felons, and other classes may be excluded. See Lassiter v. Northampton Election Board, supra, p. 51. But once the class of voters is chosen and their qualifications specified, we see no constitutional way by which equality of voting power may be evaded. As we stated in Oomillion v. Lightfoot, supra, p. 347:
“When a State exercises power wholly within the domain of state interest, it is insulated from federal judicial review. But such insulation is not carried over when state power is used as an instrument for circumventing a federally protected right.”
The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing — one person, one vote.
While we agree with the District Court on most phases of the case and think it was right in enjoining the use of the county unit system in tabulating the votes, we vacate its judgment and remand the case so that a decree in conformity with our opinion may be entered.
It is so ordered.
Ga. Const., 1945, Art. III, § III, ¶ I:
“The House of Representatives shall consist of representatives apportioned among the several counties of the State as follows: To the eight counties having the largest population, three representatives each; to the thirty counties having the next largest population, two representatives each; and to the remaining counties, one representative each.”
Ga. Code Ann., §§ 34-3212, 34-3213 (1936).
Ga. Laws 1962, Ex. Sess., No. 1, p. 1217; Ga. Code Ann., §§34-3212, 34-3213 (1962).
The order, dated April 28, 1962,/was not restricted to the party primary of September 12, 1962; nor was the relief asked so restricted.
The District Court in its order defined the type of county unit system which violated the Equal Protection Clause as follows:
“A county unit system for use in a party primary is invidiously discriminatory if any unit has less than its share to the nearest whole number proportionate to population, or to the whole of the vote in a recent party gubernatorial primary, or to the vote for electors of the party in the most recent presidential election; provided, no discrimination is deemed to be invidious under such system if the disparity against any county is not in excess of the disparity that exists as against any state in the most recent electoral college allocation, or under the equal proportions formula for representation of the several states in the Congress of the United States, and, provided provision is made for allocations to be adjusted to accord with changes in the basis at least once each ten years.”
See note 5, supra.
Chief Justice Holt stated over 250 years ago:
“A right that a man has to give his vote at the election of a person to represent him in parliament, there to concur to the making of laws, which are to bind his liberty and property, is a most transcendent thing, and of an high nature .... [I]t is a great injury to deprive . . . [him] of it. . . .
“. . . It would look very strange, when the commons of England are so fond of their right of sending representatives to parliament, that it should be in the power of a sheriff, or other officer, to deprive them of that right, and yet that they should have no remedy .... This right of voting is a right in the plaintiff by the common law, and consequently he shall maintain an action for the obstruction of it. . . .
“But in the principal case my brother says, we cannot judge of this matter, because it is a parliamentary thing. 0! by all means be very tender of that. Besides it is intricate, and there may be contrariety of opinions. ... To allow this action will make publick officers more careful to observe the constitution of cities and boroughs, and not to be so partial as they commonly are in all elections, which is indeed a great and growing mischief, and tends to the prejudice of the peace of the nation. But they say, that this is a matter out of our jurisdiction, and we ought not to inlarge it. I agree we ought not to incroach or inlarge our jurisdiction; . . . but sure we may determine on a charter granted by the king, or on a matter of custom or prescription, when it comes before us without incroaching on the parliament. And if it be a matter within our jurisdiction, we are bound by our oaths to judge of it. This is a matter of property determinable before us. Was ever such a petition heard of in parliament, as that a man was hindered of giving his vote, and praying them to give him remedy? The parliament undoubtedly would say, take your remedy at law. It is not like the case of determining the right of election between the candidates'.” Ashby v. White, 2 Ld. Raym. 938, 953, 954, 956 (1702).
The electoral college was designed by men who did not want the election of the President to be left to the people. See S. Doc. No. 97, Survey of the Electoral College in the Political System of the United States, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. “George Washington was elected to the office of Chief Magistrate of the Nation, by 69 votes — the total number east by the electors. At that time, three States did not vote. New York had not yet passed an electoral law, and North Carolina and Rhode Island had not yet ratified the Constitution. Therefore, of an estimated population of 4,000,000 people, a President was chosen by 69 voters, who had not been selected by the people, but appointed by State legislatures, save in the instances of Maryland and Virginia.” Id., p. 4.
Hamilton expressed the philosophy behind the electoral college in The Federalist No. 68. “This process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of president, will seldom fall to the lot of any man, who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue and the little arts of popularity may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single state; but it will require other talents and a different kind of merit to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of president of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters preeminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the constitution, by those, who are able to estimate the share, which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration.”
Passage of the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments shows that this conception of political equality belongs to a bygone day, and should not be considered in determining what the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires in statewide elections.
See note 5, supra.
We do not reach here the questions that would be presented were the convention system used for nominating candidates in lieu of the primary system.
See note 8, supra.
The county unit system, even in its amended form (see note 3, supra) would allow the candidate winning the popular vote in the county to have the entire unit vote of that county. Hence the weighting of votes would continue, even if unit votes were allocated strictly in proportion to population. Thus if a candidate won 6,000 of 10,000 votes in a particular county, he would get the entire unit vote, the 4,000 other votes for a different candidate being worth nothing and being counted only for the purpose of being discarded. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases. | What is the ideological direction of the decision? | [
"Conservative",
"Liberal",
"Unspecifiable"
] | [
1
] | sc_decisiondirection |
HUSTLER MAGAZINE, INC., et al. v. FALWELL
No. 86-1278.
Argued December 2, 1987
Decided February 24, 1988
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens, O’Connor, and Scalia, JJ., joined. White, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 57. Kennedy, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Alan L. Isaacman argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was David O. Carson.
Norman Roy Grutman argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Jeffrey H. Daichman and Thomas V. Marino.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation et al. by Harriette K. Dorsen, John A '. Powell, and Steven R. Shapiro; for the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists et al. by Roslyn A. Mazer and George Kaufmann; for the Association of American Publishers, Inc., by R. Bruce Rich; for Home Box Office, Inc., by P. Cameron DeVore and Daniel M. Waggoner; for the Law & Humanities Institute by Edward de Grazia; for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press et al. by Jane E. Kirtley, Richard M. Schmidt, David Barr, and J. Laurent Scharff; for Richmond Newspapers, Inc., et al. by Alexander Wellford, David C. Kohler, Rodney A. Smolla, William A. Niese, Jeffrey S. Klein, W. Terry Maguire, and Slade R. Met-calf; and for Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, Inc., by Irwin Karp and I. Fred Koenigsberg.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Hustler Magazine, Inc., is a magazine of nationwide circulation. Respondent Jerry Falwell, a nationally known minister who has been active as a commentator on politics and public affairs, sued petitioner and its publisher, petitioner Larry Flynt, to recover damages for invasion of privacy, libel, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The District Court directed a verdict against respondent on the privacy claim, and submitted the other two claims to a jury. The jury found for petitioners on the defamation claim, but found for respondent on the claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress and awarded damages. We now consider whether this award is consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments- of the United States Constitution.
The inside front cover of the November 1983 issue of Hustler Magazine featured a “parody” of an advertisement for Campari Liqueur that contained the name and picture of respondent and was entitled “Jerry Falwell talks about his first time.” This parody was modeled after actual Campari ads that included interviews with various celebrities about their “first times.” Although it was apparent by the end of each interview that this meant the first time they sampled Campari, the ads clearly played on the sexual double entendre of the general subject of “first times.” Copying the form and layout of these Campari ads, Hustler’s editors chose respondent as the featured celebrity and drafted an alleged “interview” with him in which he states that his “first time” was during a drunken incestuous rendezvous with his mother in an outhouse. The Hustler parody portrays respondent and his mother as drunk and immoral, and suggests that respondent is a hypocrite who preaches only when he is drunk. In small print at the bottom of the page, the ad contains the disclaimer, “ad parody — not to be taken seriously.” The magazine’s table of contents also lists the ad as “Fiction; Ad and Personality Parody.”
Soon after the November issue of Hustler became available to the public, respondent brought this diversity action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia against Hustler Magazine, Inc., Larry C. Flynt, and Flynt Distributing Co., Inc. Respondent stated in his complaint that publication of the ad parody in Hustler entitled him to recover damages for libel, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The case proceeded to trial. At the close of the evidence, the District Court granted a directed verdict for petitioners on the invasion of privacy claim. The jury then found against respondent on the libel claim, specifically finding that the ad parody could not “reasonably be understood as describing actual facts about [respondent] or actual events in which [he] participated.” App. to Pet. for Cert. Cl. The jury ruled for respondent on the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim, however, and stated that he should be awarded $100,000 in compensatory damages, as well as $50,000 each in punitive damages from petitioners. Petitioners’ motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict was denied.
On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the judgment against petitioners. Falwell v. Flynt, 797 F. 2d 1270 (1986). The court rejected petitioners’ argument that the “actual malice” standard of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964), must be met before respondent can recover for emotional distress. The court agreed that because respondent is concededly a public figure, petitioners are “entitled to the same level of first amendment protection in the claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress that they received in [respondent’s] claim for libel.” 797 F. 2d, at 1274. But this does not mean that a literal application of the actual malice rule is appropriate in the context of an emotional distress claim. In the court’s view, the New York Times decision emphasized the constitutional importance not of the falsity of the statement or the defendant’s disregard for the truth, but of the heightened level of culpability embodied in the requirement of “knowing ... or reckless” conduct. Here, the New York Times standard is satisfied by the state-law requirement, and the jury’s finding, that the defendants have acted intentionally or recklessly. The Court of Appeals then went on to reject the contention that because the jury found that the ad parody did not describe actual facts about respondent, the ad was an opinion that is protected by the First Amendment. As the court put it, this was “irrelevant,” as the issue is “whether [the ad’s] publication was sufficiently outrageous to constitute intentional infliction of emotional distress.” Id., at 1276. Petitioners then filed a petition for rehearing en banc, but this was denied by a divided court. Given the importance of the constitutional issues involved, we granted certiorari. 480 U. S. 945 (1987).
This case presents us with a novel question involving First Amendment limitations upon a State’s authority to protect its citizens from the intentional infliction of emotional distress. We must decide whether a public figure may recover damages for emotional harm caused by the publication of an ad parody offensive to him, and doubtless gross and repugnant in the eyes of most. Respondent would have us find that a State’s interest in protecting public figures from emotional distress is sufficient to deny First Amendment protection to speech that is patently offensive and is intended to inflict emotional injury, even when that speech could not reasonably have been interpreted as stating actual facts about the public figure involved. This we decline to do.
At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. “[T]he freedom to speak one’s mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty — and thus a good unto itself — but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole.” Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485, 503-504 (1984). We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions. The First Amendment recognizes no such thing as a “false” idea. Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 339 (1974). As Justice Holmes wrote, “when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas — that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market . . . .” Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, 630 (1919) (dissenting opinion).
The sort of robust political debate encouraged by the First Amendment is bound to produce speech that is critical of those who hold public office or those public figures who are “intimately involved in the resolution of important public questions or, by reason of their fame, shape events in areas of concern to society at large.” Associated Press v. Walker, decided with Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130, 164 (1967) (Warren, C. J., concurring in result). Justice Frankfurter put it succinctly in Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U. S. 665, 673-674 (1944), when he said that “[o]ne of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the fight to criticize public men and measures.” Such criticism, inevitably, will not always be reasoned or moderate; public figures as well as public officials will be subject to “vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks,” New York Times, supra, at 270. “[T]he candidate who vaunts his spotless record and sterling integrity cannot convincingly cry ‘Foul!’ when an opponent or an industrious reporter attempts to demonstrate the contrary.” Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 U. S. 265, 274 (1971).
Of course, this does not mean that any speech about a public figure is immune from sanction in the form of damages. Since New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964), we have consistently ruled that a public figure may hold a speaker liable for the damage to reputation caused by publication of a defamatory falsehood, but only if the statement was made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Id., at 279-280. False statements of fact are particularly valueless; they interfere with the truth-seeking function of the marketplace of ideas, and they cause damage to an individual’s reputation that cannot easily be repaired by counterspeech, however persuasive or effective. See Gertz, 418 U. S., at 340, 344, n. 9. But even though falsehoods have little value in and of themselves, they are “nevertheless inevitable in free debate,” id., at 340, and a rule that would impose strict liability on a publisher for false factual assertions would have an undoubted “chilling” effect on speech relating to public figures that does have constitutional value. “Freedoms of expression require “‘breathing space.’” Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U. S. 767, 772 (1986) (quoting New York Times, supra, at 272). This breathing space is provided by a constitutional rule that allows public figures to recover for libel or defamation only when they can prove both that the statement was false and that the statement was made with the requisite level of culpability.
Respondent argues, however, that a different standard should apply in this case because here the State seeks to prevent not reputational damage, but the severe emotional distress suffered by the person who is the subject of an offensive publication. Cf. Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co., 433 U. S. 562 (1977) (ruling that the “actual malice” standard does not apply to the tort of appropriation of a right of publicity). In respondent’s view, and in the view of the Court of Appeals, so long as the utterance was intended to inflict emotional distress, was outrageous, and did in fact inflict serious emotional distress, it is of no constitutional import whether the statement was a fact or an opinion, or whether it was true or false. It is the intent to cause injury that is the gravamen of the tort, and the State’s interest in preventing emotional harm simply outweighs whatever interest a speaker may have in speech of this type.
Generally speaking the law does not regard the intent to inflict emotional distress as one which should receive much solicitude, and it is quite understandable that most if not all jurisdictions have chosen to make it civilly culpable where the conduct in question is sufficiently “outrageous.” But in the world of debate about public affairs, many things done with motives that are less than admirable are protected by the First Amendment. In Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64 (1964), we held that even when a speaker or writer is motivated by hatred or ill will his expression was protected by the First Amendment:
“Debate on public issues will not be uninhibited if the speaker must run the risk that it will be proved in court that he spoke out of hatred; even if he did speak out of hatred, utterances honestly believed contribute to the free interchange of ideas and the ascertainment of truth.” Id., at 73.
Thus while such a bad motive may be deemed controlling for purposes of tort liability in other areas of the law, we think the First Amendment prohibits such a result in the area of public debate about public figures.
Were we to hold otherwise, there can be little doubt that political cartoonists and satirists would be subjected to damages awards without any showing that their work falsely defamed its subject. Webster’s defines a caricature as “the deliberately distorted picturing or imitating of a person, literary style, etc. by exaggerating features or mannerisms for satirical effect.” Webster’s New Unabridged Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language 275 (2d ed. 1979). The appeal of the political cartoon or caricature is often based on exploitation of unfortunate physical traits or politically embarrassing events — an exploitation often calculated to injure the feelings of the subject of the portrayal. The art of the cartoonist is often not reasoned or evenhanded, but slashing and one-sided. One cartoonist expressed the nature of the art in these words:
“The political cartoon is a weapon of attack, of scorn and ridicule and satire; it is least effective when it tries to pat some politician on the back. It is usually as welcome as a bee sting and is always controversial in some quarters.” Long, The Political Cartoon: Journalism’s Strongest Weapon, The Quill 56, 57 (Nov. 1962).
Several famous examples of this type of intentionally injurious speech were drawn by Thomas Nast, probably the greatest American cartoonist to date, who was associated for many years during the post-Civil War era with Harper’s Weekly. In the pages of that publication Nast conducted a graphic vendetta against William M. “Boss” Tweed and his corrupt associates in New York City’s “Tweed Ring.” It has been described by one historian of the subject as “a sustained attack which in its passion and effectiveness stands alone in the history of American graphic art.” M. Keller, The Art and Politics of Thomas Nast 177 (1968). Another writer explains that the success of the Nast cartoon was achieved “because of the emotional impact of its presentation. It continuously goes beyond the bounds of good taste and conventional manners.” C. Press, The Political Cartoon 251 (1981).
Despite their sometimes caustic nature, from the early cartoon portraying George Washington as an ass down to the present day, graphic depictions and satirical cartoons have played a prominent role in public and political debate. Nast’s castigation of the Tweed Ring, Walt McDougall’s characterization of Presidential candidate James G. Blaine’s banquet with the millionaires at Delmonico’s as “The Royal Feast of Belshazzar,” and numerous other efforts have undoubtedly had an effect on the course and outcome of contemporaneous debate. Lincoln’s tall, gangling posture, Teddy Roosevelt’s glasses and teeth, and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s jutting jaw and cigarette holder have been memorialized by political cartoons with an effect that could not have been obtained by the photographer or the portrait artist. From the viewpoint of history it is clear that our political discourse would have been considerably poorer without them.
Respondent contends, however, that the caricature in question here was so “outrageous” as to distinguish it from more traditional political cartoons. There is no doubt that the caricature of respondent and his mother published in Hustler is at best a distant cousin of the political cartoons described above, and a rather poor relation at that. If it were possible by laying down a principled standard to separate the one from the other, public discourse would probably suffer little or no harm. But we doubt that there is any such standard, and we are quite sure that the pejorative description “outrageous” does not supply one. “Outrageousness” in the area of political and social discourse has an inherent subjectiveness about it which would allow a jury to impose liability on the basis of the jurors’ tastes or views, or perhaps on the basis of their dislike of a particular expression. An “outrageousness” standard thus runs afoul of our longstanding refusal to allow damages to be awarded because the speech in question may have an adverse emotional impact on the audience. See NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U. S. 886, 910 (1982) (“Speech does not lose its protected character . . . simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action”). And, as we stated in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726 (1978):
“[T]he fact that society may find speech offensive is not a sufficient reason for suppressing it. Indeed, if it is the speaker’s opinion that gives offense, that consequence is a reason for according it constitutional protection. For it is a central tenet of the First Amendment that the government must remain neutral in the marketplace of ideas.” Id., at 745-746.
See also Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 592 (1969) (“It is firmly settled that . . . the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers”).
Admittedly, these oft-repeated First Amendment principles, like other principles, are subject to limitations. We recognized in Pacifica Foundation, that speech that is “ ‘vulgar,’ ‘offensive,’ and ‘shocking’” is “not entitled to absolute constitutional protection under all circumstances. ” 438 U. S., at 747. In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568 (1942), we held that a State could lawfully punish an individual for the use of insulting “‘fighting’ words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Id., at 571-572. These limitations are but recognition of the observation in Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U. S. 749, 758 (1985), that this Court has “long recognized that not all speech is of equal First Amendment importance.” But the sort of expression involved in this case does not seem to us to be governed by any exception to the general First Amendment principles stated above.
We conclude that public figures and public officials may not recover for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress by reason of publications such as the one here at issue without showing in addition that the publication contains a false statement of fact which was made with “actual malice,” i. e., with knowledge that the statement was false or with reckless disregard as to whether or not it was true. This is not' merely a “blind application” of the New York Times standard, see Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374, 390 (1967), it reflects our considered judgment that such a standard is necessary to give adequate “breathing space” to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.
Here it is clear that respondent Falwell is a “public figure” for purposes of First Amendment law. The jury found against respondent on his libel claim when it decided that the Hustler ad parody could not “reasonably be understood as describing actual facts about [respondent] or actual events in which [he] participated.” App. to Pet. for Cert. Cl. The Court of Appeals interpreted the jury’s finding to be that the ad parody “was not reasonably believable,” 797 F. 2d, at 1278, and in accordance with our custom we accept this finding. Respondent is thus relegated to his claim for damages awarded by the jury for the intentional infliction of emotional distress by “outrageous” conduct. But for reasons heretofore stated this claim cannot, consistently with the First Amendment, form a basis for the award of damages when the conduct in question is the publication of a caricature such as the ad parody involved here. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Reversed.
Justice Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
While the case was pending, the ad parody was published in Hustler Magazine a second time.
The jury found no liability on the part of Flynt Distributing Co., Inc. It is consequently not a party to this appeal.
Under Virginia law, in an action for intentional infliction of emotional distress a plaintiff must show that the defendant’s conduct (1) is intentional or reckless; (2) offends generally accepted standards of decency or morality; (3) is causally connected with the plaintiff’s emotional distress; and (4) caused emotional distress that was severe. 797 F. 2d, at 1275, n. 4 (citing Womack v. Eldridge, 215 Va. 338, 210 S. E. 2d 145 (1974)).
The court below also rejected several other contentions that petitioners do not raise in this appeal.
Neither party disputes this conclusion. Respondent is the host of a nationally syndicated television show and was the founder and president of a political organization formerly known as the Moral Majority. He is also the founder of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and is the author of several books and publications. Who’s Who in America 849 (44th ed. 1986-1987). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the treatment the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed, that is, whether the court below the Supreme Court (typically a federal court of appeals or a state supreme court) affirmed, reversed, remanded, denied or dismissed the decision of the court it reviewed (typically a trial court). Adhere to the language used in the "holding" in the summary of the case on the title page or prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. Exceptions to the literal language are the following: where the Court overrules the lower court, treat this a petition or motion granted; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing refuses to enforce or enjoins the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as reversed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing enforces the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as affirmed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing sets aside the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as vacated; if the decision is set aside and remanded, treat it as vacated and remanded. | What treatment did the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"modify",
"remand",
"unusual disposition"
] | [
1
] | sc_lcdisposition |
WOLFE et al. v. NORTH CAROLINA.
No. 7.
Argued October 19-20, 1959.
Decided June 27, 1960.
J. Alston Atkins argued the cause for appellants. With him on the brief were Harold L. Kennedy, C. 0. Pearson, Carter W. Wesley and James M. Nabrit, Jr.
Ralph Moody, Assistant Attorney General of North Carolina, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Malcolm B. Seawell, Attorney General of North Carolina, and Horace R. Kornegay.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellants were convicted of violating a North Carolina criminal trespass statute, and their convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court of North Carolina, 248 N. C. 485, 103 S. E. 2d 846. This appeal, grounded on 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2), attacks the constitutional validity of the statute as applied in this case. Because of doubt as to whether any substantial federal question was presented to or decided by the state courts, we postponed further consideration of the question of jurisdiction until the hearing of the case on the merits. 358 U. S. 925, 359 U. S. 951. For reasons to be stated, we have concluded that the appeal must be dismissed.
There is no dispute as to the basic circumstances which led to the prosecution and ultimate conviction of the appellants. In December, 1955, Gillespie Park Golf Club, Inc., operated an 18-hole golf course on land which it leased from the City of Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Board of Trustees of the Greensboro City Administrative Unit. The bylaws of the lessee limited the use of the golf course to its “members” and persons in certain other specifically restricted categories. On December 7, 1955, the appellants, who are Negroes, entered the club’s golf shop and requested permission to play on the course. Their request was refused. Nevertheless, after placing some money on a table in the golf shop, the appellants proceeded to the course and teed off. After they had played several holes the manager of the golf course ordered them to leave. They refused. The manager then summoned a deputy sheriff, and, after the appellants were again ordered to leave the course and they had again refused, they were arrested upon warrants sworn to by the manager.
The appellants were tried and convicted of violating the state criminal trespass statute. Pending their appeal to the Supreme Court of North Carolina they and others commenced an action against the City of Greensboro, the Greensboro Board of Education, and the Gillespie Park Golf Club, Inc., in the Federal District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, asking for a declaratory judgment and an injunction forbidding the defendants from operating the golf course on a racially discriminatory basis. The federal court granted the injunction. Simkins v. City of Greensboro, 149 F. Supp. 562. Its judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on June 28, 1957. City of Greensboro v. Simkins, 246 F. 2d 425. On the same date the Supreme Court of North Carolina, acting on the appeal from the criminal convictions in the state court, held that there had been a fatal variance in amendments to the warrants under which the appellants had been tried, and arrested the judgments against them. State v. Cooke, 246 N. C. 518, 98 S. E. 2d 885.
The appellants were again tried de novo in the Superior Court of Guilford County, North Carolina, for violating the state criminal trespass statute. At the outset they made a motion to quash, which was denied. The State presented evidence as to what had happened on the golf course on December 7, 1955. At the conclusion of the evidence the trial judge instructed the jury explicitly and at length that the defendants could not be convicted if they had been excluded from the golf course because of their race. Specifically, the trial judge charged the jury that . . the law would not permit the City and, therefore, would not permit its lessee, the Gillespie Park Golf Club, Inc., to discriminate against any citizen of Greensboro in the maintenance and operation and use of a golf course. It could not exclude either defendant because of his race or for any other reason applicable to them alone; that is to say, they were entitled to the same rights to use the golf course as any other citizen of Greensboro would be provided they complied with the reasonable rules and regulations for the operation and maintenance and use of the golf course. They would not be required to comply with any unreasonable rules and regulations for the operation and maintenance and use of the golf course.” The jury returned a verdict of guilty. A motion to set aside the verdict was denied.
The Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed the convictions. In doing so the court recognized that “[s]ince the operator of the golf club was charged with making a public or semipublic use of the property, it could not deny the use of the property to citizens simply because they were Negroes. . . . Since the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 . . . separation of the races in the use of public property cannot be required.” 248 N. C., at 491, 103 S. E. 2d 850-851. The court quoted with approval the trial judge’s instructions to the jury on this aspect of the case. It is from this judgment of the Supreme Court of North Carolina that the present appeal was taken.
The appellants contend that the Supremacy Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment required the North Carolina Court to hold that the findings of fact and judgment of the federal court in the civil case of Simkins v. City of Greensboro, 149 F. Supp. 562, conclusively established, contrary to the verdict of the jury in this case, that the state statute was used here to enforce a practice of racial discrimination by a state agency. The Supreme Court of North Carolina took cognizance of the federal court’s published opinion in the Simkins case and commented with respect to it:
“Examining the opinion, it appears that ten people, six of whom are defendants in this action, sought injunctive relief on the assertion that Negroes were discriminated against and were not permitted to play-on what is probably the property involved in this case. We do not know what evidence plaintiffs produced in that action. It is, however, apparent from the opinion that much evidence was presented to Judge Hayes [in the Federal District Court] which was not before the Superior Court when defendants were tried. It would appear from the opinion that the entry involved in this case was one incident on which plaintiffs there relied to support their assertion of unlawful discrimination, but it is manifest from the opinion that that was not all of the evidence which Judge Hayes had. We are left in the dark as to other incidents happening prior or subsequent to the conduct here complained of, which might tend to support the assertion of unlawful discrimination. On the facts presented to him, Judge Hayes issued an order enjoining racial discrimination in the use of the golf course. Presumably that order has and is being complied with. No assertion is here made to the contrary.” 248 N. C., at 493, 103 S. E. 2d, at 852.
The North Carolina court did not decide, however, whether it was bound under the Constitution to give to the federal court’s unpublished findings and judgment in the prior civil action the conclusive effect urged by the appellants in the present criminal case, because it held that as a matter of state law the findings and judgment were not before it.
It is settled that a state court may not avoid deciding-federal questions and thus defeat the jurisdiction of this Court by putting forward nonfederal grounds of decision which are without any fair or substantial support. N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 455; Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313, 318-320; Ward v. Love County, 253 U. S. 17, 22. Invoking this principle, the appellants urge that the independent state grounds relied upon for decision by the Supreme Court of North Carolina were untenable and inadequate, and that the question whether the Federal Constitution compelled that the findings and judgment in the federal case operated as a collateral estoppel in this case was properly before the state court for decision. It thus becomes this Court’s duty to ascertain whether the procedural grounds relied upon by the state court independently and adequately support its judgment.
The Supreme Court of North Carolina stated in its opinion of affirmance that the “defendants for reasons best known to themselves elected not to offer in evidence the record in the Federal court case.” 248 N. C., at 493, 103 S. E. 2d, at 852. This statement is borne out by the record before that court, the so-called “case on appeal” prepared by the appellants themselves. The appellants now advise us that in fact the federal court’s findings and judgment were offered in evidence at the trial and excluded by the trial judge. They ascribe to “some quirk of inadvertence” their failure to include in their “case on appeal” the part of the transcript which would so indicate. And they assert that, since the Supreme Court of North Carolina has “wide discretion” to go outside the record in order to get at the true facts, the Court’s refusal to do so here amounted to a refusal to exercise its discretion “to entertain a constitutional claim while passing upon kindred issues raised in the same manner.” Williams v. Georgia, 349 U. S. 375, 383.
The difficulty with this argument, beyond the fact that the appellants apparently did not ask the North Carolina court to go outside the record for this purpose, is that that court has consistently and repeatedly held in criminal cases that it will not make independent inquiry to determine the accuracy of the record before it. Illustrative decisions are: State v. Robinson, 229 N. C. 647, 50 S. E. 2d 740; State v. Wolfe, 227 N. C. 461, 42 S. E. 2d 515; State v. Gause, 227 N. C. 26, 40 S. E. 2d 463; State v. Stiwinter, 211 N. C. 278, 189 S. E. 868; State v. Dee, 214 N. C. 509, 199 S. E. 730; State v. Weaver, 228 N. C. 39, 44 S. E. 2d 360; State v. Davis, 231 N. C. 664, 58 S. E. 2d 355; State v. Franklin, 248 N. C. 695, 104 S. E. 2d 837.
Thus in the Robinson case the court reversed a criminal conviction for insufficiency of the evidence, although noting that:
“[T]he court below, in its charge . . . referred to . .. incriminating facts and circumstances which do not appear in the testimony included in the record before us. This would seem to indicate that the record fails to include all the evidence offered by the State.
“Be that as it may, the record on appeal imports verity, and this Court is bound thereby. (Citing cases.) This is true even though the case is settled by counsel (citing cases); and not by the judge (citing cases) ....
“The Supreme Court is bound by the case on appeal, certified by the clerk of the Superior Court, even though the trial judge has had no opportunity to review it, and must decide questions presented upon the record as it comes here, without indulging in assumptions as to what might have occurred.” 229 N. C., at 649-650, 50 S. E. 2d, at 741-742.
In State v. Wolfe the court reversed a criminal conviction on the ground of error in the trial court’s instructions to the jury, although pointing out that:
“The quoted excerpts from the charge do not reflect the clarity of thought and conciseness of statement usually found in the utterances of the eminent and experienced jurist who presided at the trial below. . . . Even so, it [the record] is certified as the case on appeal. We are bound thereby and must decide the question presented upon the record as it comes here, without indulging in assumptions as to what might have occurred.” 227 N. C., at 463, 42 S. E. 2d, at 516-517.
In the Game case the court also reversed a conviction upon the ground of error in the charge, although noting that:
“Doubtless the use of the words 'greater weight of evidence’ instead of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ was a slip of the tongue or an error in transcribing. Nevertheless, it appears in the record, and we must accept it as it comes to us.” 227 N. C., at 30, 40 S. E. 2d, at 466.
In the Stiwinter case, involving a similar issue, the court said:
“We are constrained to believe that this instruction has been erroneously reported, but it is here in a record duly certified . . . which imports verity, and we are bound by it.” 211 N. C., at 279, 189 S. E., at 869.
The Dee case involved similar issues. There the court noted:
“It is suggested by the Attorney-General that, in all probability, a typographical error has crept into the transcript and that the word ‘disinterested’ was used where the word ‘interested’ appears. In this he is supported by a letter from the judge who presided at the trial, and upon this letter a motion for cer-tiorari to correct the record has been lodged on behalf of the State .... [T]he transcript is not now subject to change or correction. State v. Moore, 210 N. C., 686, 188 S. E., 421. It imports verity and we are bound by it. . . . ‘Under C. S., 643, if the case on appeal as served by the appellant be approved by the respondent or appellee, it becomes the case and a part of the record on appeal, and in connection with the record [proper], may alone be considered in determining the rights of the parties interested in the appeal. . . . The appeal must be heard and determined on the agreed case appearing in the record.’ ” 214 N. C., at 512, 199 S. E., at 732.
It is thus apparent that the present case is not of a pattern with Williams v. Georgia, supra. Even if the North Carolina Supreme Court has power to make independent inquiry as to evidence proffered in the trial court but not included in the case on appeal, its decisions make clear that it has without exception refused to do so. This is not a case, therefore, where the state court failed to exercise discretionary power on behalf of appellants’ “federal rights” which it had on other occasions exercised in favor of “kindred issues.”
The appellants contend additionally that they brought the federal court’s findings and judgment in the Simkins case before the state courts in two other ways: (a) by their motion to quash at the outset of the trial, and (b) by their motion to set aside the verdict at the trial’s conclusion. The motion to quash set out the existence and alleged effect of the federal court proceedings, and requested leave to offer in evidence in support of the motion “the full record and judgment roll in said case.” The motion to set aside the verdict incorporated by reference the motion to quash and also contained an independent summary of the federal court proceedings, requesting the court to take judicial notice of the same. Both motions were denied by the trial court without opinion.
As to the motion to quash, the Supreme Court of North Carolina sustained the trial court’s ruling on the ground that the “ 'court, in ruling on the motion, is not permitted to consider extraneous evidence. Therefore, when the defect must be established by evidence aliunde the record, the motion must be denied.’ ” 248 N. C., at 489, 103 S. E. 2d, at 849. In upholding the denial of the second motion, the Supreme Court of North Carolina declined to take judicial notice of the federal court’s findings and judgment, for reasons discussed at some length in .its opinion, and concluded that the appellants “were not, as a matter of right,- entitled to have the verdict set aside.” 248 N. C., at 495, 103 S. E. 2d, at 854. An independent examination of North Carolina law convinces us that the state court in both instances was following well-established local procedural rules; it did not make an ad hoc determination operating discriminatorily against these particular litigants.
At least since the decision in State v. Turner, 170 N. C. 701, 86 S. E. 1019, in 1915, it has been the settled rule in North Carolina that “[a] motion to quash . . . lies only for a defect on the face of the warrant or indictment.” 170 N. C., at 702, 86 S. E., at 1020. The rule that a motion to quash cannot rest on matters dehors the record proper has, so far as investigation reveals, been rigidly adhered to in all subsequent North Carolina decisions. See State v. Brewer, 180 N. C. 716, 717, 104 S. E. 655, 656; State v. Cochran, 230 N. C. 523, 524, 53 S. E. 2d 663, 665; State v. Andrews, 246 N. C. 561, 565, 99 S. E. 2d 745, 748. In the present case the state court simply followed this settled rule of local practice.
A similar conclusion must be reached as to the denial of the motion made at the end of the trial. That motion requested “[t]hat the verdict rendered by the jury . . . be set aside, that the Court withhold and arrest judgment and discharge the defendants notwithstanding the verdict, or grant the defendants a new trial . . . .” Whether the motion be technically considered as one to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial or as one to arrest the judgment and dismiss the defendants, the action of the North Carolina Supreme Court in upholding its denial was clearly in conformity with established state law. “A motion to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial is addressed to the discretion of the court and its refusal to grant such motion is not reviewable on appeal.” State v. McKinnon, 223 N. C. 160, 166, 25 S. E. 2d 606, 610; State v. Chapman, 221 N. C. 157, 19 S. E. 2d 250; State v. Johnson, 220 N. C. 252, 17 S. E. 2d 7. See also State v. Wagstaff, 219 N. C. 15, 19, 12 S. E. 2d 657, 660; State v. Brown, 218 N. C. 415, 422, 11 S. E. 2d 321, 325; State v. Caper, 215 N. C. 670, 2 S. E. 2d 864. “A.motion in arrest of judgment can be based only on matters which appear on the face of the record proper, or on matters which should, but do not, appear on the face of the record proper. . . . The record proper in any action includes only those essential proceedings which are made of record by the law itself, and as such are self-preserving. . . . The evidence in a case is no part of the record proper. ... In consequence, defects which appear only by the aid of evidence cannot be the subject of a motion in arrest of judgment.” State v. Gaston, 236 N. C. 499, 501, 73 S. E. 2d 311, 313; State v. Foster, 228 N. C. 72, 44 S. E. 2d 447; State v. Brown, 218 N. C. 415, 422, 11 S. E. 2d 321, 325; State v. McKnight, 196 N. C. 259, 145 S. E. 281; State v. Shemwell, 180 N. C. 718, 721, 104 S. E. 885.
Examination of the whole course of North Carolina decisions thus precludes the inference that the Supreme Court of North Carolina in this case arbitrarily denied the appellants an opportunity to present their federal claim. The judgment before us for review is the judgment which the Supreme Court of North Carolina made on the record before it, not the action of the state trial court. “Without any doubt it rests with each State to prescribe the jurisdiction of its appellate courts, the mode and time of invoking that jurisdiction, and the rules of practice to be applied in its exercise; and the state law and practice in this regard are no less applicable when Federal rights are in controversy than when the case turns entirely upon questions of local or general law. Callan v. Bransford, 139 U. S. 197; Brown v. Massachusetts, 144 U. S. 573; Jacobi v. Alabama, 187 U. S. 133; Hulbert v. Chicago, 202 U. S. 275, 281; Newman v. Gates, 204 U. S. 89; Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. v. McDonald, 214 U. S. 191, 195.” John v. Paullin, 231 U. S. 583, 585. “[W]hen as here there can be no pretence that the [state] Court adopted its view in order to evade a constitutional issue, and the case has been decided upon grounds that have no relation to any federal question, this Court accepts the decision whether right or wrong.” Nickel v. Cole, 256 U. S. 222, 225.
A word of emphasis is appropriate, before concluding, to make entirely explicit what it is that is involved in this case, and what is not. There is no issue here as to the constitutional right of Negroes to use a public golf course free of racial discrimination. From first to last the courts of North Carolina fully recognized that under the Constitution these appellants could not be convicted if they were excluded from the golf course because of their race. The trial judge so instructed the jury, and the Supreme Court of North Carolina so held. Cf. Constantian v. Anson County, 244 N. C. 221, 93 S. E. 2d 163. Upon the evidence in this case the jury’s verdict established that no such racial discrimination had in fact occurred. “On review here of State convictions, all those matters which are usually termed issues of fact are for conclusive determination by the State courts and are not open for reconsideration by this Court. Observance of this restriction in our review of State courts calls for the utmost scruple.” Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S. 49, 50.
What is involved here is the assertion of a quite different constitutional claim — that the Supremacy Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment require a state criminal court to give conclusive effect to fact findings made in a civil action upon different evidence by a Federal District Court. While intimating no view as to the merits of this constitutional claim, we note only that it is a completely novel one. Cf. Hoag v. New Jersey, 356 U. S. 464, 470-471. The North Carolina Supreme Court did not decide this asserted federal question. We have found that it did not do so because of the requirements of rules of state procedural law within the Constitutional power of the States to define, and here clearly delineated and evenhandedly applied. We have no choice but to determine that this appeal must be dismissed because no federal question is before us. That determination is required by principles of judicial administration long settled in this Court, principles applicable alike to all litigants, irrespective of their race, color, politics, or religion.
Dismissed.
“If any person after being forbidden to do so, shall go or enter upon the lands of another, without a license therefor, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction, shall be fined not exceeding fifty dollars, or imprisoned not more than thirty days: . . . .” N. C. Gen. Stat. § 14-134. This statute was first enacted in 1866. North Carolina Laws, Special Session, Jan., 1866, c. 60.
“Final judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had, may be reviewed by the Supreme Court as follows: . . .
“ (2) By appeal, where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of any state on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of its validity.”
The appellants ask that the appeal be treated as a petition for certiorari in the event it is found that the appeal was improperly taken. See 28 U. S. C. § 2103. The considerations which require dismissal of the appeal in this case also require denial of a petition for certiorari. See 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3).
The relevant provisions of the bylaws were as follows: “Section 1 — Membership. Membership in this corporation shall be restricted to members who are approved by the Board of Directors for membership in this Club. There shall be two types of membership; one, the payment of a stipulated fee of $30.00 or more, plus tax, shall cover membership and greens fees. The other type of membership shall be $1.00, plus tax, but this type of member shall pay greens fees each time he uses the course. The greens fees and the amount of membership fees may be changed by the Board of Directors at any time upon two-thirds vote of the members of the Board.
“Section 2 — Use of Golf Facilities. The golf course and its facilities shall be used only by members, their invited guests, members in good standing of other golf clubs, members of the Carolina Golf Association, pupils of the Professional and his invited guests.”
The trial judge’s instructions in their entirety on this aspect of the case were as follows:
“Now, if the State has satisfied you from the evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt that the land in question, that is the golf course property, was the land of the corporation, that it had the actual possession of the property and that the defendants entered upon the land intentionally and that they did so after being forbidden to do so by an agent or employee of the corporation who was authorized to tell them that they could not play golf, then, nothing else appearing, that would constitute a violation of the statute. However, although the State may prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a prosecution under this statute that the accused intentionally entered upon the land in the actual possession of the corporation after being forbidden to do so by an agent of the corporation and thereby establish as an ultimate fact that the accused entered the property without legal right, the accused may still escape conviction by showing as an affirmative defense that he entered under a bona fide claim of right.
“Bona fide claim of right means a claim of right in good faith or bona fide itself means in good faith. That is to say, when the defendants seek to excuse an entry without legal right as one taking place under a bona fide claim of right, then the burden is upon such defendant to show two things: not beyond a reasonable doubt or even by the greater weight of the evidence, but merely to the satisfaction of the jury, first, that he believed he had a right to enter; and, second, that he had reasonable grounds for such belief.
“Now, the defendants by their plea of not guilty deny their guilt of each and every element of the offense charged, but they further say and contend that even if it be found that the land in question was in the actual possession of the corporation and that they entered the land intentionally and that they did so and remained there after being forbidden to do so, they say that even if that be found that they did so under -a bona fide claim of right and that they believed they had a right to enter and that they had reasonable grounds for such belief.
“Now, as to that question which arises upon the evidence, I instruct you then, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that under the law as determined by the United States Court and as pronounced by them, the Gillespie Golf Club, Inc., by leasing the land from the City of Greensboro to use as a golf course was subjected to the same obligations as the City of Greensboro would have been had it operated a golf course itself. It was subjected to the same rights as the City would have had, the same obligations and same responsibilities; that is to say, the law would not permit the City and, therefore, would not permit its lessee, the Gillespie Park Golf Club, Inc., to discriminate against any citizen of Greensboro in the maintenance and operation and use of a golf course. It could not exclude either defendant because of his race or for any other reason applicable to them alone; that is to say, they were entitled to the same rights to use the golf course as any other citizen of Greensboro would be provided they complied with the reasonable rules and regulations for the operation and maintenance and use of the golf course. They would not be required to comply with any unreasonable rules and regulations for the operation and maintenance and use of the golf course.
“Furthermore, I instruct you that your verdict will not be prompted in any manner whatsoever by the race of the defendants. That has absolutely nothing to do with the case in law and should not be considered by you. Under the law, all citizens have equal rights and equal responsibilities in the maintenance and use of public facilities, that is facilities maintained by the governmental unit in which they live, and therefore the fact that the defendants are Negroes certainly may not be considered to their prejudice nor to the prejudice of the State.”
Although not reaching the merits of the claim that the Constitution would compel it to hold that the federal judgment operated as a collateral estoppel in the present case, the North Carolina court discussed the question of collateral estoppel at some length in its opinion by way of obiter dicta:
“The mere assertion that a court of this State has not given due recognition to a judgment rendered by one of our Federal courts merits serious consideration.
“When the doctrine of collateral estoppel should be applied is not always easily solved. In Van Schuyver v. State, 8 P. 2d 688, it was held that a judgment in a civil action between prosecuting witness and defendant which determined the ownership of domestic fowl could not be used by the defendant in a criminal action to estop the State from prosecuting him on a charge of larceny. Similar conclusions have been reached in other jurisdictions with respect to the ownership of property. State v. Hogard, 12 Minn. 293; People v. Leland, 25 N. Y. S. 943; Hill v. State, 3 S. W. 764 (Tex.) '
“It is said in the annotation to Mitchell v. State, 103 Am. St. Rep. 17: ‘When the previous judgment arose in a case in which the state or commonwealth was the prosecutor or plaintiff and the defendant in the case at bar was also the defendant, and the judgment was with reference to a subject which is material to the case at bar, the doctrine of res judicata applies, (citations) But where the judgment to which it is sought to apply the doctrine of res judicata was rendered in a civil proceeding to which the state was not a party, or in a criminal proceeding to which the defendant in the case at bar was not a party, the doctrine of res judicata does not apply, (citations)’
“The Supreme Court of the United States has recognized and applied the law as there announced to differing factual situations. Compare U. S. v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 229 U. S. 244, 57 L. Ed. 1169, and Williams v. N. C., 325 U. S. 226, 89 L. ed. 1577. Other illustrations may be found in: S. v. Dula, 204 N. C. 535, 168 S. E. 836; Warren v. Ins. Co., 215 N. C. 402, 2 S. E. 2d 17; Powers v. Davenport, 101 N. C. 286; S. v. Boland, 41 N. W. 2d 727; People v. McKenna, 255 P. 2d 452; S. v. Morrow, 75 P. 2d 737; S. v. Cornwell, 91 A. 2d 456; S. v. Greenberg, 109 A. 2d 669. Extensive annotations appear as a note to Green v. State, 87 A. L. R. 1251; 30A Am. Jur. 518.” 248 N. C., at 493, 495, 103 S. E. 2d, at 852, 853-854.
Compare what was said by this Court in Hoag v. New Jersey, 356 U. S. 464, 471: “Despite its wide employment, we entertain grave doubts whether collateral estoppel can be regarded as a constitutional requirement. Certainly this Court has never so held.”
In North Carolina, “[t]he ‘transcript or record on appeal’ [to the Supreme Court] consists of [1] the ‘record proper’ (i. e., summons, pleadings, and judgment) and [2] the ‘case on appeal,’ which last .is the exceptions taken, and such of the evidence, charge, prayers, and other matters occurring at the trial as are necessary to present the matters excepted to for review.” Cressler v. Asheville, 138 N. C. 482, 485, 51 S. E. 53, 54. The “record proper” includes “only those essential proceedings which are made of record by the law itself, and as such are self-preserving,” State v. Gaston, 236 N. C. 499, 501, 73 S. E. 2d 311, 313. The term “record” in this opinion refers, unless otherwise indicated, to that part of the record on appeal which is contained in the “case on appeal,” i. e., the transcript of the proceedings at the trial itself, containing the testimony of witnesses, proffers of evidence, exceptions and rulings thereon, etc., as selected and agreed upon by the parties.
All that the record before the North. Carolina court contained on this aspect of the case, here reproduced in its entirety, was “My name is Myrtle D. Cobb and I am Deputy Clerk in the Federal Court in Greensboro, and I have in my possession or it is my duty to keep in my possession public records concerning Federal cases and I do have in my possession the record in the case of Simkins, et al. v. The Gillespie Park Golf Course. I have all of the original papers in that case.”
Eight pages later, following the transcript of the testimony of another witness, there appears in the record before the North Carolina court the following, also reproduced here in its entirety: “Mrs. Kennedy: If your Honor please, we’d like, if possible, to have a ruling on whether or not these would be admissible. Court: I am going to sustain the objection as to those two Exhibits, that is #6 and #7.” There is nothing in the record before the North Carolina Supreme Court to indicate what “these” meant, and “Exhibits 6 and 7” were not further identified nor made part of the record as an offer of evidence as required by North Carolina law, In re Smith’s Will, 163 N. C. 464, 79 S. E. 977, nor otherwise submitted to the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
The appellants have included in an appendix to their brief an excerpt from the stenographic trial transcript. The trial transcript was made available to this Court after the argument, and the excerpt in question reads as follows:
“DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MRS. KENNEDY:
“Q. Will you state your name and address, please ?
“A. I am Myrtle D. Cobb. I am deputy clerk in the Federal Court in Greensboro.
“Q. As Deputy Clerk in the Federal Court here in Greensboro, is it part of your duty to keep public records?
“A. Yes, it is.
“Q. Do you have a record in the case of Simkins, et al, vs. Gillespie Park Golf Course, et al?
“A. This is the case. It is all the original papers that went up to the Court of Appeals that was filed in our office.
“Q. Were the findings of fact part of that record?
“A. Yes.
“MRS. KENNEDY: Your Honor, at this time we’d like to offer into evidence a decree, the findings of fact, conclusions of law and opinion, as rendered by the Judge of the Federal Court, Middle District of Greensboro.
“MR.. KORNEGAY: OBJECTION.
“THE COURT: Do you have anything further that you want to introduce in regard to that?
“MRS. KENNEDY: In addition to that, we have the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals on this case.
“MR. KORNEGAY: OBJECTION.
“THE COURT: Let the record show that is being offered in evidence. I will rule on it later.
“(The documents referred to were marked for identification DEFENDANTS’ EXHIBITS 6 and 7.)
“THE COURT: Anything else?
“MRS. KENNEDY: Not with this witness, your Honor.”
In civil cases, the North Carolina Supreme Court, on motion of a party, has issued “a certiorari to give the [trial] Judge an opportunity to correct the ‘case’ already settled by him, [but] . . . such certiorari never issues (except to incorporate exceptions to the charge filed within ten days after adjournment: Cameron v. Power Co., 137 N. C., 99) unless it is first made clear to the Court, usually by letter from the Judge, that he will make the correction if given the opportunity.” Slocumb v. Construction Co., 142 N. C. 349, 351, 55 S. E. 196, 197; Sherrill v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 116 N. C. 655, 21 S. E. 429; Broadwell v. Ray, 111 N. C. 457, 16 S. E. 408; Lowe v. Elliott, 107 N. C. 718, 12 S. E. 383. Here, the case on appeal was not settled by the trial judge, and no motion for certiorari was made.
In Aycock v. Richardson, 247 N. C. 233, 100 S. E. 2d 379, and Mason v. Moore County Board, 229 N. C. 626, 51 S. E. 2d 6, the court went beyond the record for the restricted and quite different purpose of determining whether it had jurisdiction of the appeal, i. e., to determine whether an appeal had been properly taken in accordance with North Carolina General Statutes §§ 1-279 and 1-280. In other cases the North Carolina Supreme Court has remanded a cause for completion of the record on appeal because the record proper (as opposed to the case on appeal) lacked certain primary essentials. State v. Butts, 91 N. C. 524 (record failed to show that a court had been held by a judge or that a grand jury had been drawn, sworn, and charged); State v. Farrar, 103 N. C. 411, 9 S. E. 449 (same); State v. Daniel, 121 N. C. 574, 28 S. E. 255 (record did not show the organization of the court below or when and where the trial had been held). See also Kearnes v. Gray, 173 N. C. 717, 92 S. E. 149. In the same category must be placed those cases in which the North Carolina Supreme Court, on motion of a party, remanded the cause for correction of the record proper. See State v. Brown, 203 N. C. 513, 166 S. E. 396 (error in the transcription of the verdict); State v. Mosley, 212 N. C. 766, 194 S. E. 486 (omission in the transcription of the verdict). See also State v. Marsh, 134 N. C. 184, 47 S. E. 6 (case reversed because of omission of part of the indictment in the record on appeal). As to the important distinction in North Carolina between the record proper and case on appeal, see n. 7, supra.
There is a statutory departure from the settled rule. A North Carolina statute, enacted more than 70 years ago, providing that “[a]ll exceptions to grand jurors for and on account of their disqualifications shall be taken ... by motion to quash the indictment, and if not so taken, the same shall be deemed to be waived.” N. C. Gen. Stat. § 9-26. The North Carolina courts have held that when a motion to quash is employed to attack the qualification of grand jurors, the defendant may rely on evidence outside the record proper. See State v. Gardner, 104 N. C. 739, 10 S. E. 146; State v. Peoples, 131 N. C. 784, 42 S. E. 814; State v. Speller, 229 N. C. 67, 47 S. E. 2d 537; Miller v. State, 237 N. C. 29, 74 S. E. 2d 513; State v. Perry, 248 N. C. 334, 103 S. E. 2d 404.
It has been suggested that even though the ground relied upon by the Supreme Court of North Carolina is an adequate state ground, this case should not be dismissed, but remanded because of a supervening “event.” But there has been no significant “change, either in fact or law, which has supervened since the judgment was entered” by the Supreme Court of North Carolina. Patterson v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 600, 607. All that has happened is that the State Attorney General’s Office, at this Court’s request after argument, made available a transcript of the trial court proceedings which was stated to be accurate. But it has not been suggested that the State at any time has questioned that the transcript of the trial court’s proceedings would reflect that the documents had in fact been offered in evidence in the trial court. See note 9. This case thus does not involve a situation where there has been an intervening change in fact or law. Compare Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Dennis, 224 U. S. 503; Pagel v. MacLean, 283 U. S. 266; State Tax Comm’n v. Van Cott, 306 U. S. 511, 515-516. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the manner in which the Court took jurisdiction. The Court uses a variety of means whereby it undertakes to consider cases that it has been petitioned to review. The most important ones are the writ of certiorari, the writ of appeal, and for legacy cases the writ of error, appeal, and certification. For cases that fall into more than one category, identify the manner in which the court takes jurisdiction on the basis of the writ. For example, Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), an original jurisdiction and a mandamus case, should be coded as mandamus rather than original jurisdiction due to the nature of the writ. Some legacy cases are "original" motions or requests for the Court to take jurisdiction but were heard or filed in another court. For example, Ex parte Matthew Addy S.S. & Commerce Corp., 256 U.S. 417 (1921) asked the Court to issue a writ of mandamus to a federal judge. Do not code these cases as "original" jurisdiction cases but rather on the basis of the writ. | What is the manner in which the Court took jurisdiction? | [
"cert",
"appeal",
"bail",
"certification",
"docketing fee",
"rehearing or restored to calendar for reargument",
"injunction",
"mandamus",
"original",
"prohibition",
"stay",
"writ of error",
"writ of habeas corpus",
"unspecified, other"
] | [
1
] | sc_jurisdiction |
HANLON et al. v. BERGER et ux.
No. 97-1927.
Argued March 24, 1999
Decided May 24, 1999
Richard A. Cordray argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was James A. Anzelmo.
Henry H. Rossbacher argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief for respondents Berger et al. were Nanci E. Nishimura and Jay F Lansing. R Cameron De-Vore, Jessica L. Goldman, and David C. Kohler filed briefs for respondents Cable News Network, Inc., et al.
A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was filed for ABC, Inc., et al. by Lee Levine, James E. Grossberg, Jay Ward Brown, Henry S. Hober-man, Richard M. Schmidt, Jr., Susanna M. Lowy, Harold W. Fuson, Jr., Barbara Wartelle Wall, Ralph E. Goldberg, Karlene W. Goller, Jerry S. Birenz, Slade R. Metcalf, Jack N. Goodman, David S. J. Brown, René P. Milam, George Freeman, and Jane E. Kirtley.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers by Joshua L. Dratel; and for the National Association of Securities and Commercial Law Attorneys by Kevin P. Roddy.
M. Reed Hopper and Robin L. Rivett filed a brief for the Pacific Legal Foundation as amicus curiae.
Per Curiam.
Respondents Paul and Erma Berger sued petitioners— special agents of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and an assistant United States attorney — for damages under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971). They alleged that the conduct of petitioners had violated their rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 129 F. 3d 505 (CA9 1997). We granted certiorari, 525 U. S. 981 (1998).
Respondents live on a 75,000-acre ranch near Jordan, Montana. In 1993, a Magistrate Judge issued a warrant authorizing the search of “The Paul W. Berger ranch with appurtenant structures, excluding the residence” for evidence of “the taking of wildlife in violation of Federal laws.” App. 17. About a week later, a multiple-vehicle caravan consisting of Government agents and a crew of photographers and reporters from Cable News Network, Inc. (CNN), proceeded to a point near the ranch. The agents executed the warrant and explained: “Over the course of the day, the officers searched the ranch and its outbuildings pursuant to the authority conferred by the search warrant. The CNN media crew . . . accompanied and observed the officers, and the media crew recorded the officers’ conduct in executing the warrant.” Brief for Petitioners 5.
Review of the complaint’s much more detailed allegations to the same effect satisfies us that respondents alleged a Fourth Amendment violation under our decision today in Wilson v. Layne, ante, p. 603. There we hold that police violate the Fourth Amendment rights of homeowners when they allow members of the media to accompany them during the execution of a warrant in their home. We also hold there that because the law on this question before today’s decision was not clearly established, the police in that case were entitled to the defense of qualified immunity. Ante, at 605-606.
Petitioners maintain even lated the Fourth Amendment rights of respondents, they are entitled to the defense of qualified immunity. We agree. Our holding in Wilson makes clear that this right was not clearly established in 1992. The parties have not called our attention to any decisions which would have made the state of the law any clearer a year later — at the time of the search in this case. We therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the petitioner of the case. The petitioner is the party who petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. This party is variously known as the petitioner or the appellant. Characterize the petitioner as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the petitioner by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the petitioner is actually single entity or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single petitioner, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the petitioner of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
123
] | sc_petitioner |
TOWNSEND et al. v. SWANK, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC AID OF ILLINOIS, et al.
No. 70-5021.
Argued November 8, 1971
Decided December 20, 1971
Michael F. Lefkow argued the cause and filed briefs for appellants in No. 70-5021. M. James Spitzer, Jr., argued the cause pro hac vice for appellants in No. 70-5032. With him on the briefs was Melvin B. Goldberg.
Donald J. Veverka, Assistant Attorney General of Illinois, argued the cause for appellees in both cases. With him on the brief were William J. Scott, Attorney General, and Francis T. Crowe, Bernard Genis, and David E. Bradshaw, Assistant Attorneys General.
Solicitor General Griswold and Richard B. Stone filed a brief for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance in both cases.
Together with No. 70-5032, Alexander et al. v. Swank, Director, Department of Public Aid of Illinois, et al., also on appeal from the same court.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellants, two college students and their mothers, brought this class action in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois alleging that § 4M.1 of the Illinois Public Aid Code, Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 23, § 4-1.1 (1967) and the implementing Illinois Public Aid Regulation 150 violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, because inconsistent with § 406 (a) (2) (B) of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. §606 (a)(2)(B), also violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Under the Illinois statute and regulation needy dependent children 18 through 20 years of age who attend high school or vocational training school are eligible for benefits under the federally assisted Aid to ramifies With Dependent Children (AFDC) program, 42 U. S. C. § 601 et seg., but such children who attend a college or university are not eligible. Section 406 (a)(2) of the Social Security Act, on the other hand, defines “dependent child” to include a child . . (B) under the age of twenty-one and (as determined by the State in accordance with standards prescribed by the Secretary) a student regularly attending a school, college, or university, or regularly attending a course of vocational or technical training designed to fit him for gainful employment.” A three-judge district court held that neither constitutional contention had merit and sustained the validity of the Illinois statute and regulation. 314 F. Supp. 1082 (1970). We noted probable jurisdiction, 401 U. S. 906 (1971). We hold that the Illinois statute and regulation conflict with § 406 (a) (2) (B) and for that reason are invalid under the Supremacy Clause. We therefore reverse on that ground without reaching the equal protection issue.
I
Section 402 (a) (10) of the Social Security Act provides that state participatory plans submitted under the AFDC program for the approval of the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) must provide “that aid to families with dependent children shall be furnished with reasonable promptness to all eligible individuals.” (Emphasis supplied.) In King v. Smith, 392 U. S. 309 (1968), we considered whether a State participating in an AFDC program may, consistently with the Supremacy Clause, adopt eligibility standards that exclude from benefits needy dependent children eligible for benefits under applicable federal statutory standards. There was before us in that case a regulation of the Alabama Department of Pensions and Security that treated a man who cohabited with the mother of needy dependent children in or outside the home as a nonabsent “parent” within the federal statute. Since aid can be granted under § 406 (a) of the Federal Act only if a “parent” of the needy child is continually absent from the home, Alabama's regulation resulted in the ineligibility of the children for benefits. We held that the Alabama regulation defined “parent” in a manner inconsistent with § 406 (a) of the Social Security Act and therefore that in “denying AFDC assistance to [children] on the basis of this invalid regulation, Alabama has breached its federally imposed obligation to furnish ‘aid to families with dependent children . . . with reasonable promptness to all eligible individuals _’ ” 392 U. S., at 333.
Thus, King v. Smith establishes that, at least in the absence of congressional authorization for the exclusion clearly evidenced from the Social Security Act or its legislative history, a state eligibility standard that excludes persons eligible for assistance under federal AFDC standards violates the Social Security Act and is therefore invalid under the Supremacy Clause. We recognize that HEW regulations seem to imply that States may to some extent vary eligibility requirements from federal standards. However, the principle that accords substantial weight to interpretation of a statute by the department entrusted with its administration is inapplicable insofar as those regulations are inconsistent with the requirement of § 402 (a) (10) that aid be furnished “to all eligible individuals.” (Emphasis supplied.) King v. Smith, 392 U. S., at 333 n. 34.
II
It is next argued that in the case of 18-20-year-old needy dependent children, Congress authorized the States to vary eligibility requirements from federal standards. In other words, it is contended that Congress authorized the States to discriminate between these needy dependent children solely upon the basis of the type of school attended. Our examination of the legislative history has uncovered no evidence that Congress granted the asserted authority. On the contrary, we are persuaded that the history supports the conclusion that Congress meant to continue financial assistance for AFDC programs for the age group only in States that conformed their eligibility requirements to the federal eligibility standards.
Section 406 (a) (2) (B) makes dependent 18-20-year-olds eligible for benefits whether attending a college or university, or attending a course of vocational or technical training. The only discretion written into the statute permits a State to determine, “in accordance with standards prescribed by the Secretary,” whether a particular student, without regard to whether his attendance is at a college or vocational school, is a student “regularly attending” a bona fide school. This particularization of the area of state authority is itself cogent evidence that Congress did not also authorize the States to limit eligibility to students attending vocational school.
Nor is there anything in the legislative history of the evolution of § 406 (a) (2) (B) to support appellees' argument. That history does show that whenever Congress extended AFDC eligibility to older children — from those under 16 to those 16-17, and finally to those 18-20— Congress left to the individual States the decision whether to participate in the program for the new age group. There is no legislative history, however, to support the proposition that Congress also gave to the individual States an option to tailor eligibility standards within the age group, and thus exclude children eligible under the federal standards.
The original Social Security Act provided aid only to dependent children under the age of 16. 49 Stat. 629. A 1939 amendment extended aid to children age 16-17 “regularly attending school,” 53 Stat. 1380. The States were not, however, required to extend their AFDC programs to the 16-17-year age group. See H. R. Rep. No. 728, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 28-29 (1939). But if a State chose to do so, not a word in the legislative history suggests that it might limit its choice to students attending schools selected by the State, and exclude children of the age group attending other schools.
In 1956 Congress deleted the school attendance requirement and provided for benefits for all dependent children of the 16-17 age group. 70 Stat. 850. The Senate Report on this bill stated that the bill would “permit Federal sharing in assistance to such children” and also that the bill would “make some additional needy children eligible for aid.” S. Rep. No. 2133, 84th Cong., 2d Sess., 30 (1956). (Emphasis supplied.) The Conference Report stated that the bill would “eliminate the requirement that a needy child between 16 and 18 years of age must be regularly attending school in order to be eligible for aid to dependent children.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 2936, 84th Cong., 2d Sess., 42 (1956). Significantly, nothing in the legislative history of that change indicates that the States were at liberty to continue to limit eligibility to 16-17-year-olds attending school.
The first provision for the age group 18-20 came in 1964 when benefits were authorized but limited to children attending high school or vocational school. 78 Stat. 1042. As in the case of the 1939 amendments extending aid to children 16-17 regularly attending school, the States had the choice whether to participate in this new program; S. Rep. No. 1517, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1964), expressly stated that “extension of the program in this manner would be optional with the States.” When in 1965 Congress amended § 406 (a) (2) (B) in the form now before us nothing was said to indicate that States that had adopted the 1964 program limited to children attending vocational schools were free to continue that limited program and not extend it to children 18-20 attending a college or university. The relevant Senate Report, S. Rep. No. 404, pt. 1, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 147 (1965), implies the contrary, stating:
“Under existing law States, at their option, may continue payments to needy children up to age 21 in the aid to families with dependent children program, providing they are ‘regularly attending a high school in pursuance of a course of study leading to a high school diploma or its equivalent, or regularly attending a course of vocational or technical training designed to fit him for gainful employment.’ The committee added an amendment extending this provision so as to include needy children under 21 who are regularly ‘attending a school, college, or university.’ ”
Moreover, the Report notes that one of the purposes of the extension was to bring AFDC in line with the Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance provisions of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 401 et seq. Under that program an insured’s child is eligible for insurance benefits if he is a full-time student finder 22 years' of age, and under §402 (d)(7) this includes a student attending a college or university. S. Rep. No. 404 attributed to the provision under both programs a purpose to “assure, as far as possible, that children will not be prevented from going to school or college because they are deprived of parental support.” S: Rep. No. 404, supra, at 147. This theme carried through the Conference Committee Report: “This- 'amendment would broaden the type of schools .that children over the age of 18 and under the age of 21 may attend and receive aid to families with dependent children payments in which the Federal Government will participate.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 682, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 69 (1965).
In sum, when application of AFDC was extended to a new age group — in 1939 to 16-17-year-olds and in 1964 to 18-20-year-olds — Congress took care to make explicit that the decision whether to participate was left to the individual States. However, when application of AFDC within the age group was enlarged- — in 1956 to all 16-17-year-olds and in 1965 to 18-20-year-olds attending college or a university — the evidence, if not as clear, is that financial support of AFDC programs for the age group was to continue only in States that conformed their eligibility requirements to the new federal standards. Any doubt must be resolved in favor of this construction to avoid the necessity of passing upon the equal protection issue. “Congress is without power to enlist state cooperation in a joint federal-state program by legislation which authorizes the States to violate the Equal Protection Clause.” Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 641 (1969). Notwithstanding the view of the majority of the District Court, 314 F. Supp., at 1088-1089, we think there is a serious question whether the Illinois classification can withstand the strictures of the Equal Protection Clause. The majority justified the classification as designed to attain the twin goals of aiding needy children to become employable and self-sufficient, and of insuring fiscal integrity of the State’s welfare program. We doubt the rationality of the classification as a means of furthering the goal of aiding needy children to become employable and self-sufficient; we' are not told what basis in practical experience supports the proposition that children with a vocational training are more readily employable than children with a college education. And a State’s interest in preserving the fiscal integrity of its welfare program by economically allocating limited AFDC resources may not be protected by the device of adopting eligibility requirements restricting the class of children made eligible by federal standards. That interest may be protected by the State’s “undisputed power to set the level of benefits . . . .” King v. Smith, 392 U. S., at 334. See Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471 (1970).
Reversed.
Section 4-1.1 of the Illinois Public Aid Code, Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 23, §4-1.1 (1967), provides:
“Child Age Eligibility. The child or children must be under age 18, or age 18 or over but under age 21 if in regular attendance in high school or in a vocational or technical training school. 'Regular Attendance,’ as used in this Section, means attendance full time during the regular terms of such schools, or attendance part time during such regular terms as may be authorized by rule of the Illinois Department for the purpose of permitting the child to engage in employment which supplements his classroom instruction or which otherwise enhances his development toward a self-supporting status.”
Illinois Department of Public Aid Regulation 150 provides:
“Age Requirements:
“A. D. C. Dependent children under 18 years of age, unless 18 through 20 years of age and in regular attendance in high school or vocational or technical training school. (This does not include 18 through 20 year old children in college.)”
Appellant Loverta Alexander lives with her son Jerome in Chicago. Jerome reached his 18th birthday in August 1968 and enrolled in junior college about a month later. In early October a Cook County welfare officer notified Mrs. Alexander that the AFDC benefits received by her since 1963 would be terminated as of November 1, 1968. Though Mrs. Alexander was able to obtain general assistance benefits from the State, the termination of AFDC payments resulted in a loss of $23.52 per month in the family’s income. The only reason given by the State for the termination was that Jerome had reached his 18th birthday and was not attending high school or vocational school
Appellant Georgia Townsend is the sole support of Omega Minor, her only child. Mrs. Townsend, who is disabled, received AFDC benefits for herself and her daughter from 1953 through 1960. Thereafter she received an AFDC grant for Omega, and benefits for herself under the Aid to the Disabled provisions of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1351 et seq. In September 1966, Omega enrolled in junior college. Two months later a Cook County welfare officer notified Mrs. Townsend that Omega’s monthly AFDC payment would be canceled as of January 1967. While Mrs. Townsend’s disability payments were increased to meet her own needs, the loss of AFDC benefits resulted in a reduction of $47.94 per month in family income. Again the only reason given was the failure to comply with the Illinois statute and regulation.
This action was brought by Mrs. Alexander under the Federal Civil Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the termination of her AFDC benefits. Mrs. Townsend intervened as a plaintiff on behalf of herself and her daughter Omega, and as a member of the class described in Mrs. Alexander’s complaint. The three-judge court, convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §§ 2281, 2284, held that appellants’ complaint stated a cause of action under the Civil Rights Act, and was a proper class action under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23. Those holdings are not challenged in this Court.
See e. g., HEW’s so-called “Condition X” embodied in a regulation found in 45 CFR § 233.10 (a) (1) (ii), 36 Fed. Reg. 3866:
“The groups selected for inclusion in the plan and the eligibility conditions imposed must not exclude individuals or groups on an arbitrary or unreasonable basis, and must not result in inequitable treatment of individuals or groups in the light of the provisions and purposes of the public assistance titles of the Social Security Act.” See also HEW, Handbook of Public Assistance Administration, pt. IV, 4210 (1962); Note, Welfare’s “Condition X,” 76 Yale L. J. 1222 (1967).
See HEW Handbook, swpra, n. 3, pt. IV, “Green Sheets,” G-3220 (1965); cf. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 682, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 69-70 (1965).
The United States, as amicus curiae, cites sections of the Social Security Act as supporting Illinois’ contention that its college-vocational school distinction is authorized. For example, the United States refers to § 406 (a) which originally defined “dependent child” to include a child living with his “father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, stepfather, stepmother, stepbrother, stepsister, uncle, or aunt.” 49 Stat. 629. A statement by Senator Harrison during debate on this provision, 79 Cong. Rec. 9269, is said to establish that the States were not required to extend assistance for every relative listed in the section. Section 407 (b) is also cited as explicitly reserving to the States a choice whether to participate in certain parts of the AFDC program. But these are express authorizations to depart from federal eligibility standards; there is no express authorization in this case.
It appears that some States and the District of Columbia continued to limit payments to 16-17-year-olds attending school and to handicapped children prevented from doing so. HEW Public Assistance Report No. 50, Characteristics of State Public Assistance Plans under the Social Security Act (1964. ed.).
HEW itself states: “Within the age limit set by the State, there should be a choice of attending a school, college, or university or taking a course of vocational or technical training for gainful employment.” HEW; Handbook of Public Assistance Administration, supra, n. 3, pt. IV, “Green Sheets,” G-3220 (1965).
The concurring opinion below acknowledged that the reasonable basis for the classification would not be apparent if incentives to learn white- and blue-collar trades and the supply and demand for professional and labor positions were the same. The opinion concluded, however, that the classification could be reasonable in the context of a labor market in which “the skills of manual laborers are in short supply,” because in such a market, “as a means of utilizing limited state funds in an effort to channel persons into those employment positions for which the society has great need, the statutory discrimination between college students and post-high school vocational trainees is not purely arbitrary or invidious, but rather, a rational approach designed to correct a perceived problem.” 314 F. Supp., at 1091. Apart from the fact that nothing appears about the nature of the market, a classification that channels one class of people, poor people, into a particular class of low-paying, low-status jobs would plainly raise substantial questions under the Equal Protection Clause. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the federal agency involved in the administrative action that occurred prior to the onset of litigation. If the administrative action occurred in a state agency, respond "State Agency". Do not code the name of the state. The administrative activity may involve an administrative official as well as that of an agency. If two federal agencies are mentioned, consider the one whose action more directly bears on the dispute;otherwise the agency that acted more recently. If a state and federal agency are mentioned, consider the federal agency. Pay particular attention to the material which appears in the summary of the case preceding the Court's opinion and, if necessary, those portions of the prevailing opinion headed by a I or II. Action by an agency official is considered to be administrative action except when such an official acts to enforce criminal law. If an agency or agency official "denies" a "request" that action be taken, such denials are considered agency action. Exclude: a "challenge" to an unapplied agency rule, regulation, etc.; a request for an injunction or a declaratory judgment against agency action which, though anticipated, has not yet occurred; a mere request for an agency to take action when there is no evidence that the agency did so; agency or official action to enforce criminal law; the hiring and firing of political appointees or the procedures whereby public officials are appointed to office; attorney general preclearance actions pertaining to voting; filing fees or nominating petitions required for access to the ballot; actions of courts martial; land condemnation suits and quiet title actions instituted in a court; and federally funded private nonprofit organizations. | What is the agency involved in the administrative action? | [
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bureau of Prisons",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner or Collector of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Administrative agency established under an interstate compact (except for the MTC)",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration or Board of Veterans' Appeals",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"State Agency",
"Unidentifiable",
"Office of Thrift Supervision",
"Department of Homeland Security",
"Board of General Appraisers",
"Board of Tax Appeals",
"General Land Office or Commissioners",
"NO Admin Action",
"Processing Tax Board of Review"
] | [
116
] | sc_adminaction |
BRANCATO v. GUNN et al.
No. 98-9913.
Decided October 12, 1999
Per Curiam.
Pro se petitioner Braneato seeks leave to proceed informa pauperis under Rule 39 of this Court. We deny this request as frivolous pursuant to Rule 39.8. Braneato is allowed until November 2, 1999, within which to pay the docketing fees required by Rule 38 and to submit his petition in compliance with this Court’s Rule 33.1. We also direct the Clerk not to accept any further petitions for certiorari from Braneato in noneriminal matters unless he first pays the docketing fee required by Rule 38 and submits his petitions in compliance with Rule 33.1.
Braneato has abused this Court’s certiorari process. On June 7, 1999, we invoked Rule 39.8 to deny Braneato in forma 'pauperis status with respect to a petition for certio-rari. See Brancato v. Connecticut Gen. Life Ins. Co., 526 U. S. 1157. Prior to the Rule 39.8 denial, Braneato had filed six petitions for certiorari, all of which were both frivolous and had been denied without recorded dissent. The instant petition for certiorari thus brings Braneato’s total number of frivolous filings to eight.
We enter the order barring prospective filings for the reasons discussed in Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 506 U. S. 1 (1992) (per curiam). Brancato’s abuse of the writ of certiorari has been in noncriminal eases, and we limit our sanction accordingly. The order therefore will not prevent Braneato from petitioning to challenge criminal sanctions which might be imposed on him. The order will, however, allow this Court to devote its limited resources to the claims of petitioners who have not abused our processes.
It is so ordered. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. | What is the issue area of the decision? | [
"Criminal Procedure",
"Civil Rights",
"First Amendment",
"Due Process",
"Privacy",
"Attorneys",
"Unions",
"Economic Activity",
"Judicial Power",
"Federalism",
"Interstate Relations",
"Federal Taxation",
"Miscellaneous",
"Private Action"
] | [
1
] | sc_issuearea |
FW/PBS, INC., dba PARIS ADULT BOOKSTORE II, et al. v. CITY OF DALLAS et al.
No. 87-2012.
Argued October 4, 1989
Decided January 9, 1990
O’Connor, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and IV, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and White, Stevens, Scalia, and Kennedy, JJ., joined, the opinion of the Court with respect to Part III, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and White, Scalia, and Kennedy, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part II, in which Stevens and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Brennan, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Marshall and Blackmun, JJ., joined, post, p. 238. White, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Rehnquist, C. J., joined, post, p. 244. Stevens, J., post, p. 249, and Scalia, J., post, p. 250, filed opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part.
John H. Weston argued the cause for petitioners in all cases. With him on the briefs for petitioners in No. 87-2051 were G. Randall Garrón, Cathy E. Crosson, and Richard L. Wilson. Arthur M. Schwartz filed briefs for petitioners in No. 87-2012. Frank P. Hernandez filed a brief for petitioners in No. 88-49.
Analeslie Muncy argued the cause for respondents in all cases. With her on the brief were Kenneth C. Dippel and Thomas P. Brandt.
Together with No. 87-2051, M. J. R., Inc., et al. v. City of Dallas, and No. 88-49, Berry et al. v. City of Dallas et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Booksellers Association, Inc., et al. by Michael A. Bamberger; and for PHE, Inc., by Bruce J. Ennis, Jr., and Mark D. Schneider.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Family Association, Inc., by Peggy M. Coleman; for the Children’s Legal Foundation by AlanE. Sears; for the National Institute of Municipal Law Officers by William I. Thornton, Jr., Frank B. Gummey III, and William H. Taube; and for the U. S. Conference of Mayors et al. by Benna Ruth Solomon and Peter Buscemi.
Bruce A. Taylor filed a brief for Citizens for Decency Through Law, Inc., as amicus curiae.
Justice O’Connor
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, III, and IV, and an opinion with respect to Part II, in which Justice Stevens and Justice Kennedy join.
These cases call upon us to decide whether a licensing scheme in a comprehensive city ordinance regulating sexually oriented businesses is a prior restraint that fails to provide adequate procedural safeguards as required by Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 (1965). We must also decide whether any petitioner has standing to address the ordinance’s civil disability provisions, whether the city has sufficiently justified its requirement that motels renting rooms for fewer than 10 hours be covered by the ordinance, and whether the ordinance impermissibly infringes on the right to freedom of association. As this litigation comes to us, no issue is presented with respect to whether the books, videos, materials, or entertainment available through sexually oriented businesses are obscene pornographic materials.
I
On June 18,1986, the city council of the city of Dallas unanimously adopted Ordinance No. 19196 regulating sexually oriented businesses, which was aimed at eradicating the secondary effects of crime and urban blight. The ordinance, as amended, defines a “sexually oriented business” as “an adult arcade, adult bookstore or adult video store, adult cabaret, adult motel, adult motion picture theater, adult theater, escort agency, nude model studio, or sexual encounter center.” Dallas City Code, ch. 41A, Sexually Oriented Businesses §41A-2(19) (1986). The ordinance regulates sexually oriented businesses through a scheme incorporating zoning, licensing, and inspections. The ordinance also includes a civil disability provision, which prohibits individuals convicted of certain crimes from obtaining a license to operate a sexually oriented business for a specified period of years.
Three separate suits were filed challenging the ordinance on numerous grounds and seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief as well as declaratory relief. Suits were brought by the following groups of individuals and businesses: those involved in selling, exhibiting, or distributing publications or video or motion picture films; adult cabarets or establishments providing live nude dancing or films, motion pictures, videocassettes, slides, or other photographic reproductions depicting sexual activities and anatomy specified in the ordinance; and adult motel owners. Following expedited discovery, petitioners’ constitutional claims were resolved through cross-motions for summary judgment. After a hearing, the District Court upheld the bulk of the ordinance, striking only four subsections. See Dumas v. Dallas, 648 F. Supp. 1061 (ND Tex. 1986). The District Court struck two subsections, §§41A-5(a)(8) and 41A-5(c), on the ground that they vested overbroad discretion in the chief of police, contrary to our holding in Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147, 150-151 (1969). See 648 F. Supp., at 1072-1073. The District Court also struck the provision that imposed a civil disability merely on the basis of an indictment or information, reasoning that there were less restrictive alternatives to achieve the city’s goals. See id., at 1075 (citing United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968)). Finally, the District Court held that five enumerated crimes from the list of those creating civil disability were unconstitutional because they were not sufficiently related to the purpose of the ordinance. See 648 F. Supp., at 1074 (striking bribery, robbery, kidnaping, organized criminal activity, and violations of controlled substances Acts). The city of Dallas subsequently amended the ordinance in conformity with the District Court’s judgment.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 837 F. 2d 1298 (1988). Viewing the ordinance as a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation under Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41 (1986), the Court of Appeals upheld the ordinance against petitioners’ facial attack on the ground that it is “ ‘designed to serve a substantial government interest’ ” and allowed for “ ‘reasonable alternative avenues of communication.’” 837 F. 2d, at 1303 (quoting Renton, supra, at 47). The Court of Appeals further concluded that the licensing scheme’s failure to provide the procedural safeguards set forth in Freedman v. Maryland, supra, withstood constitutional challenge, because such procedures are less important when regulating “the conduct of an ongoing commercial enterprise.” 837 F. 2d, at 1303.
Additionally, the Court of Appeals upheld the provision of the ordinance providing that motel owners renting rooms for fewer than 10 hours were “adult motel owners” and, as such, were required to obtain a license under the ordinance. See §§41A-2(4), 41A-18. The motel owners attacked the provision on the ground that the city had made no finding that adult motels engendered the evils the city was attempting to redress. The Court of Appeals concluded that the 10-hour limitation was based on the reasonable supposition that short rental periods facilitate prostitution, one of the secondary effects the city was attempting to remedy. See 837 F. 2d, at 1304.
Finally, the Court of Appeals upheld the civil disability provisions, as modified by the District Court, on the ground that the relationship between “the offense and the evil to be regulated is direct and substantial.” Id., at 1305.
We granted petitioners’ application for a stay of the mandate except for the holding that the provisions of the ordinance regulating the location of sexually oriented businesses do not violate the Federal Constitution, 485 U. S. 1042 (1988), and granted certiorari, 489 U. S. 1051 (1989). We now reverse in part and affirm in part.
I — I HH
We granted certiorari on the issue whether the licensing scheme is an unconstitutional prior restraint that fails to provide adequate procedural safeguards as required by Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 (1965). Petitioners involved in the adult entertainment industry and adult cabarets argue that the licensing scheme fails to set a time limit within which the licensing authority must issue a license and, therefore, creates the likelihood of arbitrary denials and the concomitant suppression of speech. Because we conclude that the city’s licensing scheme lacks adequate procedural safeguards, we do not reach the issue decided by the Court of Appeals whether the ordinance is properly viewed as a content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction aimed at secondary effects arising out of the sexually oriented businesses. Cf. Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S. 546, 562 (1975).
A
We note at the outset that petitioners raise a facial challenge to the licensing scheme. Although facial challenges to legislation are generally disfavored, they have been permitted in the First Amendment context where the licensing scheme vests unbridled discretion in the decisionmaker and where the regulation is challenged as overbroad. See City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U. S. 789, 798, and n. 15 (1984). In Freedman, we held that the failure to place limitations on the time within which a censorship board decisionmaker must make a determination of obscenity is a species of unbridled discretion. See Freedman, supra, at 56-57 (failure to confine time within which censor must make decision “contains the same vice as a statute delegating excessive administrative discretion”). Thus, where a scheme creates a “[r]isk of delay,” 380 U. S., at 55, such that “every application of the statute create[s] an impermissible risk of suppression of ideas,” Taxpayers for Vincent, supra, at 798, n. 15, we have permitted parties to bring facial challenges.
The businesses regulated by the city’s licensing scheme include adult arcades (defined as places in which motion pictures are shown to five or fewer individuals at a time, see § 41A-2(1)), adult bookstores or adult video stores, adult cabarets, adult motels, adult motion picture theaters, adult theaters, escort agencies, nude model studios, and sexual encounter centers, §§41A-2(19) and 41A-3. Although the ordinance applies to some businesses that apparently are not protected by the First Amendment, e. g., escort agencies and sexual encounter centers, it largely targets businesses purveying sexually explicit speech which the city concedes for purposes of these cases are protected by the First Amendment. Cf. Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 150 (1959) (bookstores); Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, supra (live theater performances); Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50 (1976) (motion picture theaters); Schad v. Mount Ephraim, 452 U. S. 61 (1981) (nude dancing). As Justice Scalia acknowledges, post, at 262, the city does not argue that the businesses targeted are engaged in purveying obscenity which is unprotected by the First Amendment. See Brief for Respondents 19, 20, and n. 8 (“[T]he city is not arguing that the ordinance does not raise First Amendment concerns .... [T]he right to sell this material is a constitutionally protected right. . .”). See also Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 23-24 (1973). Nor does the city rely upon Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U. S. 463 (1966), or contend that those businesses governed by the ordinance are engaged in pandering. It is this Court’s practice to decline to review those issues neither pressed nor passed upon below. See Youakim v. Miller, 425 U. S. 231, 234 (1976) (per curiam).
The city asserted at oral argument that it requires every business — without regard to whether it engages in First Amendment-protected speech — to obtain a certificate of occupancy when it moves into a new location or the use of the structure changes. Tr. of Oral Arg. 49; see also App. 42, Dallas City Code §51-1.104 (1988) (certificate of occupancy required where there is new construction or before occupancy if there is a change in use). Under the challenged ordinance, however, inspections are required for sexually oriented businesses whether or not the business has moved into a new structure and whether or not the use of the structure has changed. Therefore, even assuming the correctness of the city’s representation of its “general” inspection scheme, the scheme involved here is more onerous with respect to sexually oriented businesses than with respect to the vast majority of other businesses. For example, inspections are required whenever ownership of a sexually oriented business changes, and when the business applies for the annual renewal of its permit. We, therefore, hold, as a threshold matter, that petitioners may. raise a facial challenge to the licensing scheme, and that as the suit comes to us, the businesses challenging the scheme have a valid First Amendment interest.
B
While “[p]rior restraints are not unconstitutional per se . . . [a]ny system of prior restraint. . . comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.” Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, supra, at 558. See, e. g., Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444, 451-452 (1938); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 306-307 (1940); Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, 574-575 (1941); Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S., at 150-151. Our cases addressing prior restraints have identified two evils that will not be tolerated in such schemes. First, a scheme that places “unbridled discretion in the hands of a government official or agency constitutes a prior restraint and may result in censorship.” Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., 486 U. S. 760, 767 (1988). See Saia v. New York, 384 U. S. 558 (1948); Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268 (1951); Kunz v. New York, 340 U. S. 290 (1951); Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313 (1958); Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 (1965); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536 (1965); Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, supra; Secretary of State of Maryland v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U. S. 947 (1984). “ ‘It is settled by a long line of recent decisions of this Court that an ordinance which . . . makes the peaceful enjoyment of freedoms which the Constitution guarantees contingent upon the uncontrolled will of an official — as by requiring a permit or license which may be granted or withheld in the discretion of such official — is an unconstitutional censorship or prior restraint upon the enjoyment of those freedoms.'” Shuttlesworth, supra, at 151 (quoting Staub, supra, at 322).
Second, a prior restraint that fails to place limits on the time within which the decisionmaker must issue the license is impermissible. Freedman, supra, at 59; Vance v. Universal Amusement Co., 445 U. S. 308, 316 (1980) (striking statute on ground that it restrained speech for an “indefinite duration”). In Freedman, we addressed a motion picture censorship system that failed to provide for adequate procedural safeguards to ensure against unlimited suppression of constitutionally protected speech. 380 U. S., at 57. Like a censorship system, a licensing scheme creates the possibility that constitutionally protected speech will be suppressed where there are inadequate procedural safeguards to ensure prompt issuance of the license. In Riley v. National Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc., 487 U. S. 781 (1988), this Court held that a licensing scheme failing to provide for definite limitations on the time within which the licensor must issue the license was constitutionally unsound, because the “delay compelled] the speaker’s silence.” Id., at 802. The failure to confine the time within which the licensor must make a decision “contains the same vice as a statute delegating excessive administrative discretion,” Freedman, supra, at 56-57. Where the licensor has unlimited time within which to issue a license, the risk of arbitrary suppression is as great as the provision of unbridled discretion. A scheme that fails to set reasonable time limits on the decisionmaker creates the risk of indefinitely suppressing permissible speech.
Although the ordinance states that the “chief of police shall approve the issuance of a license by the assessor and collector of taxes to an applicant within 30 days after receipt of an application,” the license may not issue if the “premises to be used for the sexually oriented business have not been approved by the health department, fire department, and the building official as being in compliance with applicable laws and ordinances.” §41A-5(a)(6). Moreover, the ordinance does not set a time limit within which the inspections must occur. The ordinance provides no means by which an applicant may ensure that the business is inspected within the 30-day time period within which the license is purportedly to be issued if approved. The city asserted at oral argument that when applicants apply for licenses, they are given the telephone numbers of the various inspection agencies so that they may contact them. Tr. of Oral Arg. 48. That measure, obviously, does not place any limits on the time within which the city will inspect the business and thereby make the business eligible for the sexually oriented business license. Thus, the city’s regulatory scheme allows indefinite postponement of the issuance of a license.
In Freedman, we determined that the following three procedural safeguards were necessary to ensure expeditious de-cisionmaking by the motion picture censorship board: (1) any restraint prior to judicial review can be imposed only for a specified brief period during which the status quo must be maintained; (2) expeditious judicial review of that decision must be available; and (3) the censor must bear the burden of going to court to suppress the speech and must bear the burden of proof once in court. Freedman, supra, at 58-60. Although we struck the licensing provision in Riley v. National Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc., supra, on the ground that it did not provide adequate procedural safeguards, we did not address the proper scope of procedural safeguards with respect to a licensing scheme. Because the licensing scheme at issue in these cases does not present the grave “dangers of a censorship system,” Freedman, supra, at 58, we conclude that the full procedural protections set forth in Freedman are not required.
The core policy underlying Freedman is that the license for a First Amendment-protected business must be issued within a reasonable period of time, because undue delay results in the unconstitutional suppression of protected speech. Thus, the first two safeguards are essential: the licensor must make the decision whether to issue the license within a specified and reasonable time period during which the status quo is maintained, and there must be the possibility of prompt judicial review in the event that the license is erroneously denied. See Freedman, supra, at 51. See also Shuttlesworth, supra, at 155, n. 4 (content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation must provide for “expeditious judicial review”); National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U. S. 43 (1977).
The Court in Freedman also required the censor to go to court and to bear the burden in court of justifying the denial.
“Without these safeguards, it may prove too burdensome to seek review of the censor’s determination. Particularly in the case of motion pictures, it may take very little to deter exhibition in a given locality. The exhibitor’s stake in any one picture may be insufficient to warrant a protracted and onerous course of litigation. The distributor, on the other hand, may be equally unwilling to accept the burdens and delays of litigation in a particular area when, without such difficulties, he can freely exhibit his film in most of the rest of the country . . . .” 380 U. S., at 59.
Moreover, a censorship system creates special concerns for the protection of speech, because “the risks of freewheeling censorship are formidable.” Southeastern Promotions, 420 U. S., at 559.
As discussed supra, the Dallas scheme does not provide for an effective limitation on the time within which the licensor’s decision must be made. It also fails to provide an avenue for prompt judicial review so as to minimize suppression of the speech in the event of a license denial. We therefore hold that the failure to provide these essential safeguards renders the ordinance’s licensing requirement unconstitutional insofar as it is enforced against those businesses engaged in First Amendment activity, as determined by the court on remand.
The Court also required in Freedman that the censor bear the burden of going to court in order to suppress the speech and the burden of proof once in court. The licensing scheme we examine today is significantly different from the censorship scheme examined in Freedman. In Freedman, the censor engaged in direct censorship of particular expressive material. Under our First Amendment jurisprudence, such regulation of speech is presumptively invalid and, therefore, the censor in Freedman was required to carry the burden of going to court if the speech was to be suppressed and of justifying its decision once in court. Under the Dallas ordinance, the city does not exercise discretion by passing judgment on the content of any protected speech. Rather, the city reviews the general qualifications of each license applicant, a ministerial action that is not presumptively invalid. The Court in Freedman also placed the burdens on the censor, because otherwise the motion picture distributor was likely to be deterred from challenging the decision to suppress the speech and, therefore, the censor’s decision to suppress was tantamount to complete suppression of the speech. The license applicants under the Dallas scheme have much more at stake than did the motion picture distributor considered in Freedman, where only one film was censored. Because the license is the key to the applicant’s obtaining and maintaining a business, there is every incentive for the applicant to pursue a license denial through court. Because of these differences, we conclude that the First Amendment does not require that the city bear the burden of going to court to effect the denial of a license application or that it bear the burden of proof once in court. Limitation on the time within which the licensor must issue the license as well as the availability of prompt judicial review satisfy the “principle that the freedoms of expression must be ringed about with adequate bulwarks.” Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 66 (1963).
Finally, we note that § 5 of Ordinance No. 19196 summarily states that “[t]he terms and provisions of this ordinance are severable, and are governed by Section 1-4 of CHAPTER 1 of the Dallas City Code, as amended.” We therefore remand to the Court of Appeals for further determination whether and to what extent the licensing scheme is severable. Cf. Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., 486 U. S., at 772 (remanding for determination of severability).
I-H i — I I — I
We do not reach the merits of the adult entertainment and adult cabaret petitioners’ challenges to the civil disability-provision, § 41A-5(a)(10), and the provision disabling individuals residing with those whose licenses have been denied or revoked, § 41A-5(a)(5), because petitioners have failed to show they have standing to challenge them. See Brief for Petitioners in No. 87-2051, pp. 22-40, 44; Brief for Petitioners in No. 87-2012, pp. 12-20. Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals determined whether petitioners had standing to challenge any particular provision of the ordinance. Although neither side raises the issue here, we are required to address the issue even if the courts below have not passed on it, see Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U. S. 411, 421 (1969), and even if the parties fail to raise the issue before us. The federal courts are under an independent obligation to examine their own jurisdiction, and standing “is perhaps the most important of [the jurisdictional] doctrines.” Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 750 (1984).
“[E]very federal appellate court has a special obligation to ‘satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a cause under review/ even though the parties are prepared to concede it. Mitchell v. Maurer, 293 U. S. 237, 244 (1934). See Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327, 331-332 (1977) (standing). ‘And if the record discloses that the lower court was without jurisdiction this court will notice the defect, although the parties make no contention concerning it/” Bender v. Williamsport Area School Dist., 475 U. S. 534, 541 (1986).
It is a long-settled principle that standing cannot be “inferred argumentatively from averments in the pleadings,” Grace v. American Central Ins. Co., 109 U. S. 278, 284 (1883), but rather “must affirmatively appear in the record.” Mansfield C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382 (1884). See King Bridge Co. v. Otoe County, 120 U. S. 225, 226 (1887) (facts supporting Article III jurisdiction must “ap-pea[r] affirmatively from the record”). And it is the burden of the “party who seeks the exercise of jurisdiction in his favor,” McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U. S. 178, 189 (1936), “clearly to allege facts demonstrating that he is a proper party to invoke judicial resolution of the dispute.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 518 (1975). Thus, petitioners in this case must “allege . . . facts essential to show jurisdiction. If [they] fai[l] to make the necessary allegations, [they have] no standing.” McNutt, supra, at 189.
The ordinance challenged here prohibits the issuance of a license to an applicant who has resided with an individual whose license application has been denied or revoked within the preceding 12 months. The ordinance also has a civil disability provision, which disables those who have been convicted of certain enumerated crimes as well as those whose spouses have been convicted of the same enumerated crimes. This civil disability lasts for two years in the case of misdemeanor convictions and five years in the case of conviction of a felony or of more than two misdemeanors within a 24-month period. Thus, under the amended ordinance, once the disability period has elapsed, the applicant may not be denied a license on the ground of a former conviction.
Examination of the record here reveals that no party has standing to challenge the provision involving those residing with individuals whose licenses were denied or revoked. Nor does any party have standing to challenge the civil disability provision disabling applicants who were either convicted of the specified offenses or whose spouses were convicted.
First, the record does not reveal that any party before us was living with an individual whose license application was denied or whose license was revoked. Therefore, no party has standing with respect to § 41A-5(a)(5). Second, § 41A-5(a)(10) applies to applicants whose spouses have been convicted of any of the enumerated crimes, but the record reveals only one individual who could be disabled under this provision. An individual, who had been convicted under the Texas Controlled Substances Act, asserts that his wife was interested in opening a sexually oriented business. But the wife, although an officer of petitioner Bi-Ti Enterprises, Inc., is not an applicant for a license or a party to this action. See 12 Record, Evert Affidavit 3-6. Cf. Bender, 475 U. S., at 548, and n. 9.
Even if the wife did have standing, her claim would now be moot. Her husband’s convictions under the Texas Controlled Substances Act would not now disable her from obtaining a license to operate a sexually oriented business, because the city council, following the District Court’s decision, deleted the provision disabling those with convictions under the Texas Controlled Substances Act or Dangerous Drugs Act. App. H. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 87-2012, p. 107. See Hall v. Beals, 396 U. S. 45, 48 (1969).
Finally, the record does not reveal any party who has standing to challenge the provision disabling an applicant who was convicted of any of the enumerated crimes. To establish standing to challenge that provision the individual must show both (1) a conviction of one or more of the enumerated crimes, and (2) that the conviction or release from confinement occurred recently enough to disable the applicant under the ordinance. See §§41A-5(a)(10)(A), (B). If the disability period has elapsed, the applicant is not deprived of the possibility of obtaining a license and, therefore, cannot be injured by the provision.
The only party who could plausibly claim to have standing to challenge this provision is Bill Staten, who stated in an affidavit that he had been “convicted of three misdemeanor obscenity violations within a twenty-four month period.” 7 Record, Staten Affidavit 2. That clearly satisfies the first requirement. Under the ordinance, any person convicted of two or more misdemeanors “within any 24-month period,” must wait five years following the last conviction or release from confinement, whichever is later, before a license may be issued. See § 41A-5(a)(10)(B)(iii). But Staten failed to state when he had been convicted of the last misdemeanor or the date of release from confinement and, thus, has failed “clearly to allege facts demonstrating that he is a proper party” to challenge the civil disability provisions. No other petitioner has alleged facts to establish standing, and the District Court made no factual findings that could support standing. Accordingly, we conclude that the petitioners lack standing to challenge the provisions. See Warth, 422 U. S., at 518.
At oral argument, the city’s attorney responded as follows when asked whether there was standing to challenge the civil disability provisions: “I believe that there are one or two of the Petitioners that have had their licenses denied based on criminal conviction.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 32. See also Foster Affidavit 1 (affidavit filed by the city in its Response to Petitioner’s Application for Recall and Stay of the Mandate stating that two licenses were revoked on the grounds of a prior conviction since the ordinance went into effect but failing to identify the licensees). We do not rely on the city’s representations at argument as “the necessary factual predicate may not be gleaned from the briefs and arguments themselves,” Bender, swpra, at 547. And we may not rely on the city’s affidavit, because it is evidence first introduced to this Court and “is not in the record of the proceedings below,” Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 157, n. 16 (1970). Even if we could take into account the facts as alleged in the city’s affidavit, it fails to identify the individuals whose licenses were revoked and, therefore, falls short of establishing that any petitioner before this Court has had a license revoked under the civil disability provisions.
Because we conclude that no petitioner has shown standing to challenge either the civil disability provisions or the provisions involving those who live with individuals whose licenses have been denied or revoked, we conclude that the courts below lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate petitioners’ claims with respect to those provisions. We accordingly vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals with respect to those provisions with directions to dismiss that portion of the action. See Bender, supra, at 549 (vacating judgment below on ground of lack of standing); McNutt, 298 U. S., at 190 (same).
IV
' The motel owner petitioners challenge two aspects of the ordinance’s requirement that motels that rent rooms for fewer than 10 hours are sexually oriented businesses and are, therefore, regulated under the ordinance. See § 41A-18(a). First, they contend that the city had an insufficient factual basis on which to conclude that rental of motel rooms for fewer than 10 hours produced adverse impacts. Second, they contend that the ordinance violates privacy rights, especially the right to intimate association.
With respect to the first contention, the motel owners assert that the city has violated the Due Process Clause by failing to produce adequate support for its supposition that renting rooms for fewer than 10 hours results in increased crime or other secondary effects. They contend that the council had before it only a 1977 study by the city of Los Angeles that considered cursorily the effect of adult motels on surrounding neighborhoods. See Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment, Vol. 2, Exh. 11. The Court of Appeals thought it reasonable to believe that shorter rental time periods indicate that the motels foster prostitution and that this type of criminal activity is what the ordinance seeks to suppress. See 837 F. 2d, at 1304. Therefore, no more extensive studies were required than those already available. We agree with the Court of Appeals that the reasonableness of the legislative judgment, combined with the Los Angeles study, is adequate to support the city’s determination that motels permitting room rentals for fewer than 10 hours should be included within the licensing scheme.
The motel owners also assert that the 10-hour limitation on the rental of motel rooms places an unconstitutional burden on the right to freedom of association recognized in Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 618 (1984) (“Bill of Rights . . . must afford the formation and preservation of certain kinds of highly personal relationships”). The city does not challenge the motel owners’ standing to raise the issue whether the associational rights of their motel patrons have been violated. There can be little question that the motel owners have “a live controversy against enforcement of the statute” and, therefore, that they have Art. III standing. Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 192 (1976). It is not clear, however, whether they have prudential, jus tertii standing to challenge the ordinance on the ground that the ordinance infringes the associational rights of their motel patrons. Id., at 193. But even if the motel owners have such standing, we do not believe that limiting motel room rentals to 10 hours will have any discernible effect on the sorts of traditional personal bonds to which we referred in Roberts. Any “personal bonds” that are formed from the use of a motel room for fewer than 10 hours are not those that have “played a critical role in the culture and traditions of the Nation by cultivating and transmitting shared ideals and beliefs.” 468 U. S., at 618-619. We therefore reject the motel owners’ challenge to the ordinance.
Finally, the motel owners challenge the regulations on the ground that they violate the constitutional right “to be let alone,” Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting), and that the ordinance infringes the motel owners’ commercial speech rights. Because these issues were not pressed or passed upon below, we decline to consider them. See, e. g., Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 628, n. 10 (1982); FTC v. Grolier Inc., 462 U. S. 19, 23, n. 6 (1983).
Accordingly, the judgment below is affirmed in part, reversed in part, and vacated in part, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 41A-5(a)(5) provides as follows: “The chief of police shall approve the issuance of a license . . . unless he finds [that]. . . [a]n applicant is residing with a person who has been denied a license by the city to operate a sexually oriented business within the preceding 12 months, or residing with a person whose license to operate a sexually oriented business has been revoked within the preceding 12 months.”
Sections 41A-5(a)(10), (b), and (c), as amended, provide as follows: “The chief of police shall approve the issuance of a license . . . unless he finds [that] . . .
“(10) An applicant or an applicant’s spouse has been convicted of a crime:
“(A) involving:
“(i) any of the following offenses as described in Chapter 43 of the Texas
Penal Code:
“(aa) prostitution;
“(bb) promotion of prostitution;
“(cc) aggravated promotion of prostitution;
“(dd) compelling prostitution;
“(ee) obscenity;
“(ff) sale, distribution, or display of harmful material to minor;
“(gg) sexual performance by a child;
“(hh) possession of child pornography;
“(ii) any of the following offenses as described in Chapter 21 of the Texas
Penal Code:
“(aa) public lewdness;
“(bb) indecent exposure;
“(cc) indecency with a child;
“(iii) sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault as described in Chapter
22 of the Texas Penal Code;
“(iv) incest, solicitation of a child, or harboring a runaway child as described in Chapter 25 of the Texas Penal Code; or
“(v) criminal attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation to commit any of the foregoing offenses;
“(B) for which:
“(i) less than two years have elapsed since the date of conviction or the date of release from confinement imposed for the conviction, whichever is the later date, if the conviction is of a misdemeanor offense;
“(ii) less than five years have elapsed since the date of conviction or the date of release from confinement for the conviction, whichever is the later date, if the conviction is of a felony offense; or
“(in) less than five years have elapsed since the date of the last conviction or the date of release from confinement for the last conviction, whichever is the later date, if the convictions are of two or more misdemeanor offenses or combination of misdemeanor offenses occurring within any 24-month period.
“(b) The fact that a conviction is being appealed shall have no effect on the disqualification of the applicant or applicant’s spouse.
“(c) An applicant who has been convicted or whose spouse has been convicted of an offense listed in Subsection (a)(10) may qualify for a sexually oriented business license only when the time period required by Section 41A-5(a)(10)(B) has elapsed.”
Petitioners also raise a variety of other First Amendment challenges to the ordinance’s licensing scheme. In light of our conclusion that the licensing requirement is unconstitutional because it lacks essential procedural safeguards and that no petitioner has standing to challenge the residency or civil disability provisions, we do not reach those questions. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the disposition of the case, that is, the treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed. The information relevant to this variable may be found near the end of the summary that begins on the title page of each case, or preferably at the very end of the opinion of the Court. For cases in which the Court granted a motion to dismiss, consider "petition denied or appeal dismissed". There is "no disposition" if the Court denied a motion to dismiss. | What is the disposition of the case, that is, the treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed (includes modified)",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"certification to or from a lower court",
"no disposition"
] | [
6
] | sc_casedisposition |
WISSNER et al. v. WISSNER.
No. 119.
Argued December 6-7, 1949.
Decided February 6, 1950.
Carlos J. Badger argued the cause, for appellants. With him on the brief were W. Coburn Cook and Vernon F. Gant.
Leslie A. Cleary argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief was William Zefj.
By special leave of Court, Morton Hollander argued the cause for the United States, as amicus curiae, urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Perlman, Assistant Attorney General Morison and Paul A. Sweeney.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We are to determine whether the California community property law, as applied in this case, conflicts with certain provisions of the National Service Life Insurance Act of 1940; and if so, whether the federal law is consistent with the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The cause is here on appeal from the final judgment of a California District Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of California having denied a hearing. Reading the opinion below as a decision that the federal statute was unconstitutional, we noted probable jurisdiction. 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (1).
The material facts are not in dispute. Appellants are the parents, and appellee the widow, of Major Leonard O. Wissner, who died in India in 1945 in the service of the United States Army. He had enlisted in the Army in November 1942 and in January 1943 subscribed to a National Service Life Insurance policy in the principal sum of $10,000, which policy was in effect at the date of his death. The opinion below indicates that the decedent and appellee were estranged at the time he entered the Army or shortly thereafter. In January 1943 he requested his attorney to “get an insurance policy away” from appellee. After six months in the service decedent stopped the allotment to his wife, and in September 1943 expressed the wish that he “could find some way of forcing plaintiff to a settlement and a divorce.” It is not surprising, therefore, that, without the knowledge or consent of his wife, the Major named his mother principal and his father contingent beneficiary under his National Service Life Insurance policy. Since his death the United States Veterans’ Administration has been paying his mother the proceeds of the policy in monthly installments.
In 1947 the Major’s widow brought action against the appellants in the Superior Court for Stanislaus County, State of California, alleging that under California community property law she was entitled to one-hálf the proceeds of the policy. Appellants answered that their designation as beneficiaries was “final and conclusive as against any claimed rights” of appellee. The court found that the decedent and his widow had been married in 1930, and until the date of Major Wissner’s death had been legally domiciled there and subject to the state’s community property laws. Major Wissner’s army pay, which was held to be community property under California law, was the source of the premiums paid on the policy. But no claim was made for the premiums; the widow sought the proceeds of the insurance. The court concluded that, consistent with California law in the ordinary insurance case, the proceeds of this policy “were and are the community property” of the widow and the decedent, and entered judgment for appellee for one-half the amount of payments already received, plus interest, and required appellants to pay appellee one-half of all future payments “immediately upon the receipt thereof” by appellees or either thereof. The District Court of Appeal affirmed, 89 Cal. App. 2d 759, 201 P. 2d 837 (1949), holding that appellee had a “vested right” to the insurance proceeds, and the Supreme Court of California denied a hearing, one judge dissenting.
We are of the opinion that the decision below was incorrect. The National Service Life Insurance Act is the congressional mode of affording a uniform and comprehensive system of life insurance for members and veterans of the armed forces of the United States. A liberal policy toward the serviceman and his named beneficiary is everywhere evident in the comprehensive statutory plan. Premiums are very low and are waived during the insured’s disability; costs of administration are borne by the United States; liabilities may be discharged out of congressional appropriations.
The controlling section of the Act provides that the insured “shall have the right to designate the beneficiary or beneficiaries of the insurance [within a designated class], . . . and shall ... at all times have the right to change the beneficiary or beneficiaries . . . .” 38 U. S. C. § 802 (g). Thus Congress has spoken with force and clarity in directing that the proceeds belong to the named beneficiary and no other. Pursuant to the congressional command, the Government contracted to pay the insurance to the insured’s choice. He chose his mother. It is plain to us that the judgment of the lower court, as to one-half of the proceeds, substitutes the widow for the mother, who was the beneficiary Congress directed shall receive the insurance money. We do not share appellee’s discovery of congressional purpose that widows in community property states participate in the payments under the policy, contrary to the express direction of the insured. Whether directed at the very money received from the Government or an equivalent amount, the judgment below nullifies the soldier’s choice and frustrates the deliberate purpose of Congress. It cannot stand.
The judgment under review has a further deficiency so far as it ordered the diversion of future payments as soon as they are paid by the Government to the mother. At least in this respect, the very payments received under the policy are to be “seized,” in effect, by the judgment below. This is in flat conflict with the exemption provision contained in 38 U. S. C. § 454a, made a part of this Act by 38 U. S. C. § 816: Payments to the named beneficiary “shall be exempt from the claims of creditors, and shall not be liable to attachment, levy, or seizure by or under any legal or equitable process whatever, either before or after receipt by the beneficiary. . . .”
We recognize that some courts have ruled that this and similar exemptions relating to pensions and veterans’ relief do not apply when alimony or the support of wife or children is in issue. See Schlaefer v. Schlaefer, 71 App. D. C. 350, 112 F. 2d 177 (1940); Tully v. Tully, 159 Mass. 91, 34 N. E. 79 (1893); Hodson v. New York City Employees’ Retirement System, 243 App. Div. 480, 278 N. Y. Supp. 16 (1935); In re Guardianship of Bagnall, 238 Iowa 905, 29 N. W. 2d 597 (1947), and cases therein cited. But cf. Brewer v. Brewer, 19 Tenn. App. 209, 239-241, 84 S. W. 2d 1022, 1040 (1933). We shall not attempt to epitomize a legal system at least as ancient as the customs of the Visigoths, but we must note that the community property principle rests upon something more than the moral obligation of supporting spouse and children : the business relationship of man and wife for their mutual monetary profit. See de Funiak, Community Property, § 11 (1943). Venerable and worthy as this community is, it is not, we think, as likely to justify an exception to the congressional language as specific judicial recognition of particular needs, in the alimony and support cases. Our view of those cases, whatever it may be, is irrelevant here. Further, Congress has provided in the National Service Life Insurance Act that the chosen beneficiary of the life insurance policy shall be, during life, the sole owner of the proceeds.
The constitutionality of the congressional mandate above expounded need not detain us long. Certainly Congress in its desire to afford as much material protection as possible to its fighting force could wisely provide a plan of insurance coverage. Possession of government insurance, payable to the relative of his choice, might well directly enhance the morale of the serviceman. The exemption provision is his guarantee of the complete and full performance of the contract to the exclusion of conflicting claims. The end is a legitimate one within the congressional powers over national defense, and the means are adapted to the chosen end. The Act is valid. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421 (1819). And since the statute which made the insurance proceeds possible was explicit in announcing that the insured shall have the right to designate the recipient of the insurance, and that “No person shall have a vested right” to those proceeds, 38 U. S. C. § 802 (i), appellee could not, in law, contemplate their capture. The federal statute establishes the fund in issue, and forestalls the existence of any “vested” right in the proceeds of federal insurance. Hence no constitutional question is presented. However “vested” her right to the proceeds of nongovernmental insurance under California law, that rule cannot apply to this insurance. Compare W. B. Worthen Co. v. Thomas, 292 U. S. 426 (1934); Lynch v. United States, 292 U. S. 571 (1934). See Hines v. Lowrey, 305 U. S. 85 (1938); Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 294 U. S. 240 (1935); Ruddy v. Rossi, 248 U. S. 104 (1918).
The judgment below is
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
54 Stat. 1008, as amended, 38 U. S. C. § 801 et seq. Amendments added in 1946, 60 Stat. 781, do not concern us here.
We assume the correctness of the lower court’s statement of state law. See also French v. French, 17 Cal. 2d 775, 112 P. 2d 235 (1941). The view we take of this case makes it unnecessary to decide whether California is entitled to call army pay community property.
See Lobingier, An Historical Introduction to Community Property Law, 8 Nat. Univ. L. Rev. (No. 2), p. 45 (1928); de Funiak, Community Property, c. II (1943).
There are, of course, support aspects to the community property principle, and in some cases they may be of considerable importance. Likewise alimony may not be limited to the amount essential to support the divorced spouse. But we do not think the Congress would have intended decision to turn on factual variations in the spouse’s need. If there is a distinction to be drawn, we think it must be based upon a generalization as to the dominating characteristics of a particular class of cases — alimony cases, support cases, community property cases. The alimony cases have uniformly been decided on that basis. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the bases on which the Supreme Court rested its decision with regard to the legal provision that the Court considered in the case. Consider "judicial review (national level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of the federal government, including an interstate compact. Consider "judicial review (state level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of a state or local government. Consider "statutory construction" for cases where the majority interpret a federal statute, treaty, or court rule; if the Court interprets a federal statute governing the powers or jurisdiction of a federal court; if the Court construes a state law as incompatible with a federal law; or if an administrative official interprets a federal statute. Do not consider "statutory construction" where an administrative agency or official acts "pursuant to" a statute, unless the Court interprets the statute to determine if administrative action is proper. Consider "interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order" if the majority treats federal administrative action in arriving at its decision.Consider "diversity jurisdiction" if the majority said in approximately so many words that under its diversity jurisdiction it is interpreting state law. Consider "federal common law" if the majority indicate that it used a judge-made "doctrine" or "rule; if the Court without more merely specifies the disposition the Court has made of the case and cites one or more of its own previously decided cases unless the citation is qualified by the word "see."; if the case concerns admiralty or maritime law, or some other aspect of the law of nations other than a treaty; if the case concerns the retroactive application of a constitutional provision or a previous decision of the Court; if the case concerns an exclusionary rule, the harmless error rule (though not the statute), the abstention doctrine, comity, res judicata, or collateral estoppel; or if the case concerns a "rule" or "doctrine" that is not specified as related to or connected with a constitutional or statutory provision. Consider "Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction" otherwise (i.e., the residual code); for issues pertaining to non-statutorily based Judicial Power topics; for cases arising under the Court's original jurisdiction; in cases in which the Court denied or dismissed the petition for review or where the decision of a lower court is affirmed by a tie vote; or in workers' compensation litigation involving statutory interpretation and, in addition, a discussion of jury determination and/or the sufficiency of the evidence. | What is the basis of the Supreme Court's decision? | [
"judicial review (national level)",
"judicial review (state level)",
"Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction",
"statutory construction",
"interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order",
"diversity jurisdiction",
"federal common law"
] | [
3
] | sc_authoritydecision |
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT OF NEW YORK et al. v. HARRIS, SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, et al.
No. 78-873.
Argued October 9, 10, 1979
Decided November 28, 1979
Blackmun, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burger, C. J., and Brennan, White, Marshall, and SteveNS, JJ., joined. Stewart, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Powell and RehNQUist, JJ., joined, post, p. 152.
Joseph F. Bruno argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Allen G. Schwartz and L. Kevin Sheridan. ,
Solicitor General McCree argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Days, Deputy Solicitor General Claiborne, Jessica Dunsay Silver, Marie E. Klimesz, and Vincent F. O’Rourke, Jr
Charles A. Bane, Thomas D. Barr, Norman Redlich, Robert A. Murphy, and Norman J. Chachkin filed a brief for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law as amicus curiae urging affirmance.
Mr. Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents a narrow, but important, issue of statutory interpretation. It concerns a school district’s eligibility for federal financial assistance under the 1972 Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA or Act), 86 Stat. 354, as amended, 20 U. S. C. §§ 1601-1619. Because the federal funds available under the Act are limited, educational agencies compete for those funds.
By § 702 (a) of the Act, 86 Stat. 354, 20 U. S. C. § 1601 (a), Congress found “that the process of eliminating or preventing minority group isolation and improving the quality of education for all children often involves the expenditure of additional funds to which local educational agencies do not have access.” Accordingly, in § 702 (b), Congress stated that the purpose of the legislation was to provide financial assistance “to meet the special needs incident to the elimination of minority group segregation and discrimination among students and faculty in elementary and secondary schools,” to encourage “the voluntary elimination, reduction, or prevention of minority group isolation” in such schools, and to aid schoolchildren “in overcoming the educational disadvantages of minority group isolation.” Section 703 pronounced as United States policy that guidelines and criteria established pursuant to the Act should “be applied uniformly in all regions of the United States.” And, by § 706 (d)'(l), an educational agency was expressly declared ineligible for assistance if, after the date of the Act (June 23, 1972), it
“(B) had in effect any practice, policy, or procedure which results in the disproportionate demotion or dismissal of instructional or other personnel from minority-groups in conjunction with desegregation or the implementation of any plan or the conduct of any activity described in this section, or otherwise engaged in discrimination based upon race, color, or national origin in the hiring, promotion, or assignment of employees of the agency.”
The Act, in § 710 (a), provides that an agency desiring to receive assistance for a fiscal year shall submit an application “at such time, in such form, and containing such information” as the Assistant Secretary for Education of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) “shall require by regulation.” The application is then reviewed by that office and is ranked according to criteria set out in § 710 (c), as implemented by regulation. See 45 CFR § 185.14 (1978). The essential first step is a determination that the applicant is not ineligible under §706 (d)(1). This determination is made initially by HEW’s Office for Civil Rights. The burden, presumably, is on the applicant to establish its eligibility.
II
Petitioner Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York filed three applications for ESA A assistance for the fiscal year 1977-1978. Its revised Basic Grant Application, the only one now at issue, was given a sufficiently favorable ranking so as initially to be considered for funding in the amount of $3,559,132. On July 1, 1977, however, HEW by letter informed the Board that it did not meet the Act’s eligibility requirements. App. 27. In line with the provisions of 45 CFR § 185.46 (b) (1978), an informal meeting was held on July 22. Although HEW then withdrew some of its adverse findings, it still concluded that the Board had not demonstrated a sufficient basis for revocation of its determination of ineligibility. HEW reasoned that, in the language of 45 CFR § 185.43 (b)(2) (1978), the Board’s “assignment of full-time classroom teachers to [its] schools [was] in such a manner as to identify [one or more] of such schools as intended for students of a particular race, color, or national origin.”
The ineligibility determination rested upon statistics developed by HEW’s Office for Civil Rights during a 1976 compliance investigation of the Board’s school system under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 252, 42 U. S. C. § 2000d et seq. From these statistics, HEW concluded that it was possible to identify a number of schools as intended for either minority or nonminority students, solely because of the composition of the faculties. The statistics revealed that, during the 1975-1976 school year, 62.6% of high school pupils were members of a minority, but only 8.3% of high school teachers were minority members. Further, 70% of the minority high school teachers were assigned to schools at which the minority student enrollments exceeded 76%. Conversely, in those high schools where minority student enrollments were less than 40%, there was a disproportionately low percentage of minority teachers. App. 29, 42-43.
The statistical study showed like patterns at the junior high and elementary levels. The percentage of minority junior high teachers was 16.7, and these teachers were concentrated in districts with the highest percentages of minority students. Id., at 29. For the elementary schools, the city wide percentage of minority teachers was 14.3, and these were placed primarily in districts with the largest minority student enrollments. Id., at 28-29. HEW also relied upon findings it had made earlier that the Board was in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Act.
At the informal meeting of July 22, HEW limited its inquiry to the accuracy of the statistics upon which it had rested its decision to deny funding. No substantive rebuttal or explanation for the statistical disparities was presented. On September 16, 1977, HEW issued its formal opinion adhering to its decision of July 1 to deny funding. Brief for Petitioners 8.
The present action then was promptly instituted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York to obtain declaratory relief, to enjoin HEW from enforcing its determination of ineligibility, and to award the initially earmarked funds to the Board. The complaint contained no challenge to the accuracy or sufficiency of HEW’s statistics. Rather, petitioner Board took the position that the racially disproportionate teacher assignments resulted from provisions of state law, from provisions of collective-bargaining agreements, from licensing requirements for particular teaching positions, from a consent decree relating to bilingual instruction (Aspira of New York, Inc. v. Board of Education, 72 Civ. 4002 (SDNY Aug. 29, 1974); see Aspira of New York, Inc. v. Board of Education, 65 F. R. D. 541 (SDNY 1975)), and from demographic changes in student population. The Board expressly denied that it had engaged in intentional or purposeful discrimination. App. 134-149.
Initially, the District Court, after its review of the administrative record and after a hearing, denied the Board’s motion for summary judgment and granted HEW’s cross-motion, thus affirming the denial of funding. The court said:
“[T]here was a reasonable basis for a decision that it had so discriminated. This Court’s powers are extremely limited. In this respect, considering the high school statistics, the State statutes, the United Federation of Teachers agreements, the wishes of individual Black principals, the desires of the individual Parent-Teachers Associations, community school board and Black and White communities, the Administrator could find a practice, policy or procedure after June 23, 1972, resulting in the identification of schools as intended for students of a particular race, color or national origin through the assignment of teachers to those schools.
“Accordingly, with the greatest reluctance because it is the children of the schools who will suffer from this decision of the Administrator, the Court grants the Government’s motion for summary judgment.” Id., at 69-70.
The Board’s request for reargument, however, was granted. The District Court then concluded that HEW should have considered the justifications proffered for the statistical disparities. The matter was therefore remanded to HEW for further consideration consistent with an opinion the court issued. In that opinion, the court stated:
“The relevant statute, regulations and cases indicate a failure of H. E. W. Before declaring a school board ineligible for ESAA funds, H. E. W. must find either that (1) the school board was maintaining an illegally segregated school system on June 23, 1972 and it took no effective steps to desegregate after that date or (2) it had a practice after June 23, 1972 that was segregative in intent, design or foreseeable effect. It may rely on statistics alone to make this finding, but it may not ignore evidence tending to rebut the inferences drawn from the statistics.
[T]he Constitution mandates that the plaintiffs must have an opportunity to rebut a statistical prima facie case of discrimination.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 102-104.
After the administrative hearing on remand, HEW notified the Board that its explanation for the racially identifiable staffing patterns did not adequately rebut the prima facie evidence of discrimination established by the statistics. This determination centered on disparities in 10 of the 110 secondary schools operated by the Board and serving predominantly nonminority student bodies. App. 109-110. HEW’s letter of March 22, 1978, to the Chancellor discussed the several justifications offered and concluded that each was insufficient. Id., at 102-114.
The Board once again sought relief in the District Court. On April 18, that court upheld HEW’s finding of ineligibility as supported by substantial evidence, and denied relief. Id., at 150-153. The Board appealed and obtained a stay preserving the funds at issue pending appellate review.
The Court of Appeals affirmed. Board of Education of City School Dist. v. Calif ano, 584 F. 2d 576 (CA2 1978). On the appeal, the Board still did not contest the finding that certain of its schools were racially identifiable “as a result of the significant disparities in staff assignments.” Id., at 585. The Board, instead, argued that HEW was required “ to establish that the disparities resulted from purposeful or intentional discrimination in the constitutional sense.” Ibid. The Court of Appeals rejected this contention. It held that Congress has the authority “to establish a higher standard, more protective of minority rights, than constitutional minimums require,” and that “Congress intended to permit grant disqualification not only for purposeful discrimination but also for discrimination evidenced simply by an unjustified disparity in staff assignments.” Id., at 588. It further concluded that HEW’s denial of funding was not arbitrary or capricious. Id., at 589. The several proffered justifications were either inadequate to explain the disparities or were unsupported by facts appearing on the record. Ibid.
Because of the importance of the issue, we granted certiorari. Sub nom. Board of Education of City School Dist. v. Califano, 440 U. S. 905 (1979). The stay preserving the funds remains in effect. See Fed. Rule App. Proc. 41 (b).
Ill
Our primary concern is with the intent of Congress. Section 706 sets forth the eligibility criteria for ESAA funding. In subsection (a)(1) it authorizes a grant to a local educational agency that (i) is implementing a desegregation plan approved by a court, or by HEW “as adequate under title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” or (ii), “without having been required to do so,” has a plan to eliminate or reduce minority group isolation.
Critical to the resolution of the issue in this case, however, are the ineligibility provisions of § 706 (d)(1)(B), quoted above in Part I of this opinion. Ineligibility comes about if the agency either has in effect a practice “which results in the disproportionate demotion or dismissal of . . . personnel from minority groups,” or “otherwise engage[s] in discrimination ... in the hiring, promotion, or assignment of employees.” The mere reading of this language reveals that it suffers from imprecision of expression and less than careful draftsmanship. The first portion clearly speaks in terms of effect or impact. The second portion, arguably, might be said to possess an overtone of intent. There is nothing specifically indicating that this difference exists or, if it does, that it was purposefully drawn by Congress. The existence and significance of the difference 'are important for petitioner Board, for we are concerned here not with “disproportionate demotion or dismissal of . . . personnel,” but with racial “discrimination” in the “assignment of employees.”
The Board, as a consequence, argues that it was not the aim of Congress to permit HEW to find that an applicant was ineligible for funding because of its staff assignments unless those assignments were purposefully discriminatory and thus violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; it follows, says the Board, that disproportionate impact alone, without proof of purposeful discrimination, is insufficient. Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, 433 U. S. 406 (1977); Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252 (1977); Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229 (1976); and Keyes v. School Dist. No. 1, Denver, Colo., 413 U. S. 189 (1973), are cited. The Board, in other words, would have us interpret the assignment clause as one imposing a constitutional standard. It contends that the test under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Eights Act also provides the measure under ESAA of disqualifying discrimination and of ineligibility. It claims that HEW’s finding of intentional discrimination erroneously relied upon a foreseeability test, and that, even if such a test were applicable, the finding was based solely on statistical evidence of disparate impact and that such evidence is insufficient.
Bespondents, in their turn, preliminarily assert that it is unnecessary to argue about the correctness of HEW’s finding on the administrative record, and that it is also unnecessary to pursue the dictum of the Court of Appeals to the effect that Title VI condemns practices having a disparate racial impact, although no purposeful discrimination is shown. See 584 F. 2d, at 589; but see Parent Assn, of Andrew Jackson High School v. Ambach, 598 F. 2d 705, 715-716 (CA2 1979). Respondents argue that there is no place here for equivocation: under 45 CFR § 185.43 (b)(2) (1978), an agency is ineligible for funding if it has assigned full-time teachers to schools “in such a manner as to identify any of such schools as intended for students of a particular race, color, or national origin.” This, it is said, is an objective criterion. Respondents note that the Board’s only argument is that on the record no finding properly could be made that the assignment patterns resulted from intentional or purposeful discrimination, and thus, unless the constitutional standard applies, the Board effectively has conceded that the denial of funds was permissible. For the respondents, then, the sole issue is whether the Act authorizes the withholding of funds when the applicant’s faculty assignments, although not shown to amount to purposeful racial discrimination violative of the Equal Protection Clause, are not justified by educational needs.
IV
Intent v. Impact. The denial of funds to the Board resulted from a violation of HEW’s regulation, that is, teacher assignments that served to identify certain schools racially. This led to ineligibility irrespective of whether it was the product of purposeful discrimination. The controversy thus comes down to the question whether that interpretation by regulation is consistent with the governing statute. While perhaps it might be possible to theorize and to parse the language of § 706 (d)(1)(B), as the Board so strongly urges, in such a way as to conclude that impact alone is sufficient for ineligibility with respect to “demotion or dismissal,” but intent is necessary with respect to “assignment of employees,” we conclude that the wording of the statute is ambiguous. This requires us to look closely at the structure and context of the statute and to review its legislative history. When we do this, we are impelled to a conclusion adverse to the Board’s position here. We hold that impact or effect governs both prongs of the ineligibility provision of § 706 (d)(1)(B). The overall structure of the Act, Congress’ statements of purpose and policy, the legislative history, and the text of § 706 (d)(1)(B) all point in the direction of an impact test.
A reading of the Act in its entirety indisputably demonstrates that Congress was disturbed about minority segregation and isolation as such, de facto as well as de jure, and that, with respect to the former, it intended the limited funds it made available to serve as an enticement device to encourage voluntary elimination of that kind of segregation. The Board acknowledges that the Act was conceived in part to provide “a financial impetus to de facto segregated systems to voluntarily desegregate.” Brief for Petitioners 22.
That it was effect, and not intent, that was dominant in the congressional mind when ESAA was enacted is apparent from the specific findings set forth in § 702. Congress’ concern was stated expressly to be about “minority group isolation and improving the quality of education for all children.” The stated purpose of the legislation was the elimination of this isolation. The focus clearly is on actual effect, not on discriminatory intent. Furthermore, the pronouncement of federal policy, set forth in § 703, speaks in terms of national uniformity with respect to “conditions of segregation by race” in the schools. All “guidelines and criteria,” presumably including those governing ineligibility, must “be applied uniformly,” and “without regard to the origin or cause of such segregation.” This, too, looks to effect, not purpose.
There can be no disagreement about the underlying philosophy of the Act. At the time of ESAA’s passage, it was generally believed that the courts, when implementing the Constitution, could not reach de facto segregation. See, e. g., 117 Cong. Rec. 11519 (1971) (remarks of Sen. Mondale). Congress, apparently, was not then in much of a mood to mandate a change in the status quo. The midground solution found and adopted was the enticement approach “to encourage the voluntary elimination, reduction, or prevention of minority group isolation,” as § 702 (a) (2) of the Act recites. Thus, it would make no sense to allow a grant to a school district that, although not violating the Constitution, was maintaining a de jacto segregated system. To treat as ineligible only an applicant with a past or a conscious present intent to perpetuate racial isolation would defeat the stated objective of ending de jacto as well as de jure segregation.
Other provisions of the Act indicate that an effect test is the Act’s rule, not its exception. Section 706 (d) (1) (A) disqualifies an agency that transfers property or makes services available to a private school or system without first determining (“knew or reasonably should have known”) that the recipient does not discriminate. Here, plainly, ineligibility results from something other than invidious motive; the applicant is ineligible even when it is merely negligent in failing to discover the character of the recipient’s operations. Similarly, § 706 (d)(1)(C), which has to do with the assignment of children to particular classes within a school, provides for ineligibility whenever “any procedure . . . results in the separation of minority group from nonminority group children for a substantial portion of the school day.” The only exception is where there is “bona fide ability grouping.” These strike us as “effect,” not “intent,” provisions.
Close analysis of § 706 (d)(1)(B), the specific provision at issue, also convinces us that its focus is on impact, not intent. The Board concedes, almost inescapably, that with respect to disproportionate demotion or dismissal of personnel, Congress imposed only an objective or disparate-impact test. Brief for Petitioners 25; Tr. of Oral Arg. 5-6. We agree. Unless a solid reason for a distinction exists, one would expect that, for such closely connected statutory phrases, a similar standard was to apply to assignment of employees. The presence of the word “otherwise” in the second portion of § 706 (d)(1)(B) (“or otherwise engaged in discrimination ... in the . .. assignment of employees”), while perhaps not persuasive in itself alone, is not without significance. It lends weight to the argument that a disparate-impact standard also controls assignment practices.
We also find support for this interpretation in the Report of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare concerning the Emergency School Aid and.Quality Integrated Education Act of 1971, which was one of the proposed ESAA bills:
“This clause [the one that later became § 706 (d)(1) (B) of ESAA] renders ineligible any local educational agency which discriminates in its employment practices, and specifically presumes one practice to be discriminatory: the disproportionate demotion or dismissal of instructional or other personnel from minority groups in conjunction with desegregating its schools or establishing integrated schools.” S. Rep. No. 92-61, p. 41 (1971).'
The words “presumes one practice” are emphasized by the Board, however, and are claimed to indicate that the Senate Committee was making “a significant and conscious distinction between the language of the section which relates to 'demotion or dismissal’ and that which relates to 'hiring, promotion or assignment.’ ” Brief for Petitioners 26.
If there is a distinction between the two phrases, however, it is not inconsistent with the general impact orientation of § 706 (d) (1) (B). For the impact approach itself embraces at least two separate standards: a rebuttable disparate-impact test and a stricter irrebuttable disproportionate-impact test. To the extent that the “demotion or dismissal” clause sets a higher standard for school boards to meet, it corresponds to the irrebuttable impact test. Indeed, another passage of the Senate Committee Report states:
“For the purposes of this bill, disproportionate demotion or dismissal of instructional or other personnel is considered discriminatory and constitutes per se a violation of this provision, when it occurs in conjunction with desegregation, the establishment of an integrated school, or reducing, eliminating or preventing minority group isolation.” S. Rep. No. 92-61, at 18-19.
The reference to a per se violation strongly suggests that there was to be no excuse for a significant disparity in treatment of the races with respect to demotions or dismissals, “when [the disparity] occurs in conjunction with desegregation, the establishment of an integrated school, or reducing, eliminating or preventing minority group isolation.” (Emphasis added.) In contrast, the rebuttable impact test governing hiring, promotion, and assignment, permits the school board to justify apparently disproportionate treatment.
Other aspects of the legislative history also are supportive of our interpretation. Not without relevance is the emergence of the so-called “Stennis Amendment,” now § 703 (a), that pronounced national policy. The concept of a nationally uniform standard was proposed by Senator Stennis of Mississippi in April 1971 in the debate on the proposed Emergency School Aid and Quality Integrated Education Act of 1971, S. 1557, 92d Cong., 1st Sess. (1971). See 117 Cong. Rec. 11508-11520 (1971). Proponents of the Amendment argued that school districts in the South were being forced to desegregate in order to receive federal emergency assistance, while those elsewhere could continue to receive such assistance despite existing segregation conditions. Opponents were concerned that the proposed amendment might be read as cutting back on desegregation efforts in States that had segregated their schools by law. The Stennis Amendment was adopted and was included in the final version of ESAA when it was enacted as Title VII of the Education Amendments of 1972. Senator Stennis summarized his proposal in the final debate.
This history of § 703 (a) indicates that the statute means exactly what it says: the same standard is to govern nationwide, and is to apply to de facto segregation as well as to de jure segregation. It suggests ineligibility rules that focus on actualities, not on history, on consequences, not on intent.
The Board’s reliance on a colloquy between Congressman Pucinski, ESAA’s sponsor in the House, and Congressman Esch does not persuade us otherwise. Mr. Esch inquired whether “the Secretary [will] be authorized to apply the holding in the Singleton case [Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dist., 419 F. 2d 1211 (CA5 1969), rev’d in part on other grounds sub nom. Carter v. West Feliciana Parish School Bd., 396 U. S. 290 (1970)] — which is that you have to have a perfect racial balance in the faculty in every single school in your district — as a condition or requirement for assistance under this program.” Mr. Pucinski’s response was: “The answer is absolutely not.” 117 Cong. Rec. 39332 (1971).
While it might be argued that this passing exchange intimates some limit on HEW’s ability to require complete elimination of de facto segregation as a condition of ESAA eligibility, we do not regard the regulation at issue here as at all inconsistent with the colloquy, and we find no indication in the legislative history that any Member of Congress voted in favor of the amendment in reliance on an understanding that it would weaken the eligibility conditions. See Cannon V. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 713-716 (1979). HEW, by its regulation, does not require faculties to be in perfect racial balance. It prohibits only faculty assignments that make schools racially identifiable. That is a much narrower requirement.
Finally, there is some significance in the fact that Congress was aware of HEW’s existing regulation when ESAA was reenacted in 1978. See n. 1, supra. The House version included a waiver-of-ineligibility provision to respond to complaints about the application of the regulation to Los Angeles and New York City. See H. R. Rep. No. 95-1137, pp. 95-96 (1978). The waiver provision was dropped in the Conference Committee Report. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 95-1753, p. 286 (1978). It is of interest to note that the president of the American Federation of Teachers, as a witness, recommended to the Senate “that the ESAA be reformed to require a finding of discrimination, not simply a numerical imbalance, before ESAA funds can be cut off.” Education Amendments of 1977, Hearings on S. 1753 before the Subcommittee on Education, Arts and Humanities of the Senate Committee on Human Resources, 95th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, p. 1275 (1977) (emphasis added). No such change, however, was made. This strongly suggests that Congress acquiesced in HEW’s interpretation of the statute. See Andrus v. Allard, ante, at 57. NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U. S. 267, 275 (1974).
There is no force in the suggestion that a decision adverse to the Board here will serve to harm or penalize the very children who are the objects of the beneficial provisions of the Act. A ruling of ineligibility does not make the children who attend the New York City schools any worse off; it does serve to deny them benefits that in theory would make them better off. The funds competed for; however, are not wasted, for they are utilized, in any event, to benefit other similarly disadvantaged children. It is a matter of benefit, not of deprival, and it is a matter of selectivity.
For these several reasons, we readily conclude that the discrimination that disqualifies for funding under ESAA is not discrimination in the Fourteenth Amendment sense. Disproportionate impact in assignment of employees is sufficient to occasion ineligibility. Specific intent to discriminate is not an imperative. There thus is no need here for the Court to be concerned with the issue whether Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 incorporates the constitutional standard. See University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978). Consideration of that issue would be necessary only if there were a positive indication either in Title VI or in ESAA that the two Acts were intended to be coextensive. The Board stresses the fact that a desegregation plan approved by HEW as sufficient under Title VI is expressly said to satisfy the eligibility requirements of § 706 (a). The ineligibility provisions of § 706 (d), however, contain additional requirements, and there is no indication that mere compliance with Title VI satisfies them. Nor does the fact that a violation of Title VI makes a school system ineligible for ESAA funding mean that only a Title VI violation disqualifies.
It does make sense to us that Congress might impose a stricter standard under ESAA than under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A violation of Title VI may result in a cutoff of all federal funds, and it is likely that Congress would wish this drastic result only when the discrimination is intentional. In contrast, only ESAA funds are rendered unavailable when an ESAA violation is found. And since ESAA funds are available for the furtherance of a plan to combat de facto segregation, a cutoff to the system that maintains segregated faculties seems entirely appropriate. The Board's proffered distinction between funding and eligibility, that is, that a de jure segregated system was to be required to desegregate in order to receive assistance, but a de facto system was not, contravenes the basic thrust of ESAA, We are not persuaded by the suggestions to the contrary in Board of Education, Cincinnati v. HEW, 396 F. Supp. 203, 255 (SD Ohio 1975), aff’d in part and rev’d in part on other grounds, 532 F, 2d 1070 (CA6 1976), and in Bradley v. Milliken, 432 F. Supp. 885, 886-887 (ED Mich. 1977).
Proof of Impact. It is unnecessary to indulge in any detailed comment about the proof of impact in this case. The Court of Appeals did not discuss whether the statistical evidence flowing from the 1976 compliance investigation established a prima facie case. This apparently was because petitioners did not challenge the accuracy or sufficiency of respondents’ data and statistics, but relied on justifications to explain the statistical disproportions in teacher assignments.
As we have indicated, the disparate-impact test in the second part of § 706 (d)(1)(B) is rebuttable. We conclude, however, that the burden is on the party against whom the statistical case has been made. See Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U. S. 482, 497-498, and n. 19 (1977); Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424, 432 (1971). That burden perhaps could be carried by proof of “educational necessity,” analogous to the “business necessity” justification applied under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq.; see, e. g., Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321, 329 (1977); Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters, 438 U. S. 567, 581-583 (1978) (dissenting opinion).
The Court of Appeals ruled that each of the justifications asserted by petitioners, which included compliance with requirements of state law and collective-bargaining agreements, teacher preferences, unequal distributions of licenses in certain areas, compliance with the provisions of the bilingual-instruction consent decree, and demographic changes in student population, either was insufficient as a matter of law or was not supported by evidence in the record. Petitioners did not contest these conclusions in their petition for a writ of certiorari or in their brief in this Court. Thus, we express no opinion on whether any of the justifications proffered by the Board would satisfy its burden.
V
In sum, we hold that discriminatory impact is the standard by which ineligibility under ESAA is to be measured, irrespective of whether the discrimination relates to “demotion or dismissal of instructional or other personnel” or to “the hiring, promotion, or assignment of employees”; that a prima facie case of discriminatory impact may be made by a proper statistical study and, in fact, was so made here; and that the burden of rebutting that case was on the Board.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The Act was technically repealed and simultaneously re-enacted, with amendments not material here, by Title VI of the Education Amendments of 1978, Pub. L. 95-561, 92 Stat. 2252, 2268, effective Sept. 30, 1979. The re-enactment is recodified as 20 U. S. C. §§ 3191-3207 (1976 ed., Supp. II). Because they govern this case and have been used throughout the litigation, the statutory references herein are to the 1972 Act, as amended, and to the old Code sections.
A school district found to be ineligible may apply for a waiver of its ineligibility. §§706 (d)(1), (2), and (3). The statute’s waiver provision authorizes the. Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to permit funding of an otherwise ineligible applicant if the applicant specifies the reason for its ineligibility and submits “such information and assurances as the Secretary shall require by regulation in order to insure that any practice, policy, or procedure, or other activity resulting in the ineligibility has ceased to exist or occur and inelude[s] such provisions as are necessary to insure that such activities do not reoccur after the submission of the application.”
The waiver provision is not involved in this case. In a subsequent proceeding provoked by the Secretary’s denial of a waiver to petitioner Board for the fiscal year 1978-1979, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the decision of the District Court to remand the case to HEW for reconsideration. Board of Education of the City of New York v. Harris, 622 F. 2d 599 (1979). See Brief for Petitioners 21, n. *; Brief for Respondents 2, n. 2.
“No application for assistance . . . shall be approved prior to a determination by the Secretary that the applicant is not ineligible by reason of this subsection.” § 706 (d) (4).
Although the litigation was instituted by petitioner Board (and its ChaneeEor) and by a number of Community School Districts, only the Board’s request for funds remains contested. See Brief for Petitioners 8, n. **; Brief for Respondents 3, n. 3; Reply Brief for Petitioners 3, n. *
There is a definite exception to this pattern in § 706 (d) (1) (D). This is conceded by HEW. Brief for Respondents 16. In subsection (D) the statute speaks of any practice “such as limiting curricular or extracurricular activities (or participation therein by children) in order to avoid the participation of minority group children in such activities.” This, clearly, is language of intent and motive. But in this context a mere effect test would be out of place and mischievous, for it would automatically condemn every administrative decision not to offer a particular course or program, however benign or however dictated by budgetary exigencies.
The authors of the Report, of course, were aware of massive firings of black teachers in the South. S. Rep. No. 92-61, at 18.
“The Stennis amendment would provide that there be a national school policy applied equally to all States, localities, regions, and sections of the United States. The adoption of this amendment would help to eliminate the use of the ‘double standard/ which has resulted in the requirements for the integration of the public schools being given a very stringent application in the South and a very lenient application elsewhere.
“I have never been able to understand how a 10-year-old colored student in a public school in Harlem, Watts, or South Chicago, is expected to look around and see nothing but black faces in his classroom and say to himself: ‘This kind of racial separation does not hurt me because the State of Illinois does not have a law requiring me to attend all-black schools. I should not feel hurt by this racial separation because it is the result of housing patterns that just accidentally developed.”’ 117 Cong. Rec. 11511-11512 (1971) (remarks of Sen. Eastland).
See also id., at 11508-11510 (remarks of Sen. Stennis).
“What worries me is this: It could be argued, if this became law, that the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare could be told, 'Do not seek a remedy against an instance where there is official discrimination unless you can also tell me how you can uniformly find the same kind of remedy available to eliminate segregation which does not have an official basis.’
“The way it reads, I believe that argument might be made.
“I fear this amendment could be construed as an endorsement of weakened enforcement throughout this Nation. The reason why I oppose it ... is that I fear it will be read as a policy statement calling for a national policy of nonenforcement.” Id., at 11517-11518 (remarks of Sen. Móndale).
See also id., at 11516-11517 (remarks of Sen. Javits).
“That is what the conferees have done and that language speaks for itself. For the first time, if this conference report is adopted and the bill is signed into law, we will have a uniform national policy in school desegregation matters, North, South, East, and West applied uniformly without regard to the origin or cause of such segregation. That is the Stennis amendment, pure and simple.” 118 Cong. Rec. 18844 (1972).
The dissent suggests that no support for an impact standard is provided by the Stennis Amendment, since that Amendment also applies to Title VI, and Title VI does not incorporate an impact test. The Stennis Amendment, as enacted, however, was broken into two subsections, with subsection 703 (a) applying to guidelines and criteria under ESAA, and subsection 703 (b) applying to guidelines and criteria under Title VI. The Conference Report on this section explained the distinction:
“The House amendment stated the policy of the United States that guidelines and criteria established pursuant to this title shall be applied uniformly in all regions of the United States in dealing with conditions of segregation by race in the schools of the local educational agencies of any State without regard to the origin or cause of such segregation. The Senate amendment stated the policy of the United States that guidelines and criteria established pursuant to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act . . . and this title shall be applied uniformly in all regions of the United States in dealing with conditions of segregation by race whether de jure or de facto in the schools of the local educational agencies of any State without regard to the origin or cause of such segregation. The conference substitute retains both the Senate and House provisions but deletes the reference in the Senate amendment to this title. The conference substitute’s version of the Senate provision, therefore, restates the policy contained in section 2 (a) of Pub. L. 91-230 and in no way supersedes subsection (b) of such section.” S. Conf. Rep. No. 92-798, pp. 212-213 (1972). (Emphasis added.)
It is clear from this explanation that the House version became § 703 (a), and the Senate version became §703 (b). The explanation that the conference version of the Senate provision does not supersede § 2 (b) of Pub. L. 91-230 is critical. Section 2 of Pub. L. 91-230, 84 Stat. 121, 42 U. S. C. §2000d-6, provides in relevant part:
“(a) It is the policy of the United States that guidelines and criteria established pursuant to title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . . . dealing with conditions of segregation by race, whether de jure or de facto, in the schools of the local educational agencies of any State shall be applied uniformly in all regions of the United States whatever the origin or cause of such segregation.
“(b) Such uniformity refers to one policy applied uniformly to de jure segregation wherever found and such other policy as may be provided pursuant to law applied uniformly to de facto segregation wherever found.” (Emphasis added.)
Thus, the version of the Stennis Amendment which applies under Title VI, as explained by § 2 (b) of Pub. L. 91-230, is significantly different from the ESAA version of the Stennis Amendment. In view of this difference, it is not at all “wholly incongruous to hold in this case that the Stennis Amendment supports a mere 'disparate impact’ reading of the term 'discrimination’ in § 706 (d) (1) (B) of ESAA, when only two Terms ago five Members of the Court construed the prohibition against 'discrimination’ in federally funded programs under Title VI, which is equally subject to the Stennis Amendment, to incorporate a purposeful-discrimination test,” as the dissent asserts, post, at 160. Programs funded under Title VI are not “equally” subject to the Stennis Amendment; they are subject to a different version of the Stennis Amendment.
Petitioner Board acknowledges that for funding purposes, the distinction between de jure and de facto segregation was “erased” in ESAA. Brief for Petitioners 23, 32. But it would tie this erasure only to the eligibility standards of §706 (a)(1) (court-ordered, HEW-approved, or voluntary plan of desegregation) and not to the ineligibility criteria of §706 (d).
We do not so limit or circumscribe the statute. Section 703 (a) applies to all “guidelines and criteria.”
“In an attempt to deal with this problem, the Committee bill adopts an amendment making clear that school districts which are undertaking efforts to integrate their faculty but which have not yet fully achieved that goal may nonetheless obtain a waiver of ineligibility. Presently, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare is interpreting the law as requiring school districts to complete faculty integration before they can apply for funds. The purpose of this amendment is to assist those school districts while they are trying to achieve that goal.”
We find the reasoning of the District Court in Robinson v. Vollert, 411 F. Supp. 461, 472-475 (SD Tex. 1976), rev’d, 602 F. 2d 87 (CA5 1979), upon which the Board also relies, clearly distinguishable. This case concerned an attempt by HEW to impose conditions upon the receipt of ESAA funds different from those imposed by a court overseeing court-ordered desegregation. A court-ordered plan is deemed sufficient under Title VI. Elementary and Secondary Education Amendments of 1967, § 112, 81 Stat. 787, 42 U. S. C. § 2000d-5. The court in Vollert reasoned that a court-ordered plan also should be deemed in compliance with ESAA. While we do not pass upon the issue, it may be that what constitutes acceptable integration is the same under both Title VI and ESAA, and that HEW may not require a remedy different from that imposed by a court. Even so, that would not mean that what constitutes discrimination is the same under both statutes. ESAA was an attempt by Congress to bring about the same remedy without regard to the cause of the problem, while Title VI may have been intended to remedy the problem only when its cause was intentional discrimination. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the manner in which the Court took jurisdiction. The Court uses a variety of means whereby it undertakes to consider cases that it has been petitioned to review. The most important ones are the writ of certiorari, the writ of appeal, and for legacy cases the writ of error, appeal, and certification. For cases that fall into more than one category, identify the manner in which the court takes jurisdiction on the basis of the writ. For example, Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), an original jurisdiction and a mandamus case, should be coded as mandamus rather than original jurisdiction due to the nature of the writ. Some legacy cases are "original" motions or requests for the Court to take jurisdiction but were heard or filed in another court. For example, Ex parte Matthew Addy S.S. & Commerce Corp., 256 U.S. 417 (1921) asked the Court to issue a writ of mandamus to a federal judge. Do not code these cases as "original" jurisdiction cases but rather on the basis of the writ. | What is the manner in which the Court took jurisdiction? | [
"cert",
"appeal",
"bail",
"certification",
"docketing fee",
"rehearing or restored to calendar for reargument",
"injunction",
"mandamus",
"original",
"prohibition",
"stay",
"writ of error",
"writ of habeas corpus",
"unspecified, other"
] | [
0
] | sc_jurisdiction |
MARSHALL v. UNITED STATES
No. 72-5881.
Argued October 16-17, 1973
Decided January 9, 1974
Burger, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stewart, White, BlacilmuN, Powell, and Rehnquist, JJ., joined. Marshall, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Douglas and BrenNAN, JJ., joined, post, p. 430.
James F. Hewitt, by appointment of the Court, 411 U. S. 914, argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioner.
Jewel S. Lafontant argued the cause for the United States. On the brief were Solicitor General Bork, Assistant Attorney General Petersen, Deputy Solicitor General Lacovara, Harriet S. Shapiro, Jerome M. Feit, and Marshall Tamor Golding.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to consider petitioner’s claim that the provisions of Title II of the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act of 1966, 18 U. S. C. §§ 4251-4255, deny due process and equal protection by excluding from discretionary rehabilitative commitment, in lieu of penal incarceration, addicts with two or more prior felony convictions. The Circuits are in apparent conflict on this question. See the opinion of the Court of Appeals in this case, sub nom. Marshall v. Parker, 470 F. 2d 34 (CA9), and Watson v. United States, 141 U. S. App. D. C. 335, 439 F. 2d 442 (1970); United States v. Hamilton, 149 U. S. App. D. C. 295, 462 F. 2d 1190 (1972); United States v. Bishop, 469 F. 2d 1337 (CA1 1972); and Macias v. United States, 464 F. 2d 1292 (CA5 1972), cert. pending, No. 72-5539.
(1)
Petitioner, Robert Edward Marshall, pleaded guilty to an indictment charging him with entering a bank with intent to commit a felony, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 2113 (a). At sentencing, petitioner requested that he be considered for treatment as a narcotic addict pursuant to Tit. II of the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act of 1966 (NARA). The sentencing judge, after noting petitioner’s prior felony convictions for burglary, forgery, and possession of a firearm, concluded that the exclusion of persons with two prior convictions from the discretionary provisions of the Act as set forth in 18 U. S. C. § 4251 (f) (4) did not permit commitment under NARA. Petitioner was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment pursuant to 18 U. S. C. §4208 (a)(2), but the District Judge recommended that petitioner receive treatment for narcotics addiction while incarcerated.
Ten months after being sentenced, petitioner moved to vacate his sentence under 28 U. S. C. § 2255 on the ground that the two-prior-felony exclusion of NARA under § 4251 (f) (4) violates equal protection as embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The District Judge took note of Watson v. United States, supra, but declined to follow that holding. The District Judge also noted that there was no showing, as in Watson, supra, that petitioner’s prior convictions and his drug addiction were related and since his prior convictions did not relate to traffic in narcotics, the provisions of 18 U. S. C. § 4251 (f) (2) did not apply. The District Judge determined that, given the purposes of the statute, Congress had not acted arbitrarily in providing different disposition standards for convicted persons with records of prior felony convictions from those without such convictions, these classifications being related to eligibility for rehabilitative commitment under NARA.
The Court of Appeals viewed petitioner’s § 2255 petition as a motion under Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure for correction of an illegal sentence, and held the statutory classification constitutionally permissible, noting its disagreement with the decisions in Watson, supra, and United States v. Hamilton, supra. Viewing the Act in its entirety, the Court of Appeals concluded that Congress expressly limited the reach of the Act to addicts most likely to be rehabilitated through treatment and provided an exclusion as to convicted persons having two or more prior convictions.
Concluding there is no “fundamental right” to rehabilitation from narcotics addiction at public expense after conviction of a crime, and there being no “suspect” classification under the statutory scheme, the Court of Appeals considered the correct standard to be whether the statutory classification bore “some relevance to the purpose for which the classification is made.” Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U. S. 107, 111 (1966); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471 (1970). The court reasoned that Congress adopted the challenged standards in an effort to restrict eligibility to those most likely to respond to treatment and held that Congress could not be said to have acted irrationally in so doing. The District Court's denial of petitioner’s motion to vacate his sentence was affirmed, 470 F. 2d 34 (CA9 1972). We granted certiorari, 410 U. S. 954 (1973). We agree with the District Court’s and the Court of Appeals’ reading of the statute and affirm.
(2)
Petitioner concedes that the concept of equal protection as embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, see Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497 (1954), does not require that all persons be dealt with identically, but rather that there be some “rational basis” for the statutory distinctions made, McGinnis v. Royster, 410 U. S. 263, 270 (1973), or that they “have some relevance to the purpose for which the classification is made.” Baxstrom v. Herold, supra, at 111; Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U. S. 305, 309 (1966). See also James v. Strange, 407 U. S. 128 (1972); Humphrey v. Cady, 405 U. S. 504 (1972). He argues that no such nexus exists under the classification provided by the challenged statute.
The broad purpose of Congress in enacting NARA, as set forth in the Act itself, was:
“[T]hat certain persons charged with or convicted of violating Federal criminal laws, who are determined to be addicted to narcotic drugs, and likely to be rehabilitated through treatment, should, in lieu of prosecution or sentencing, be civilly committed for confinement and treatment designed to effect their restoration to health, and return to society as useful members.” 42 U. S. C. § 3401.
See also H. R. Rep. No. 1486, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 7 (1966), (“to provide for the treatment and rehabilitation of narcotic addicts when they are charged with or convicted of offenses against the United States”); S. Rep. No. 1667, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 12 (1966). Congress recognized that some relationship between drug addiction and crime probably existed, and concluded that prosecution and imprisonment of all addicts, without more, would not cure addiction or retard the rising addiction rate, and that a rehabilitative rather than a purely penal aproach to the problem was called for. Id., at 13, 17.
It was not the purpose of Congress, however, to make every addict eligible for civil commitment simply by reason of addiction. The congressional intent in adopting the statutory exclusion based on prior convictions which is challenged here is somewhat less explicitly defined, but the objectives emerge clearly when the Act is read as a whole. Having recognized some nexus between drug addiction and crime, Congress specifically sought to insure that any program aimed at providing for the treatment of drug addiction wpuld not hinder traditional efforts to deal effectively with the strictly criminal aspects of the problem. The most explicit statement of congressional intent is found in the House Report:
“The practical effect of the implementation of the law provided for in the bill, is that strict punishment can be meted out where required to the hardened criminal, while justice can be tempered with judgment and fairness in those cases where it is to the best interest of society and the individual that such ■ a course be followed.
“The definition of ‘eligible individuar as set forth in the bill insures that the persons considered as candidates for civil commitment will not include criminals charged with violent crimes or be those whose records disclose a history of serious crimes.” H. R. Rep. No. 1486, pp. 9-10. (Emphasis supplied.)
Similarly, the Senate Report notes:
“The bill contains sufficient safeguards to assure adequate protection of the general public against the addict who is or may be a hardened criminal, while providing the flexibility necessary to enable Federal authorities to medically treat the addict who is capable of being cured and rehabilitated ....” S. Rep. No. 1667, p. 13.
It is quite clear that in adopting the two-prior-felony exclusion, Congress sought first, to exclude from NARA treatment those less likely to be rehabilitated by such treatment, and second, to exclude those whose records disclosed a “history of serious crimes.” The question we are called upon to decide is whether Congress could rationally have assumed that a person who has committed two or more prior felonies and is an. addict at the time sentence is to be imposed is likely to be less susceptible of rehabilitation by reason of his past record, thus posing a greater threat to society upon release.
Congress’ concern with susceptibility and suitability of multiple offenders to rehabilitative treatment can reasonably be said to derive from its belief that because of the nature of addiction treatment, one who had evidenced greater difficulty in conforming his behavior to societal rules and laws would himself be less likely to benefit from treatment. Additionally, such a person might also pose impediments to the successful treatment of others in the program. As testimony before both the House and Senate committees revealed, the treatment process for narcotics addiction is an arduous and a delicate undertaking, particularly in the aftercare stage when the subject is released into an unstructured environment which requires from the addict strict obedience to the limitations of the prescribed regime and full cooperation in the rehabilitative efforts.
The bill which emerged from conference included the two-prior-felony exclusion, and the report on that bill merely noted that “the conferees for the Senate felt it reasonable to exclude hardened offenders with serious criminal records and persons who have demonstrated their unsuitability for civil treatment.” 112 Cong. Rec. 27616 (1966).
Additionally, there is no generally accepted medical view as to the efficacy of presently known therapeutic methods of treating addicts and the prospect for the successful rehabilitation of narcotics addicts thus remains shrouded in uncertainty. Indeed, even the premise that drug addiction is one of the significant root causes of crime is not without challenge. See generally D. Musto, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control (1973). See also American Bar Association and American Medical Association, Joint Committee on Narcotic Drugs, Drug Addiction: Crime or Disease? (1961). As testimony before the Congress revealed, no evidence to date has demonstrated more than a speculative chance for the successful rehabilitation of narcotics addicts. H. R. Rep. No. 1486, at 51. S. Rep. No. 1667, at 14. The NARA program was therefore fundamentally experimental in nature. See 112 Cong. Rec. 11896-11901 (1966). The suggestion that there is “obscurity” in the holding of this Court in Powell v. Texas, 392 U. S. 514 (1968), fails to take into account that when courts deal with problems in the administration of criminal law such as those related to drug addiction, alcoholism, mental disease, and the like, they are necessarily confined to the existing limits of human knowledge in those areas. As Mr. Justice Marshall noted in Powell:
“[T]he inescapable fact is that there is no agreement among members of the medical profession about what it means to say that ‘alcoholism' is a ‘disease.’ One of the principal works in this field states that . . . ‘alcoholism has too many definitions and disease has practically none.’ ” Id., at 522.
The holding in Powell was a candid acknowledgment that the medical uncertainties afford little basis for judicial responses in absolute terms.
When Congress undertakes to act in areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties, legislative options must be especially broad and courts should be cautious not to rewrite legislation, even assuming, arguendo, that judges with more direct exposure to the problem might make wiser choices. Accordingly, it would have been a permissible choice for Congress to permit discretionary inclusion in NARA programs of those whose prior offenses were determined to be addiction related or motivated. Such a discretion might appropriately have been vested in the trial judge much in the manner in which he is now required to exercise his discretion under § 4252 in determining whether the defendant is an addict who is likely to be rehabilitated through treatment. That Congress has not yet chosen to so provide, however, does not render constitutionally impermissible its decision to limit treatment to those with less than two prior felony convictions. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483 (1955); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471 (1970); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420 (1961); Jefferson v. Hackney, 406 U. S. 535 (1972).
It should be recognized that the classification selected by Congress is not one which is directed “against” any individual or category of persons, but rather it represents a policy choice in an experimental program made by that branch of Government vested with the power to make such choices. The Court has frequently noted that legislative classifications need not be perfect or ideal. The line drawn by Congress at two felonies, for example, might, with as much soundness, have been drawn instead at one, but this was for legislative, not judicial choice. McGinnis v. Royster, 410 U. S. 263 (1973); Powell v. Texas, supra, at 539-540 (Black, J., concurring). Against this background, it cannot be said that it was unreasonable or irrational for Congress to act on the predicate reflected in the legislative history and explicitly stated in the exclusion provision of § 4251 (f)(4), that a person with tvfo or more prior felonies would be less likely to adjust and adhere to the disciplines and rigors of the treatment program and hence is a less promising prospect for treatment than those with lesser criminal records.
In addition, Congress might rationally have sought to exclude from NARA treatment centers those it thought might be potentially disruptive elements within the sensitive environment of a drug treatment program. Nor can Congress be said to have acted without reason in determining that an addict with multiple convictions was more “hardened” and thus a greater potential danger to society on early release than the addict who had committed one prior felony or none.
Under NARA, Congress provided for comparatively lenient sentencing possibilities, but in excluding addicts with two prior felonies, it sought to assure that in an essentially experimental program to which limited resources were allocated these features would not be exploited by persons who were viewed by Congress as primarily antisocial and only secondarily addicts. In addition, since the fact of two prior felony convictions may be said to evidence a lesser susceptibility of deterrence, the reduced level of deterrence implicit in the benign policy of Title II could reasonably be thought by Congress to create an unacceptable risk to society and thus require the exclusion of such persons from NARA disposition.
We therefore hold that Title II of NARA, 18 U. S. C. §§ 4251-4255, does not constitute a denial of due process or equal protection by excluding from rehabilitative commitment, in lieu of penal incarceration, addicts with two or more prior felony convictions.
Affirmed.
Title 18 U. S. C. § 4253 (a) provides in relevant part that:
“Following the examination provided for in section 4252, if the court determines that an eligible offender is an addict and is likely to be rehabilitated through treatment, it shall commit him to the custody of the Attorney General for treatment under this chapter . . .
Title 18 U. S. C. §4251 (f) provides that:
“(f) 'Eligible offender’ means any individual who is convicted of an offense against the United States, but does not include—
“(1) an offender who is convicted of a crime of violence.
“(2) an offender who is convicted of unlawfully importing or selling or conspiring to import or sell a narcotic drug, unless the court determines that such sale was for the primary purpose of enabling the offender to obtain a narcotic drug which he requires for his personal use because of his addiction to such drug.
“(3) an offender against whom there is pending a prior charge of a felony which has not been finally determined or who is on probation or whose sentence following conviction on such a charge, including any time on parole or mandatory release, has not been fully served: Provided, That an offender on probation, parole, or mandatory release shall be included if the authority authorized to require his return to custody consents to his commitment.
“(4) an offender who has been convicted of a felony on two or more prior occasions.
“(5) an offender who has been committed under title I of the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act of 1966, under this chapter, under the District of Columbia Code, or under any State proceeding because of narcotic addiction on three or more occasions.”
Title 18 U. S. C. § 4251 (d) defines “felony” for purposes of the Act to include
“any offense in violation of a law of the United States classified as a felony under section 1 of title 18 of the United States Code, and further includes any offense in violation of a law of any State, any possession or territory of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Canal Zone, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which at the time of the offense was classified as a felony by the law of the place where that offense was committed.”
Prisoners not eligible for treatment under NARA may receive the benefit of programs comparable to those provided under NARA, available to narcotics addicts under administrative processes of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. See generally Drug Abuse Programs Manual, Bureau of Prisons Policy Statement No. 8500.1 (Apr. 20, 1973).
Because the two-prior-felony convictions in Watson were for violations of narcotics laws, there was some conjecture that the rationale of that ease was limited to its facts. In United States v. Hamilton, 149 U. S. App. D. C. 295, 462 F. 2d 1190 (1972), the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the same court which decided Watson, dispelled all doubt by holding the two-prior-felony exclusion to be unconstitutional where the defendant has been convicted of one prior narcotics law felony and four prior non-narcotics felony offenses. Subsequently, in United States v. Bishop, 469 F. 2d 1337 (1972), the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit also held the exclusion of § 4251 (f) (4) to be unconstitutional where the prior felonies were non-narcotics violations.
In 1966, Congress enacted the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act, Pub. L. 89-793, 80 Stat. 1438. Title I of the Act, 28 U. S. C. §§ 2901-2906, provides for civil rehabilitative commitment prior to trial of persons charged with federal crimes, and dismissal of the charges upon successful completion of the treatment. Title II, 18 U. S. C. §§ 4251-4255, provides for similar commitment in lieu of imprisonment for those convicted of a federal crime. Title III, 42 U. S. C. §§ 3411—3426, provides for civil commitment of persons not involved in the criminal process. In each case, the court must, after ordering commitment for examination, determine whether the individual is an addict, as defined by the statute, 28 U. S. C. § 2901 (a), 18 U. S. C. § 4251 (a), 42 U. S. C. § 3411 (a), and whether he “is likely to be rehabilitated through treatment,” 28 U. S. C. § 2902 (b), 18 U. S. C. § 4253 (a), 42 U. S. C. § 3415.
The Act was based on the House-passed Administration bill, H. R. 9167. The two-felony exclusion is derived from that bill, which contained all five of the final exclusions in some form. All of the other House bills considered by the House Committee, but one, also had a two-felony exclusion. See Civil Commitment and Treatment of Narcotic Addicts, Hearings on H. R. 9051, 9159, 9167 and Related Bills before Subcommittee No. 2 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 1st and 2d Sess., ser. 10, pp. 1-14, 17, 20-53 (1965 and 1966). The Senate bill, S. 2191, did not, however, contain the two-felony exclusion, see S. Rep. No. 1667, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 7-8 (1966). In conference, where Titles I and II of the House bill were adopted, the two-felony exclusion was incorporated into the final bill. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 2316, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 2-3, 6 (1966); 112 Cong. Rec. 27616 (1966).
“After carefully considering the proposed legislation, as amended, the committee finds that it offers a flexible and logical means to provide for the treatment of drug addicts who are likely candidates for rehabilitation without essentially changing the authority of law enforcement officials and the courts to enforce full criminal actions in appropriate cases." S. Rep. No. 1667, p. 37. (Emphasis supplied.)
Though actually discussing the definition of “eligible individuals” contained in Title I, concerning civil commitment prior to trial, the identical definitions are contained in Title II, and the House Report indicates that there is no difference between the rationale or the language of the various provisions. See H. R. Rep. No. 1486, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 12, 20 (1966).
Prior to inclusion of the two-prior-felony exclusion, the Senate Report described the purposes of the restrictions on eligibility by stating:
“The net effect is to confine eligibility for the benefits of the legislation to addicts accused of nonviolent crimes who- show good prospects for rehabilitation, while retaining strict criminal punishment for dangerous or hardened offenders, narcotics pushers, and persons with a history of failure to respond to treatment.” S. Rep. No. 1667, p. 17.
The Senate Report states:
“The process is extremely complex and difficult, involving sustained therapy, principally psychiatric, and perhaps a return to the community in stages, utilizing short visits, a halfway house, a work camp, or some similar facility. ... In addition, some sanction should be available to enforce the cooperation of the addict in the post-hospitalization period.” S. Rep. No. 1667, p. 15.
Some criticism has been directed at the cautious use of the NARA program. See Report by the Comptroller General of the United States to the Congress, Limited Use of Federal Programs to Commit Narcotic Addicts for Treatment and Rehabilitation (1971).
Similarly rational was the related congressional choice to give priority of treatment to convicted addicts at an early stage in their lives. Although not invariably so, those with no felony record may well be younger, as a group, than those with multiple convictions, and this notwithstanding that the median age of serious offenders has shown a steady downward trend.
Virtually all drug treatment programs include group therapy and involve extensive personal interaction among those in the treatment program. In addition, there are strict institutional rules regarding virtually every aspect of the addict's daily existence which he is expected to follow, and the existence of such authority is considered vital to successful treatment, both in the program itself, and particularly during the aftercare period. See Cole, Report on the Treatment of Drug Addiction, Task Force Report: Narcotics and Drug Abuse, The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice 135-147 (1967); Petersen, Yarvis & Farkas, The Federal Bureau of Prisons Treatment Program for Narcotics Addicts (1969); Federal Drug Abuse Programs, A Report Prepared by the Task Force on Federal Heroin Addiction Programs and Submitted to the Criminal Law Section of the American Bar Association and the Drug Abuse Counsel 241-278, 393-416 (1972); Vaillant & Rasor, The Role of Compulsory Supervision in the Treatment of Addiction, 30 Fed. Prob. 53-59 (June 1966).
Under 18 S. C. § 4253, an individual who is determined to be eligible for NARA treatment is to be committed to the custody of the Attorney General for treatment for “an indeterminate period of time not to exceed ten years, but in no event shall it exceed the maximum sentence that could otherwise have been imposed.” Title 18 S. C. § 4254 then allows for conditional release of an offender, upon the requisite determination, any time after the offender has received six months’ treatment. Thereafter, he is legally on parole under the jurisdiction of the Board of Parole, 18 U. S. C. § 4255.
See 112 Cong. Rec. 11813 (1966). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the respondent of the case. The respondent is the party being sued or tried and is also known as the appellee. Characterize the respondent as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the respondent by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the respondent is actually single entitiy or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single respondent, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the respondent of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
26
] | sc_respondent |
NATIONAL GERIMEDICAL HOSPITAL AND GERONTOLOGY CENTER v. BLUE CROSS OF KANSAS CITY et al.
No. 80-802.
Argued April 29, 1981 —
Decided June 15, 1981
Powell, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Erwin N. Griswold argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Joe Sims and James M. Beck.
Joshua F. Greenberg argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Abraham Ribicoff, Richard M. Steuer, Harry P. Thomson, Jr., Jennifer A. Gille, John C. Noonan, and Max O. Bagley.
Solicitor General McCree argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Acting Assistant Attorney General Favretto, Dep uty Solicitor General Wallace, Stephen M. Shapiro, Barry Grossman, and Andrea Limmer.
Carl Weissburg and J. Mark Waxman filed a brief for the Federation of American Hospitals as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner in this case, National Gerimedical Hospital and Gerontology Center (National Gerimedical) filed an antitrust suit against respondents, Blue Cross of Kansas City (Blue Cross) and the national Blue Cross Association, challenging the refusal of Blue Cross to accept petitioner as a participating member provider under its health insurance plan. The issue presented here is whether this refusal by Blue Cross is immunized from antitrust scrutiny because it was intended to aid implementation of the plans of the “health systems agency” designated for the Kansas City area under the National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of 1974.
Petitioner National Gerimedical is a private, acute-care community hospital opened in 1978 in the Kansas City, Mo., metropolitan area. Prior to the completion of construction, petitioner sought to enter into a participating hospital agreement with Blue Cross, a nonprofit provider of individual and group health-care reimbursement plans in Missouri and Kansas. Under such an agreement, participating hospitals receive direct reimbursement of the full costs of covered services rendered to individual Blue Cross subscribers. When subscribers receive care in hospitals that are not participating members, Blue Cross pays only 80% of the cost, and these payments are made to the subscriber, rather than directly to the hospital.
Blue Cross refused to enter into a participating hospital agreement with petitioner on the basis of its official policy barring participation by any new hospital that could not show that it was meeting “a clearly evident need for health care services in its defined service area.” In determining that petitioner had not satisfied this requirement, Blue Cross relied on petitioner’s failure to obtain approval for construction from the local “health systems agency” or “HSA” — the Mid-America Health Systems Agency (MAHSA). This agency is a private, nonprofit corporation, federally funded under the National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of 1974 (NHPRDA), 88 Stat. 2229, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 300Z (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). Its major function is health planning for the Kansas City metropolitan area.
In conducting its planning functions, MAHSA had determined that there was a surplus of hospital beds in the area and had announced that it would not approve any addition of acute-care beds in area hospitals. As a result of this announced policy, petitioner did not seek MAHSA approval of its construction, leading to the refusal of participating hospital status by Blue Cross.
Claiming that this refusal by Blue Cross put it at a competitive disadvantage, petitioner filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri against Blue Cross and the national Blue Cross Association. It claimed violations of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1, 2, alleging a wrongful refusal to deal and a conspiracy between Blue Cross and MAHSA. As relief, petitioner sought treble damages and an injunction to prevent future violations.
Respondents moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the NHPRDA had impliedly repealed the antitrust laws as applied to the conduct in question. The District Court treated this motion as one for summary judgment, and granted judgment for respondents. 479 F. Supp. 1012 (1979). It reasoned that if private parties seeking to effectuate the planning objectives of an HSA could be subjected to antitrust liability, accomplishment of the goals of the NHPRDA would be frustrated. Id., at 1021. Having found a “clear repugnancy,” id., at 1024, between this Act and the antitrust laws, the court relied largely on legislative history for the view that “Congress intended that action taken pursuant to the Act and clearly within the scope of the Act would be exempt from application of the antitrust laws,” ibid.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed, essentially adopting the reasoning of the District Court. 628 F. 2d 1050 (1980). The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court’s “finding of clear repugnancy between the Act and the antitrust laws, as the Act and regulatory scheme clearly call for the action which has now become the basis of an antitrust claim.” Id., at 1055-1056. It then quoted in full the District Court’s argument for the view that Congress intended repeal of the antitrust laws in this context.
We granted a writ of certiorari to review this important question. 449 U. S. 1123 (1981).
II
Our decision in this case requires careful attention to the structure and goals of the NHPRDA, as well as a review of this Court’s decisions in the area of implied repeals of the antitrust laws. We begin with a description of the complex scheme of regulatory and planning agencies established by the NHPRDA in order to assess the legal significance of that Act with respect to the antitrust claim brought here.
MAHSA, the health systems agency whose refusal to approve new hospital construction in the Kansas City area prompted Blue Cross not to accept petitioner as a participating hospital, is but one part of a larger statutory scheme. The NHPRDA, 42 U. S. C. § 300k et seq., created federal, state, and local bodies that coordinate their activities in the area of health planning and policy. Building on existing planning and development statutes, Congress sought in 1974 to create a statutory scheme that would assist in preventing overinvestment in and maldistribution of health facilities. See 1974 Senate Report, at 39.
HSA’s such as MAHSA are concerned with health planning in a particular metropolitan area. See generally H. R. Rep. No. 93-1382, pp. 40-41 (1974). Each is a nonprofit private corporation, public regional planning body, or single unit of local government, serving a particular “health service area.” 42 U. S. C. § 3001-1 (b) (1). The statute requires that a majority of HSA board members be consumers of health care and that at least 40% be health-care “providers.” § 3001-1 (b) (3) (C). The “primary responsibility” of each HSA is “effective health planning for its health service area and the promotion of the development within the area of health services, manpower, and facilities which meet identified needs, reduce documented inefficiencies, and implement the health plans of the agency.” §3001-2 (a). As originally enacted, the Act established four general goals: “improving the health of residents,” “increasing the accessibility . . . , acceptability, continuity, and quality of . . . health services,” “restraining increases in the cost of . . . health services,” and “'preventing unnecessary duplication of health resources.” §3001-2 (a). To accomplish these goals, the Act requires each HSA to formulate a “detailed statement of goals” called a “health systems plan,” § 3001-2 (b)(2), an “annual implementation plan” describing the objectives that will achieve the goals of the general plan, § 3001-2 (b) (3), and “specific plans and projects for achieving the objectives established in the” annual implementation plan, § 300Z-2 (b) (4). Each HSA is instructed to “seek, to the extent practicable, to implement [its plans] with the assistance of individuals and public and private entities in its health service area.” § 3001-2 (c) (1). In addition, it may provide “technical assistance” to individuals and public and private entities for the development of necessary projects and programs, §3001-2 (c)(2), and should use grants and contracts to encourage these projects and programs, § 3001-2 (c) (3). The agencies do not possess regulatory authority over healthcare providers.
At the state level, the Act created two separate bodies. The first, a State Health Planning and Development Agency, is a state agency created by agreement between a Governor and the Federal Government. See § 300m. It is intended to perform certain crucial functions that cannot be undertaken by local HSA’s:
“Specifically, the integration and synthesis of areawide health plans into a Statewide health plan, the establishment of priorities within the State, and the performance of regulatory functions are most appropriately carried out at the State level. The latter function can appropriately be carried out only by an agency of State government.” 1974 Senate Report, at 52.
Each state agency must be governed by a “State Program,” which the Secretary of Health and Human Services may approve only if it meets guidelines set out in 42 U. S. C. §§ 300m-l, 300m-2. Included in these guidelines is the requirement that each State establish a “certificate of need” program under which all new institutional health facilities must seek state approval prior to construction. § 300m-2 (a)(4)(A). This procedure is “the basic component in an overall effort to control the unnecessary capital expenditures which contribute so greatly to the total national health bill.” S. Rep. No. 96-96, p. 5 (1979) (hereinafter 1979 Senate Report).
The State Health Planning and Development Agency is advised by a Statewide Health Coordinating Council, composed in part of representatives of local HSA’s. This council is empowered to review the plans of HSA’s, review and revise state plans, and ihake recommendations with respect to applications for federal funds from HSA’s and States. 42 U. S. C. § 300m-3 (c).
In addition to various review functions, the Federal Government plays a separate role in this statutory scheme. The NHPRDA requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue guidelines concerning the appropriate supply, distribution, and organization of health resources. § 300k-l ; see 42 CFR § 121.1 et seq. (1980). Finally, the Act created a National Council on Health Planning and Development to advise the Secretary on these guidelines and on the general administration of the Act. 42 U. S. C. § 300k-3.
This elaborate planning structure was intended by Congress to remedy perceived deficiencies in the performance of the health-care industry as it existed prior to 1974. The problems addressed fall into two categories. First, there was concern that marketplace forces in this industry failed to produce efficient investment in facilities and to minimize the costs of health care. In addition, Congress sought to reduce the maldistribution of health-care facilities.
In 1979, Congress amended the NHPRDA substantially in the Health Planning and Resources Development Amendments of 1979, Pub. L. 96-79, 93 Stat. 592. A purpose of these Amendments was to “[d]irect that special consideration be given throughout the planning process to the importance of maintaining and improving competition in the health industry.” 1979 Senate Report, at 3. Toward this end, Congress added a number of provisions requiring promotion of competition at the local, state, and federal levels. 42 U. S. C. §§ 300k-2 (b), 3001-2 (a) (5) (1976 ed., Supp. IV); 42 U. S. C. §§ 300n-1 (c)(11), (12) (1976 ed., Supp. IV). See generally H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 96-420, p. 58 (1979). In so doing, however, Congress recognized a distinction between areas where competition could serve a useful purpose and those where some other allocation of resources remained necessary.
III
National Gerimedical contends that the denial by Blue Cross of participating hospital status violated the antitrust laws. Blue Cross defends on the ground that it acted pursuant to the local HSA plan and only intended to further the purposes of the NHPRDA. It argues that, despite the absence of any reference to the antitrust laws in the NHPRDA, the creation of the planning structure summarized above implied a repeal of those laws, as applied to this conduct.
On a number of occasions, this Court has faced similar claims of antitrust immunity in the context of various regulated industries. The general principles applicable to such claims are well established. The antitrust laws represent a “fundamental national economic policy.” Carnation Co. v. Pacific Westbound Conference, 383 U. S. 213, 218 (1966); see Lafayette v. Louisiana Power & Light Co., 435 U. S. 389, 398-399 (1978). “Implied antitrust immunity is not favored, and can be justified only by a convincing showing of clear repugnancy between the antitrust laws and the regulatory system.” United States v. National Association of Securities Dealers, 422 U. S. 694, 719-720 (1975); see Gordon v. New York Stock Exchange, 422 U. S. 659, 682 (1975); United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U. S. 321, 350-351 (1963). “Repeal is to be regarded as implied only if necessary to make the [subsequent law] work, and even then only to the minimum extent necessary. This is the guiding principle to reconciliation of the two statutory schemes.” Silver v. New York Stock Exchange, 373 U. S. 341, 357 (1963).
To be sure, where Congress did intend to repeal the antitrust laws, that intent governs, United States v. National Association of Securities Dealers, supra; Gordon v. New York Stock Exchange, supra, but this intent must be clear. Even when an industry is regulated substantially, this does not necessarily evidence an intent to repeal the antitrust laws with respect to every action taken within the industry. E. g., Otter Tail Power Co. v. United States, 410 U. S. 366, 372-375 (1973); United States v. Radio Corp. of America, 358 U. S. 334, 346 (1959). Intent to repeal the antitrust laws is much clearer when a regulatory agency has been empowered to authorize or require the type of conduct under antitrust challenge. E. g., United States v. National Association of Securities Dealers, supra, at 730-734; Gordon v. New York Stock Exchange, supra, at 689-690.
In the present case, we must apply these precedents to an industry with a regulatory structure quite different from those considered previously. The action challenged here was neither compelled nor approved by any governmental, regulatory body. Instead, it was a spontaneous response to the finding of an advisory planning body, the local HSA, that there was a surplus of acute-care hospital beds in the Kansas City area. Indeed, when respondents refused to enter into the agreement with petitioner, the regulatory aspects of the NHPRDA — controlled by the state health planning agencies — were not in place in Missouri. There simply was no regulation of this hospital construction, as Missouri had not established any state regulatory agency with authority to review hospital construction.
As a result, the claim of implied antitrust immunity in this case is weaker than in previous cases. It cannot be argued that application of the antitrust laws to the conduct of Blue Cross would frustrate a particular provision of the NHPRDA or create a conflict with the orders of any regulatory body. The record discloses no formal request from MAHSA to Blue Cross to refrain from accepting petitioner as a new participating hospital. Even if such a request had been made, it could not have been more than the advice of a private planning body — albeit a planning body created and funded by the Federal Government. This fact is crucial, because antitrust repeals are especially disfavored where the antitrust implications of a business decision have not been considered by a governmental entity. United States v. Radio Corp. of America, supra, at 339, 346; cf. Otter Tail, supra, at 374 (“When . . . relationships are governed in the first instance by business judgment and not regulatory coercion, courts must be hesitant to conclude that Congress intended to override the fundamental national policies embodied in the antitrust laws”).
Respondents rely on the fact that a major function of an HSA is planning in order to eliminate unnecessary duplication of hospital services, 42 U. S. C. § 300Z-2 (a) (4) (1976 ed., Supp. IV), and point to statutory language requiring each HSA to “seek, to the extent practicable, to implement its [health plans] with the assistance of individuals and public and private entities in its health service area,” § 3001-2 (c)(1). Here, respondents argue, the HSA found that petitioner was duplicating hospital facilities unnecessarily, and Blue Cross merely sought to aid in the “implementation” of that finding.
We are unpersuaded, however, that the provisions cited by respondents are sufficient to create a “clear repugnancy” between the NHPRDA and the antitrust laws, at least on the facts of this case. See n. 18, infra. Nothing in the NHPRDA requires Blue Cross to take an action that, in essence, sought to enforce the advisory decision of MAHSA. HSA’s themselves are required to seek private cooperation only “to the extent practicable.” 42 U. S. C. § 3001-2 (c)(1). And there is no reason to believe that Congress specifically contemplated such “enforcement” by private insurance providers, let alone relied on such actions to put “teeth” into the noncompulsory local planning process. Congress expected HSA planning to be implemented mainly through persuasion and cooperation. If an HSA recommendation could be used to justify antitrust immunity for such an act of private enforcement, this effectively would give that recommendation greater force than Congress intended.
As there is no direct conflict between the requirements of the NHPRDA and the Sherman Act with respect to the conduct at issue here, respondents’ only remaining argument must be that the NHPRDA immunizes all private conduct undertaken in response to the health planning process. Arguably, the fundamental assumption of Congress, particularly in 1974 when it passed the original Act, was that competition was not a relevant consideration in the health-care industry. If so, although that industry is not regulated in any comprehensive fashion, it might be concluded that Congress intended “pervasive” cooperation and planning without the interference of antitrust suits.
This argument has some force, in light of the prominence Congress gave to the view that “the health care industry does not respond to classic marketplace forces.” 1974 Senate Report, at 39. Perhaps it makes little sense in such a context to entertain antitrust suits intended to promote or protect free competition. It is clear, however, that respondents have failed to make the showing necessary for an exemption of all actions of health-care providers taken in response to planning recommendations. In other industrial contexts, we have refused such a blanket exemption, despite a clear congressional finding that some substitution of regulation for competition was necessary. Carnation Co. v. Pacific Westbound Conference, 383 U. S., at 217-219 (maritime industry); Otter Tail, 410 U. S., at 373-374 (electric power industry). These holdings are based on the guiding principle that, where possible, “the proper approach ... is an analysis which reconciles the operation of both statutory schemes with one another rather than holding one completely ousted.” Silver, 373 U. S., at 357. There is no indication that Congress intended a different result with respect to the health-care industry. One manifestation of this is the fact that in the 1979 Amendments Congress did not alter the basic planning structure, even as it made plain its intent that “competition and consumer choice” are to be favored wherever they “can constructively serve ... to advance the purposes of quality assurance, cost effectiveness, and access.” 42 U. S. C. § 300k-2 (a) (17) (1976 ed., Supp. IV).
We hold, therefore, that the NHPRDA is not so incompatible with antitrust concerns as to create a “pervasive” repeal of the antitrust laws as applied to every action taken in response to the health-care planning process. Moreover, as discussed above, there was no specific conflict between the Act and the antitrust laws in this case. Although respondents may well have acted here with only the highest of motives in seeking to implement the plans of the local HSA, they cannot defeat petitioner’s antitrust claim by the assertion of immunity from the requirements of the Sherman Act. As a result, the judgment below must be reversed and the case remanded.
It is so ordered.
As a Missouri hospital, petitioner has been licensed by the Missouri Division of Health since September 1977. It also has been certified as a Medicare provider by the Department of Health and Human Services.
All other acute-care hospitals in the Blue Cross service area are participating members.
On January 1, 1976, Blue Cross issued a summary of “Prerequisites” by which it would be guided in deciding whether to accept new participating hospitals. App. 141a. These included the following:
“The hospital must meet a clearly evident need for health care services in its defined service area. Health care institutions and institutional services shall be approved, and/or if required by law, certified as necessary, by the designated planning agency or areawide health planning agency respectively; or, when effective, by the designated State Agency as provided for in Public Law 93-641, the ‘National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of 1974.’ ” Id., at 146a.
Blue Cross added that it retained the final discretion in deciding whether to accept a new hospital, and then included a warning to those contemplating new construction:
“Because lack of knowledge by any applicant of this requirement shall not be considered sufficient reason for waiving it, community groups contemplating construction of new hospitals are urged to consult with Blue Cross, if they expect to apply for participation in the hospital service plan, at some time well in advance of actual construction.” Ibid.
See n. 3, supra. In a newsletter issued on July 21, 1976, Blue Cross announced that “[a]U projects not reviewed and approved by these Health Systems Agencies will not be reimbursable by Blue Cross of Kansas City.” App. 147a.
MAHSA was not named as a defendant. Petitioner also included claims under Missouri's antitrust laws.
Respondents also argued, unsuccessfully, that their conduct was immune from antitrust attack under the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1011 et seq., that their prepaid medical plans are not part of “trade or commerce” within the meaning of the Sherman Act, and that the allegations of conspiracy were insufficient. These claims are not before this Court.
See generally S. Rep. No. 93-1285, pp. 4-39 (1974) (hereinafter 1974 Senate Report). In 1972, for example, Congress passed §1122 of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1320a-l, which authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to enter into agreements with willing States, under which a state agency would be designated as the appropriate body for approving capital expenditures in the health-care area. Under § 1122, federal reimbursements under programs including Medicare and Medicaid do not include the capital expenses of hospitals that have not received agency approval.
In 1976, Missouri chose not to renew its agreement with the Federal Government under § 1122, thus eliminating the previous state program for approval of hospital construction. Brief for Respondents 6, n. 6.
The Health Planning and Resources Development Amendments of 1979 (1979 Amendments), Pub. L. 96-79, § 103 (c), 93 Stat. 595, added another goal, “preserving and improving . . . competition in the health service area.” 42 U. S. C. § 300Z-2 (a)(5) (1976 ed., Supp. IV).
The Act provides for reductions in various federal grants to States that do not participate in the planning process. 42 U. S. C. § 300m (d).
As the 1974 Senate Report put it:
“The need for strengthened and coordinated planning for personal health services is growing more apparent each day. In the view of the Committee the health care industry does not respond to classic marketplace forces. The highly technical nature of medical services together with the growth of third party reimbursement mechanisms act to attenuate the usual forces influencing the behavior of consumers with respect to personal health services. . . .
“Investment in costly health care resources, such as hospital beds, coronary care units or radio-isotope treatment centers is frequently made without regard to the existence of similar facilities or equipment already operating in an area. Investment in costly facilities and equipment not only results in capital accumulation, but establishes an ongoing demand for payment to support those services. . . .
“A recently published study indicates that by 1975, over 67,000 unneeded hospital beds will be in operation throughout the United States.
“Hospital beds, though unused, contribute substantial additional costs to the health care industry.” 1974 Senate Report, at 39.
The 1974 Senate Report stated:
“Widespread access and distribution problems exist with respect to medical facilities and services. In many urban areas, hospitals, clinics and other medical care institutions and services are crowded into relatively tiny sectors, while large areas go poorly served or completely unserved. Many rural communities are completely without a physician or any other type of health care service, while adjacent urban areas are oversupplied.” Ibid.
The Committee also sought to reduce the threat of domination of HSA decisionmaking by providers with a personal stake in the existing health-care system. 1979 Senate Report, at 57-59. See also Rosenblatt, Health Care Reform and Administrative Law: A Structural Approach, 88 Yale L. J. 243, 304-330 (1978) (describing problems of establishing consumer representation in HSA’s).
In a new subsection, 42 U. S. C. § 300k-2 (b) (1) (1976 ed., Supp. IV), Congress made the finding that “the effect of competition on decisions of providers respecting the supply of health services and facilities is diminished,” causing “duplication and excess supply of certain health services and facilities.” It added that where “competition appropriately allocates supply consistent with health systems plans and State health plans,” planning agencies should “give priority ... to actions which would strengthen the effect of competition on the supply of such services.” § 300k-2 (b) (3). But, for “health services, such as inpatient health services and other institutional health services, for which competition does not or will not appropriately allocate supply,” agencies should “take actions ... to allocate the supply of such services.” § 300k-3 (b) (2).
Significantly, the MAHSA health systems plan only called on insurers to create incentives to hold down the costs of care in existing institutions, and made no mention of a role for insurers in restraining unneeded hospital construction. The plan calls on the “reimbursement system [to] promote appropriate utilization of hospital services, provide positive incentives for efficient institutions, actively encourage utilization of less costly but equal quality alternatives to inpatient care, and develop uniform reimbursement programs.” App. 67a. But it then asserts that “[c]apital investment in institutions [shall] be controlled by an appropriate review agency.” Ibid.
See n. 7, supra. If it had done so, this case probably would not have arisen. The state agency would have conditioned all hospital construction on issuance of a “certificate of need.” See supra, at 385-386. Parties pursuing hospital construction without a certificate of need would now be subject to legal penalties. 42 U. S. C. § 300m-2 (a) (4) (A) (1976 ed., Supp. IV).
Missouri subsequently has established a state agency and enacted “certificate of need” legislation. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 197.300 et seq. (Supp. 1980).
Congress knew how to give an HSA policy greater legal effect. Under 42 U. S. C. § 3001-2 (e) (1976 ed., Supp. IV), HSA approval — subject to review by the Secretary — is required for expenditures of funds under certain federal programs.
As noted supra, at 387-388, in 1979 competition was given a more prominent place in the thinking of Congress.
Nevertheless, because Congress has remained convinced that competition does not operate effectively in some parts of the health-care industry, e. g., 42 U. S. C. §300k-2 (b) (1976 ed., Supp. IV), we emphasize that our holding does not foreclose future claims of antitrust immunity in other factual contexts. Although favoring a reversal in this case, the United States as amicus curiae asserts that “there are some activities that must, by implication, be immune from antitrust attack if HSAs and State Agencies are to exercise their authorized powers.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16, n. 11. Where, for example, an HSA has expressly advocated a form of cost-saving cooperation among providers, it may be that antitrust immunity is “necessary to make the [NHPRDA] work.” Silver v. New York Stock Exchange, 373 U. S. 341, 357 (1963). See 124 Cong. Rec. 34932 (1978) (Rep. Rogers) (“The intent of Congress was that HSA’s and providers who voluntarily work with them in carrying out the HSA’s statutory mandate should not be subject to the antitrust laws. If they were, Public Law 93-641 simply could not be implemented”). Such a ease would differ substantially from the present one, where the conduct at issue is not cooperation among providers, but an insurer’s refusal to deal with a provider that failed to heed the advice of an HSA.
This holding does not, of course, suggest anything about the merits of the antitrust claim in this case. These matters remain to be litigated on remand, where the court should give attention to the particular economic context in which the alleged conspiracy and “refusal to deal” took place. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. | What is the issue area of the decision? | [
"Criminal Procedure",
"Civil Rights",
"First Amendment",
"Due Process",
"Privacy",
"Attorneys",
"Unions",
"Economic Activity",
"Judicial Power",
"Federalism",
"Interstate Relations",
"Federal Taxation",
"Miscellaneous",
"Private Action"
] | [
7
] | sc_issuearea |
SUROWITZ v. HILTON HOTELS CORP. et al.
No. 161.
Argued January 20, 1966.
Decided March 7, 1966.
Richard F. Watt argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were Sidney M. Davis, Walter J. Rockier and Lionel G. Gross.
Samuel W. Block argued the cause for respondents. On the brief for Hilton Hotels Corp. were Leslie Hodson, Don H. Reuben and Lawrence Gunnels. With Mr. Block on the brief for the individual respondents were Albert E. Jenner, Jr., Keith F. Bode, William J. Friedman and Stanley R. Zax.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, Dora Surowitz, a stockholder in Hilton Hotels Corporation, brought this action in a United States District Court on behalf of herself and other stockholders charging that the officers and directors of the corporation had defrauded it of several million dollars by illegal devices and schemes designed to cheat the corporation and enrich the individual defendants. The acts charged, if true, would constitute frauds of the grossest kind against the corporation, and would be in violation of the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Delaware General Corporation Law. Summarily stated, the detailed complaint, which takes up over 60 printed pages, charges first that defendants conceived and carried out a deceptive plan under which the Hilton Hotels Corporation through a formal “offer” mailed to all the stockholders, purchased from them some 300,000 shares of its outstanding common stock, that these defendants manipulated the stock’s market price to an artificially high level and then at this inflated price sold some 100,000 shares of their own stock to the corporation, and that the effect of this offer and purchase was to reduce the corporation’s working capital more than $8,000,000 at a time when its financial condition was weak, and the funds were badly needed to run the corporation’s business. The second deceptive scheme charged in the complaint was that the same defendants, all of whom were stockholders of the Hilton Credit Corporation, caused the Hilton Hotels Corporation to 'purchase, also at an artificially high price, more than a million shares of Hilton Credit Corporation stock, paying about $3,441,000 for it, of which over $2,000,000 was personally received by the defendants. The complaint was signed by counsel for Mrs. Surowitz in compliance with Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which provides that “The signature of an attorney constitutes a certificate by him that he has read the pleading; that to the best of his knowledge, information, and belief there is good ground to support it; and that it is not interposed for delay.” Also pursuant to Rule 23 (b) of the Federal Rules, the complaint was verified by Mrs. Surowitz, the petitioner, who stated that some of the allegations in the complaint were true and that she “on information and belief” thought that all the other allegations were true.
So far as the language of the complaint and of Mrs. Surowitz’s verification was concerned, both were in strict compliance with the provisions of Rule 23 (b) which states that a shareholder’s complaint in a secondary action must contain certain averments and be verified by the plaintiff. Notwithstanding the sufficiency of the complaint and verification under Rule 23 (b), however, the court, without requiring defendants to file an answer and over petitioner’s protest, granted defendants’ motion to require Mrs. Surowitz to submit herself to an oral examination by the defendants’ counsel. In this examination Mrs. Surowitz showed in her answers to questions that she did not understand the complaint at all, that she could not explain the statements made in the complaint, that she had a very small degree of knowledge as to what the lawsuit was about, that she- did not know any of the defendants by name, that she did not know the nature of their alleged misconduct, and in fact that in signing the verification she had merely relied on what her son-in-law had explained to her about the facts in the case. On the basis of this examination, defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, alleging that “1. It is a sham pleading, and 2. Plaintiff, Dora Surowitz, is not a proper party plaintiff . . . .” In response, Mrs. Surowitz’s lawyer, in an effort to cure whatever infirmity the court might possibly find in Mrs. Surowitz’s verification in light of her deposition, filed two affidavits which shed much additional light on an extensive investigation which had preceded the filing of the complaint. Despite these affidavits the District Judge dismissed the case holding that Mrs. Surowitz’s affidavit was “false,” that being wholly false it was a nullity, that being a nullity it was as though no affidavit had been made in compliance with Rule 23, that being false the affidavit was a “sham” and Rule 23 (b) required that he dismiss her case, and he did so, “with prejudice.”
The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s dismissal, saying in part:
“We can only conclude, as did the court below, that plaintiff’s verification of the complaint was false because she swore to the verity of alleged facts of which she was wholly ignorant.” 342 F. 2d, at 606.
The Court of Appeals reached its conclusion that the case must be dismissed under Rule 23 (b) and Rule 41 (b) despite the fact that the charges made against the defendants were viewed as very serious and grave charges of fraud and that “many of the material allegations of the complaint are obviously true and cannot be refuted.” 342 F. 2d, at 607. We cannot agree with either of the courts below and reverse their judgments. We do not find it necessary in reversing, however, to consider all the numerous arguments made by respondents based on the origin, history and utility of Rule 23, and of derivative causes of action and class suits. No matter how much weight we give to the function of the Rule and of class action proceedings in protecting corporate management against so-called “nuisance” or “strike suits,” we hold that the Rule cannot justify dismissal of this case on the record shown here.
At the time the District Court dismissed and the Court of Appeals approved, there were pending before those courts not merely the complaint, the verified statements by counsel and by Mrs. Surowitz, and the deposition of Mrs. Surowitz, but, as noted above, two affidavits, one signed by Mrs. Surowitz’s attorney in this case, Mr. Walter J. Rockier, and the other signed by her son-in-law, Mr. Irving Brilliant, had been submitted in response to the defendants’ motion that the complaint be dismissed. These affidavits, as well as Mrs. Surowitz’s deposition, are a part of the record before us here and we shall now state the facts as they are illuminated by these affidavits.
Mrs. Surowitz, the plaintiff and petitioner here, is a Polish immigrant with a very limited English vocabulary and practically no formal education. For many years she has worked as a seamstress in New York where by reason of frugality she saved enough money to buy some thousands of dollars worth of stocks. She was of course not' able to select stocks for herself with any degree of assurance of their value. Under these circumstances she had to receive advice and counsel and quite naturally she went to her son-in-law, Irving Bril-, liant. Mr. Brilliant had graduated from the Harvard Law School, possessed a master’s degree in economics from Columbia University, was a professional investment advisor, and in addition to his degrees and his financial acumen, he wore a Phi Beta Kappa key. In 1957, six years before this litigation began, he bought some stock for his mother-in-law in the Hilton Hotels Corporation, paying a little more than $2,000 of her own money for it. He evidently had confidence in that corporation because by 1960 he had purchased for his wife, his deceased mother’s estate, a trust fund created for his children, and Mrs. Surowitz some 2,350 shares of the corporation’s common stock, at a cost of about $45,000 in addition to one of the corporation’s $10,000 debentures.
About December 1962, Mrs. Surowitz received through the mails a notice from the Hilton Hotels Corporation announcing its plan to purchase a large amount of its own stock. Because she wanted it explained to her, she took the notice to Mr. Brilliant. Apparently disturbed by it, he straightway set out to make an investigation. Shortly thereafter he went to Chicago, Illinois, where Hilton Hotels has its home office and talked the matter over with Mr. Rockier. Mr. Brilliant and Mr. Rockier had been friends for many years, apparently ever since both of them served as a part of the legal staff representing the United States in the Nuremberg trials. The two decided to investigate further, and for a number of months both pursued whatever avenues of information that were open to them. By August of 1963 on the basis of their investigation, both of them had reached the conclusion that the time had come to do something about the matter. In the meantime the value of the corporation’s stock had declined steadily, and in August the corporation failed to pay its usual dividend. In October, while a complaint was being prepared charging defendants with fraud and multiple violations of the federal securities acts and state law, Mr. Rockier met with defendants’ lawyers. This conference, instead of producing an understanding, merely provided Mr. Brilliant and Mr. Rockier with information, not previously available to them, which increased their grave suspicions about the corporation’s stock purchase and its management. For instance it was learned at this meeting that at the time of the stock purchase the president and chairman of the board of Hilton Hotels Corporation had purchased for an unusually high price over 100,000 shares of the corporation’s stock from several trusts established by a vice president and director of the corporation. Finally, in December, or almost exactly one year after the corporation had submitted its questionable offer to purchase stock from its shareholders, this complaint was filed charging the defendants with creating and participating in a fraudulent scheme which had taken millions of dollars out of the corporation’s treasury and transferred the money to the defendants’ pockets.
Soon after these investigations began Rockier prepared a letter for Mrs. Surowitz to send to the corporation protesting the alleged fraudulent scheme. Mr. Brilliant, her son-in-law, took the communication to Mrs. Surowitz, explained it to her, and she signed it. Later, in August 1963, when the corporation declined to pay its dividend, Mrs. Surowitz, who had purchased the stock for the specific purpose of gaining a source of income, was sufficiently disturbed to seek Mr. Brilliant’s counsel. He explained to her that he and Mr. Rockier were of the opinion that the corporation’s management had wrongfully damaged the corporation, and together at that time Mrs. Surowitz and her son-in-law discussed the matter of her bringing this suit. When, on the basis of this conversation, Mrs. Surowitz stated that she agreed that suit be filed in her name, Mr. Rockier prepared a formal complaint which he mailed to Mr. Brilliant. Mr. Brilliant then, according to both his affidavit and Mrs. Surowitz’s testimony, read and explained the complaint to his mother-in-law before she verified it. Her limited education and her small knowledge about any of the English language, except the most ordinarily used words, probably is sufficient guarantee that the courts below were right in finding that she did not understand any of the legal relationships or comprehend any of the business transactions described in the complaint. She did know, however, that she had put over $2,000 of her hard-earned money into Hilton Hotels stock, that she was not getting her dividends, and that her son-in-law who had looked into the matter thought that something was wrong. She also knew that her son-in-law was qualified to help her and she trusted him. It is difficult to believe that anyone could be shocked or harmed in any way when, in the light of all these circumstances, Mrs. Suro-witz verified the complaint, not on the basis of her own knowledge and understanding, but in the faith that her son-in-law had correctly advised her either that the statements in the complaint were true or to the best of his knowledge he believed them to be true.
We assume it may be possible that there can be circumstances under which a district court could stop all proceedings in a derivative cause of action, relieve the defendants from filing an answer to charges of fraud, and conduct a pre-trial investigation to determine whether the plaintiff had falsely sworn either that the facts alleged in the complaint were true or that he had information which led him to believe they were true. And conceivably such a pre-trial investigation might possibly reveal facts surrounding the verification of the complaint which could justify dismissal of the complaint with prejudice. However, here we need not consider the question of whether, if ever, Federal Rule 23 (b) might call for such summary action. Certainly it cannot justify the court’s summary dismissal in this case. Rule 23 (b) was not written in order to bar derivative suits. Unquestionably it was originally adopted and has served since in part as a means to discourage “strike suits” by people who might be interested in getting quick dollars by making charges without regard to their truth so as to coerce corporate managers to settle worthless claims in order to get rid of them. On the other hand, however, derivative suits have played a rather important role in protecting shareholders of corporations from the designing schemes and wiles of insiders who are willing to betray their company’s interests in order to enrich themselves. And it is not easy to conceive of anyone more in need of protection against such schemes than little investors like Mrs. Surowitz.
When the record of this case is reviewed in the light of the purpose of Rule 23 (b)’s verification requirement, there emerges the plain, inescapable fact that this is not a strike suit or anything akin to it. Mrs. Surowitz was not interested in anything but her own investment made with her own money. Moreover, there is not one iota of evidence that Mr. Brilliant, her son-in-law and counselor, sought to do the corporation any injury in this litigation. In fact his purchases for the benefit of his family of more than $50,000 of securities in the corporation, including a $10,000 debenture, all made years before this suit was brought, manifest confidence in the corporation, not a desire to harm it in any way. The Court of Appeals in affirming the District Court’s dismissal, however, indicated that whether Mrs. Surowitz and her counselors acted in good faith and whether the charges they made were truthful were irrelevant once Mrs. Surowitz demonstrated in her oral testimony that she knew nothing about the content of the suit. That court said:
“Those affidavits reveal that substantial and diligent investigation by Brilliant, Rockier and others preceded the filing of this complaint. . . . Neither affidavit, however, does anything, if anything could be done, to offset plaintiff’s positive disavowal of any relevant knowledge or information other than the fact of her stock ownership.” ' 342 F. 2d, at 607.
In fact the opinion of the Court of Appeals indicates in several places that a woman like Mrs. Surowitz, who is uneducated generally and illiterate in economic matters, could never under any circumstances be a plaintiff in a derivative suit brought in the federal courts to protect her stock interests.
We cannot construe Rule 23 or any other one of the Federal Rules as compelling courts to summarily dismiss, without any answer or argument at all, cases like this where grave charges of fraud are shown by the record to be based on reasonable beliefs growing out of careful investigation. The basic purpose of the Federal Rules is to administer justice through fair trials, not through summary dismissals as necessary as they may be on occasion. These rules were designed in large part to get away from some of the old procedural booby traps which common-law pleaders could set to prevent unsophisticated litigants from ever having their day in court. If rules of procedure work as they should in an honest and fair judicial system, they not only permit, but should as nearly as possible guarantee that bona fide complaints be carried to an adjudication on the merits. Rule 23 (b), like the other civil rules, was written to further, not defeat the ends of justice. The serious fraud charged here, which of course has not been proven, is clearly in that class of deceitful conduct which the federal securities laws were largely passed to prohibit and protect against. There is, moreover, not one word or one line of actual evidence in this record indicating that there has been any collusive conduct or trickery by those who filed this suit except through intimations and insinuations without any support from anything any witness has said. The dismissal of this case was error. It has now been practically three years since the complaint was filed and as yet none of the defendants have even been compelled to admit or deny the wrongdoings charged. They should be. The cause is reversed and remanded to the District Court for trial on the merits.
Reversed and remanded.
MR. Justice Fortas took no part in the decision of this case.
The Chief Justice took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
48 Stat. 74, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 77a et seq. (1964 ed.).
48 Stat. 881, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 78a et seq. (1964 ed.).
Del. Code Ann. Tit. 8, §101 et seq. (1953 ed.).
“(b) Secondary Action by Shareholders. In an action brought to enforce a secondary right on the part of one or more shareholders in an association, incorporated or unincorporated, because the association refuses to enforce rights which may properly be asserted by it, the complaint shall be verified by oath and shall aver (1) that the plaintiff was a shareholder at the time of the transaction of which he complains or that his share thereafter devolved on him by operation of law and (2) that the action is not a collusive one to copier on a court of the United States jurisdiction of any action of which it would not otherwise have jurisdiction. The complaint shall also set forth with particularity the efforts of the plaintiff to secure from the managing directors or trustees and, if necessary, from the shareholders such action as he desires, and the reasons for his failure to obtain such action or the reasons for not making such effort.”
Consider, for example, these three excerpts taken from separate paragraphs in the Court of Appeals’ opinion:
“We have considered all arguments advanced by the plaintiff. We have considered the record in the light of plaintiff’s limited grasp of the English language and the intricacies of corporate finance. We have considered the peculiar position of a plaintiff in a suit such as this as, principally, the instrument through which the judicial machinery is set in motion. It is not unreasonable to state as a minimum requirement that the plaintiff- have general knowledge of the acts of which she complains and the connection of the defendants to those acts which she alleges. We conclude that any lesser requirement would make the verification provision farcical.
“But if the verification provision of the Rule is to have any real meaning, it requires that a plaintiff must have knowledge of his own position and relationship to the suit, of the official identity of the parties against whom the suit is brought and general knowledge of the wrongful acts which he alleges as a foundation for his complaint.
“We think the court below correctly held that a pleading governed by Rule 23 (b) is sham when it clearly appears that the ostensible verification is a mere formality without knowledgeable or informative comprehension in the party plaintiff whose verification gives it the breath of life. That breath is not instilled by the reading of words to that plaintiff which she obviously did not understand.” 342 F. 2d, at 608, 606, and 607-608. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations | What is the ideological direction of the decision reviewed by the Supreme Court? | [
"Conservative",
"Liberal",
"Unspecifiable"
] | [
0
] | sc_lcdispositiondirection |
IN RE MURCHISON et al.
No. 405.
Argued April 20, 1955.
Decided May 16, 1955.
William, L. Colden argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the brief were James A. Cobb, George E. C. Hayes and Charles W. Jones.
Edmund E. Shepherd, Solicitor General, argued the cause for the State of Michigan, respondent. With him on the brief were Thomas M. Kavanagh, Attorney General, and Daniel J. O’Hara, Assistant Attorney General.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Michigan law authorizes any judge of its courts of record to act as a so-called “one-man grand jury.” He can compel witnesses to appear before him in secret to testify about suspected crimes. We have previously held that such a Michigan “judge-grand jury” cannot consistently with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment summarily convict a witness of contempt for conduct in the secret hearings. In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257. We held that before such a conviction could stand, due process requires as a minimum that an accused be given a public trial after reasonable notice of the charges, have a right to examine witnesses against him, call witnesses on his own behalf, and be represented by counsel. The question now before us is whether a contempt proceeding conducted in accordance with these standards complies with the due process requirement of an impartial tribunal where the same judge presiding at the contempt hearing had also served as the “one-man grand jury” out of which the contempt charges arose. This does not involve, of course, the long-exercised power of courts summarily to punish certain conduct occurring in open court.
The petitioners, Murchison and White, were called as witnesses before a “one-man judge-grand jury.” Murchison, a Detroit policeman, was interrogated at length in the judge’s secret hearings where questions were asked him about suspected gambling in Detroit and bribery of policemen. His answers left the judge persuaded that he had committed perjury, particularly in view of other evidence before the “judge-grand jury.” The judge then charged Murchison with perjury and ordered him to appear and show cause why he should not be punished for criminal contempt. White, the other petitioner, was also summoned to appear as a witness in the same “one-man grand jury” hearing. Asked numerous questions about gambling and bribery, he refused to answer on the ground that he was entitled under Michigan law to have counsel present with him. The “judge-grand jury” charged White with contempt and ordered him to appear and show cause. The judge who had been the “grand jury” then tried both petitioners in open court, convicted and sentenced them for contempt. Petitioners objected to being tried for contempt by this particular judge for a number of reasons including: (1) Michigan law expressly provides that a judge conducting a “one-man grand jury” inquiry will be disqualified from hearing or trying any case arising from his inquiry or from hearing any motion to dismiss or quash any complaint or indictment growing out of it, or from hearing any charge of contempt “except alleged contempt for neglect or refusal to appear in response to a summons or subpoena”; (2) trial before the judge who was at the same time the complainant, indicter and prosecutor, constituted a denial of the fair and impartial trial required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The trial judge answered the first challenge by holding that the state statute barring him from trying the contempt cases violated the Michigan Constitution on the ground that it would deprive a judge of inherent power to punish contempt. This interpretation of the Michigan Constitution is binding here. As to the second challenge the trial judge held that due process did not forbid him to try the contempt charges. He also rejected other constitutional contentions made by petitioners. The State Supreme Court sustained all the trial judge’s holdings and affirmed. Importance of the federal constitutional questions raised caused us to grant certiorari. The view we take makes it unnecessary for us to consider or decide any of those questions except the due process challenge to trial by the judge who had conducted the secret “one-man grand jury” proceedings.
A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process. Fairness of course requires an absence of actual bias in the trial of cases. But our system of law has always endeavored to prevent even the probability of unfairness. To this end no man can be a judge in his own case and no man is permitted to try cases where he has an interest in the outcome. That interest cannot be defined with precision. Circumstances and relationships must be considered. This Court has said, however, that “every procedure which would offer a possible temptation to the average man as a judge . . . not to hold the balance nice, clear and true between the State and the accused, denies the latter due process of law.” Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510, 532. Such a stringent rule may sometimes bar tria] by judges who have no actual bias and who would do their very best to weigh the scales of justice equally between contending parties. But to perform its high function in the best way “justice must satisfy the appearance of justice.” Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11, 14.
It would be very strange if our system of law permitted a judge to act as a grand jury and then try the very persons accused as a result of his investigations. Perhaps no State has ever forced a defendant to accept grand jurors as proper trial jurors to pass on charges growing out of their hearings. A single “judge-grand jury” is even more a part of the accusatory process than an ordinary lay grand juror. Having been a part of that process a judge cannot be, in the very nature of things, wholly disinterested in the conviction or acquittal of those accused. While he would not likely have all the zeal of a prosecutor, it can certainly not be said that he would have none of that zeal. Fair trials are too important a part of our free society to let prosecuting judges be trial judges of the charges they prefer. It is true that contempt committed in a trial courtroom can under some circumstances be punished summarily by the trial judge. See Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517, 539. But adjudication by a trial judge of a contempt committed in his immediate presence in open court cannot be likened to the proceedings here. For we held in the Oliver case that a person charged with contempt before a “one-man grand jury” could not be summarily tried.
As a practical matter it is difficult if not impossible for a judge to free himself from the influence of what took place in his “grand-jury” secret session. His recollection of that is likely to weigh far more heavily with him than any testimony given in the open hearings. That it sometimes does is illustrated by an incident which occurred in White’s case. In finding White guilty of contempt the trial judge said, “there is one thing the record does not show, and that was Mr. White’s attitude, and I must say that his attitude was almost insolent in the manner in which he answered questions and his attitude upon the witness stand. . . . Not only was the personal attitude insolent, but it was defiant, and I want to put that on the record.” In answer to defense counsel’s motion to strike these statements because they were not part of the original record the judge said, “That is something . . . that wouldn’t appear on the record, but it would be very evident to the court.” Thus the judge whom due process requires to be impartial in weighing the evidence presented before him, called on his own personal knowledge and impression of what had occurred in the grand jury room and his judgment was based in part on this impression, the accuracy of which could not be tested by adequate cross-examination.
This incident also shows that the judge was doubtless more familiar with the facts and circumstances in which the charges were rooted than was any other witness. There were no public witnesses upon whom petitioners could call to give disinterested testimony concerning what took place in the secret chambers of the judge. If there had been they might have been able to refute the judge’s statement about White’s insolence. Moreover, as shown by the judge’s statement here, a “judge-grand jury” might himself many times be a very material witness in a later trial for contempt. If the charge should be heard before that judge, the result would be either that the defendant must be deprived of examining or cross-examining him or else there would be the spectacle of the trial judge presenting testimony upon which he must finally pass in determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant. In either event the State would have the benefit of the judge’s personal knowledge while the accused would be denied an effective opportunity to cross-examine. The right of a defendant to examine and cross-examine witnesses is too essential to a fair trial to have that right jeopardized in such way.
We hold that it was a violation of due process for the “judge-grand jury” to try these petitioners, and it was therefore error for the Supreme Court of Michigan to uphold the convictions. The judgments are reversed and the causes are remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. „ , *
„ , Reversed.
Mich. Stat. Ann., 1954, §§ 28.943, 28.944.
Sacher v. United States, 343 U. S. 1; Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517, 539; Ex parte Savin, 131 U. S. 267. See also In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 273-278.
The contempt charge signed by the judge reads in part as follows:
“It therefore appearing . . . that the said Patrolman Lee Roy Murchinson [sic] has been guilty of wilfull and corrupt perjury, which perjury has an obstructive effect upon the judicial inquiry being conducted by this court and the said Patrolman Lee Roy Murchinson [sic] obstructed the judicial function of the court by wilfully giving false answers as aforesaid, and did also tend to impair the respect for the authority of the court, all of which perjury and false answers given by the said witness aforesaid was committed during the sitting of, in the presence and view of this court and constitutes criminal contempt;
“It is therefore ordered that the said Patrolman Lee Roy Murchin-son [sic] appear before this court on the tenth day of May, 1954, at 10:00 o’clock in the forenoon and show cause why he should not be punished for criminal contempt of this court because of his aforesaid acts.”
In re White, 340 Mich. 140, 65 N. W. 2d 296; In re Murchison, 340 Mich. 151, 65 N. W. 2d 301.
348 U. S. 894.
That we lay aside certain other federal constitutional challenges by petitioners is not to be taken as any intimation that we have passed on them one way or another.
See, e. g., Note, 50 L. R. A. (N. S.) 933, 953-954, 970-971.
Apparently the trial judge here did consider himself a part of the prosecution. In passing on a request by Murchison’s counsel for a two-day postponement of the contempt trial the judge said, “There are two points that suggest themselves to me.
“One is that if the respondent is going to claim that he was in Shrewsberry, Ontario, Canada, on March 9, 1954, that we ought to be furnished with information so that we could between now and two days from now, which I am going to give you, we could do some checking and investigating ourselves.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Because of the judge’s dual position the view he took of his function is not at all surprising.
See, e. g., Queen v. London County Council, [1892] 1 Q. B. 190; Wisconsin ex rel. Getchel v. Bradish, 95 Wis. 205, 70 N. W. 172.
See Hale v. Wyatt, 78 N. H. 214, 98 A. 379. See also, Witnesses— Competency — Competency of a Presiding Judge as Witness, 28 Harv. L. Rev. 115. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state of the court in which the case originated. Consider the District of Columbia as a state. | What is the state of the court in which the case originated? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
26
] | sc_caseoriginstate |
WOOD v. MILYARD, WARDEN, et al.
No. 10-9995.
Argued February 27, 2012
Decided April 24, 2012
Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Scalia, J., joined, post, p. 475.
Kathleen A. Lord argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.
Daniel D. Domenico, Solicitor General of Colorado, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were John W. Suthers, Attorney General, John D. Seidel and John J. Fuerst III, Senior Assistant Attorneys General, William S. Consovoy, and Thomas fi. McCarthy.
Melissa Arbus Sherry argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae supporting affirmance. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Verrilli, Assistant Attorney General Breuer, and Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben.
A brief of amici curiae urging affirmance was filed for the State of Texas et al. by Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas, Daniel T. Hodge, First Assistant Attorney General, Don Clemmer, Deputy Attorney General, Jonathan F. Mitchell, Solicitor General, and James P. Sullivan, Assistant Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Luther Strange of Alabama, Tom Horne of Arizona, Pamela Jo Bondi of Florida, Leonardo M. Rapadas of Guam, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Derek Schmidt of Kansas, Steve Bullock of Montana, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Jeffrey S. Chiesa of New Jersey, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Marty J. Jackley of South Dakota, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, Robert M. McKenna of Washington, and Gregory A. Phillips of Wyoming.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the authority of a federal court to raise, on its own motion, a statute of limitations defense to a ha-beas corpus petition. After state prisoner Patrick Wood filed a federal habeas corpus petition, the State twice informed the U. S. District Court that it “[would] not challenge, but [is] not conceding, the timeliness of Wood’s habeas petition.” App. 70a; see id., at 87a. Thereafter, the District Court rejected Wood’s claims on the merits. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit directed the parties to brief the question whether Wood’s federal petition was timely. Post-briefing, the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of Wood’s petition, but solely on the ground that it was untimely.
Our precedent establishes that a court may consider a statute of limitations or other threshold bar the State failed to raise in answering a habeas petition. Granberry v. Greer, 481 U. S. 129, 134 (1987) (exhaustion defense); Day v. McDonough, 547 U. S. 198, 202 (2006) (statute of limitations defense). Does court discretion to take up timeliness hold when a State is aware of a limitations defense, and intelligently chooses not to rely on it in the court of first instance? The answer Day instructs is “no”: A court is not at liberty, we have cautioned, to bypass, override, or excuse a State’s deliberate waiver of a limitations defense. Id., at 202, 210, n. 11. The Tenth Circuit, we accordingly hold, abused its discretion by resurrecting the limitations issue instead of reviewing the District Court’s disposition on the merits of Wood’s claims.
I
In the course of a 1986 robbery at a pizza shop in a Colorado town, the shop’s assistant manager was shot and killed. Petitioner Patrick Wood was identified as the perpetrator. At a bench trial in January 1987, Wood was convicted of murder, robbery, and menacing, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed Wood’s convictions and sentence on direct appeal in May 1989, and the Colorado Supreme Court denied Wood’s petition for cer-tiorari five months later. Wood did not ask this Court to review his conviction in the 90 days he had to do so.
Wood then pursued posteonviction relief, asserting constitutional infirmities in his trial, conviction, and sentence. Prior to the federal petition at issue here, which was filed in 2008, Wood, proceeding pro se, twice sought relief in state court. First, in 1995, he filed a motion to vacate his conviction and sentence pursuant to Colorado Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(c) (1984). He also asked the Colorado trial court to appoint counsel to aid him in pursuit of the motion. When some months passed with no responsive action, Wood filed a request for a ruling on his motion and accompanying request for counsel. The state court then granted Wood’s plea for the appointment, of counsel, but the record is completely blank on any further action regarding the 1995 motion. Second, Wood filed a new pro se motion for post-conviction relief in Colorado court in 2004. On the first page of his second motion, he indicated that “[n]o other postconviction proceedings [had been] filed.” Record in No. 08-cv-00247 (D Colo.), Doc. 15-5 (Exh. E), p. 1. The state court denied Wood’s motion four days after receiving it.
Wood filed a federal habeas petition in 2008, which the District Court initially dismissed as untimely. App. 41a-46a. On reconsideration, the District Court vacated the dismissal and instructed the State to file a preanswer response “limited to addressing the affirmative defenses of timeliness . . . and/or exhaustion of state court remedies.” Id., at 64a-65a. On timeliness, the State represented in its preanswer response: “Respondents will not challenge, but are not conceding, the timeliness of Wood’s [federal] habeas petition.” Id., at 70a. Consistently, in its full answer to Wood’s federal petition, the State repeated: “Respondents are not challenging, but do not concede, the timeliness of the petition.” Id., at 87a.
Disposing of Wood’s petition, the District Court dismissed certain claims for failure to exhaust state remedies, and denied on the merits Wood’s two remaining claims — one alleging a double jeopardy violation and one challenging the validity of Wood’s waiver of his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. Id., at 96a-111a. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit ordered the parties to brief, along with the merits of Wood’s double jeopardy and Sixth Amendment claims, “the timeliness of Wood’s application for [federal habeas relief].” Id., at 129a. After briefing, the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of Wood’s petition without addressing the merits; instead, the Tenth Circuit held the petition time barred. 403 Fed. Appx. 335 (2010). In so ruling, the Court of Appeals concluded it had authority to raise timeliness on its own motion. Id., at 337, n. 2. It further ruled that the State had not taken that issue off the table by declining to interpose a statute of limitations defense in the District Court. Ibid.
We granted review, 564 U. S. 1066 (2011), to resolve two issues: first, whether a court of appeals has the authority to address the timeliness of a habeas petition on the court’s own initiative; second, assuming a court of appeals has such authority, whether the State’s representations to the District Court in this case nonetheless precluded the Tenth Circuit from considering the timeliness of Wood’s petition.
> — i ) — I
A
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 110 Stat. 1214, a state prisoner has one year to file a federal petition for habeas corpus relief, starting from “the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review.” 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(1)(A). For a prisoner whose judgment became final before AEDPA was enacted, the one-year limitations period runs from AEDPA’s effective date: April 24,1996. See Serrano v. Williams, 383 F. 3d 1181, 1183 (CA10 2004). “The one-year clock is stopped, however, during the time the petitioner’s ‘properly filed’ application for state postconviction relief ‘is pending.’ ” Day, 547 U. S., at 201 (quoting 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(2)).
The state judgment against Wood became final on direct review in early 1990. See supra, at 466. Wood’s time for filing a federal petition therefore began to run on the date of AEDPA’s enactment, April 24,1996, and expired on April 24, 1997, unless Wood had a “properly filed” application for state postconvietion relief “pending” in Colorado state court during that period. Wood maintains he had such an application pending on April 24, 1996: the Rule 35(c) motion he filed in 1995. That motion, Wood asserts, remained pending (thus continuing to suspend the one-year clock) until at least August 2004, when he filed his second motion for postconviction relief in state court. The 2004 motion, the State does not contest, was “properly filed.” Wood argues that this second motion further tolled the limitations period until February 5, 2007, exactly one year before he filed the federal petition at issue here. If Wood is correct that his 1995 motion remained “pending” in state court from April 1996 until August 2004, his federal petition would be timely.
In its preanswer response to Wood’s petition, the State set forth its comprehension of the statute of limitations issue. It noted that Wood’s “time for filing a [habeas] petition began to run on April 24, 1996, when the AEDPA became effective,” and that Wood “had until April 24,1997, plus any tolling periods, to timely file his habeas petition.” App. 69a-70a. The State next identified the crucial question: Did Wood’s 1995 state petition arrest the one-year statute of limitations period from 1996 until 2004? Id., at 70a. “[I]t is certainly arguable,” the State then asserted, “that the 1995 postconviction motion was abandoned before 1997 and thus did not toll the AEDPA statute of limitations at all.” Ibid. But rather than inviting a decision on the statute of limitations question, the State informed the District Court it would “not challenge” Wood’s petition on timeliness grounds; instead, the State simply defended against Wood’s double jeopardy and Sixth Amendment claims on the merits.
B
“Ordinarily in civil litigation, a statutory time limitation is forfeited if not raised in a defendant’s answer or in an amendment thereto.” Day, 547 U. S., at 202 (citing Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 8(c), 12(b), and 15(a)). See also Habeas Corpus Rule 5(b) (requiring the State to plead a statute of limitations defense in its answer). An affirmative defense, once forfeited, is “exclu[ded] from the case,” 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1278, pp. 644-645 (3d ed. 2004), and, as a rule, cannot be asserted on appeal. See Day, 547 U. S., at 217 (Scalia, J., dissenting); Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 764 (1975); McCoy v. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology, 950 F. 2d 13, 22 (CA1 1991) (“It is hornbook law that theories not raised squarely in the district court cannot be surfaced for the first time on appeal.”).
In Granberry v. Greer, we recognized a modest exception to the rule that a federal court will not consider a forfeited affirmative defense. 481 U. S., at 134. The District Court in Granberry denied a-federal habeas petition on the merits. Id., at 180. On appeal, the State argued for the first time that the petition should be dismissed because the petitioner had failed to exhaust relief available in state court. Ibid. See Habeas Corpus Rule 5(b) (listing “failure to exhaust state remedies” as a threshold bar to federal habeas relief). Despite the State’s failure to raise the nonexhaustion argument in the District Court, the Seventh Circuit accepted the argument and ruled for the State on that ground. We granted certiorari to decide whether a court of appeals has discretion to address a nonexhaustion defense that the State failed to raise in the district court. Id., at 130.
Although “expressing] our reluctance to adopt rules that allow a party to withhold raising a defense until after the ‘main event’ ... is over,” id., at 132, we nonetheless concluded that the bar to court of appeals’ consideration of a forfeited habeas defense is not absolute, id., at 133. The exhaustion doctrine, we noted, is founded on concerns broader than those of the parties; in particular, the doctrine fosters respectful, harmonious relations between the state and federal judiciaries. Id., at 133-135. With that comity interest in mind, we held that federal appellate courts have discretion, in “exceptional cases,” to consider a nonexhaustion argument “inadverten[tly]” overlooked by the State in the District Court. Id., at 132, 134.
In Day, we affirmed a federal district court’s authority to consider a forfeited habeas defense when extraordinary circumstances so warrant. 547 U. S., at 201. There, the State miscalculated a timespan, specifically, the number of days running between the finality of Day’s state-court conviction and the filing of his federal habeas petition. Id., at 203. As a result, the State erroneously informed the District Court that Day’s petition was timely. Ibid. A Magistrate Judge caught the State’s computation error and recommended that the petition be dismissed as untimely, notwithstanding the State’s timeliness concession. Id., at 204. The District Court adopted the recommendation, and the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s sua sponte dismissal of the petition as untimely. Ibid.
Concluding that it would make “scant sense” to treat AEDPA’s statute of limitations differently from other threshold constraints on federal habeas petitioners, we held “that district courts are permitted, but not obliged, to consider, sua sponte, the timeliness of a state prisoner’s habeas petition.” Id., at 209; ibid, (noting that Habeas Corpus Rule 5(b) places “ ‘a statute of limitations’ defense on a par with ‘failure to exhaust state remedies, a procedural bar, [and] non-retroactivity’”). Affording federal courts leeway to consider a forfeited timeliness defense was appropriate, we again reasoned, because AEDPA’s statute of limitations, like the exhaustion doctrine, “implicates] values beyond the concerns of the parties.” Day, 547 U. S., at 205 (quoting Acosta v. Artuz, 221 F. 3d 117, 123 (CA2 2000)); 547 U. S., at 205-206 (“The AEDPA statute of limitation promotes judicial efficiency and conservation of judicial resources, safeguards the accuracy of state court judgments by requiring resolution of constitutional questions while the record is fresh, and lends finality to state court judgments within a reasonable time.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
We clarified, however, that a federal court does not have carte blanche to depart from the principle of party presentation basic to our adversary system. See Greenlaw v. United States, 554 U. S. 237, 243-244 (2008). Only where the State does not “strategically withh[o]ld the [limitations] defense or cho[o]se to relinquish it,” and where the petitioner is accorded a fair opportunity to present his position, may a district court consider the defense on its own initiative and “ ‘determine whether the interests of justice would be better served’ by addressing the merits or by dismissing the petition as time barred.” Day, 547 U. S., at 210-211 (quoting Granberry, 481 U. S., at 136; internal quotation marks omitted). It would be “an abuse of discretion,” we observed, for a court “to override a State’s deliberate waiver of a limitations defense.” 547 U. S., at 202. In Day’s case itself, we emphasized, the State’s concession of timeliness resulted from “inadvertent error,” id., at 211, not from any deliberate decision to proceed straightaway to the merits.
Consistent with Granberry and Day, we decline to adopt an absolute rule barring a court of appeals from raising, on its own motion, a forfeited timeliness defense. The institutional interests served by AEDPA’s statute of limitations are also present when a habeas case moves to the court of appeals, a point Granberry recognized with respect to a nonex-haustion defense. We accordingly hold, in response to the first question presented, see supra, at 468, that courts of appeals, like district courts, have the authority — though not the obligation — to raise a forfeited timeliness defense on their own initiative.
C
We turn now to the second, case-specific, inquiry. See ibid. Although a court of appeals has discretion to address, sua sponte, the timeliness of a habeas petition, appellate courts should reserve that authority for use in exceptional cases. For good reason, appellate courts ordinarily abstain from entertaining issues that have not been raised and preserved in the court of first instance. See supra, at 470. That restraint is all the more appropriate when the appellate court itself spots an issue the parties did not air below, and therefore would not have anticipated in developing their arguments on appeal.
Due regard for the trial court’s processes and time investment is also a consideration appellate courts should not overlook. It typically takes a district court more time to decide a habeas case on the merits than it does to resolve a petition on threshold procedural grounds. See Dept, of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, R. Hanson & H. Daley, Federal Habeas Corpus Review: Challenging State Court Criminal Convictions 23 (NCJ-155504, 1995) (district courts spent an average of 477 days to decide a habeas petition on the merits, and 268 days to resolve a petition on procedural grounds). When a court of appeals raises a procedural impediment to disposition on the merits, and disposes of the case on that ground, the district court’s labor is discounted and the appellate court acts not as a court of review but as one of first view.
In light of the foregoing discussion of the relevant considerations, we hold that the Tenth Circuit abused its discretion when it dismissed Wood’s petition as untimely. In the District Court, the State was well aware of the statute of limitations defense available to it and of the arguments that could be made in support of the defense. See supra, at 467. Yet the State twice informed the District Court that it “will not challenge, but [is] not conceding” the timeliness of Wood’s petition. Ibid. Essentially, the District Court asked the State: Will you oppose the petition on statute of limitations grounds? The State answered: Such a challenge would be supportable, but we won’t make the challenge here.
“[W]aiver is the ‘intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.’” Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443, 458, n. 13 (2004) (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U. S. 725, 733 (1993)). The State’s conduct in this case fits that description. Its decision not to contest the timeliness of Wood’s petition did not stem from an “inadvertent error,” as did the State’s concession in Day. See 547 U. S., at 211. Rather, the State, after expressing its clear and accurate understanding of the timeliness issue, see supra, at 469-470, deliberately steered the District Court away from the question and toward the merits of Wood’s petition. In short, the State knew it had an “arguable” statute of limitations defense, see Ibid., yet it chose, in no uncertain terms, to refrain from interposing a timeliness “challenge” to Wood’s petition. The District Court therefore reached and decided the merits of the petition. The Tenth Circuit should have done so as well.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Colorado Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(c) (1984) provides, in relevant part: “[E]very person convicted of a crime is entitled as a matter of right to make application for postconviction review upon the groun[d]... [t]hat the conviction was obtained or sentence imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or the constitution or laws of this state.”
The Tenth Circuit’s conclusion that it had authority to raise an AEDPA statute of limitations defense sua sponte conflicts with the view of the Eighth Circuit. Compare 403 Fed. Appx. 335, 337, n. 2 (CA10 2010) (ease below), with Sasser v. Norris, 553 F. 3d 1121, 1128 (CA8 2009) (“The discretion to consider the statute of limitations defense sua sponte does not extend to the appellate level.”).
The one-year clock may also be stopped- — or “tolled” — for equitable reasons, notably when an “extraordinary circumstance” prevents a prisoner from filing his federal petition on time. See Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631 (2010). Wood does not contend that the equitable tolling doctrine applies to his case. App. 144a, n. 5.
We note here the distinction between defenses that are “waived” and those that are “forfeited.” A waived claim or defense is one that a party has knowingly and intelligently relinquished; a forfeited plea is one that a party has merely failed to preserve. Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443, 458, n. 13 (2004); United States v. Olano, 507 U. S. 725, 733 (1993). That distinction is key to our decision in Wood’s ease.
Although our decision in Granberry v. Greer, 481 U. S. 129 (1987), did not expressly distinguish between forfeited and waived defenses, we made clear in Day v. McDonough, 547 U. S. 198 (2006), that a federal court has the authority to resurrect only forfeited defenses. See infra, at 472-473. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state associated with the respondent. If the respondent is a federal court or federal judge, note the "state" as the United States. The same holds for other federal employees or officials. | What state is associated with the respondent? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
6
] | sc_respondentstate |
FORTNIGHTLY CORP. v. UNITED ARTISTS TELEVISION, INC.
No. 618.
Argued March 13, 1968.
Decided June 17, 1968.
Robert C. Barnard argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were R. Michael Duncan and E. Stratford Smith.
Louis Nizer argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Gerald Meyer, Gerald F. Phillips, and Lawrence S. Lesser.
Solicitor General Griswold filed a memorandum for the United States, as amicus curiae.
Bruce E. Lovett filed a brief for the National Cable Television Association, Inc., as amicus curiae, urging reversal.
Briefs of amici curiae, urging affirmance, were filed by Warner W. Gardner, William H. Dempsey, Jr., and Douglas A. Anello for the National Association of Broadcasters; by Ambrose Doskow for Broadcast Music, Inc.; by Michael Finkelstein for the All-Channel Television Society; by Irwin Karp for the Authors League of America, Inc.; by Herman Finkelstein, Simon H. Rif kind, Jay H. Topkis, and Paul S. Adler for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; by Paul P. Selvin and William Berger for the Writers Guild of America et al., and by Leonard Zissu and Abraham Marcus for the Screen Composers Association of the United States.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner, Fortnightly Corporation, owns and operates community antenna television (CATV) systems in Clarksburg and Fairmont, West Virginia. There were no local television broadcasting stations in that immediate area until 1957. Now there are two, but, because of hilly terrain, most residents of the area cannot receive the broadcasts of any additional stations by ordinary rooftop antennas. Some of the residents have joined in erecting larger cooperative antennas in order to receive more distant stations, but a majority of the householders in both communities have solved the problem by becoming customers of the petitioner’s CATV service.
The petitioner’s systems consist of antennas located on hills above each city, with connecting coaxial cables, strung on utility poles, to carry the signals received by the antennas to the home television sets of individual subscribers. The systems contain equipment to amplify and modulate the signals received, and to convert them to different frequencies, in order to transmit the signals efficiently while maintaining and improving their strength.
During 1960, when this proceeding began, the petitioner’s systems provided customers with signals of five television broadcasting stations, three located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; one in Steubenville, Ohio; and one in Wheeling, West Virginia. The distance between those cities and Clarksburg and Fairmont ranges from 52 to 82 miles. The systems carried all the programming of each of the five stations, and a customer could choose any of the five programs he wished to view by simply turning the knob on his own television set. The petitioner neither edited the programs received nor originated any programs of its own. The petitioner’s customers were charged a flat monthly rate regardless of the amount of time that their television sets were in use.
The respondent, United Artists Television, Inc., holds copyrights on several motion pictures. During the period in suit, the respondent (or its predecessor) granted various licenses to each of the five television stations in question to broadcast certain of these copyrighted motion pictures. Broadcasts made under these licenses were received by the petitioner’s Clarksburg and Fairmont CATV systems and carried to its customers. At no time did the petitioner (or its predecessors) obtain a license under the copyrights from the respondent or from any of the five television stations. The licenses granted by the respondent to the five stations did not authorize carriage of the broadcasts by CATY systems, and in several instances the licenses specifically prohibited such carriage.
The respondent sued the petitioner for copyright infringement in a federal court, asking damages and injunc-tive relief. The issue of infringement was separately tried, and the court ruled in favor of the respondent. 255 F. Supp. 177. On interlocutory appeal under 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (b), the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. 377 F. 2d 872. We granted certiorari, 389 U. S. 969, to consider an important question under the Copyright Act of 1909, 35 Stat. 1075, as amended, 17 U. S. C. § 1 et seq.
The Copyright Act does not give a copyright holder control over all uses of his copyrighted work. Instead, § 1 of the Act enumerates several “rights” that are made “exclusive” to the holder of the copyright. If a person, without authorization from the copyright holder, puts a copyrighted work to a use within the scope of one of these “exclusive rights,” he infringes the copyright. If he puts the work to a use not enumerated in § 1, he does not infringe. The respondent’s contention is that the petitioner’s CATY systems infringed the respondent’s § 1 (c) exclusive right to “perform ... in public for profit” (nondramatic literary works) and its § 1 (d) exclusive right to “perform . .. publicly” (dramatic works). The petitioner maintains that its CATV systems did not “perform” the copyrighted works at all.
At the outset it is clear that the petitioner’s systems did not “perform” the respondent’s copyrighted works in any conventional sense of that term, or in any manner envisaged by the Congress that enacted the law in 1909. But our inquiry cannot be limited to ordinary meaning and legislative history, for this is a statute that was drafted long before the development of the electronic phenomena with which we deal here. In 1909 radio itself was in its infancy, and television had not been invented. We must read the statutory language of 60 years ago in the light of drastic technological change.
The Court of Appeals thought that the controlling question in deciding whether the petitioner’s CATV systems “performed” the copyrighted works was: “[H]ow much did the [petitioner] do to bring about the viewing and hearing of a copyrighted work?” 377 F. 2d, at 877. Applying this test, the court found that the petitioner did “perform” the programs carried by its systems. But mere quantitative contribution cannot be the proper test to determine copyright liability in the context of television broadcasting. If it were, many people who make large contributions to television viewing might find themselves liable for copyright infringement — not only the apartment house owner who erects a common antenna for his tenants, but the shopkeeper who sells or rents television sets, and, indeed, every television set manufacturer. Rather, resolution of the issue before us depends upon a determination of the function that CATV plays in the total process of television broadcasting and reception.
Television viewing results from combined activity by broadcasters and viewers. Both play active and indispensable roles in the process; neither is wholly passive. The broadcaster selects and procures the program to be viewed. He may produce it himself, whether “live” or with film or tape, or he may obtain it from a network or some other source. He then converts the visible images and audible sounds of the program into electronic signals, and broadcasts the signals at radio frequency for public reception. Members of the public, by means of television sets and antennas that they themselves provide, receive the broadcaster’s signals and reconvert them into the visible images and audible sounds of the program. The effective range of the broadcast is determined by the combined contribution of the equipment employed by the broadcaster and that supplied by the viewer.
The television broadcaster in one sense does less than the exhibitor of a motion picture or stage play; he supplies his audience not with visible images but only with electronic signals. The viewer conversely does more than a member of a theater audience; he provides the equipment to convert electronic signals into audible sound and visible images. Despite these deviations from the conventional situation contemplated by the framers of the Copyright Act, broadcasters have been judicially treated as exhibitors, and viewers as members of a theater audience. Broadcasters' perform. Viewers do not perform. Thus, while both broadcaster and viewer play crucial roles in the total television process, a line is drawn between them. One is treated as active performer; the other, as passive beneficiary.
When CATV is considered in this framework, we conclude that it falls on the viewer's side of the line. Essentially, a CATY system no more than enhances the viewer’s capacity to receive the broadcaster’s signals; it provides a well-located antenna with an efficient connection to the viewer’s television set. It is true that a CATV system plays an “active” role in making reception possible in a given area, but so do ordinary television sets and antennas. CATV equipment is powerful and sophisticated, but the basic function the equipment serves is little different from that served by the equipment generally furnished by a television viewer. If an individual erected an antenna on a hill, strung a cable to his house, and installed the necessary amplifying equipment, he would not be “performing” the programs he received on his television set. The result would be no different if several people combined to erect a cooperative antenna for the same purpose. The only difference in the case of CATV is that the antenna system is erected and. owned not by its users but by an entrepreneur.
The function of CATV systems has little in common with the function of broadcasters. CATV systems do not in fact broadcast or rebroadcast. Broadcasters select the programs to be viewed; CATV systems simply carry, without editing, whatever programs they receive. Broadcasters procure programs and propagate them to the public; CATV systems receive programs that have been released to the public and carry them by private channels to additional viewers. We hold that CATV operators, like viewers and unlike broadcasters, do not perform the programs that they receive and carry.
We have been invited by the Solicitor General in an amicus curiae brief to render a compromise decision in this case that would, it is said, accommodate various competing considerations of copyright, communications, and antitrust policy. We decline the invitation. That job is for Congress. We take the Copyright Act of 1909 as we find it. With due regard to changing technology, we hold that the petitioner did not under that law “perform” the respondent’s copyrighted works.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is Reversed
Mu. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the decision of this case.
For a discussion of CATV systems generally, see United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., ante, at 161-164.
In 1960, out of 11,442 occupied housing units in the Clarks-burg area, about 7,900 subscribed to the petitioner’s CATV service; out of 9,079 units in Fairmont, about 5,100 subscribed.
The petitioner’s systems utilized modulating equipment only during the period 1958-1964.
Since 1960, some changes have been made in the stations carried by each of the petitioner’s systems. As of May 1, 1964, the Clarks-burg system was carrying the two local stations and three of the more distant stations, and the Fairmont system was carrying one local station and four of the more distant stations.
Clarksburg and Fairmont are 18 miles apart.
Some CATV systems, about 10%, originate some of their own programs. We do not deal with such systems in this opinion.
The monthly rate ranged from $3.75 to $5, and customers were also charged an installation fee. Increased charges were levied for additional television sets and for commercial establishments.
See, e. g., Fawcett Publications v. Elliot Publishing Co., 46 F. Supp. 717; Hayden v. Chalfant Press, Inc., 281 F. 2d 543, 547-548.
“The fundamental [is] that 'use’ is not the same thing as 'infringement,’ that use short of infringement is to be encouraged ....’’ B. Kaplan, An Unhurried View of Copyright 57 (1967).
“Any person entitled thereto, upon complying with the provisions of this title, shall have the exclusive right:
“(a) To print, reprint, publish, copy, and vend the copyrighted work;
“(b) To translate the copyrighted work into other languages or dialects, or make any other version thereof, if it be a literary work; to dramatize it if it be a nondramatic work; to convert it into a novel or other nondramatic work if it be a drama; to arrange or adapt it if it be a musical work; to complete, execute, and finish it if it be a model or design for a work of art;
“(c) To deliver, authorize the delivery of, read, or present the copyrighted work in public for profit if it be a lecture, sermon, address or similar production, or other nondramatic literary work; to make or procure the making of any transcription or record thereof by or from which, in whole or in part, it may in any manner or by any method be exhibited, delivered, presented, produced, or reproduced; and to play or perform it in public for profit, and to exhibit, represent, produce, or reproduce it in any manner or by any method whatsoever. The damages for the infringement by broadcast of any work referred to in this subsection shall not exceed the sum of $100 where the infringing broadcaster shows that he was not aware that he was infringing and that such infringement could not have been reasonably foreseen; and
“(d) To perform or represent the copyrighted work publicly if it be a drama or, if it be a dramatic work and not reproduced in copies for sale, to vend my manuscript or any record whatsoever thereof; to make or to procure the making of any transcription or record thereof by or from which, in whole or in part, it may in any manner or by any method be exhibited, performed, represented, produced, or reproduced; and to exhibit, perform, represent, produce, or reproduce it in any manner or by any method whatsoever; and
“(e) To perform the copyrighted work publicly for profit if it be a musical composition; and for the purpose of public performance for profit, and for the purposes set forth in subsection (a) hereof, to make any arrangement or setting of it or of the melody of it in any system of notation or any form of record in which the thought of an author may be recorded and from which it may be read or reproduced . . . .” 17 U. S. C. § 1.
The Copyright Act does not contain a definition of infringement as such. Rather infringement is delineated in a negative fashion by the § 1 enumeration of rights exclusive to the copyright holder. See M. Nimmer, Copyright § 100 (1968).
See n. 9, supra. We do not reach the petitioner’s claim that the respondent’s animated cartoons are not “literary works.”
See n. 9, supra.
The petitioner also contends that if it did “perform” the copyrighted works, it did not do so “in public.”
Cf. White-Smith Music Co. v. Apollo Co., 209 U. S. 1.
The legislative history shows that the attention of Congress was directed to the situation where the dialogue of a play is transcribed by a member of the audience, and thereafter the play is produced by another party with the aid of the transcript. EL R. Rep. No. 2222, 60th Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1909).
“While statutes should not be stretched to apply to new situations not fairly within their scope, they should not be so narrowly construed as to permit their evasion because of changing habits due to new inventions and discoveries.” Jerome H. Remick & Co. v. American Automobile Accessories Co., 5 F. 2d 411.
A revision of the 1909 Act was begun in 1955 when Congress authorized a program of studies by the Copyright Office. Progress has not been rapid. The Copyright Office issued its report in 1961. Register of Copyrights, Report on the General Revision of the U. S. Copyright Law, House Judiciary Committee Print, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. (1961). Revision bills were introduced in the House in the Eighty-eighth Congress and in both the House and the Senate in the Eighty-ninth Congress. See H. R. 11947, 88th Cong., 2d Sess.; Hearings on H. R. 4347, 5680, 6831, 6835 before Subcommittee No. 3 of the House Judiciary Committee, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965); Hearings on S. 1006 before the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 89th Cong., 2d Sess. (1966). H. R. 4347 was reported favorably by the House Judiciary Committee, H. R. Rep. No. 2237, 89th Cong., 2d Sess. (1966), but not enacted. In the Ninetieth Congress revision bills were again introduced in both the House (H. R. 2512) and the Senate (S. 597). The House bill was again reported favorably, H. R. Rep. No. 83, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967), and this time, after amendment, passed by the full House. 113 Cong. Ree. 9021. The bill as reported contained a provision dealing with CATV, but the provision was struck from the bill on the House floor prior to enactment. See n. 33, infra. The House and Senate bills are currently pending before the Senate Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights.
The court formulated and applied this test in the light of this Court’s decision in Buck v. Jewell-LaSalle Realty Co., 283 U. S. 191. See also Society of European Stage Authors & Composers v. New York Hotel Statler Co., 19 P. Supp. 1. But in Jewell-LaSalle, a hotel received on a master radio set an unauthorized broadcast of a copyrighted work and transmitted that broadcast to all the public and private rooms of the hotel by means of speakers installed by the hotel in each room. The Court held the hotel liable for infringement but noted that the result might have differed if, as in this case, the original broadcast had been authorized by the copyright holder. 283 U. S., at 199, n. 5. The Jeivell-LaSalle decision must be understood as limited to its own facts. See n. 30, injra.
If the broadcaster obtains his program from a network, he receives the electronic signals directly by means of telephone lines or microwave.
Broadcasting is defined under the Communications Act of 1934 as “the dissemination of radio communications intended to be received by the public . . . .” 47 U. S. C. § 153 (o).
See Hearings on H. R. 4347, 5680, 6831, 6835 before Subcommittee No. 3 of the House Judiciary Committee, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., at 1312-1318 (1965).
See n. 15, supra.
Jerome H. Remick & Co. v. American Automobile Accessories Co., 5 F. 2d 411 (radio broadcast); Associated Music Publishers v. Debs Memorial Radio Fund, 141 F. 2d 852 (radio broadcast of recorded program); Select Theatres Corp. v. Ronzoni Macaroni Co., 59 U. S. P. Q. 288 (D. C. S. D. N. Y.) (radio broadcast of program received from network). Congress in effect validated these decisions in 1952 when it added to § 1 (c) a special damages provision for “infringement by broadcast.” 66 Stat. 752.
“One who manually or by human agency merely actuates electrical instrumentalities, whereby inaudible elements that are omnipresent in the air are made audible to persons who are within hearing, does not 'perform’ within the meaning of the Copyright Law.” Buck v. Debaum, 40 F. 2d 734, 735.
“[T]hose who listen do not perform . . . .” Jerome H. Remick & Co. v. General Electric Co., 16 F. 2d 829.
While we speak in this opinion generally of CATV, we necessarily do so with reference to the facts of this case.
Cf. Lilly v. United States, 238 F. 2d 584, 587:
“[Tjhis community antenna service was a mere adjunct of the television receiving sets with which it was connected . . . .”
The District Court’s decision was based in large part upon its analysis of the technical aspects of the petitioner’s systems. The systems have contained at one time or another sophisticated equipment to amplify, modulate, and convert to different frequencies the signals received — operations which all require the introduction of local energy into the system. The court concluded that the signal delivered to subscribers was not the same signal as that initially received off the air. 255 F. Supp., at 190-195. The Court of Appeals refused to attach significance to the particular technology of the petitioner’s systems, 377 F. 2d, at 879, and we agree. The electronic operations performed by the petitioner’s systems are those necessary to transmit the received signal the length of the cable efficiently and deliver a signal of adequate strength. Most of the same operations are performed by individual television sets and antennas. See Hearings on H. R. 4347 before Subcommittee No. 3 of the House Judiciary Committee, supra, at 1312-1318. Whether or not the signals received and delivered are the “same,” the entire process is virtually instantaneous, and electronic “information” received and delivered is identical. 255 F. Supp., at 192.
Cf. Intermountain Broadcasting & Television Corp. v. Idaho Microwave, Inc., 196 F. Supp. 315, 325:
“[Broadcasters] and [CATV systems] are not engaged in the same kind of business. They operate in different ways for different purposes.
“[Broadcasters] are in the business of selling their broadcasting time and facilities to the sponsors to whom they look for their profits. They do not and cannot charge the public for their broadcasts which are beamed directly, indiscriminately and without charge through the air to any and all reception sets of the public as may be equipped to receive them.
“[CATV systems], on the other hand, have nothing to do with sponsors, program content or arrangement. They sell community antenna service to a segment of the public for which [broadcasters’] programs were intended but which is not able, because of location or topographical condition, to receive them without rebroadcast or other relay service by community antennae. . . .”
Cable Vision, Inc. v. KUTV, Inc., 211 F. Supp. 47, vacated on other grounds, 335 F. 2d 348; Report and Order on CATV and TV Repeater Services, 26 F. C. C. 403, 429-430.
It is said in dissent that, “Our major object . . . should be to do as little damage as possible to traditional copyright principles and to business relationships, until the Congress legislates . . . .” Post, at 404. But existing “business relationships” would hardly be preserved by extending a questionable 35-year-old decision that in actual practice has not been applied outside its own factual context, post, at 405, n. 3, so as retroactively to impose copyright liability where it has never been acknowledged to exist before. See n. 18, supra.
Compare, e. g., Note, CATV and Copyright Liability, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 1514 (1967); Note, CATV and Copyright Liability: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, 52 Va. L. Rev. 1505 (1966); B. Kaplan, An Unhurried View of Copyright 104G106 (1967); Statement of then Acting Assistant Attorney General (Antitrust Division) Zimmerman, Hearings on S. 1006 before the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., at 211-219 (1966).
The Solicitor General would have us hold that CATV systems do perform the programs they carry, but he would have us “imply” a license for the CATV “performances.” This “implied in law” license would not cover all CATV activity but only those instances in which a CATV system operates within the “Grade B Contour” of the broadcasting station whose signal it carries. The Grade B contour is a theoretical FCC concept defined as the outer line along which reception of acceptable quality can be expected at least 90% of the time at the best 50% of locations. Sixth Report and Order, 17 Fed. Reg. 3905, 3915. Since we hold that the petitioner’s systems did not perform copyrighted works, we do not reach the question of implied license.
The copyright revision bill recently passed by the House, see n. 17, supra, originally contained a detailed and somewhat complex provision covering CATV. H. R. 2512, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., § 111. Congressman Poff described the bill in terms of its effect on the District Court’s decision in the present case:
“By, in effect, repealing the court decision which would impose full copyright liability on all CATV’s in all situations, the committee recommends H. R. 2512, which would exempt them in some situations, make them fully liable in some, and provide limited liability in others.” 113 Cong. Rec. 8588.
See H. R. Rep. No. 83, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 6-7, 48-59 (1967). On the House floor the CATV provision was deleted in order to refer the matter to the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over communications. 113 Cong. 8598-8601, 8611-8613, 8618-8622, 8990-8992. In urging deletion of the CATV provision, Congressman Moore said:
“[W]hat we seek to do in this legislation is control CATV by copyright. I say that is wrong. I feel if there is to be supervision of this fast-growing area of news media and communications media, it should legitimately come to this body from the legislative committee that has direct jurisdiction over the same.
"... This bill and the devices used to effect communications policy are not proper functions of copyright . . . .” 113 Cong. Rec. 8599. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the treatment the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed, that is, whether the court below the Supreme Court (typically a federal court of appeals or a state supreme court) affirmed, reversed, remanded, denied or dismissed the decision of the court it reviewed (typically a trial court). Adhere to the language used in the "holding" in the summary of the case on the title page or prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. Exceptions to the literal language are the following: where the Court overrules the lower court, treat this a petition or motion granted; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing refuses to enforce or enjoins the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as reversed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing enforces the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as affirmed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing sets aside the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as vacated; if the decision is set aside and remanded, treat it as vacated and remanded. | What treatment did the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"modify",
"remand",
"unusual disposition"
] | [
1
] | sc_lcdisposition |
LEHR v. ROBERTSON et al.
No. 81-1756.
Argued December 7, 1982 —
Decided June 27, 1983
David J. Freeman argued the cause and filed briefs for appellant.
Jay L. Samoff argued the cause for appellees and filed a brief for appellees Robertson et al. Robert Abrams, Attorney General, pro se, Peter H. Schiff, and Robert J. Schack, Assistant Attorney General, filed a brief for appellee Attorney General of New York.
Louise Gruner Gans and Stanley A. Bass filed a brief for Community Action for Legal Services, Inc., et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.
Elinor Hadley Stillman filed a brief for the National Committee for Adoption, Inc., as amicus curiae urging affirmance.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether New York has sufficiently protected an unmarried father’s inchoate relationship with a child whom he has never supported and rarely seen in the two years since her birth. The appellant, Jonathan Lehr, claims that the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, as interpreted in Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645 (1972), and Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U. S. 380 (1979), give him an absolute right to notice and an opportunity to be heard before the child may be adopted. We disagree.
Jessica M. was born out of wedlock on November 9, 1976. Her mother, Lorraine Robertson, married Richard Robertson eight months after Jessica’s birth. On December 21, 1978, when Jessica was over two years old, the Robertsons filed an adoption petition in the Family Court of Ulster County, New York. The court heard their testimony and received a favorable report from the Ulster County Department of Social Services. On March 7, 1979, the court entered an order of adoption. In this proceeding, appellant contends that the adoption order is invalid because he, Jessica’s putative father, was not given advance notice of the adoption proceeding.
The State of New York maintains a “putative father registry.” A man who files with that registry demonstrates his intent to claim paternity of a child born out of wedlock and is therefore entitled to receive notice of any proceeding to adopt that child. Before entering Jessica’s adoption order, the Ulster County Family Court had the putative father registry examined. Although appellant claims to be Jessica’s natural father, he had not entered his name in the registry.
In addition to the persons whose names are listed on the putative father registry, New York law requires that notice of an adoption proceeding be given to several other classes of possible fathers of children born out of wedlock — those who have been adjudicated to be the father, those who have been identified as the father on the child’s birth certificate, those who live openly with the child and the child’s mother and who hold themselves out to be the father, those who have been identified as the father by the mother in a sworn written statement, and those who were married to the child’s mother before the child was six months old. Appellant admittedly was not a member of any of those classes. He had lived with appellee prior to Jessica’s birth and visited her in the hospital when Jessica was born, but his name does not appear on Jessica’s birth certificate. He did not live with appellee or Jessica after Jessica’s birth, he has never provided them with any financial support, and he has never offered to marry appellee. Nevertheless, he contends that the following special circumstances gave him a constitutional right to notice and a hearing before Jessica was adopted.
On January 30, 1979, one month after the adoption proceeding was commenced in Ulster County, appellant filed a “visitation and paternity petition” in the Westchester County Family Court. In that petition, he asked for a determination of paternity, an order of support, and reasonable visitation privileges with Jessica. Notice of that proceeding was served on appellee on February 22, 1979. Four days later appellee’s attorney informed the Ulster County Court that appellant had commenced a paternity proceeding in West-chester County; the Ulster County judge then entered an order staying appellant’s paternity proceeding until he could rule on a motion to change the venue of that proceeding to Ulster County. On March 3, 1979, appellant received notice of the change of venue motion and, for the first time, learned that an adoption proceeding was pending in Ulster County.
On March 7, 1979, appellant’s attorney telephoned the Ulster County judge to inform him that he planned to seek a stay of the adoption proceeding pending the determination of the paternity petition. In that telephone conversation, the judge advised the lawyer that he had already signed the adoption order earlier that day. According to appellant’s attorney, the judge stated that he was aware of the pending paternity petition but did not believe he was required to give notice to appellant prior to the entry of the order of adoption.
Thereafter, the Family Court in Westchester County granted appellee’s motion to dismiss the paternity petition, holding that the putative father’s right to seek paternity “must be deemed severed so long as an order of adoption exists.” App. 228. Appellant did not appeal from that dismissal. On June 22,1979, appellant filed a petition to vacate the order of adoption on the ground that it was obtained by fraud and in violation of his constitutional rights. The Ulster County Family Court received written and oral argument on the question whether it had “dropped the ball” by approving the adoption without giving appellant advance notice. Tr. 53. After deliberating for several months, it denied the petition, explaining its decision in a thorough written opinion. In re Adoption of Martz, 102 Misc. 2d 102, 423 N. Y. S. 2d 378 (1979).
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court affirmed. In re Adoption of Jessica “XX,” 77 App. Div. 2d 381, 434 N. Y. S. 2d 772 (1980). The majority held that appellant’s commencement of a paternity action did not give him any right to receive notice of the adoption proceeding, that the notice provisions of the statute were constitutional, and that Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U. S. 380 (1979), was not retroactive. Parenthetically, the majority observed that appellant “could have insured his right to notice by signing the putative father registry.” 77 App. Div. 2d, at 383, 434 N. Y. S. 2d, at 774. One justice dissented on the ground that the filing of the paternity proceeding should have been viewed as the statutory equivalent of filing a notice of intent to claim paternity with the putative father registry.
The New York Court of Appeals also affirmed by a divided vote. In re Adoption of Jessica “XX,” 54 N. Y. 2d 417, 430 N. E. 2d 896 (1981). The majority first held that it did not need to consider whether our decision in Caban affected appellant’s claim that he had a right to notice, because Caban was not retroactive. It then rejected the argument that the mother had been guilty of a fraud upon the court. Finally, it addressed what it described as the only contention of substance advanced by appellant: that it was an abuse of discretion to enter the adoption order without requiring that notice be given to appellant. The court observed that the primary purpose of the notice provision of § 111-a was to enable the person served to provide the court with evidence concerning the best interest of the child, and that appellant had made no tender indicating any ability to provide any particular or special information relevant to Jessica’s best interest. Considering the record as a whole, and acknowledging that it might have been prudent to give notice, the court concluded that the Family Court had not abused its discretion either when it entered the order without notice or when it denied appellant’s petition to reopen the proceedings. The dissenting judges concluded that the Family Court had abused its discretion, both when it entered the order without notice and when it refused to reopen the proceedings.
Appellant has now invoked our appellate jurisdiction. He offers two alternative grounds for holding the New York statutory scheme unconstitutional. First, he contends that a putative father’s actual or potential relationship with a child born out of wedlock is an interest in liberty which may not be destroyed without due process of law; he argues therefore that he had a constitutional right to prior notice and an opportunity to be heard before he was deprived of that interest. Second, he contends that the gender-based classification in the statute, which both denied him the right to consent to Jessica’s adoption and accorded him fewer procedural rights than her mother, violated the Equal Protection Clause.
The Due Process Claim.
The Fourteenth Amendment provides that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. When that Clause is invoked in a novel context, it is our practice to begin the inquiry with a determination of the precise nature of the private interest that is threatened by the State. See, e. g., Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 895-896 (1961). Only after that interest has been identified, can we properly evaluate the adequacy of the State’s process. See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 482-483 (1972). We therefore first consider the nature of the interest in liberty for which appellant claims constitutional protection and then turn to a discussion of the adequacy of the procedure that New York has provided for its protection.
I
The intangible fibers that connect parent and child have infinite variety. They are woven throughout the fabric of our society, providing it with strength, beauty, and flexibility. It is self-evident that they are sufficiently vital to merit constitutional protection in appropriate cases. In deciding whether this is such a case, however, we must consider the broad framework that has traditionally been used to resolve the legal problems arising from the parent-child relationship.
In the vast majority of cases, state law determines the final outcome. Cf. United States v. Yazell, 382 U. S. 341, 351— 353 (1966). Rules governing the inheritance of property, adoption, and child custody are generally specified in statutory enactments that vary from State to State. Moreover, equally varied state laws governing marriage and divorce affect a multitude of parent-child relationships. The institution of marriage has played a critical role both in defining the legal entitlements of family members and in developing the decentralized structure of our democratic society. In recognition of that role, and as part of their general overarching concern for serving the best interests of children, state laws almost universally express an appropriate preference for the formal family.
In some cases, however, this Court has held that the Federal Constitution supersedes state law and provides even greater protection for certain formal family relationships. In those cases, as in the state cases, the Court has emphasized the paramount interest in the welfare of children and has noted that the rights of the parents are a counterpart of the responsibilities they have assumed. Thus, the “liberty” of parents to control the education of their children that was vindicated in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923), and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925), was described as a “right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare [the child] for additional obligations.” Id., at 535. The linkage between parental duty and parental right was stressed again in Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 166 (1944), when the Court declared it a cardinal principle “that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.” Ibid. In these cases the Court has found that the relationship of love and duty in a recognized family unit is an interest in liberty entitled to constitutional protection. See also Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494 (1977) (plurality opinion). “[S]tate intervention to terminate [such a] relationship . . . must be accomplished by procedures meeting the requisites of the Due Process Clause.” Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U. S. 745, 753 (1982).
There are also a few cases in which this Court has considered the extent to which the Constitution affords protection to the relationship between natural parents and children born out of wedlock. In some we have been concerned with the rights of the children, see, e. g., Trimble v. Gordon, 430 U. S. 762 (1977); Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U. S. 628 (1974); Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164 (1972). In this case, however, it is a parent who claims that the State has improperly deprived him of a protected interest in liberty. This Court has examined the extent to which a natural father’s biological relationship with his child receives protection under the Due Process Clause in precisely three cases: Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645 (1972), Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U. S. 246 (1978), and Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U. S. 380 (1979).
Stanley involved the constitutionality of an Illinois statute that conclusively presumed every father of a child born out of wedlock to be an unfit person to have custody of his children. The father in that case had lived with his children all their lives and had lived with their mother for 18 years. There was nothing in the record to indicate that Stanley had been a neglectful father who had not cared for his children. 405 U. S., at 655. Under the statute, however, the nature of the actual relationship between parent and child was completely irrelevant. Once the mother died, the children were automatically made wards of the State. Relying in part on a Michigan case recognizing that the preservation of “a subsisting relationship with the child’s father” may better serve the child’s best interest than “uprooting him from the family which he knew from birth,” id., at 654-655, n. 7, the Court held that the Due Process Clause was violated by the automatic destruction of the custodial relationship without giving the father any opportunity to present evidence regarding his fitness as a parent.
Quilloin involved the constitutionality of a Georgia statute that authorized the adoption, over the objection of the natural father, of a child born out of wedlock. The father in that case had never legitimated the child. It was only after the mother had remarried and her new husband had filed an adoption petition that the natural father sought visitation rights and filed a petition for legitimation. The trial court found adoption by the new husband to be in the child’s best interests, and we unanimously held that action to be consistent with the Due Process Clause.
Caban involved the conflicting claims of two natural parents who had maintained joint custody of their children from the time of their birth until they were respectively two and four years old. The father challenged the validity of an order authorizing the mother’s new husband to adopt the children; he relied on both the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause. Because this Court upheld his equal protection claim, the majority did not address his due process challenge. The comments on the latter claim by the four dissenting Justices are nevertheless instructive, because they identify the clear distinction between a mere biological relationship and an actual relationship of parental responsibility.
Justice Stewart correctly observed:
“Even if it be assumed that each married parent after divorce has some substantive due process right to maintain his or her parental relationship, cf. Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U. S. 816, 862-863 (opinion concurring in judgment), it by no means follows that each unwed parent has any such right. Parental rights do not spring full-blown from the biological connection between parent and child. They require relationships more enduring.” 441 U. S., at 397 (emphasis added).
In a similar vein, the other three dissenters in Caban were prepared to “assume that, if and when one develops, the relationship between a father and his natural child is entitled to protection against arbitrary state action as a matter of due process.” Caban v. Mohammed, supra, at 414 (emphasis added).
The difference between the developed parent-child relationship that was implicated in Stanley and Caban, and the potential relationship involved in Quilloin and this case, is both clear and significant. When an unwed father demonstrates a full commitment to the responsibilities of parenthood by “com[ing] forward to participate in the rearing of his child,” Caban, 441 U. S., at 392, his interest in personal contact with his child acquires substantial protection under the Due Process Clause. At that point it may be said that he “act[s] as a father toward his children.” Id., at 389, n. 7. But the mere existence of a biological link does not merit equivalent constitutional protection. The actions of judges neither create nor sever genetic bonds. “[T]he importance of the familial relationship, to the individuals involved and to the society, stems from the emotional attachments that derive from the intimacy of daily association, and from the role it plays in ‘promoting] a way of life’ through the instruction of children ... as well as from the fact of blood relationship.” Smith v. Organization of Foster Families for Equality and Reform, 431 U. S. 816, 844 (1977) (quoting Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 231-233 (1972)).
The significance of the biological connection is that it offers the natural father an opportunity that no other male possesses to develop a relationship with his offspring. If he grasps that opportunity and accepts some measure of responsibility for the child’s future, he may enjoy the blessings of the parent-child relationship and make uniquely valuable contributions to the child’s development. If he fails to do so, the Federal Constitution will not automatically compel a State to listen to his opinion of where the child’s best interests lie.
In this case, we are not assessing the constitutional adequacy of New York’s procedures for terminating a developed relationship. Appellant has never had any significant custodial, personal, or financial relationship with Jessica, and he did not seek to establish a legal tie until after she was two years old. We are concerned only with whether New York has adequately protected his opportunity to form such a relationship.
II
The most effective protection of the putative father’s opportunity to develop a relationship with his child is provided by the laws that authorize formal marriage and govern its consequences. But the availability of that protection is, of course, dependent on the will of both parents of the child. Thus, New York has adopted a special statutory scheme to protect the unmarried father’s interest in assuming a responsible role in the future of his child.
After this Court’s decision in Stanley, the New York Legislature appointed a special commission to recommend legislation that would accommodate both the interests of biological fathers in their children and the children’s interest in prompt and certain adoption procedures. The commission recommended, and the legislature enacted, a statutory adoption scheme that automatically provides notice to seven categories of putative fathers who are likely to have assumed some responsibility for the care of their natural children. If this scheme were likely to omit many responsible fathers, and if qualification for notice were beyond the control of an interested putative father, it might be thought procedurally inadequate. Yet, as all of the New York courts that reviewed this matter observed, the right to receive notice was completely within appellant’s control. By mailing a postcard to the putative father registry, he could have guaranteed that he would receive notice of any proceedings to adopt Jessica. The possibility that he may have .failed to do so because of his ignorance of the law cannot be a sufficient reason for criticizing the law itself. The New York Legislature concluded that a more open-ended notice requirement would merely complicate the adoption process, threaten the privacy interests of unwed mothers, create the risk of unnecessary controversy, and impair the desired finality of adoption decrees. Regardless of whether we would have done likewise if we were legislators instead of judges, we surely cannot characterize the State’s conclusion as arbitrary.
Appellant argues, however, that even if the putative father’s opportunity to establish a relationship with an illegitimate child is adequately protected by the New York statutory scheme in the normal case, he was nevertheless entitled to special notice because the court and the mother knew that he had filed an affiliation proceeding in another court. This argument amounts to nothing more than an indirect attack on the notice provisions of the New York statute. The legitimate state interests in facilitating the adoption of young children and having the adoption proceeding completed expeditiously that underlie the entire statutory scheme also justify a trial judge’s determination to require all interested parties to adhere precisely to the procedural requirements of the statute. The Constitution does not require either a trial judge or a litigant to give special notice to nonparties who are presumptively capable of asserting and protecting their own rights. Since the New York statutes adequately protected appellant’s inchoate interest in establishing a relationship with Jessica, we find no merit in the claim that his constitutional rights were offended because the Family Court strictly complied with the notice provisions of the statute.
The Equal Protection Claim.
The concept of equal justice under law requires the State to govern impartially. New York City Transit Authority v. Beazer, 440 U. S. 568, 587 (1979). The sovereign may not draw distinctions between individuals based solely on differences that are irrelevant to a legitimate governmental objective. Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71, 76 (1971). Specifically, it may not subject men and women to disparate treatment when there is no substantial relation between the disparity and an important state purpose. Ibid.; Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 197-199 (1976).
The legislation at issue in this case, N. Y. Dom. Rel. Law §§ 111 and 111-a (McKinney 1977 and Supp. 1982-1983), is intended to establish procedures for adoptions. Those procedures are designed to promote the best interests of the child, to protect the rights of interested third parties, and to ensure promptness and finality. To serve those ends, the legislation guarantees to certain people the right to veto an adoption and the right to prior notice of any adoption proceeding. The mother of an illegitimate child is always within that favored class, but only certain putative fathers are included. Appellant contends that the gender-based distinction is invidious.
As we have already explained, the existence or nonexistence of a substantial relationship between parent and child is a relevant criterion in evaluating both the rights of the parent and the best interests of the child. In Quilloin v. Walcott, we noted that the putative father, like appellant, “ha[d] never shouldered any significant responsibility with respect to the daily supervision, education, protection, or care of the child. Appellant does not complain of his exemption from these responsibilities . . . .” 434 U. S., at 256. We therefore found that a Georgia statute that always required a mother’s consent to the adoption of a child born out of wedlock, but required the father’s consent only if he had legitimated the child, did not violate the Equal Protection Clause. Because appellant, like the father in Quilloin, has never established a substantial relationship with his daughter, see supra, at 262, the New York statutes at issue in this case did not operate to deny appellant equal protection.
We have held that these statutes may not constitutionally be applied in that class of cases where the mother and father are in fact similarly situated with regard to their relationship with the child. In Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U. S. 380 (1979), the Court held that it violated the Equal Protection Clause to grant the mother a veto over the adoption of a 4-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy, but not to grant a veto to their father, who had admitted paternity and had participated in the rearing of the children. The Court made it clear, however, that if the father had not “come forward to participate in the rearing of his child, nothing in the Equal Protection Clause [would] preclud[e] the State from withholding from him the privilege of vetoing the adoption of that child.” Id., at 392.
Jessica’s parents are not like the parents involved in Caban. Whereas appellee had a continuous custodial responsibility for Jessica, appellant never established any custodial, personal, or financial relationship with her. If one parent has an established custodial relationship with the child and the other parent has either abandoned or never estab-fished a relationship, the Equal Protection Clause does not prevent a State from according the two parents different legal rights.
The judgment of the New York Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Although both Lorraine and Richard Robertson are appellees in this proceeding, for ease of discussion the term “appellee” will hereafter be used to identify Lorraine Robertson.
The order provided for the adoption of appellee’s older daughter, Renee, as well as Jessica. Appellant does not challenge the adoption of Renee.
Appellee has never conceded that appellant is Jessica’s biological father, but for purposes of analysis in this opinion it will be assumed that he is.
At the time Jessica’s adoption order was entered, N. Y. Soc. Serv. Law § 372-c (McKinney Supp. 1982-1983) provided:
“1. The department shall establish a putative father registry which shall record the names and addresses of. . . any person who has filed with the registry before or after the birth of a child out-of-wedlock, a notice of intent to claim paternity of the child ....
“2. A person filing a notice of intent to claim paternity of a child ... shall include therein his current address and shall notify the registry of any change of address pursuant to procedures prescribed by regulations of the department.
“3. A person who has filed a notice of intent to claim paternity may at any time revoke a notice of intent to claim paternity previously filed therewith and, upon receipt of such notification by the registry, the revoked notice of intent to claim paternity shall be deemed a nullity nunc pro tunc.
“4. An unrevoked notice of intent to claim paternity of a child may be introduced in evidence by any party, other than the person who filed such notice, in any proceeding in which such fact may be relevant.
“5. The department shall, upon request, provide the names and addresses of persons listed with the registry to any court or authorized agency, and such information shall not be divulged to any other person, except upon order of a court for good cause shown.”
At the time Jessica’s adoption order was entered, N. Y. Dom. Rel. Law §§ 111-a (2) and (3) (McKinney 1977 and Supp. 1982-1983) provided:
“2. Persons entitled to notice, pursuant to subdivision one of this section, shall include:
“(a) any person adjudicated by a court in this state to be the father of the child;
“(b) any person adjudicated by a court of another state or territory of the United States to be the father of the child, when a certified copy of the court order has been filed with the putative father registry, pursuant to section three hundred seventy-two-c of the social services law;
“(e) any person who has timely filed an unrevoked notice of intent to claim paternity of the child, pursuant to section three hundred seventy-two of the social services law;
“(d) any person who is recorded on the child’s birth certificate as the child’s father;
“(e) any person who is openly living with the child and the child’s mother at the time the proceeding is initiated and who is holding himself out to be the child’s father;
“(f) any person who has been identified as the child’s father by the mother in written, sworn statement; and
“(g) any person who was married to the child’s mother within six months subsequent to the birth of the child and prior to the execution of a surrender instrument or the initiation of a proceeding pursuant to section three hundred eighty-four-b of the social services law.
“3. The sole purpose of notice under this section shall be to enable the person served pursuant to subdivision two to present evidence to the court relevant to the best interests of the child.”
Without trying to intervene in the adoption proceeding, appellant had attempted to file an appeal from the adoption order. That appeal was dismissed.
Caban was decided on April 24, 1979, about two months after the entry of the order of adoption. In Caban, a father who had lived with his two illegitimate children and their mother for several years successfully challenged the constitutionality of the New York statute providing that children could be adopted without the father’s consent even though the mother’s consent was required.
Although the dissenters in Caban discussed the question of retroactivity, see 441 U. S., at 401, 415-416, that question was not addressed in the Court’s opinion.
We postponed consideration of our jurisdiction until after hearing argument on the merits. 456 U. S. 970 (1982). Our review of the record persuades us that appellant did in fact draw into question the validity of the New York statutory scheme on the ground of its being repugnant to the Federal Constitution, that the New York Court of Appeals upheld that scheme, and that we therefore have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1257(2).
The question whether the Family Court abused its discretion in not requiring notice to appellant before the adoption order was entered and in not reopening the proceeding is, of course, not before us. That issue was presented to and decided by the New York courts purely as a matter of state law. Whether we might have given such notice had we been sitting as the trial court, or whether we might have considered the failure to give such notice an abuse of discretion had we been sitting as state appellate judges, are questions on which we are not authorized to express an opinion. The only question we have jurisdiction to decide is whether the New York statutes are unconstitutional because they inadequately protect the natural relationship between parent and child or because they draw an impermissible distinction between the rights of the mother and the rights of the father.
At present, state legislatures appear inclined to retain the unique attributes of their respective bodies of family law. For example, as of the end of 1982, only eight States had adopted the Uniform Parentage Act. 9A U. L. A. 171 (Supp. 1983).
See Hafen, Marriage, Kinship, and Sexual Privacy, 81 Mich. L. Rev. 463, 479-481 (1983).
See Trimble v. Gordon, 430 U. S. 762, 769 (1977) (“No one disputes the appropriateness of Illinois’ concern with the family unit, perhaps the most fundamental social institution of our society”). A plurality of the Court noted the societal value of family bonds in Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494, 505 (1977) (opinion of Powell, J.):
“Out of choice, necessity, or a sense of family responsibility, it has been common for close relatives to draw together and participate in the duties and the satisfactions of a common home. . . . Especially in times of adversity, such as the death of a spouse or economic need, the broader family has tended to come together for mutual sustenance and to maintain or rebuild a secure home life.”
In re Mark T., 8 Mich. App. 122, 154 N. W. 2d 27 (1967).
Having “concluded that all Illinois parents are constitutionally entitled to a hearing on their fitness before their children are removed from their custody,” the Court also held “that denying such a hearing to Stanley and those like him while granting it to other Illinois parents is inescapably contrary to the Equal Protection Clause.” 405 U. S., at 658.
In the balance of that paragraph Justice Stewart noted that the relation between a father and his natural child may acquire constitutional protection if the father enters into a traditional marriage with the mother or if “the actual relationship between father and child” is sufficient.
“The mother carries and bears the child, and in this sense her parental relationship is clear. The validity of the father’s parental claims must be gauged by other measures. By tradition, the primary measure has been the legitimate familial relationship he creates with the child by marriage with the mother. By definition, the question before us can arise only when no such marriage has taken place. In some circumstances the actual relationship between father and child may suffice to create in the unwed father parental interests comparable to those of the married father. Cf. Stanley v. Illinois, supra. But here we are concerned with the rights the unwed father may have when his wishes and those of the mother are in conflict, and the child’s best interests are served by a resolution in favor of the mother. It seems to me that the absence of a legal tie with the mother may in such circumstances appropriately place a limit on whatever substantive constitutional claims might otherwise exist by virtue of the father’s actual relationship with the children.” 441 U. S., at 397.
Commentators have emphasized the constitutional importance of the distinction between an inchoate and a fully developed relationship. See Comment, 46 Brooklyn L. Rev. 95, 115-116 (1979) (“the unwed father’s interest springs not from his biological tie with his illegitimate child, but rather, from the relationship he has established with and the responsibility he has shouldered for his child”); Note, 58 Neb. L. Rev. 610, 617 (1979) (“a putative father’s failure to show a substantial interest in his child’s welfare and to employ methods provided by state law for solidifying his parental rights . . . will remove from him the full constitutional protection afforded the parental rights of other classes of parents”); Note, 29 Emory L. J. 833, 854 (1980) (“an unwed father’s rights in his child do not spring solely from the biological fact of his parentage, but rather from his willingness to admit his paternity and express some tangible interest in the child”). See also Poulin, Illegitimacy and Family Privacy: A Note on Maternal Cooperation in Paternity Suits, 70 Nw. U. L. Rev. 910, 916-919 (1976) (hereinafter Poulin); Developments in the Law, 93 Harv. L. Rev. 1156, 1275-1277 (1980); Note, 18 Duquesne L. Rev. 375, 383-384, n. 73 (1980); Note, 19 J. Family L. 440, 460 (1980); Note, 57 Denver L. J. 671, 680-683 (1980); Note, 1979 Wash. U. L. Q. 1029,1035; Note, 12 U. C. D. L. Rev. 412, 450, n. 218 (1979).
Of course, we need not take sides in the ongoing debate among family psychologists over the relative weight to be accorded biological ties and psychological ties, in order to recognize that a natural father who has played a substantial role in rearing his child has a greater claim to constitutional protection than a mere biological parent. New York's statutory scheme reflects these differences, guaranteeing notice to any putative father who is living openly with the child, and providing putative fathers who have never developed a relationship with the child the opportunity to receive notice simply by mailing a postcard to the putative father registry.
This case happens to involve an adoption by the husband of the natural mother, but we do not believe the natural father has any greater right to object to such an adoption than to an adoption by two total strangers. If anything, the balance of equities tips the opposite way in a case such as this. In denying the putative father relief in Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U. S. 246 (1978), we made an observation equally applicable here:
“Nor is this a case in which the proposed adoption would place the child with a new set of parents with whom the child had never before lived. Rather, the result of the adoption in this case is to give full recognition to a family unit already in existence, a result desired by all concerned, except appellant. Whatever might be required in other situations, we cannot say that the State was required in this situation to find anything more than that the adoption, and denial of legitimation, were in the ‘best interests of the child.’” Id,., at 255.
In a report explaining the purpose of the 1976 amendments to § 111-a of the New York Domestic Relations Law, the temporary state commission on child welfare that was responsible for drafting the legislation stated, in part:
“The measure will dispel uncertainties by providing clear constitutional statutory guidelines for notice to fathers of out-of-wedlock children. It will establish a desired finality in adoption proceedings and will provide an expeditious method for child placement agencies of identifying those fathers who are entitled to notice through the creation of a registry of such fathers within the State Department of Social Services. Conversely, the bill will afford to concerned fathers of out-of-wedlock children a simple means of expressing their interest and protecting their rights to be notified and have an opportunity to be heard. It will also obviate an existing disparity of Appellate Division decisions by permitting such fathers to be petitioners in paternity proceedings.
“The measure is intended to codify the minimum protections for the putative father which Stanley would require. In so doing it reflects policy decisions to (a) codify constitutional requirements; (b) clearly establish, as early as possible in a child’s life, the rights, interests and obligations of all parties; (c) facilitate prompt planning for the future of the child and permanence of his status; and (d) through the foregoing, promote the best interest of children.” App. to Brief for Appellant C-15.
Cf. Roe v. Norton, 422 U. S. 391 (1975), vacating and remanding 365 F. Supp. 65 (Conn. 1973). See Poulin 922-932; Barron, Notice to the Unwed Father and Termination of Parental Rights, 9 Family L. Q. 527, 542 (1975).
Nor can we deem unconstitutionally arbitrary the state courts’ conclusion that appellant’s absence did not distort their analysis of Jessica’s best interests. The adoption does not affect Jessica’s relationship with her mother. It gives legal permanence to her relationship with her adoptive father, a relationship they had maintained for 21 months at the time the adoption order was entered. Appellant did not proffer any evidence to suggest that legal confirmation of the established relationship would be unwise; he did not even know the adoptive father.
It is a generally accepted feature of our adversary system that a potential defendant who knows that the statute of limitations is about to run has no duty to give the plaintiff advice. There is no suggestion in the record that appellee engaged in fraudulent practices that led appellant not to protect his rights.
In Reed, the Court considered an Idaho statute providing that in designating administrators of the estates of intestate decedents, “[o]f several persons claiming and equally entitled to administer, males must be preferred to females.” See 404 U. S., at 73. The State had sought to justify the statute as a way to reduce the workload of probate courts by eliminating one class of contests. Writing for a unanimous Court, The Chief Justice observed that in using gender to promote that objective, the legislature had made “the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause.” Id,., at 76. The State’s articulated goal could have been completely served by requiring a coin flip. The decision instead to choose a rule that systematically harmed women could be explained only as the product of habit, rather than analysis or reflection, cf. Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U. S. 199, 222 (1977) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment), or as the product of an invidious and indefensible stereotype, cf. id., at 218. Such legislative decisions are inimical to the norm of impartial government.
The mandate of impartiality also constrains those state actors who implement state laws. Thus, the Equal Protection Clause would have been violated in precisely the same manner if in Reed there had been no statute and the probate judge had simply announced that he chose Cecil Reed over Sally Reed “because I prefer males to females.”
Appellant does not contest the vital importance of those ends to the people of New York. It has long been accepted that illegitimate children whose parents never marry are “at risk” economically, medically, emotionally, and educationally. See E. Crellin, M. Pringle, & P. West, Born Illegitimate: Social and Educational Implications 96-112 (1971); cf. T. Lash, H. Sigal, & D. Dudzinski, State of the Child: New York City II, p. 47 (1980).
In Caban, the Court noted that an adoption “may proceed in the absence of consent when the parent whose consent otherwise would be required . . . has abandoned the child.” 441 U. S., at 392.
Appellant also makes an equal protection argument based upon the manner in which the statute distinguishes among classes of fathers. For the reasons set forth in our due process discussion, supra, we conclude that the statutory distinction is rational and that appellant’s argument is without merit. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. | What is the issue area of the decision? | [
"Criminal Procedure",
"Civil Rights",
"First Amendment",
"Due Process",
"Privacy",
"Attorneys",
"Unions",
"Economic Activity",
"Judicial Power",
"Federalism",
"Interstate Relations",
"Federal Taxation",
"Miscellaneous",
"Private Action"
] | [
1
] | sc_issuearea |
LILLIE v. THOMPSON, TRUSTEE.
No. 206.
Decided November 24, 1947.
Grover N. McCormick and N. Murry Edwards for petitioner.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner sued for damages under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. The essence of her claim was that she was injured as a result of the respondent’s negligence in sending her to work in a place he knew to be unsafe without taking reasonable measures to protect her.
The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cause of action and entered summary judgment for the respondent. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion. 162 F. 2d 716.
There is thus a single issue in the case: Could it be found from the facts alleged in the complaint, as supplemented by any uncontroverted allegations by the respondent, that petitioner’s injuries resulted at least in part from respondent’s negligence?
Petitioner’s allegations may be summarized as follows: Respondent required her, a 22-year-old telegraph operator, to work alone between 11:30 p. m. and 7:30 a. m. in a one-room frame building situated in an isolated part of respondent’s railroad yards in Memphis. Though respondent had reason to know the yards were frequented by dangerous characters, he failed to exercise reasonable care to light the building and its surroundings or to guard or patrol it in any way. Petitioner’s duties were to receive and deliver messages to men operating trains in the yard. In order for the trainmen to get the messages it was necessary for them to come to the building at irregular intervals throughout the night, and it was petitioner’s duty to admit them when they knocked. Because there were no windows in the building’s single door or on the side of the building in which the door was located, petitioner could identify persons seeking entrance only by unlocking and opening the door. About 1:30 a. m. on the night of her injury petitioner responded to a knock, thinking that some of respondent’s trainmen were seeking admission. She opened the door, and before she could close it a man entered and beat her with a large piece of iron, seriously and permanently injuring her.
In support of his motion for summary judgment respondent alleged, and petitioner did not deny, that the assailant was not an employee of the respondent and that the attack was criminal.
The district court stated, in explanation of its action, that there would be no causal connection between the injury and respondent’s failure to light or guard the premises, and that the law does not permit recovery “for the intentional or criminal acts” of either a fellow-employee or an outsider.
We are of the opinion that the allegations in the complaint, if supported by evidence, will warrant submission to a jury. Petitioner alleged in effect that respondent was aware of conditions which created a likelihood that a young woman performing the duties required of petitioner would suffer just such an injury as was in fact inflicted upon her. That the foreseeable danger was from intentional or criminal misconduct is irrelevant; respondent nonetheless had a duty to make reasonable provision against it. Breach of that duty would be negligence, and we cannot say as a matter of law that petitioner’s injury did not result at least in part from such negligence. The cases cited by the district court, we believe, do not support the broad proposition enunciated by it, and do not cover the fact situation set forth by the pleadings in this case.
Certiorari is granted, and the judgment is reversed and the case remanded to the district court.
Reversed.
45 U. S. C. § 51.
“Every common carrier by railroad . . . shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier ... for such injury . . . resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier . . . .” Ibid.
It is not questioned that respondent was engaged in interstate commerce and that petitioner was injured while employed in such commerce.
The court cited Davis v. Green, 260 U. S. 349 (1922); St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co. v. Mills, 271 U. S. 344 (1926); Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Southwell, 275 U. S. 64 (1927); and Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line R. Co. v. Green, 279 U. S. 821 (1929), reversing per curiam, 151 S. C. 1, 148 S. E. 633.
See Restatement of Torts, § 302, Comment n:
“n. The actor’s conduct may create a situation which affords an opportunity or temptation to third persons to commit more serious forms of misconducts which may be of any of several kinds. (1) The third person may intend to bring about the very harm which the other sustains. . . . The actor is required to anticipate and provide against all of these misconducts under the following conditions in all of which it is immaterial to the actor’s civil liability that the third person’s misconduct is or is not criminal . . . :
“8. where he knows of peculiar conditions which create a strong likelihood of intentional or reckless misconduct (see Illustrations 21 and 22).
“Illustrations:
“21. The employees of the X and Y Railroad Company are on a strike. They or their sympathizers have torn up tracks, misplaced switches and otherwise attempted to wreck trains. A train of the X and Y Company is wrecked by an unguarded switch so misplaced. A, a passenger, and B, a traveler upon a highway adjacent to the track sustain harm. The X and Y Company is liable to A and B because it did not guard the switch.”
See note 3, supra. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the respondent of the case. The respondent is the party being sued or tried and is also known as the appellee. Characterize the respondent as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the respondent by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the respondent is actually single entitiy or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single respondent, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the respondent of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
159
] | sc_respondent |
ARIZONA v. GANT
No. 07-542.
Argued October 7, 2008
Decided April 21, 2009
Joseph T Maziarz, Assistant Attorney General of Arizona, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Terry Goddard, Attorney General, Mary R. O’Grady, Solicitor General, Kent E. Cattani, Chief Counsel, Randall M. Howe, Former Chief Counsel, and Nicholas D. Acedo, Assistant Attorney General.
Anthony A. Yang argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were former Solicitor General Clement, former Assistant Attorney General Fisher, and Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben.
Thomas F. Jacobs argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Jeffrey T Green
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Florida et al. by Bill McCollum, Attorney General of Florida, Scott D. Makar, Solicitor General, and Craig D. Feiser and Courtney Brewer, Deputy Solicitors General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Talis J. Colberg of Alaska, Edmund G. Brown, Jr., of California, John W. Suthers of Colorado, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Steve Carter of Indiana, Steven N. Six of Kansas, Douglas F. Gansler of Maryland, Michael A Cox of Michigan, Lori Swanson of Minnesota, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Kelly A Ayotte of New Hampshire, Gary K. King of New Mexico, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, W. A Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Thomas W. Corbett, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Lawrence E. Long of South Dakota, Robert E. Cooper, Jr., of Tennessee, Robert M. McKenna of Washington, J. B. Van Hallen of Wisconsin, and Bruce A Salzburg of Wyoming; for Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., et al. by Wayne W. Schmidt, James P. Manak, Richard Weintraub, Michael E. McNeff, Eric B. Edwards, and Bernard J. Farber; for the National Association of Police Organizations, Inc., by William J. Johnson and Devallis Rutledge; and for Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley et al. by Mr. Cooley, pro se, Lael R. Rubin, Brentford J. Ferreira, and Phyllis C. Asayama.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by James J. Tomkovicz, Steven R. Shapiro, and Graham A Boyd; for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers by Jeffrey L. Fisher, Pamela S. Karlan, Amy Howe, Kevin K. Russell, and Thomas C. Goldstein; and for the National Association of Federal Defenders by Beth S. Brinkmann, Seth M. Galanter, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Lila M. Bateman, Frances H. Pratt, Philip J. Lynch, Judith H. Mizner, and Stephen C. Moss.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
After Rodney Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended license, handcuffed, and locked in the back of a patrol car, police officers searched his car and discovered cocaine in the pocket of a jacket on the backseat. Because Gant could not have accessed his ear to retrieve weapons or evidence at the time of the search, the Arizona Supreme Court held that the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, as defined in Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969), and applied to vehicle searches in New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), did not justify the search in this case. We agree with that conclusion.
Under Chimel, police may search incident to arrest only the space within an arrestee’s “ ‘immediate control,’ ” meaning “the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.” 395 U. S., at 763. The safety and evidentiary justifications underlying Chimel's reaching-distance rule determine Belton's scope. Accordingly, we hold that Belton does not authorize a vehicle search incident to a recent occupant’s arrest after the arrestee has been secured and cannot access the interior of the vehicle. Consistent with the holding in Thornton v. United States, 541 U. S. 615 (2004), and following the suggestion in Justice Scalia’s opinion concurring in the judgment in that case, id., at 632, we also conclude that circumstances unique to the automobile context justify a search incident to arrest when it is reasonable to believe that evidence of the offense of arrest might be found in the vehicle.
I
On August 25, 1999, acting on an anonymous tip that the residence at 2524 North Walnut Avenue was being used to sell drugs, Tucson police officers Griffith and Reed knocked on the front door and asked to speak to the owner. Gant answered the door and, after identifying himself, stated that he expected the owner to return later. The officers left the residence and conducted a records check, which revealed that Gant’s driver’s license had been suspended and there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest for driving with a suspended license.
When the officers returned to the house that evening, they found a man near the back of the house and a woman in a car parked in front of it. After a third officer arrived, they arrested the man for providing a false name and the woman for possessing drug paraphernalia. Both arrestees were handcuffed and secured in separate patrol cars when Gant arrived. The officers recognized his car as it entered the driveway, and Officer Griffith confirmed that Gant was the driver by shining a flashlight into the car as it drove by him. Gant parked at the end of the driveway, got out of his car, and shut the door. Griffith, who was about 30 feet away, called to Gant, and they approached each other, meeting 10-to-12 feet from Gant’s car. Griffith immediately arrested Gant and handcuffed him.
Because the other arrestees were secured in the only patrol cars at the scene, Griffith called for backup. When two more officers arrived, they locked Gant in the backseat of their vehicle. After Gant had been handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car, two officers searched his car: One of them found a gun, and the other discovered a bag of cocaine in the pocket of a jacket on the backseat.
Gant was charged with two offenses — possession of a narcotic drug for sale and possession of drug paraphernalia (1 e., the plastic bag in which the cocaine was found). He moved to suppress the evidence seized from his car on the ground that the warrantless search violated the Fourth Amendment. Among other things, Gant argued that Belton did not authorize the search of his vehicle because he posed no threat to the officers after he was handcuffed in the patrol car and because he was arrested for a traffic offense for which no evidence could be found in his vehicle. When asked at the suppression hearing why the search was conducted, Officer Griffith responded: “Because the law says we can do it.” App. 75.
The trial court rejected the State’s contention that the officers had probable cause to search Gant’s car for contraband when the search began, id., at 18, 30, but it denied the motion to suppress. Relying on the fact that the police saw Gant commit the crime of driving without a license and apprehended him only shortly after he exited his ear, the court held that the search was permissible as a search incident to arrest. Id., at 37. A jury found Gant guilty on both drug counts, and he was sentenced to a 3-year term of imprisonment.
After protracted state-court proceedings, the Arizona Supreme Court concluded that the search of Gant’s car was unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The court’s opinion discussed at length our decision in Belton, which held that police may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle and any containers therein as a contemporaneous incident of an arrest of the vehicle’s recent occupant. 216 Ariz. 1, 3-4, 162 R 3d 640, 642-643 (2007) (citing 453 U. S., at 460). The court distinguished Belton as a case concerning the permissible scope of a vehicle search incident to arrest and concluded that it did not answer “the threshold question whether the police may conduct a search incident to arrest at all once the scene is secure.” 216 Ariz., at 4, 162 R 3d, at 643. Relying on our earlier decision in Chimel, the court observed that the search-ineident-toarrest exception to the warrant requirement is justified by interests in officer safety and evidence preservation. 216 Ariz., at 4,162 P. 3d, at 643. When “the justifications underlying Chimel no longer exist because the scene is secure and the arrestee is handcuffed, secured in the back of a patrol ear, and under the supervision of an officer,” the court concluded, a “warrantless search of the arrestee’s car cannot be justified as necessary to protect the officers at the scene or prevent the destruction of evidence.” Id., at 5,162 P. 3d, at 644. Accordingly, the court held that the search of Gant’s ear was unreasonable.
The dissenting justices would have upheld the search of Gant's car based on their view that “the validity of a Belton search . . . clearly does not depend on the presence of the Chimel rationales in a particular case.” Id., at 8, 162 P. 3d, at 647. Although they disagreed with the majority’s view of Belton, the dissenting justices acknowledged that “[t]he bright-line rule embraced in Belton has long been criticized and probably merits reconsideration.” 216 Ariz., at 10, 162 P. 3d, at 649. They thus “add[ed their] voice[s] to the others that have urged the Supreme Court to revisit Belton.” Id., at 11, 162 P. 3d, at 650.
The chorus that has called for us to revisit Belton includes courts, scholars, and Members of this Court who have questioned that decision’s clarity and its fidelity to Fourth Amendment principles. We therefore granted the State’s petition for certiorari. 552 U. S. 1230 (2008).
II
Consistent with our precedent, our analysis begins, as it should in every case addressing the reasonableness of a warrantless search, with the basic rule that “searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment — subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 357 (1967) (footnote omitted). Among the exceptions to the warrant requirement is a search incident to a lawful arrest. See Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 392 (1914). The exception derives from interests in officer safety and evidence preservation that are typically implicated in arrest situations. See United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218, 230-234 (1973); Chimel, 395 U. S., at 763.
In Chimel, we held that a search incident to arrest may only include “the arrestee’s person and the area ‘within his immediate control’ — construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.” Ibid. That limitation, which continues to define the boundaries of the exception, ensures that the scope of a search incident to arrest is commensurate with its purposes of protecting arresting officers and safeguarding any evidence of the offense of arrest that an arrestee might conceal or destroy. See ibid, (noting that searches incident to arrest are reasonable “in order to remove any weapons [the arrestee] might seek to use” and “in order to prevent [the] concealment or destruction” of evidence (emphasis added)). If there is no possibility that an arrestee could reach into the area that law enforcement officers seek to search, both justifications for the search-incident-to-arrest exception are absent and the rule does not apply. E. g., Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364, 367-368 (1964).
In Belton, we considered ChimeVs application to the automobile context. A lone police officer in that case stopped a speeding car in which Belton was one of four occupants. While asking for the driver’s license and registration, the officer smelled burnt marijuana and observed an envelope on the car floor marked “Supergold” — a name he associated with marijuana. Thus having probable cause to believe the occupants had committed a drug offense, the officer ordered them out of the vehicle, placed them under arrest, and patted them down. Without handcuffing the arrestees, the officer “ ‘split them up into four separate areas of the Thruway ... so they would not be in physical touching area of each other’ ” and searched the vehicle, including the pocket of a jacket on the backseat, in which he found cocaine. 453 U. S., at 456.
The New York Court of Appeals found the search unconstitutional, concluding that after the occupants were arrested the vehicle and its contents were “safely within the exclusive custody and control of the police.” State v. Belton, 50 N. Y. 2d 447, 452, 407 N. E. 2d 420, 423 (1980). The State asked this Court to consider whether the exception recognized in Chimel permits an officer to search “a jacket found inside an automobile while the automobile’s four occupants, all under arrest, are standing unsecured around the vehicle.” Brief in No. 80-328, p. i. We granted certiorari because “courts ha[d] found no workable definition of ‘the area within the immediate control of the arrestee’ when that area arguably includes the interior of an automobile.” 453 U. S., at 460.
In its brief, the State argued that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that the jacket was under the officer’s exclusive control. Focusing on the number of arrestees and their proximity to the vehicle, the State asserted that it was reasonable for the officer to believe the arrestees could have accessed the vehicle and its contents, making the search permissible under Chimel. Brief in No. 80-328, at 7-8. The United States, as amicus curiae in support of the State, argued for a more permissive standard, but it maintained that any search incident to arrest must be “ ‘substantially contemporaneous’ ” with the arrest — a requirement it deemed “satisfied if the search occurs during the period in which the arrest is being consummated and before the situation has so stabilized that it could be said that the arrest was completed.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in New York v. Belton, O. T. 1980, No. 80-328, p. 14. There was no suggestion by the parties or amici that Chimel authorizes a vehicle search incident to arrest when there is no realistic possibility that an arrestee could access his vehicle.
After considering these arguments, we held that when an officer lawfully arrests “the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of the automobile” and any containers therein. Belton, 453 U. S., at 460 (footnote omitted). That holding was based in large part on our assumption “that articles inside the relatively narrow compass of the passenger compartment of an automobile are in fact generally, even if not inevitably, within ‘the area into which an arrestee might reach.’ ” Ibid.
The Arizona Supreme Court read our decision in Belton as merely delineating “the proper scope of a search of the interior of an automobile” incident to an arrest, id., at 459. That is, when the passenger compartment is within an arrestee’s reaching distance, Belton supplies the generalization that the entire compartment and any containers therein may be reached. On that view of Belton, the state court concluded that the search of Gant’s car was unreasonable because Gant clearly could not have accessed his car at the time of the search. It also found that no other exception to the warrant requirement applied in this case.
Gant now urges us to adopt the reading of Belton followed by the Arizona Supreme Court.
Ill
Despite the textual and evidentiary support for the Arizona Supreme Court’s reading of Belton, our opinion has been widely understood to allow a vehicle search incident to the arrest of a recent occupant even if there is no possibility the arrestee could gain access to the vehicle at the time of the search. This reading may be attributable to Justice Brennan’s dissent in Belton, in which he characterized the Court’s holding as resting on the “fiction... that the interior of a car is always within the immediate control of an arrestee who has recently been in the car.” Id., at 466. Under the majority’s approach, he argued, “the result would presumably be the same even if [the officer] had handcuffed Belton and his companions in the patrol car” before conducting the search. Id., at 468.
Since we decided Belton, Courts of Appeals have given different answers to the question whether a vehicle must be within an arrestee’s reach to justify a vehicle search incident to arrest, but Justice Brennan’s reading of the Court’s opinion has predominated. As Justice O’Connor observed, “lower court decisions seem now to treat the ability to search a vehicle incident to the arrest of a recent occupant as a police entitlement rather than as an exception justified by the twin rationales of Chimel.” Thornton, 541 U. S., at 624 (opinion concurring in part). Justice Scalia has similarly noted that, although it is improbable that an arrestee could gain access to weapons stored in his vehicle after he has been handcuffed and secured in the backseat of a patrol car, cases allowing a search in “this precise factual scenario . . . are legion.” Id., at 628 (opinion concurring in judgment) (collecting cases). Indeed, some courts have upheld searches under Belton “even when . . . the handcuffed arrestee has already left the scene.” 541 U. S., at 628 (same).
Under this broad reading of Belton, a vehicle search would be authorized incident to every arrest of a recent occupant notwithstanding that in most cases the vehicle’s passenger compartment will not be within the arrestee’s reach at the time of the search. To read Belton as authorizing a vehicle search incident to every recent occupant’s arrest would thus untether the rule from the justifications underlying the Chimel exception — a result clearly incompatible with our statement in Belton that it “in no way alters the fundamental principles established in the Chimel case regarding the basic scope of searches incident to lawful custodial arrests.” 453 U. S., at 460, n. 3. Accordingly, we reject this reading of Belton and hold that the Chimel rationale authorizes police to search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search.
Although it does not follow from Chimel, we also conclude that circumstances unique to the vehicle context justify a search incident to a lawful arrest when it is “reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle.” Thornton, 541 U. S., at 632 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). In many cases, as when a recent occupant is arrested for a traffic violation, there will be no reasonable basis to believe the vehicle contains relevant evidence. See, e. g., Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U. S. 318, 324 (2001); Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U. S. 113, 118 (1998). But in others, including Belton and Thornton, the offense of arrest will supply a basis for searching the passenger compartment of an arrestee’s vehicle and any containers therein.
Neither the possibility of access nor the likelihood of discovering offense-related evidence authorized the search in this case. Unlike in Belton, which involved a single officer confronted with four unsecured arrestees, the five officers in this case outnumbered the three arrestees, all of whom had been handcuffed and secured in separate patrol cars before the officers searched Gant’s car. Under those circumstances, Gant clearly was not within reaching distance of his car at the time of the search. An evidentiary basis for the search was also lacking in this case. Whereas Belton and Thornton were arrested for drug offenses, Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended license — an offense for which police could not expect to find evidence in the passenger compartment of Gant’s car. Cf. Knowles, 525 U. S., at 118. Because police could not reasonably have believed either that Gant could have accessed his car at the time of the search or that evidence of the offense for which he was arrested might have been found therein, the search in this case was unreasonable.
IV
The State does not seriously disagree with the Arizona Supreme Court’s conclusion that Gant could not have accessed his vehicle at the time of the search, but it nevertheless asks us to uphold the search of his vehicle under the broad reading of Belton discussed above. The State argues that Belton searches are reasonable regardless of the possibility of access in a given case because that expansive rule correctly balances law enforcement interests, including the interest in a bright-line rule, with an arrestee’s limited privacy interest in his vehicle.
For several reasons, we reject the State’s argument. First, the State seriously undervalues the privacy interests at stake. Although we have recognized that a motorist’s privacy interest in his vehicle is less substantial than in his home, see New York v. Class, 475 U. S. 106, 112-113 (1986), the former interest is nevertheless important and deserving of constitutional protection, see Knowles, 525 U. S., at 117. It is particularly significant that Belton searches authorize police officers to search not just the passenger compartment but every purse, briefcase, or other container within that space. A rule that gives police the power to conduct such a search whenever an individual is caught committing a traffic offense, when there is no basis for believing evidence of the offense might be found in the vehicle, creates a serious and recurring threat to the privacy of countless individuals. Indeed, the character of that threat implicates the central concern underlying the Fourth Amendment — the concern about giving police officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will among a person’s private effects.
At the same time as it undervalues these privacy concerns, the State exaggerates the clarity that its reading of Belton provides. Courts that have read Belton expansively are at odds regarding how close in time to the arrest and how proximate to the arrestee’s vehicle an officer’s first contact with the arrestee must be to bring the encounter within Belton’s purview and whether a search is reasonable when it commences or continues after the arrestee has been removed from the scene. The rule has thus generated a great deal of uncertainty, particularly for a rule touted as providing a “bright line.” See 3 LaFave §7.1(c), at 514-524.
Contrary to the State’s suggestion, a broad reading of Belton is also unnecessary to protect law enforcement safety and evidentiary interests. Under our view, Belton and Thornton permit an officer to conduct a vehicle search when an arrestee is within reaching distance of the vehicle or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest. Other established exceptions to the warrant requirement authorize a vehicle search under additional circumstances when safety or evidentiary concerns demand. For instance, Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032 (1983), permits an officer to search a vehicle’s passenger compartment when he has reasonable suspicion that an individual, whether or not the arrestee, is “dangerous” and might access the vehicle to “gain immediate control of weapons.” Id., at 1049 (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 21 (1968)). If there is probable cause to believe a vehicle contains evidence of criminal activity, United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798, 820-821 (1982), authorizes a search of any area of the vehicle in which the evidence might be found. Unlike the searches permitted by Justice Scalia’s opinion concurring in the judgment in Thornton, which we conclude today are reasonable for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, Ross allows searches for evidence relevant to offenses other than the offense of arrest, and the scope of the search authorized is broader. Finally, there may be still other circumstances in which safety or evidentiary interests would justify a search. Cf. Maryland v. Buie, 494 U. S. 325, 334 (1990) (holding that, incident to arrest, an officer may conduct a limited protective sweep of those areas of a house in which he reasonably suspects a dangerous person may be hiding).
These exceptions together ensure that officers may search a vehicle when genuine safety or evidentiary concerns encountered during the arrest of a vehicle’s recent occupant justify a search. Construing Belton broadly to allow vehicle searches incident to any arrest would serve no purpose except to provide a police entitlement, and it is anathema to the Fourth Amendment to permit a warrantless search on that basis. For these reasons, we are unpersuaded by the State’s arguments that a broad reading of Belton would meaningfully further law enforcement interests and justify a substantial intrusion on individuals’ privacy.
V
Our dissenting colleagues argue that the doctrine of stare decisis requires adherence to a broad reading of Belton even though the justifications for searching a vehicle incident to arrest are in most cases absent. The doctrine of stare decisis is of course “essential to the respect accorded to the judgments of the Court and to the stability of the law,” but it does not compel us to follow a past decision when its rationale no longer withstands “careful analysis.” Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U. S. 558, 577 (2003).
We have never relied on stare decisis to justify the continuance of an unconstitutional police practice. And we would be particularly loath to uphold an unconstitutional result in a case that is so easily distinguished from the decisions that arguably compel it. The safety and evidentiary interests that supported the search in Belton simply are not present in this case. Indeed, it is hard to imagine two cases that are factually more distinct, as Belton involved one officer confronted by four unsecured arrestees suspected of committing a drug offense, and this case involves several officers confronted with a securely detained arrestee apprehended for driving with a suspended license. This case is also distinguishable from Thornton, in which the petitioner was arrested for a drug offense. It is thus unsurprising that Members of this Court who concurred in the judgments in Belton and Thornton also concur in the decision in this case.
We do not agree with the contention in Justice Alito’s dissent (hereinafter dissent) that consideration of police reliance interests requires a different result. Although it appears that the State’s reading of Belton has been widely taught in police academies and that law enforcement officers have relied on the rule in conducting vehicle searches during the past 28 years,* many of these searches were not justified by the reasons underlying the Chimel exception. Countless individuals guilty of nothing more serious than a traffic violation have had their constitutional right to the security of their private effects violated as a result. The fact that the law enforcement community may view the State’s version of the Belton rule as an entitlement does not establish the sort of reliance interest that could outweigh the countervailing interest that all individuals share in having their constitutional rights fully protected. If it is clear that a practice is unlawful, individuals’ interest in its discontinuance clearly outweighs any law enforcement “entitlement” to its persistence. Cf. Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385, 393 (1978) (“[T]he mere fact that law enforcement may be made more efficient can never by itself justify disregard of the Fourth Amendment”). The dissent’s reference in this regard to the reliance interests cited in Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428 (2000), is misplaced. See post, at 358-359. In observing that “Miranda has become embedded in routine police practice to the point where the warnings have become part of our national culture,” 530 U. S., at 443, the Court was referring not to police reliance on a rule requiring them to provide warnings but to the broader societal reliance on that individual right.
The dissent also ignores the checkered history of the search-incident-to-arrest exception. Police authority to search the place in which a lawful arrest is made was broadly asserted in Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192 (1927), and limited a few years later in Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344 (1931), and United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U. S. 452 (1932). The limiting views expressed in Go-Bart and Lefkowitz were in turn abandoned in Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145 (1947), which upheld a search of a four-room apartment incident to the occupant’s arrest. Only a year later the Court in Trupiano v. United States, 334 U. S. 699, 708 (1948), retreated from that holding, noting that the search-incident-to-arrest exception is “a strictly limited” one that must be justified by “something more in the way of necessity than merely a lawful arrest.” And just two years after that, in United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56 (1950), the Court again reversed course and upheld the search of an entire apartment. Finally, our opinion in Chimel overruled Rabinowitz and what remained of Harris and established the present boundaries of the search-incident-to-arrest exception. Notably, none of the dissenters in Chimel or the cases that preceded it argued that law enforcement reliance interests outweighed the interest in protecting individual constitutional rights so as to warrant fidelity to an unjustifiable rule.
The experience of the 28 years since we decided Belton has shown that the generalization underpinning the broad reading of that decision is unfounded. We now know that articles inside the passenger compartment are rarely “within 'the area into which an arrestee might reach,’ ” 453 U. S., at 460, and blind adherence to Belton’s faulty assumption would authorize myriad unconstitutional searches. The doctrine of stare decisis does not require us to approve routine constitutional violations.
VI
Police may search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest. When these justifications are absent, a search of an arrestee’s vehicle will be unreasonable unless police obtain a warrant or show that another exception to the warrant requirement applies. The Arizona Supreme Court correctly held that this case involved an unreasonable search. Accordingly, the judgment of the State Supreme Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The officer was unable to handcuff the occupants because he had only one set of handcuffs. See Brief for Petitioner in New York v. Belton, O. T. 1980, No. 80-328, p. 3 (hereinafter Brief in No. 80-328).
Compare United States v. Green, 324 F. 3d 375, 379 (CA5 2003) (holding that Belton did not authorize a search of an arrestee’s vehicle when he was handcuffed and lying facedown on the ground surrounded by four police officers 6-to-10 feet from the vehicle), United States v. Edwards, 242 F. 3d 928, 938 (CA10 2001) (finding unauthorized a vehicle search conducted while the arrestee was handcuffed in the back of a patrol car), and United States v. Vasey, 834 F. 2d 782, 787 (CA9 1987) (finding unauthorized a vehicle search conducted 30-to-45 minutes after an arrest and after the arrestee had been handcuffed and secured in the back of a police car), with United States v. Hrasky, 453 F. 3d 1099, 1102 (CA8 2006) (upholding a search conducted an hour after the arrestee was apprehended and after he had been handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car), United States v. Weaver, 433 F. 3d 1104, 1106 (CA9 2006) (upholding a search conducted 10-to-15 minutes after an arrest and after the arrestee had been handcuffed and secured in the back of a patrol car), and United States v. White, 871 F. 2d 41, 44 (CA6 1989) (upholding a search conducted after the arrestee had been handcuffed and secured in the back of a police cruiser).
The practice of searching vehicles incident to arrest after the arrestee has been handcuffed and secured in a patrol car has not abated since we decided Thornton. See, e.g., United States v. Murphy, 221 Fed. Appx. 715, 717 (CA10 2007); Hrasky, 453 F. 3d, at 1100; Weaver, 433 F. 3d, at 1105; United States v. Williams, 170 Fed. Appx. 399, 401 (CA6 2006); United States v. Dorsey, 418 F. 3d 1038, 1041 (CA9 2005); United States v. Osife, 398 F. 3d 1143, 1144 (CA9 2005); United States v. Sumrall, 115 Fed. Appx. 22, 24 (CA10 2004).
Because officers have many means of ensuring the safe arrest of vehicle occupants, it will be the rare case in which an officer is unable to fully effectuate an arrest so that a real possibility of access to the arrestee’s vehicle remains. Cf. 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 7.1(c), p. 525 (4th ed. 2004) (hereinafter LaFave) (noting that the availability of protective measures “ensur[es] the nonexistence of circumstances in which the arrestee’s ‘control’ of the car is in doubt”). But in such a case a search incident to arrest is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
See Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79, 84 (1987); Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 760-761 (1969); Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476, 480-484 (1965); Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 389-392 (1914); Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 624-625 (1886); see also 10 C. Adams, The Works of John Adams 247-248 (1856). Many have observed that a broad reading of Belton gives police limitless discretion to conduct exploratory searches. See 3 LaFave § 7.1(c), at 527 (observing that Belton creates the risk “that police will make custodial arrests which they otherwise would not make as a cover for a search which the Fourth Amendment otherwise prohibits”); see also United States v. McLaughlin, 170 F. 3d 889, 894 (CA9 1999) (Trott, J., concurring) (observing that Belton has been applied to condone “purely exploratory searches of vehicles during which officers with no definite objective or reason for the search are allowed to rummage around in a ear to see what they might find”); State v. Pallone, 2001 WI 77, ¶¶ 87-90,236 Wis. 2d 162, 203-204, and n. 9, 613 N. W. 2d 568, 588, and n. 9 (2000) (Abrahamson, C. J., dissenting) (same); State v. Pierce, 136 N. J. 184, 211, 642 A. 2d 947, 961 (1994) (same).
Compare United States v. Caseres, 533 F. 3d 1064, 1072 (CA9 2008) (declining to apply Belton when the arrestee was approached by police after he had exited his vehicle and reached his residence), with Rainey v. Commonwealth, 197 S. W. 3d 89, 94-95 (Ky. 2006) (applying Belton when the arrestee was apprehended 50 feet from the vehicle), and Black v. State, 810 N. E. 2d 713, 716 (Ind. 2004) (applying Belton when the arrestee was apprehended inside an auto repair shop and the vehicle was parked outside).
Compare McLaughlin, 170 F. 3d, at 890-891 (upholding a search that commenced five minutes after the arrestee was removed from the scene), United States v. Snook, 88 F. 3d 605, 608 (CA8 1996) (same), and United States v. Doward, 41 F. 3d 789, 793 (CA1 1994) (upholding a search that continued after the arrestee was removed from the scene), with United States v. Lugo, 978 F. 2d 631, 634 (CA10 1992) (holding invalid a search that commenced after the arrestee was removed from the scene), and State v. Badgett, 200 Conn. 412, 427-428, 512 A. 2d 160, 169 (1986) (holding invalid a search that continued after the arrestee was removed from the scene).
At least eight States have reached the same conclusion. Vermont, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, New York, Oregon, and Wyoming have declined to follow a broad reading of Belton under their state constitutions. See State v. Bander, 181 Vt. 392, 401, 924 A. 2d 38, 46-47 (2007); State v. Eckel, 185 N. J. 523, 540, 888 A. 2d 1266, 1277 (2006); Camacho v. State, 119 Nev. 395, 399-400, 75 P. 3d 370, 373-374 (2003); Vasquez v. State, 990 P. 2d 476, 488-489 (Wyo. 1999); State v. Arredondo, 1997-NMCA-081, 123 N. M. 628, 636 (Ct. App.), overruled on other grounds by State v. Steinzig, 1999-NMCA-107, 127 N. M. 752 (Ct. App.); Commonwealth v. White, 543 Pa. 45, 57, 669 A. 2d 896, 902 (1995); People v. Blasich, 73 N. Y. 2d 673, 678, 541 N. E. 2d 40, 43 (1989); State v. Fesler, 68 Ore. App. 609, 612, 685 P. 2d 1014, 1016-1017 (1984). And a Massachusetts statute provides that a search incident to arrest may be made only for the purposes of seizing weapons or evidence of the offense of arrest. See Commonwealth v. Toole, 389 Mass. 159, 161-162, 448 N. E. 2d 1264, 1266-1267 (1983) (citing Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 276, § 1 (West 2006)).
Justice Auto’s dissenting opinion also accuses us of “overruling]” Belton and Thornton v. United States, 541 U. S. 615 (2004), “even though respondent Gant has not asked us to do so.” Post, at 355. Contrary to that claim, the narrow reading of Belton we adopt today is precisely the result Gant has urged. That Justice Auto has chosen to describe this decision as overruling our earlier cases does not change the fact that the resulting rule of law is the one advocated by respondent.
Justice Stevens concurred in the judgment in Belton, 453 U. S., at 463, for the reasons stated in his dissenting opinion in Robbins v. California, 453 U. S. 420, 444 (1981), Justice Thomas joined the Court’s opinion in Thornton, 541 U. S. 615, and Justice Scaua and Justice Ginsburg concurred in the judgment in that case, id., at 625.
Because a broad reading of Belton has been widely accepted, the doctrine of qualified immunity will shield officers from liability for searches conducted in reasonable reliance on that understanding. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the petitioner of the case. The petitioner is the party who petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. This party is variously known as the petitioner or the appellant. Characterize the petitioner as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the petitioner by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the petitioner is actually single entity or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single petitioner, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the petitioner of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
27
] | sc_petitioner |
MAHER, COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SERVICES OF CONNECTICUT v. ROE et al.
No. 75-1440.
Argued January 11, 1977
Decided June 20, 1977
Powell, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BuRGER, C. J., and Stewart, White, Rehnquist, and Stevens, JJ., joined. Burger, C. J., filed a concurring statement, post, p. 481. Brennan, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Marshall and Blackmun, JJ., joined, post, p. 482. Marshall, J., filed a dissenting opinion, ante, p. 454. Blackmun, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Brennan and Marshall, JJ., joined, ante, p. 462.
Edmund C. Walsh, Assistant Attorney General of Connecticut, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the brief was Carl R. Ajello, Attorney General.
Lucy V. Katz argued the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Kathryn Emmett and Catherine Roraback.
William F. Hyland, Attorney General, Stephen Skillman, Assistant Attorney General, and Erminie L. Conley, Deputy Attorney General, filed a brief for the State of New Jersey as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Sylvia A. Law, Harriet F. Pilpel, and Eve W. Paul filed a brief for the American Public Health Assn, et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.
Patricia A. Butler and Michael A. Wolff filed a brief for Jane Doe as amicus curiae.
Mr. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Beal v. Doe, ante, p. 438, we hold today that Title XIX of the Social Security Act does not require the funding of nontherapeutic abortions as a condition of participation in the joint federal-state Medicaid program established by that statute. In this case, as a result of our decision in Beal, we must decide whether the Constitution requires a participating State to pay for nontherapeutic abortions when it pays for childbirth.
I
A regulation of the Connecticut Welfare Department limits state Medicaid benefits for first trimester abortions to those that are “medically necessary,” a term defined to include psychiatric necessity. Connecticut Welfare Department, Public Assistance Program Manual, Yol. 3, c. Ill, §275 (1975). Connecticut enforces this limitation through a system of prior authorization from its Department of Social Services. In order to obtain authorization for a first trimester abortion, the hospital or clinic where the abortion is to be performed must submit, among other things, a certificate from the patient’s attending physician stating that the abortion is medically necessary.
This attack on the validity of the Connecticut regulation was brought against appellant Maher, the Commisioner of Social Services, by appellees Poe and Roe, two indigent women who were unable to obtain a physician's certificate of medical necessity. In a complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, they challenged the regulation both as inconsistent with the requirements of Title XIX of the Social Security Act, as added, 79 Stat. 343, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396 et seq. (1970 ed. and Supp. V), and as violative of their constitutional rights, including the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection. Connecticut originally defended its regulation on the theory that Title XIX of the Social Security Act prohibited the funding of abortions that were not medically necessary. After certifying a class of women unable to obtain Medicaid assistance for abortions because of the regulation, the District Court held that the Social Security Act not only allowed state funding of nontherapeutic abortions but also required it. Roe v. Norton, 380 F. Supp. 726 (1974). On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit read the Social Security Act to allow, but not to require, state funding of such abortions. 522 F. 2d 928 (1975). Upon remand for consideration of the constitutional issues raised in the complaint, a three-judge District Court was convened. That court invalidated the Connecticut regulation. 408 F. Supp. 660 (1975).
Although it found no independent constitutional right to a state-financed abortion, the District Court held that the Equal Protection Clause forbids the exclusion of nontherapeutic abortions from a state welfare program that generally subsidizes the medical expenses incident to pregnancy and childbirth. The court found implicit in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973), the view that “abortion and childbirth, when stripped of the sensitive moral arguments surrounding the abortion controversy, are simply two alternative medical methods of dealing with pregnancy . . . 408 F. Supp., at 663 n. 3. Relying also on Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969), and Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U. S. 250 (1974), the court held that the Connecticut program “weights the choice of the pregnant mother against choosing to exercise her constitutionally protected right” to a nontherapeutic abortion and “thus infringes upon a fundamental interest.” 408 F. Supp., at 663-664. The court found no state interest to justify this infringement. The State’s fiscal interest was held to be “wholly chimerical because abortion is the least expensive medical response to a pregnancy.” Id., at 664 (footnote omitted). And any moral objection to abortion was deemed constitutionally irrelevant:
“The state may not justify its refusal to pay for one type of expense arising from pregnancy on the basis that it morally opposes such an expenditure of money. To sanction such a justification would be to permit discrimination against those seeking to exercise a constitutional right on the basis that the state simply does not approve of the exercise of that right.” Ibid.
The District Court enjoined the State from requiring the certificate of medical necessity for Medicaid-funded abortions. The court also struck down the related requirements of prior written request by the pregnant woman and prior authorization by the Department of Social Services, holding that the State could not impose any requirements on Medicaid payments for abortions that are not “equally applicable to medicaid payments for childbirth, if such conditions or requirements tend to discourage a woman from choosing an abortion or to delay the occurrence of an abortion that she has asked her physician to perform.” Id., at 665. We noted probable jurisdiction to consider the constitutionality of the Connecticut regulation. 428 U. S. 908 (1976).
II
The Constitution imposes no obligation on the States to pay the pregnancy-related medical expenses of indigent women, or indeed to pay any of the medical expenses of indigents. But when a State decides to alleviate some of the hardships of poverty by providing medical care, the manner in which it dispenses benefits is subject to constitutional limitations. Appellees’ claim is that Connecticut must accord equal treatment to both abortion and childbirth, and may not evidence a policy preference by funding only the medical expenses incident to childbirth. This challenge to the classifications established by the Connecticut regulation presents a question arising under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The basic framework of analysis of such a claim is well settled:
“We must decide, first, whether [state legislation] operates to the disadvantage of some suspect class or impinges upon a fundamental right explicitly or implicitly protected by the Constitution, thereby requiring strict judicial scrutiny. ... If not, the [legislative] scheme must still be examined to determine whether it rationally furthers some legitimate, articulated state purpose and therefore does not constitute an invidious discrimination . . . ” San Antonio School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 17 (1973).
Accord, Massachusetts Bd. of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U. S. 307, 312, 314 (1976). Applying this analysis here, we think the District Court erred in holding that the Connecticut regulation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
A
This case involves no discrimination against a suspect class. An indigent woman desiring an abortion does not come within the limited category of disadvantaged classes so recognized by our cases. Nor does the fact that the impact of the' regulation falls upon those who cannot pay lead to a different conclusion. In a sense, every denial of welfare to an indigent creates a wealth classification as compared to nonindigents who are able to pay for the desired goods or services. But this Court has never held that financial need alone identifies a suspect class for purposes of equal protection analysis. See Rodriguez, supra, at 29; Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471 (1970). Accordingly, the central question in this case is whether the regulation “impinges upon a fundamental right explicitly or implicitly protected by the Constitution.” The District Court read our decisions in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and the subsequent cases applying it, as establishing a fundamental right to abortion and therefore concluded that nothing less than a compelling state interest would justify Connecticut’s different treatment of abortion and childbirth. We think the District Court misconceived the nature and scope of the fundamental right recognized in Roe.
B
At issue in Roe was the constitutionality of a Texas law making it a crime to procure or attempt to procure an abortion, except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother. Drawing on a group of disparate cases restricting governmental intrusion, physical coercion, and criminal prohibition of certain activities, we concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty affords constitutional protection against state interference with certain aspects of an individual's personal “privacy,” including a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy. I’d,, at 153.
The Texas statute imposed severe criminal sanctions on the physicians and other medical personnel who performed abortions, thus drastically limiting the availability and safety of the desired service. As Mr. Justice Stewart observed, “it is difficult to imagine a more complete abridgment of a constitutional freedom . . . .” Id., at 170 (concurring opinion). We held that only a compelling state interest would justify such a sweeping restriction on a constitutionally protected interest, and we found no such state interest during the first trimester. Even when judged against this demanding standard, however, the State's dual interest in the health of the pregnant woman and the potential life of the fetus were deemed sufficient to justify substantial regulation of abortions in the second and third trimesters. “These interests are separate and distinct. Each grows in substantiality as the woman approaches term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes ‘compelling.' ” Id., at 162-163. In the second trimester, the State’s interest in the health of the pregnant woman justifies state regulation reasonably related to that concern. Id., at 163. At viability, usually in the third trimester, the State's interest in the potential life of the fetus justifies prohibition with criminal penalties, except where the life or health of the mother is threatened. Id., at 163-164.
The Texas law in Roe was a stark example of impermissible interference with the pregnant woman’s decision to terminate her - pregnancy. In subsequent cases, we have invalidated other types of restrictions, different in form but similar in effect, on the woman’s freedom of choice. Thus, in Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 70-71, n. 11 (1976), we held that Missouri’s requirement of spousal consent was unconstitutional because it “granted [the husband] the right to prevent unilaterally, and for whatever reason, the effectuation of his wife’s and her physician’s decision to terminate her pregnancy.” Missouri had interposed an “absolute obstacle to a woman’s decision that Roe held to be constitutionally protected from such interference.” (Emphasis added.) Although a state-created obstacle need not be absolute to be impermissible, see Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973); Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S. 678 (1977), we have held that a requirement for a lawful abortion “is not unconstitutional unless it unduly burdens the right to seek an abortion." Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U. S. 132, 147 (1976). We recognized in Bellotti that “not all distinction between abortion and other procedures is forbidden” and that “[t]he constitutionality of such distinction will depend upon its degree and the justification for it.” Id., at 149-150. We therefore declined to rule on the constitutionality of a Massachusetts statute regulating a minor’s access to an abortion until the state courts had had an opportunity to determine whether the statute authorized a parental veto over the minor’s decision or the less burdensome requirement of parental consultation.
These cases recognize a constitutionally protected interest “in making certain kinds of important decisions” free .from governmental compulsion. Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 599-600, and nn. 24 and 26 (1977). As Whalen makes clear, the right in Roe v. Wade can be understood only by considering both the woman’s interest and the nature of the State’s interference with it. Roe did not declare an unqualified “constitutional right to an abortion,” as the District Court seemed to think. Rather, the right protects the woman from unduly burdensome interference with her freedom to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy. It implies no limitation on the authority of a State to make a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion, and to implement that judgment by the allocation of public funds.
The Connecticut regulation before us is different in kind from the laws invalidated in our previous abortion decisions. The Connecticut regulation places no obstacles — absolute or otherwise — in the pregnant woman’s path to an abortion. An indigent woman who desires an abortion suffers no disadvantage as a consequence of Connecticut’s decision to fund childbirth; she continues as before to be dependent on private sources for the service she desires. The State may have made childbirth a more attractive alternative, thereby influencing the woman’s decision, but it has imposed no restriction on access to abortions that was not already there. The indigency that may make it difficult — and in some cases, perhaps, impossible — for some women to have abortions is neither created nor in any way affected by the Connecticut regulation. We conclude that the Connecticut regulation does not impinge upon the fundamental right recognized in Roe.
c
Our conclusion signals no retreat from Roe or the cases applying it. There is a basic difference between direct state interference with a protected activity and state encouragement of an alternative activity consonant with legislative policy. Constitutional concerns are greatest when the State attempts to..impose its.will by force of law; the State’s power to encourage, actions deemed to be in the public interest is necessarily far Jbrpader.
• This, distinction is implicit in two cases cited in Roe in support of the pregnant woman’s right under the Fourteenth Amendment, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923), involved-' a ’Nebraska law making it criminal to teach foreign''languages to children who had not passed the eighth ’ gradé.' ‘ Id., at 396-397. Nebraska’s imposition of a .criminal .¡sanction on the providers of desired services makes Meyer closely analogous to Roe. In sustaining the. constitutional challenge brought by a teacher convicted under the law, the- Court held that the teacher’s “right thus to teach and the right of parents to engage him so to instruct their children’,’ were “within the liberty of the Amendment.” 262 U. S. at 400. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925), the. Court relied on Meyer to invalidate an Oregon criminal law requiring the parent or guardian of a child to sénd’ hiíírto a public school, thus precluding the choice of a private school.' Reasoning that the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept' of liberty “excludes any general power of the State to standardize, its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only,” the Court held that the law “unreasonably interfere [d] with the liberty of parents and guardians, to-direct the upbringing and education of children under their control;” 268 U. S., at 534 — 535.
Both’ case|. invalidated substantial restrictions on constitutionally protected liberty interests: in Meyer, the parent’s right to--.have.his child taught a particular foreign language; in Pierce', the.; parent’s right to choose private rather than public school 'education. But neither case denied to a State the policy choice of encouraging the preferred course of action. Indeed, in Meyer the Court was careful to state,,that-the power of the State “to prescribe a curriculum” that included English and excluded German in its free public schools “is not questioned.” 262 U. S., at 402. Similarly, Pierce casts no shadow over a State’s power to favor public .education, by funding it — a policy choice pursued in some . States for more than a century. See Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 489 n. 4 (1954). Indeed, in Norwqod v. Harrison, 413 U. S. 465, 462 (1973), we explicitly rejected .the argument that Pierce established a “right of private or. parochial schools to share with public schools in state, largesse,” noting that “[i]t is one thing to say that a State ipay. not.prohibit the maintenance of private schools and quite another -to say that such schools must, as a matter of equal, protection, receive state aid.” Yet, were we to accept appellees’ argument, an indigent parent could challenge the state. spolicy ..of favoring public rather than private schools, or of preferring instruction in English rather than German, on grounds identical in principle to those advanced here. We think it abundantly clear that a State is not required to show a compelling interest for its policy choice to favor normal childbirth any more, than, a State must so justify its election to fund public but not private education.
D
The question remains whether Connecticut’s regulation can be sustained under the less demanding test of rationality that applies in the absence of a suspect classification or the impingement of a fundamental right. This test requires that the distinction drawn between childbirth and nontherapeutic abortion by the regulation be “rationally related” to a “constitutionally permissible” purpose. Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U. S. 56, 74 (1972); Massachusetts Bd. of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U. S., at 314. We hold that the Connecticut funding scheme satisfies this standard.
Roe itself explicitly acknowledged the State’s strong interest in protecting the potential life of the fetus. That interest exists throughout the pregnancy, “grow[ing] in substantiality as the woman approaches term.” 410 U. S., at 162-163. Because the pregnant woman carries a potential human being, she “cannot be isolated in her privacy. . . . [Her] privacy is no longer sole and any right of privacy she possesses must be measured accordingly.” Id., at 159. The State unquestionably has a “strong and legitimate interest in encouraging normal childbirth,” Beal v. Doe, ante, at 446, an interest honored over the' centuries. Nor can there be any question that the Connecticut regulation rationally furthers that interest. The medical costs associated with childbirth are substantial, and have increased significantly in recent years. As recognized by the District Court in this case, such costs are significantly greater than those normally associated with elective abortions during the first trimester. The subsidizing of costs incident to childbirth is a rational means of encouraging childbirth.
We certainly are not unsympathetic to the plight of an indigent woman who desires an abortion, but “the Constitution does not provide judicial remedies for every social and economic ill,” Lindsey v. Normet, supra, at 74. Our cases uniformly have accorded the States a wider latitude in choosing among competing demands for limited public funds. In Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S., at 485, despite recognition that laws and regulations allocating welfare funds involve “the most basic economic needs of impoverished human beings,” we held that classifications survive equal protection challenge when a “reasonable basis” for the classification is shown. As the preceding discussion makes clear, the state interest in encouraging normal childbirth exceeds this minimal level.
The decision whether to expend state funds for nonthera-peutic abortion is fraught with judgments of policy and value over which opinions are sharply divided. Our conclusion that the Connecticut regulation is constitutional is not based on a weighing of its wisdom or social desirability, for this Court does not strike down state laws “because they may be unwise, improvident, or out of harmony with a particular school of thought.” Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 488 (1955), quoted in Dandridge v. Williams, supra, at 484. Indeed, when an issue involves policy choices as sensitive as those implicated by public funding of nontherapeutic abortions, the appropriate forum for their resolution in a democracy is the legislature. We should not forget that “legislatures are ultimate guardians of the liberties and welfare of the people in quite as great a degree as the courts.” Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. May, 194 U. S. 267, 270 (1904) (Holmes, J.).
In conclusion, we emphasize that our decision today does not proscribe government funding of nontherapeutic abortions. It is open to Congress to require provision of Medicaid benefits for such abortions as a condition of state participation in the Medicaid program. Also, under Title XIX as construed in Beal v. Doe, ante, p. 438, Connecticut is free — through normal democratic processes — to decide that such benefits should be provided. We hold only that the Constitution does not require a judicially imposed resolution of these difficult issues.
Ill
The District Court also invalidated Connecticut's requirements of prior written request by the pregnant woman and prior authorization by the Department of Social Services. Our analysis above rejects the basic premise that prompted invalidation of these procedural requirements. It is not unreasonable for a State to insist upon a prior showing of medical necessity to insure that its money is being spent only for authorized purposes. The simple answer to the argument that similar requirements are not imposed for other medical procedures is that such procedures do not involve the termination of a potential human life. In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976), we held that the woman's written consent to an abortion was not an impermissible burden under Roe. We think that decision is controlling on the similar issue here.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
[For dissenting opinion of Me. Justice Marshall, see ante, p. 454.]
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Blackmun, see ante, p. 462.]
The procedures governing abortions beyond the first trimester are not challenged here.
Section 275 provides in relevant part:
“The Department makes payment for abortion services under the Medical Assistance (Title XIX) Program when the following conditions are met:
"1. In the opinion of the attending physician the abortion is medically necessary. The term ‘Medically Necessary’ includes psychiatric necessity.
“2. The abortion is to be performed in an accredited hospital or licensed clinic when the patient is in the first trimester of pregnancy. . . .
“3. The written request for the abortion is submitted by the patient, and in the case of a minor, from the parent or guardian.
“4. Prior authorization for the abortion is secured from the Chief of Medical Services, Division of Health Services, Department of Social Services.”
See n. 4, infra.
At the time this action was filed, Mary Poe, a 16-year-old high school junior, had already obtained an abortion at a Connecticut hospital. Apparently because of Poe’s inability to obtain a certificate of medical necessity, the hospital was denied reimbursement by the Department of Social Services. As a result, Poe was being pressed to pay the hospital bill of $244. Susan Roe, an unwed mother of three children, was unable to obtain an abortion because of her physician’s refusal to certify that the procedure was medically necessary. By consent, a temporary restraining order was entered by the District Court enjoining the Connecticut officials from refusing to pay for Roe’s abortion. After the remand from the Court of Appeals, the District Court issued temporary restraining orders covering three additional women. Roe v. Norton, 408 F. Supp. 660, 663 (1975).
The District Court’s judgment and order, entered on January 16, 1976, were not stayed. On January 26, 1976, the Department of Social Services revised § 275 to allow reimbursement for nontherapeutic abortions without prior authorization or consent. The fact that this revision was made retroactive to January 16, 1976, suggests that the revision was made only for the purpose of interim compliance with the District Court’s judgment and order, which were entered the same date. No suggestion of mootness has been made by any of the parties, and this appeal was taken and submitted on the theory that Connecticut desires to reinstate the invalidated regular tion. Under these circumstances, the subsequent revision of the regulation does not render the case moot. In any event, there would remain the denial of reimbursement to Mary Poe, and similarly situated members of the class, under the prerevision regulation. See 380 F. Supp., at 730 n. 3. The State has asserted no Eleventh Amendment defense to this relief sought by Poe and those whom she represents.
Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S. 371 (1971), cited by appellees, is not to the contrary. There the Court invalidated under the Due Process Clause “certain state procedures for the commencement of litigation, including requirements for payment of court fees and costs for service of process,” restricting the ability of indigent persons to bring an action for divorce. Id., at 372. The Court held:
“[G]iven the basic position of the marriage relationship in this society’s hierarchy of values and the concomitant state monopolization of the means for legally dissolving this relationship, due process does prohibit a State from denying, solely because of inability to pay, access to its courts to individuals who seek judicial dissolution of their marriages.” Id,., at 374. Because Connecticut has made no attempt to monopolize the means for terminating pregnancies through abortion the present case is easily distinguished from Boddie. See also United States v. Kras, 409 U. S. 434 (1973); Ortwein v. Schwab, 410 U. S. 656 (1973).
In eases such as Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956) and Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353 (1963), the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause requires States that allow appellate review of criminal convictions to .provide indigent defendants with trial transcripts and appellate counsel. These cases are grounded in the criminal justice system, a governmental monopoly in which participation is compelled. Cf. n. 5, supra. Our subsequent decisions have made it clear that the principles underlying Griffin and Douglas do not extend to legislative classifications generally.
A woman has at least an equal right to choose to carry her fetus to term as to choose to abort it. Indeed, the right of procreation without state interference has long been recognized as “one of the basic civil rights of man . . . fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.” Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 17. S. 535, 541 (1942).
Appellees rely on Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969), and Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U. S. 250 (1974). In those cases durational residence requirements for the receipt of public benefits were found to be unconstitutional because they “penalized” the exercise of the constitutional right to travel interstate.
Appellees’ reliance on the penalty analysis of Shapiro and Maricopa County is misplaced. In our view there is only a semantic difference between appellees’ assertion that the Connecticut law unduly interferes with a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy and their assertion that it penalizes the exercise of that right. Penalties are most familiar to the criminal law, where criminal sanctions are imposed as a consequence of proscribed conduct. Shapiro and Maricopa County recognized that denial of welfare to one who had recently exercised the right to travel across state fines was sufficiently analogous to a criminal fine to justify strict judicial scrutiny.
If Connecticut denied general welfare benefits to all women who had obtained abortions and who were otherwise entitled to the benefits, we would have a close analogy to the facts in Shapiro, and strict scrutiny might be appropriate under either the penalty analysis or the analysis we have applied in our previous abortion decisions. But the claim here is that the State “penalizes” the woman’s decision to have an abortion by refusing to pay for it. Shapiro and Maricopa County did not hold that States would penalize the right to travel interstate by refusing to pay the bus fares of the indigent travelers. We find no support in the right-to-travel cases for the view that Connecticut must show a compelling interest for its decision not to fund elective abortions.
Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963), similarly is inapplicable here. In addition, that case was decided in the significantly different context of a constitutionally imposed “governmental obligation of neutrality” originating in the Establishment and Freedom of Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. Id., at 409.
In Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976), we drew this distinction, in sustaining the public financing of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. The Act provided public funds to some candidates but not to others. We rejected an asserted analogy to cases such as American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U. S. 767 (1974), which involved restrictions on access to the electoral process:
“These cases, however, dealt primarily with state laws requiring a candidate to satisfy certain requirements in order to have his name appear on the ballot. These were, of course, direct burdens not only on the candidate’s ability to run for office but also on the voter’s ability to voice preferences regarding representative government and contemporary issues. In contrast, the denial of public financing to some Presidential candidates is not restrictive of voters’ rights and less restrictive of candidates’. Subtitle H does not prevent any candidate from getting on the ballot or any voter from casting a vote for the candidate of his choice; the inability, if any, of minority party candidates to wage effective campaigns will derive not from lack of public funding but from their inability to raise private contributions. Any disadvantage suffered by operation of the eligibility formulae under Subtitle H is thus limited to the claimed denial of- the enhancement of opportunity to communicate with the electorate that the -formulae afford eligible candidates.” 424 U. S., at 94^95 (emphasis added; ’footnote-omitted).
In his dissenting opinion, MR. Justice Brennan rejects the’distinction, between direct state interference with a protected activity„and,.state .encouragement of an alternative activity and argues that our previous abortion decisions are inconsistent with today’s decision. But as stated above, all of those decisions involved laws that placed substantial státe-created obstacles in the pregnant woman’s path to an abortion. Our recent deep sion in Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S. 678 (1977), differs only in that it involved state-created restrictions on .access, to contraceptives, rather than abortions. Mr. Justice BRENNAN.jSiinply, asserts-that the Connecticut regulation “is an obvious impairment of the fundamental right established by Roe v. Wade.” Post, at 484-485. The only suggested source for this purportedly “obvious” conclusion.is a.,quotation. from Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U. S. 106 (1976). Yet, as Mr. Justice Blackmun was careful to note at the beginning of his opinion in Singleton, that case presented “issues [of standing] not going to the merits of this dispute.” Id., at 108. Significantly, Mr. Justice Brennan makes no effort to distinguish or explain the much more analogous authority of Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U. S. 455 (1973).
In addition to the direct interest in protecting the fetus, a State may have legitimate demographic concerns about its rate of population growth. Such concerns are basic to the future of the State and in some circumstances could constitute a substantial reason for departure from a position of neutrality between abortion and childbirth.
See generally Wilkinson, The Supreme Court, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Three Faces of Constitutional Equality, 61 Ya. L. Rev. 945, 998-1017 (1975).
Much of the rhetoric of the three dissenting opinions would be equally applicable if Connecticut had elected not to fund either abortions or childbirth. Yet none of the dissents goes so far as to argue that the Constitution requires such assistance for all indigent pregnant women. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed. If the case arose under the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, note the source as "United States Supreme Court". If the case arose in a state court, note the source as "State Supreme Court", "State Appellate Court", or "State Trial Court". Do not code the name of the state. | What is the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed? | [
"U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals",
"U.S. Court of International Trade",
"U.S. Court of Claims, Court of Federal Claims",
"U.S. Court of Military Appeals, renamed as Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces",
"U.S. Court of Military Review",
"U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals",
"U.S. Customs Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit",
"U.S. Tax Court",
"Temporary Emergency U.S. Court of Appeals",
"U.S. Court for China",
"U.S. Consular Courts",
"U.S. Commerce Court",
"Territorial Supreme Court",
"Territorial Appellate Court",
"Territorial Trial Court",
"Emergency Court of Appeals",
"Supreme Court of the District of Columbia",
"Bankruptcy Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit (includes the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia but not the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which has local jurisdiction)",
"Alabama Middle U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Northern U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Southern U.S. District Court",
"Alaska U.S. District Court",
"Arizona U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Western U.S. District Court",
"California Central U.S. District Court",
"California Eastern U.S. District Court",
"California Northern U.S. District Court",
"California Southern U.S. District Court",
"Colorado U.S. District Court",
"Connecticut U.S. District Court",
"Delaware U.S. District Court",
"District Of Columbia U.S. District Court",
"Florida Middle U.S. District Court",
"Florida Northern U.S. District Court",
"Florida Southern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Middle U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Northern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Guam U.S. District Court",
"Hawaii U.S. District Court",
"Idaho U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Central U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Northern U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Southern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Northern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Southern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Northern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Southern U.S. District Court",
"Kansas U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Western U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Middle U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Western U.S. District Court",
"Maine U.S. District Court",
"Maryland U.S. District Court",
"Massachusetts U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Western U.S. District Court",
"Minnesota U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Northern U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Southern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Western U.S. District Court",
"Montana U.S. District Court",
"Nebraska U.S. District Court",
"Nevada U.S. District Court",
"New Hampshire U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"New Mexico U.S. District Court",
"New York Eastern U.S. District Court",
"New York Northern U.S. District Court",
"New York Southern U.S. District Court",
"New York Western U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Middle U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"North Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Northern Mariana Islands U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Northern U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Southern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Northern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Western U.S. District Court",
"Oregon U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Middle U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Western U.S. District Court",
"Puerto Rico U.S. District Court",
"Rhode Island U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina U.S. District Court",
"South Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Middle U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Western U.S. District Court",
"Texas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Northern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Southern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Western U.S. District Court",
"Utah U.S. District Court",
"Vermont U.S. District Court",
"Virgin Islands U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Western U.S. District Court",
"Washington Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Washington Western U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Northern U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Western U.S. District Court",
"Wyoming U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana U.S. District Court",
"Washington U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"Alabama U.S. District Court",
"U.S. District Court for the Canal Zone",
"Georgia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois U.S. District Court",
"Indiana U.S. District Court",
"Iowa U.S. District Court",
"Michigan U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi U.S. District Court",
"Missouri U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey Eastern U.S. District Court (East Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New Jersey Western U.S. District Court (West Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New York U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina U.S. District Court",
"Ohio U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee U.S. District Court",
"Texas U.S. District Court",
"Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Norfolk U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky U.S. Distrcrict Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"California U.S. District Court",
"Florida U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas U.S. District Court",
"District of Orleans U.S. District Court",
"State Supreme Court",
"State Appellate Court",
"State Trial Court",
"Eastern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Middle Circuit (of the United States)",
"Southern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Alabama U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Alabama",
"Arkansas U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Arkansas",
"California U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of California",
"Connecticut U.S. Circuit for the District of Connecticut",
"Delaware U.S. Circuit for the District of Delaware",
"Florida U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Florida",
"Georgia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Georgia",
"Illinois U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Illinois",
"Indiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Indiana",
"Iowa U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Iowa",
"Kansas U.S. Circuit for the District of Kansas",
"Kentucky U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Kentucky",
"Louisiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Louisiana",
"Maine U.S. Circuit for the District of Maine",
"Maryland U.S. Circuit for the District of Maryland",
"Massachusetts U.S. Circuit for the District of Massachusetts",
"Michigan U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Michigan",
"Minnesota U.S. Circuit for the District of Minnesota",
"Mississippi U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Mississippi",
"Missouri U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Missouri",
"Nevada U.S. Circuit for the District of Nevada",
"New Hampshire U.S. Circuit for the District of New Hampshire",
"New Jersey U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New Jersey",
"New York U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New York",
"North Carolina U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of North Carolina",
"Ohio U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Ohio",
"Oregon U.S. Circuit for the District of Oregon",
"Pennsylvania U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Pennsylvania",
"Rhode Island U.S. Circuit for the District of Rhode Island",
"South Carolina U.S. Circuit for the District of South Carolina",
"Tennessee U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Tennessee",
"Texas U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Texas",
"Vermont U.S. Circuit for the District of Vermont",
"Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Virginia",
"West Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of West Virginia",
"Wisconsin U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Wisconsin",
"Wyoming U.S. Circuit for the District of Wyoming",
"Circuit Court of the District of Columbia",
"Nebraska U.S. Circuit for the District of Nebraska",
"Colorado U.S. Circuit for the District of Colorado",
"Washington U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Washington",
"Idaho U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Idaho",
"Montana U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Montana",
"Utah U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Utah",
"South Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of South Dakota",
"North Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of North Dakota",
"Oklahoma U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Oklahoma",
"Court of Private Land Claims"
] | [
43
] | sc_casesource |
HALBERT v. MICHIGAN
No. 03-10198.
Argued April 25, 2005
Decided June 23, 2005
David A. Moran argued the cause for petitioner. On the briefs were Mark Granzotto, Michael J. Steinberg, Kary L. Moss, Steven R. Shapiro, and Terence R. Flanagan.
Bernard Eric Restuccia, Assistant Attorney General of Michigan, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Michael A. Cox, Attorney General, and Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General.
Gene C. Schaerr argued the cause for the State of Louisiana et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance. With him on the brief were Charles C. Foti, Attorney General of Louisiana, Mimi Hunley, Assistant Attorney General, Julie E. Cullen, Linda T. Coberly, and Charles B. Klein, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, John W. Suthers of Colorado, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Steve Carter of Indiana, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Mike McGrath of Montana, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Jim Petro of Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Henry D. McMaster of South Carolina, Lawrence E. Long of South Dakota, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, and Rob McKenna of Washington.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Bar Association by Robert J. Grey, Jr., Seth P. Waxman, Paul R. Q. Wolfson, and Noah A Levine; and for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. by Anthony J. Frame, Sheila B. Scheuerman, and Paul M. Rashkind.
Timothy A Baughman filed a brief of amicus curiae for Wayne County, Michigan, urging affirmance.
Elliot H. Scherker and Karen M. Gottlieb filed a brief for the National Legal Aid & Defender Association as amicus curiae.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1994, Michigan voters approved a proposal amending the State Constitution to provide that “an appeal by an accused who pleads guilty or nolo contendere shall be by leave of the court.” Mich. Const., Art. 1, §20. Thereafter, “several Michigan state judges began to deny appointed appellate counsel to indigents” convicted by plea. Kowalski v. Tesmer, 543 U. S. 125, 127 (2004). Rejecting challenges based on the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, the Michigan Supreme Court upheld this practice, and its codification in Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 770.3a (West 2000). People v. Harris, 470 Mich. 882, 681 N. W. 2d 653 (2004); People v. Bulger, 462 Mich. 495, 511, 614 N. W. 2d 103, 110 (2000).
Petitioner Antonio Dwayne Halbert, convicted on his plea of nolo contendere, sought the appointment of counsel to assist him in applying for leave to appeal to the Michigan Court of Appeals. The state trial court and the Court of Appeals denied Halbert’s requests for appointed counsel, and the Michigan Supreme Court declined review.
Michigan Court of Appeals review of an application for leave to appeal, Halbert contends, ranks as a first-tier appellate proceeding requiring appointment of counsel under Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353 (1963). Michigan urges that appeal to the State Court of Appeals is discretionary and, for an appeal of that order, Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600 (1974), holds counsel need not be appointed. Earlier this Term, in Kowalski v. Tesmer, this Court, for prudential reasons, declined to reach the classification question posed by Michigan’s system for appellate review following a plea of guilty, guilty but mentally ill, or nolo contendere. Today, we reach the classification question and conclude that Hal-bert’s case is properly ranked with Douglas rather than Ross. Accordingly, we hold that the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses require the appointment of counsel for defendants, convicted on their pleas, who seek access to first-tier review in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
I
The Federal Constitution imposes on the States no obligation to provide appellate review of criminal convictions. McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684, 687 (1894). Having provided such an avenue, however, a State may not “bolt the door to equal justice” to indigent defendants. Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 24 (1956) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment); see id., at 23 (same) (“[W]hen a State deems it wise and just that convictions be susceptible to review by an appellate court, it cannot by force of its exactions draw a line which precludes convicted indigent persons... from securing such . . . review.”). Griffin held that, when a State conditions an appeal from a conviction on the provision of a trial transcript, the State must furnish free transcripts to indigent defendants who seek to appeal. Id., at 16-20 (plurality opinion). Douglas relied on Griffin’s reasoning to hold that, in first appeals as of right, States must appoint counsel to represent indigent defendants. 372 U. S., at 357. Ross held, however, that a State need not appoint counsel to aid a poor person in discretionary appeals to the State’s highest court, or in petitioning for review in this Court. 417 U. S., at 610-612, 615-618.
Cases on appeal barriers encountered by persons unable to pay their own way, we have observed, “cannot be resolved by resort to easy slogans or pigeonhole analysis.” M. L. B. v. S. L. J., 519 U. S. 102, 120 (1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). Our decisions in point reflect “both equal protection and due process concerns.” Ibid. “The equal protection concern relates to the legitimacy of fencing out would-be appellants based solely on their inability to pay core costs,” while “[t]he due process concern homes in on the essential fairness of the state-ordered proceedings.” Ibid.; see also Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U. S. 387, 405 (1985).
Two considerations were key to our decision in Douglas that a State is required to appoint counsel for an indigent defendant’s first-tier appeal as of right. First, such an appeal entails an adjudication on the “merits.” 372 U. S., at 357. Second, first-tier review differs from subsequent appellate stages “at which the claims have once been presented by [appellate counsel] and passed upon by an appellate court.” Id., at 356. Under the California system at issue in Douglas, the first-tier appellate court independently examined the record to determine whether to appoint counsel. Id., at 355. When a defendant able to retain counsel pursued an appeal, the Douglas Court observed, “the appellate court passe[d] on the merits of [the] case only after having the full benefit of written briefs and oral argument by counsel.” Id., at 356. In contrast, when a poor person appealed, “the appellate court [wa]s forced to prejudge the merits [of the case] before it c[ould] even determine whether counsel should be provided.” Ibid.
In Ross, we explained why the rationale of Douglas did not extend to the appointment of counsel for an indigent seeking to pursue a second-tier discretionary appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court or, thereafter, certiorari review in this Court. The North Carolina Supreme Court, in common with this Court we perceived, does not sit as an error-correction instance. 417 U. S., at 615. Principal criteria for state high court review, we noted, included “whether the subject matter of the appeal has significant public interest, whether the cause involves legal principles of major significance to the jurisprudence of the State, [and] whether the decision below is in probable conflict” with the court’s precedent. Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted). Further, we pointed out, a defendant who had already benefited from counsel's aid in a first-tier appeal as of right would have, “at the very least, a transcript or other record of trial proceedings, a brief on his behalf in the Court of Appeals setting forth his claims of error, and in many cases an opinion by the Court of Appeals disposing of his case.” Ibid.
II
A
Michigan has a two-tier appellate system comprising the State Supreme Court and the intermediate Court of Appeals. The Michigan Supreme Court hears appeals by leave only. Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 770.3(6) (West Supp. 2004). Prior to 1994, the Court of Appeals adjudicated appeals as of right from all criminal convictions. Bulger, 462 Mich., at 503-504, 614 N. W. 2d, at 106-107. To reduce the workload of the Court of Appeals, a 1994 amendment to the Michigan Constitution changed the process for appeals following plea-based convictions. Id., at 504, 614 N. W. 2d, at 106-107. As amended, the State Constitution provides: “In every criminal prosecution, the accused shall have the right... to have an appeal as a matter of right, except as provided by law an appeal by an accused who pleads guilty or nolo contendere shall be by leave of the court.” Mich. Const., Art. 1, §20.
A defendant convicted by plea who seeks review in the Michigan Court of Appeals must now file an application for leave to appeal pursuant to Mich. Ct. Rule 7.205 (2005). In response, the Court of Appeals may, among other things, “grant or deny the application; enter a final decision; [or] grant other relief.” Rule 7.205(D)(2). If the court grants leave, “the case proceeds as an appeal of right.” Rule 7.205(D)(3). The parties agree that the Court of Appeals, in its orders denying properly filed applications for leave, uniformly cites “lack of merit in the grounds presented” as the basis for its decision. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 21-22,24, 39.
Under Michigan law, most indigent defendants convicted by plea must proceed pro se in seeking leave to appeal. Michigan Comp. Laws Ann. § 770.3a (West 2000) provides, in relevant part, that a “defendant who pleads guilty, guilty but mentally ill, or nolo contendere shall not have appellate counsel appointed for review of the defendant’s conviction or sentence,” except that:
“(2) The trial court shall appoint appellate counsel for an indigent defendant [if the] prosecuting attorney seeks leave to appeal[, the] defendant’s sentence exceeds the upper limit of the minimum sentence range of the applicable sentencing guidelines[, the] court of appeals or the supreme court grants the defendant’s application for leave to appeal[, or the] defendant seeks leave to appeal a conditional plea....
“(3) The trial court may appoint appellate counsel [if the] defendant seeks leave to appeal a sentence based upon an alleged improper scoring of an offense variable or a prior record variable[, the] defendant objected to the scoring or otherwise preserved the matter for appeal[, and the] sentence imposed by the court constitutes an upward departure from the upper limit of the minimum sentence range that the defendant alleges should have been scored.” § 770.3a(lM3).
In People v. Bulger, the Michigan Supreme Court considered whether the Federal Constitution secures a right to appointed counsel for plea-convicted defendants seeking review in the Court of Appeals. 462 Mich., at 511, 614 N. W. 2d, at 110. Recognizing Douglas and Ross as the guiding decisions, 462 Mich., at 511-516, 614 N. W. 2d, at 110-112, the State Supreme Court concluded that appointment of counsel is not required for several reasons: Court of Appeals review following plea-based convictions is by leave and is thus “discretionary,” id., at 506-508, 519, 614 N. W. 2d, at 108, 113; “[p]lea proceedings are... shorter, simpler, and more routine than trials,” id., at 517,614 N. W. 2d, at 112; and by entering a plea, a defendant “accede[s] to the state’s fundamental interest in finality,” ibid. In People v. Harris, the Michigan Supreme Court, adhering to Bulger, upheld the constitutionality of § 770.8a. 470 Mich. 882, 681 N. W. 2d 653.
B
Petitioner Halbert pleaded nolo contendere to two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct. App. 23. During Halbert’s plea colloquy, the trial court asked Halbert, “You understand if I accept your plea you are giving up or waiving any claim of an appeal as of right,” and Halbert answered, “Yes, sir.” Id., at 22. The court then advised Hal-bert of certain instances in which, although the appeal would not be as of right, the court nevertheless “must” or “may” appoint appellate counsel. The court did not tell Halbert, however, that it could not appoint counsel in any other circumstances, including Halbert’s own case:
“THE COURT: You understand if I accept your plea and you are financially unable to retain a lawyer to represent you on appeal, the Court must appoint an attorney for you if the sentence I impose exceeds the sentencing guidelines or you seek leave to appeal a conditional plea or the prosecutor seeks leave to appeal or the Court of Appeals or Supreme Court grants you leave to appeal. Under those conditions I must appoint an attorney, do you understand that?
“THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
“THE COURT: Further, if you are financially unable to retain a lawyer to represent you on appeal, the Court may appoint an attorney for you if you allege an improper scoring of the sentencing guidelines, you object to the scoring at the time of the sentencing and the sentence I impose exceeds the sentencing guidelines as you allege it should be scored. Under those conditions I may appoint an attorney for you, do you understand that?
“THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.” Id., at 22-23 (alteration omitted).
At Halbert’s sentencing hearing, defense counsel requested that the sentences for the two counts run concurrently, but urged no error in the determination of Halbert’s exposure under the Michigan sentencing guidelines. Id., at 33. The trial court set Halbert’s sentences to run consecutively. Id., at 35. Halbert submitted a handwritten motion to withdraw his plea the day after sentencing. Denying the motion, the trial court stated that Halbert’s “proper remedy is to appeal to the Michigan Court of Appeals.” Id., at 43.
Twice thereafter and to no avail, Halbert asked the trial court to appoint counsel to help him prepare an application for leave to appeal to the intermediate appellate court. He submitted his initial request on a form provided by the State. Id., at 46-50, 53-57. The trial court denied the request. Id., at 44-45, 51-52. Halbert next sent the trial court a letter and accompanying motion, again seeking appointed counsel. Id., at 58. Halbert stated that his sentence had been misscored and that he needed the aid of counsel to preserve the issue before undertaking an appeal. Id., at 58, 61-62. Halbert also related that he had “required special education due to learning disabilities,” id., at 61, and was “mentally impaired,” id., at 62. To prepare his pro se filings, he noted, he was obliged to rely on the assistance of fellow inmates. Id., at 61. The trial court denied Halbert’s motion; citing Bulger, the court stated that Halbert “does not have a constitutional. . . right to appointment of appellate counsel to pursue a discretionary appeal.” App. 64.
Again using a form supplied by the State and acting pro se, Halbert filed an application for leave to appeal. Id., at 66-71. He asserted claims of sentencing error and ineffective assistance of counsel, id., at 68, and sought, inter alia, remand for appointment of appellate counsel and resentenc-ing, id., at 71. In a standard form order, the Court of Appeals denied Halbert’s application “for lack of merit in the grounds presented.” Id., at 72.
The State Supreme Court, dividing 5 to 2, denied Halbert’s application for leave to appeal to that court. The dissenting justices would have provided for the appointment of counsel, and would have allowed counsel to file a supplemental leave application prior to the Court of Appeals’ reconsideration of Halbert’s pleas. Id., at 84.
We granted certiorari, 543 U. S. 1042 (2005), to consider whether the denial of appointed counsel to Halbert violated the Fourteenth Amendment. We now vacate the judgment of the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Ill
Petitioner Halbert’s case is framed by two prior decisions of this Court concerning state-funded appellate counsel, Douglas and Ross. The question before us is essentially one of classification: With which of those decisions should the instant case be aligned? We hold that Douglas provides the controlling instruction. Two aspects of the Michigan Court of Appeals’ process following plea-based convictions lead us to that conclusion. First, in determining how to dispose of an application for leave to appeal, Michigan’s intermediate appellate court looks to the merits of the claims made in the application. Second, indigent defendants pursuing first-tier review in the Court of Appeals are generally ill equipped to represent themselves.
A defendant who pleads guilty or nolo contendere in a Michigan court does not thereby forfeit all opportunity for appellate review. Although he relinquishes access to an appeal as of right, he is entitled to apply for leave to appeal, and that entitlement is officially conveyed to him. See supra, at 612; Mich. Ct. Rule 6.425(E)(2)(a) (2005) (“[T]he defendant is entitled to file an application for leave to appeal.”); see also Advice Concerning Right To Appeal, ¶ 1 (“You are entitled to file an application for leave to appeal with the Court of Appeals.”), see supra, at 615, n. 1. Of critical importance, the tribunal to which he addresses his application, the Michigan Court of Appeals, unlike the Michigan Supreme Court, sits as an error-correction instance.
The Court of Appeals may respond to a leave application in a number of ways. It “may grant or deny the application; enter a final decision; grant other relief; request additional material from the record; or require a certified concise statement of proceedings and facts from the court... whose order is being appealed.” Mich. Ct. Rule 7.205(D)(2) (2005). When the court denies leave using the stock phrase “for lack of merit in the grounds presented,” its disposition may not be equivalent to a “final decision” on the merits, i e., the disposition may simply signal that the court found the matters asserted unworthy of the expenditure of further judicial resources. But the court’s response to the leave application by any of the specified alternatives — including denial of leave — necessarily entails some evaluation of the merits of the applicant’s claims.
Michigan urges that review in the Court of Appeals following a plea-based conviction is as “discretionary” as review in the Michigan Supreme Court because both require an application for leave to appeal. See Bulger, 462 Mich., at 506-508, 519, 614 N. W. 2d, at 108, 118; Brief for Respondent 31-34. Therefore, Michigan maintains, Ross is dispositive of this case. The Court in Ross, however, recognized that leave-granting determinations by North Carolina’s Supreme Court turned on considerations other than the commission of error by a lower court, e. g., the involvement of a matter of “significant public interest.” See supra, at 611. Michigan’s Supreme Court, too, sits not to correct errors in individual cases, but to decide matters of larger public import. See Mich. Ct. Rule 7.302(B)(2)-(3) (2005) (criteria for granting leave to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court include whether a case presents an “issue [of] significant public interest” or “involves legal principles of major significance to the state’s jurisprudence”); Great Lakes Realty Corp. v. Pe ters, 336 Mich. 325, 328-329, 57 N. W. 2d 901, 903 (1953) (equating denial of an application for leave to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court with denial of a petition for writ of certiorari in this Court); see also this Court’s Rule 10 (considerations guiding decision whether to grant certiorari). By contrast, the Michigan Court of Appeals, because it is an error-correction instance, is guided in responding to leave to appeal applications by the merits of the particular defendant’s claims, not by the general importance of the questions presented.
Whether formally categorized as the decision of an appeal or the disposal of a leave application, the Court of Appeals’ ruling on a plea-convicted defendant’s claims provides the first, and likely the only, direct review the defendant’s conviction and sentence will receive. Parties like Halbert, however, are disarmed in their endeavor to gain first-tier review. As the Court in Ross emphasized, a defendant seeking State Supreme Court review following a first-tier appeal as of right earlier had the assistance of appellate counsel. The attorney appointed to serve at the intermediate appellate court level will have reviewed the trial court record, researched the legal issues, and prepared a brief reflecting that review and research. 417 U. S., at 615. The defendant seeking second-tier review may also be armed with an opinion of the intermediate appellate court addressing the issues counsel raised. A first-tier review applicant, forced to act pro se, will face a record unreviewed by appellate counsel, and will be equipped with no attorney’s brief prepared for, or reasoned opinion by, a court of review.
The Bulger court concluded that “a pro se defendant seeking discretionary review” in the Court of Appeals is adequately armed because he “will have the benefit of a transcript, trial counsel’s framing of the issues in [a] motion to withdraw, and the trial court’s ruling on the motion.” 462 Mich., at 518, 614 N. W. 2d, at 113; see also Mich. Ct. Rule 6.005(H)(4) (2005) (trial counsel must file “postconviction motions the lawyer deems appropriate, including motions . . . to withdraw plea, or for resentencing”); post, at 634-635 (Thomas, J., dissenting). But we held in Swenson v. Bosler, 386 U. S. 258 (1967) (per curiam), that comparable materials prepared by trial counsel are no substitute for an appellate lawyer’s aid. There, the Missouri court reviewing an indigent’s post-trial appeal had before it a transcript plus trial counsel’s “notice of appeal and .. . motion for new trial which specifically designated the issues which could be considered on direct appeal.” Id., at 259. The absence of counsel in these circumstances, Bosler held, “violated [the defendant’s] Fourteenth Amendment rights, as defined in Douglas.” Ibid. Adhering to Douglas, we explained that “[t]he assistance of appellate counsel in preparing and submitting a brief to the appellate court which defines the legal principles upon which the claims of error are based and which designates and interprets the relevant portions of the [record] may well be of substantial benefit to the defendant [and] may not be denied . .. solely because of his indigency.” 386 U. S., at 259. Although Bosler involved a post-trial rather than postplea appeal, the Court recognized that a transcript and motion by trial counsel are not adequate stand-ins for an appellate lawyer’s review of the record and legal research. Without guides keyed to a court of review, a pro se applicant’s entitlement to seek leave to appeal to Michigan’s intermediate court may be more formal than real.
Persons in Halbert’s situation are particularly handicapped as self-representatives. As recounted earlier this Term, “[approximately 70% of indigent defendants represented by appointed counsel plead guilty, and 70% of those convicted are incarcerated.” Kowalski, 543 U. S., at 140 (GINSBURG, J., dissenting). “[Sixty-eight percent] of the state prison populatio[n] did not complete high school, and many lack the most basic literacy skills.” Ibid, (citation omitted). “[S]even out of ten inmates fall in the lowest two out of five levels of literacy — marked by an . inability to do such basic tasks as write a brief letter to explain an error on a credit card bill, use a bus schedule, or state in writing an argument made in a lengthy newspaper article.” Ibid. Many, Halbert among them, have learning disabilities and mental impairments. See U. S. Dept, of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, A. Beck & L. Mafuschak, Mental Health Treatment in State Prisons, 2000, pp. 3-4 (July 2001), http://www.ojp.usdo;]'. gov/bjs/pub/pdf/mhtspOO.pdf (identifying as mentally ill some 16% of state prisoners and noting that 10% receive psychotropic medication).
Navigating the appellate process without a lawyer’s assistance is a perilous endeavor for a layperson, and well beyond the competence of individuals, like Halbert, who have little education, learning disabilities, and mental impairments. See Evitts, 469 U. S., at 393 (“[T]he services of a lawyer will for virtually every layman be necessary to present an appeal in a form suitable for appellate consideration on the merits.”); Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, 345 (1963) (“Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law.” (quoting Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 69 (1932))). Appeals by defendants convicted on their pleas may involve “myriad and often complicated” substantive issues, Kowalski, 543 U. S., at 145 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting), and may be “no less complex than other appeals,” id., at 141 (same). One who pleads guilty or nolo contendere may still raise on appeal
“constitutional defects that are irrelevant to his factual guilt, double jeopardy claims requiring no further factual record, jurisdictional defects, challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence at the preliminary examination, preserved entrapment claims, mental competency claims, factual basis claims, claims that the state had no right to proceed in the first place, including claims that a defendant was charged under an inapplicable statute, and claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.” Ibid. (quoting Bulger, 462 Mich., at 561, 614 N. W. 2d, at 133-134 (Cavanagh, J., dissenting); citations omitted).
Michigan’s very procedures for seeking leave to appeal after sentencing on a plea, moreover, may intimidate the un-counseled. See Kowalski, 543 U. S., at 141-142 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Michigan Ct. Rule 7.205(A) (2005) requires the applicant to file for leave to appeal within 21 days after the trial court’s entry of judgment. “The defendant must submit five copies of the application ‘stating the date and nature of the judgment or order appealed from; concisely reciting the appellant’s allegations of error and the relief sought; [and] setting forth a concise argument ... in support of the appellant’s position on each issue.’” Kowalski, 543 U. S., at 141 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (quoting Rule 7.205(B)(1)). Michigan does provide “a three-page form application accompanied by two pages of instructions for defendants seeking leave to appeal after sentencing on a . . . plea. But th[e] form is unlikely to provide adequate aid to an indigent and poorly educated defendant.” Ibid. It directs the defendant to provide information such as “charge code(s), MCL eitation/PACC Code,” state the issues and facts relevant to the appeal, and “‘state the law that supports your position and explain how the law applies to the facts of your case.’ ” Id., at 141-142 (quoting Application for Leave To Appeal After Sentencing on Plea of Guilty or Nolo Contendere (rev. Oct. 2003), http://courts.michigan.gov/scao/ eourtforms/appeals/cc405.pdf; some internal quotation marks omitted). “This last task would not be onerous for an applicant familiar with law school examinations, but it is a tall order for a defendant of marginal literacy.” Kowalski, 543 U. S., at 142 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).
While the State has a legitimate interest in reducing the workload of its judiciary, providing indigents with appellate counsel will yield applications easier to comprehend. Michigan’s Court of Appeals would still have recourse to summary denials of leave applications in cases not warranting further review. And when a defendant’s case presents no genuinely arguable issue, appointed counsel may so inform the court. See Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738, 744 (1967) (“[I]f counsel finds [the] case to be wholly frivolous, after a conscientious examination of it, he should so advise the court and request permission to withdraw,” filing “a brief referring to anything in the record that might arguably support the appeal.”); Tr. of Oral Arg. 27 (“[I]n a significant percentage of the cases ...[,] after reviewing the case, the appellate counsel then concludes that there is no merit. . . , at which point then either a motion to withdraw may be filed or . .. the Michigan equivalent] of an Anders brief.”).
Michigan contends that, even if Halbert had a constitutionally guaranteed right to appointed counsel for first-level appellate review, he waived that right by entering a plea of nolo contendere. We disagree. At the time he entered his plea, Halbert, in common with other defendants convicted on their pleas, had no recognized right to appointed appellate counsel he could elect to forgo. Moreover, as earlier observed, the trial court did not tell Halbert, simply and directly, that in his case, there would be no access to appointed counsel. See supra, at 614-615; cf. Iowa v. Tovar, 541 U. S. 77, 81 (2004) (“Waiver of the right to counsel, as of constitutional rights in the criminal process generally, must be a ‘knowing, intelligent ac[t] done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances.’” (quoting Brady v. United States, 397 U. S. 742, 748 (1970))).
* * *
For the reasons stated, we vacate the judgment of the Michigan Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Michigan provided Halbert with a form titled “Notice of Rights After Sentencing (After Plea of Guilty/Nolo Contendere) and Request for Appointment of Attorney.” App. 46-50,53-57. Resembling the advice conveyed to Halbert by the trial judge, the form described the circumstances in which counsel must or may be appointed, but did not expressly state that, absent such circumstances, counsel would not be provided. As revised, Michigan’s notice form now states: “You are not entitled to have a lawyer appointed at public expense to assist you in filing an application for leave to appeal . . . .” Advice Concerning Right To Appeal After Plea of Guilty/Nolo Contendere (rev. June 2004), available at http^/courts. michigan.gov/scao/courtforms/appeals/cc265b.pdf (all Internet materials as visited June 21, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file).
The question at hand, all Members of the Court agree, is whether this case should be bracketed with Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353 (1963), because appointed counsel is sought for initial review before an intermediate appellate court, or with Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600 (1974), because a plea-convicted defendant must file an application for leave to appeal. See post, at 628 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (“Michigan’s system bears some similarity to the state systems at issue in both Douglas and Ross.”).
Both the majority and the dissent in People v. Bulger, 462 Mich. 495, 614 N. W. 2d 103 (2000), described the State’s intermediate appellate court’s function as error correction. Compare id., at 516-518, 614 N. W. 2d, at 112-113 (in the majority’s view, the Court of Appeals could perform its review function, despite the defendant’s lack of representation, because plea-convicted defendants have ample aid for preservation of their claims in the trial court and ineffective assistance of counsel should be readily apparent to the Court of Appeals from the record), with id., at 543, 614 N. W. 2d, at 125 (Cavanagh, J., dissenting) (“[T]he function of our Court of Appeals is reviewing the merits and correcting errors made by the lower courts.”).
The Bulger opinions nowhere describe the discretion exercised by the Michigan Court of Appeals as so unconstrained that it may “deny leave [to appeal] for any reason, or for no reason at all.” Post, at 633 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Compare Bulger, 462 Mich., at 511, 614 N. W. 2d, at 110 (appeal to intermediate court is discretionary because a defendant must “obtai[n] leave”); id., at 506-508, 519, 614 N. W. 2d, at 108, 113, with id., at 542-543, 614 N. W. 2d, at 125 (Cavanagh, J., dissenting) (Court of Appeals may deny leave to appeal where error is not outcome determinative).
This assumes that trial counsel -will recognize, in a postconviction motion, any issues appropriate for preservation for appellate review. A lawyer may not, however, perceive his own errors or the need for such a motion. Defense counsél here, for example, whose performance Halbert alleged to be ineffective, apparently did not assist Halbert in preparing and filing his motion to withdraw his plea. See supra, at 615-616.
“No one questions,” the Bulger court stated, “that the appointment of appellate counsel at state expense would be more efficient and helpful not only to defendants, but also to the appellate courts.” 462 Mich., at 520, 614 N. W. 2d, at 114.
Assuming, as Justice Thomas suggests, that whether Michigan law conferred on Halbert a postplea right to appointed appellate counsel is irrelevant to whether Halbert waived a federal constitutional right to such counsel, post, at 639-640, the remainder of the dissent’s argument slips from our grasp, see post, at 640-641. No conditional waiver — “on[e] in which a defendant agrees that, if he has ... a right, he waives it,” post, at 640 — is at issue here. Further, nothing in Halbert’s plea colloquy indicates that he waived an “unsettled,” but assumed, right to the assistance of appointed appellate counsel, postplea. See post, at 640-641.
We are unpersuaded by the suggestion that, because a defendant may be able to waive his right to appeal entirely, Michigan can consequently exact from him a waiver of the right to government-funded appellate counsel. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 14. Many legal rights are “presumptively waivable,” post, at 637 (Thomas, J., dissenting), and if Michigan were to require defendants to waive all forms of appeal as a condition of entering a plea, that condition would operate against moneyed and impoverished defendants alike. A required waiver of the right to appointed counsel’s assistance when applying for leave to appeal to the Michigan Court of Appeals, however, would accomplish the very result worked by Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 770.3a (West 2000): It would leave indigents without access to counsel in that narrow range of circumstances in which, our decisions hold, the State must affirmatively ensure that poor defendants receive the legal assistance necessary to provide meaningful access to the judicial system. See Douglas, 372 U. S., at 357-358; M. L. B. v. S. L. J., 519 U. S. 102, 110-113 (1996); cf. Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 23 (1956) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment) (ordinarily, “a State need not equalize economic conditions” between criminal defendants of lesser and greater wealth). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state or territory of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed. | What is the state of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
26
] | sc_casesourcestate |
ALTRIA GROUP, INC., et al. v. GOOD et al.
No. 07-562.
Argued October 6, 2008
Decided December 15, 2008
Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Scalia and Auto, JJ., joined, post, p. 91.
Theodore B. Olson argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Mark A. Perry, Amir C. Tayrani, Kenneth J. Parsigian, Kenneth S. Getter, and Guy Miller Struve.
David C. Frederick argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Mark L. Evans, Gerard V. Mantese, Mark Rossman, Thomas V. Urmy, Jr., Todd S. FLeyman, and Samuel W. Lanham, Jr.
Douglas Hallward-Driemeier argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae in support of respondents. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Garre, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Assistant Attorney General Hertz, Mark B. Stern, and Alisa B. Klein
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America by Jeffrey A. Lamken, Allyson N. Ho, Robin S. Conrad, and Amar D. Sarwal; for the National Association of Manufacturers by Peter A. Barile III, Jan S. Amundson, and Quentin Riegel; for the Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc., by John M. Thomas; and for the Washington Legal Foundation by Daniel J. Popeo and Richard A. Samp.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of Maine et al. by G. Steven Rowe, Attorney General of Maine, Paul Stern, Deputy Attorney General, Linda Conti, Chief, Consumer Protection Division, and Jennifer Willis and Carolyn Silsby, Assistant Attorneys General, by Peter J. Niekles, Interim Attorney General of the District of Columbia, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Talis J. Colberg of Alaska, Terry Goddard of Arizona, Dustin McDaniel of Arkansas, Edmund G. Brown, Jr., of California, John W. Suthers of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Joseph R. Biden III of Delaware, Bill McCollum of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Steve Carter of Indiana, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Stephen N. Six of Kansas, Jack Conway of Kentucky, James D. Caldwell of Louisiana, Douglas F. Gansler of Maryland, Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, Lori Swanson of Minnesota, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Mike McGrath of Montana, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Kelly A. Ayotte of New Hampshire, Anne Milgram of New Jersey, Gary K. King of New Mexico, Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Nancy H. Rogers of Ohio, IV A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, Patrick C. Lynch of Rhode Island, Henry D. McMaster of South Carolina, Lawrence E. Long of South Dakota, Robert E. Cooper, Jr., of Tennessee, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Robert M. McKenna of Washington, Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia, J. B. Van Ho lien of Wisconsin, and Bruce A. Salzburg of Wyoming; for the American Medical Association et al. by Gerson H. Smoger; for Former Commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission by Robert L. King; for the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition et al. by Kathleen Hoke Dachille; for the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium et al. by David C. Vladeck, Leslie A. Brueckner, and Julie Nepveu; and for Allan M. Brandt et al. by Robert S. Peck and Francine A. Hochberg.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for Constitutional and Administrative Law Scholars by Ernest A. Young, pro se, and Erin Glenn Busby; and for Former Commissioners et al. of the Federal Trade Commission by Michael S. Fried, Christian G. Vergonis, and Robert T. Smith.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondents, who have for over 15 years smoked “light” cigarettes manufactured by petitioners, Philip Morris USA, Inc., and its parent company, Altria Group, Inc., claim that petitioners violated the Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act (MUTPA). Specifically, they allege that petitioners’ advertising fraudulently conveyed the message that their “light” cigarettes deliver less tar and nicotine to consumers than regular brands despite petitioners’ knowledge that the message was untrue. Petitioners deny the charge, asserting that their advertisements were factually accurate. The merits of the dispute are not before us because the District Court entered summary judgment in favor of petitioners on the ground that respondents’ state-law claim is pre-empted by the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, as amended (Labeling Act or Act). The Court of Appeals reversed that judgment, and we granted certiorari to review its holding that the Labeling Act neither expressly nor impliedly pre-empts respondents’ fraud claim. We affirm.
I
Respondents are Maine residents and longtime smokers of Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights cigarettes, which are manufactured by petitioners. Invoking the diversity jurisdiction of the Federal District Court, respondents filed a complaint alleging that petitioners deliberately deceived them about the true and harmful nature of “light” cigarettes in violation of the MUTPA, Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 5, § 207 (Supp. 2008). Respondents claim that petitioners fraudulently marketed their cigarettes as being “light” and containing “ ‘[Lowered [t]ar and [njicotine’ ” to convey to consumers that they deliver less tar and nicotine and are therefore less harmful than regular cigarettes. App. 28a-29a.
Respondents acknowledge that testing pursuant to the Cambridge Filter Method indicates that tar and nicotine yields of Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights are lower than those of regular cigarettes. Id., at 30a. Respondents allege, however, that petitioners have known at all relevant times that human smokers unconsciously engage in compensatory behaviors not registered by Cambridge Filter Method testing that negate the effect of the tar- and nicotine-reducing features of “light” cigarettes. Id., at 30a-31a. By covering filter ventilation holes with their lips or fingers, taking larger or more frequent puffs, and holding the smoke in their lungs for a longer period of time, smokers of “light” cigarettes unknowingly inhale as much tar and nicotine as do smokers of regular cigarettes. Ibid. “Light” cigarettes are in fact more harmful because the increased ventilation that results from their unique design features produces smoke that is more mutagenic per milligram of tar than the smoke of regular cigarettes. Id., at 31a-32a. Respondents claim that petitioners violated the MUTPA by fraudulently concealing that information and by affirmatively representing, through the use of “light” and “lowered tar and nicotine” descriptors, that their cigarettes would pose fewer health risks. Id., at 32a, 33a.
Petitioners moved for summary judgment on the ground that the Labeling Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1334(b), expressly preempts respondents’ state-law cause of action. Relying on our decisions in Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504 (1992), and Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly, 533 U. S. 525 (2001), the District Court concluded that respondents’ MUTPA claim is pre-empted. The court recast respondents’ claim as a failure-to-warn or warning neutralization claim of the kind pre-empted in Cipollone: The claim charges petitioners with “produc[ing] a product it knew contained hidden risks . . . not apparent or known to the consumer” — a claim that “runs to what [petitioners] actually said about Lights and what [respondents] claim they should have said.” 436 F. Supp. 2d 132, 151 (Me. 2006). And the difference between what petitioners said and what respondents would have them say is “ 'intertwined with the concern about cigarette smoking and health.’” Id., at 153 (quoting Reilly, 533 U. S., at 548). The District Court thus concluded that respondents’ claim rests on a state-law requirement based on smoking and health of precisely the kind that § 1334(b) pre-empts, and it granted summary judgment for petitioners.
Respondents appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed. The Court of Appeals first rejected the District Court’s characterization of respondents’ claim as a warning neutralization claim akin to the pre-empted claim in Cipollone. 501 F. 3d 29, 37, 40 (CA1 2007). Instead, the court concluded that respondents’ claim is in substance a fraud claim that alleges that petitioners falsely represented their cigarettes as “light” or having “lowered tar and nicotine” even though they deliver to smokers the same quantities of those components as do regular cigarettes. Id., at 36. “The fact that these alleged misrepresentations were unaccompanied by additional statements in the nature of a warning does not transform the claimed fraud into failure to warn” or warning neutralization. Id., at 42-43. Finding respondents’ claim indistinguishable from the non-pre-empted fraud claim at issue in Cipollone, the Court of Appeals held that it is not expressly pre-empted. The court also rejected petitioners’ argument that respondents’ claim is impliedly pre-empted because their success on that claim would stand as an obstacle to the purported policy of the FTC allowing the use of descriptive terms that convey Cambridge Filter Method test results. Accordingly, it reversed the judgment of the District Court.
In concluding that respondents’ claim is not expressly preempted, the Court of Appeals considered and rejected the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning in a similar case. 501 F. 3d, at 45. Unlike the court below, the Fifth Circuit likened the plaintiffs’ challenge to the use of “light” descriptors to Cipollone’s warning neutralization claim and thus found it expressly pre-empted. Brown v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 479 F. 3d 383, 392-393 (2007). We granted the petition for certiorari to resolve this apparent conflict. 552 U. S. 1162 (2008).
II
Article VI, cl. 2, of the Constitution provides that the laws of the United States “shall be the supreme Law of the Land;... any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.” Consistent with that command, we have long recognized that state laws that conflict with federal law are “without effect.” Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 746 (1981).
Our inquiry into the scope of a statute’s pre-emptive effect is guided by the rule that “‘[t]he purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone’ in every pre-emption case.” Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U. S. 470, 485 (1996) (quoting Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 375 U. S. 96, 103 (1963)). Congress may indicate pre-emptive intent through a statute’s express language or through its structure and purpose. See Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U. S. 519, 525 (1977). If a federal law contains an express pre-emption clause, it does not immediately end the inquiry because the question of the substance and scope of Congress’ displacement of state law still remains. Pre-emptive intent may also be inferred if the scope of the statute indicates that Congress intended federal law to occupy the legislative field, or if there is an actual conflict between state and federal law. Freightliner Corp. v. Myrick, 514 U. S. 280, 287 (1995).
When addressing questions of express or implied preemption, we begin our analysis “with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States [are] not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947). That assumption applies with particular force when Congress has legislated in a field traditionally occupied by the States. Lohr, 518 U. S., at 485; see also Reilly, 533 U. S., at 541-542 (“Because ‘federal law is said to bar state action in [a] fiel[d] of traditional state regulation,’ namely, advertising, we ‘wor[k] on the assumption that the historic police powers of the States [a]re not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that [is] the clear and manifest purpose of Congress’” (citation omitted)). Thus, when the text of a pre-emption clause is susceptible of more than one plausible reading, courts ordinarily “accept the reading that disfavors pre-emption.” Bates v. Dow Agrosciences LLC, 544 U. S. 431, 449 (2005).
Congress enacted the Labeling Act in 1965 in response to the Surgeon General’s determination that cigarette smoking is harmful to health. The Act required that every package of cigarettes sold in the United States contain a conspicuous warning, and it pre-empted state-law positive enactments that added to the federally prescribed warning. 79 Stat. 283. Congress amended the Labeling Act a few years later by enacting the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969. The amendments strengthened the language of the prescribed warning, 84 Stat. 88, and prohibited cigarette advertising in “any medium of electronic communication subject to [Federal Communications Commission] jurisdiction,” id., at 89. They also broadened the Labeling Act’s preemption provision. See Cipollone, 505 U. S., at 520 (plurality opinion) (discussing the difference in scope of the pre-' emption clauses of the 1965 and 1969 Acts). The Labeling Act has since been amended further to require cigarette manufacturers to include four more explicit warnings in their packaging and advertisements on a rotating basis.
The stated purpose of the Labeling Act is
“to establish a comprehensive Federal program to deal with cigarette labeling and advertising with respect to any relationship between smoking and health, whereby—
“(1) the public may be adequately informed that cigarette smoking may be hazardous to health by inclusion of a warning to that effect on each package of cigarettes; and
“(2) commerce and the national economy may be (A) protected to the maximum extent consistent with this declared policy and (B) not impeded by diverse, nonuniform, and confusing cigarette labeling and advertising regulations with respect to any relationship between smoking and health.” 79 Stat. 282, 15 U. S. C. § 1331.
The requirement that cigarette manufacturers include in their packaging and advertising the precise warnings mandated by Congress furthers the Act’s first purpose. And the Act’s pre-emption provisions promote its second purpose.
As amended, the Labeling Act contains two express preemption provisions. Section 5(a) protects cigarette manufacturers from inconsistent state labeling laws by prohibiting the requirement of additional statements relating to smoking and health on cigarette packages. 15 U. S. C. § 1334(a). Section 5(b), which is at issue in this case, provides that “[n]o requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this chapter.” § 1334(b).
Together, the labeling requirement and pre-emption provisions express Congress’ determination that the prescribed federal warnings are both necessary and sufficient to achieve its purpose of informing the public of the health consequences of smoking. Because Congress has decided that no additional warning statement is needed to attain that goal, States may not impede commerce in cigarettes by enforcing rules that are based on an assumption that the federal warnings are inadequate. Although both of the Act’s purposes are furthered by prohibiting States from supplementing the federally prescribed warning, neither would be served by limiting the States’ authority to prohibit deceptive statements in cigarette advertising. Petitioners acknowledge that “Congress had no intention of insulating tobacco companies from liability for inaccurate statements about the relationship between smoking and health.” Brief for Petitioners 28. But they maintain that Congress could not have intended to permit the enforcement of state fraud rules because doing so would defeat the Labeling Act’s purpose of preventing nonuniform state warning requirements. 15 U. S. C. § 1331. As we observed in Cipollone, however, fraud claims “rely only on a single, uniform standard: falsity.” 505 U. S., at 529 (plurality opinion).
Although it is clear that fidelity to the Act’s purposes does not demand the pre-emption of state fraud rules, the principal question that we must decide is whether the text of § 1334(b) nevertheless requires that result.
Ill
We have construed the operative phrases of § 1334(b) in two prior cases: Cipollone, 505 U. S. 504, and Reilly, 533 U. S. 525. On both occasions we recognized that the phrase “based on smoking and health” modifies the state-law rule at issue rather than a particular application of that rule.
In Cipollone, the plurality, which consisted of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices White, O’Connor, and Stevens, read the pre-emption provision in the 1969 amendments to the Labeling Act to pre-empt common-law rules as well as positive enactments. Unlike Justices Blackmun, Kennedy, and Souter, the plurality concluded that the provision does not preclude all common-law claims that have some relationship to smoking and health. 505 U. S., at 521-523. To determine whether a particular common-law claim is preempted, the plurality inquired “whether the legal duty that is the predicate of the common-law damages action constitutes a 'requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health . . . with respect to . . . advertising or promotion,’ giving that clause a fair but narrow reading.” Id., at 524.
Applying this standard, the plurality held that the plaintiff’s claim that cigarette manufacturers had fraudulently misrepresented and concealed a material fact was not preempted. That claim alleged a violation of the manufacturers’ duty not to deceive — a duty that is not “based on” smoking and health. Id., at 528-529. Respondents in this case also allege a violation of the duty not to deceive as that duty is codified in the MUTPA. The duty codified in that state statute, like the duty imposed by the state common-law rule at issue in Cipollone, has nothing to do with smoking and health.
Petitioners endeavor to distance themselves from that holding by arguing that respondents’ claim is more analogous to the “warning neutralization” claim found to be pre-empted in Cipollone. Although the plurality understood the plaintiff to have presented that claim as a “theory of fraudulent misrepresentation,” id., at 528, the gravamen of the claim was the defendants’ failure to warn, as it was “predicated on a state-law prohibition against statements in advertising and promotional materials that tend to minimize the health hazards associated with smoking,” id., at 527. Thus understood, the Cipollone plurality’s analysis of the warning neutralization claim has no application in this case.
Petitioners nonetheless contend that respondents’ claim is like the pre-empted warning neutralization claim because it is based on statements that “might create a false impression” rather than statements that are “inherently false.” Brief for Petitioners 39. But the extent of the falsehood alleged does not alter the nature of the claim. Nothing in the Labeling Act’s text or purpose or in the plurality opinion in Cipollone suggests that whether a claim is pre-empted turns in any way on the distinction between misleading and inherently false statements. Petitioners’ misunderstanding is the same one that led the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, when confronted with a “light” descriptors claim, to reach a result at odds with the Court of Appeals’ decision in this case. See Brown, 479 F. 3d, at 391-393. Certainly, the extent of the falsehood alleged may bear on whether a plaintiff can prove her fraud claim, but the merits of respondents’ claim are not before us.
Once that erroneous distinction is set aside, it is clear that our holding in Cipollone that the common-law fraud claim was not pre-empted is directly applicable to the statutory claim at issue in this case. As was true of the claim in Cipollone, respondents’ claim that the deceptive statements “light” and “lowered tar and nicotine” induced them to purchase petitioners’ product alleges a breach of the duty not to deceive. To be sure, the presence of the federally mandated warnings may bear on the materiality of petitioners’ allegedly fraudulent statements, “but that possibility does not change [respondents’] case from one about the statements into one about the warnings.” 501 E 3d, at 44.
Our decision in Reilly is consistent with Cipollone’s analysis. Reilly involved regulations promulgated by the Massachusetts attorney general “ ‘in order to address the incidence of cigarette smoking and smokeless tobacco use by children under legal age . . . [and] in order to prevent access to such products by underage consumers.’ ” 533 U. S., at 533 (quoting 940 Code Mass. Regs. §21.01 (2000)). The regulations did not pertain to the content of any advertising; rather, they placed a variety of restrictions on certain cigarette sales and the location of outdoor and point-of-sale cigarette advertising. The attorney general promulgated those restrictions pursuant to his statutory authority to prevent unfair or deceptive trade practices. Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 93A, § 2 (West 1996). But although the attorney general’s authority derived from a general deceptive practices statute like the one at issue in this case, the challenged regulations targeted advertising that tended to promote tobacco use by children instead of prohibiting false or misleading statements. Thus, whereas the “prohibition” in Cipollone was the common-law fraud rule, the “prohibitions” in Reilly were the targeted regulations. Accordingly, our holding in Reilly that the regulations were pre-empted provides no support for an argument that a general prohibition of deceptive practices is “based on” the harm caused by the specific kind of deception to which the prohibition is applied in a given case.
It is true, as petitioners argue, that the appeal of their advertising is based on the relationship between smoking and health. And although respondents have expressly repudiated any claim for damages for personal injuries, see App. 26a, their actual injuries likely encompass harms to health as well as the monetary injuries they allege. These arguments are unavailing, however, because the text of § 1334(b) does not refer to harms related to smoking and health. Rather, it pre-empts only requirements and prohibitions— i. e., rules — that are based on smoking and health. The MUTPA says nothing about either “smoking” or “health.” It is a general rule that creates a duty not to deceive and is therefore unlike the regulations at issue in Reilly.
Petitioners argue in the alternative that we should reject the express pre-emption framework established by the Cipollone plurality and relied on by the Court in Reilly. In so doing, they invoke the reasons set forth in the separate opinions of Justice Blackmun (who especially criticized the plurality’s holding that the failure-to-warn claim was preempted) and Justice Scalia (who argued that the fraud claim also should be pre-empted). While we again acknowledge that our analysis of these claims may lack “theoretical elegance,” we remain persuaded that it represents “a fair understanding of congressional purpose.” Cipollone, 505 U. S., at 529-530, n. 27 (plurality opinion).
Petitioners also contend that the plurality opinion is inconsistent with our decisions in American Airlines, Inc. v. Wolens, 513 U. S. 219 (1995), and Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., 552 U. S. 312 (2008). Both cases, however, are inapposite— the first because it involved a pre-emption provision much broader than the Labeling Act’s, and the second because it involved precisely the type of state rule that Congress had intended to pre-empt.
At issue in Wolens was the pre-emptive effect of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (ADA), 49 U. S. C. App. § 1305(a)(1) (1988 ed.), which prohibits States from enacting or enforcing any law “relating to rates, routes, or services of any air carrier.” The plaintiffs in that case sought to bring a claim under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, 111. Comp. Stat., ch. 815, § 505 (West 1992). Our conclusion that the state-law claim was pre-empted turned on the unusual breadth of the ADA’s pre-emption provision. We had previously held that the meaning of the key phrase in the ADA’s pre-emption provision, “ ‘relating to rates, routes, or services,’ ” is a broad one. Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U. S. 374, 383-384 (1992) (emphasis added). Relying on precedents construing the pre-emptive effect of the same phrase in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a), we concluded that the phrase “‘relating to’ ” indicates Congress’ intent to pre-empt a large area of state law to further its purpose of deregulating the airline industry. 504 U. S., at 383-384. Unquestionably, the phrase “relating to” has a broader scope than the Labeling Act’s reference to rules “based on” smoking and health; whereas “relating to” is synonymous with “having a connection with,” id., at 384, “based on” describes a more direct relationship, see Safeco Ins. Co. of America v. Burr, 551 U. S. 47, 63 (2007) (“In common talk, the phrase ‘based on’ indicates a but-for causal relationship and thus a necessary logical condition”).
Petitioners’ reliance on Riegel is similarly misplaced. The plaintiffs in Riegel sought to bring common-law design, manufacturing, and labeling defect claims against the manufacturer of a faulty catheter. The case presented the question whether those claims were expressly pre-empted by the Medical Device Amendments of 1976 (MDA), 21 U. S. C. § 360c et seq. The MDA’s pre-emption clause provides that no State “‘may establish or continue in effect with respect to a device . . . any requirement’ relating to safety or effectiveness that is different from, or in addition to, federal requirements.” Riegel, 552 U. S., at 328 (quoting 21 U. S. C. § 360k(a); emphasis deleted).
The catheter at issue in Riegel had received premarket approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We concluded that premarket approval imposes “requirement[s] relating to safety [and] effectiveness” because the FDA requires a device that has received premarket approval to be made with almost no design, manufacturing, or labeling deviations from the specifications in its approved application. The plaintiffs’ products liability claims fell within the core of the MDA’s pre-emption provision because they sought to impose different requirements on precisely those aspects of the device that the FDA had approved. Unlike the Cipollone plaintiff’s fraud claim, which fell outside of the Labeling Act’s pre-emptive reach because it did not seek to impose a prohibition “based on smoking and health,” the Riegel plaintiffs’ common-law products liability claims unquestionably sought to enforce “requirement^] relating to safety or effectiveness” under the MDA. That the “relating to” language of the MDA’s pre-emption provision is, like the ADA’s, much broader than the operative language of the Labeling Act provides an additional basis for distinguishing Riegel. Thus, contrary to petitioners’ suggestion, Riegel is entirely consistent with our holding in Cipollone.
In sum, we conclude now, as the plurality did in Cipollone, that “the phrase ‘based on smoking and health’ fairly but narrowly construed does not encompass the more general duty not to make fraudulent statements.” 505 U. S., at 529.
IV
As an alternative to their express pre-emption argument, petitioners contend that respondents’ claim is impliedly preempted because, if allowed to proceed, it would present an obstacle to a longstanding policy of the FTC. According to petitioners, the FTC has for decades promoted the development and consumption of low tar cigarettes and has encouraged consumers to rely on representations of tar and nicotine content based on Cambridge Filter Method testing in choosing among cigarette brands. Even if such a regulatory policy could provide a basis for obstacle pre-emption, petitioners’ description of the FTC’s actions in this regard are inaccurate. The Government itself disavows any policy authorizing the use of “light” and “low tar” descriptors. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16-33.
In 1966, following the publication of the Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health, the FTC issued an industry guidance stating its view that “a factual statement of the tar and nicotine content (expressed in milligrams) of the mainstream smoke from a cigarette,” as measured by Cambridge Filter Method testing, would not violate the FTC Act. App. 478a. The .Commission made clear, however, that the guidanee applied only to factual assertions of tar and nicotine yields and did not invite “collateral representations ... made, expressly or by implication, as. to reduction or elimination of health hazards.” Id., at 479a. A year later, the FTC reiterated its position in a letter to the National Association of Broadcasters. The letter explained that, as a “general rule,” the Commission would not challenge statements of tar and nicotine content when “they are shown to be accurate and fully substantiated by tests conducted in accordance with the [Cambridge Filter Method].” Id., at 368a. In 1970, the FTC considered providing further guidance, proposing a rule that would have required manufacturers to disclose tar and nicotine yields as measured by Cambridge Filter Method testing. 35 Fed. Reg. 12671. The leading cigarette manufacturers responded by submitting a voluntary agreement under which they would disclose tar and nicotine content in their advertising, App. 899a-900a, and the FTC suspended its rulemaking, 36 Fed. Reg. 784 (1971).
Based on these events, petitioners assert that “the FTC has required tobacco companies to disclose tar and nicotine yields in cigarette advertising using a government-mandated testing methodology and has authorized them to use descriptors as shorthand references to those numerical test results.” Brief for Petitioners 2 (emphasis in original). As the foregoing history shows, however, the FTC has in fact never required that cigarette manufacturers disclose tar and nicotine yields, nor has it condoned representations of those yields through the use of “light” or “low tar” descriptors.
Subsequent Commission actions further undermine petitioners’ claim. After the tobacco companies agreed to report tar and nicotine yields as measured by the Cambridge Filter Method, the FTC continued to police cigarette companies’ misleading use of test results. In 1983, the FTC responded to findings that tar and nicotine yields for Barclay cigarettes obtained through Cambridge Filter Method testing were deceptive because the cigarettes in fact delivered disproportionately more tar to smokers than other cigarettes with similar Cambridge Filter Method ratings. 48 Fed. Reg. 15954. And in 1995, the FTC found that a manufacturer’s representation “that consumers will get less tar by smoking ten packs of Carlton brand cigarettes than by smoking a single pack of the other brands” was deceptive even though it was based on the results of Cambridge Filter Method testing. In re American Tobacco Co., 119 F. T. C. 3, 4. The FTC’s conclusion was based on its recognition that, “[i]n truth and in fact, consumers will not necessarily get less tar” due to “such behavior as compensatory smoking.” Ibid.
This history shows that, contrary to petitioners’ suggestion, the FTC has no longstanding policy authorizing collateral representations based on Cambridge Filter Method test results. Rather, the FTC has endeavored to inform consumers of the comparative tar and nicotine content of different cigarette brands and has in some instances prevented misleading representations of Cambridge Filter Method test results. The FTC’s failure to require petitioners to correct their allegedly misleading use of “light” descriptors is not evidence to the contrary; agency nonenforcement of a federal statute is not the same as a policy of approval. Cf. Sprietsma v. Mercury Marine, 537 U. S. 51 (2002) (holding that the Coast Guard’s decision not to regulate propeller guards did not impliedly pre-empt petitioner’s tort claims).
More telling are the FTC’s recent statements regarding the use of “light” and “low tar” descriptors. In 1997, the Commission observed that “[t]here are no official definitions for” the terms “ ‘light’ ” and “ ‘low tar,’ ” and it sought comments on whether “there [is] a need for official guidance with respect to the terms” and whether “the descriptors convey implied health claims.” 62 Fed. Reg. 48163. In November 2008, following public notice and comment, the Commission rescinded its 1966 guidance concerning the Cambridge Filter Method. 73 Fed. Reg. 74500. The rescission is a response to “a consensus among the public health and scientific communities that the Cambridge Filter method is sufficiently flawed that statements of tar and nicotine yields as measured by that method are not likely to help consumers make informed decisions.” Id., at 74503. The Commission’s notice of its proposal to rescind the guidance also reiterated the original limits of that guidance, noting that it “only addressed] simple factual statements of tar and nicotine yields. It d[id] not apply to other conduct or express or implied representations, even if they concerned] tar and nicotine yields.” Id., at 40351.
In short, neither the handful of industry guidances and consent orders on which petitioners rely nor the FTC’s inaction with regard to “light” descriptors even arguably justifies the pre-emption of state deceptive practices rules like the MUTPA.
V
We conclude, as we did in Cipollone, that the Labeling Act does not pre-empt state-law claims like respondents’ that are predicated on the duty not to deceive. We also hold that the FTC’s various decisions with respect to statements of tar and nicotine content do not impliedly pre-empt respondents’ claim. Respondents still must prove that petitioners’ use of “light” and “lowered tar” descriptors in fact violated the state deceptive practices statute, but neither the Labeling Act’s pre-emption provision nor the FTC’s actions in this field prevent a jury from considering that claim. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The MUTPA provides, as relevant, that “[u]nfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are declared unlawful.” §207. In construing that section, courts are to “be guided by the interpretations given by the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Courts to Section 45(a)(1) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 United States Code 45(a)(1)), as from time to time amended.” §207(1).
The Cambridge Filter Method weighs and measures the tar and nicotine collected by a smoking machine that takes 35 milliliter puffs of two seconds’ duration every 60 seconds until the cigarette is smoked to a specified butt length. App. 294a, 668a. As discussed below, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission) signaled in 1966 that the Cambridge Filter Method was an acceptable means of measuring the tar and nicotine content of cigarettes, but it never required manufacturers to publish test results in their advertisements.
79 Stat. 282.
Pub. L. 91-222, 84 Stat. 87. Though actually enacted in 1970, Congress directed that it be cited as a “1969 Act.”
Comprehensive Smoking Education Act, Pub. L. 98-474, §4(a), 98 Stat. 2201,15 U. S. C. § 1333(a).
Petitioners also urge us to find support for their claim that Congress gave the FTC exclusive authority to police deceptive health-related claims in cigarette advertising in what they refer to as the Labeling Act’s “saving clause.” The clause provides that, apart from the warning requirement, nothing in the Act “shall be construed to limit, restrict, expand, or otherwise affect the authority of the Federal Trade Commission with respect to unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the advertising of cigarettes.” § 1336. A plurality of this Court has previously read this clause to “indicate] that Congress intended the phrase ‘relating to smoking and health’... to be construed narrowly, so as not to proscribe the regulation of deceptive advertising.” Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504, 528-529 (1992). Nothing in the clause suggests that Congress meant to proscribe the States’ historic regulation of deceptive advertising practices. The FTC has long depended on cooperative state regulation to achieve its mission because, although one of the smallest administrative agencies, it is charged with policing an enormous amount of activity. See 1 S. Kanwit, Federal Trade Commission §§1:1, 1:2 (2004 ed. and Supp. 2008). Moreover, when the Labeling Act was amended in 1969 it was not even clear that the FTC possessed rulemaking authority, see 84 Stat. 89, making it highly unlikely that Congress would have intended to assign exclusively to the FTC the substantial task of overseeing deceptive practices in cigarette advertisements.
In his dissent, Justice Thomas criticizes our reliance on the plurality opinion in Cipollone, post, at 96-98, 103-108, 111-112, and advocates adopting the analysis set forth by Justice Scalia in his opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part in that case, post, at 95-96, 109-110. But Justice Scalia’s approach was rejected by seven Members of the Court, and in the almost 17 years since Cipollone was decided Congress has done nothing to indicate its approval of that approach. Moreover, Justice Thomas fails to explain why Congress would have intended the result that Justice Scalia’s approach would produce— namely, permitting cigarette manufacturers to engage in fraudulent advertising. As a majority of the Court concluded in Cipollone, nothing in the Labeling Act’s language or purpose supports that result.
The Cipollone plurality further stated that the warning neutralization claim was “merely the converse of a state-law requirement that warnings be included in advertising and promotional materials,” 505 U. S., at 527, evincing the plurality’s recognition that warning neutralization and failure-to-warn claims are two sides of the same coin. Justice Thomas’ criticism of the plurality’s treatment of the failure-to-warn claim, post, at 106, is beside the point, as no such claim is at issue in this litigation.
As the Court of Appeals observed, respondents’ allegations regarding petitioners’ use of the statements “light” and “lowered tar and nicotine” could also support a warning neutralization claim. But respondents did not bring such a claim, and the fact that they could have does not, as petitioners suggest, elevate form over substance. There is nothing new in the recognition that the same conduct might violate multiple proscriptions.
Justice Thomas contends that respondents’ fraud claim must be pre-empted because “[a] judgment in [their] favor will. .. result in a ‘requirement’ that petitioners represent the effects of smoking on health in a particular way in their advertising and promotion of light cigarettes.” Post, at 93. He further asserts that “respondents seek to require the cigarette manufacturers to provide additional warnings about compensatory behavior, or to prohibit them from selling these products with the ‘light’ or ‘low-tar’ descriptors.” Post, at 109-110. But this mischaracterizes the relief respondents seek. If respondents prevail at trial, petitioners will be prohibited from selling as “light” or “low tar” only those cigarettes that are not actually light and do not actually deliver less tar and nicotine. Barring intervening federal regulation, petitioners would remain free to make nonfraudulent use of the “light” and “low-tar” descriptors.
In implementing the MUTPA, neither the state legislature nor the state attorney general has enacted a set of special rules or guidelines targeted at cigarette advertising. As we noted in Cipollone, it was the threatened enactment of new state warning requirements rather than the enforcement of pre-existing general prohibitions against deceptive practices that prompted congressional action in 1969. 505 U. S., at 515, and n. 11.
Petitioners also point to Morales as evidence that our decision in Cipollone was wrong. But Morales predated Cipollone, and it is in any event even more easily distinguishable from this case than American Airlines, Inc. v. Wolens, 513 U. S. 219 (1995). At issue in Morales were guidelines regarding the form and substance of airline fare advertising implemented by the National Association of Attorneys General to give content to state deceptive practices rules. 504 U. S., at 379. Like the regulations at issue in Reilly, the guidelines were industry-specific directives that targeted the subject matter made off-limits by the ADA’s express pre-emption provisions. See also Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transp. Assn., 552 U. S. 364 (2008) (holding that targeted ground carrier regulations were pre-empted by a statute modeled on the ADA).
In a different action, the FTC charged a cigarette manufacturer with violating the FTC Act by misleadingly advertising certain brands as “low in tar” even though they had a higher-than-average tar rating. See In re American Brands, Inc., 79 F. T. C. 255 (1971). The Commission and the manufacturer entered a consent order that prevented the manufacturer from making any such representations unless they were accompanied by a clear and conspicuous disclosure of the cigarettes’ tar and nicotine content as measured by the Cambridge Filter Method. Id., at 258. Petitioners offer this consent order as evidence that the FTC authorized the use of “light” and “low tar” descriptors as long as they accurately describe Cambridge Filter Method test results. As the Government observes, however, the decree only enjoined conduct. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26. And a consent order is in any event only binding on the parties to the agreement. For all of these reasons, the consent order does not support the conclusion that respondents’ claim is impliedly pre-empted.
It seems particularly inappropriate to read a policy of authorization into the FTC’s inaction when that inaction is in part the result of petitioners’ failure to disclose study results showing that Cambridge Filter Method test results do not reflect the amount of tar and nicotine that consumers of “light” cigarettes actually inhale. See id,., at 8-11. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether administrative action occurred in the context of the case prior to the onset of litigation. The activity may involve an administrative official as well as that of an agency. To determine whether administration action occurred in the context of the case, consider the material which appears in the summary of the case preceding the Court's opinion and, if necessary, those portions of the prevailing opinion headed by a I or II. Action by an agency official is considered to be administrative action except when such an official acts to enforce criminal law. If an agency or agency official "denies" a "request" that action be taken, such denials are considered agency action. Exclude: a "challenge" to an unapplied agency rule, regulation, etc.; a request for an injunction or a declaratory judgment against agency action which, though anticipated, has not yet occurred; a mere request for an agency to take action when there is no evidence that the agency did so; agency or official action to enforce criminal law; the hiring and firing of political appointees or the procedures whereby public officials are appointed to office; attorney general preclearance actions pertaining to voting; filing fees or nominating petitions required for access to the ballot; actions of courts martial; land condemnation suits and quiet title actions instituted in a court; and federally funded private nonprofit organizations. | Did administrative action occur in the context of the case? | [
"No",
"Yes"
] | [
1
] | sc_adminaction_is |
HICKS v. OKLAHOMA
No. 78-6885.
Argued March 26, 1980
Decided June 16, 1980
Stewart, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burger, C. J., and BreNnaN, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell, and Stevens, JJ., joined. Rehnquist, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 347.
David M. Ebel, by appointment of the Court, 444 U. S. 988, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Richard A. Sonntag.
Janet L. Cox, Assistant Attorney General of Oklahoma, argued the cause pro hac vice for respondent. With her on the brief was Jan Eric Cartwright, Attorney General.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner was brought to trial in an Oklahoma court on a charge of unlawfully distributing heroin. Since he had been convicted of felony offenses twice within the preceding 10 years, the members of the jury were instructed, in accordance with the habitual offender statute then in effect in Oklahoma, that, if they found the petitioner guilty, they “shall assess [the] punishment at forty (40) years imprisonment.” The jury returned a verdict of guilt and imposed the mandatory 40-year prison term.
Subsequent to the petitioner’s conviction, the provision of the habitual offender statute under which the mandatory 40-year prison term had been imposed was in another case declared unconstitutional by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. Thigpen v. State, 571 P. 2d 467, 471 (1977). On his appeal, the petitioner sought to have his 40-year sentence set aside in view of the unconstitutionality of this statutory provision. The Court of Criminal Appeals acknowledged that the provision was unconstitutional, but nonetheless affirmed the petitioner’s conviction and sentence, reasoning that the petitioner was not prejudiced by the impact of the invalid statute, since his sentence was within the range of punishment that could have been imposed in any event. We granted certiorari to consider the petitioner’s contention that the State deprived him of due process of law guaranteed to him by the .Fourteenth Amendment. 444 U. S. 963.
By statute in Oklahoma, a convicted defendant is entitled to have his punishment fixed by the jury. Okla. Stat., Tit. 22, § 926 (1971). Had the members of the jury been correctly instructed in this case, they could have imposed any sentence of “not less than ten . . . years.” Okla. Stat., Tit. 21, § 51 (A)(1) (1971). The possibility that the jury would have returned a sentence of less than 40 years is thus substantial. It is, therefore, wholly incorrect to say that the petitioner could not have been prejudiced by the instruction requiring the jury to impose a 40-year prison sentence.
It is argued that all that is involved in this case is the denial of a procedural right of exclusively state concern. Where, however, a State has provided for the imposition of criminal punishment in the discretion of the trial jury, it is not correct to say that the defendant’s interest in the exercise of that discretion is merely a matter of state procedural law. The defendant in such a case has a substantial and legitimate expectation that he will be deprived of his liberty only to the extent determined by the jury in the exercise of its statutory discretion, cf. Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U. S. 1, and that liberty interest is one that the Fourteenth Amendment preserves against arbitrary deprivation by the State. See Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480, 488-489, citing Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539; Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, supra; Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471. In this case Oklahoma denied the petitioner the jury sentence to which he was entitled under state law, simply on the frail conjecture that a jury might have imposed a sentence equally as harsh as that mandated by the invalid habitual offender provision. Such an arbitrary disregard of the petitioner’s right to liberty is a denial of due process of law.
The State argues, however, that, in view of the revisory authority of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, the petitioner had no absolute right to a sentence imposed by a jury. See Okla. Stat., Tit. 22, § 1066 (1971) (“The Appellate Court may reverse, affirm or modify the judgment appealed from. . .”). The argument is unpersuasive. The State concedes that the petitioner had a statutory right to have a jury fix his punishment in the first instance, and this is the right that was denied. Moreover, it is a right that substantially affects the punishment imposed. No case has been cited to us in which the Court of Criminal Appeals has increased a sentence on appeal, and the State’s Assistant Attorney General indicated at oral argument that it was doubtful whether the appellate court had power to do so. In consequence, it appears that the right to have a jury fix the sentence in the first instance is determinative, at least as a practical matter, of the maximum sentence that a defendant will receive. Nor did the appellate court purport to cure the deprivation by itself reconsidering the appropriateness of the petitioner’s 40-year sentence. Rather, it simply affirmed the sentence imposed by the jury under the invalid mandatory statute. In doing so, the State deprived the petitioner of his liberty without due process of law.
Accordingly, the judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
See 1976 Okla. Sess. Laws, ch. 94, § 1, codified at Okla. Stat., Tit. 21, §61 (B) (Supp. 1977). The text of §51 provided:
“(A) Every person who, having been convicted of any offense punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, commits any crime after such conviction is punishable therefor as follows:
“1. If the offense of which such person is subsequently convicted is such that upon a first conviction an offender would be punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary for any term exceeding five (5) years, such person is punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not less than ten (10) years.
“2. If such subsequent offense is such that upon a first conviction the offender would be punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary for five (5) years, or any less term, then the person convicted of such subsequent offense is punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding ten (10) years.
“3. If such subsequent conviction is for petit larceny, or for any attempt to commit an offense which, if committed, would be punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, then the person convicted of such subsequent offense is punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding five (5) years.
“(B) Every person who, having been twice convicted of felony offenses, commits a third, or thereafter, felony offenses within ten (10) years of the date following the completion of the execution of the sentence, shall be punished by imprisonment in the State Penitentiary for a term of twenty (20) years plus the longest imprisonment for which the said third or subsequent conviction was punishable, had it been a first offense; provided, that felony offenses relied upon shall not have arisen out of the same transaction or occurrence or series of events closely related in time or location; provided, further, that nothing in this section shall abrogate or affect the punishment by death in all crimes now or hereafter made punishable by death.”
The Oklahoma Legislature has since amended §51 (B). See 1978 Okla. Sess. Laws, ch. 281, § 1, Okla. Stat., Tit. 21, §51 (B) (Supp. 1979).
“Defendant asserts in his fourth assignment of error that [Okla. Stat., Tit. 21,] § 51 (B), under which he was sentenced, is unconstitutional. We agree. This question was laid to rest by this Court in Thigpen v. State, Okla. Cr., 571 P. 2d 467 (1977). We must find however, that the defendant was not prejudiced by the use of this statute in that the sentence imposed is within the range of punishment authorized by the provisions of [Okla. Stat., Tit. 21,] § 51 (A).” Hicks v. State, No. F-77-751 (Mar. 8, 1979).
The decision of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals is unreported. A petition for rehearing was denied April 6,1979.
Only if the jury fails to do so may the trial court impose sentence. Okla. Stat., Tit. 22, § 927 (1971).
Because of our disposition of the case, we do not reach the petitioner’s several other contentions.
Because the appellate court did not purport to resentenee the petitioner, we have no occasion to consider his contention that due process of law requires that the State provide him with notice and a hearing, including the opportunity to present mitigating evidence, before appellate sentencing. See McGautha v. California, 402 U. S. 183, 218-220; Specht v. Patterson, 386 U. S. 605, 606. See also Mempa v. Rhay, 389 U. S. 128. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the reason, if any, given by the court for granting the petition for certiorari. | What reason, if any, does the court give for granting the petition for certiorari? | [
"case did not arise on cert or cert not granted",
"federal court conflict",
"federal court conflict and to resolve important or significant question",
"putative conflict",
"conflict between federal court and state court",
"state court conflict",
"federal court confusion or uncertainty",
"state court confusion or uncertainty",
"federal court and state court confusion or uncertainty",
"to resolve important or significant question",
"to resolve question presented",
"no reason given",
"other reason"
] | [
10
] | sc_certreason |
FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION v. DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE et al.
No. 80-939.
Argued October 6, 1981
Decided November 10, 1981
White, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Stevens, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 43.
Charles N. Steele argued the cause for petitioner in No. 80-939. With him on the brief was Kathleen Imig Perkins. Jan W. Baran argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioner in No. 80-1129.
Robert F. Bauer argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Together with No. 80-1129, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee et al., also on certio-rari to the same court.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, 86 Stat. 11, as amended, 2 U. S. C. §431 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. IV), limits the contributions that may be made to candidates or political committees in an election for federal office. One provision of the Act, § 441a(d), authorizes limited expenditures by the national and state committees of a political party in connection with a general election campaign for federal office. After authorizing such expenditures, which otherwise would be impermissible, the section specifies the amount a national committee may spend in connection with a Presidential campaign, §441a(d)(2), and limits the amount that national and state committees of a political party may spend in connection with the general election campaign of a candidate for the Senate or the House of Representatives, § 441a(d)(3). In this litigation we examine whether § 441a(d)(3) is violated when a state committee of a political party designates the national senatorial campaign committee of that party as its agent for the purpose of making expenditures allowed by the Act.
I
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is a political committee organized specifically to support Republican candidates in elections for the United States Senate. Although the NRSC is authorized by § 441a(h) to contribute up to $17,500 to a candidate for election to the Senate, it is not given authority by § 441a(d) to make expenditures on behalf of such candidates, and it is the position of the Federal Election Commission, the agency charged with enforcement of the Act, that the NRSC may not do so on its own account. The Commission, however, has permitted the NRSC to act as the agent of national and state party committees in making expenditures on their behalf.
In February 1977, in response to an inquiry submitted late in 1976, the Commission issued an Advisory Opinion, 1976-108, that it would be consistent with the Act for the NRSC to spend its own funds in support of congressional candidates as the designated agent of the Republican National Committee (RNC). In April 1977, the Commission issued a regulation, 11 CFR § 110.7(a)(4) (1981), which provides that the national party committees may make expenditures in the general election campaign for President “through any designated agent, including state and subordinate party committees.” On the basis of this regulatory authority, the National Committee of the Democratic Party entered into an agreement specifying the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) as its agent for the expenditure of authorized funds in Senate campaigns. In 1978, certain state Republican Party committees designated the NRSC as their agent for §441a(d)(3) expenditure purposes. Complaints were filed with the Commission challenging this practice as inconsistent with the Act. In dismissing these complaints, the Commission twice ruled by unanimous votes that the agency arrangements were not forbidden by the Act. In re National Republican Senatorial Committee, Federal Election Commission Matter Under Review (MUR) 780 (Jan. 19, 1979); In re National Republican Senatorial Committee, Federal Election Commission MUR 820 (June 17, 1979). In 1980, certain state committees again designated the NRSC as their agent, and on May 19, the DSCC filed its complaint with the Commission asserting that the NRSC’s agreements with the state committees were contrary to § 441a(d)(3). The complaint did not challenge the contemporaneous agency agreement under which the NRSC acted as the agent of the RNC in connection with the latter’s expenditures under § 441a(d). After considering the report of its General Counsel, the Commission unanimously dismissed the complaint, concluding that there was “no reason to believe” that the agreements violated the Act.
The DSCC petitioned for review in the District Court for the District of Columbia pursuant to §437g(a)(8). That court granted the Commission’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that the decision of the Commission was not “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law.” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n, No. 80-1903 (DC Aug. 28, 1980) (reprinted at App. to Pet. for Cert, of NRSC B4). On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted the NRSC leave to intervene and reversed the judgment of the District Court after concluding that the “plain language of Section 441a(d)(3) precludes” the agency agreements between state committees and the NRSC. 212 U. S. App. D. C. 374, 383, 660 F. 2d 773, 782. We granted the petitions for certiorari filed by the Commission and the NRSC, 450 U. S. 964 (1981), and we now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I — I I — 1
Although the Court of Appeals first addressed whether and to what extent it should defer to the Commission’s construction of the Act, 212 U. S. App. D. C., at 377, 660 F. 2d, at 776, this discussion and the conclusion that little or no deference was due the Commission were pointless if the court was correct that the agency agreements violated the plain language of the Act as well as the statutory purposes revealed by the legislative history. The interpretation put on the statute by the agency charged with administering it is entitled to deference, NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U. S. 267, 275 (1974); Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 16 (1965), but the courts are the final authorities on issues of statutory construction. They must reject administrative constructions of the statute, whether reached by adjudication or by rulemaking, that are inconsistent with the statutory mandate or that frustrate the policy that Congress sought to implement. SEC v. Sloan, 436 U. S. 103, 118 (1978); FMC v. SeatrainLines, Inc., 411 U. S. 726, 745-746 (1973); Volkswagenwerk v. FMC, 390 U. S. 261, 272 (1968); NLRB v. Brown, 380 U. S. 278, 291 (1965). Accordingly, the crucial issue at the outset is whether the Court of Appeals correctly construed the Act. For the reasons that follow, we disagree with the Court of Appeals. As we understand the Act and its legislative history, § 441a(d)(3) does not foreclose the use of agency agreements. The Commission thus acted within the authority vested in it by Congress when it determined to permit such agreements.
Section 441a(d)(3) provides as follows:
“The national committee of a political party, or a State committee of a political party, including any subordinate committee of a State committee, may not make any expenditures in connection with the general election campaign of a candidate for Federal office in a State who is affiliated with such party which exceeds—
“(A) in the case of a candidate for election to the office of Senator, or of Representative from a State which is entitled to only one Representative, the greater of—
“(i) 2 cents multiplied by the voting age population of the State (as certified under subsection (e) of this section); or
“(ii) $20,000; and
“(B) in the case of a candidate for election to the office of Representative, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner in any other State, $10,000.”
It is evident from its terms that the section does not in so many words forbid the state or national party to designate agents for expenditure purposes. This much is common ground. The Court of Appeals, however, held that because § 441a(d)(3) permits expenditures in congressional campaigns to be made by national and state committees of the political parties, including subordinate committees of the latter, and because the NRSC was neither a national committee nor a state committee, it should not be permitted to make expenditures under any arrangement “by which the special authority of a named entity is transferred to another.” 212 U. S. App. D. C., at 380, 660 F. 2d, at 779. Obviously, §441a(d) (3) does not permit the NRSC to make expenditures in its own right. But, contrary to the Court of Appeals, it does not follow that the NRSC may not act as an agent of a committee that is expressly authorized to make expenditures. In the nature of things, a committee must act through its employees and agents, as the Court of Appeals recognized, and nothing in the statute suggests that a state committee may not designate another committee to be its alter ego and to act in its behalf for the purposes of §441a(d)(3). To foreclose such an arrangement on the grounds that the named agent is not one of the authorized spenders under § 441a(d)(3) would foreclose all agency agreements regardless of the identity of the agent and regardless of the terms of the agency. Nothing in the Act demands that the choices available to the state committee should be so severely restricted.
If the Court of Appeals is correct that any arrangement is forbidden by which an authorized committee empowers another to exercise its spending authority, then neither of the national committees could legally enter into agency relationships with its congressional campaign committees. Yet, both have regularly done so, and respondent DSCC does not challenge these arrangements. Indeed, the DSCC accepts the Commission’s regulation, 11 CFR § 110.7 (1981), as valid and interprets that regulation as authorizing the agency agreements which have existed between the parties’ national committees and the Republican and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committees. Moreover, when the Commission, as required by law, submitted the regulation to Congress, neither House expressed disapproval.
Despite this indication that Congress does not look unfavorably upon the NRSC’s sharing in the spending authority of § 441a(d)(3), the Court of Appeals reads such disapproval into Congress’ failure to explicitly provide for such arrangements. To bolster its argument, the court points to §441a(h), which directly authorizes the national party committees, including the Republican or Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committees, to contribute up to $17,500 to a senatorial candidate. This argument, if accepted, would only underline that the NRSC may not make additional expenditures on its own account. It does not answer the question whether a state committee may exercise its statutory spending authority by designating the NRSC as its agent for this purpose.
Neither does the legislative history of the Act purport to disapprove agency arrangements. The Court of Appeals refers to the defeat of the Brock Amendment, which would have exempted congressional campaign committees such as the NRSC from the Act’s expenditure limits. 212 U. S. App. D. C., at 381, 660 F. 2d, at 780. But rejection of a proposal to permit congressional campaign committees to make expenditures in their own right does not necessarily affect their capacity to perform agency functions. Moreover, insofar as the intent of Congress is reflected in its failure to adopt a proposed amendment, a contrary — and indeed stronger — inference can be found in the rejection by the 96th Congress of an amendment that would have expressly prohibited the movement of funds between state and national committees of a political party.
It is clear enough to us without saying more that the statute does not expressly or by necessary implication foreclose the agency agreements at issue in this case. But neither does it expressly permit or require such agreements. If this were a direct enforcement action rather than the review of a decision by the administrative agency charged with the enforcement of the statute, it may be that a court could defensibly arrive at the conclusion that agency agreements of this kind should be forbidden. It may also be that the Commission could have construed the statute to forbid the agreements and that a court would have accepted such a construction by the agency. But that is not this case. The Commission, in dismissing the DSCC’s complaint, has determined that agency agreements are not contrary to law and the question is whether the courts should defer to this judgment as a permissible construction of the Act or instead disregard the agency’s view and proceed to construe the statute based on its own view of what would best serve the purpose and policy of the Act.
Ill
The Court of Appeals determined that the Commission’s construction of the Act was entitled to no deference whatsoever. While acknowledging that deference is often appropriately given to an agency’s interpretation of its governing statute, the court refused to accord that deference here because of what it perceived as the lack of a reasoned and consistent explanation by the Commission in support of its decision. We agree that the thoroughness, validity, and consistency of an agency’s reasoning are factors that bear upon the amount of deference to be given an agency’s ruling. See Adamo Wrecking Co. v. United States, 434 U. S. 275, 287, n. 5 (1978); Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140 (1944). We do not agree, however, that the Commission failed to merit that deference in this case.
Initially, we note that the Commission is precisely the type of agency to which deference should presumptively be afforded. Congress has vested the Commission with “primary and substantial responsibility for administering and enforcing the Act,” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 109 (1976), providing the agency with “extensive rulemaking and adjudicative powers.” Id., at 110. It is authorized to “formulate general policy with respect to the administration of this Act,” §437d(a)(9), and has the “sole discretionary power” to determine in the first instance whether or not a civil violation of the Act has occurred. 424 U. S., at 112, n. 153. Moreover, the Commission is inherently bipartisan in that no more than three of its six voting members may be of the same political party, §437c(a)(l), and it must decide issues charged with the dynamics of party politics, often under the pressure of an impending election. For these reasons, Congress wisely provided that the Commission’s dismissal of a complaint should be reversed only if “contrary to law.” §437g(a)(8).
The Commission’s position on the question before us is clear. Since 1976, it consistently has adhered to its construction of § 441a(d)(3) as not forbidding intraparty agency agreements. The Commission has on three separate occasions, all by unanimous votes, rejected the DSCC’s claim. On each occasion the Commission followed the recommendation of its General Counsel. In his first report, the General Counsel emphasized the absence of any specific statutory prohibition of the agency arrangements, and also relied on §441a(a)(4), which permits unlimited transfer of funds among state and national political committees of the same party. The second report, without rejecting any of the earlier arguments, also drew support from a Commission regulation approving similar agency agreements between national level committees. The third report, issued in this case, added an analysis of § 441a(d)(3), reviewed the legislative history, and took note of the fact that Congress had recently amended the Act with knowledge of the Commission’s construction of § 441a(d)(3) and had let that construction stand. Unlike the Court of Appeals, we find the differences in emphasis in the three reports of little significance. All reach the same conclusion, none rejects the arguments of the others. The Commission consistently has upheld the agency agreements; the fact that Commission Counsel has had the luxury of a number of sound arguments on which to base his opinions does not detract from the deference due the agency’s interpretations.
Hence, in determining whether the Commission’s action was “contrary to law,” the task for the Court of Appeals was not to interpret the statute as it thought best but rather the narrower inquiry into whether the Commission’s construction was “sufficiently reasonable” to be accepted by a reviewing court. Train v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 421 U. S. 60, 75 (1975); Zenith Radio Corp. v. United States, 437 U. S. 443, 450 (1978). To satisfy this standard it is not necessary for a court to find that the agency’s construction was the only reasonable one or even the reading the court would have reached if the question initially had arisen in a judicial proceeding.- Ibid.; Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S., at 16; Unemployment Compensation Comm’n v. Aragon, 329 U. S. 143, 153 (1946). Under this standard, we think the District Court was correct in accepting the Commission’s judgment.
As we have said, § 441a(d) does not expressly or by implication forbid agency agreements. Although the Court of Appeals and the DSCC are of the view that since the section specifically authorized only two committees — the national and state party committees — to make campaign expenditures, no other committee could make such expenditures either on its own account or on behalf of others. But the opposite reading makes equal sense: Congress, having written the statute so precisely, would have made clear that expenditures by other committees, whether by agency or otherwise, were prohibited.
We also find acceptable the Commission’s view that the agency agreements were logically consistent with §441a (a)(4). That section authorizes the transfer of funds among national, state, and local committees of the same party. There can be little question but that the section applies to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as that Committee is part of the Republican Party organization. Under that provision, by using direct money transfers, instead of an agency agreement, the national committee could write a check to the state committee for the same amount that it would otherwise have spent directly under the agency agreement. That being so, we agree with the dissent below that the difference is “purely one of form, not substance.” 212 U. S. App. D. C., at 386, 660 F. 2d, at 785.
Money transferred to the state committee presumably would be spent as the state committee decided. Agency agreements, by comparison, might allow the NRSC to determine what expenditures to make on behalf of the state committees. The Court of Appeals made much of this, asserting that the agency arrangements, unlike §441a(a)(4) transfers, reduced the state committees to “legal shells.” The court overlooks that the NRSC easily could insist that funds transferred to a state committee be utilized in a certain manner. Conversely, state committees could retain or share control over how § 441a(d)(3) spending authority is exercised by writing conditions into the agency agreement. More fundamentally, state committees are not obligated to enter into agency agreements in the first place. The delegation of spending authority is an option, not a requirement, and it is an option resting entirely with the state committees.
Finally, the Commission’s interpretation is not inconsistent with any discernible purpose of the Act. In Buckley v. Valeo, we recognized that the primary interest served by the Act is the prevention of corruption and the appearance of corruption spawned by the real or imagined coercive influence of large financial contributions on candidates’ positions and on their actions if elected to office. 424 U. S., at 25. It has not been suggested that this basic purpose of the Act is compromised by agency arrangements. Since the limitations on the amount that can be spent under the Act apply with equal force whether a state committee exercises its authority directly or transfers it to one of the party’s national committees, an agency arrangement does not permit the expenditure of a single additional dollar.
Section 441a(d)(3) fits into the general scheme by assuring that political parties will continue to have an important role in federal elections. Although the DSCC would transform this purpose into the more specific objective of stimulating political parties at the state level, none of the limited legislative history concerning the provision supports this view. The legislative discussion of preserving a role for political parties did not differentiate between the state and national branches of the party unit. It is hardly unreasonable to suppose that the political parties were fully capable of structuring their expenditures so as to achieve the greatest possible return. Agency agreements may permit all party committees to benefit from fundraising, media expertise, and economies of scale. In turn, effective use of party resources in support of party candidates may encourage candidate loyalty and responsiveness to the party. Indeed, the very posture of these cases betrays the weakness of respondent’s argument — an argument that, at bottom, features one of the two great American political parties insisting that its rival requires judicial assistance in discovering how a legislative enactment operates to its benefit.
Thus, the absence of a prohibition on the agency arrangements at issue, the lack of a clearly enunciated legislative purpose to that effect, and indeed, the countervailing existence of a transfer mechanism whose presence is difficult to reconcile with the interpretation urged by the Court of Appeals, prevent us from finding that the Commission’s determination was “contrary to law.” Therefore, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Expenditures by party committees are known as “coordinated” expenditures and are subject to the monetary limits of §441a(d). See 6 FEC Record, No. 11, p. 6 (Nov. 1980). Party committees are considered incapable of making “independent” expenditures in connection with the campaigns of their party’s candidates. The Commission has, by regulation, forbidden such “independent” expenditures by the national and state party committees, 11 CFR § 110.7(B)(4) (1981), and has indicated in this litigation that the congressional campaign committees fall within that prohibition. See Brief for Petitioner Federal Election Commission in No. 80-2074 (CADC), p. 10, n. 5 (“[pjarty committees ... are deemed incapable of making independent expenditures”); Brief for Petitioner in No. 80-939, p. 38 (“NRSC is a party committee”). Thus, as the Commission admits: “Absent § 441a(d), party committees could make no expenditures whatsoever in connection with the Congressional campaigns of their party’s candidates.” Brief for Petitioner Federal Election Commission in No. 80-2074 (CADC), p. 10, n. 5.
In the 1978 senatorial elections, the NRSC spent a total of $2,770,995 under the combined spending authority of the national and state party committees. Jt. App. in No. 80-2074 (CADC), p. 105.
This section provides that “[a]ny party aggrieved” by the Commission’s dismissal of a complaint may petition the United States District Court for the District of Columbia which “may declare that the dismissal of the complaint or the action, or the failure to act, is contrary to law” and order the Commission to conform with the court’s declaration.
The RNC, not the NRSC, is the “national committee” as defined by 2 U. S. C. §431(14) (1976 ed., Supp. IV): “the organization . . . responsible for the day-to-day operation of such political party at the national level.”
The Court of Appeals’ suggests that it is misleading to characterize the agreements as ones of “agency” because the state committees do not direct how funds are to be raised and spent. We do not understand the lack of such control to be inherent in these arrangements, nor dispositive in deciding whether such agreements can be made under the Act. See infra, at 41. See also n. 6, infra.
The regulation, 11 CFR § 110.7(a)(1) (1981), allows the “national committee of a political party [to] make expenditures in connection with the general election campaign of any candidate for President . . . affiliated with the party,” up to “an amount equal to 2 cents multiplied by the voting age population of the United States,” the amount authorized by § 441a(d)(2). These expenditures may be made “through any designated agent, including State and subordinate committees.” The regulation goes on to authorize the national committee to make expenditures on behalf of congressional and senatorial candidates of the party.
While the regulation directly authorizes transfers of spending authority only with respect to Presidential campaign expenditures, the significance of the regulation is that it clearly demonstrates that § 441a(d) expenditures do not have to be made directly by the committee specified in the statute.
In its brief before the Court of Appeals, the DSCC expressly stated that it “does not challenge this regulation or the NRSC’s role as agent of the Republican National Committee.” See Brief for Appellant DSCC in No. 80-2074 (CADC), p. 20, n. 16.
The Act requires that before prescribing any rule or regulation the Commission shall transmit the proposed rule and an accompanying statement to the Senate and the House. If neither House disapproves the proposed rule within 30 legislative days, the Commission may proceed to issue the rule. § 438(d).
Section 441a(h) authorizes the “Republican or Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, or the national committee of a political party, or any combination of such committees” to contribute “not more than $17,500” to a senatorial candidate.
By its terms, the provision does not restrict a senatorial campaign committee from making expenditures on behalf of other committees.
During the 1974 legislative debates, Senator Brock proposed an amendment that would have exempted congressional campaign committees from the expenditure limitations of the Act. 120 Cong. Rec. 9549-9551 (1974). The Senate initially adopted the amendment, but reversed itself five days later. Id., at 10062-10064.
Section 113 of H. R. 11315 would have prohibited any “movement of funds” between “the political committees of a national political party (including House and Senate congressional campaign committees of such party) and the political committees of a State committee of a political party ... for the purpose of making contributions to, or expenditures on behalf of, any candidate for Federal office.” H. R. 11315, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. (1978). The House rejected a rule for consideration of the bill, 124 Cong. Rec. 7872-7880 (1978). The basis for the rejection may be seen in various comments attacking the bill. Representative Stockman saw the proposed amendment as a “fundamental assault on . . . the continued meaningful role of our political parties.” Id., at 7875. Representative Mikva stated that he “deeply regret[ted] that the committee . . . saw fit to change the party financing.” Id., at 7876.
See First General Counsel’s Report, MUR 780 (Jan. 19, 1978).
This section provides that the limitations on contributions to and by political committees found in §§ 441a(a)(l) and (2) “do not apply to transfers between and among political committees which are national, State, district, or local committees (including any subordinate committee thereof) of the same political party.”
See First General Counsel’s Report, MUR 820 (June 19, 1978).
See 11 CFR § 110.7 (1981), supra n. 6.
See First General Counsel’s Report, MUR 1234 (July 11, 1980).
The assertion by the Court of Appeals that the Commission has disavowed the relevance of 11 CFR § 110.7 (1981) in its brief before that court, 212 U. S. App. D. C. 374, 378, 660 F. 2d 773, 777, is belied by its incorporation in the Commission’s brief before this Court. See Brief for Petitioner in No. 939, p. 35.
Nor does the fact that the Commission, following its customary prac-tiee, did not expressly adopt the General Counsel’s report in announcing its decision “depriv[e] a reviewing court of any Commission record on which to base a deferential consideration.” 212 U. S. App. D. C., at 378, n. 3, 660 F. 2d, at 777, n. 3. The Court of Appeals previously has held that the General Counsel’s report to the Commission is sufficient to support the Commission’s dismissal of a complaint. See Hampton v. Federal Election Comm’n, 2 Fed. Elec. Camp. Fin. Guide (CCH) ¶ 9036, pp. 50,439-50,440 (DC 1977), aff’d No. 77-1546 (CADC July 21, 1978). In this case, the General Counsel’s report was made public simultaneously with the Commission’s ruling. It was the third occasion on which the Commission followed the General Counsel’s advice in this matter. Even without an express statement, it is sufficiently clear that the staff report provides the basis for the Commission’s action.
Section 441a(a)(4) applies to “political committees which are national, state, district or local committees (including any subordinate committee thereof) of the same political party.” The DSCC does not challenge the applicability of the transfer provision to national senatorial committees. At one point, the Court of Appeals refused to address the issue for that reason. See 212 U. S. App. D. C., at 382, 660 F. 2d, at 781 (the “issue was not joined before this court”). At another point, however, the court expressed “some doubt” whether §441a(a)(4) encompasses congressional committees. Surely that doubt must be minimal in light of the broad scope of the statutory language, the fact that senatorial campaign committees are identifiable as part of their respective party. See Cong. Rec. 9552 (1974) (remarks of Sen. Baker), and the Congress’ clear intent to include such committees within the scope of §§ 441a(a)(l)-(2), to which §441a(a)(4) serves as an exception. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 94-1057, p. 58 (1976) (“the term ‘political committee established or maintained by a national political party’ includes the Senate and House Campaign Committees”). A committee “established or maintained” by a national party would appear to fall squarely within the reach of §441a(a)(4). Indeed, if congressional campaign committees were not considered as part of the national party, their ability to make independent expenditures would seem to escape any limitation prescribed by the Act. See n. 1, supra.
See S. Rep. No. 93-689, p. 7 (1974), reprinted in Legislative History of the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, p. 103 (1977).
It should be remembered that the section was considered at a time when Congress contemplated total public funding of general election campaigns for federal office. See § 101, S. 3044, 93d Cong., 2d Sess., 71-78 (1974). In that context, statements in Congress about the need to preserve the role of party committees, see, e. g., 120 Cong. Rec. 34372 (1974) (remarks of Sen. Cannon); id., at 35136 (remarks of Rep. Frenzel), are properly read as expressing concern over the function of political parties under public campaign finance rather than concern with the role of state committees vis-á-vis party committees at the national level. Thus, by allowing for the pooling of campaign funds, agency agreements increase party resources “to conduct party-wide election efforts.” S. Rep. No. 93-689, supra, at 8, reprinted in Legislative History of the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, supra, at 104. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether the petitioning party (i.e., the plaintiff or the appellant) emerged victorious. The victory the Supreme Court provided the petitioning party may not have been total and complete (e.g., by vacating and remanding the matter rather than an unequivocal reversal), but the disposition is nonetheless a favorable one. Consider that the petitioning party lost if the Supreme Court affirmed or dismissed the case, or denied the petition. Consider that the petitioning party won in part or in full if the Supreme Court reversed, reversed and remanded, vacated and remanded, affirmed and reversed in part, affirmed and reversed in part and remanded, or vacated the case. | Consider that the petitioning party lost if the Supreme Court affirmed or dismissed the case, or denied the petition. Consider that the petitioning party won in part or in full if the Supreme Court reversed, reversed and remanded, vacated and remanded, affirmed and reversed in part, affirmed and reversed in part and remanded, or vacated the case. Did the petitioning win the case? | [
"Yes",
"No"
] | [
0
] | sc_partywinning |
GREEN et al. v. VIRGINIA.
No. 761.
Decided June 22, 1964.
Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit III and Roland D. Ealey for petitioners.
Reno S. Harp III, Assistant Attorney General of Virginia, for respondent.
Per Curiam.
The petition for writ of certiorari is granted, the judgments are vacated and the case remanded to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia for consideration in light of Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U. S. 244, and Robinson v. Florida, ante, p. 153.
Mr. Justice Douglas would reverse outright on the basis of the views expressed in his opinion in Bell v. Maryland, ante, p. 242. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the respondent of the case. The respondent is the party being sued or tried and is also known as the appellee. Characterize the respondent as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the respondent by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the respondent is actually single entitiy or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single respondent, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the respondent of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
27
] | sc_respondent |
FALK et al. v. BRENNAN, SECRETARY OF LABOR
No. 72-844.
Argued October 11, 1973
Decided December 5, 1973
Stewart, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burger, C. J., and BlackmuN, Powell, and RehNQUist, JJ., joined. BreN-NAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Douglas, White, and Marshall, JJ., joined, post, p. 202.
Herbert V. Kelly argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the brief were Franklin O. Blechman and E. D. David.
Andrew L. Frey argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Bork and Sylvia S. Ellison
Howard Lichtenstein and Marvin Dicker filed a brief for the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, Inc., as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Secretary of Labor initiated this action against the petitioners, partners in a real estate management company, for an injunction against future violations of various provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 201 et seq., and for back wages allegedly due to employees affected by past violations of the Act. The petitioners’ defense was that they are not “employers” of the employees involved, and that their business is not a single “enterprise” that is subject to the Act’s requirements. This latter contention brought together two separate arguments. First, the petitioners contended that their combined activities do not constitute an “enterprise,” as that term is defined in § 3 (r), 29 U. S. C. § 203 (r). Second, the petitioners argued, even. if their business activities do amount to an “enterprise,” they are not an “[enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce,” as that term is defined in § 3 (s), 29 U. S. C. § 203 (s), because they do not have an “annual gross volume of sales made or business done” of $500,000.
Under the partnership name of Drucker & Falk (D & F), the petitioners render management services for the owners of a number of apartment complexes in the State of Virginia. Under its contracts with the apartment owners, D & F agrees to perform, on behalf of each owner and under his nominal supervision, virtually all management functions that are ordinarily required for the proper functioning of an apartment complex. These contracts are for a stated term of not less than one year. Each party can terminate the arrangement by giving the other party 30 days’ notice of his intent to do so. Neither D &. F nor any of its partners hold any property interest in the buildings that D & F manages. D & F receives as compensation a fixed percentage of the gross rentals collected from each project.
The rentals collected by D & F are deposited in local bank accounts. From these accounts it pays all expenses incurred in operating and maintaining the buildings. After deducting its compensation, as well as any other applicable expenses, D & F transmits payments to the various owners on a periodic basis. If disbursements for any apartment complex exceed its gross rental receipts, the owner is required under the contract to reimburse D & F.
The subject of the Secretary’s complaint was the wages and hours of the maintenance personnel who work at each of the apartment complexes, the contention being that D & F is in violation of the minimum wage, overtime, and recordkeeping provisions of the Act with respect to these maintenance workers. These employees work under the supervision of D & F and are paid from the rentals received at the apartment complexes where they are employed. They are considered in the contracts between the owners and D & F as “employees of the project owners.”
In the District Court, D & F contended that its management activities at the several apartment complexes do not constitute a single “enterprise,” as that term is defined in § 3 (r) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 203 (r) ; that, even if its business is a single “enterprise,” it does not have the $500,000 “annual gross volume of sales made or business done” required by § 3 (s)(l), 29 U. S. C. § 203 (s) (1), for coverage by the Act; and that it is not an “employer” of these maintenance workers, as that term is defined in § 3 (d), 29 U. S. C. § 203 (d). The District Court agreed with all three of these contentions and dismissed the complaint. The Court of Appeals reversed. It held that the management activities performed by D & F constitute a single “enterprise” for coverage purposes and that D & F meets the statutory definition of “employer” with respect to the maintenance workers. The appellate court also concluded that, in determining whether the enterprise satisifi.es the dollar-volume limitation, it is the gross rentals that D & F collects at all the apartment complexes that must be considered, rather than, as the District Court had held, the gross commissions that D & F receives from the apartment owners. Since there is no question that these gross rentals exceed $500,000 annually, the court held that D & F is subject to the Act and in violation thereof with respect to the maintenance workers.
We granted certiorari to review this judgment of the Court of Appeals. Two days later, we held, in Brennan v. Arnheim & Neely, Inc., 410 U. S. 512 (1973), that a fully integrated real estate management company that directs management operations at several separately owned buildings was a single “enterprise” for purposes of the Act, thus confirming the holding of the Court of Appeals on that issue in the present case. But our decision in Arnheim & Neely did not reach the other two statutory questions raised by D & F. We accordingly limited the grant of certiorari to questions 2 and 3 presented by the petition:
"(2) Under the Fair Labor Standards Act to be covered an enterprise must have an ‘annual gross volume of sales made or business done’ of $500,000. Is this figure to be measured by the gross rentals collected by the agent or by that agent’s gross commissions?
“(3) Are maintenance workers employed at the buildings managed by petitioners employees of the apartment owner or of the petitioners?” 410 U. S. 954.
I
As to question 3, the “employees” issue, it is clear that the maintenance workers are employees of the building owners. But we think that the Court of Appeals was unquestionably correct in holding that D & F is also an “employer” of the maintenance workers under § 3 (d) of the Act, which defines “employer” as “any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee.” 29 U. S. C. § 203 (d). Section 3 (e) defines “employee” to include “any individual employed by an employer.” 29 U. S. C. § 203 (e). In view of the expansiveness of the Act’s definition of “employer” and the extent of D & F’s managerial responsibilities at each of the buildings, which gave it substantial control of the terms and conditions of the work of these employees, we hold that D & F is, under the statutory definition, an “employer” of the maintenance workers. We turn, therefore, to the other question embraced in the grant of certiorari.
II
In Brennan v. Arnheim & Neely Inc., supra, we held that the integrated operations of a real estate management company satisfied the definition of “enterprise” under § 3 (r) of the Act. This holding was based upon the conclusion that the management activities met the three statutory tests of an “enterprise”: related activities, unified operation or common control, and common business purpose. It is important to understand, however, that the “enterprise” the Court found in Arn-heim & Neely consisted of the sale of management services by the respondent. The Court did not hold that the separate property interests of each apartment owner were to be considered part of the management enterprise of Arnheim & Neely. Indeed, § 3 (r) and the legislative history of the 1961 “enterprise amendments” to the Act strongly suggest that the use of common agents by independent entities is not sufficient to convert to a single “enterprise” what otherwise are independent businesses. Thus, D & F’s enterprise in the present case, as in Arnheim & Neely, consists of and is limited to its combined management activities at the various apartment complexes.
The Act imposes its requirements, not on every “enterprise,” but only on an “enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce.” One of the statutory elements of the latter term is the dollar-volume limitation, which in this case is $500,000 annually. The bone of contention between the Secretary and D & F is whether this dollar-volume limitation is to be measured by the annual gross rentals collected by D & F as agent of the apartment owners, or by the gross commissions paid to D & F by the owners as compensation for its management services. Section 3(s)(l), which prescribes the dollar-volume limitation, speaks of “an enterprise whose annual gross volume of sales made or business done is not less than $500,000.” 29 U. S. C. § 203 (b)(1). (Emphasis added.) This statutory language requires that, after determining what the relevant enterprise is, we turn our attention to what that enterprise sells or to what business it does.
Any doubt about whether the rental of space is a “sale” for purposes of the Act was removed when Congress amended § 3 (s) in 1966 to provide that the dollar-volume limitation would henceforth be measured by “annual gross volume of sales made or business done,” 80 Stat. 831 (emphasis added). The Senate Report on the 1966 amendments makes clear that the added language was intended to dispel any uncertainty that revenue derived from services, rentals, or loans, even though perhaps not literally “sales,” was nevertheless to be considered in measuring the dollar-volume limitation of § 3 (s). The Report indicates that the amendment was intended to signify legislative approval of the result in Wirtz v. Savannah Bank & Trust Co., 362 F. 2d 857, which so interpreted § 3 (s) as it read before -the addition of the “business done” language. As the Senate Report explained:
“The annual gross volume of sales made or business done by an enterprise, within the meaning of section 3 (s), will thus continue to include both the gross dollar volume of the sales . . . which it makes, as measured by the price paid by the purchaser for the property or services sold to him . . . , and the gross dollar volume of any other business activity in which the enterprise engages which can be similarly measured on a dollar basis. This would include, for example, such activity by an enterprise as making loans or renting or leasing property of any kind.” S. Rep. No. 1487, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 7-8.
But, a determination that rentals are “sales made or business done” within the meaning of the Act does not begin to dispose of the issue before us. The question remains, under § 3 (s)(l), what enterprise made the sales or did the business.
The Secretary contends that the “sales made or business done” by D & F includes the gross rental income of apartments in the buildings that it manages. He argues that the fact that D & F does not own the buildings should not preclude attribution of the rentals to it. D & F argues that it sells only managerial services and thus that the rentals it collects on behalf of the owners are not “sales made or business done” by its enterprise. It contends, therefore, that its gross sales should be measured, not by the rentals it collects from the tenants, but rather by the management fees that the owners pay it as compensation for its services — i. e., its gross commissions.
The line between a seller of a product and a seller of a service is not always readily discernible, especially when one of the services relates to the sale of a product or, what amounts to the same thing for purposes of the Act, the rental of space. As an abstract proposition, the Secretary is undoubtedly correct in his position that ownership is not necessarily determinative in attributing “sales made or business done” for purposes of the statute. For example, a consignment seller's gross sales might properly be measured by his gross receipts from sales of the product, even though he did not actually hold title to the product that he sold. Realistically, such a seller is in the business of selling the product that is consigned to him, and he is functionally in a position no different from that of a seller who has purchased the product before resale. The only practical difference may be that the “cost of goods sold” element of the profit equation is expended before resale in the one case and after resale in the other.
In the present case, however, we are convinced that the enterprise of D & F is limited to the sale of its professional management services, and, accordingly, that the commissions it receives are the relevant measure of its gross sales made or business done for purposes of the dollar-volume limitation in § 3 (s) (1). D & F collects a number of rentals on behalf of the property owners. In nearly every case, these rentals are paid pursuant to lease agreements of significant duration. Some may predate D & F’s management of the premises, and D & F may thus have had absolutely nothing to do with the “sales” underlying the periodic rentals it collects for the owner. When a lease does expire and is not renewed by the tenant, D & F undertakes to find a new tenant for the owner and serves as agent for the owner in the negotiation and execution of a new lease. With respect to such a lease, a colorable argument can be made for attribution of the rentals to D & F, since its negotiation of a new lease increases, or at least maintains, the volume of rents collected and thus also its percentage compensation. But such an argument does not withstand any but the most superficial analysis.
In the typical commodity sale the seller’s remuneration is a function of the gross margin between the cost of the product to him and the resale price. At first blush, the determination of D & F’s compensation as a percentage of the gross rentals seems somewhat akin to the margin of. the typical seller. Upon reflection, however, a critical difference appears: when a lease is negotiated by D & F, its remuneration is calculated, not from the proceeds derived from that lease, but only from the rentals collected during its managerial tenure, during which period it renders significant and substantial management services beyond its earlier service in negotiating the lease. It is clear, therefore, that the business of the D & F enterprise is not the sale of a product (the rental of realty) but a sale of professional management services. This conclusion follows logically from our holding in Arnheim & Neely that the relevant enterprise for purposes of deciding whether a real estate management company is covered by the Act, consists of its “aggregate management activities” at the various buildings that it supervises. 410 U. S., at 519. In this regard, the commissions received by D & F differ even from the compensation received by the typical broker of realty or stock, whose primary undertaking is to negotiate a sale of the principal’s property and whose compensation is calculated on the proceeds of that sale.
On these facts, we think the conclusion is inescapable that D & F vends only its professional management services, and that the gross rentals it collects as part of these services do not represent sales attributable to its enterprise. It follows that the correct measure of the “gross volume of sales made or business done” by D & F is the gross commissions it receives from the apartment owners as compensation for the management services it renders. Since these commissions did not reach $500,000 annually during the period involved in this litigation, it follows that D & F was not an “[enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce,” within the meaning of the Act.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The complaint alleged violations of the minimum wage (29 U. S. C. §206 (b)), overtime (29 U. S. C. §207 (a)(2)), and recordkeeping (29 U. S. C. §211 (c)) provisions of the Act.
Section 3 (d), 29 U. S. C. §203 (d), states that an “'Employer' includes any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee.”
The dollar-volume limitation was $500,000 at all times relevant to this action. 29 U. S. C. §203 (s)(l). On February 1, 1969, the dollar-volume limitation was reduced to $250,000.
D & F performs all the functions required for leasing, maintaining, and operating the apartment buildings. These include advertising the availability of apartments for rent; signing, renewing, and canceling leases; collecting rents; instituting, prosecuting, and settling all legal proceedings for eviction, possession of the premises, and unpaid rent; maldng necessary repairs and alterations; negotiating contracts for essential utilities and other services; purchasing supplies; paying bills; preparing operating budgets for the property owners’ review and approval; submitting periodic reports to the owners; and hiring and supervising all employees required for the operation and maintenance of the buildings and grounds.
The commission that D & F receives varies between 4% and 6%, depending on the particular arrangements with the building owner.
The rents for all the buildings managed by D & F totaled over $7,700,000 in 1967 and over $8,600,000 in 1968.
Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals had this case before them twice. Initially, the District Court dismissed the complaint. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for further proceedings. Shultz v. Falk, 439 F. 2d 340. The petitioners sought certiorari, and we denied the writ. Falk v. Hodgson, 404 U. S. 827 (1971). On remand to the District Court, the petitioners resisted the imposition of judgment and particularly the awarding of prejudgment interest. The District Court rendered judgment against the petitioners and awarded prejudgment interest. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and the petitioners again sought certiorari.
Section 3 (r), 29 U. S. C. §203 (r) provides, in pertinent part: “[A] retail or service establishment which is under independent ownership shall not be deemed to be so operated or controlled as to be other than a separate and distinct enterprise by reason of any arrangement, which includes, but is not necessarily limited to, an agreement, (1) that it will sell, or sell only, certain goods specified by a particular manufacturer, distributor, or advertiser, or (2) that it will join with other such establishments in the same industry for the purpose of collective purchasing, or (3) that it will have the exclusive right to sell the goods or use the brand name of a manufacturer, distributor, or advertiser within a specified area, or by reason of the fact it occupies premises leased to it by a person who also leases premises to other retail or service establishments.”
The Senate Report on the 1961 amendments to the Act included the following statements regarding this portion of § 3 (r):
"[T]he mere fact that a group of independently owned and operated stores join together to combine their purchasing activities or to run combined advertising will not for these reasons mean that their activities are performed through unified operation or common control and they will not for these reasons be considered a part of the same ‘enterprise.’ ” S. Rep. No. 145, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 42.
See, e. g., § 6 (b) (29 U. S. C. §206 (b)), § 7 (a) (29 U. S. C. §207 (a)), and § 11 (e) (29 U. S. C. §211 (c)).
The petitioners’ gross commissions amounted to slightly more than $434,000 and somewhat less than $463,000 in 1967 and 1968, respectively, the years involved in this litigation.
The record does not show what proportion of the rentals is attributable to leases predating D & F’s managerial tenure at each building. When the underlying lease does predate D & F’s contract with the owner, however, the total absence of any participation by D & F in the lease transaction, of which the periodic rentals are merely the proceeds, belies any attempt to attribute these rentals to D & F as an index of its gross “sales made or business done.”
Part II of the dissent suggests that the “annual gross volume of sales made or business done” of D & F’s enterprise “must include amounts paid by the building owner to cover operation and maintenance costs, plus the amount paid as commissions.” Post, at 211. The dissent’s rationale is that D & F was in effect paying the operation and maintenance costs itself and then being reimbursed by the apartment owners. Such an argument was not made by the Secretary. Even if such a payment and reimbursement arrangement would cause the operation and maintenance costs to be included in measuring “annual gross volume of sales made or business done” (which we do not decide), it is clear that such an arrangement did not exist between D & F and the building owners. The rentals were collected by D & F as the agent for the owners and were placed in bank accounts on their behalf. D & F paid the operation and maintenance costs of the buildings from the owners’ funds pursuant to its agreement with, and on the authority of, the owners.
A footnote in the Secretary's brief states that, in addition to its management services, D & F also sells insurance and real estate. These operations might bring D & F’s “annual gross volume of sales made or business done” to more than $500,000 for the years in question if the insurance, real estate sales, and real estate management operations of D & F’s business are “related activities” for enterprise coverage purposes under § 3 (r) of the Act. We leave for the District Court the consideration of the Secretary’s contention. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the treatment the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed, that is, whether the court below the Supreme Court (typically a federal court of appeals or a state supreme court) affirmed, reversed, remanded, denied or dismissed the decision of the court it reviewed (typically a trial court). Adhere to the language used in the "holding" in the summary of the case on the title page or prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. Exceptions to the literal language are the following: where the Court overrules the lower court, treat this a petition or motion granted; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing refuses to enforce or enjoins the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as reversed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing enforces the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as affirmed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing sets aside the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as vacated; if the decision is set aside and remanded, treat it as vacated and remanded. | What treatment did the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed? | [
"stay, petition, or motion granted",
"affirmed",
"reversed",
"reversed and remanded",
"vacated and remanded",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part",
"affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded",
"vacated",
"petition denied or appeal dismissed",
"modify",
"remand",
"unusual disposition"
] | [
1
] | sc_lcdisposition |
UNITED STATES et al. v. BOYD, COMMISSIONER.
No. 185.
Argued April 20-21, 1964.
Decided June 15, 1964.
Solicitor General Cox and R. R. Kramer argued the cause for the United States et al. With them on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Oberdorjer, Philip B. Heymann, I. Henry Kutz, George F. Lynch, Joseph F. Hennessey, Charles W. Hill and Jackson C. Kramer.
Milton P. Rice, Assistant Attorney General of Tennessee, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were George F. McCanless, Attorney General of Tennessee, and Walker T. Tipton, Assistant Attorney General.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Carson v. Roane-Anderson Co., 342 U. S. 232, it was held that § 9 (b) of the Atomic Energy Act barred the collection of the Tennessee sales and use tax in connection with sales to private companies of personal property used by them in fulfilling their contracts with the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1953, Congress repealed the statutory immunity for activities and properties of the AEC contained in § 9 (b) in order to place Atomic Energy Commission contractors on the same footing as other contractors performing work for the Government. In 1955 Tennessee amended its statute by adding a contractor’s use tax which imposes a tax upon contractors using property in the performance of their contracts with others, irrespective of the ownership of the property and of the place where the goods are purchased. This tax, at the sales and use tax rate, is measured by the purchase price or fair market value of the property used by the contractor and is to be collected only when a sales tax on local purchases or a compensating use tax on out-of-state goods has not previously been collected in connection with the same property.
Union Carbide Corp. and H. K Ferguson Co. have contracts with the Atomic Energy Commission relating to work and services to be performed at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, complex. Carbide’s contract obligates it to manage, operate and maintain the Oak Ridge plants and facilities in accordance with such directions and instructions not inconsistent with the contract as the Commission deems necessary to issue from time to time. In the absence of applicable instructions, Carbide is to use its best judgment, skill and care in all matters pertaining to performance. Carbide is charged with the duty of procuring materials, supplies, equipment and facilities although the Government retains the right to furnish any of these items. Payment for purchases is to be made with government funds, and title to all property passes directly from the vendor to the United States. Carbide is generally free to make purchases up to $100,000 without prior approval.
Although Carbide exercises considerable managerial discretion from day to day in performing the contract, the Commission retains the right to control, direct and supervise the performance of the work and has issued directions and instructions governing large areas of the operation. Carbide has no investment in the Oak Ridge facility and at the time of this litigation employed some 12,000 employees and supervisors to perform the contract. Its annual fee, renegotiated periodically, was $2,751,000 at the time of suit.
The Ferguson contract was a contract to perform construction services relating both to new facilities and to the modification of the existing plant. The contract called for performing those projects ordered by the Commission. Ferguson also operated under instructions and directions of the AEC, it owned none of the property used in the performance of its contract and its purchases, of property were handled in a manner similar to that employed in the case of Carbide except that Ferguson was free to purchase without the consent of the Commission only up to $10,000. Ferguson’s compensation is negotiated twice a year on the basis of the value of the services Ferguson performed during the preceding six months, a fee of $20,000 having been paid for the six months preceding suit.
Tennessee collected from Carbide and Ferguson a sales and contractor’s use tax upon purchases made by them under their contracts with the Commission. The companies and the AEC sued to recover these taxes claiming that their collection infringed upon the implied constitutional immunity of the United States. The Tennessee Supreme Court refused to permit the collection of the sales tax but sustained the collection of the contractor’s use tax. This tax, it was held, is imposed upon the use by a contractor of tangible personal property whether the title is in him or in another, and whether or not the other has immunity from state taxation. The contractor’s tax “was intended to be and is a tax upon the use per se by such a contractor. . . . [T]he tax is on [his] private use for [his] own profit and gain, and not a tax directly upon the Government.” 211 Tenn 139, 163, 164, 363 S. W. 2d 193, 203, 204. We noted probable jurisdiction to resolve another of the recurring conflicts between the power of the State to tax persons doing business within its borders and the immunity of the Federal Government, its instru-mentalities and property from state taxation. 375 U. S. 808. We affirm.
The Constitution immunizes the United States and its property from taxation by the States, M‘Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, but it does not forbid a tax whose legal incidence is upon a contractor doing business with the United States, even though the economic burden of the tax, by contract or otherwise, is ultimately borne by the United States. James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S. 134; Craves v. New York, 306 U. S. 466; Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1. Nor is it forbidden for a State to tax the beneficial use by a federal contractor of property owned by the United States, even though the tax is measured by the value of the Government’s property, United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U. S. 466, and even though his contract is for goods or services for the United States. Curry v. United States, 314 U. S. 14; Esso Standard Oil Co. v. Evans, 345 U. S. 495; United States v. Township of Muskegon, 355 U. S. 484. The use by the contractor for his own private ends — in connection with commercial activities carried on for profit — is a separate and distinct taxable activity.
The United States accepts all this but insists that under the present contracts Carbide’s and Ferguson’s use of government property is not use by them for their own commercial advantage which the State may tax but a use exclusively for the benefit of the United States. Since they are paid for their services only, make no products for sale to the Government or others, have no investment in the Oak Ridge facility, do not stand to gain or lose by their efficient or nonefficient use of the property, and take no entrepreneurial risks, their use of government property, it is claimed, is in reality use by the United States.
We are not persuaded. In the first place, from the facts in this record it is incredible to conclude that the use of government-owned property was for the sole benefit of the Government. Both companies have a substantial stake in the Oak Ridge operation and a separate taxable interest. Both companies maintain a sizable number of employees at Oak Ridge, Carbide some 12,000 men and Ferguson at times over 1,000, and both companies were paid sizable fees over and above their cost, Carbide over $2,000,000 a year. No one suggests that either Carbide or Ferguson has put profit aside in contracting with the Commission, that the fee of either company is not set with commercial, profit-making considerations in mind or that the operations of either company at Oak Ridge were not an important part of their regular business operations. “The vital thing” is that Carbide, as well as Ferguson, “was using the property in connection with its own commercial activities.” United States v. Township of Muskegon, 355 U. S. 484, 486.
Secondly, it does not help at all to say that the companies were engaged in furnishing services only, had no investment or risks and made no products for sale to the Government or to others. Undoubtedly a service industry has different characteristics than a manufacturing operation, but the differences are irrelevant for present purposes. The commercial world is replete with profit-making service industries contracting with the Government on a cost-plus basis, using government properties in the performance of the contract and pursuing their own commercial ends within the meaning of United States v. Township of Muskegon, supra. Whether manufacturing products for sale to the Government or furnishing services, the cost-plus contractor has undertaken contractual obligations. If he properly performs his contract, he earns his fee; if he does not, he may lose the contract, be liable for damages and be forced to liquidate the organization which was built to perform the contract. Whatever limitations there are on entrepreneurial risks derive from the fact the companies perform under cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts, a widespread method of contracting with the Government. The Government's argument, if accepted, would not only insulate the cost-plus management contractor from state taxation but also those who make products or perform construction work on a cost-plus basis, a result foreclosed by the Court's prior decisions which the Government seems to accept. Curry v. United States, supra; United States v. Township of Muskegon, supra.
In Muskegon, supra, the Court remarked that “[t]he case might well be different if the Government had reserved such control over the activities and financial gain of Continental that it could properly be called a 'servant' of the United States in agency terms.” The Government urges that this is such a case. According to the Government, this case should be viewed as though the Commission was doing its own work through its own employees, the legal incidence of the tax therefore falling on it. But, as in Muskegon, we cannot believe that either Carbide or Ferguson was “so assimilated by the Government as to become one of its constituent parts.” 355 U. S., at 486.
Because of the extraordinary range and complexity of the work to be performed in the research and development of atomic energy, Congress empowered the AEC to choose between performing these undertakings directly, through its own facilities, personnel and staff, and seeking the assistance of private enterprise by means of grants and contracts. Act of August 30, 1954, c. 1073, 68 Stat. 919, 927-928, 42 U. S. C. §§ 2051 (a), 2052. In order to utilize the skill, technical know-how, knowledge and experience of American industry, the Government has, since the inception of the atomic energy program, generally chosen private companies to conduct the various and sundry activities involved in the undertaking, including the management and operation of Atomic Energy plants. See Carson v. Roane-Anderson Co., supra. As is well stated in the preface to Carbide’s contract:
“ [S] uch agreement arose out of the need for the services of an organization with personnel of proved capabilities, both technical and administrative, to manage and operate certain facilities of the Commission and to perform certain work and services for the Commission; and the Commission recognizes the Corporation as an organization having such personnel, and that the initiative, ingenuity and other qualifications of such personnel should be exercised ... to the fullest extent practicable ....’’
The help of these companies was not sought merely to supply skilled manpower for employment by the United States and it is not argued that Carbide’s 12,000 men have somehow become employees of the Commission rather than of Carbide. See Powell v. United States Cartridge Co., 339 U. S. 497; Mahoney v. United States, 216 F. Supp. 523 (D. C. E. D. Tenn.). Of course there are governmental directives and instructions which must be obeyed, for the Commission decides the uses of and needs for fissionable material; and, of course, in the sensitive area of atomic energy operations the Commission’s controls are subject to modification and change in the light of technical and other developments. But Carbide and Ferguson brought to the Oak Ridge operation both skill and judgment the United States needed and did not have and there is substantial room for the exercise of both, within and without the broad directives issued by the Commission. Should the Commission intend to build or operate the plant with its own servants and employees, it is well aware that it may do so and familiar with the ways of doing it. It chose not to do so here. We cannot conclude that Carbide and Ferguson, both cost-plus contractors for profit, have been so incorporated into the government structure as to become instrumentalities of the United States and thus enjoy governmental immunity.
It is undoubtedly true, as the Government points out, that subjection of government property used by AEC contractors to state use taxes will result in a substantial future tax liability. But this result was brought to the attention of Congress in the debates on the repeal of § 9 (b), which exempted the activities of AEC contractors from state taxation; indeed the AEC argued that the repeal would substantially increase the cost of the atomic energy program by subjecting AEC contractors to state “sales and use taxes” and “business and occupation” taxes. Nonetheless, Congress, well aware of the principle that “constitutional immunity does not extend to cost-plus-fixed-fee contractors of the Federal Government, but is limited to taxes imposed directly on the United States,” S. Rep. No. 694, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 2, repealed the statutory exemption for the declared purpose of placing AEC contractors in the same position as all other government contractors. Act of August 13, 1953, c. 432, 67 Stat. 575. The principles laid down in King & Boozer, Curry, Esso, and Muskegon, we think, strike a proper judicial accommodation between the interests of the States’ power to tax and the concerns of the Nation, they are workable, and we adhere to them. If they unduly intrude upon the business of the Nation, it is for Congress, in the valid exercise of its proper powers, not this Court, to make the desirable adjustment.
Affirmed.
60 Stat. 765, c. 724, 42 U. S. C. (1952 ed.) § 1809 (b). The section read in pertinent part: “The Commission, and the property, activities, and income of the Commission, are hereby expressly exempted from taxation in any manner or form by any State, county, municipality, or any subdivision thereof.”
Act of August 13, 1953, 67 Stat. 575, c. 432.
The Tennessee Retailers Sales Tax Act provides in pertinent part, 12 Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-3004 (1963 Cum. Supp.):
“Where a contractor or subcontractor hereinafter defined as a dealer, uses tangible personal property in the performance of his contract, or to fulfill contract or subcontract obligations, whether the title to such property be in the contractor, subcontractor, contractee, subeontractee, or any other person, or whether the title holder of such property would be subject to pay the sales or use tax, except where the title holder is a church and the tangible personal property is for church construction, such contractor or subcontractor shall pay a tax at the rate prescribed by § 67-3003 measured by the purchase price or fair market value of such property, whichever is greater, unless such property has been previously subjected to a sales or use tax, and the tax due thereon has been paid.
“Provided, further, that the tax imposed by this section or by any other provision of this chapter, as amended shall have no application with respect to the use by, or the sale to, a contractor or subcontractor of atomic weapon parts, source materials, special nuclear materials and by-product materials, all as defined by the atomic energy act of 1954, or with respect to such other materials as would be excluded from taxation as industrial materials under paragraph (c) 2 of § 67-3002 when the items referred to in this proviso are sold or leased to a contractor or subcontractor for use in, or experimental work in connection with, the manufacturing processes for or on behalf of the atomic energy commission or when any of such items are used by a contractor or subcontractor in such experimental work or manufacturing processes.”
The following is included among the terms and conditions attached to the order forms used by Carbide in making purchases:
“It is understood and agreed that this Order is entered into by the Company for and on behalf of the Government; that title to all supplies furnished hereunder by the Seller shall pass directly from the Seller to the Government, as purchaser, at the point of delivery; that the Company is authorized to and will make payment hereunder from Government funds advanced and agreed to be advanced to it by the Commission, and not from its own assets and administer this Order in other respects for the Commission unless otherwise specifically provided for herein; that administration of this Order may be transferred from the Company to the Commission or its designee, and in ease of such transfer and notice thereof to the Seller the Company shall have no further responsibilities hereunder and that nothing herein shall preclude liability of the Government for any payment properly due hereunder if for any reason such payment is not made by the Company from such Government funds.”
Relying on Kern-Limerick, Inc., v. Scurlock, 347 U. S. 110, the Tennessee court determined that the United States itself was the actual purchaser, and that Carbide and Ferguson acted only as purchasing agents. No question in respect to the correctness of this determination is raised on this appeal and the validity of the contractor’s use tax, as against a constitutional claim of immunity, in no way depends on the legality of the sales tax.
The Government’s reliance on United States v. Livingston, 179 F. Supp. 9, aff’d -per curiam, 364 U. S. 281, is misplaced. There a South Carolina statute imposed a sales tax and a tax on use, defined as the exercise of any right or power over property “by any transaction in which possession is given,” on contractors “purchasing such property ... as agents of the United States or its instrumentalities.” The Government sought to enjoin collection of the tax from the du Pont Company, which performed management services under a contract, similar in many respects to Carbide’s, with the AEC. The difference, however, was that du Pont was paid costs plus a nominal fee of one dollar for its entire undertaking. Passing over doubts as to whether the “use tax” was on the contractor’s beneficial use rather than on the purchase of property for the Government, the District Court held the sales tax invalid in reliance on Kern-Limerick, Inc., v. Scurlock, 347 U. S. 110, and the use tax invalid principally because du Pont entered the contract solely “out of the high sense of public responsibility” and not for profit. The property was therefore not used in du Pont’s commercial or business activities. This Court affirmed, 364 U. S. 281, without opinion or citation, on the basis of the jurisdictional papers, which stressed the fact that the ruling below “was based upon a close analysis of the ’extraordinary' contractual relationship between du Pont and AEC at this plant . . .” and the factual determination that du Pont received no benefits from the contract. Because the services involved herein are performed for a substantial fee in the course of the contractor’s commercial operation the Livingston decision is not controlling.
The general purposes of Commission control and direction are stated in the preface to the contract:
“Whereas, the Corporation recognizes that attainment of the Commission’s over-all objectives and discharge of its responsibility for economy and efficiency in the conduct of the atomic energy program require the Commission’s general direction of the program, supervision of Government-financed activities of organizations managing Commission facilities and related functions so as to assure conformity with applicable law and policies of the Commission, and full access to information concerning such activities; and that the Commission’s program of administration under the Atomic Energy Act requires integration and coordination of such activities which the various organizations may be in a position to perform, for the utilization of their services and of information, materials, facilities, funds and other property of the Commission, in the manner most advantageous to the Government.”
See S. Rep. No. 694, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 1-3.
Id., at 4-6. The AEC stated:
“Reducing the Commission’s exemption from State and local taxes to the constitutional immunity generally applicable would result in an increase of several million dollars annually in the costs of the atomic energy program, in the form of added State and local taxes borne by the Federal Government. It is apparent that this consideration should not be regarded as decisive since it is the policy of the Federal Government to forego such savings in connection with other Federal activities, as is evidenced by the fact that other components of the Government are exempt from State and local taxation only to the extent of the constitutional immunity as delimited in the King and Boozer decision. We feel, however, that there are special aspects of the impact of the atomic energy program upon the fiscal position of the affected States and localities which should be taken into account in determining whether the broader tax exemption applicable to AEC should be preserved.” Id.., at 5.
The Commission went on to note that generally its installations had a favorable economic impact in the areas where they were located and where its contractors performed, although it conceded a few special problems in certain small communities. It recommended direct payments by the Government in lieu of property taxes on property acquired by the Commission and the adjustment of internal state-local arrangements to insure that the distribution of revenues would take into account the problems of these special locales. It then added:
"Eliminating the exemption applicable to sales and use taxes, to business and occupation taxes, and to the other minor taxes now comprehended by section 9 (b) might not modify the revenues of the few localities burdened by Commission activities . . . Id., at 5-6. (Emphasis supplied.)
The purpose of the repeal is well revealed in the following excerpt from the Senate Report:
“The United States Supreme Court in Carson v. Roane-Anderson Co. (342 U. S. 232 (1952)) interpreted the last sentence of the foregoing subsection as exempting transactions involving certain AEC contractors from the Tennessee sales and use taxes. The Court held that 'activities’ of the Commission, as that term is used in section 9 (b), may be performed by independent contractors of the Commission, as well as by its agents, and that, as a consequence, private contractors performing the governmental function under the Atomic Energy Act are within the scope of the section 9 (b) exemption from State and local taxation.
“This decision has the effect of affording the Atomic Energy Commission an exemption from State and local taxation much broader in scope than that available to the other departments and agencies of the Federal Government, which rely only upon the constitutional immunity of the Federal Government for their exemption from taxation. The Supreme Court, in Alabama v. King and Boozer (314 U. S. 1), established the principle that the constitutional immunity does not extend to cost-plus-fixed-fee contractors of the Federal Government, but is limited to taxes imposed directly upon the United States. Thus, the Atomic Energy Commission’s contractors, by reason of the statutory exemption as interpreted by the Supreme Court, are entitled to an exemption from taxation which is not enjoyed by comparably situated contractors of other agencies and departments.
“A number of States have expressed the view that section 9 (b), as interpreted in the Roane-Anderson decision carves out an area of exemption from State and local taxation which deprives State and local governmental units of substantial revenue, particularly in those areas in which the Atomic Energy Commission carries on large scale activities.” S. Rep. No. 694, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 2. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify whether the petitioning party (i.e., the plaintiff or the appellant) emerged victorious. The victory the Supreme Court provided the petitioning party may not have been total and complete (e.g., by vacating and remanding the matter rather than an unequivocal reversal), but the disposition is nonetheless a favorable one. Consider that the petitioning party lost if the Supreme Court affirmed or dismissed the case, or denied the petition. Consider that the petitioning party won in part or in full if the Supreme Court reversed, reversed and remanded, vacated and remanded, affirmed and reversed in part, affirmed and reversed in part and remanded, or vacated the case. | Consider that the petitioning party lost if the Supreme Court affirmed or dismissed the case, or denied the petition. Consider that the petitioning party won in part or in full if the Supreme Court reversed, reversed and remanded, vacated and remanded, affirmed and reversed in part, affirmed and reversed in part and remanded, or vacated the case. Did the petitioning win the case? | [
"Yes",
"No"
] | [
1
] | sc_partywinning |
MILLIKEN, GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN, et al. v. BRADLEY et al.
No. 73-434.
Argued February 27, 1974
Decided July 25, 1974
Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General of Michigan, argued the cause for petitioners in No. 73-434. With him on the brief were Robert A. Derengoski, Solicitor General, and Eugene Krasicky, Gerald F. Young, George L. McCargar, and Thomas F. Schimpf, Assistant Attorneys General. William M. Saxton argued the cause for petitioners in Nos. 73-435 and 73-436. With him on the brief in No. 73-435 were John B. Weaver, Robert M. Vercruysse, and Xhafer Orhan. Douglas H. West filed a brief for petitioner in No. 73-436.
/. Harold Flannery and Nathaniel R. Jones argued the cause for respondents in all cases. With them on the brief for respondents Bradley et al. were Jack Greenberg, Norman Chachkin, and Louis R. Lucas. George T. Rou-mell, Jr., and C. Nicholas Revelos filed a brief for respondents Board of Education for the School District of the city of Detroit et al. John Bruff and William Ross filed a brief for respondent Professional Personnel of Van Dyke. Robert J. Lord filed a brief for respondents Green et al.
Solicitor General Bork argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief was Assistant Attorney General Pottinger
Together with No. 73-435, Allen Park Public Schools et al. v. Bradley et al., and No. 73-436, Grosse Pointe Public School System v. Bradley et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by Theodore L. Sendak, Attorney General, Donald P. Bogard, Deputy Attorney General, and William F. Harvey for the State of Indiana; by Lewis C. Bose and William M. Evans for the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township, Indiana, et al.; by Richard D. Wagner and Richard L. Brown for the town of Speedway, Indiana, et al.; and by Harold H. Fuhrman for the National Suburban League, Ltd.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by Leonard P. Strickman for the city of Boston, Massachusetts; by Alexander A. Goldfarb for the city of Hartford, Connecticut; by Sanford Jay Rosen for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund; and by Inter-Faith Centers for Racial Justice, Inc.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed by Charles F. Clippert, Charles E. Keller, Thomas H. Schwarze, John F. Shantz, Raymond McPeters, Walter J. Cuth, Jr., Raymond G. Glime, Tony Ferris, and Perry Christy for Bloomfield Hills School District et al.; by Stephen J. Poliak, Richard M. Sharp, and David Rubin for the National Education Assn.; and by David I. Caplan for the Jewish Rights Council.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in these consolidated cases to determine whether a federal court may impose a multi-district, areawide remedy to a single-district de jure segregation problem absent any finding that the other included school districts have failed to operate unitary school systems within their districts, absent any claim or finding that the boundary lines of any affected school district were established with the purpose of fostering racial segregation in public schools, absent any finding that the included districts committed acts which effected segregation within the other districts, and absent a meaningful opportunity for the included neighboring school districts to present evidence or be heard on the propriety of a multidistrict remedy or on the question of constitutional violations by those neighboring districts.
I
The action was commenced in August 1970 by the respondents, the Detroit Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and individual parents and students, on behalf of a class later defined by order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, dated February 16, 1971, to include “all school children in the City of Detroit, Michigan, and all Detroit resident parents who have children of school age.” The named defendants in the District Court included the Governor of Michigan, the Attorney General, the State Board of Education, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Board of Education of the city of Detroit, its members, and the city’s former superintendent of schools. The State of Michigan as such is not a party to this litigation and references to the State must be read- as references to the public officials, state and local, through whom the State is alleged to have acted. In their complaint respondents attacked the constitutionality of a statute of the State of Michigan known as Act 48 of the 1970 Legislature on the ground that it put the State of Michigan in the position of unconstitutionally interfering with the execution and operation of a voluntary plan of partial high school desegregation, known as the April 7, 1970, Plan, which had been adopted by the Detroit Board of Education to be effective beginning with the fall 1970 semester. The complaint also alleged that the Detroit Public School System was and is segregated on the basis of race as a result of the official policies and actions of the defendants and their predecessors in office, and called for the implementation of a plan that would eliminate “the racial identity of every school in the [Detroit] system and . . . maintain now and hereafter a unitary, nonracial school system.”
Initially the matter was tried on respondents’ motion for a preliminary injunction to restrain the enforcement of Act 48 so as to permit the April 7 Plan to be implemented. On that issue, the District Court ruled that respondents were not entitled to a preliminary injunction since at that stage there was no proof that Detroit had a dual segregated school system. On appeal, the Court of Appeals found that the “implementation of the April 7 plan was [unconstitutionally] thwarted by State action in the form of the Act of the Legislature of Michigan,” 433 F. 2d 897, 902 (CA6 1970), and that such action could not be interposed to delay, obstruct, or nullify steps lawfully taken for the purpose of protecting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The case was remanded to the District Court for an expedited trial on the merits.
On remand, the respondents moved for immediate implementation of the April 7 Plan in order to remedy the deprivation of the claimed constitutional rights. In response, the School Board suggested two other plans, along with the April 7 Plan, and urged that top priority be assigned to the so-called “Magnet Plan” which was “designed to attract children to a school because of its superior curriculum.” The District Court approved the Board’s Magnet Plan, and respondents again appealed to the Court of Appeals, moving for summary reversal. The Court of Appeals refused to pass on the merits of the Magnet Plan and ruled that the District Court had not abused its discretion in refusing to adopt the April 7 Plan without an evidentiary hearing. The case was again remanded with instructions to proceed immediately to a trial on the merits of respondents’ substantive allegations concerning the Detroit school system. 438 F. 2d 945 (CA6 1971).
The trial of the issue of segregation in the Detroit school system began on April 6, 1971, and continued through July 22, 1971, consuming some 41 trial days. On September 27, 1971, the District Court issued its findings and conclusions on the issue of segregation, finding that “Governmental actions and inaction at all levels, federal, state and local, have combined, with those of private organizations, such as loaning institutions and real estate associations and brokerage firms, to establish and to maintain the pattern of residential segregation throughout the Detroit metropolitan area.” 338 F. Supp. 582, 587 (ED Mich. 1971). While still addressing a Detroit-only violation, the District Court reasoned:
“While it would be unfair to charge the present defendants with what other governmental officers or agencies have done, it can be said that the actions or the failure to act by the responsible school authorities, both city and state, were linked to that of these other governmental units. When we speak of governmental action we should not view the different agencies as a collection of unrelated units. Perhaps the most that can be said is that all of them, including the school authorities, are, in part, responsible for the segregated condition which exists. And we note that just as there is an interaction between residential patterns and the racial composition of the schools, so there is a corresponding effect on the residential pattern by the racial composition of the schools.” Ibid.
The District Court found that the Detroit Board of Education created and maintained optional attendance zones within Detroit neighborhoods undergoing racial transition and between high school attendance areas of opposite predominant racial compositions. These zones, the court found, had the “natural, probable, foreseeable and actual effect” of allowing white pupils to escape identifiably Negro schools. Ibid. Similarly, the District Court found that Detroit school attendance zones had been drawn along north-south boundary lines despite the Detroit Board’s awareness that drawing boundary lines in an east-west direction would result in significantly greater desegregation. Again, the District Court concluded, the natural and actual effect of these acts was the creation and perpetuation of school segregation within Detroit.
The District Court found that in the operation of its school transportation program, which was designed to relieve overcrowding, the Detroit Board had admittedly bused Negro Detroit pupils to predominantly Negro schools which were beyond or away from closer white schools with available space. This practice was found to have continued in recent years despite the Detroit Board’s avowed policy, adopted in 1967, of utilizing transportation to increase desegregation:
“With one exception (necessitated by the burning of a white school), defendant Board has never bused
white children to predominantly black schools. The Board has not bused white pupils to black schools despite the enormous amount of space available in inner-city schools. There were 22,961 vacant seats in schools 90 %■ or more black.” Id., at 588.
With respect to the Detroit Board of Education’s practices in school construction, the District Court found that Detroit school construction generally tended to have a seg-regative effect with the great majority of schools being built in either overwhelmingly all-Negro or all-white neighborhoods so that the new schools opened as predominantly one-race schools. Thus, of the 14 schools which opened for use in 1970-1971, 11 opened over 90% Negro and one opened less than 10% Negro.
The District Court also found that the State of Michigan had committed several constitutional violations with respect to the exercise of its general responsibility for, and supervision of, public education. The State, for example, was found to have failed, until the 1971 Session of the Michigan Legislature, to provide authorization or funds for the transportation of pupils within Detroit regardless of their poverty or distance from the school to which they were assigned; during this same period the State provided many neighboring, mostly white, suburban districts the full range of state-supported transportation.
■ The District Court found that the State, through Act 48, acted to “impede, delay and minimize racial integration in Detroit schools.” The first sentence of § 12 of Act 48 was designed to delay the April 7, 1970, desegregation plan originally adopted by the Detroit Board. The remainder of § 12 sought to prescribe for each school in the eight districts criteria of “free choice” and “neighborhood schools,” which, the District Court found, “had as their purpose and effect the maintenance of segregation.” 338 F. Supp., at 589.
The District Court also held that the acts of the Detroit Board of Education, as a subordinate entity of the State, were attributable to the State of Michigan, thus creating a vicarious liability oh the part of the State. Under Michigan law, Mich. Comp. Laws §388.851 (1970), for example, school building construction plans had to be approved by the State Board of Education, and, prior to 1962, the State Board had specific statutory authority to supervise schoolsite selection. The proofs concerning the effect of Detroit’s school construction program were, therefore, found to be largely applicable to show state responsibility for the segregative results.
Turning to the question of an appropriate remedy for these several constitutional violations, the District Court deferred a pending motion by intervening parent defendants to join as additional parties defendant the 86 outlying school districts in the three-county Detroit metropolitan area on the ground that effective relief could not be achieved without their presence. The District Court concluded that this motion to join was “premature,” since it “has to do with relief” and no reasonably specific desegregation plan was before the court. 338 F. Supp., at 596. Accordingly, the District Court proceeded to order the Detroit Board of Education to submit desegregation plans limited to the segregation problems found to be existing within the city of Detroit. At the same time, however, the state defendants were directed to submit desegregation plans encompassing the three-county metropolitan area despite the fact that the 85 outlying school districts of these three counties were not parties to the action and despite the fact that there had been no claim that these outlying districts had committed constitutional violations. An effort to appeal these orders to the Court of Appeals was dismissed on the ground that the orders were not appealable. 468 F. 2d 902 (CA6), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 844 (1972). The sequence of the ensuing actions and orders of the District Court are significant factors and will therefore be catalogued in some detail.
Following the District Court’s abrupt announcement that it planned to consider the implementation of a multidistrict, metropolitan area remedy to the segregation problems identified within the city of Detroit, the District Court was again requested to grant the outlying school districts intervention as of right on the ground that the District Court’s new request for multidistrict plans “may, as a practical matter, impair or impede [the intervenors’] ability to protect” the welfare of their students. The District Court took the motions to intervene under advisement pending submission of the requested desegregation plans by Detroit and the state officials. On March 7, 1972, the District Court notified all parties and the petitioner school districts seeking intervention, that March 14, 1972, was the deadline for submission of recommendations for conditions of intervention and the date of the commencement of hearings on Detroit-only desegregation plans. On the second day of the scheduled hearings, March 15, 1972, the District Court granted the motions of the intervenor school districts subject, inter alia, to the following conditions:
“1. No intervenor will be permitted to assert any claim or defense previously adjudicated by the court.
“2. No intervenor shall reopen any question or issue which has previously been decided by the court.
“7. New intervenors are granted intervention for two principal purposes: (a) To advise the court, by brief, of the legal propriety or impropriety of considering a metropolitan plan; (b) To review any plan or plans for the desegregation of the so-called larger Detroit Metropolitan area, and submitting objections, modifications or alternatives to it or them, and in accordance with the requirements of the United States Constitution and the prior orders of this court.” 1 Joint Appendix 206 (hereinafter App.).
Upon granting the motion to intervene, on March 15, 1972, the District Court advised the petitioning inter-venors that the court had previously set March 22, 1972, as the date for the filing of briefs on the legal propriety of a “metropolitan” plan of desegregation and, accordingly, that the intervening school districts would have one week to muster their legal arguments on the issue. Thereafter, and following the completion of hearings on the Detroit-only desegregation plans, the District Court issued the four rulings that were the principal issues in the Court of Appeals.
(a) On March 24, 1972, two days after the inter-venors’ briefs were due, the District Court issued its ruling on the question of whether it could “consider relief in the form of a metropolitan plan, encompassing not only the City of Detroit, but the larger Detroit metropolitan area.” It rejected the state defendants’ arguments that no state action caused the segregation of the Detroit schools, and the intervening suburban districts’ contention that interdistrict relief was inappropriate unless the suburban districts themselves had committed violations. The court concluded:
“[I]t is proper for the court to consider metropolitan plans directed toward the desegregation of the Detroit public schools as an alternative to the present intra-city desegregation plans before it and, in the event that the court finds such intra-city plans inadequate to desegregate such schools, the court is of the opinion that it is required to consider a metropolitan remedy for desegregation.” Pet. App. 51a.
(b) On March 28, 1972, the District Court issued its findings and conclusions on the three Detroit-only plans submitted by the city Board and the respondents. It found that the best of the three plans “would make the Detroit school system more identifiably Black . . . thereby increasing the flight of Whites from the city and the system.” Id., at 55a. From this the court concluded that the plan “would not accomplish desegregation . . . within the corporate geographical limits of the city.” Id., at 56a. Accordingly, the District Court held that it “must look beyond the limits of the Detroit school district for a solution to the problem,” and that “[s]chool district lines are simply matters of political convenience and may not be used to deny constitutional rights.” Id., at 57a.
(c) During the period from March 28 to April 14, 1972, the District Court conducted hearings on a metropolitan plan. Counsel for the petitioning intervenors was allowed to participate in these hearings, but he was ordered to confine his argument to “the size and expanse of the metropolitan plan” without addressing the inter-venors’ opposition to such a remedy or the claim that a finding of a constitutional violation by the intervenor districts was an essential predicate to any remedy involving them. Thereafter, on June 14, 1972, the District Court issued its ruling on the “desegregation area” and related findings and conclusions. The court acknowledged at the outset that it had “taken no proofs with respect to the establishment of the boundaries of the 86 public school districts in the counties [in the Detroit area], nor on the issue of whether, with the exclusion of the city of Detroit school district, such school districts have committed acts of de jure segregation.” Nevertheless, the court designated 53 of the 85 suburban school districts plus Detroit as the “desegregation area” and appointed a panel to prepare and submit “an effective desegregation plan” for the Detroit schools that would encompass the entire desegregation area. The plan was to be based on 15 clusters, each containing part of the Detroit system and two or more suburban districts, and was to “achieve the greatest degree of actual desegregation to the end that, upon implementation, no school, grade or classroom [would be] substantially disproportionate to the overall pupil racial composition.” 345 F. Supp. 914, 918 (ED Mich. 1972).
(d) On July 11, 1972, and in accordance with a recommendation by the court-appointed desegregation panel, the District Court ordered the Detroit Board of Education to purchase or lease “at least” 295 school buses for the purpose of providing transportation under an interim plan to be developed for the 1972-1973 school year. The costs of this acquisition were to be borne by the state defendants. Pet. App. 106a-107a.
On June 12, 1973, a divided Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings. 484 F. 2d 215 (CA6). The Court of Appeals held, first, that the record supported the District Court’s findings and conclusions on the constitutional violations committed by the Detroit Board, id., at 221-238, and by the state defendants, id., at 239-241. It stated that the acts of racial discrimination shown in the record are “causally related to the substantial amount of segregation found in the Detroit school system,” id,., at 241, and that “the District Court was therefore authorized and required to take effective measures to desegregate the Detroit Public School System.” Id., at 242.
The Court of Appeals also agreed with the District Court that ‘‘any less comprehensive a solution than a metropolitan area plan would result in an all black school system immediately surrounded by practically all white suburban school systems, with an overwhelmingly white majority population in the total metropolitan area.” Id., at 245. The court went on to state that it could “not see how such segregation can be any less harmful to the minority students than if the same result were accomplished within one school district.” Ibid.
Accordingly, the Court of Appeals concluded that “the only feasible desegregation plan involves the crossing of the boundary lines between the Detroit School District and adjacent or nearby school districts for the limited purpose of providing an effective desegregation plan.” Id., at 249. It reasoned that such a plan would be appropriate because of the State’s violations, and could be implemented because of the State’s authority to control local school districts. Without further elaboration, and without any discussion of the claims that no constitutional violation by the outlying districts had been shown and that no evidence on that point had been allowed, the Court of Appeals held:
“[T]he State has committed de jure acts of segregation and . . . the State controls the instrumentalities whose action is necessary to remedy the harmful effects of the State acts.” Ibid.
An interdistrict remedy was thus held to be “within the equity powers of the District Court.” Id., at 250.
The Court of Appeals expressed no views on the propriety of the District Court's composition of the metropolitan “desegregation area.” It held that all suburban school districts that might be affected by any metropol-itanwide remedy should, under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 19, be made parties to the case on remand and be given an opportunity to be heard with respect to the scope and implementation of such a remedy. 484 F. 2d, at 251-252. Under the terms of the remand, however, the District Court was not “required” to receive further evidence on the issue of segregation in the Detroit schools or on the propriety of a Detroit-only remedy, or on the question of whether the affected districts had committed any violation of the constitutional rights of Detroit pupils or others. Id., at 252. Finally, the Court of Appeals vacated the District Court's order directing the acquisition of school buses, subject to the right of the District Court to consider reimposing the order “at the appropriate time.” Ibid.
II
Ever since Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), judicial consideration of school desegregation cases has begun with the standard:
“[I]n the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Id., at 495.
This has been reaffirmed time and again as the meaning of the Constitution and the controlling rule of law.
The target of the Brown holding was clear and forthright: the elimination of state-mandated or deliberately maintained dual school systems with certain schools for Negro pupils and others for white pupils. This duality and racial segregation were held to violate the Constitution in the cases subsequent to 1954, including particularly Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U. S. 430 (1968); Raney v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 443 (1968); Monroe v. Board of Comm’rs, 391 U. S. 450 (1968); Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1 (1971); Wright v. Council of the City of Emporia, 407 U. S. 451 (1972); United States v. Scotland Neck Board of Education, 407 U. S. 484 (1972).
The Swann case, of course, dealt
“with the problem of defining in more precise terms than heretofore the scope of the duty of school authorities and district courts in implementing Brown I and the mandate to eliminate dual systems and establish unitary systems at once.” 402 U. S., at 6.
In Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294 (1955) (Brown II), the Court’s first encounter with the problem of remedies in school desegregation cases, the Court noted:
“In fashioning and effectuating the decrees, the courts will be guided by equitable principles. Traditionally, equity has been characterized by a practical flexibility in shaping its remedies and by a facility for adjusting and reconciling public and private needs.” Id., at 300 (footnotes omitted).
In further refining the remedial process, Swann held, the task is to correct, by a balancing of the individual and collective interests, “the condition that offends the Constitution.” A federal remedial power may be exercised “only on the basis of a constitutional violation” and, “[a]s with any equity case, the nature of the violation determines the scope of the remedy.” 402 IT. S., at 16.
Proceeding from these basic principles, we first note that in the District Court the complainants sought a remedy aimed at the condition alleged to offend the Constitution — the segregation within the Detroit City School District. The court acted on this theory of the case and in its initial ruling on the “Desegregation Area” stated:
“The task before this court, therefore, is now, and . . . has always been, how to desegregate the Detroit public schools.” 345 F. Supp., at 921.
Thereafter, however, the District Court abruptly rejected the proposed Detroit-only plans on the ground that “while [they] would provide a racial mix more in keeping with the Black-White proportions of the student population [they] would accentuate the racial identifiability of the [Detroit] district as a Black school system, and would not accomplish desegregation.” Pet. App. 56a. “[T]he racial composition of the student body is such,” said the court, “that the plan's implementation would clearly make the entire Detroit public school system racially identifiable” (id., at 54a), “leav[ing] many of its schools 75 to 90 per cent Black.” Id., at 55a. Consequently, the court reasoned, it was imperative to “look beyond the limits of the Detroit school district for a solution to the problem of segregation in the Detroit public schools . . .” since “[s]chool district lines are simply matters of political convenience and may not be used to deny constitutional rights.” Id., at 57a. Accordingly, the District Court proceeded to redefine the relevant area to include areas of predominantly white pupil population in order to ensure that “upon implementation, no school, grade or classroom [would be] substantially disproportionate to the overall pupil racial composition” of the entire metropolitan area.
While specifically acknowledging that the District Court’s findings of a condition of segregation were limited to Detroit, the Court of Appeals approved the use of a metropolitan remedy largely on the grounds that it is
“impossible to declare 'clearly erroneous’ the District Judge’s conclusion that any Detroit only segregation plan will lead directly to a single segregated Detroit school district overwhelmingly black in all of its schools, surrounded by a ring of suburbs and suburban school districts overwhelmingly white in composition in a State in which the racial composition is 87 per cent white and 13 per cent black.” 484 F. 2d, at 249.
Viewing the record as a whole, it seems clear that the District Court and the Court of Appeals shifted the primary focus from a Detroit remedy to the metropolitan area only because of their conclusion that total desegregation of Detroit would not produce the racial balance which they perceived as desirable. Both courts proceeded on an assumption that the Detroit schools could not be truly desegregated — in their view of what constituted desegregation — unless the racial composition of the student body of each school substantially reflected the racial composition of the population of the metropolitan area as a whole. The metropolitan area was then defined as Detroit plus 53 of the outlying school districts. That this was the approach the District Court expressly and frankly employed is shown by the order which expressed the court’s view of the constitutional standard:
“Within the limitations of reasonable travel time and distance factors, pupil reassignments shall be effected within the clusters described in Exhibit P. M. 12 so as to achieve the greatest degree of actual desegregation to the end that, upon implementation, no school, grade or classroom [will be] substantially disproportionate to the overall pupil racial composition.” 345 F. Supp., at 918 (emphasis added).
In Swann, which arose in the context of a single independent school district, the Court held:
“If we were to read the holding of the District Court to require, as a matter of substantive constitutional right, any particular degree of racial balance or mixing, that approach would be disapproved and we would be obliged to reverse.” 402 U. S., at 24.
The clear import of this language from Swann is that desegregation, in the sense of dismantling a dual school system, does not require any particular racial balance in each “school, grade or classroom.” See Spencer v. Kugler, 404 U. S. 1027 (1972).
Here the District Court’s approach to what constituted “actual desegregation” raises the fundamental question, not presented in Swann, as to the circumstances in which a federal court may order desegregation relief that embraces more than a single school district. The court’s analytical starting point was its conclusion that school district lines are no more than arbitrary lines on a map drawn “for political convenience.” Boundary lines may be bridged where there has been a constitutional violation calling for interdistrict relief, but the notion that school district lines may be casually ignored or treated as a mere administrative convenience is contrary to the history of public education in our country. No single tradition in public education is more deeply rooted than local control over the operation of schools; local autonomy has long been thought essential both to the maintenance of community concern and support for public schools and to quality of the educational process. See Wright v. Council of the City of Emporia, 407 U. S., at 469. Thus, in San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 50 (1973), we observed that local control over the educational process affords citizens an opportunity to participate in decisionmaking, permits the structuring of school programs to fit local needs, and encourages “experimentation, innovation, and a healthy competition for educational excellence.”
The Michigan educational structure involved in this case, in common with most States, provides for a large measure of local control, and a review of the scope and character of these local powers indicates the extent to which the interdistrict remedy approved by the two courts could disrupt and alter the structure of public education in Michigan. The metropolitan remedy would require, in effect, consolidation of 54 independent school districts historically administered as separate units into a vast new super school district. See n. 10, supra. Entirely apart from the logistical and other serious problems attending large-scale transportation of students, the consolidation would give rise to an array of other problems in financing and operating this new school system. Some of the more obvious questions would be: What would be the status and authority of the present popularly elected school boards? Would the children of Detroit be within the jurisdiction and operating control of a school board elected by the parents and residents of other districts? What board or boards would levy taxes for school operations in these 54 districts constituting the consolidated metropolitan area? What provisions could be made for assuring substantial equality in tax levies among the 54 districts, if this were deemed requisite? What provisions would be made for financing? Would the validity of long-term bonds be jeopardized unless approved by all of the component districts as well as the State? What body would determine that portion of the curricula now left to the discretion of local school boards? Who would establish attendance zones, purchase school equipment, locate and construct new schools, and indeed attend to all the myriad day-to-day decisions that are necessary to school operations affecting potentially more than three-quarters of a million pupils? See n. 10, supra.
It may be suggested that all of these vital operational problems are yet to be resolved by the District Court, and that this is the purpose of the Court of Appeals’ proposed remand. But it is obvious from the scope of the interdistrict remedy itself that absent a complete restructuring of the laws of Michigan relating to school districts the District Court will become first, a de facto “legislative authority” to resolve these complex questions, and then the “school superintendent” for the entire area. This is a task which few, if any, judges are qualified to perform and one which would deprive the people of control of schools through their elected representatives.
Of course, no state law is above the Constitution. School district lines and the present laws with respect to local control, are not sacrosanct and if they conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment federal courts have a duty to prescribe appropriate remedies. See, e. g., Wright v. Council of the City of Emporia, 407 U. S. 451 (1972) ; United States v. Scotland Neck Board of Education, 407 U. S. 484 (1972) (state or local officials prevented from carving out a new school district from an existing district that was in process of dismantling a dual school system); cf. Haney v. County Board of Education of Sevier County, 429 F. 2d 364 (CA8 1970) (State contributed to separation of races by drawing of school district lines); United States v. Texas, 321 F. Supp. 1043 (ED Tex. 1970), aff’d, 447 F. 2d 441 (CA5 1971), cert. denied sub nom. Edgar v. United States, 404 U. S. 1016 (1972) (one or more school districts created and maintained for one race). But our prior holdings have been confined to violations and remedies within a single school district. We therefore turn to address, for the first time, the validity of a remedy mandating cross-district or interdistrict consolidation to remedy a condition of segregation found to exist in only one district.
The controlling principle consistently expounded in our holdings is that the scope of the remedy is determined by the nature and extent of the constitutional violation. Swann, 402 U. S., at 16. Before the boundaries of separate and autonomous school districts may be set aside by consolidating the separate units for remedial purposes or by imposing a cross-district remedy, it must first be shown that there has been a constitutional violation within one district that produces a significant seg-regative effect in another district. Specifically, it must be shown that racially discriminatory acts of the state or local school districts, or of a single school district have been a substantial cause of interdistrict segregation. Thus an interdistrict remedy might be in order where the racially discriminatory acts of one or more school districts caused racial segregation in an adjacent district, or where district lines have been deliberately drawn on the basis of race. In such circumstances an interdistrict remedy would be appropriate to eliminate the interdis-trict segregation directly caused by the constitutional violation. Conversely, without an interdistrict violation and interdistrict effect, there is no constitutional wrong calling for an interdistrict remedy.
The record before us, voluminous as it is, contains evidence of de jure segregated conditions only in the Detroit schools; indeed, that was the theory on which the litigation was initially based and on which the District Court took evidence. See supra, at 725-726. With no showing of significant violation by the 53 outlying school districts and no evidence of any interdistrict violation or effect, the court went beyond the original theory of the case as framed by the pleadings and mandated a metropolitan area remedy. To approve the remedy ordered by the court would impose on the outlying districts, not shown to have committed any constitutional violation, a wholly impermissible remedy based on a standard not hinted at in Brown I and II or any holding of this Court.
In dissent, Mb. Justice White and Mb. Justice Mae-shall undertake to demonstrate that agencies having statewide authority participated in maintaining the dual school system found to exist in Detroit. They are apparently of the view that once such participation is shown, the District Court should have a relatively free hand to reconstruct school districts outside of Detroit in fashioning relief. Our assumption, arguendo, see infra, at 748, that state agencies did participate in the maintenance of the Detroit system, should make it clear that it is not on this point that we part company. The difference between us arises instead from established doctrine laid down by our cases. Brown, supra; Oreen, supra; Swann, supra; Scotland Neck, supra; and Emporia, supra, each addressed the issue of constitutional wrong in terms of an established geographic and administrative school system populated by both Negro and white children. In such a context, terms such as “unitary” and “dual” systems, and “racially identifiable schools,” have meaning, and the necessary federal authority to remedy the constitutional wrong is firmly established. But the remedy is necessarily designed, as all remedies are, to restore the victims of discriminatory conduct to the position they would have occupied in the absence of such conduct. Disparate treatment of white and Negro students occurred within the Detroit school system, and not elsewhere, and on this record the remedy must be limited to that system. Swann, supra, at 16.
The constitutional right of the Negro respondents residing in Detroit is to attend a unitary school system in that district. Unless petitioners drew the district lines in a discriminatory fashion, or arranged for white students residing in the Detroit District to attend schools in Oakland and Macomb Counties, they were under no constitutional duty to make provisions for Negro students to do so. The view of the dissenters, that the existence of a dual system in Detroit can be made the basis for a decree requiring cross-district transportation of pupils, cannot be supported on the grounds that it represents merely the devising of a suitably flexible remedy for the violation of rights already established by our prior decisions. It can be supported only by drastic expansion of the constitutional right itself, an expansion without any support in either constitutional principle or precedent.
Ill
We recognize that the six-volume record presently under consideration contains language and some specific incidental findings thought by the District Court to afford a basis for interdistrict relief. However, these comparatively isolated findings and brief comments concern only one possible interdistrict violation and are found in the context of a proceeding that, as the District Court conceded, included no proof of segregation practiced by any of the 85 suburban school districts surrounding Detroit. The Court of Appeals, for example, relied on five factors which, it held, amounted to unconstitutional state action with respect to the violations found in the Detroit system:
(1) It held the State derivatively responsible for the Detroit Board’s violations on the theory that actions of Detroit as a political subdivision of the State were attributable to the State. Accepting, arguendo, the correctness of this finding of state responsibility for the segregated conditions within the city of Detroit, it does not follow that an interdistrict remedy is constitutionally justified or required. With a single exception, discussed later, there has been no showing that either the State or any of the 85 outlying districts engaged in activity that had a cross-district effect. The boundaries of the Detroit School District, which are coterminous with the boundaries of the city of Detroit, were established over a century ago by neutral legislation when the city was incorporated; there is no evidence in the record, nor is there any suggestion by the respondents, that either the original boundaries of the Detroit School District, or any other school district in Michigan, were established for the purpose of creating, maintaining, or perpetuating segregation of races. There is no claim and there is no evidence hinting that petitioner outlying school districts and their predecessors, or the 30-odd other school districts in the tricounty area — but outside the District Court's “desegregation area” — have ever maintained or operated anything but unitary school systems. Unitary school systems have been required for more than a century by the Michigan Constitution as implemented by state law. Where the schools of only one district have been affected, there is no constitutional power in the courts to decree relief balancing the racial composition of that district's schools with those of the surrounding districts.
(2) There was evidence introduced at trial that, during the late 1950’s, Carver School District, a predominantly Negro suburban district, contracted to have Negro high school students sent to a predominantly Negro school in Detroit. At the time, Carver was an independent school district that had no high school because, according to the trial evidence, “Carver District . . . did not have a place for adequate high school facilities.” 484 F. 2d, at 231. Accordingly, arrangements were made with Northern High School in the abutting Detroit School District so that the Carver high school students could obtain a secondary school education. In 1960 the Oak Park School District, a predominantly white suburban district, annexed the predominantly Negro Carver School District, through the initiative of local officials. Ibid. There is, of course, no claim that the 1960 annexation had a segregative purpose or result or that Oak Park now maintains a dual system.
According to the Court of Appeals, the arrangement during the late 1950’s which allowed Carver students to be educated within the Detroit District was dependent upon the “tacit or express” approval of the State Board of Education and was the result of the refusal of the white suburban districts to accept the Carver students. Although there is nothing in the record supporting the Court of Appeals’ supposition that suburban white schools refused to accept the Carver students, it appears that this situation, whether with or without the State’s consent, may have had a segregative effect on the school populations of the two districts involved. However, since “the nature of the violation determines the scope of the remedy,” Swann, 402 U. S., at 16, this isolated instance affecting two of the school districts would not justify the broad metropolitan wide remedy contemplated by the District Court and approved by the Court of Appeals, particularly since it embraced potentially 52 districts having no responsibility for the arrangement and involved 503,000 pupils in addition to Detroit’s 276,000 students.
(3) The Court of Appeals cited the enactment of state legislation (Act 48) which had the effect of rescinding Detroit’s voluntary desegregation plan (the April 7 Plan). That plan, however, affected only 12 of 21 Detroit high schools and had no causal connection with the distribution of pupils by race between Detroit and the other school districts within the tri-county area.
(4) The court relied on the State’s authority to supervise schoolsite selection and to approve building construction as a basis for holding the State responsible for the segregative results of the school construction program in Detroit. Specifically, the Court of Appeals asserted that during the period between 1949 and 1962 the State Board of Education exercised general authority as overseer of site acquisitions by local boards for new school construction, and suggested that this state-approved school construction "fostered segregation throughout the Detroit Metropolitan area.” 484 F. 2d, at 241. This brief comment, however, is not supported by the 'evidence taken at trial since that evidence was specifically limited to proof that schoolsite acquisition and school construction within the city of Detroit produced de jure segregation within the city itself. Id., at 235-238. Thus, there was no evidence suggesting that the State's activities with respect to either school construction or site acquisition within Detroit affected the racial composition of the school population outside Detroit or, conversely, that the State’s school construction and site acquisition activities within the outlying districts affected the racial composition of the schools within Detroit.
(5) The Court of Appeals also relied upon the District Court’s finding:
“This and other financial limitations, such as those on bonding and the working of the state aid formula whereby suburban districts were able to make far larger per pupil expenditures despite less tax effort, have created and perpetuated systematic educational inequalities.” Id., at 239.
However, neither the Court of Appeals nor the District Court offered any indication in the record or in their opinions as to how, if at all, the availability of state-financed aid for some Michigan students outside Detroit, but not for those within Detroit, might have affected the racial character of any of the State’s school districts. Furthermore, as the respondents recognize, the application of our recent ruling in San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1 (1973), to this state education financing system is questionable, and this issue was not addressed by either the Court of Appeals or the District Court. This, again, underscores the crucial fact that the theory upon which the case proceeded related solely to the establishment of Detroit city violations as a basis for desegregating Detroit schools and that, at the time of trial, neither the parties nor the trial judge was concerned with a foundation for interdistrict relief.
IV
Petitioners have urged that they were denied due process by the manner in which the District Court limited their participation after intervention was allowed, thus precluding adequate opportunity to present evidence that they had committed no acts having a segregative effect in Detroit. In light of our holding that, absent an interdis-trict violation, there is no basis for an interdistrict remedy, we need not reach these claims. It is clear, however, that the District Court, with the approval of the Court of Appeals, has provided an interdistrict remedy in the face of a record which shows no constitutional violations that would call for equitable relief except within the city of Detroit. In these circumstances there was no occasion for the parties to address, or for the District Court to consider whether there were racially discriminatory acts for which any of the 53 outlying districts were responsible and which had direct and significant segregative effect on schools of more than one district.
We conclude that the relief ordered by the District Court and affirmed by the Court of Appeals was based upon an erroneous standard and was unsupported by record evidence that acts of the outlying districts effected the discrimination found to exist in the schools of Detroit. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion leading to prompt formulation of a decree directed to eliminating the segregation found to exist in Detroit city schools, a remedy which has been delayed since 1970.
Reversed and remanded.
484 F. 2d 215 (CA6), cert. granted, 414 U. S. 1038 (1973).
The standing of the NAACP as a proper party plaintiff was not contested in the trial court and is not an issue in this case.
Optional zones, sometimes referred to as dual zones or dual overlapping zones, provide pupils living within certain areas a choice of attendance at one of two high schools.
The Court of Appeals found record evidence that in at least one instance during the period 1957-1958, Detroit served a suburban school district by contracting with it to educate its Negro high school students by transporting them away from nearby suburban white high schools, and past Detroit high schools which were predominantly white, to all-Negro or predominantly Negro Detroit schools. 484 E. 2d, at 231.
School districts in the State of Michigan are instrumentalities of the State and subordinate to its State Board of Education and legislature. The Constitution of the State of Michigan, Art. 8, § 2, provides in relevant part:
“The legislature shall maintain and support a system of free public elementary and secondary schools as defined by law.”
Similarly, the Michigan Supreme Court has stated: "The school district is a State agency. Moreover, it is of legislative creation. . . .” Attorney General ex rel. Kies v. Lowrey, 131 Mich. 639, 644, 92 N. W. 289, 290 (1902); “ 'Education in Michigan belongs to the State. It is no part of the local self-government inherent in the township or municipality, except so far as the legislature may choose to make it such. The Constitution has turned the whole subject over to the legislature. . . .’” Attorney General ex rel. Zacharias v. Detroit Board of Education, 154 Mich. 584, 590, 118 N. W. 606, 609 (1908).
“Sec. 12. The implementation of any attendance provisions for the 1970-71 school year determined by any first' class school district board shall be delayed pending the date of commencement of functions by the first class school district boards established under the provisions of this amendatory act but such provision shall not impair the right of any such board to determine and implement prior to such date such changes in attendance provisions as are mandated by practical necessity. . . Act No. 48, § 12, Mich. Pub. Acts of 1970; Mich. Comp. Laws §388.182 (1970) (emphasis added).
The District Court briefly alluded to the possibility that the State, along with private persons, had caused, in part, the housing patterns of the Detroit metropolitan area which, in turn, produced the predominantly white and predominantly Negro neighborhoods that characterize Detroit:
“It is no answer to say that restricted practices grew gradually (as the black population in the area increased between 1920 and 1970), or that since 1948 racial restrictions on the ownership of real property have been removed. The policies pursued by both government and private persons and agencies have a continuing and present effect upon the complexion of the community — as we know, the choice of a residence is a relatively infrequent affair. For many years FHA and VA openly advised and advocated the maintenance of 'harmonious’ neighborhoods, i. e., racially and economically harmonious. The conditions created continue.” 338 F. Supp. 582, 587 (ED Mich. 1971).
Thus, the District Court concluded:
“The affirmative obligation of the defendant Board has been and is to adopt and implement pupil assignment practices and policies that compensate for and avoid incorporation into the school system the effects of residential racial segregation.” Id., at 593.
The Court of Appeals, however, expressly noted that:
“In affirming the District Judge’s findings of constitutional violations by the Detroit Board of Education and by the State defendants resulting in segregated schools in Detroit, we have not relied at all upon testimony pertaining to segregated housing except as school construction programs helped cause or maintain such segregation.” 484 F. 2d, at 242.
Accordingly, in its present posture, the case does not present any question concerning possible state housing violations.
On March 22, 1971, a group of Detroit residents, who were parents of children enrolled in the Detroit public schools, were permitted to intervene as parties defendant. On June 24, 1971, the District Judge alluded to the “possibility” of a metropolitan school system stating: “[A]s I have said to several witnesses in this case: ‘How do you desegregate a black city, or a black school system.’ ” Petitioners’ Appendix 243a (hereinafter Pet. App.). Subsequently, on July 16, 1971, various parents filed a motion to require joinder of all of the 85 outlying independent school districts within the tricounty area.
The respondents, as plaintiffs below, opposed the motion to join the additional school districts, arguing that the presence of the state defendants was sufficient and all that was required, even if, in shaping a remedy, the affairs of these other districts was to be affected. 338 F. Supp., at 595.
At the time of the 1970 census, the population of Michigan was 8,875,083, almost half of which, 4,199,931, resided in the tri-county area of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb. Oakland and Macomb Counties abut Wayne County to the north, and Oakland County abuts Macomb County to the west. These counties cover 1,952 square miles, Michigan Statistical Abstract (9th ed. 1972), and the area is approximately the size of the State of Delaware (2,057 square miles), more than half again the size of the State of Rhode Island (1,214 square miles) and almost 30 times the size of the District of Columbia (67 square miles). Statistical Abstract of the United States (93d ed. 1972). The populátions of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties were 2,666,751; 907,871; and 625,309, respectively, in 1970. Detroit, the State’s largest city, is located in Wayne County.
In the 1970-1971 school year, there were 2,157,449 children enrolled in school districts in Michigan. There are 86 independent, legally distinct school districts within the tri-county area, having a total enrollment of approximately 1,000,000 children. In 1970, the Detroit Board of Education operated 319 schools with approximately 276,000 students.
In its formal opinion, subsequently announced, the District Court candidly recognized:
“It should be noted that the court has taken no proofs with respect to the establishment of the boundaries of the 86 public school districts in the counties of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb, nor on the issue of whether, with the exclusion of the city of Detroit school district, such school districts have committed acts of de jure segregation.” 345 F. Supp. 914, 920 (ED Mich. 1972).
According to the District Court, intervention was permitted under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 24 (a), “Intervention of Right/’ and also under Rule 24(b), “Permissive Intervention.”
This rather abbreviated briefing schedule was maintained despite the fact that the District Court had deferred consideration of a motion made eight months earlier, to bring the suburban districts into the case. See text accompanying n. 8, supra.
As of 1970, the 53 school districts outside the city of Detroit that were included in the court's “desegregation area” had a combined student population of approximately 503,000 students compared to Detroit’s approximately 276,000 students. Nevertheless, the District Court directed that the intervening districts should be represented by only one member on the desegregation panel while the Detroit Board of Education was granted three panel members. 345 F. Supp., at 917.
The District Court had certified most of the foregoing rulings for interlocutory review pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (b) (1 App. 265-266) and the case was initially decided on the merits by a panel of three judges. However, the panel’s opinion and judgment were vacated when it was determined to rehear the case en banc, 484 F. 2d, at 218.
With respect to the State’s violations, the Court of Appeals held: (1) that, since the city Board is an instrumentality of the State and subordinate to the State Board, the segregative actions of the Detroit Board “are the actions of an agency of the State,” id., at 238; (2) that the state legislation rescinding Detroit’s voluntary desegregation plan contributed to increasing segregation in the Detroit schools, ibid.; (3) that under state law prior to 1962 the State Board had authority over school construction plans and therefore had to be held responsible “for the segregative results,” ibid.; (4) that the “State statutory scheme of support of transportation for school children directly discriminated against Detroit/’ id., at 240, by not providing transportation funds to Detroit on the same basis as funds were provided to suburban districts, id., at 238; and (5) that the transportation of Negro students from one suburban district to a Negro school in Detroit must have had the “approval, tacit or express, of the State Board of Education,” ibid.
The court sought to distinguish Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, 462 F. 2d 1058 (CA4 1972), aff’d by an equally divided Court, 412 U. S. 92 (1973), on the grounds that the District Court in that case had ordered an actual consolidation of three school districts and that Virginia’s Constitution and statutes, unlike Michigan’s, gave the local boards exclusive power to operate the public schools. 484 F. 2d, at 251.
Although the list of issues presented for review in petitioners’ briefs and petitions for writs of certiorari do not include arguments on the findings of segregative violations on the part of the Detroit defendants, two of the petitioners argue in brief that these findings constitute error. This Court’s Rules 23 (1) (c) and 40(1) (d)(2), at a minimum, limit our review of the Detroit violation findings to “plain error,” and, under our decision last Term in Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, Colorado, 413 U. S. 189 (1973), the findings appear to be correct.
Disparity in the racial composition of pupils within a single district may well constitute a “signal” to a district court at the outset, leading to inquiry into the causes accounting for a pronounced racial identifiability of schools within one school system. In Swann, for example, we were dealing with a large but single independent school system, and a unanimous Court noted: “Where the ... proposed plan for conversion from a dual to a unitary system contemplates the continued existence of some schools that are all or predominantly of one race [the school authority has] the burden of showing that such school assignments are genuinely nondiscriminatory.” 402 U. S., at 26. See also Keyes, supra, at 208. However, the use of significant racial imbalance in schools within an autonomous school district as a signal which operates simply to shift the burden of proof, is a very different matter from equating racial imbalance with a constitutional violation calling for a remedy. Keyes, supra, also involved a remedial order within a single autonomous school district.
Under the Michigan School Code of 1955, the local school district is an autonomous political body corporate, operating through a Board of Education popularly elected. Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 340.27, 340.55, 340.107, 340.148, 340.149, 340.188. As such, the day-today affairs of the school district are determined at the local level in accordance with the plenary power to acquire real and personal property, §§340.26, 340.77, 340.113, 340.165, 340.192, 340.352; to hire and contract with personnel, §§ 340.569, 340.574; to levy taxes for operations, § 340.563; to borrow against receipts, § 340.567; to determine the length of school terms, § 340.575; to control the admission of nonresident students, §340.582; to determine courses of study, §340.583; to provide a kindergarten program, § 340.584; to establish and operate vocational schools, § 340.585; to offer adult education programs, §340.586; to establish attendance areas, §340-589; to arrange for transportation of nonresident students, § 340-591; to acquire transportation equipment, § 340.594; to receive gifts and bequests for educational purposes, §340.605; to employ an attorney, § 340.609; to suspend or expel students, § 340.613; to make rules and regulations for the operation of schools, § 340.614; to cause to be levied authorized millage, § 340.643a; to acquire property by eminent domain, §340.711 et seq.; and to approve and select textbooks, § 340.882.
Since the Court has held that a resident of a school district has a fundamental right protected by the Federal Constitution to vote in a district election, it would seem incongruous to disparage the importance of the school district in a different context. Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, 395 U. S. 621, 626 (1969). While the district there involved was located in New York, none of the facts in our possession suggest that the relation of school districts to the State is significantly different in New York from that in Michigan.
The suggestion in the dissent of Mr Justice Marshall that schools which have a majority of Negro students are not “desegregated,” whatever the racial makeup of the school district’s population and however neutrally the district lines have been drawn and administered, finds no support in our prior cases. In Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U. S. 430 (1968), for example, this Court approved a desegregation plan which would have resulted in each of the schools within the district having a racial composition of 57% Negro and 43% white. In Wright v. Council of the City of Emporia, 407 U. S. 451 (1972), the optimal desegregation plan would have resulted in the schools’ being 66% Negro and 34% white, substantially the same percentages as could be obtained under one of the plans involved in this case. And in United States v. Scotland Neck Board of Education, 407 U. S. 484, 491 n. 5 (1972), a desegregation plan was implicitly approved for a school district which had a racial composition of 77% Negro and 22% white. In none of these cases was it even intimated that “actual desegregation” could not be accomplished as long as the number of Negro students was greater than the number of white students.
The dissents also seem to attach importance to the metropolitan character of Detroit and neighboring school districts. But the constitutional principles applicable in school desegregation cases cannot vary in accordance with the size or population dispersal of the particular city, county, or school district as compared with neighboring areas.
People ex rel. Workman v. Board of Education of Detroit, 18 Mich. 400 (1869); Act 34, §28, Mich. Pub. Acts of 1867. The Michigan Constitution and laws provide that “[e]very school district shall provide for the education of its pupils without discrimination as to religion, creed, race, color or national origin,” Mich. Const. 1963, Art. 8, §2; that “[n]o separate school or department shall be kept for any person or persons on account of race or color,” Mich. Comp. Laws § 340.365; and that “[a]ll persons, residents of a school district . . . shall have an equal right to attend school therein,” id., § 340.356. See also Act 319, Part II, c. 2, § 9, Mich. Pub. Acts of 1927.
Apparently, when the District Court, sua sponte, abruptly altered the theory of the case to include the possibility of multidistrict relief, neither the plaintiffs nor the trial judge considered amending the complaint to embrace the new theory. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue of the Court's decision. Determine the issue of the case on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. | What is the issue of the decision? | [
"voting",
"Voting Rights Act of 1965, plus amendments",
"ballot access (of candidates and political parties)",
"desegregation (other than as pertains to school desegregation, employment discrimination, and affirmative action)",
"desegregation, schools",
"employment discrimination: on basis of race, age, religion, illegitimacy, national origin, or working conditions.",
"affirmative action",
"slavery or indenture",
"sit-in demonstrations (protests against racial discrimination in places of public accommodation)",
"reapportionment: other than plans governed by the Voting Rights Act",
"debtors' rights",
"deportation (cf. immigration and naturalization)",
"employability of aliens (cf. immigration and naturalization)",
"sex discrimination (excluding sex discrimination in employment)",
"sex discrimination in employment (cf. sex discrimination)",
"Indians (other than pertains to state jurisdiction over)",
"Indians, state jurisdiction over",
"juveniles (cf. rights of illegitimates)",
"poverty law, constitutional",
"poverty law, statutory: welfare benefits, typically under some Social Security Act provision.",
"illegitimates, rights of (cf. juveniles): typically inheritance and survivor's benefits, and paternity suits",
"handicapped, rights of: under Rehabilitation, Americans with Disabilities Act, and related statutes",
"residency requirements: durational, plus discrimination against nonresidents",
"military: draftee, or person subject to induction",
"military: active duty",
"military: veteran",
"immigration and naturalization: permanent residence",
"immigration and naturalization: citizenship",
"immigration and naturalization: loss of citizenship, denaturalization",
"immigration and naturalization: access to public education",
"immigration and naturalization: welfare benefits",
"immigration and naturalization: miscellaneous",
"indigents: appointment of counsel (cf. right to counsel)",
"indigents: inadequate representation by counsel (cf. right to counsel)",
"indigents: payment of fine",
"indigents: costs or filing fees",
"indigents: U.S. Supreme Court docketing fee",
"indigents: transcript",
"indigents: assistance of psychiatrist",
"indigents: miscellaneous",
"liability, civil rights acts (cf. liability, governmental and liability, nongovernmental; cruel and unusual punishment, non-death penalty)",
"miscellaneous civil rights (cf. comity: civil rights)"
] | [
4
] | sc_issue_2 |
EU, SECRETARY OF STATE OF CALIFORNIA, et al. v. SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE et al.
No. 87-1269.
Argued December 5, 1988
Decided February 22, 1989
Marshall, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which all other Members joined, except Rehnquist, C. J., who took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. Stevens, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 233.
Geoffrey L. Graybill, Jr., Deputy Attorney General of California, argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were John K. Van de Kamp, Attorney General, Rich ard D. Martl'and, Chief Assistant Attorney General, and N. Eugene Hill, Assistant Attorney General.
James J. Brosnahan argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Cedric C. Chao.
Stuart R. Blatt filed a brief for the Libertarian National Committee as amicus curiae.
Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The California Elections Code prohibits the official governing bodies of political parties from endorsing candidates in party primaries. It also dictates the organization and composition of those bodies, limits the term of office of a party chair, and requires that the chair rotate between residents of northern and southern California. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that these provisions violate the free speech and associational rights of political parties and their members guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. 826 F. 2d 814 (1987). We noted probable jurisdiction, 485 U. S. 1004 (1988), and now affirm.
I
A
The State of California heavily regulates its political parties. Although the laws vary in extent and detail from party to party, certain requirements apply to all “ballot-qualified” parties. The California Elections Code (Code) provides that the “official governing bodies” for such a party are its “state convention,” “state central committee,” and “county central committees,” Cal. Elec.. Code Ann. § 11702 (West 1977), and that these bodies are responsible for conducting the party’s campaigns. At the same time, the Code provides that the official governing bodies “shall not endorse, support, or oppose, any candidate for nomination by that party for partisan office in the direct primary election.” Ibid. It is a misdemeanor for any primary candidate, or a person on her behalf, to claim that she is the officially endorsed candidate of the party. § 29430.
Although the official governing bodies of political parties are barred from issuing endorsements, other groups are not. Political clubs affiliated with a party, labor organizations, political action committees, other politically active associations, and newspapers frequently endorse primary candidates. With the official party organizations silenced by the ban, it has been possible for a candidate with views antithetical to those of her party nevertheless to win its primary.
In addition to restricting the primary activities of the official governing bodies of political parties, California also regulates their internal affairs. Separate statutory provisions dictate the size and composition of the state central committees; set forth rules governing the selection and removal of committee members; fix the maximum term of office for the chair of the state central committee; require that the chair rotate between residents of northern and southern California; specify the time and place of committee meetings; and limit the dues parties may impose on members. Violations of these provisions are criminal offenses punishable by fine and imprisonment.
B
Various county central committees of the Democratic and Republican Parties, the state central committee of the Libertarian Party, members of various state and county central committees, and other groups and individuals active in partisan politics in California brought this action in federal court against state officials responsible for enforcing the Code (State or California). They contended that the ban on primary endorsements and the restrictions on internal party governance deprive political parties and their members of the rights of free speech and free association guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. The first count of the complaint challenged the ban on endorsements in partisan primary elections; the second count challenged the ban on endorsements in nonpartisan school, county, and municipal elections; and the third count challenged the provisions that prescribe the composition of state central committees, the term of office and eligibility criteria for state central committee chairs, the time and place of state and county central committee meetings, and the dues county committee members must pay.
The plaintiffs moved for summary judgment, in support of which they filed 28 declarations from the chairs of each plaintiff central committee, prominent political scientists, and elected officials from California and other States. The State moved to dismiss and filed a cross-motion for summary judgment supported by one declaration from a former state senator.
The District Court granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs on the first count, ruling that the ban on primary endorsements in §§11702 and 29430 violated the First Amendment as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. The court stayed all proceedings on the second count under the abstention doctrine of Railroad Comm’n of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496 (1941). On the third count, the court ruled that the laws prescribing the composition of state central committees, limiting the committee chairs’ terms of office, and designating that the chair rotate between residents of northern and southern California violate the First Amendment. The court denied summary judgment with respect to the statutory provisions establishing the time and place of committee meetings and the amount of dues. Civ. No. C-83-5599 MHP (ND Cal., May 3, 1984).
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. 792 F. 2d 802 (1986). This Court vacated that decision, 479 U. S. 1024 (1987), and remanded for further consideration in light of Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U. S. 208 (1986).
After supplemental briefing, the Court of Appeals again affirmed. 826 F. 2d 814 (1987). The court first rejected the State’s arguments based on nonjusticiability, lack of standing, Eleventh Amendment immunity, and Pullman abstention. 826 F. 2d, at 821-825. Turning to the merits, the court characterized the prohibition on primary endorsements as an “outright ban” on political speech. Id., at 833. “Prohibiting the governing body of a political party from supporting some candidates and opposing others patently infringes both the right of the party to express itself freely and the right of party members to an unrestricted flow of political information.” Id., at 835. The court rejected the State’s argument that the ban served a compelling state interest in preventing internal party dissension and factionalism: “The government simply has no legitimate interest in protecting political parties from disruptions of their own making.” Id., at 834. The court noted, moreover, that the State had not shown that banning primary endorsements protects parties from factionalism. Ibid. The court concluded that the ban was not necessary to protect voters from confusion, stating, “California’s ban on preprimary endorsements is a form of paternalism that is inconsistent with the First Amendment.” Id., at 836.
The Court of Appeals also found that California’s regulation of internal party affairs “burdens the parties’ right to govern themselves as they think best.” Id., at 827. This interference with the parties’ and their members’ First Amendment rights was not justified by a compelling state interest, for a State has a legitimate interest “in orderly elections, not orderly parties.” Id., at 831. In any event, the court noted, the State had failed to submit “ ‘a shred of evidence,’” id., at 833 (quoting Civ. No. C-83-5599 (ND Cal., May 3, 1984)), that the regulations of party internal affairs helped minimize party factionalism. Accordingly, the court held that the challenged provisions were unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
II
A State’s broad power to regulate the time, place, and manner of elections “does not extinguish the State’s responsibility to observe the limits established by the First Amendment rights of the State’s citizens.” Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U. S., at 217. To assess the constitutionality of a state election law, we first examine whether it burdens rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Id., at 214; Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 789 (1983). If the challenged law burdens the rights of political parties and their members, it can survive constitutional scrutiny only if the State shows that it advances a compelling state interest, Tashjian, supra, at 217, 222; Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173, 184 (1979); American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U. S. 767, 780, and n. 11 (1974); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 31 (1968), and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest, Illinois Bd. of Elections, supra, at 185; Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U. S. 51, 58-59 (1973); Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330, 343 (1972).
A
We first consider California’s prohibition on primary endorsements by the official governing bodies of political parties. California concedes that its ban implicates the First Amendment, Tr. of Oral Arg. 17, but contends that the burden is “miniscule.” Id., at 7. We disagree. The ban directly affects speech which “is at the core of our electoral process and of the First Amendment freedoms.” Williams v. Rhodes, supra, at 32. We have recognized repeatedly that “debate on the qualifications of candidates [is] integral to the operation of the system of government established by our Constitution.” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 14 (1976) (per curiam); see also NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U. S. 886, 913 (1982); Carey v. Brown, 447 U. S. 455, 467 (1980); Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 74-75 (1964). Indeed, the First Amendment “has its fullest and most urgent application” to speech uttered during a campaign for political office. Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 U. S. 265, 272 (1971); see also Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S. 214, 218 (1966). Free discussion about candidates for public office is no less critical before a primary than before a general election. Cf. Stover v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 735 (1974); Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, 666 (1944); United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 314 (1941). In both instances, the “election campaign is a means of disseminating ideas as well as attaining political office.” Illinois Bd. of Elections, supra, at 186.
California’s ban on primary endorsements, however, prevents party governing bodies from stating whether a candidate adheres to the tenets of the party or whether party officials believe that the candidate is qualified for the position sought. This prohibition directly hampers the ability of a party to spread its message and hamstrings voters seeking to inform themselves about the candidates and the campaign issues. See Tashjian, supra, at 220-222; Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n of California, 475 U. S. 1, 8 (1986); Brown v. Hartlage, 456 U. S. 45, 60 (1982); First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 791-792 (1978). A “highly paternalistic approach” limiting what people may hear is generally suspect, Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S. 748, 770 (1976); see also First National Bank of Boston, supra, at 790-792, but it is particularly egregious where the State censors the political speech a political party shares with its members. See Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 634 (1984) (O’Connor, J., concurring).
Barring political parties from endorsing and opposing candidates not only burdens their freedom of speech but also infringes upon their freedom of association. It is well settled that partisan political organizations enjoy freedom of association protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Tashjian, supra, at 214; see also Elrod v. Burns, 427 U. S. 347, 357 (1976) (plurality opinion). Freedom of association means not only that an individual voter has the right to associate with the political party of her choice, Tashjian, supra, at 214 (quoting Kusper, supra, at 57), but also that a political party has a right to “ ‘identify the people who constitute the association,”’ Tashjian, supra, at 214 (quoting Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette, 450 U. S. 107, 122 (1981)); cf. NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 460-462 (1958), and to select a “standard bearer who best represents the party’s ideologies and preferences.” Ripon Society, Inc. v. National Republican Party, 173 U. S. App. D. C. 350, 384, 525 F. 2d 567, 601 (1975) (Tamm, J., concurring in result), cert, denied, 424 U. S. 933 (1976).
Depriving a political party of the power to endorse suffocates this right. The endorsement ban prevents parties from promoting candidates “at the crucial juncture at which the appeal to common principles may be translated into concerted action, and hence to political power in the community.” Tashjian, supra, at 216. Even though individual members of the state central committees and county central committees are free to issue endorsements, imposing limitations “on individuals wishing to band.together to advance their views on a ballot measure, while placing none on individuals acting alone, is clearly a restraint on the right of association.” Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition for Fair Housing v. Berkeley, 454 U. S. 290, 296 (1981).
Because the ban burdens appellees’ rights to free speech and free association, it can only survive constitutional scrutiny if it serves a compelling governmental interest. The State offers two: stable government and protecting voters from confusion and undue influence. Maintaining a stable political system is, unquestionably, a compelling state interest. See Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S., at 736. California, however, never adequately explains how banning parties from endorsing or opposing primary candidates advances that interest. There is no showing, for example, that California’s political system is any more stable now than it was in 1963, when the legislature enacted the ban. Nor does the State explain what makes the California system so peculiar that it is virtually the only State that has determined that such a ban is necessary.
The only explanation the State offers is that its compelling interest in stable government embraces a similar interest in party stability. Brief for Appellants 47. The State relies heavily on Storer v. Brown, supra, where we stated that because “splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism may do significant damage to the fabric of government,” 415 U. S., at 736, States may regulate elections to ensure that “some sort of order, rather than chaos . . . accompanies] the democratic processes,” id., at 730. Our decision in Storer, however, does not stand for the proposition that a State may enact election laws to mitigate intraparty factionalism during a primary campaign. To the contrary, Storer recognized that “contending forces within the party employ the primary campaign and the primary election to finally settle their differences.” Id., at 735. A primary is not hostile to intra-party feuds; rather it is an ideal forum in which to resolve them. Ibid.; American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U. S., at 781. Tashjian recognizes precisely this distinction. In that case, we noted that a State may enact laws to “prevent the disruption of the political parties from without” but not, as in this case, laws “to prevent the parties from taking internal steps affecting their own process for the selection of candidates.” 479 U. S., at 224.
It is no answer to argue, as does the State, that a party that issues primary endorsements risks intraparty friction which may endanger the party’s general election prospects. Presumably a party will be motivated by self-interest and not engage in acts or speech that run counter to its political success. However, even if a ban on endorsements saves a political party from pursuing self-destructive acts, that would not justify a State substituting its judgment for that of the party. See ibid.; Democratic Party of United States, 450 U. S., at 124. Because preserving party unity during a primary is not a compelling state interest, we must look elsewhere to justify the challenged law.
The State’s second justification for the ban on party endorsements and statements of opposition is that it is necessary to protect primary voters from confusion and undue influence. Certainly the State has a legitimate interest in fostering an informed electorate. Tashjian, supra, at 220; Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S., at 796; American Party of Texas v. White, supra, at 782, n. 14; Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S. 134, 145 (1972); Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U. S. 431, 442 (1971). However, “‘[a] State’s claim that it is enhancing the ability of its citizenry to make wise decisions by restricting the flow of information to them must be viewed with some skepticism.’” Tashjian, supra, at 221 (quoting Anderson v. Celebrezze, supra, at 798). While a State may regulate the flow of information between political associations and their members when necessary to prevent fraud and corruption, see Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S., at 26-27; Jenness v. Fortson, supra, at 442, there is no evidence that California’s ban on party primary endorsements serves that purpose.
Because the ban on primary endorsements by political parties burdens political speech while serving no compelling governmental interest, we hold that §§11702 and 29430 violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
B
We turn next to California’s restrictions on the organization and composition of official governing bodies, the limits on the term of office for state central committee chair, and the requirement that the chair rotate between residents of northern and southern California. These laws directly implicate the associational rights of political parties and their members. As we noted in Tashjian, a political party’s “determination ... of the structure which best allows it to pursue its political goals, is protected by the Constitution.” 479 U. S., at 224. Freedom of association also encompasses a political party’s decisions about the identity of, and the process for electing, its leaders. See Democratic Party of United States, supra (State cannot dictate process of selecting state delegates to Democratic National Convention); Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U. S. 477 (1975) (State cannot dictate who may sit as state delegates to Democratic National Convention); cf. Tashjian, supra, at 235-236 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“The ability of the members of [a political p]arty to select their own candidate . . . unquestionably implicates an associational freedom”).
The laws at issue burden these rights. By requiring parties to establish official governing bodies at the county level, California prevents the political parties from governing themselves with the structure they think best. And by specifying who shall be the members of the parties’ official governing bodies, California interferes with the parties’ choice of leaders. A party might decide, for example, that it will be more effective if a greater number of its official leaders are local activists rather than Washington-based elected officials. The Code prevents such a change. A party might also decide that the state central committee chair needs more than two years to successfully formulate and implement policy. The Code prevents such an extension of the chair’s term of office. A party might find that a resident of northern California would be particularly effective in promoting the party’s message and in unifying the party. The Code prevents her from chairing the state central committee unless the preceding chair was from the southern part of the State.
Each restriction thus limits a political party’s discretion in how to organize itself, conduct its affairs, and select its leaders. Indeed, the associational rights at stake are much stronger than those we credited in Tashjian. There, we found that a party’s right to free association embraces a right to allow registered voters who are not party members to vote in the party’s primary. Here, party members do not seek to associate with nonparty members, but only with one another in freely choosing their party leaders.
Because the challenged laws burden the associational rights of political parties and their members, the question is whether they serve a compelling state interest. A State indisputably has a compelling interest in preserving the integrity of its election process. Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752, 761 (1973). Toward that end, a State may enact laws that interfere with a party’s internal affairs when necessary to ensure that elections are fair and honest. Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S., at 730. For example, a State may impose certain eligibility requirements for voters in the general election even though they limit parties’ ability to garner support and members. See, e. g., Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S., at 343-344 (residence requirement); Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112, 118 (1970) (age minimum); Kramer v. Union Free School Dist. No. 15, 395 U. S. 621, 625 (1969) (citizenship requirement). We have also recognized that a State may impose restrictions that promote the integrity of primary elections. See, e. g., American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U. S., at 779-780 (requirement that major political parties nominate candidates through a primary and that minor parties nominate candidates through conventions); id., at 785-786 (limitation on voters’ participation to one primary and bar on voters both voting in a party primary and signing a petition supporting an independent candidate); Rosario v. Rockefeller, supra (waiting periods before voters may change party registration and participate in another party’s primary); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S., at 145 (reasonable filing fees as a condition of placement on the ballot). None of these restrictions, however, involved direct regulation of a party’s leaders. Rather, the infringement on the associational rights of the parties and their members was the indirect consequence of laws necessary to the successful completion of a party’s external responsibilities in ensuring the order and fairness of elections.
In the instant case, the State has not shown that its regulation of internal party governance is necessary to the integrity of the electoral process. Instead, it contends that the challenged laws serve a compelling “interest in the ‘democratic management of the political party’s internal affairs.’” Brief for Appellants 43 (quoting 415 U. S., at 781, n. 15). This, however, is not a case where intervention is necessary to prevent the derogation of the civil rights of party adherents. Cf. Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649 (1944). Moreover, as we have observed, the State has no interest in “protecting] the integrity of the Party against the Party itself.” Tashjian, 479 U. S., at 224. The State further claims that limiting the term of the state central committee chair and requiring that the chair rotate between residents of northern and southern California helps “prevent regional friction from reaching a‘critical mass.’” Brief for Appellants 48. However, a State cannot substitute its judgment for that of the party as to the desirability of a particular internal party structure, any more than it can tell a party that its proposed communication to party members is unwise. Tashjian, supra, at 224.
In sum, a State cannot justify regulating a party’s internal affairs without showing that such regulation is necessary to ensure an election that is orderly and fair. Because California has made no such showing here, the challenged laws cannot be upheld.
Ill
For the reasons stated above, we hold that the challenged California election laws burden the First Amendment rights of political parties and their members without serving a compelling state interest. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Chief Justice Rehnquist took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
A “ballot-qualified” party is eligible to participate in any primary election because: (a) during the last gubernatorial election one of its candidates for state-wide office received two percent of the vote; (b) one percent of the State’s voters are registered with the party; or (c) a petition establishing the party has been filed by ten percent of the State’s voters. Cal. Elec. Code Ann. § 6480 (West 1977).
In the interest of simplicity, we use the terms “ballot-qualified party” and “political party” interchangeably.
The Code requires the state central committee of each party to conduct campaigns for the party, employ campaign directors, and develop whatever campaign organizations serve the best interests of the party. Cal. Elec. Code Ann. § 8776 (West Supp. 1989) (Democratic Party); § 9276 (Republican Party); §9688 (American Independent Party); §9819 (Peace and Freedom Party). The county central committees, in turn, “have charge of the party campaign under general direction of the state central committee.” § 8940 (Democratic Party); § 9440 (Republican Party); § 9740 (American Independent Party); § 9850 (Peace and Freedom Party). In addition, they “perform such other duties and services for th[e] political party as seem to be for the benefit of the party.” §8942 (Democratic Party); §9443 (Republican Party); §9742 (American Independent Party); §9852 (Peace and Freedom Party).
For example, while voters cannot learn what the Democratic state and county central committees think of candidates, they may be flooded with endorsements from disparate groups across the State such as the Berkeley Democratic Club, the Muleskinners Democratic Club, and the District 8 Democratic Club. Addendum to Motion to Affirm or to Dismiss 39a ¶ 7 (Addendum) (declaration of Mary King, chair of the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee); Addendum 48 ¶ 7 (declaration of Linda Post, chair of San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee).
In 1980, for example, Tom Metzger won the Democratic Party’s nomination for United States House of Representative from the San Diego area, although he was a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and held views antithetical to those of the Democratic Party. Addendum 15a ¶ 2 (declaration of Edmond Costantini, member of the Executive Board of the Democratic state central committee).
For example, the Code dictates the precise mix of elected officials, party nominees, and party activists who are members of the state central committees of the Republican and Democratic Parties as well as who may nominate the various committee members. Cal. Elec. Code Ann. §§8660, 8661, 8663 (West 1977 and Supp. 1989) (Democratic Party); §§ 9160-9164 (Republican Party). Other parties are similarly regulated. See §9640 (American Independent Party); §§ 9762, 9765 (Peace and Freedom Party).
§§ 8663-8667, 8669 (Democratic Party); §§ 9161-9164, 9168, 9170 (Republican Party); §§ 9641-9644, 9648-9650 (West 1977) (American Independent Party); §§ 9790-9794 (West 1977 and Supp. 1989) (Peace and Freedom Party).
The Code limits the term of office of the chair of the state central committee to two years and prohibits successive terms. See §8774 (West Supp. 1989) (Democratic Party); §9274 (West 1977) (Republican Party); § 9685 (American Independent Party); § 9816 (West 1977 and Supp. 1989) (Peace and Freedom Party).
§ 8774 (West Supp. 1989) (Democratic state central committee); § 9274 (West 1977) (Republican state central committee); § 9816 (West 1977 and Supp. 1989) (Peace and Freedom state central committee).
§§ 8710, 8711 (West Supp. 1989) (Democratic state central committee); §§ 8920, 8921 (West 1977 and Supp. 1989) (Democratic county central committee); §9210 (West Supp. 1989) (Republican state central committee); §§ 9420-9421 (West 1977 and Supp. 1989) (Republican county central committee); §§ 9730-9732 (American Independent county central committee); § 9800 (West 1977) (Peace and Freedom state central committee); §§ 9830, 9840-9842 (Peace and Freedom county central committee).
§§8775, 8945 (West 1977 and Supp. 1989) (Democratic Party); §9275 (Republican Party); §§ 9687, 9745 (West 1977) (American Independent Party); §§ 9818, 9855 (Peace and Freedom Party).
The plaintiffs sued March Fong Eu, Secretary of State of California; John K. Van de Kamp, Attorney General of California; Arlo Smith, District Attorney of San Francisco County; and Leo Himmelsbach, District Attorney of Santa Clara County.
The plaintiffs also asserted that the statutes violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because the District Court held that the statutes violate the First Amendment, it did not reach this claim.
An appeal was then pending in the California Supreme Court presenting a First Amendment challenge to a ban on endorsements by political parties of candidates in nonpartisan school, county, and municipal elections. The California Supreme Court ultimately decided that the Code did not prohibit such endorsements and so did not reach the First Amendment question. Unger v. Superior Court, 37 Cal. 3d 612, 692 P. 2d 238 (1984). A ban on party endorsements in nonpartisan elections subsequently was enacted by ballot initiative. A Federal District Court has ruled that this ban violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Geary v. Renne, 708 F. Supp. 278 (ND Cal.), stayed, 856 F. 2d 1456 (CA9 1988).
The District Court invalidated the following Code sections: Cal. Elec. Code §§8660, 8661, 8663-8667, 8669 (West 1977 and Supp. 1989) (Democratic state central committee); §§9160, 9160.5, 9161, 9161.5, 9162-9164 (Republican state central committee); § 9274 (West 1977) (Republican state central committee chair); and § 9816 (West 1977 and Supp. 1989) (Peace and Freedom state central committee chair). In addition, it held that § 29102 (West 1977) was unconstitutional as applied.
California contends that it need not show that its endorsement ban serves a compelling state interest because the political parties have “consented” to it. In support of this claim, California observes that the legislators who could repeal the ban belong to political parties, that the bylaws of some parties prohibit primary endorsements, and that parties continue to participate in state-run primaries.
This argument is fatally flawed in several respects. We have never held that a political party’s consent will cure a statute that otherwise violates the First Amendment. Even aside from this fundamental defect, California’s consent argument is contradicted by the simple fact that the official governing bodies of various political parties have joined this lawsuit. In addition, the Democratic and Libertarian Parties moved to issue endorsements following the Court of Appeals’ invalidation of the endorsement ban.
There are other flaws in the State’s argument. Simply because a legislator belongs to a political party does not make her at all times a representative of party interests. In supporting the endorsement ban, an individual legislator may be acting on her understanding of the public good or her interest in reelection. The independence of legislators from their parties is illustrated by the California Legislature’s frequent refusal to amend the election laws in accordance with the wishes of political parties. See, e. g., Addendum 12a-13a ¶’|7-9 (declaration of Bert Coffey, chair of the Democratic state central committee). Moreover, the State’s argument ignores those parties with negligible, if any, representation in the legislature.
That the bylaws of some parties prohibit party primary endorsements also does not prove consent. These parties may have chosen to reflect state election law in their bylaws, rather than permit or require conduct prohibited by law. Nor does the fact that parties continue to participate in the state-run primary process indicate that they favor each regulation imposed upon that process. A decision to participate in state-run primaries more likely reflects a party’s determination that ballot participation is more advantageous than the alternatives, that is, supporting independent candidates or conducting write-in campaigns. See Store)' v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 745 (1974); Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 799, n. 26 (1983).
Finally, the State’s focus on the parties’ alleged consent ignores the independent First Amendment rights of the parties’ members. It is wholly undemonstrated that the members authorized the parties to consent to infringements of members’ rights.
The State also claims that the ban on primary endorsements serves a compelling state interest in “ ‘confining each voter to a single nominating act.’” Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U. S. 208, 225, n. 13 (1986) (quoting Anderson, supra, at 802, n. 29). This argument is meritless. It fails to distinguish between a nominating act — the vote cast at the primary election — and speech that may influence that act. The logic of the State’s argument not only would support a ban on endorsements by every organization and individual, but also would justify a total ban on all discussion of a candidate’s qualifications and political positions. Such a blanket prohibition cannot coexist with the constitutional protection of political speech.
The State’s claim that the endorsement ban is necessary to serve any compelling state interest is called into question by its argument before the District Court and the Court of Appeals that this action is not justiciable because the State has never enforced the challenged election laws. 826 F. 2d 814, 821 (1987).
New Jersey also bans primary endorsements by political parties. N. J. Stat. Ann. § 19:34-52 (West 1964); see Weisburd, Candidate-Making and the Constitution: Constitutional Restraints on and Protections of Party Nominating Methods, 57 S. Cal. L. Rev. 213,271-272, n. 343 (1984). Florida’s statutory ban on primary endorsements by political parties was held to violate the First Amendment. See Abrams v. Reno, 452 F. Supp. 1166, 1171-1172 (SD Fla. 1978), aff’d, 649 F. 2d 342 (CA5 1981), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 1016 (1982). Several States provide formal procedures for party primary endorsements. See, e. g., Conn. Gen. Stat. § 9-390 (1967 and Supp. 1988); R. I. Gen. Laws § 17-12-4 (1988); see also Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, The Transformation in American Politics: Implications for Federalism 148 (1986).
It is doubtful that the silencing of official party committees, alone among the various groups interested in the outcome of a primary election, is the key to protecting voters from confusion. Indeed, the growing number of endorsements by political organizations using the labels “Democratic” or “Republican” has likely misled voters into believing that the official governing bodies were supporting the candidates.
The State makes no showing, moreover, that voters are unduly influenced by party endorsements. There is no evidence that an endorsement issued by an official party organization carries more weight than one issued by a newspaper or a labor union. In States where parties are permitted to issue primary endorsements, voters may consider the parties’ views on the candidates but still exercise independent judgment when casting their vote. For example, in the 1982 New York Democratic gubernatorial contest, Mario Cuomo won the primary over Edward Koch, who had been endorsed by the party. That year gubernatorial candidates endorsed by their parties also lost the primary election to nonendorsed candidates in Massachusetts and Minnesota. Even where the party-endorsed candidate wins the primary, one study has concluded that the party endorsement has little, if any effect, on the way voters cast their vote. App. 97-98 *|¶ 10, 14-17 (declaration of Malcolm E. Jewell, Professor of Political Science, University of Kentucky).
The State suggested at oral argument that the endorsement ban prevents fraud by barring party officials from misrepresenting that they speak for the party. To the extent that the State suggests that only the primary election results can constitute a party endorsement, Tr. of Oral Arg. 8-9, it confuses an endorsement from the official governing bodies that may influence election results with the results themselves. To the extent that the State is claiming that the appellees are not authorized to represent the official party governing bodies and their members, the State simply is reasserting its standing claim, which the District Court rejected. Civ. No. C-83-5599 (ND Cal., June 1,1984) (“[T]he plaintiff central committees . . . have authorization and capacity to bring and maintain this litigation”). The Court of Appeals did not disturb this ruling, 826 F. 2d, at 822, n. 17; nor do we.
For example, the Libertarian Party was forced to abandon its region-based organization in favor of the statutorily mandated county-based system.
By regulating the identity of the parties’ leaders, the challenged statutes may also color the parties’ message and interfere with the parties’ decisions as to the best means to promote that message.
Marchioro v. Chaney, 442 U. S. 191 (1979), is not to the contrary. There we upheld a Washington statute mandating that political parties create a state central committee, to which the Democratic Party, not the State, had assigned significant responsibilities in administering the party, raising and distributing funds to candidates, conducting campaigns, and setting party policy. Id., at 198-199. The statute only required that the state central committee perform certain limited functions such as filling vacancies on the party ticket, nominating Presidential electors and delegates to national conventions, and calling state-wide conventions. The party members did not claim that these statutory requirements imposed impermissible burdens on the party or themselves, so we had no occasion to consider whether the challenged law burdened the party’s First Amendment rights, and if so, whether the law served a compelling state interest. Id., at 197, n. 12. Here, in contrast, it is state law, not a political party’s charter, that places the state central committees at a party’s helm and, in particular, assigns the statutorily mandated committee responsibility for conducting the party’s campaigns.
Because we find that curbing intraparty friction is not a compelling state interest as long as the electoral process remains fair and orderly, we need not address the appellees’ contention that the challenged laws weaken rather than strengthen parties. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to indentify whether the Court declared unconstitutional an act of Congress; a state or territorial statute, regulation, or constitutional provision; or a municipal or other local ordinance. Note that the Court need not necessarily specify in many words that a law has been declared unconstitutional. Where federal law pre-empts a state statute or a local ordinance, unconstitutionality does not result unless the Court's opinion so states. Nor are administrative regulations the subject of declarations of unconstitutionality unless the declaration also applies to the law on which it is based. Also excluded are federal or state court-made rules. | Did the Court declare unconstitutional an act of Congress; a state or territorial statute, regulation, or constitutional provision; or a municipal or other local ordinance? | [
"No declaration of unconstitutionality",
"Act of Congress declared unconstitutional",
"State or territorial law, regulation, or constitutional provision unconstitutional",
"Municipal or other local ordinance unconstitutional"
] | [
2
] | sc_declarationuncon |
NEW YORK v. HARRIS
No. 88-1000.
Argued January 10, 1990
Decided April 18, 1990
White, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O’Connor, ScalÍa, and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Marshall, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Brennan, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ., joined, post, p. 21.
Peter D. Coddington argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Robert T. Johnson, Anthony J. Gírese, Stanley R. Kaplan, and Karen P. Swiger.
Barrington D. Parker, Jr., by invitation of the Court, 492 U. S. 934, argued the cause as amicus curiae in support of the judgment below. With him on the brief was Ronald G. Blum.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the United States by Solicitor General Starr, Assistant Attorney General Dennis, Deputy Solicitor General Bryson, Michael R. Dreeben, and Robert J. Erickson; for the Office of Prosecuting Attorney, Wayne County, Michigan, by John D. O’Hair and Timothy A. Baughman; and for .Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., et al. by Fred E. Inbau, Wayne W. Schmidt, James P. Manak, Gregory U. Evans, Daniel B. Hales, George D. Webster, and Jack E. Yelverton.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On January 11, 1984, New York City police found the body of Ms. Thelma Staton murdered in her apartment. Various facts gave the officers probable cause to believe that the respondent in this case, Bernard Harris, had killed Ms. Staton. As a result, on January 16, 1984, three police officers went to Harris’ apartment to take him into custody. They did not first obtain an arrest warrant.
When the police arrived, they knocked on the door, displaying their guns and badges. Harris let them enter. Once inside, the officers read Harris his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). Harris acknowledged that he understood the warnings, and agreed to answer the officers’ questions. At that point, he reportedly admitted that he had killed Ms. Staton.
Harris was arrested, taken to the station house, and again informed of his Miranda rights. He then signed a written inculpatory statement. The police subsequently read Harris the Miranda warnings a third time and videotaped an incriminating interview between Harris and a district attorney, even though Harris had indicated that he wanted to end the interrogation.
The trial court suppressed Harris’ first and third statements; the State does not challenge those rulings. The sole issue in this case is whether Harris’ second statement — the written statement made at the station house — should have been suppressed because the police, by entering Harris’ home without a warrant and without his consent, violated Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980), which held that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the police from effecting a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect’s home in order to make a routine felony arrest. The New York trial court concluded that the statement was admissible. Following a bench trial, Harris was convicted of second-degree murder. The Appellate Division affirmed, 124 App. Div. 2d 472, 507 N. Y. S. 2d 823 (1986).
A divided New York Court of Appeals reversed, 72 N. Y. 2d 614, 532 N. E. 2d 1229 (1988). That court first accepted the trial court’s finding that Harris did not consent to the police officers’ entry into his home and that the warrantless arrest therefore violated Payton even though there was probable cause. Applying Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975), and its progeny, the court then determined that the station house statement must be deemed to be the inadmissible fruit of the illegal arrest because the connection between the statement and the arrest was not sufficiently attenuated. The court noted that some courts had reasoned that the “wrong in Payton cases . . . lies not in the arrest, ‘but in the unlawful entry into a dwelling without proper judicial authorization’ ” and had therefore declined to suppress confessions that were made following Payton violations. 72 N. Y. 2d, at 623, 532 N. E. 2d, at 1234. The New York court disagreed with this analysis, finding it contrary to Payton and its own decisions interpreting Payton’s, scope. We granted certiorari to resolve the admissibility of the station house statement. 490 U. S. 1018 (1989).
For present purposes, we accept the finding below that Harris did not consent to the police officers’ entry into his home and the conclusion that the police had probable cause to arrest him. It is also evident, in light of Payton, that arresting Harris in his home without an arrest warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. But, as emphasized in earlier cases, “we have declined to adopt a ‘per se or “but for” rule’ that would make inadmissible any. evidence, whether tangible or five-witness testimony, which somehow came to fight through a chain of causation that began with an illegal arrest.” United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U. S. 268, 276 (1978). Rather, in this context, we have stated that “[t]he penalties visited upon the Government, and in turn upon the public, because its officers have violated the law must bear some relation to the purposes which the law is to serve. ” Id., at 279. In fight of these principles, we decline to apply the exclusionary rule in this context because the rule in Payton was designed to protect the physical integrity of the home; it was not intended to grant criminal suspects, like Harris, protection for statements made outside their premises where the police have probable cause to arrest the suspect for committing a crime.
Payton itself emphasized that our holding in that case stemmed from the “overriding respect for the sanctity of the home that has been embedded in our traditions since the origins of the Republic.” 445 U. S., at 601. Although it had long been settled that a warrantless arrest in a public place was permissible as long as the arresting officer had probable cause, see United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411 (1976), Payton nevertheless drew a line at the entrance to the home. This special solicitude was necessary because ‘“physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.’” 445 U. S., at 585 (citation omitted). The arrest warrant was required to “interpose the magistrate’s determination of probable cause” to arrest before the officers could enter a house to effect an arrest. Id., at 602-603.
Nothing in the reasoning of that case suggests that an arrest in a home without a warrant but with probable cause somehow renders unlawful continued custody of the suspect once he is removed from the house. There could be no valid claim here that Harris was immune from prosecution because his person was the fruit of an illegal arrest. United States v. Crews, 445 U. S. 463, 474 (1980). Nor is there any claim that the warrantless arrest required the police to release Harris or that Harris could not be immediately rearrested if momentarily released. Because the officers had probable cause to arrest Harris for a crime, Harris was not unlawfully in custody when he was removed to the station house, given Miranda warnings, and allowed to talk. For Fourth Amendment purposes, the legal issue is the same as it would be had the police arrested Harris on his doorstep, illegally entered his home to search for evidence, and later interrogated Harris at the station house. Similarly, if the police had made a warrantless entry into Harris’ home, not found him there, but arrested him on the street when he returned, a later statement made by him after proper warnings would no doubt be admissible.
This case is therefore different from Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975), Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200 (1979), and Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U. S. 687 (1982). In each of those cases, evidence obtained from a criminal defendant following arrest was suppressed because the police lacked probable cause. The three cases stand for the familiar proposition that the indirect fruits of an illegal search or arrest should be suppressed when they bear a sufficiently close relationship to the underlying illegality. See also Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963). We have emphasized, however, that attenuation analysis is only appropriate where, as a threshold matter, courts determine that “the challenged evidence is in some sense the product of illegal governmental activity.” United States v. Crews, supra, at 471. As Judge Titone, concurring in the judgment on the basis of New York state precedent, cogently argued below, “[i]n cases such as Brown v. Illinois (supra) and its progeny, an affirmative answer to that preliminary question may be assumed, since the ‘illegality’ is the absence of probable cause and the wrong consists of the police’s having control of the defendant’s person at the time he made the challenged statement. In these cases, the ‘challenged evidence’ — i. e., the post arrest confession — is unquestionably ‘the product,of [the] illegal governmental activity’ — i. e., the wrongful detention.” 72 N. Y. 2d, at 625, 532 N. E. 2d, at 1235.
Harris’ statement taken at the police station was not the product of being in unlawful custody. Neither was it the fruit of having been arrested in the home rather than someplace else. The case is analogous to United States v. Crews, supra. In that case, we refused to suppress a victim’s in-court identification despite the defendant’s illegal arrest. The Court found that the evidence was not “‘come at by exploitation’ of . . . the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights,” and that it was not necessary to inquire whether the “taint” of the Fourth Amendment violation was sufficiently attenuated to permit the introduction of the evidence. 445 U. S., at 471. Here, likewise, the police had a justification to question Harris prior to his arrest; therefore, his subsequent statement was not an exploitation of the illegal entry into Harris’ home.
We do not hold, as the dissent suggests, that a statement taken by the police while a suspect is in custody is always admissible as long as the suspect is in legal custody. Statements taken during legal custody would of course be inadmissible, for example, if they were the product of coercion, if Miranda warnings were not given, or if there was a violation of the rule of Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U. S. 477 (1981). We do hold that the station house statement in this case was admissible because Harris was in legal custody, as the dissent concedes, and because the statement, while the product of an arrest and being in custody, was not the fruit of the fact that the arrest was made in the house rather than someplace else.
To put the matter another way, suppressing the statement taken outside the house would not serve the purpose of the rule that made Harris’ in-house arrest illegal. The warrant requirement for an arrest in the home is imposed to protect the home, and anything incriminating the police gathered from arresting Harris in his home, rather than elsewhere, has been excluded, as it should have been; the purpose of the rule has thereby been vindicated. We are not required by the Constitution to go further and suppress statements later made by Harris in order to deter police from violating Payton. “As cases considering the use of unlawfully obtained evidence in criminal trials themselves make clear, it does not follow from the emphasis on the exclusionary rule’s deterrent value that ‘anything which deters illegal searches is thereby commanded by the Fourth Amendment.’” United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 910 (1984) (citation omitted). Even though we decline to suppress statements made outside the home following a Payton violation, the principal incentive to obey Payton still obtains: the police know that a warrant-less entry will lead to the suppression of any evidence found, or statements taken, inside the home. If we did suppress statements like Harris’, moreover, the incremental deterrent value would be minimal. Given that the police have probable cause to arrest a suspect in Harris’ position, they need not violate Payton in order to interrogate the suspect. It is doubtful therefore that the desire to secure a statement from a criminal suspect would motivate the police to violate Payton. As a result, suppressing a station house statement obtained after a Payton violation will have little effect on the officers’ actions, one way or another.
We hold that, where the police have probable cause to arrest a suspect, the exclusionary rule does not bar the State’s use of a statement made by the defendant outside of his home, even though the statement is taken after an arrest made in the home in violation of Payton. The judgment of the court below is accordingly
Reversed. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases. | What is the ideological direction of the decision? | [
"Conservative",
"Liberal",
"Unspecifiable"
] | [
0
] | sc_decisiondirection |
CITY OF SHERRILL, NEW YORK v. ONEIDA INDIAN NATION OF NEW YORK et al.
No. 03-855.
Argued January 11, 2005
Decided March 29, 2005
Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Souter, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 222. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 222.
Ira S. Sacks argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Esther S. Trakinski.
Caitlin J. Halligan, Solicitor General of New York, argued the cause for the State of New York as amicus curiae urging reversal. With her on the brief were Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General, Daniel Smirlock, Deputy Solicitor General, Peter H. Schiff, Andrew D. Bing, Assistant Solicitor General, and Dwight A. Healy.
Michael R. Smith argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were William W. Taylor III, David A. Reiser, Thomas B. Mason, Richard G. Taranto, and Peter D. Carmen.
Malcolm L. Stewart argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General Sansonetti, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Clark, William. Lazarus, David C. Shilton, and Ethan G. Shenkman
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for Cayuga and Seneca Comities, New York, et al. by Gus P. Coldebella, William L. Dorr, Daniel J. Moore, and Brian Laudadio; for the Town of Lenox, New York, et al. by Charles G. Curtis, Jr., and E. Joshua Rosenkranz; for the Counties of Madison and Oneida, New York, by G. Robert Witmer, Jr., David M. Schraver, John J. Field III, and Randal B. Caldwell; and for the Citizens Equal Rights Foundation by Woodruff Lee Carroll.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Cayuga Nation of New York et al. by Arlinda F. Locklear, Martin R. Gold, James T. Meggesto, Robert T. Coulter, Curtis G. Berkey, Marsha K. Schmidt, Carey R. Ramos, and Jeanne S. Whiteing; for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians et al. by Harry R. Sachse, Arthur Lazarus, Jr., Richard A. Guest, Thomas H. Shipps, John Howard Bell, and Peter C. Chestnut; for the National Congress of American Indians by Carter G. Phillips, Virginia A. Seitz, Mark E. Haddad, and Riyaz A. Kanji; and for United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc., by Ian Heath Gershengorn and Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns properties in the city of Sherrill, New York, purchased by the Oneida Indian Nation of New York (OIN or Tribe) in 1997 and 1998. The separate parcels of land in question, once contained within the Oneidas’ 300,000-acre reservation, were last possessed by the Oneidas as a tribal entity in 1805. For two centuries, governance of the area in which the properties are located has been provided by the State of New York and its county and municipal units. In County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y., 470 U. S. 226 (1985) (Oneida II), this Court held that the Oneidas stated a triable claim for damages against the County of Oneida for wrongful possession of lands they conveyed to New York State in 1795 in violation of federal law. In the instant action, OIN resists the payment of property taxes to Sherrill on the ground that OIN’s acquisition of fee title to discrete parcels of historic reservation land revived the Oneidas’ ancient sovereignty piecemeal over each parcel. Consequently, the Tribe maintains, regulatory authority over OIN’s newly purchased properties no longer resides in Sherrill.
Our 1985 decision recognized that the Oneidas could maintain a federal common-law claim for damages for ancient wrongdoing in which both national and state governments were complicit. Today, we decline to project redress for the Tribe into the present and future, thereby disrupting the governance of central New York’s counties and towns. Generations have passed during which non-Indians have owned and developed the area that once composed the Tribe’s historic reservation. And at least since the middle years of the 19th century, most of the Oneidas have resided elsewhere. Given the longstanding, distinctly non-Indian character of the area and its inhabitants, the regulatory authority constantly exercised by New York State and its counties and towns, and the Oneidas’ long delay in seeking judicial relief against parties other than the United States, we hold that the Tribe cannot unilaterally revive its ancient sovereignty, in whole or in part, over the parcels at issue. The Oneidas long ago relinquished the reins of government and cannot regain them through open-market purchases from current titleholders.
I
A
OIN is a federally recognized Indian Tribe and a direct descendant of the Oneida Indian Nation (Oneida Nation), “one of the six nations of the Iroquois, the most powerful Indian Tribe in the Northeast at the time of the American Revolution.” Id., at 230. At the birth of the United States, the Oneida Nation’s aboriginal homeland comprised some six million acres in what is now central New York. Ibid.; Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y. v. County of Oneida, 414 U. S. 661, 664 (1974) (Oneida I).
In the years after the Revolutionary War, “the State of New York came under increasingly heavy pressure to open the Oneidas’ land for settlement.” Oneida II, 470 U. S., at 231. Reflective of that pressure, in 1788, New York State and the Oneida Nation entered into the Treaty of Fort Schuyler. For payments in money and kind, the Oneidas ceded to New York “all their lands.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A136. Of the vast area conveyed, “[t]he Oneidas retained a reservation of about 300,000 acres,” Oneida II, 470 U. S., at 231, “for their own use and cultivation,” App. to Pet. for Cert. A137 (internal quotation marks omitted). OIN does not here contest the legitimacy of the Fort Schuyler conveyance or the boundaries of the reserved area.
The Federal Government initially pursued a policy protective of the New York Indians, undertaking to secure the Tribes’ rights to reserved lands. See Oneida II, 470 U. S., at 231-232; Oneida I, 414 U. S., at 667; F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 418-419 (1942 ed.); F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 73-74 (1982 ed.) (hereinafter Handbook). In 1790, Congress passed the first Indian Trade and Intercourse Act, commonly known as the Nonintercourse Act. Act of July 22, 1790, ch. 33, 1 Stat. 137. Periodically renewed, see Oneida I, 414 U. S., at 667-668, and n. 4, and remaining substantially in force today, see Rev. Stat. §2116, 25 U. S. C. § 177, the Act bars sales of tribal land without the acquiescence of the Federal Government. In 1794, in further pursuit of its protective policy, the United States entered into the Treaty of Canandaigua with the Six (Iroquois) Nations. Act of Nov. 11,1794, 7 Stat. 44. That treaty both “acknowledge^]” the Oneida Reservation as established by the Treaty of Fort Schuyler and guaranteed the Oneidas’ “free use and enjoyment” of the reserved territory. Id., at 45, Art. II. The Oneidas in turn agreed they would “never claim any other lands within the boundaries of the United States.” Id., at 45, Art. IV.
New York State nonetheless continued to purchase reservation land from the Oneidas. The Washington administration objected to New York’s 1795 negotiations to buy 100,000 acres of the Oneidas’ Reservation without federal supervision. Oneida II, 470 U. S., at 229, 232. Later administrations, however, “[made not] even a pretense of interfering] with [the] State’s attempts to negotiate treaties [with the Oneidas] for land cessions.” Oneida Nation of N. Y. v. United States, 43 Ind. Cl. Comm’n 373, 385 (1978); see also id., at 390; Campisi, The Oneida Treaty Period, 1783-1838, in The Oneida Indian Experience: Two Perspectives 48, 59 (J. Campisi & L. Hauptman eds. 1988) (hereinafter Campisi). See generally Gunther 6 (“New York acquired much land from Indians through treaties — perhaps as many as 200 — not participated in, though apparently known and not objected to, by the national government.” (footnote omitted)).
The Federal Government’s policy soon veered away from protection of New York and other east coast reservations. In lieu of the commitment made in the Treaty of Canandai-gua, the United States pursued a policy designed to open reservation lands to white settlers and to remove tribes westward. D. Getehes, C. Wilkinson, & R. Williams, Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law 94 (4th ed. 1998) (After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, federal policymakers “began to debate the tactics of inducing [eastern Indians] to exchange their remaining ancestral lands for a permanent territory in the West.”). As recounted by the Indian Claims Commission in 1978, early 19th-century federal Indian agents in New York State did not simply fail to check New York’s land purchases, they “took an active role ... in encouraging the removal of the Oneidas ... to the west.” Oneida Nation of N. Y., 43 Ind. Cl. Comm’n, at 390; see id., at 391 (noting that some federal agents were “deeply involved” in “plans ... to bring about the removal of the [Oneidas]” and in the State’s acquisition of Oneida land). Beginning in 1817, the Federal Government accelerated its efforts to remove Indian tribes from their east coast homelands. Handbook 78-79, and n. 142.
Pressured by the removal policy to leave their ancestral lands in New York, some 150 Oneidas, by 1825, had moved to Wisconsin. Horsman, The Wisconsin Oneidas in the Pre-allotment Years, in The Oneida Indian Experience, supra, at 65, 67. In 1838, the Oneidas and the United States entered into the Treaty of Buffalo Creek, which envisioned removal of all remaining New York Indians, including the Oneidas, to Kansas. Act of Jan. 15,1838, 7 Stat. 550. By this time, the Oneidas had sold all but 5,000 acres of their original reservation. 337 F. 3d 139, 149 (CA2 2003). Six hundred of their members resided in Wisconsin, while 620 remained in New York State. 7 Stat. 556 (Sched. A).
In Article 13 of the Buffalo Creek Treaty, the Oneidas agreed to remove to the Kansas lands the United States had set aside for them “as soon as they c[ould] make satisfactory arrangements” for New York State’s “purchase of their lands at Oneida.” Id., at 554. As a condition of the treaty’s ratification, the Senate directed that a federal commissioner “fully and fairly explai[n]” the terms to each signatory tribe and band. New York Indians v. United States, 170 U. S. 1, 21-22 (1898). Commissioner Ransom H. Gillet, who had originally negotiated the treaty terms with the Oneidas, met with them again and assured them they would not be forced to move but could remain on “their lands where they reside,” i. e., they could “if they ch[ose] to do so remain where they are forever.” App. 146 (emphases added).
The Oneidas who stayed on in New York after the proclamation of the Buffalo Creek Treaty continued to diminish in number and, during the 1840’s, sold most of their remaining lands to the State. New York Indians v. United States, 40 Ct. Cl. 448, 458, 469-471 (1905). A few hundred Oneidas moved to Canada in 1842, id., at 458, and “by the mid-1840s, only about 200 Oneidas remained in New York State,” Introduction to Part I, The Oneida Indian Journey: From New York to Wisconsin, 1784-1860, pp. 9, 13 (L. Hauptman & L. McLester eds. 1999). By 1843, the New York Oneidas retained less than 1,000 acres in the State. Campisi 61. That acreage dwindled to 350 in 1890; ultimately, by 1920, only 32 acres continued to be held by the Oneidas. Ibid.
The United States eventually abandoned its efforts to remove the New York Indians to Kansas. In 1860, the Federal Government restored the Kansas lands to the public domain, and sold them thereafter. New York Indians, 170 U. S., at 24, 28-29, 31.
B
Early litigation concerning the Oneidas’ land claims trained on monetary recompense from the United States for past deprivations. In 1893, the United States agreed to be sued for disposing of the Kansas lands to settlers, and the Oneidas in New York shared in the resulting award of damages. See New York Indians, 170 U. S. 1; New York Indians, 40 Ct. Cl. 448 (identifying the Tribes qualified to share in the distribution of the sum recovered).
Seeking further compensation from the United States a half century later, the New York and Wisconsin Oneidas initiated proceedings before the Indian Claims Commission in 1951. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y. v. County of Oneida, 622 F. 2d 624, 626 (CA2 1980). They sought redress for lands New York had acquired through 25 treaties of cession concluded between 1795 and 1846. The Oneidas alleged, and the Claims Commission agreed, that under the Noninter-course Act of 1790 and successor statutes, the Federal Government had a fiduciary duty to ensure that the Oneidas received from New York “conscionable consideration” for the lands in question. Oneida Nation of N. Y. v. United States, 26 Ind. Cl. Comm’n 138, 145 (1971). The Court of Claims affirmed the Commission’s core determination, but held that the United States’ duty extended only to land transactions of which the Government had knowledge. United States v. Oneida Nation of N. Y., 201 Ct. Cl. 546, 554, 477 F. 2d 939, 944 (1973). Accordingly, the Court of Claims directed the Commission to determine whether the Government actually or constructively knew of the land transactions at issue. Id., at 555, 477 F. 2d, at 945.
On remand, the Commission found that the Federal Government had actual or constructive knowledge of all of the treaties and would be liable if the Oneidas had not received conscionable consideration. Oneida Nation of N. Y., 43 Ind. Cl. Comm’n, at 375, 406-407. The Commission anticipated further proceedings to determine the Federal Government’s ultimate liability, but the Oneidas had by then decided to pursue a different course. On the Oneidas’ request, the Court of Claims dismissed the proceedings. See Oneida Nation of N. Y. v. United States, 231 Ct. Cl. 990, 991 (1982) (per curiam).
In lieu of concentrating on recovery from the United States, the Oneidas pursued suits against local governments. In 1970, the Oneidas of New York and Wisconsin, asserting federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 or § 1362, instituted a “test case” against the New York Counties of Oneida and Madison. They alleged that the cession of 100,000 acres to New York State in 1795, see supra, at 205, violated the Nonintercourse Act and thus did not terminate the Oneidas’ right to possession under the applicable federal treaties and statutes. In this initial endeavor to gain compensation from governmental units other than the United States, the Oneidas confined their demand for relief. They sought only damages measured by the fair rental value, for the years 1968 and 1969, of 872 acres of their ancestral land owned and occupied by the two counties. The District Court, affirmed by the Court of Appeals, dismissed the Oneidas’ complaint for failure to state a claim arising under federal law. We reversed that determination, holding that federal jurisdiction was properly invoked. Oneida I, 414 U. S., at 675, 682.
In the next round, the Oneidas prevailed in the lower courts. On review in Oneida II, we rejected various defenses the counties presented that might have barred the action for damages, 470 U. S., at 240-250, and held that the Oneidas could maintain their claim to be compensated “for violation of their possessory rights based on federal common law,” id., at 236. While upholding the judgment of the Court of Appeals regarding the counties’ liability under federal common law, we noted that “[t]he question whether equitable considerations should limit the relief available to the present day Oneida Indians was not addressed by the Court of Appeals or presented to this Court.” Id., at 253, n. 27. Accordingly, “we expressed] no opinion as to whether other considerations m[ight] be relevant to the final disposition of this case.” Ibid. On remand, the District Court entered a final judgment which fixed the amount of damages payable by the counties. Allowing setoffs for the counties’ good-faith improvements to the land, the court ordered recoveries of $15,994 from Oneida County and $18,970 from Madison County, plus prejudgment interest. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y. v. County of Oneida, 217 F. Supp. 2d 292, 310 (NDNY 2002).
In 2000, litigation resumed in an action held in abeyance during the pendency of the test case. In that revitalized action, the Oneidas sought damages from Oneida and Madison Counties for a period spanning over 200 years. The amended complaint alleged that, through a series of agreements concluded during the years 1795 to 1846, approximately 250,000 acres of the Oneidas’ ancestral land had been unlawfully conveyed to New York. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y. v. County of Oneida, 199 F. R. D. 61, 66-68 (NDNY 2000).
The Oneidas further sought to enlarge the action by demanding recovery of land they had not occupied since the 1795-1846 conveyances. They attempted to join as defendants, inter alia, approximately 20,000 private landowners, and to obtain declaratory relief that would allow the Oneidas to eject these landowners. Id., at 67-68. The District Court refused permission to join the landowners so late in the day, resting in part on the Oneidas’ bad faith and undue delay. Id., at 79-85. Further, the court found the proposed amendment “futile.” Id., at 94. In this regard, the court emphasized the “sharp distinction between the existence of a federal common law right to Indian homelands,” a right this Court recognized in Oneida II, “and how to vindicate that right.” 199 F. R. D., at 90. That distinction “must be drawn,” the court stated, ibid., for in the two centuries since the alleged wrong, “development of every type imaginable has been ongoing,” id., at 92. Referring to the “practical concerns” that blocked restoration of Indians to their former lands, the court found it high time “to transcend the theoretical.” Ibid. Cases of this genre, the court observed, “cr[ied] out for a pragmatic approach.” Ibid. The District Court therefore excluded the imposition of any liability against private landowners. Id., at 93-95.
This brings us to the present case, which concerns parcels of land in the city of Sherrill, located in Oneida County, New York. According to the 2000 census, over 99% of the population in the area is non-Indian: American Indians represent less than 1% of the city of Sherrill’s population and less than 0.5% of Oneida County’s population. U. S. Dept, of Commerce, Census Bureau, 2000 Census of Population and Housing, Summary Population and Housing Characteristics: New York, 2000 PHC-1-34, Table 3, p. 124 (July 2002), available at http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/phc-l-34.pdf (as visited Mar. 24,2005, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). OIN owns approximately 17,000 acres of land scattered throughout the Counties of Oneida and Madison, representing less than 1.5% of the counties’ total area. OIN’s predecessor, the Oneida Nation, had transferred the parcels at issue to one of its members in 1805, who sold the land to a non-Indian in 1807. The properties thereafter remained in non-Indian hands until OIN’s acquisitions in 1997 and 1998 in open-market transactions. See 337 F. 3d, at 144, n. 3. OIN now operates commercial enterprises on these parcels: a gasoline station, a convenience store, and a textile facility. Id., at 144.
Because the parcels lie within the boundaries of the reservation originally occupied by the Oneidas, OIN maintained that the properties are exempt from taxation, and accordingly refused to pay the assessed property taxes. The city of Sherrill initiated eviction proceedings in state court, and OIN sued Sherrill in federal court. In contrast to Oneida I and II, which involved demands for monetary compensation, OIN sought equitable relief prohibiting, currently and in the future, the imposition of property taxes. OIN also sued Madison County, seeking a declaration that the Tribe’s properties in Madison are tax exempt. The litigation involved a welter of claims and counterclaims. Relevant here, the District Court concluded that parcels of land owned by the Tribe in Sherrill and Madison are not taxable. See 145 F. Supp. 2d 226, 254-259 (NDNY 2001).
A divided panel of the Second Circuit affirmed. 337 F. 3d 139. Writing for the majority, Judge Parker ruled that the parcels qualify as “Indian country,” as that term is defined in 18 U. S. C. § 1151, because they fall within the boundaries of a reservation set aside by the 1794 Canandaigua Treaty for Indian use under federal supervision. 337 F. 3d, at 155-156; see supra, at 204-205. The court further held that the Buffalo Creek Treaty did not demonstrate a clear congressional purpose to disestablish or diminish the Oneida Reservation. 337 F. 3d, at 161, 165; see supra, at 206. Finally, the court found no legal requirement “that a federally recognized tribe demonstrate its continuous existence in order to assert a claim to its reservation land.” 337 F. 3d, at 165. In any case, the court held, the record demonstrated OIN’s continuous tribal existence. Id., at 166-167. Judge Van Graafeiland dissented as to the majority’s primary holding. In his view, the record raised a substantial question whether OIN had “forfeited” its aboriginal rights to the land because it abandoned “its tribal existence ... for a discernable period of time.” Id., at 171.
We granted the city of Sherrill’s petition for a writ of certiorari, 542 U. S. 936 (2004), and now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
II
OIN and the United States argue that because the Court in Oneida II recognized the Oneidas’ aboriginal title to their ancient reservation land and because the Tribe has now acquired the specific parcels involved in this suit in the open market, it has unified fee and aboriginal title and may now assert sovereign dominion over the parcels. Brief for Respondents 1, 12-19; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 9-10. When the Oneidas came before this Court 20 years ago in Oneida II, they sought money damages only. 470 U. S., at 229; see also id., at 244, n. 16 (recognizing that the suit was an “action at law”). The Court reserved for another day the question whether “equitable considerations” should limit the relief available to the present-day Oneidas. Id., at 253, n. 27; supra, at 209.
“The substantive questions whether the plaintiff has any right or the defendant has any duty, and if so what it is, are very different questions from the remedial questions whether this remedy or that is preferred, and what the measure of the remedy is.” D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies § 1.2, p. 3 (1973); see also Navajo Tribe of Indians v. New Mexico, 809 F. 2d 1455, 1467 (CA10 1987) (“The distinction between a claim or substantive right and a remedy is fundamental.”). “[Standards of federal Indian law and federal equity practice” led the District Court, in the litigation revived after Oneida II, see supra, at 210-211, to reject OIN’s plea for ejectment of 20,000 private landowners. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y., 199 F. R. D., at 90 (internal quotation marks omitted); ibid. (“[TJhere is a sharp distinction between the existence of a federal common law right to Indian homelands and how to vindicate that right....”). In this action, OIN seeks declaratory and injunctive relief recognizing its present and future sovereign immunity from local taxation on parcels of land the Tribe purchased in the open market, properties that had been subject to state and local taxation for generations. We now reject the unification theory of OIN and the United States and hold that “standards of federal Indian law and federal equity practice” preclude the Tribe from rekindling embers of sovereignty that long ago grew cold.
The appropriateness of the relief OIN here seeks must be evaluated in light of the long history of state sovereign control over the territory. From the early 1800’s into the 1970’s, the United States largely accepted, or was indifferent to, New York’s governance of the land in question and the validity vel non of the Oneidas’ sales to the State. See generally Gunther 23-25 (attributing much of the confusion and conflict in the history of New York Indian affairs to “Federal inattention and ambivalence”). In fact, the United States’ policy and practice through much of the early 19th century was designed to dislodge east coast lands from Indian possession. See supra, at 205-207. Moreover, the properties here involved have greatly increased in value since the Oneidas sold them 200 years ago. Notably, it was not until lately that the Oneidas sought to regain ancient sovereignty over land converted from wilderness to become part of cities like Sherrill. See supra, at 210-212; Oneida II, 470 U. S., at 264-265 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part).
This Court has observed in the different, but related, context of the diminishment of an Indian reservation that “[t]he longstanding assumption of jurisdiction by the State over an area that is over 90% non-Indian, both in population and in land use,” may create “justifiable expectations.” Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Kneip, 430 U. S. 584, 604-605 (1977); accord Hagen v. Utah, 510 U. S. 399, 421 (1994) (“jurisdictional history” and “the current population situation ... demonstrate] a practical acknowledgment” of reservation diminishment; “a contrary conclusion would seriously disrupt the justifiable expectations of the people living in the area” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Similar justifiable expectations, grounded in two centuries of New York’s exercise of regulatory jurisdiction, until recently uncontested by OIN, merit heavy weight here.
The wrongs of which OIN complains in this action occurred during the early years of the Republic. For the past two centuries, New York and its county and municipal units have continuously governed the territory. The Oneidas did not seek to regain possession of their aboriginal lands by court decree until the 1970’s. See supra, at 210, n. 4. And not until the 1990’s did OIN acquire the properties in question and assert its unification theory to ground its demand for exemption of the parcels from local taxation. 337 F. 3d, at 144. This long lapse of time, during which the Oneidas did not seek to revive their sovereign control through equitable relief in court, and the attendant dramatic changes in the character of the properties, preclude OIN from gaining the disruptive remedy it now seeks.
The principle that the passage of time can preclude relief has deep roots in our law, and this Court has recognized this prescription in various guises. It is well established that laches, a doctrine focused on one side’s inaction and the other’s legitimate reliance, may bar long-dormant claims for equitable relief. See, e. g., Badger v. Badger, 2 Wall. 87, 94 (1865) (“[C]ourts of equity act upon their own inherent doctrine of discouraging, for the peace of society, antiquated demands, refuse to interfere where there has been gross laches in prosecuting the claim, or long acquiescence in the assertion of adverse rights.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Wagner v. Baird, 7 How. 234, 258 (1849) (same); Bowman v. Wathen, 1 How. 189, 194 (1843) (“[The] doctrine of an equitable bar by lapse of time, so distinctly announced by the chancellors of England and Ireland, . . . should now be regarded as settled law in this court.”).
This Court applied the doctrine of laches in Felix v. Patrick, 145 U. S. 317 (1892), to bar the heirs of an Indian from establishing a constructive trust over land their Indian ancestor had conveyed in violation of a statutory restriction. In the nearly three decades between the conveyance and the lawsuit, “[a] large part of the tract ha[d] been platted and recorded as an addition to the city of Omaha, and ... sold to purchasers.” Id., at 326. “[A]s the case stands at present,” the Court observed, “justice requires only what the law . . . would demand — the repayment of the value of the [illegally conveyed] scrip.” Id., at 334. The Court also recognized the disproportion between the value of the scrip issued to the Indian ($150) and the value of the property the heirs sought to acquire (over $1 million). Id., at 333. The sort of changes to the value and character of the land noted by the Felix Court are present in even greater magnitude in this suit. Cf. Galliher v. Cadwell, 145 U. S. 368, 373 (1892) (“[L]aches is not... a mere matter of time; but principally a question of the inequity of permitting the claim to be enforced — an inequity founded upon some change in the condition or relations of the property or the parties.”).
As between States, long acquiescence may have controlling effect on the exercise of dominion and sovereignty over territory. Ohio v. Kentucky, 410 U. S. 641, 651 (1973) (“The rule, long-settled and never doubted by this court, is that long acquiescence by one state in the possession of territory by another and in the exercise of sovereignty and dominion over it is conclusive of the latter’s title and rightful authority.” (quoting Michigan v. Wisconsin, 270 U. S. 295, 308 (1926))); Massachusetts v. New York, 271 U. S. 65, 95 (1926) (“Long acquiescence in the possession of territory and the exercise of dominion and sovereignty over it may have a controlling effect in the determination of a disputed boundary.”). The acquiescence doctrine does not depend on the original validity of a boundary line; rather, it attaches legal consequences to acquiescence in the observance of the boundary. California v. Nevada, 447 U. S. 125, 131 (1980) (No relationship need exist “between the origins of a boundary and the legal consequences of acquiescence in that boundary. . . . Longstanding acquiescence by California and Nevada can give [the boundary lines] the force of law whether or not federal authorities had the power to draw them.”).
This Court’s original-jurisdiction state-sovereignty cases do not dictate a result here, but they provide a helpful point of reference: When a party belatedly asserts a right to present and future sovereign control over territory, longstanding observances and settled expectations are prime considerations. There is no dispute that it has been two centuries since the Oneidas last exercised regulatory control over the properties here or held them free from local taxation. Parcel-by-parcel revival of their sovereign status, given the extraordinary passage of time, would dishonor “the historic wisdom in the value of repose.” Oneida II, 470 U. S., at 262 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part).
Finally, this Court has recognized the impracticability of returning to Indian control land that generations earlier passed into numerous private hands. See Yankton Sioux Tribe v. United States, 272 U. S. 351, 357 (1926) (“It is impossible ... to rescind the cession and restore the Indians to their former rights because the lands have been opened to settlement and large portions of them are now in the possession of innumerable innocent purchasers . . . .”); Felix, 145 U. S., at 334 (observing, in declining to award equitable relief, “[t]hat which was wild land thirty years ago is now intersected by streets, subdivided into blocks and lots, and largely occupied by persons who have bought upon the strength of Patrick’s title, and have erected buildings of a permanent character”). The District Court, in the litigation dormant during the pendency of Oneida II, see supra, at 209-211, rightly found these pragmatic concerns about restoring Indian sovereign control over land “magnified exponentially here, where development of every type imaginable has been ongoing for more than two centuries.” Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y., 199 F. R. D., at 92.
In this case, the Court of Appeals concluded that the “impossibility” doctrine had no application because OIN acquired the land in the open market and does not seek to uproot current property owners. 337 F. 3d, at 157. But the unilateral reestablishment of present and future Indian sovereign control, even over land purchased at the market price, would have disruptive practical consequences similar to those that led this Court in Yankton Sioux to initiate the impossibility doctrine. The city of Sherrill and Oneida County are today overwhelmingly populated by non-Indians. See supra, at 211. A checkerboard of alternating state and tribal jurisdiction in New York State — created unilaterally at OIN’s behest — would “seriously burde[n] the administration of state and local governments” and would adversely affect landowners neighboring the tribal patches. Hagen, 510 U. S., at 421 (quoting Solem v. Bartlett, 465 U. S. 463, 471-472, n. 12 (1984)). If OIN may unilaterally reassert sovereign control and remove these parcels from the local tax rolls, little would prevent the Tribe from initiating a new generation of litigation to free the parcels from local zoning or other regulatory controls that protect all landowners in the area. See Felix, 145 U. S., at 335 (“decree prayed for in this case, if granted, would offer a distinct encouragement to ... similar claims”); cf. Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 492 U. S. 408, 433-437 (1989) (opinion of Stevens, J.) (discussing tribal land-use controls); post, at 226, n. 6 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (noting that “the balance of interests” supports continued state zoning jurisdiction).
Recognizing these practical concerns, Congress has provided a mechanism for the acquisition of lands for tribal communities that takes account of the interests of others with stakes in the area’s governance and well-being. Title 25 U. S. C. § 465 authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to acquire land in trust for Indians and provides that the land “shall be exempt from State and local taxation.” See Cass County v. Leech Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, 524 U. S. 103, 114-115 (1998). The regulations implementing § 465 are sensitive to the complex interjurisdictional concerns that arise when a tribe seeks to regain sovereign control over territory. Before approving an acquisition, the Secretary must consider, among other things, the tribe’s need for additional land; “[tjhe purposes for which the land will be used”; “the impact on the State and its political subdivisions resulting from the removal of the land from the tax rolls”; and “[j]urisdictional problems and potential conflicts of land use which may arise.” 25 CFR § 151.10(f) (2004). Section 465 provides the proper avenue for OIN to reestablish sovereign authority over territory last held by the Oneidas 200 years ago.
In sum, the question of damages for the Tribe’s ancient dispossession is not at issue in this case, and we therefore do not disturb our holding in Oneida II. However, the distance from 1805 to the present day, the Oneidas’ long delay in seeking equitable relief against New York or its local units, and developments in the city of Sherrill spanning several generations, evoke the doctrines of laches, acquiescence, and impossibility, and render inequitable the piecemeal shift in governance this suit seeks unilaterally to initiate.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Under the “doctrine of discovery,” Oneida II, 470 U. S. 226, 234 (1985), “fee title to the lands occupied by Indians when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign — first the discovering European nation and later the original States and the United States,” Oneida I, 414 U. S. 661, 667 (1974). In the original 13 States, “fee title to Indian lands,” or “the pre-emptive right to purchase from the Indians, was in the State.” Id., at 670; see Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y. v. New York, 860 F. 2d 1145, 1159-1167 (CA2 1988). Both before and after the adoption of the Constitution, New York State acquired vast tracts of land from Indian tribes through treaties it independently negotiated, without National Government participation. See Gunther, Governmental Power and New York Indian Lands — A Reassessment of a Persistent Problem of Federal-State Relations, 8 Buffalo L. Rev. 1, 4-6 (1958-1959) (hereinafter Gunther).
By its terms, the 1790 Nonintercourse Act governed Indian lands within the boundaries of the original 13 States. The Act provided “[t]hat no sale of lands made by any Indians, or any nation or tribe of Indians within the United States, shall be valid to any person or persons, or to any state, whether having the right of pre-emption to such lands or not, unless the same shall be made and duly executed at some public treaty, held under the authority of the United States.” Act of July 22, 1790, ch. 33, § 4,1 Stat. 138 (emphasis added). Our prior decisions state in this regard that, “[w]ith the adoption of the Constitution, Indian relations became the exclusive province of federal law.” Oneida II, 470 U. S., at 234 (citing Oneida I, 414 U. S., at 670). See generally Clinton & Hotopp, Judicial Enforcement of the Federal Restraints on Alienation of Indian Land: The Origins of the Eastern Land Claims, 31 Me. L. Rev. 17, 23-38 (1979) (discussing Indian relations under the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution).
In contrast, United States v. Boylan, 265 F. 165 (CA2 1920), involved land the Oneidas never left. Boylan concerned the 1885 conveyances by individual Oneida Indians of a 32-aere tract of reservation land to non-Indians. Despite the conveyances, a band of Oneidas continued to live on the land. After a non-Indian gained a state-court order ejecting the remaining Oneidas, the United States brought suit on behalf of the Oneidas to reclaim the land. The Second Circuit observed that the Oneidas were “actually in possession” of the 32 acres in question, id., at 167, and had occupied the land continuously for over a century, id., at 171. Given that occupation and the absence of Federal Government approval for the individual Oneidas’ conveyances, the Second Circuit upheld the District Court’s “decree restoring the ejected' Indians to possession.” Id., at 173-174.
In another lawsuit, commenced in 1978, the Oneidas sought from the State of New York and others both damages and recovery of land New York had purchased from the Oneidas in 1785 and 1788. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y., 860 F 2d, at 1148. The Second Circuit affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of that action, holding that treaties between New York and the Oneidas during the years in which the Articles of Confederation were operative did not require the assent of Congress. Id., at 1167; see supra, at 203-204, n. 1.
Titled “Indian country defined,” 18 U. S. C. § 1151 provides, in relevant part, that “the term ‘Indian country’ . . . means (a) all land within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the United States Government.”
The United States acknowledged in its brief to the Court in Oneida II that equitable considerations unaddressed by the Court of Appeals in that suit might limit the relief available to the present-day Oneidas. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y., O. T. 1984, No. 83-1065 etc., pp. 33-40.
The dissent suggests that, compatibly with today’s decision, the Tribe may assert tax immunity defensively in the eviction proceeding initiated by Sherrill. Post, at 225. We disagree. The equitable cast of the relief sought remains the same whether asserted affirmatively or defensively.
We resolve this case on considerations not discretely identified in the parties’ briefs. But the question of equitable considerations limiting the relief available to OIN, which we reserved in Óneida II, is inextricably linked to, and is thus “fairly included” within, the questions presented. See this Court’s Rule 14.1(a) (“The statement of any question presented is deemed to comprise every subsidiary question fairly included therein.”); Ballard v. Commissioner, ante, at 47, n. 2; R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 381, n. 3 (1992). See generally R. Stern, E. Gressman, S. Shapiro, & K. Geller, Supreme Court Practice 414 (8th ed. 2002) (“Questions not explicitly mentioned but essential to analysis of the decisions below or to the correct disposition of the other issues have been treated as subsidiary issues fairly comprised by the question presented.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
The Court has recognized that “only Congress can divest a reservation of its land and diminish its boundaries.” Solem v. Bartlett, 465 U. S. 463, 470 (1984); see also 18 U. S. C. § 1151 (defining Indian country); South Dakota v. Yankton Sioux Tribe, 522 U. S. 329, 343 (1998) (“[O]nly Congress can alter the terms of an Indian treaty by diminishing a reservation.”). The Court need not decide today whether, contrary to the Second Circuit’s determination, the 1838 Treaty of Buffalo Creek disestablished the Oneidas’ Reservation, as Sherrill argues. See Brief for Petitioner 31-39; Oneida II, 470 U. S., at 269, n. 24 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part) (“There is ... a serious question whether the Oneida did not abandon their claim to the aboriginal lands in New York when they accepted the Treaty of Buffalo Creek of 1838 ....”). The relief OIN seeks — recognition of present and future sovereign authority to remove the land from local taxation — is unavailable because of the long lapse of time, during which New York’s governance remained undisturbed, and the present-day and future disruption such relief would engender.
Citing Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe, 471 U. S. 759 (1985), The Kansas Indians, 5 Wall. 737 (1867), and The New York Indians, 5 Wall. 761 (1867), the dissent notes that only Congress may revoke the tax-exempt status of Indian reservation land. Post, at 224, and n. 3. Those cases, however, concerned land the Indians had continuously occupied. See Brief for Respondents in Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe, O. T. 1984, No. 83-2161, p. 3, and n. 1 (noting Indians’ occupation of reservation); Kansas Indians, 5 Wall., at 738-742 (concerning Indians removed to and residing on Kansas lands before statehood); New York Indians, 5 Wall., at 768 (taxation by State would “interfer[e] with the possession, and occupation, and exercise of authority” by the Indians residing on the reservation). The Oneidas last occupied the parcels here at issue in 1805. See supra, at 211. The dissent additionally refers to Cass County v. Leech Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, 524 U. S. 103 (1998). Post, at 224, n. 3. But in that case, the Court held that an Indian tribe could not revive the tax-exempt status of its former reservation lands — which Congress had expressly removed from federal protection — by reacquiring the lands in the open market. 524 U. S., at 113-114.
The fact that OIN brought this action promptly after acquiring the properties does not overcome the Oneidas’ failure to reclaim ancient prerogatives earlier or lessen the problems associated with upsetting New York’s long-exercised sovereignty over the area. OIN’s claim concerns grave, but ancient, wrongs, and the relief available must joe commensurate with that historical reality.
It bears repetition that for generations, the Oneidas dominantly complained, not against New York or its local units, but about “[mis]treatment at the hands of the United States Government.” Oneida II, 470 U. S., at 269 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part); see supra, at 207-208.
Other tribal entities have already sought to free historic reservation lands purchased in the open market from local regulatory controls. See Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Okla. v. Aurelius, New York, No. 5:03-CV-00690 (NPM), 2004 WL 1945859, *1-*3 (NDNY, Sept. 1, 2004) (tribe seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to avoid application of municipal zoning and land-use laws to 229 acres); Cayuga Indian Nation of N. Y. v. Union Springs, 317 F. Supp. 2d 128, 131-134, 147-148 (NDNY 2004) (granting declaratory and injunctive relief to tribe, to block application of zoning regulations to property — “located within 300 yards” of a school— under renovation by the tribe for use as a gaming facility).
Justice Stevens, after vigorously urging the application of laches to block further proceedings in Oneida II, 470 U. S., at 255, now faults the Court for rejecting the claim presented here, post, at 223-224. The majority indicated in Oneida II that application of a nonstatutory time limitation in an action for damages would be “novel.” 470 U. S., at 244, n. 16; cf. id., at 261-262 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part) (acknowledging “the application of a traditional equitable defense in an action at law is something of a novelty”). No similar novelty exists when the specific relief OIN now seeks would project redress for the Tribe into the present and future. The claim to a sovereign’s prerogative asserted by OIN, we hold, does “not survive eternally,” id., at 272 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part); rather, it is a claim “best left in repose,” id., at 273 (same). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the reason, if any, given by the court for granting the petition for certiorari. | What reason, if any, does the court give for granting the petition for certiorari? | [
"case did not arise on cert or cert not granted",
"federal court conflict",
"federal court conflict and to resolve important or significant question",
"putative conflict",
"conflict between federal court and state court",
"state court conflict",
"federal court confusion or uncertainty",
"state court confusion or uncertainty",
"federal court and state court confusion or uncertainty",
"to resolve important or significant question",
"to resolve question presented",
"no reason given",
"other reason"
] | [
11
] | sc_certreason |
AUCIELLO IRON WORKS, INC. v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
No. 95-668.
Argued April 22, 1996
Decided June 3, 1996
Souter, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
John D. O’Reilly III argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioner.
Richard H. Seamon argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Days, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Linda Sher, Norton J. Come, and John Emad Arbab
Jonathan Hiatt, Marsha Berzon, David Silberman, and Laurence Gold filed a brief for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations as amicus curiae urging affirmance.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question here is whether an employer may disavow a collective-bargaining agreement because of a good-faith doubt about a union’s majority status at the time the contract was made, when the doubt arises from facts known to the employer before its contract offer had been accepted by the union. We hold that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) reasonably concluded that an employer challenging an agreement under these circumstances commits an unfair labor practice in violation of §§ 8(a)(1) and (5) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act), 49 Stat. 452, 453, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158(a)(1) and (5).
I
Petitioner Auciello Iron Works of Hudson, Massachusetts, had 23 production and maintenance employees during the period in question. After a union election in 1977, the NLRB certified Shopmen’s Local No. 501, a/w International Association of Bridge, Structural, and Ornamental Iron Workers, AFL-CIO (Union), as the collective-bargaining representative of Auciello’s employees. Over the following years, the company and the Union were able to negotiate a series of collective-bargaining agreements, one of which expired on September 25, 1988. Negotiations for a new one were unsuccessful throughout September and October 1988, however, and when Auciello and the Union had not made a new contract by October 14, 1988, the employees went on strike. Negotiations continued, nonetheless, and, on November 17, 1988, Auciello presented the Union with a complete contract proposal. On November 18, 1988, the picketing stopped, and nine days later, on a Sunday evening, the Union telegraphed its acceptance of the outstanding offer. The very next day, however, Auciello told the Union that it doubted that a majority of the bargaining unit’s employees supported the Union, and for that reason disavowed the collective-bargaining agreement and denied it had any duty to continue negotiating. Auciello traced its doubt to knowledge acquired before the Union accepted the contract offer, including the facts that 9 employees had crossed the picket line, that 13 employees had given it signed forms indicating their resignation from the Union, and that 16 had expressed dissatisfaction with the Union.
In January 1989, the Board’s General Counsel issued an administrative complaint charging Auciello with violation of §§ 8(a)(1) and (5) of the NLRA. An Administrative Law Judge found that a contract existed between the parties and that Auciello’s withdrawal from it violated the Act. 303 N. L. R. B. 562 (1991). The Board affirmed the Administrative Law Judge’s decision; it treated Auciello’s claim of good-faith doubt as irrelevant and ordered Auciello to reduce the collective-bargaining agreement to a formal written instrument. Ibid. But when the Board applied to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for enforcement of its order, the Court of Appeals declined on the ground that the Board had not adequately explained its refusal to consider Auciel-lo’s defense of good-faith doubt about the Union’s majority status. 980 F. 2d 804 (1992). On remand, the Board issued a supplemental opinion to justify its position, 317 N. L. R. B. 364 (1995), and the Court of Appeals thereafter enforced the order as resting on a “policy choice [both]... reasonable and . . . quite persuasive.” 60 F. 3d 24, 27 (1995). We granted certiorari, 516 U. S. 1086 (1996), and now affirm.
II
A
The object of the National Labor Relations Act is industrial peace and stability, fostered by collective-bargaining agreements providing for the orderly resolution of labor disputes between workers and employees. See 29 U. S. C. § 141(b); Fall River Dyeing & Finishing Corp. v. NLRB, 482 U. S. 27, 38 (1987) (Fall River Dyeing). To such ends, the Board has adopted various presumptions about the existence of majority support for a union within a bargaining unit, the precondition for service as its exclusive representative. Cf. id., at 37-89. The first two are conclusive presumptions. A union “usually is entitled to a conclusive presumption of majority status for one year following” Board certification as such a representative. Id., at 37. A union is likewise entitled under Board precedent to a conclusive presumption of majority status during the term of any collective-bargaining agreement, up to three years. See NLRB v. Burns Int’l Security Services, Inc., 406 U. S. 272, 290, n. 12 (1972); see generally R. Gorman, Basic Text on Labor Law: Unionization and Collective Bargaining § 9, pp. 54-59 (1976). “These presumptions are based not so much on an absolute certainty that the union’s majority status will not erode,” Fall River Dyeing, 482 U. S., at 38, as on the need to achieve “stability in collective-bargaining relationships.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted). They address our fickle nature by “enabling] a union to concentrate on obtaining and fairly administering a collective-bargaining agreement” without worrying about the immediate risk of decertification and by “removing] any temptation on the part of the employer to avoid good-faith bargaining” in an effort to undermine union support. Ibid.
There is a third presumption, though not a conclusive one. At the end of the certification year or upon expiration of the collective-bargaining agreement, the presumption of majority status becomes a rebuttable one. See NLRB v. Curtin Matheson Scientific, Inc., 494 U. S. 775, 778 (1990); see n. 6, infra. Then, an employer may overcome the presumption (when, for example, defending against an unfair labor practice charge) “by showing that, at the time of [its] refusal to bargain, either (1) the union did not in fact enjoy majority support, or (2) the employer had a ‘good-faith’ doubt, founded on a sufficient objective basis, of the union’s majority support.” Curtin Matheson, supra, at 778 (emphasis in original). Auciello asks this Court to hold that it may raise the latter defense even after a collective-bargaining contract period has apparently begun to run upon a union’s acceptance of an employer’s outstanding offer.
B
The same need for repose that first prompted the Board to adopt the rule presuming the union’s majority status during the term of a collective-bargaining agreement also led the Board to rule out an exception for the benefit of an employer with doubts arising from facts antedating the contract. The Board said that such an exception would allow an employer to control the timing of its assertion of good-faith doubt and thus to “ ‘sit’ on that doubt and . . . raise it after the offer is accepted.” 317 N. L. R. B., at 370. The Board thought that the risks associated with giving employers such “unilatera[l] control [over] a vital part of the collective-bargaining process,” ibid., would undermine the stability of the collective-bargaining relationship, id., at 374, and thus outweigh any benefit that might in theory follow from vindicating a doubt that ultimately proved to be sound.
The Board’s judgment in the matter is entitled to prevail. To affirm its rule of decision in this case, indeed, there is no need to invoke the full measure of the “considerable deference” that the Board is due, NLRB v. Curtin Matheson Scientific, Inc., supra, at 786, by virtue of its charge to develop national labor policy, Beth Israel Hospital v. NLRB, 437 U. S. 483, 500-501 (1978), through interstitial rulemaking that is “rational and consistent with the Act,” Curtin Matheson, supra, at 787.
It might be tempting to think that Auciello’s doubt was expressed so soon after the apparent contract formation that little would be lost by vindicating that doubt and wiping the contractual slate clean, if in fact the company can make a convincing case for the doubt it claims. On this view, the loss of repose would be slight. But if doubts about the union’s majority status would justify repudiating a contract one day after its ostensible formation, why should the same doubt not serve as well a year into the contract’s term? Au-ciello implicitly agrees on the need to provide some cutoff, but argues that the limit should be expressed as a “reasonable time” to repudiate the contract. Brief for Petitioner 26-32. That is, it seeks case-by-case determinations of the appropriate time for asserting a good-faith doubt in place of the Board’s bright-line rule cutting off the opportunity at the moment of apparent contract formation. Auciello’s desire is natural, but its argument fails to point up anything unreasonable in the Board’s position.
The Board’s approach generally allows companies an adequate chance to act on their preacceptance doubts before contract formation, just as Auciello could have acted effectively under the Board’s rule in this case. Auciello knew that the picket line had been crossed and that a number of its employees had expressed dissatisfaction with the Union at least nine days before the contract’s acceptance, and all of the resignation forms Auciello received were dated at least five days before the acceptance date. During the week preceding the apparent formation of the contract, Auciello had at least three alternatives to doing nothing. It could have withdrawn the outstanding offer and then, like its employees, petitioned for a representation election. See 29 U. S. C. § 159(c)(1)(A)(ii) (employee petitions); § 159(c)(1)(B) (employer petitions); NLRB v. Financial Institution Employees, 475 U. S. 192, 198 (1986). “[I]f the Board determines, after investigation and hearing, that a question of representation exists, it directs an election by secret ballot and certifies the result.” Ibid. Following withdrawal, it could also have refused to bargain further on the basis of its good-faith doubt, leaving it to the Union to charge an unfair labor practice, against which it could defend on the basis of the doubt. Cf. Curtin Matheson, 494 U. S., at 778. And, of course, it could have withdrawn its offer to allow it time to investigate while it continued to fulfill its duty to bargain in good faith with the Union. The company thus, had generous opportunities to avoid the presumption before the moment of acceptance.
There may, to be sure, be cases where the opportunity requires prompt action, but labor negotiators are not the least nimble, and the Board could reasonably have thought the price of making more time for the sluggish was too high, since it would encourage bad-faith bargaining. As Auciello would have it, any employer with genuine doubt about a union’s hold on its employees would be invited to go right on bargaining, with the prospect of locking in a favorable contract that it could, if it wished, then challenge. Here, for example, if Auciello had acted before the Union’s telegram by withdrawing its offer and declining further negotiation based on its doubt (or petitioning for decertification), flames would have been fanned, and if it ultimately had been obliged to bargain further, a favorable agreement would have been more difficult to obtain. But by saving its challenge until after a contract had apparently been formed, it could not end up with a worse agreement than the one it had. The Board could reasonably say that giving employers some flexibility in raising their scruples would not be worth skewing bargaining relationships by such one-sided leverage, and the fact that any collective-bargaining agreement might be vulnerable to such a postformation challenge would hardly serve the Act’s goal of achieving industrial peace by promoting stable collective-bargaining relationships. Cf. Fall River Dyeing, 482 U. S., at 38-39; Franks Bros. Co. v. NLRB, 321 U. S. 702, 705 (1944).
Nor do we find anything compelling in Auciello’s contention that its employees’ statutory right “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing” and to refrain from doing so, 29 U. S. C. § 157, compels us to reject the Board’s position. Although we take seriously the Act’s command to respect “the free choice of employees” as well as to “promot[e] stability in collective-bargaining relationships,” Fall River Dyeing, supra, at 38 (internal quotation marks omitted), we have rejected the position that employers may refuse to bargain whenever presented with evidence that their employees no longer support their certified union. “To allow employers to rely on employees’ rights in refusing to bargain with the formally designated union is not conducive to [industrial peace], it is inimical to it.” Brooks v. NLRB, 348 U. S. 96, 103 (1954). The Board is accordingly entitled to suspicion when faced with an employer’s benevolence as its workers’ champion against their certified union, which is subject to a decertification petition from the workers if they want to file one. There is nothing unreasonable in giving a short leash to the employer as vindicator of its employees’ organizational freedom.
C
Merits aside, Auciello also claims that the precedent of Garment Workers v. NLRB, 366 U. S. 731 (1961), compels reversal, but it does not. In Garment Workers, we held that a bona fide but mistaken belief in a union’s majority status cannot support an employer’s agreement purporting to recognize a union newly organized but as yet uncertified. We upheld the Board’s rule out of concern that an employer and a unión could make a deal giving the union “ ‘a marked advantage over any other [union] in securing the adherence of employees,’” id., at 738 (quoting NLRB v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., 303 U. S. 261, 267 (1938)), thereby distorting the process by which employees elect the bargaining agent of their choice. 366 U. S., at 738-739. Here, in contrast, the Union continued to enjoy a rebuttable presumption of majority support, and the bargaining unit employees had ample opportunity to initiate decertification of the Union but apparently chose not to do so. With entire consistency, the Board may deny employers the power gained from recognizing a union, even when it flows from a good-faith but mistaken belief in a newly organized union’s majority status, and at the same time deny them the power to disturb collective-bargaining agreements based on a doubt (without more) that its employees’ bargaining agent has retained majority status. Good-faith belief can neither force a union’s precipitate recognition nor destroy a recognized union’s contracting authority after the fact by intentional delay. There is, indeed, a symmetry in the two positions.
* * *
We hold that the Board reasonably found an employer’s precontractual, good-faith doubt inadequate to support an exception to the conclusive presumption arising at the moment a collective-bargaining contract offer has been accepted. We accordingly affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
It is so ordered.
Section 8(a) of the NLRA provides:
“It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 157 of this title;
“(5) to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section 159(a) of this title.” 29 U.S. C. § 158(a).
Section 7 of the Act provides:
“Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 158(a)(3) of this title.” 29 U. S. C. § 157.
The Board has developed a number of criteria to assess whether a collective-bargaining contract has been formed, see, e. g., Appalachian Shale Products Co., 121 N. L. R. B. 1160 (1958), which may not always coincide with those that would govern in the general area of contract law, see Ben Franklin Nat. Bank, 278 N. L. R. B. 986, 993-994 (1986). We accept for purposes of deciding this case the Board’s conclusion that a contract was formed here within the meaning of the Act. Our review of this case is thus limited to the narrow question whether an employer may withdraw from a collective-bargaining contract once formed when it possessed enough evidence to assert a good-faith doubt about the union’s majority status at the time of formation.
Auciello has suggested that the contract itself was invalid ab initio because the Union in fact lacked majority support at the time of accept-anee. Because the substantiation required to make this showing is greater than that required to assert a good-faith doubt, see NLRB v. Curtin Matheson Scientific, Inc., 494 U. S. 775, 788, n. 8 (1990), the Board has not taken a position on whether such a claim could excuse an employer’s decision to repudiate an otherwise valid contract and disavow its duty to bargain with the union. Brief for Respondent 26, n. 7. Auciello concedes that it failed to advance this claim in its answer to the General Counsel’s complaint, Tr. of Oral Arg. 6,28, the Board never considered this question, and Auciello sought certiorari review only of the question whether an employer is bound by a union’s acceptance in this context when “the Employer had a reasonable basis for a good faith doubt.” Pet. for Cert. i. Accordingly, we conclude that this question is not properly before us and decline to address it.
This presumption may be overcome only in unusual circumstances, see, e. g., Brooks v. NLRB, 348 U. S. 96, 98-99 (1954) (union dissolution, inter alia); 3 T. Kheel, Labor Law § 13A.04[5], p. 13A-26 (1995); R. Gorman, Basic Text on Labor Law: Unionization and Collective Bargaining §9, pp. 56-57 (1976), none of which is present here.
Auciello maintains that Curtin Matheson requires reversal here since it appears that the employer in that case asserted its good-faith doubt after the union’s acceptance of the contract offer. Brief for Petitioner 19-21. But the case is not authority on the issue of timing. The question presented was whether the Board “in evaluating an employer’s claim that it had a reasonable basis for doubting a union’s majority support, must presume that striker replacements oppose the union.” Curtin Matheson, 494 U. S., at 777 (emphasis in original). We did not discuss or consider whether the timing of the employer’s assertion should affect the outcome of that case, and the decision does not answer that question.
We assume, without deciding, that the withdrawal of an offer under these circumstances could not serve as a basis for the filing of an unfair labor practice complaint, which might trigger the “blocking charge” rule that the NLRB concedes would be implicated by an employer’s unlawful withdrawal of recognition. See Brief for Respondent 31, n. 10.
We note that in the unusual circumstance in which evidence leading the employer to harbor such a doubt arises at the same time the union accepts the offer, the Board has agreed to examine such occurrences on a case-by-case basis. 317 N. L. R. B. 364, 374-375 (1995). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the reason, if any, given by the court for granting the petition for certiorari. | What reason, if any, does the court give for granting the petition for certiorari? | [
"case did not arise on cert or cert not granted",
"federal court conflict",
"federal court conflict and to resolve important or significant question",
"putative conflict",
"conflict between federal court and state court",
"state court conflict",
"federal court confusion or uncertainty",
"state court confusion or uncertainty",
"federal court and state court confusion or uncertainty",
"to resolve important or significant question",
"to resolve question presented",
"no reason given",
"other reason"
] | [
11
] | sc_certreason |
WETZEL, SECRETARY, PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al. v. LAMBERT
No. 11-38.
Decided February 24, 2012
Per Curiam.
James Lambert was convicted and sentenced to death in 1984 for the murder of two patrons during a robbery of Prince's Lounge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the Commonwealth’s primary witnesses at Lambert’s trial was Bernard Jackson, who admitted to being involved in the robbery and identified Bruce Reese and Lambert as his accomplices. Almost 20 years later, Lambert brought a claim for postconviction relief in Pennsylvania state court, alleging that the Commonwealth had failed to disclose, inter alia, a “police activity sheet” in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963). This document, dated October 25, 1982, noted that a photo display containing a picture of an individual named Lawrence Woodlock was shown to two witnesses to the Prince’s Lounge robbery, but that “[n]o identification was made.” Exh. 1, App. to Brief in Opposition. The document further noted that “Mr. WOODLOCK is named as co-defendant” by Jackson, who was in custody at the time on several charges and had admitted to involvement in at least 13 armed robberies of bars. Ibid. The activity sheet did not indicate whether Jackson’s reference was to the Prince’s Lounge crime or one of the others. The sheet bore the names of the law enforcement officers involved in the investigation of the Prince’s Lounge robbery. It also bore the names of the robbery’s murder victims, as well as the police ease numbers for those murders. The Commonwealth has identified no evidence that Woodlock was ever investigated for any other robbery, or that his photo was shown to a witness in any other robbery.
Lambert claimed that the activity sheet was exculpatory, because it suggested that someone other than or in addition to him, Jackson, and Reese was involved in the Prince’s Lounge crime. Commonwealth v. Lambert, 584 Pa. 461, 472, 884 A. 2d 848, 855 (2005). Lambert also argued that he could have used the activity sheet to impeach Jackson’s testimony at trial, because the statement attributed to Jackson suggested that Jackson had identified Woodlock as a participant prior to identifying Lambert. Ibid.
The Commonwealth countered that the asserted “‘statement’” by Jackson reflected in the activity sheet was in fact nothing more than an “‘ambiguously worded notation.’” Ibid. The Commonwealth argued that this notation simply indicated that Jackson had named Woodlock as a “co-defendant” in some incident, without specifying whether Woodlock was said to be involved in the Prince’s Lounge robbery or one of the dozen other robberies in which Jackson had admitted participating. In this regard, the Commonwealth noted that Woodlock’s name was not mentioned anywhere else in the police records, trial proceedings, or Jackson’s statements about the Prince’s Lounge robbery. As the Commonwealth has put it, “it seems likely that Jackson identified [Woodlock] as a participant in one of his many other robberies, and police simply confirmed that Woodlock had nothing to do with this case.” Reply to Brief in Opposition 2. The Commonwealth “further note[d]” that the document would not have advanced any impeachment of Jackson, because he had already been extensively impeached at trial. Lambert, 584 Pa., at 472, 884 A. 2d, at 855. Thus, according to the Commonwealth, the “ambiguous reference to Wood-lock” would not have discredited Jackson any further. Ibid.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed with the Commonwealth and unanimously rejected Lambert’s Brady claim, holding that the disputed document was not material. 584 Pa., at 472-473, 848 A. 2d, at 855-856. The court concluded that there was no reasonable probability that the result of Lambert’s trial would have been different had the document been disclosed. Ibid. See Strickler v. Greene, 527 U. S. 263, 281 (1999). Calling Lambert’s claim that the reference to Woodlock “automatically” meant someone else was involved in the Prince’s Lounge robbery “purely speculative at best,” the court noted that “the police must not have had reason to consider Woodlock a potential codefendant in this case as his name is not mentioned anywhere else in the police investigation files.” 584 Pa., at 473, 884 A. 2d, at 855. “Moreover,” the court continued, the document “would not have materially furthered the impeachment of Jackson at trial as he was already extensively impeached by both [Lambert] and Reese.” Ibid.
Lambert filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, claiming, inter alia, that the Commonwealth’s failure to disclose the document violated his rights under Brady. The District Court denied the writ, holding that the state courts’ determination that the notations “were not exculpatory or impeaching” was “reasonable.” Lambert v. Beard, Civ. Action No. 02-9034 (July 24, 2007), App. to Pet. for Cert. 34, 36. The court explained that “[t]he various notations and statements which [Lambert] claims the Commonwealth should have disclosed are entirely ambiguous, and would have required the state courts to speculate to conclude they were favorable for Lambert and material to his guilt or punishment.” Id., at 36.
On appeal, however, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed and granted the writ. 633 F. 3d 126 (2011). The Third Circuit concluded that it was “patently unreasonable” for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to presume that whenever a witness is impeached in one manner, any other impeachment evidence would be immaterial. Id., at 134. According to the Third Circuit, the notation that Jackson had identified Woodlock as a “co-defendant” would have “opened an entirely new line of impeachment” because the prosecutor at trial had relied on the fact that Jackson had consistently named Lambert as the third participant in the robbery. Id., at 135. The Commonwealth petitioned for certiorari.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) precludes a federal court from granting a writ of habeas corpus to a state prisoner unless the state court’s adjudication of his claim “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1). “Under § 2254(d), a habeas court must determine what arguments or theories supported . . . the state court’s decision; and then it must ask whether it is possible fairminded jurists could disagree that those arguments or theories are inconsistent with the holding in a prior decision of this Court.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U. S. 86, 102 (2011).
In this case, however, the Third Circuit overlooked the determination of the state courts that the notations were, as the District Court put it, “not exculpatory or impeaching” but instead “entirely ambiguous.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 34, 36. Instead, the Third Circuit focused solely on the alternative ground that any impeachment value that might have been obtained from the notations would have been cumulative. If the conclusion in the state courts about the content of the document was reasonable — not necessarily correct, but reasonable — whatever those courts had to say about cumulative impeachment evidence would be beside the point. The failure of the Third Circuit even to address the “ambiguous” nature of the notations, and the “speculative]” nature of Lambert’s reading of them, is especially surprising, given that this was the basis of the District Court ruling. Id., at 36.
The Court of Appeals ordered that Lambert, convicted of capital murder nearly 30 years ago, be set free unless the Commonwealth retried him within 120 days. It did so because of a police activity sheet noting that Jackson had identified Woodlock as a “co-defendant,” and bearing other information associating the sheet with the Prince’s Lounge robbery. The Court of Appeals, however, failed to address the state court ruling that the reference to Woodlock was ambiguous and any connection to the Prince’s Lounge robbery speculative. That ruling — on which we do not now opine — may well be reasonable, given that (1) the activity sheet did not explicitly link Woodlock to the Prince’s Lounge robbery, (2) Jackson had committed a dozen other such robberies, (3) Jackson was being held on several charges when the activity sheet was prepared, (4) Woodlock’s name appeared nowhere else in the Prince’s Lounge files, and (5) the two witnesses from the Prince’s Lounge robbery who were shown Woodlock’s photo did not identify him as involved in that crime.
Any retrial here would take place three decades after the crime, posing the most daunting difficulties for the prosecution. That burden should not be imposed unless each ground supporting the state court decision is examined and found to be unreasonable under AEDPA.
The petition for certiorari and respondent’s motion to proceed in forma pauperis are granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The dissent emphasizes that the activity sheet was prepared for the investigation into the Prince’s Lounge crime. Post, at 526 (opinion of Breyer, J.). No one disputes that. The ambiguity at issue concerns whether Jackson’s statement referred to that crime, or one of his many others. The dissent also finds “no suggestion” that the state courts believed Jackson’s reference to Woodlock “contained the argued ambigúity.” Post, at 527. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, however, recognized the Commonwealth’s argument that Jackson could, have named Woodlock as a codefendant in some other robbery, and concluded that “[t]he Commonwealth accurately notes that the police must not have had reason to consider Woodlock a potential codefendant in this case as his name is not mentioned anywhere else in the police investigation files.” Commonwealth v. Lambert, 584 Pa. 461, 473, 884 A. 2d 848, 855 (2005). The only state court ruling the Third Circuit addressed — the conclusion that any impeachment evidence would have been cumulative — was one the state court introduced with “[m]oreover,” confirming that it was an alternative basis for its decision. Ibid. And the District Court certainly understood the state court decisions to have considered the reference ambiguous. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 36. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the court in which the case originated. Focus on the court in which the case originated, not the administrative agency. For this reason, if appropiate note the origin court to be a state or federal appellate court rather than a court of first instance (trial court). If the case originated in the United States Supreme Court (arose under its original jurisdiction or no other court was involved), note the origin as "United States Supreme Court". If the case originated in a state court, note the origin as "State Court". Do not code the name of the state. The courts in the District of Columbia present a special case in part because of their complex history. Treat local trial (including today's superior court) and appellate courts (including today's DC Court of Appeals) as state courts. Consider cases that arise on a petition of habeas corpus and those removed to the federal courts from a state court as originating in the federal, rather than a state, court system. A petition for a writ of habeas corpus begins in the federal district court, not the state trial court. Identify courts based on the naming conventions of the day. Do not differentiate among districts in a state. For example, use "New York U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New York" for all the districts in New York. | What is the court in which the case originated? | [
"U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals",
"U.S. Court of International Trade",
"U.S. Court of Claims, Court of Federal Claims",
"U.S. Court of Military Appeals, renamed as Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces",
"U.S. Court of Military Review",
"U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals",
"U.S. Customs Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit",
"U.S. Tax Court",
"Temporary Emergency U.S. Court of Appeals",
"U.S. Court for China",
"U.S. Consular Courts",
"U.S. Commerce Court",
"Territorial Supreme Court",
"Territorial Appellate Court",
"Territorial Trial Court",
"Emergency Court of Appeals",
"Supreme Court of the District of Columbia",
"Bankruptcy Court",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit",
"U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit (includes the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia but not the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which has local jurisdiction)",
"Alabama Middle U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Northern U.S. District Court",
"Alabama Southern U.S. District Court",
"Alaska U.S. District Court",
"Arizona U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas Western U.S. District Court",
"California Central U.S. District Court",
"California Eastern U.S. District Court",
"California Northern U.S. District Court",
"California Southern U.S. District Court",
"Colorado U.S. District Court",
"Connecticut U.S. District Court",
"Delaware U.S. District Court",
"District Of Columbia U.S. District Court",
"Florida Middle U.S. District Court",
"Florida Northern U.S. District Court",
"Florida Southern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Middle U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Northern U.S. District Court",
"Georgia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Guam U.S. District Court",
"Hawaii U.S. District Court",
"Idaho U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Central U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Northern U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Southern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Northern U.S. District Court",
"Indiana Southern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Northern U.S. District Court",
"Iowa Southern U.S. District Court",
"Kansas U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky Western U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Middle U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana Western U.S. District Court",
"Maine U.S. District Court",
"Maryland U.S. District Court",
"Massachusetts U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Michigan Western U.S. District Court",
"Minnesota U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Northern U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi Southern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Missouri Western U.S. District Court",
"Montana U.S. District Court",
"Nebraska U.S. District Court",
"Nevada U.S. District Court",
"New Hampshire U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"New Mexico U.S. District Court",
"New York Eastern U.S. District Court",
"New York Northern U.S. District Court",
"New York Southern U.S. District Court",
"New York Western U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Middle U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"North Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Northern Mariana Islands U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Northern U.S. District Court",
"Ohio Southern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Northern U.S. District Court",
"Oklahoma Western U.S. District Court",
"Oregon U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Middle U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania Western U.S. District Court",
"Puerto Rico U.S. District Court",
"Rhode Island U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina U.S. District Court",
"South Dakota U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Middle U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee Western U.S. District Court",
"Texas Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Northern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Southern U.S. District Court",
"Texas Western U.S. District Court",
"Utah U.S. District Court",
"Vermont U.S. District Court",
"Virgin Islands U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Virginia Western U.S. District Court",
"Washington Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Washington Western U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Northern U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia Southern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Eastern U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin Western U.S. District Court",
"Wyoming U.S. District Court",
"Louisiana U.S. District Court",
"Washington U.S. District Court",
"West Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Eastern U.S. District Court",
"South Carolina Western U.S. District Court",
"Alabama U.S. District Court",
"U.S. District Court for the Canal Zone",
"Georgia U.S. District Court",
"Illinois U.S. District Court",
"Indiana U.S. District Court",
"Iowa U.S. District Court",
"Michigan U.S. District Court",
"Mississippi U.S. District Court",
"Missouri U.S. District Court",
"New Jersey Eastern U.S. District Court (East Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New Jersey Western U.S. District Court (West Jersey U.S. District Court)",
"New York U.S. District Court",
"North Carolina U.S. District Court",
"Ohio U.S. District Court",
"Pennsylvania U.S. District Court",
"Tennessee U.S. District Court",
"Texas U.S. District Court",
"Virginia U.S. District Court",
"Norfolk U.S. District Court",
"Wisconsin U.S. District Court",
"Kentucky U.S. Distrcrict Court",
"New Jersey U.S. District Court",
"California U.S. District Court",
"Florida U.S. District Court",
"Arkansas U.S. District Court",
"District of Orleans U.S. District Court",
"State Supreme Court",
"State Appellate Court",
"State Trial Court",
"Eastern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Middle Circuit (of the United States)",
"Southern Circuit (of the United States)",
"Alabama U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Alabama",
"Arkansas U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Arkansas",
"California U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of California",
"Connecticut U.S. Circuit for the District of Connecticut",
"Delaware U.S. Circuit for the District of Delaware",
"Florida U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Florida",
"Georgia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Georgia",
"Illinois U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Illinois",
"Indiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Indiana",
"Iowa U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Iowa",
"Kansas U.S. Circuit for the District of Kansas",
"Kentucky U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Kentucky",
"Louisiana U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Louisiana",
"Maine U.S. Circuit for the District of Maine",
"Maryland U.S. Circuit for the District of Maryland",
"Massachusetts U.S. Circuit for the District of Massachusetts",
"Michigan U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Michigan",
"Minnesota U.S. Circuit for the District of Minnesota",
"Mississippi U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Mississippi",
"Missouri U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Missouri",
"Nevada U.S. Circuit for the District of Nevada",
"New Hampshire U.S. Circuit for the District of New Hampshire",
"New Jersey U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New Jersey",
"New York U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of New York",
"North Carolina U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of North Carolina",
"Ohio U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Ohio",
"Oregon U.S. Circuit for the District of Oregon",
"Pennsylvania U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Pennsylvania",
"Rhode Island U.S. Circuit for the District of Rhode Island",
"South Carolina U.S. Circuit for the District of South Carolina",
"Tennessee U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Tennessee",
"Texas U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Texas",
"Vermont U.S. Circuit for the District of Vermont",
"Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Virginia",
"West Virginia U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of West Virginia",
"Wisconsin U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Wisconsin",
"Wyoming U.S. Circuit for the District of Wyoming",
"Circuit Court of the District of Columbia",
"Nebraska U.S. Circuit for the District of Nebraska",
"Colorado U.S. Circuit for the District of Colorado",
"Washington U.S. Circuit for (all) District(s) of Washington",
"Idaho U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Idaho",
"Montana U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Montana",
"Utah U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Utah",
"South Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of South Dakota",
"North Dakota U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of North Dakota",
"Oklahoma U.S. Circuit Court for (all) District(s) of Oklahoma",
"Court of Private Land Claims",
"United States Supreme Court"
] | [
99
] | sc_caseorigin |
EXXON CORP. et al. v. HUNT, ADMINISTRATOR OF NEW JERSEY SPILL COMPENSATION FUND, et al.
No. 84-978.
Argued December 9, 1985
Decided March 10, 1986
MARSHALL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C. J., and Brennan, White, Blackmun, Rehnquist, and O’Connor, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 377. Powell, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Daniel M. Gribbon argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were John J. Carlin, Jr., and E. Edward Bruce.
Mary C. Jacobson, Deputy Attorney General of New Jersey, argued the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Irwin I. Kimmelman, Attorney General, and Michael R. Cole, First Assistant Attorney General.
A brief of amicus curiae urging reversal was filed for the United States by Solicitor General Lee, Assistant Attorney General Habicht, Deputy Solicitor General Claiborne, Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Robert L. Klarquist, and Dirk N. Snel.
A brief of amici curiae urging affirmance was filed for the State of California et al. by John K. Van de Kamp, Attorney General of California, Theodora Berger, Assistant Attorney General, Reed Sato, Deputy Attorney General, Joseph I. Lieberman, Attorney General of Connecticut, Anthony J. Celebrezze, Jr., Attorney General of Ohio, James E. Tierney, Attorney General of Maine, Stephen E. Merrill, Attorney General of New Hampshire, Robert Abrams, Attorney General of New York, Jim Mattox, Attorney General of Texas, and Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General of Vermont.
Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question for our determination is whether § 114(c) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), 94 Stat. 2796, 42 U. S. C. § 9614(c), pre-empts the New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act, N. J. Stat. Ann. §§58:10-23.11 to 58:10-23.11z (West 1982 and Supp. 1985) (Spill Act). We conclude that the Spill Act is pre-empted in part.
H — I
0>
In 1977 the New Jersey Legislature enacted the Spill Act to respond to the problem of hazardous substance release. Finding that oil spills threatened the health and beauty of the State’s natural resources, and that leaks of hazardous chemicals from disposal sites presented a great risk to the public, the legislature intended the Spill Act to protect the citizens and environment of New Jersey through prevention and cleanup of spills and other releases. Those efforts are financed by an excise tax levied upon major petroleum and chemical facilities within the State. The money collected goes into a permanent fund known as the “Spill Fund.” The Spill Fund may spend money to clean up releases of hazardous substances, to compensate third parties for certain economic losses sustained as a result of such releases, and to pay administrative and research costs. N. J. Stat. Ann. §58:10-23.11o (West Supp. 1985).
In 1980 Congress enacted CERCLA in response to similar concerns. CERCLA imposes an excise tax on petroleum and other specified chemicals. The Act establishes a trust fund, commonly known as “Superfund,” 87.5% of which is financed through the excise tax, and the remainder through general revenues. Superfund money may be used to clean up releases of hazardous substances and for certain other purposes. Unlike the Spill Act, CERCLA does not include oil spills within its definition of hazardous substance releases, nor is Superfund money available to compensate private parties for economic harms that result from discharges of hazardous substances. Rather, it seeks to facilitate government cleanup of hazardous waste discharges and prevention of future releases. There are two primary purposes for which the Superfund money may be spent — to finance “governmental response,” and to pay “claims.” See § 111(a) of CERCLA, 42 U. S. C. § 9611(a). Governmental response consists of “removal,” or short-term cleanup, § 9601(23), and “remedial action,” or measures to achieve a “permanent remedy” to a particular hazardous waste problem, § 9601(24). Claims are demands for reimbursement made upon the Superfund, and also come in two types. One type of claim is a demand by “any other person” for costs incurred pursuant to the federal plan for cleanup of hazardous substances, known as the “national contingency plan.” § 9611(a)(2). Thus, Superfund may reimburse private parties only to the extent that their cleanup activities are expressly authorized by the Federal Government. The second type of claim is a demand by the Federal or a State Government for compensation for damages to natural resources belonging to that government. § 9611(a)(3). Superfund money may not be used to pay for injury to persons or property caused by hazardous wastes, except for payment to the Federal and State Governments for their natural resource losses.
This litigation concerns § 114(c) of CERCLA, as set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 9614(c), which provides:
“Except as provided in this chapter, no person may be required to contribute to any fund, the purpose of which is to pay compensation for claims for any costs of response or damages or claims which may be compensated under this subchapter. Nothing in this section shall preclude any State from using general revenues for such a fund, or from imposing a tax or fee upon any person or upon any substance in order to finance the purchase or prepositioning of hazardous substance response equipment or other preparations for the response to a release of hazardous substances which affects such State.”
Clearly, this provision is meant to forbid the States to impose taxes to finance certain types of funds. The issue in this case is whether the New Jersey Spill Fund is, in whole or in part, the type of fund that § 114(c) pre-empts.
B
Appellants are corporations that have paid the Spill Act tax since its inception. After unsuccessful attempts to litigate the issue in the federal courts, see Exxon Corp. v. Hunt, 683 F. 2d 69 (CA3 1982), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 1104 (1983); cf. New Jersey v. United States, 16 ERC 1846 (DC 1981) (dismissing suit brought by New Jersey seeking to have tax declared valid), appellants brought suit in the New Jersey Tax Court against New Jersey and certain of its officials (collectively New Jersey), seeking a declaratory judgment and a refund of taxes paid pursuant to the Spill Act. Appellants claimed that the New Jersey tax was invalid in its entirety under § 114(c) and the Supremacy Clause. The Tax Court entered summary judgment for New Jersey on two alternative grounds. First, the court concluded that § 114(c) does not pre-empt state funds that pay cleanup costs and other claims that are not actually compensated by Superfund. Second, even accepting appellants’ argument that § 114(c) precludes any state taxation of industry to pay for cleanup and remedial activities, the court found that there were sufficient nonpre-empted purposes to the Spill Fund to make the Fund valid in its entirety. 4 N. J. Tax 294 (1982).
The Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court affirmed, 190 N. J. Super. 131, 462 A. 2d 193 (1983), as did the New Jersey Supreme Court, 97 N. J. 526, 481 A. 2d 271 (1984). The latter court, like the Tax Court, concluded that “the Spill Fund tax ... is not preempted by section 114(c) of Superfund insofar as Spill Fund is used to compensate hazardous-waste cleanup costs and related claims that are either not covered or not actually paid under Superfund.” Id., at 544, 481 A. 2d, at 281. We noted probable jurisdiction, 472 U. S. 1015 (1985), and we now affirm in part and reverse in part.
II
This is an express pre-emption case; appellants claim that the plain language of § 114(c) forbids state taxation of the type the Spill Act imposes. When a federal statute unambiguously precludes certain types of state legislation, we need go no further than the statutory language to determine whether the state statute is pre-empted. Aloha Airlines, Inc. v. Director of Taxation, 464 U. S. 7, 12 (1983).
Section 114(c), unfortunately, is not a model of legislative draftsmanship. The critical language, “no person may be required to contribute to any fund, the purpose of which is to pay compensation for claims for any costs of response or damages or claims which may be compensated under this subchapter,” is at best inartful and at worst redundant. As just one example, it is not clear whether “which may be compensated under this subchapter” modifies only the word “claims” which immediately precedes it, or the entire phrase “any costs of response or damages or claims.” Because the terms “claims,” “response,” and “damages” have specific, technical definitions under CERCLA, the way the sentence is parsed may have a significant effect on its meaning. Finally, § 114(c) by itself does not provide a method for determining whether a particular expenditure “may be compensated” by Superfund. That determination, therefore, necessitates reference to the remainder of CERCLA.
J — ( I — I
Our task, then, must proceed in three parts. First, we must determine what class of expenses is encompassed within the phrase “costs of response or damages or claims.” Then, because at least some of those expenses are covered by § 114(c) only to the extent that they “may be compensated” by Superfund, we must determine the meaning of that phrase as well. Finally, if we find an overlap between § 114(c)’s prohibitions and the Spill Act’s provisions, we must hold the latter pre-empted.
A
Both parties agree as to the first question. Each concludes that the words “costs of response or damages or claims” are to be read as a unit, and the entire phrase is modified by the phrase “which may be compensated under this subchapter.” However, the Solicitor General, appearing on behalf of the United States as amicus curiae, adopts a contrary position. He contends that § 114(c) should be read to prohibit funds whose purpose is to pay “compensation for [a] claims for any costs of response or damages[,] or [b] claims which may be compensated under this subchapter.” Under the Solicitor General’s view, therefore, any expense that fits CERCLA’s definitions of a “claim” for “costs of response” or “damages” may not be paid by a state fund supported by special taxes, whether or not that expenditure “may” be paid by Superfund. Because “costs of response” covers essentially the entire spectrum of cleanup expenses, see 42 U. S. C. § 9604, the Solicitor General’s reading of the pre-emptive scope of § 114(c) might seem very broad at first reading.
The wide sweep of the Solicitor General’s position, however, is tempered considerably by his interpretation of the term “claim.” CERCLA defines a “claim” as “a demand in writing for a sum certain.” §9601(4). Under the Solicitor General’s view, only a private party’s demand upon a state fund or Superfund for reimbursement for that party’s own cleanup expenses constitutes a “claim.” Any State or Federal Government use of a special fund is merely a governmental expenditure, and not the payment of a “claim.” Because each of the two clauses created by the Solicitor General’s parsing of § 114(c) begins with the word “claims,” he argues, that section does not prohibit any state fund expenditures for a state government’s own cleanup efforts. It prohibits only expenditures to reimburse private parties. Were we to accept the Solicitor General’s reading of § 114(c), therefore, New Jersey could freely tax appellants to pay for its own cleanup costs, even if Superfund might otherwise pay those costs. New Jersey could not, however, tax appellants to pay for third-party cleanup costs, whether or not Superfund might bear those costs. Similarly, New Jersey could not use the Spill Fund to pay for any party’s “damages,” defined by CERCLA to mean loss of natural resources, even though Superfund covers only “damages” suffered by governments.
The United States is not a party, of course, and all parties before us disagree with the Solicitor General’s reading of the statute. However, the Solicitor General’s view has considerable logical force, and assessing it will prove helpful in evaluating the parties’ positions on issues as to which they disagree. Although we ultimately reject the Solicitor General’s position, therefore, we find it helpful to analyze it in some detail.
One problem with the Solicitor General’s view is that the distinction between a government’s own cleanup costs, on the one hand, and “claims,” on the other, has not been so consistent throughout CERCLA’s history as the Solicitor General suggests. The 96th Congress fully considered three major hazardous substance response bills — H. R. 85, H. R. 7020, and S. 1480 — in addition to the Carter administration bill, S. 1341, which died in Committee. See 1 The Environmental Law Institute, Superfund: A Legislative History xiii (1983) (hereafter Leg. Hist.). The earliest of these, H. R. 85, had a pre-emption provision resembling § 114(c). Section 110 of the bill as passed by the House provided: “no person may be required to contribute to any fund, the purpose of which is to compensate for a loss which is a compensable damage” under that bill.
The Solicitor General argues that § 110 had a purpose similar to that which he finds in § 114(c). The sort of loss contemplated by the quoted language, he contends, is a loss suffered by nongovernmental entities, and not a state expenditure. This argument, however, misperceives the overall structure of H. R. 85. That bill defined compensable damages broadly, to include cleanup costs as well as injury to persons or property. Any “United States claimant” could assert a claim for these compensable damages. Significantly, a United States claimant was defined as “any person residing in the United States, the Government of the United States or an agency thereof, or the government of a State or a political subdivision thereof, who asserts a claim.” § 101(p). Thus, under H. R. 85 a state government would clearly assert a “claim” for its own cleanup expenses. Those expenses would constitute “compensable damages,” and §110 would therefore pre-empt the creation of a special state fund to pay such “claims.”
Nor do CERCLA’s other predecessors support the Solicitor General’s interpretation. Bill S. 1341, like H. R. 85, provided for claims by governments and had a pre-emption provision similar to § 110. Bill H. R. 7020, as first passed by the House, contained no pre-emption provision. Bill S. 1480 was the most far-reaching of the bills considered, and the first to contemplate a fund of the magnitude of Superfund. As reported out of Committee, it contained no pre-emption provision analogous to § 114(c).
After S. 1480 ran into opposition, the Senate considered two compromise bills intended to be “a combination of the best of [H. R. 85, H. R. 7020, and S. 1480].” 126 Cong. Rec. 30935 (1980) (remarks of Sen. Stafford). The second of these, introduced by Senators Stafford and Randolph, eventually became CERCLA. Only with the Stafford-Randolph substitute bill did the exact language of § 114(c) come into being. Given the remarkable similarity between a debate between Senators Bradley and Randolph on the meaning of § 114(c) and a debate between Congressmen Florio and Biaggi on the meaning of H. R. 85’s pre-emption provision, it is unlikely that the Senate considered the two provisions to differ substantially. The substitute bill was prepared and passed in considerable haste, and we are reluctant to conclude that Congress intended to adopt a wholly new approach to pre-emption of state funds by the slight changes in language between § 110 of H. R. 85 and § 114(c) of CERCLA.
A second reason for rejecting the Solicitor General’s argument proceeds from the wording of § 114(b). That section provides: “Any person who receives compensation for removal costs or damages or claims pursuant to this chapter shall be precluded from recovering compensation” for the same expenses under any other state or federal law. We consider the similarity between §114(b)’s phrase “removal costs or damages or claims” and § 114(c)’s phrase “costs of response or damages or claims” to suggest that Congress intended the three terms to be read as a unit. When read in conjunction with § 111(a), which provides that Superfund money may be spent on payment of governmental response costs, natural resource damages, and third-party cleanup claims, it seems likely that Congress intended the phrase “removal costs or damages or claims” to provide a shorthand for the authorized uses of Superfund. This strongly undercuts the Solicitor General’s approach, because it suggests that Congress envisioned state funds paying “claims” for all of the authorized uses of Superfund, including state cleanup costs.
A final reason for so concluding derives from the saving provision of § 114(c). The section provides that nothing in it shall be interpreted to prevent a State from imposing a special tax to purchase or preposition equipment or otherwise prepare for a quick response to hazardous substance releases. If the pre-emption provision does not cover direct governmental expenditures at all, as the Solicitor General contends, then that saving provision is redundant. On balance, then, we conclude that the use of the term “compensation for claims” in § 114(c) represents an instance of inartful drafting rather than the intentional drawing of a subtle distinction.
B
Having adopted the partiés’ view of the interpretation of “costs of response or damages or claims,” we must now determine the proper interpretation of the phrase “which may be compensated under this subchapter.” The New Jersey Supreme Court read that language very narrowly, concluding that it covered only expenses that are actually paid by Superfund. Appellants, adopting a broader interpretation of “may be compensated,” contend that § 114(c) pre-empts any fund that is intended, in whole or in part, to pay for the same types of expenses that may be paid by Superfund.
Appellants challenge the state court’s holding on several grounds. First, they contend, it is highly unlikely that a State would choose to pay such double compensation, even in the absence of an express prohibition. Second, § 114(b) provides that any person who receives compensation under Superfund “shall be precluded from recovering compensation for the same removal costs or damages or claims pursuant to any other State or Federal law.” The New Jersey Supreme Court’s interpretation of § 114(c), therefore, makes that section redundant. Appellants rely most heavily, however, on the literal meaning of the phrase “may be compensated.” They contend that the New Jersey courts have violated the plain meaning of the statute by reading the phrase to mean, in effect, “is actually compensated.”
We find these arguments persuasive. Congress has already banned double compensation in § 114(b), and there is accordingly no reason to read “may be compensated” to mean “is compensated.” The contrary view adopted by the New Jersey Supreme Court renders the first sentence of § 114(c) surplusage. The language of § 114(c) permitting the States to use general revenues for such a fund would also be meaningless under such a narrow reading.
C
Nevertheless, New Jersey contends that the decision below, with one minor modification, is correct. New Jersey concedes that § 114(c) is not restricted to cases in which Superfund actually disburses money. New Jersey argues, however, that § 114(c) applies only when Superfund pays a claim or would have paid the claim had it not already been paid by the state fund. It contends that the structure and legislative history of CERCLA support its argument. We will examine each in turn.
New Jersey emphasizes the limited scope of CERCLA. The federal statute does not cover several broad areas — for example, payment for nongovernmental property losses and costs arising from oil spills — that are important aspects of hazardous substance control, and are covered by New Jersey’s Spill Act. Moreover, Congress was well aware that the funding level of Superfund was and is insufficient to clean up more than a few of the most dangerous hazardous waste disposal sites. These facts, New Jersey claims, suggest that Congress recognized that Superfund would not solve all of the Nation’s hazardous waste problems, and that the States would have to continue their own efforts. It follows that Congress did not intend to pre-empt state taxation to pay for cleanup efforts that the Federal Government was unable to undertake because of unavailability of funds, even though such efforts were of the type that are eligible for Superfund money.
That Congress has not chosen the most comprehensive or efficient method of attacking the problem of hazardous substance discharges, however, is no reason to depart from the language of the statute. Moreover, while we agree with New Jersey that the overall purpose of a statute is a useful referent when trying to decipher ambiguous statutory language, remedying the Nation’s toxic waste problems as effectively as possible was not the sole policy choice reflected in CERCLA. Previous attempts to enact a comprehensive hazardous substance response bill were defeated in part because of opposition by the affected industries. It seems clear that the decision to enact a pre-emption provision resulted in part from Congress’ concern about the potentially adverse effects of overtaxation on the competitiveness of the American petrochemical industry. That consideration, whether wise or not, cautions against our concluding that Congress would not have wanted to hinder state attempts to clean up hazardous substances in any way.
New Jersey contends, however, that its reading of § 114(c) does no violence to the statutory language. It argues that we must look not only to the provisions of CERCLA, but also to the amount of money available in Superfund, before deciding whether a particular expense “may be compensated” by Superfund. New Jersey argues that the availability of Superfund money is sufficiently low, as a practical matter, that only projects that have been actually approved, or are almost certain to be approved, can be termed “eligible” for Superfund financing, and then only to the extent of the approved funding.
We cannot agree. To say that the only expenses that “may be compensated” are those that are compensated twists both language and logic further than we are willing to go. Had that been Congress’ intent, it surely would have said so in plainer terms than those of § 114(c).
Comparisons with the prior bills reinforce our reading of the statute. As previously discussed, § 114(c) is derived from the pre-emption provision of H. R. 85. Section 110 of that bill pre-empted state funds whose purpose was “to compensate for a loss which is a compensable damage” under the bill. This language is not ambiguous; it clearly covers any “compensable” loss, whether or not the claimant actually receives compensation from the federal fund. Bill S. 1341 was the only other bill to contain a pre-emption provision covering state funds, prior to the llth-hour Stafford-Randolph substitute bill. That provision also unambiguously covers any “compensable” loss.
We also fail to find sufficient support for New Jersey’s position in the sparse legislative history of the Stafford-Randolph substitute bill that became CERCLA. New Jersey relies on a floor debate between Senators Bradley and Randolph on § 114(c). New Jersey is correct in arguing that some statements in that debate imply that state fund money could be used for any expense not actually paid by Superfund. In view of the haste with which the bill was considered, and the ambiguities and inaccuracies included in the debate between Senators Bradley and Randolph, we decline to attach any great significance to those statements. Moreover, as we have previously mentioned, the fact that this “debate” was essentially a reenactment of the Florio-Biaggi debate over H. R. 85’s pre-emption provision implies that the Senators involved did not consider the two provisions to differ. We reject New Jersey’s reading of § 114(c).
> I — I
Having decided that “may be compensated should be given its ordinary meaning, we must define the category of expenses that may be compensated by Superfund. Fortunately, CERCLA itself furnishes an appropriate test. Section 105(8)(B) of CERCLA, 42 U. S. C. §9605(8)(B), requires the President to revise the National Contingency Plan (NCP) to reflect CERCLA’s provisions. As part of that revision, the President must create and revise annually a list of sites most in need of federal efforts, now known as the National Priorities List. The NCP currently specifies that removal, or immediate cleanup, will be financed by Superfund only in emergency situations, see 40 CFR §300.65 (1985). Remedial action will be financed only for sites on the National Priorities List, § 300.68(a). Finally, the Environmental Protection Agency, pursuant to the NCP, has proposed criteria for the use of Superfund money for natural resource claims. See 50 Fed. Reg. 9593 (1985). The NCP, therefore, provides criteria that determine what expenses, at which sites, will be eligible for Superfund money. We therefore conclude that the NCP provides the appropriate measure of whether a given expenditure constitutes “costs of response or damages or claims which may be compensated” by Superfund.
CERCLA also provides that a State must agree to pay at least 10% of the cost of any remedial action for a hazardous waste site within the State. 42 U. S. C. § 9604(c)(3)(C). This state share is, by definition, not eligible for Superfund money. We therefore conclude that the 10% state share is not a cost that “may be compensated” by Superfund.
To the extent that appellants argue that § 114(c) covers any cleanup or remedial expenses, whether or not eligible for Superfund compensation, we must reject their position. While we have acknowledged Congress’ desire to spare the involved industries from excessive taxation, we must assume that Congress meant the words “which may be compensated under this subchapter” to have some meaning. The only plausible explanation for the use of that phrase is that Congress intended to prohibit state funds that covered Superfund-eligible expenses. Once again, we decline to second-guess the methods Congress used to achieve its purposes.
Our remaining task is to determine whether the “purpose” of the Spill Fund is to pay costs that we have found to fall within the scope of pre-emption. As we have explained above, the Spill Fund may be used for six purposes: (1) to finance governmental cleanup of hazardous waste sites; (2) to reimburse third parties for cleanup costs; (3) to compensate third parties for damage resulting from hazardous substance discharges; (4) to pay personnel and equipment costs; (5) to administer the fund itself; and (6) to conduct research. Of these, the latter four are clearly beyond the scope of CERCLA, and are therefore not covered by § 114(c). The first two are within the scope of CERCLA, except to the extent that they are intended to provide the 10% state share of remedial costs. Those parts of the statute that permit Spill Fund expenditures beyond this state share for remedial costs for sites on the National Priorities List, or for removal costs that are eligible for Superfund compensation under the terms of the NCP, are pre-empted by § 114(c).
New Jersey argues, finally, that after the enactment of CERCLA, or at least after the publication of the National Priorities List, all Spill Fund expenditures for purposes (1) and (2) above have been for non-Superfund eligible sites, and therefore are for nonpre-empted purposes. To the extent that the Spill Act permits taxation to support pre-empted expenditures, however, it cannot stand. State legislation is invalid “to the extent that it actually conflicts with federal law,” Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Energy Resources Comm’n, 461 U. S. 190, 204 (1983), and such a conflict has been demonstrated in this case. We leave to the New Jersey Supreme Court the state-law question whether, or to what extent, the nonpre-empted provisions of the statute are severable from the pre-empted provisions. See Exxon Corp. v. Eagerton, 462 U. S. 176, 196-197 (1983). We decline the dissent’s invitation to hold that the Spill Act is valid in its entirety because a substantial portion of its purposes are permissible. Such a holding would be an open invitation to the States to flout federal law by including valid provisions within clearly invalid statutes.
V
To the extent that the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the Spill Act could constitutionally impose a tax to support expenditures for purposes that we have identified above as nonpre-empted, that court’s judgment is affirmed. To the extent it held that the Spill Act could constitutionally impose a tax to support expenditures for purposes that we have identified as pre-empted, its judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The compensation for third-party economic loss is broad. The Spill Fund is strictly liable to any party that suffers direct or indirect economic damage from releases of hazardous substances, including (1) damage to any real or personal property, (2) damage to natural resources, (3) loss of income or earning capacity, in certain circumstances, (4) loss of property tax revenue by the State or a local government for one year following the discharge, and (5) interest incurred on loans to ameliorate the effects of a discharge pending reimbursement by the Spill Fund. N. J. Stat. Ann. §58.10-23.11g (West 1982).
Title 42 U. S. C. § 9611(a) provides:
“The President shall use the money in the Fund for the following purposes:
“(1) payment of governmental response costs incurred pursuant to section 9604 of this title, including costs incurred pursuant to the Intervention on the High Seas Act;
“(2) payment of any claim for necessary response costs incurred by any other person as a result of carrying out the national contingency plan established under section 1321(c) of title 33 and amended by section 9605 of this title: Provided, however, That such costs must be approved under said plan and certified by the responsible Federal official;
“(3) payment of any claim authorized by subsection (b) of this section [providing for reimbursement to the Federal and State Governments for damage to natural resources under their respective control] and finally decided pursuant to section 9612 of this title, including those costs set out in subsection 9612(c)(3) of this title [providing for recovery by Fund of interest, costs, and attorney’s fees in action against any person liable to the claimant or to the Fund]; and
“(4) payment of costs specified under subsection (c) of this section [providing for research, restoration or replacement of natural resources, prevention of releases, equipment and overhead, and administrative costs].
“The President shall not pay for any administrative costs or expenses out of the Fund unless such costs and expenses are reasonably necessary for and incidental to the implementation of this subchapter.”
Section 104 of CERCLA, 42 U. S. C. § 9604, which sets out procedures for governmental response to hazardous substance releases, provides that state and local governments, as well as the Federal Government, may be delegated by the President to undertake appropriate measures and receive reimbursement from Superfund. It appears, therefore, that the term “governmental response costs” in § 9611(a)(1), see n. 2, supra, refers to Federal, State, and local Government.
Because paragraph (1) of 42 U. S. C. § 9611(a) apparently applies to any governmental entity, see n. 3, supra, the phrase “any other person” in paragraph (2) of that subsection must denote any nongovernmental entity.
A member of the New Jersey Legislature also brought suit against the United States seeking to have the Spill Act declared valid. The parties settled the litigation, stipulating that New Jersey could spend Spill Fund money for seven enumerated purposes, including compensation for response costs and damages that are eligible for Superfund compensation but are not actually compensated. See Lesniak v. United States, 17 ERC 1456 (NJ 1982). Appellants, of course, were not parties to that settlement.
CERCLA was a temporary experiment; by its terms, the Federal Government’s authority to collect the excise tax and to appropriate general revenues for Superfund expired on September 30, 1985. 42 U. S. C. §§ 9653, 9631(b)(2). The Congress is currently considering legislation that would extend CERCLA for another five years. See H. R. 2005, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. (1985), passed by the Senate, see 131 Cong. Rec. 25090-25091 (1985), and H. R. 2817, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. (1985), inserted into H. R. 2005, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. (1985), passed by the House, see 131 Cong. Rec. 35626 (1985). As passed, both the Senate and House bills eliminate § 114(c). See S. 51, § 135; H. R. 2005, § 147. Of course, appellants’ claims for a refund of taxes paid through September 30, 1985, are unaffected by the expiration of CERCLA or by any changes in the law after that date.
An example of a “cost of response” that would not be eligible for Superfund compensation would be the cost of a private party’s cleanup efforts if that party did not receive prior authorization from the Federal Government or its agent, see 42 U. S. C. § 9611(a)(2). Under the Solicitor General’s reading of § 114(e), a state fund could not reimburse those costs even though it is clear that they would not be eligible for Superfund money.
Bill H. R. 85, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., was introduced on January 15, 1979, by Representative Biaggi. After consideration in Committee, the bill was reported to the full House, see H. R. Rep. No. 96-172 (1979), but it ran into opposition from the oil and chemical industries. A substitute bill, introduced by Representative Breaux as an amendment to H. R. 85, was considered and passed by the full House. 126 Cong. Rec. 26391 (1980). The bill as passed created two funds financed from taxes on petroleum and chemical feedstocks. One fund was to provide compensation for oil spills and the other for hazardous chemical spills in navigable waters; the bill did not cover hazardous substance releases on land. The bill entitled governments and individuals to recover damages for cleanup costs and certain economic losses, and imposed strict liability on owners and operators of vessels and other facilities.
Representative Florio introduced H. R. 7020, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., on April 2, 1980. The bill was reported out of Committee, see H. R. Rep. No. 96-1016 (1980), and enacted by the House, 126 Cong. Rec. 26799 (1980). The bill created a fund financed from a tax on oil and chemicals and from general revenues. The fund was to support government response to releases of hazardous substances, including oil, from inactive hazardous waste sites; it did not cover spills in navigable waters, nor did it provide for compensation for economic losses.
The most ambitious of the bills, S. 1480, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., was introduced by Senators Culver, Muskie, Stafford, Chafee, Randolph, and Moy-nihan on July 11,1979. It was favorably reported, see S. Rep. No. 96-848 (1980). As reported, the bill provided for a $4 billion fund from general revenues and fees on petroleum and chemicals, and for strict liability for a broad range of persons responsible for releases of hazardous chemicals (not including oil). The liability and compensation provisions covered cleanup costs and a variety of private damages, including medical expenses.
As all three bills reached the Senate, S. 1480 was attacked as too comprehensive and H. R. 85 and H. R. 7020 as too weak. Eventually the Senate passed a substitute bill, see infra, at 368, as an amendment to H. R. 7020. The new H. R. 7020 was enacted by both Houses, and signed into law on December 11, 1980. Pub. L. 96-510, 94 Stat. 2767. See 1 Leg. Hist, xiii-xxi; see also Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, A Legislative History of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (Superfund), 97th Cong., 2d Sess. (Comm. Print 1983); Grad, A Legislative History of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability (“Superfund”) Act of 1980, 8 Colum. J. Env. L. 1 (1982).
As discussed in n. 8, supra, H. R. 85 as passed by the House provided for two funds, one to cover oil spills and the other to cover hazardous chemical spills. Section 110 applied to the oil spill fund only. Section 302 of H. R. 85 applied to the chemical spill fund, and is worded identically to § 110. We will hereafter use “§ 110” to refer to both pre-emption provisions.
The Solicitor General relies on language in the House Report on H. R. 85 and in the debates to the effect that the pre-emption provision did not prevent a State from collecting taxes to pay for costs that are not “compen-sable damages” as defined in that bill. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 13-15. However, as the Solicitor General misperceives the broad scope of the term “compensable damages” in H. R. 85, the use of that term in the legislative history of § 110 does not advance his argument.
Bill H. R. 85, unlike CERCLA, did not provide that the President would enter into contracts with a state government under which the latter would undertake to respond to a release on behalf of the President, see 42 U. S. C. § 9604(d). Nor did it give the President special authority to respond to releases, as does CERCLA § 104. It therefore appears that H. R. 85 put both the Federal Government and the affected state government in a position closely analogous to that of a nongovernmental claimant, so far as their ability to seek compensation from the fund for costs of response to an oil spill was concerned. That fact provides further support for the argument that state governments were intended to be “claimants” under H. R. 85.
Section 607(b)(1) of S. 1341, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. (1979), provided that a “claim” for removal costs could be asserted “(A) by any agency of the United States Government, [and] (B) by any State, with respect to reimbursements allowed under the system established in the National Contingency Plan.” “United States claimant” was defined in exactly the same way as it was in H. R. 85. See S. 1341, § 601(mm). The pre-emption provision, § 612(a), provided that no court action could be maintained to recover for response costs or damages “a claim for which may be asserted under this title,” and that “no person may be required to contribute to any fund, the purpose of which is to pay compensation for such a loss.”
Compare 126 Cong. Rec. 30949 (1980) (remarks of Sens. Bradley and Randolph), with id., at 26197-26198 (remarks of Reps. Florio and Biaggi).
Moreover, if the phrase is not to be read as a unit, but split, as the Solicitor General contends, into “claims for any costs of response or damages” and “claims which may be compensated under this subchapter,” the latter phrase becomes surplusage. Under the Solicitor General’s view, the only two situations that can result in a “claim” under CERCLA are first, when a third party seeks reimbursement for its “costs of response,” and second, when a government seeks “damages.” See 42 U. S. C. §§ 9611(a)(2), (3). Both situations, however, are already covered in the first phrase, rendering the latter superfluous.
See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 96-172, p. 22 (1979) (accompanying H. R. 85) (“The increasing distress over the development of a multitude of State statutes related to liability and compensation for damage from oil spills, felt by those engaged in the national and international movement and storage of petroleum and petroleum products, was again articulated. It was argued that, if this continues, they will be severely hampered in their ability to conduct their operations in a manner that is economically sound and of reasonable cost to the consumer of oil”); see also 42 U. S. C. § 9651(a)(1)(F) (requiring President to report to Congress on effect of Superfund tax on “the Nation’s balance of trade with other countries”).
See, e. g., 126 Cong. Rec. 30949 (1980):
“Mr. RANDOLPH. . . . Any damage not reimbursed by this bill fund may similarly be the proper subject of a State fund if a State so chooses to construct its fund.
“Mr. BRADLEY. And am I also correct in noting that State funds are preempted only for efforts which are in fact paid for by the Federal fund and that there would be no preemption for efforts which are eligible for Federal funds but for which there is no reimbursement?
“Mr. RANDOLPH. That is correct.”
Taken, in part, word for word from the Florio-Biaggi debate, the Bradley-Randolph debate contains a number of statements that might apply to H. R. 85 but could not apply to CERCLA. Senator Bradley used the phrase “compensable damages” from H. R. 85, § 110, which nowhere appears in CERCLA § 114(e). Senator Bradley also referred to “the Secretary” in his questioning. While the hazardous substance program of H. R. 85 was under the control of the Secretary of Transportation, see § 101(a) of that bill as enacted, CERCLA’s requirements are addressed to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and to the President. Finally, Senator Randolph stated that the pre-emption provision would take effect 180 days after passage of the bill — a provision that does not appear in CERCLA.
The National Priorities List is set out at 40 CFR pt. 300, App. B. (1985). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state of the court in which the case originated. Consider the District of Columbia as a state. | What is the state of the court in which the case originated? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
34
] | sc_caseoriginstate |
USERY, SECRETARY OF LABOR, et al. v. TURNER ELKHORN MINING CO. et al.
No. 74-1302.
Argued December 2, 1975
Decided July 1, 1976
Deputy Solicitor General Wallace argued the cause for appellants in No. 7A-1302 and for appellees in No. 74-1316. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Bork, Assistant Attorney General Lee, Ronald R. Glancz, and Laurie Streeter.
R. R. McMahan argued the cause for appellees in No. 74-1302 and for appellants in No. 74-1316. With him on the briefs was James M. Graves.
Together with No. 74A1316, Turner Elkhorn Mining Co. et al. v. Usery, Secretary of Labor, et al., also on appeal from the same court.
Joseph A. Yablonski and Willard P. Owens filed a brief for the United Mine Workers of America as amicus curiae urging reversal in No. 74^1302 and affirmance in No. 74-1316.
Guy Farmer and William A. Gershuny filed a brief for the Bituminous Coal Operators' Assn., Inc., as amicus curiae.
Mr. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Twenty-two coal mine operators (Operators) brought this suit to test the constitutionality of certain aspects of Title IY of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, 83 Stat. 792, as amended by the Black Lung Benefits Act of 1972, 86 Stat. 150, 30 U. S. C. § 901 et seq. (1970 ed. and Supp. IV). The Operators, potentially liable under the amended Act to compensate certain miners, former miners, and their survivors for death or total disability due to pneumoconiosis arising out of employment in coal mines, sought declaratory and in-junctive relief against the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, who are responsible for the administration of the Act and the promulgation of regulations under the Act.
On cross-motions for summary judgment, a three-judge District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §§ 2282 and 2284, found the amended Act constitutional on its face, except in regard to two provisions concerning the determination of a miner's total disability due to pneumoconiosis. The court enjoined the Secretary of Labor from further application of those two provisions. 385 F. Supp. 424 (1974). After granting a stay of the three-judge court's order, 421 U. S. 944 (1975), we noted probable jurisdiction of the cross-appeals. 421 U. S. 1010 (1975). We conclude that the amended Act, as interpreted, is constitutionally sound against the Operators' challenges.
I
Coal workers’ pneumoconiosis — black lung disease— affects a high percentage of American coal miners with severe, and frequently crippling, chronic respiratory impairment. The disease is caused by long-term inhalation of coal dust. Coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (hereafter pneumoconiosis) is generally diagnosed on the basis of X-ray opacities indicating nodular lesions on the lungs of a patient with a long history of coal dust exposure. As the Surgeon General has stated, however, post-mortem examination data have indicated a greater prevalence of the disease than X-ray diagnosis reveals.
According to the Surgeon General, pneumoconiosis is customarily classified as “simple” or “complicated.” Simple pneumoconiosis, ordinarily identified by X-ray opacities of a limited extent, is generally regarded by physicians as seldom productive of significant respiratory impairment. Complicated pneumoconiosis, generally far more serious, involves progressive massive fibrosis as a complex reaction to dust and other factors (which may include tuberculosis or other infection), and usually produces significant pulmonary impairment and marked respiratory disability. This disability limits the victim's physical capabilities, may induce death by cardiac failure, and may contribute to other causes of death.
Removing the miner from the source of coal dust has so far proved the only effective means of preventing the contraction of pneumoconiosis, and once contracted the disease is irreversible in both its simple and complicated stages. No therapy has been developed. Finally, because the disease is progressive, at least in its complicated stage, its symptoms may become apparent only after a miner has left the coal mines.
In order to curb the incidence of pneumoconiosis, Congress provided in Title II of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, § 201 et seq., 30 U. S. C. § 841 et seq., for limits on the amount of dust to be permitted in the ambient air of coal mines. Additionally, in view of the then-established prevalence of irreversible pneumoconiosis among miners, and the insufficiency of state compensation programs, Congress passed Title IV of the 1969 Act, § 401 et seq., 30 U. S. C. § 901 et seq., to provide benefits to afflicted miners and their survivors. These benefit provisions were subsequently broadened by the Black Lung Benefits Act of 1972. 30 U. S. C. § 901 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. IV).
As amended, the Act divides the financial responsibility for payment of benefits into three parts. Under Part B of Title IV, §§ 411-414, 30 U. S. C. §§ 921-924 (1970 ed. and Supp. IV), claims filed between December 30, 1969, the date of enactment, and June 30, 1973, are adjudicated by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and paid by the United States.
Under Part C of Title IV, §§ 421-431, 30 U. S. C. §§931-941 (1970 ed. and Supp. IV), claims filed after December 31, 1973, are to be processed under an applicable state workmen's compensation law approved by the Secretary of Labor under the standards set forth in §421, 30 U. S. C. §931 (1970 ed. and Supp, IV). In the absence of such an .approved state program, and to date no state program has been approved, claims are to be filed with and adjudicated by the Secretary of Labor, and paid by the mine operators. § 422, 30 U. S. C. §932 (1970 ed. and Supp. IV). Under §422 an operator who is entitled to a hearing in connection with these claims is liable for Part C benefits with respect to death or total disability due to pneumoconiosis arising out of employment in a mine for which the operator is responsible. The operator’s liability for Part C benefits covers the period from January 1, 1974, to December 30, 1981. Payments of benefits under Part C are to the same categories of persons — a miner or certain survivors — and in the same amounts, as under Part B. §§ 422 (c), (d); see § 412 (a), 30 U. S. C. § 922 (a) (1970 ed. and Supp. IV).
Claims filed during the transition period between the Federal Government benefit provision under Part B, and state plan or operator benefit provision under Part C— that is, July 1 to December 31, 1973 — are adjudicated under § 415 of Part B, 30 U. S. C. § 925 (1970 ed., Supp. IV), by the Secretary of Labor. The United States is responsible for payment of these claims until December 31, 1973. Responsible operators, having been notified of a claim and entitled to participate in a hearing thereon, are thereafter liable for benefits as if the claim had been filed pursuant to Part C and § 422 had been applicable to the operator.
The Act provides that a miner shall be considered "totally disabled,” and consequently entitled to compensation, "when pneumoconiosis prevents him from engaging in gainful employment requiring the skills and abilities comparable to those of any employment in a mine or mines in which he previously engaged with some regularity and over a substantial period of time.” § 402 (f), 30 U. S. C. § 902 (f) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). The Act also prescribes several “presumptions” for use in determining compensable disability. Under § 411(c) (3), a miner shown by X-ray or other clinical evidence to be afflicted with complicated pneumoconiosis is “irrebuttably presumed” to be totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis; if he has died, it is irrebuttably presumed that he was totally disabled by pneumoconiosis at the time of his death, and that his death was due to pneumoconiosis. 30 U. S. C. §921 (c)(3) (1970 ed., Supp. IY). In any event, the presumption operates conclusively to establish entitlement to benefits.
The other presumptions are each explicitly rebuttable by an operator seeking to avoid liability. There are three such presumptions. First, if a miner with 10 or more years’ employment in the mines contracts pneumoconiosis, it is rebuttably presumed that the disease arose out of such employment. §411 (c)(1), 30 U. S. C. §921 (c)(1) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). Second, if a miner with 10 or more years’ employment in the mines died from a “respirable disease,” it is rebuttably presumed that his death was due to pneumoconiosis. § 411 (c)(2), 30 U. S. C. § 921 (c) (2) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). Finally, if a miner, or the survivor of a miner, with 15 or more years’ employment in underground coal mines is able, despite the absence of clinical evidence of complicated pneumoconiosis, to demonstrate a totally disabling respiratory or pulmonary impairment, the Act rebuttably presumes that the total disability is due to pneumoconiosis, that the miner was totally disabled by pneumoconiosis when he died, and that the miner’s death was due to pneumoconiosis. § 411 (c)(4), 30 U. S. C. § 921 (c)(4) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). Section 411(c)(4) specifically provides: “The Secretary may rebut [this latter] presumption only by establishing that (A) such miner does not, or did not, have pneumoconiosis, or that (B) his respiratory or pulmonary impairment did not arise out of, or in connection with, employment in a coal mine.” Moreover, under § 413(b), 30 U. S. C. § 923 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), none of these three rebuttable presumptions may be defeated solely on the basis of a chest X-ray.
II
In initiating this suit against the defendant Secretaries (hereafter Federal Parties), the Operators contended that the amended Act is unconstitutional insofar as it requires the payment of benefits with respect to miners who left employment in the industry before the effective date of the Act; that the Act’s definitions, presumptions, and limitations on rebuttal evidence unconstitutionally impair the operators’ ability to defend against benefit claims; and that certain regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Labor regarding the apportionment of liability for benefits among operators, and the provision of medical benefits, are inconsistent with the Act and constitutionally defective.
The three-judge District Court held that all issues as to the validity of the challenged regulations were within the jurisdiction of a single district judge, and the court entered an order so remanding them. 385 F. Supp., at 426. The District Court upheld each challenged statutory provision as constitutional, with two exceptions. First, the District Court held that § 411 (c) (3)’s irrebut-table presumption is unconstitutional as an unreasonable and arbitrary legislative finding of total disability “in terms other than those provided by the Act as standards for total disability.” 385 F. Supp., at 430. Second, reading the limitation on evidence in rebuttal to § 411 (c) (4)’s presumption of total disability due to pneumo-coniosis to apply to an operator’s defense in a § 415 transition-period case, the District Court found thát limitation unconstitutional in two respects. It held the limitation arbitrary and unreasonable in not permitting a rebuttal showing that the case of pneumo-coniosis afflicting the miner was not disabling. 385 F. Supp., at 430. And taking the provision to mean that an operator may defend against liability only on the ground that the pneumoconiosis did not arise out of employment in any coal mine, rather than on the ground that it did not arise out of employment in a coal mine for which the operator was responsible, the District Court found the provision an unreasonable and arbitrary limitation on rebuttal evidence relevant and proper under § 422 (c), 30 U. S. C. § 932 (c). 385 F. Supp., at 430-431. The District Court accordingly entered an order declaring unconstitutional, and enjoining the Secretary of Labor from seeking to apply, §411 (c)(3)’s irrebut-table presumption and §411(c)(4)’s limitation on rebuttable evidence.
The Operators’ appeal, No. 74-1316, reasserts the constitutional challenges rejected by the District Court. The appeal of the Federal Parties, No. 7-D1302, seeks reversal of the declaration and injunction respecting the constitutionality of §§411 (c)(3) and (4). Neither side here questions the District Court’s decision not to address the issues raised with respect to the Secretary of Labor’s regulations. As we have already noted, we uphold the statute against all the constitutional contentions properly presented here. Because we read the limitation on rebuttal evidence in §411 (c)(4) as inapplicable to the Operators, however, we vacate that portion of the District Court’s order which invalidates that limitation.
III
The Federal Parties direct our attention initially to National Independent Coal Operators Assn. v. Brennan, 372 F. Supp. 16 (DC), summarily aff’d, 419 U. S. 955 (1974), which raised a number of issues identical to those presented here. Our summary affirmance in that case did not foreclose the District Court’s determination of unconstitutionality regarding §§411 (c)(3) and (4), those issues not having been before us on the appeal. Several questions presented here — most notably those of retroactivity and preclusion of sole reliance on X-ray testimony evidence — were raised and decided in National Independent Coal Operators Assn. v. Brennan, but having heard oral argument and entertained full briefing on these issues together with the other questions raised in the case, we proceed to treat them here more fully. Cf. Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 670-671 (1974).
IV
The Operators contend that the amended Act violates the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause by requiring them to compensate former employees who terminated their work in the industry before the Act was passed, and the survivors of such employees. The Operators accept the liability imposed upon them to compensate employees working in coal mines now and in the future who are disabled by pneumoconiosis; and they recognize Congress’ power to create a program for compensation of disabled inactive coal miners. But the Operators complain that to impose liability upon them for former employees’ disabilities is impermissibly to charge them with an unexpected liability for past, completed acts that were legally proper and, at least in part, unknown to be dangerous at the time.
It is by now well established that legislative Acts adjusting the burdens and benefits of economic life come to the Court with a presumption of constitutionality, and that the burden is on one complaining of a due process violation to establish that the legislature has acted in an arbitrary and irrational way. See, e. g., Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726 (1963); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 487-488 (1955). And this Court long ago upheld against due process attack the competence of Congress to allocate the interlocking economic rights and duties of employers and employees upon workmen’s compensation principles analogous to those enacted here, regardless of contravening arrangements between employer and employee. New York Central R. Co. v. White, 243 U. S. 188 (1917); see also Philadelphia, B. & W. R. Co. v. Schubert, 224 U. S. 603 (1912).
To be sure, insofar as the Act requires compensation for disabilities bred during employment terminated before the date of enactment, the Act has some retrospective effect — although, as we have noted, the Act imposed no liability on operators until 1974. And it may be that the liability imposed by the Act for disabilities suffered by former employees was not anticipated at the time of actual employment. But our cases are clear that legislation readjusting rights and burdens is not unlawful solely because it upsets otherwise settled expectations. See Fleming v. Rhodes, 331 U. S. 100 (1947); Carpenter v. Wabash R. Co., 309 U. S. 23 (1940); Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 294 U. S. 240 (1935); Home Bldg. & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398 (1934); Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 219 U. S. 467 (1911). This is true even though the effect of the legislation is to impose a new duty or liability based on past acts. See Lichter v. United States, 334 U. S. 742 (1948); Welch v. Henry, 305 U. S. 134 (1938); Funkhouser v. Preston Co., 290 U. S. 163 (1933).
It does not follow, however, that what Congress can legislate prospectively it can legislate retrospectively. The retrospective aspects of legislation, as well as the prospective aspects, must meet the test of due process, and the justifications for the latter may not suffice for the former. Thus, in this case the justification for the retrospective imposition of liability must take into account the possibilities that the Operators may not have known of the danger of their employees’ contracting pneumoconiosis, and that even if they did know of the danger their conduct may have been taken in reliance upon the current state of the law, which imposed no liability on them for disabling pneumoconiosis. While the Operators have clearly been aware of the danger of pneumoconiosis for at least 20 years, and while they have not specifically pressed the contention that they would have taken steps to reduce or eliminate the incidence of pneumoconiosis had the law imposed liability upon them, we would nevertheless hesitate to approve the retrospective imposition of liability on any theory of deterrence, cf. United States v. Peltier, 422 U. S. 531, 542 (1975), or blameworthiness, cf. ibid.; De Veau v. Braisted, 363 U. S. 144, 160 (1960).
We find, however, that the imposition of liability for the effects of disabilities bred in the past is justified as a rational measure to spread the costs of the employees' disabilities to those who have profited from the fruits of their labor — the operators and the coal consumers. The Operators do not challenge Congress’ power to impose the burden of past mine working conditions on the industry. They do claim, however, that the Act spreads costs in an arbitrary and irrational manner by basing liability upon past employment relationships, rather than taxing all coal mine operators presently in business. The Operators note that a coal mine operator whose work force has declined may be faced with a total liability that is disproportionate to the number of miners currently employed. And they argue that the liability scheme gives an unfair competitive advantage to new entrants into the industry, who are not saddled with the burden of compensation for inactive miners’ disabilities. In essence the Operators contend that competitive forces will prevent them from effectively passing on to the consumer the costs of compensation for inactive miners’ disabilities, and will unfairly leave the burden on the early operators alone.
Of course, as we have already indicated, a substantial portion of the burden for disabilities stemming from the period prior to enactment is borne by the Federal Government. But even taking the Operators’ argument at face value, it is for Congress to choose between imposing the burden of inactive miners’ disabilities on all operators, including new entrants and farsighted early operators who might have taken steps to minimize black lung dangers, or to impose that liability solely on those early operators whose profits may have been increased at the expense of their employees’ health. We are unwilling to assess the wisdom of Congress’ chosen scheme by examining the degree to which the “cost-savings” enjoyed by operators in the pre-enactment period produced “excess” profits, or the degree to which the retrospective liability imposed on the early operators can now be passed on to the consumer. It is enough to say that the Act approaches the problem of cost spreading rationally; whether a broader cost-spreading scheme would have been wiser or more practical under the circumstances is not a question of constitutional dimension. See, e. g., Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S., at 730-732; Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S., at 488.
The Operators ultimately rest their due process argument on Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton R. Co., 295 U. S. 330 (1935), in which the Court found the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934 to be unconstitutional. Among the provisions specifically invalidated as arbitrary was .a provision for employer-financed pensions for former employees who, though not in the employ of the railroads at the time of enactment, had been so employed within the year. Assuming that the portion of Alton invalidating this provision retains vitality, we find it distinguishable from this case. The point of the black lung benefit provisions is not simply to increase or supplement a former employee’s salary to meet his generalized need for funds. Rather, the purpose of the Act is to satisfy a specific need created by the dangerous conditions under which the former employee labored — to allocate to the mine operator an actual, measurable cost of his business.
In sum, the Due Process Clause poses no bar to requiring an operator to provide compensation for a former employee's death or disability due to pneumo-coniosis arising out of employment in its mines, even if the former employee terminated his employment in the industry before the Act was passed.
V
We turn next to a consideration of the Operators' challenge to the “presumptions” and evidentiary rules governing adjudications of compensable disability under the Act.
A
The Act prescribes two alternative methods for showing “total disability,” which is a prerequisite to compensation. First, a miner is “totally disabled” under the definition contained in § 402 (f), if pneumoconiosis, simple or complicated,
“prevents him from engaging in gainful employment requiring the skills and abilities comparable to those of any employment in a mine or mines in which he previously engaged with some regularity and over a substantial period of time.”
Second, if a miner can show by clinical evidence (ordinarily X-ray evidence) that he is afflicted with complicated pneumoconiosis, the incurable and final stage of the disease, then the miner is deemed to be totally disabled under § 411 (c) (3). Thus, Congress has mandated that the final stage of the disease is always compensable if its existence can be shown by positive clinical evidence, and that any stage of the disease is compensable when physically disabling under the terms of § 402 (f). The Operators maintain that both of these standards are constitutionally untenable.
(1)
The Operators contend that the definition of “total disability” set up in § 402 (f) is unconstitutionally arbitrary and irrational, because it provides for the compensation of former miners who might well be employable in other lines of work, and who therefore are not truly disabled by their mining-generated afflictions. We think it patent that this attack on § 402 (f) must fail. A miner disabled under § 402 (f) standards has suffered in at least two ways: His health is impaired, and he has been rendered unable to perform the kind of work to which, he has adapted himself. Whether these interferences merit compensation is a public policy matter left primarily to the determination of the legislature. Cf. Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U. S. 484 (1974). We cannot say that they are so insignificant as not to be a rational basis for compensation. Indeed, we long ago upheld against similar attack a workmen's compensation scheme providing benefits for injuries not depriving the employee of his ability to work. See New York Central R. Co. v. Bianc, 250 U. S. 596 (1919); cf. Urie v. Thompson, 337 U. S. 163, 181-187 (1949).
(2)
The District Court, relying on such cases as Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645 (1972), and Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U. S. 441 (1973), invalidated §411(c)(3)’s “irrebut-table presumption” of total disability due to pneumo-coniosis based on clinical evidence of complicated pneu-moconiosis. The presumption, the court explained,
“forecloses all fact finding as to the effect of that disease upon a particular coal miner .... To the extent that such presumption purports to making a finding of total disability in terms other than those provided by [§402 (f)] as standards for total disability, it is unreasonable and arbitrary. As written, section [411 (c)(3)] is violative of due process in precluding the opportunity to present evidence as to the effect of a chronic dust disease upon an individual in determining whether or not he is disabled.” 385 F. Supp., at 429-430.
We think the District Court erred in equating this case with those in the mold of Stanley and Vlandis.
As an operational matter, the effect of §411 (c) (3)’s “irrebuttable presumption” of total disability is simply to establish entitlement in the case of a miner who is clinically diagnosable as extremely ill with pneumoconi-osis arising out of coal mine employment. Indeed, the legislative history discloses that it was precisely this advanced and progressive stage of the disease that Congress sought most certainly to compensate. Were the Act phrased simply and directly to provide that operators were bound to provide benefits for all miners clinically demonstrating their affliction with complicated pneu-moconiosis arising out of employment in the mines, we think it clear that there could be no due process objection to it. For, as we have already observed, destruction of earning capacity is not the sole legitimate basis for compulsory compensation of employees by their employers. New York Central R. Co. v. Bianc, supra. We cannot say that it would be irrational for Congress to conclude that impairment of health alone warrants compensation. Since Congress can clearly draft a statute to accomplish precisely what it has accomplished through § 411 (c) (3)’s presumption of disability, the argument is essentially that Congress has accomplished its result in an impermissible manner — by defining eligibility in terms of “total disability” and erecting an “irrebuttable presumption” of total disability upon a factual showing that does not necessarily satisfy the statutory definition of total disability. But in a statute such as this, regulating purely economic matters, we do not think that Congress’ choice of statutory language can invalidate the enactment when its operation and effect are clearly permissible, Cf. Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 767-785 (1975); McDonald v. Board of Election, 394 U. S. 802, 809 (1969); United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 154 (1938).
(3)
In addition to creating an irrebuttable presumption of total disability, § 411 (c) (3) provides that clinical evidence of a miner’s complicated pneumoconiosis gives rise to an irrebuttable presumption that he was totahy disabled by pneumoconiosis at the time of his death, and that his death was due to pneumoconiosis. The effect of these presumptions, in particular the presumption of death due to pneumoconiosis, is to grant benefits to the survivors of any miner who during his lifetime had complicated-pneumoconiosis arising out of employment in the mines, regardless of whether the miner’s death was caused by pneumoconiosis. The Operators raise no separate challenge to these presumptions, and we would have no occasion to comment separately on them were it not for the Operators’ general complaint against the application of the Act to employees who terminated their employment before the Act was passed. To the extent that the presumption of death due to pneumoconiosis is viewed as requiring compensation for damages resulting from death unrelated to the operator’s conduct, its application to employees who terminated ■ their employment before the Act was passed would present difficulties not encountered in our prior discussion of retroactivity. The justification we found for the retrospective application of the Act is that it serves to spread costs in a rational manner — by allocating to the operator an actual cost of his business, the avoidance of which might be thought to have enlarged the operator’s profits. The damage resulting from a miner’s death that is due to causes other than the operator’s conduct can hardly be termed a “cost” of the operator’s business.
We think it clear, however, that the benefits authorized by § 411 (c) (3)’s presumption of death due to pneu-moconiosis were intended not simply as compensation for damages due to the miner’s death, but as deferred compensation for injury suffered during the miner’s lifetime as a result of his illness itself. Thus, the Senate Report accompanying the 1972 amendments makes clear Congress’ purpose to award benefits not only to widows whose husbands “[gave] their lives,” but also to widows whose husbands “gave their health ... ha the service of the nation’s critical coal needs.”
In the case of a miner who died with, but not from, pneumoconiosis before the Act was passed, the benefits serve as deferred compensation for the suffering endured by his dependents by virtue of his illness. And in the case of a miner who died with, but not from, pneumo-coniosis after the Act was passed, the benefits serve an additional purpose: The miner’s knowledge that his dependent survivors would receive benefits serves to compensate him for the suffering he endures. In short, § 411 (e)(3)’s presumption of death due to pneumoconiosis authorizes compensation for injury attributable to the operator’s business, and viewed as such it poses no retro-activity problems distinct from those considered in our prior discussion.
It might be suggested that the payment of benefits to dependent survivors is irrational as a scheme of compensation for injury suffered as a result of a miner’s disability. But we cannot say that the scheme is wholly unreasonable in providing, benefits for those who were most likely to have shared the miner’s suffering. Nor can we say that the scheme is arbitrary simply because it spreads the payment of benefits over a period of time.
We might face a more difficult problem in applying § 411 (c) (3)’s presumption of death due to pneumo-coniosis on a retrospective basis if the presumption authorized benefits to the survivors of a miner who did not die from pneumoconiosis, and who during his life was completely unaware of and unaffected by his illness; or, in the case of a miner who died before the Act was passed, if the presumption authorized benefits to the survivors of a miner who did not die from pneumoconio-sis, who nevertheless was aware of and affected by his illness, but whose dependents were completely unaware of and unaffected by his illness. But the Operators in their facial attack on the Act have not suggested that a miner whose condition was serious enough to activate the §411 (c)(3) presumptions might not have been affected in any way by his condition, or that the family of such a miner might not have noticed it. Under the circumstances, we decline to engage in speculation as to whether such cases may arise.
B
Turning our attention to the statutory regulations of proof of § 402 (f) disability, we focus initially on the Operators’ challenge to the presumptions contained in §§411 (c)(1) and (2). Section 411 (c)(1) provides that a coal miner with 10 years’ employment in the mines who suffers from pneumoconiosis will be presumed to have contracted the disease from his employment. Section 411 (c)(2) provides that if a coal miner with 10 years’ employment in the mines dies from a respiratory disease, his death will be presumed to have been due to pneumoconiosis. Each presumption is explicitly rebuttable, and the effect of each is simply to shift the burden of going forward with evidence from the claimant to the operator. See Fed. Rule Evid. 301.
We have consistently tested presumptions arising in civil statutes such as this, involving matters of economic regulation, against the standard articulated in Mobile, J. & K. C. 22. Co. v. Turnipseed, 219 U. S. 35, 43 (1910):
“That a legislative presumption of one fact from evidence of another may not constitute a denial of due process of law or a denial of the equal protection of the law it is only essential that there shall be some rational connection between the fact proved and the ultimate fact presumed, and that the inference of one fact from proof of another shall not be so unreasonable as to be a purely arbitrary mandate.”
See Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Ford, 287 U. S. 502 (1933); Bandini Petroleum Co. v. Superior Court, 284 U. S. 8, 19 (1931). See also Leary v. United States, 395 U. S. 6, 29-53 (1969); Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463, 467-468 (1943). Moreover, as we have recognized:
“The process of making the determination of rationality is, by its nature, highly empirical, and in matters not within specialized judicial competence or completely commonplace, significant weight should be accorded the capacity of Congress to amass the stuff of actual experience and cull conclusions from it.” United States v. Gainey, 380 U. S. 63, 67 (1965).
Judged by these standards, the presumptions contained in §§ 411 (c)(1) and (2) are constitutionally valid. The Operators focus their attack on the rationality of the presumptions’ bases in duration of employment. But it is agreed~here that pneumoconiosis is caused by breathing coal dust, and that the likelihood of a miner’s developing the disease rests upon both the concentration of dust to which he was exposed and the duration of his exposure. Against this scientific background, it was not beyond Congress' authority to refer to exposure factors in establishing a presumption that throws the burden of going forward on the operators. And in view of the medical evidence before Congress indicating the noticeable incidence of pneumoconiosis in cases of miners with 10 years' employment in the mines, we cannot say that it was “purely arbitrary” for Congress to select the 10-year figure as a point of reference for these presumptions. No greater mathematical precision is required. Cf. Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61, 78 (1911).
The Operators insist, however, that the 10-year presumptions are arbitrary, because they fail to account for varying degrees of exposure, some of which would pose lesser dangers than others. We reject this contention. In providing for a shifting of the burden of going forward to the operators, Congress was no more constrained to require a preliminary showing of the degree of dust concentration to which a miner was exposed, a historical fact difficult for the miner to prove, than it was to require a preliminary showing with respect to all other factors that might bear on the danger of infection. It is worth repeating that mine employment for 10 years does not serve by itself to activate any presumption of pneumoconiosis; it simply serves along with proof of pneumoconiosis under §411 (c)(1) to presumptively establish the cause of pneumoconiosis, and along with proof of death from a respiratory disease under § 411 (c) (2) to presumptively establish that death was due to pneumoconiosis. In its “rough accommodations,” Metropolis Theatre Co. v. Chicago, 228 U. S. 61, 69 (1913), Congress was surely entitled to select duration of employment, to the exclusion of the degree of dust exposure and other relevant factors, as signaling the point at which the operator must come forward with evidence of the cause of pneumoconiosis or death, as the case may be. We certainly cannot say that the presumptions, by excluding other relevant factors, operate in a “purely arbitrary” manner. Mobile, J. & K. C. R. Co. v. Turnipseed, supra, at 43.
The Operators press the same due process attack upon the durational basis of the rebuttable presumption in §411 (c)(4), which provides, inter alia, that a miner employed for 15 years in underground mines, who is able to marshal evidence demonstrating a totally disabling respiratory or pulmonary impairment, shall be rebuttably presumed to be totally disabled by pneumoconiosis. Particularly in light of the Surgeon General’s testimony at the Senate hearings on the 1969 Act to the effect that the 15-year point marks the beginning of linear increase in the prevalence of the disease with years spent underground, we think it clear that the durational basis of this presumption is equally unassailable.
C
The Operators also challenge § 413 (b) of the Act, which provides that “no claim for benefits . . . shall be denied solely on the basis of the results of a chest roent-genogram [X-ray].” Congress, of course, has plenary authority over the promulgation of evidentiary rules for the federal courts. See, e. g., Hawkins v. United States, 358 U. S. 74, 78 (1958); Tot v. United States, 319 U. S., at 467; cf. Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., supra, at 81. The Operators contend, however, that § 413 (b) denies them due process because X-ray evidence is frequently the sole evidence they can marshal to rebut a claim of pneumoconiosis. We conclude that, given Congress’ reasoned reservations regarding the reliability of negative X-ray evidence, it was entitled to preclude exclusive reliance on such evidence.
Congress was presented with significant evidence demonstrating that X-ray testing that fails to disclose pneumoconiosis cannot be depended upon as a trustworthy indicator of the absence of the disease. In particular, the findings of the Surgeon General and others indicated that although X-ray evidence was generally the most important diagnostic tool in identifying the presence or absence of pneumoconiosis, when considered alone it was not a wholly reliable indicator of the absence of the disease; that autopsy frequently disclosed pneumo-coniosis where X-ray evidence had disclosed none; and that pneumoconiosis may be masked from X-ray detection by other disease.
Taking these indications of the unreliability of negative X-ray diagnosis at face value, Congress was faced with the problem of determining which side should bear the burden of the unreliability. On the one hand, preclusion of any reliance on negative X-ray evidence would risk the success of some nonmeritorious claims; on the other hand, reliance on uncorroborated negative X-ray evidence would risk the denial of benefits in a significant number of meritorious cases. Congress addressed the problem by adopting a rule which, while preserving some of the utility, avoided the worst dangers of X-ray evidence. Section 413 (b) does not make negative X-ray evidence inadmissible, or ineligible to be considered as ultimately persuasive evidence when taken together with other factors — for example, a low level of coal dust concentration in the operator’s mine, a relatively short duration of exposure to coal dust, or the likelihood that the miner is disabled by some other cause. The prohibition is only against sole reliance upon negative X-ray evidence in rejecting a claim.
The Operators attack the limitation on the use of negative X-ray evidence by suggesting that Congress’ conclusion as to the unreliability of negative X-ray evidence is constitutionally unsupportable. Relying on other evidence submitted to Congress in 1972, the Operators contend that the consensus of medical judgment on the question is that good quality X-ray evidence does reliably indicate the presence or absence of pneumoconiosis. In essence, the Operators seek a judicial reconsideration of the judgment of Congress on this issue. But the reliability of negative X-ray evidence was debated forcefully on both sides before the Congress, and the Operators here suggest nothing new to add to the debate; they are simply dissatisfied with Congress’ conclusion. As we have recognized in the past, however, when it comes to evidentiary rules in matters “not within specialized judicial competence or completely commonplace,” it is primarily for Congress “to amass the stuff of actual experience and cull conclusions from it.” United States v. Gainey, 380 U. S., at 67. It is sufficient that the evidence before Congress showed doubts about the reliability of negative X-ray evidence. That Congress ultimately determined “to resolve doubts in favor of the disabled miner” does not render the enactment arbitrary under the standard of rationality appropriate to this legislation.
D
Finally, the Operators challenge the limitation on rebuttal evidence contained in § 411 (c) (4). That section, as we have indicated, provides that a miner employed for 15 years in underground mines who is able to demonstrate a totally disabling respiratory or pulmonary impairment shall be rebuttably presumed to be totally disabled by pneumoconiosis, and his death shall be rebut-tably presumed to be due to pneumoconiosis. The final sentence of § 411 (c) (4) provides that
“[t]he Secretary may rebut [the presumption provided herein] only by establishing that (A) such miner does not, or did not, have pneumoconiosis, or that (B) his respiratory or pulmonary impairment did not arise out of, or in connection with, employment in a coal mine.”
The effect of this limitation on rebuttal evidence is, inter'alia, to grant benefits to any miner with 15 years’ employment in the mines, if he is totally disabled by some respiratory or pulmonary impairment arising in connection with his employment, and has a case of pneu-moconiosis. The Operators contend that this limitation erects an impermissible irrebuttable presumption, because it establishes liability even though it might be medically demonstrable in an individual case that the miner’s pneumoconiosis was mild and did not cause the disability — that the disability was wholly a product of other disease, such as tuberculosis or emphysema. Disability due to these diseases, as the Operators note, is not otherwise compensable under the Act.
The District Court, concluding that the quoted limitation on rebuttal evidence applied against an operator in a § 415 transition-period case, and recognizing that pneu-moconiosis is not inherently disabling in the § 402 (f) sense, judged this limitation unconstitutional on the ground that it deprived an operator of a factual defense — that the miner is not “totally disabled” due to pneumoconiosis under § 402 (f). Additionally, reading the second part of the § 411 (c) (4) limitation on rebuttal to preclude an operator’s defense that the disease did not arise out of employment in the particular mines for which it was responsible, the District Court found this aspect of §411 (c)(4) unconstitutional as well.
The Federal Parties urge on their cross-appeal that these constitutional judgments are erroneous. We need not inquire into the constitutional questions raised by the District Court, however, because we think it clear as a matter of statutory construction that the § 411 (c) (4) limitation on rebuttal evidence is inapplicable to operators. By the language of §411 (c)(4), the limitation applies only to “the Secretary” and not to an operator seeking to avoid liability under § 415 or § 422. And this plain language is fortified by the legislative history. The Senate Report on § 411 (c) (4) specifically states that the limitation on rebuttal applies to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, but nowhere suggests that it binds an operator. - \
While apparently recognizing that the §411 (c)(4) limitation on rebuttal evidence could not apply against an operator in a Part C determination, the District Court believed that the limitation bound an operator in the determination of a claim filed during the § 415 transition period, “[s]ince under section [415] the operator is bound by the Secretary's finding of liability under Part B.” 385 F. Supp., at 430. In so concluding, the District Court was in error. First, it would appear, again from the plain language of the statute, that the reference to “the Secretary” in § 411 (c) (4) does not refer to the Secretary of Labor. On the contrary, § 402 (c), 30 U. S. C. § 902 (c), quite plainly defines “Secretary” when used in Part B, including § 411, as meaning the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, not the Secretary of Labor. The Senate Report referred to above confirms this conclusion. Even assuming, however, that the § 411 (c)(4) limitation on rebuttal by “the Secretary” may be taken to bind the Secretary of Labor insofar as he was required to pay benefits for which the United States was liable during the transition period, § 415 (a)(1), we have found nothing in the statute or in its legislative history to suggest that an operator is similarly bound because the Secretary of Labor is also to adjudicate the operator’s liability. §415 (a) (5). Indeed, such a reading would render a mine operator bound by the rebuttal limitation in § 415 transition-period cases, although not so bound in cases filed thereafter under Part C. And that result would be contrary to the language of § 415 (a) (5), which prescribes that an operator “shall be bound by the determination of the Secretary of Labor [on a § 415 transition-period claim] as if the claim had been filed pursuant to part C.”
In short, we conclude that the Act does not itself limit the evidence with which an operator may rebut the §411 (c)(4) presumption. Accordingly, we vacate the order of the District Court declaring the §411 (c)(4) limitation on rebuttal evidence unconstitutional and enjoining the Secretary of Labor from limiting evidence in rebuttal to the § 411 (c) (4) presumption. Cf. Van Lare v. Hurley, 421 U. S. 338, 344 (1975); United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36 (1950).
We are aware that regulations promulgated in 1972 by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under his §411 (b) authorization, 20 CFR §§410.414, 410.454 (1975), applicable to Part C determinations under §422 (h), and expressly adopted in 1973 by the Secretary of Labor, 20 CFR pt. 718 (1975), authorize limitations on rebuttal evidence similar to those contained in § 411 (c) (4), and appear to apply in determinations of an operator’s liability. But the Operators’ amended complaint never challenged the statutory or constitutional validity of these regulations. Particularly in the absence of any mention of the regulations in the opinion and judgment of the District Court, or in the briefs and oral arguments of the parties, we find it inappropriate to consider their statutory or constitutional validity at this stage.
VI
In sum, the challenged provisions, as construed, are constitutionally sound against the Operators’ facial attack. The judgment of the District Court as appealed from in No. 74-1316 is affirmed. The judgment of the District Court as appealed from in No. 74 — 1302 is reversed, except insofar as it declares unconstitutional, and enjoins the operation of, the limitation on rebuttal evidence contained in §411 (c)(4) of the Act. In this latter respect, the judgment in No. 74-1302 is vacated, and the case remanded with directions to dismiss.
It is so ordered.
The Chief Justice concurs in the judgment.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
The House and Senate Reports on the 1969 Act placed the number of afflicted active and retired miners at 100,000. S. Rep. No. 91-411, p. 6 (1969), and H. R. Rep. No. 91-563, p. 17 (1969). The Senate Report, supra, at 7, specified that, on the basis of X-ray examination, the disease rate was 10% for then-active coal miners, and 20% for inactive coal miners. Other estimates have run significantly higher. See, e. g., Hearings on S. 355, before the Subcommittee on Labor of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, p. 641 (1969).
Coal workers’ pneumoconiosis is a distinct clinical entity, and is not the only type of pneumoconiosis. The remarks of the Surgeon General, reproduced in H. R. Rep. No. 91-563, supra, at 15, indicate that the pathological condition of pneumoconiosis may also be caused by inhalation of other dusty materials, such as cotton fibers or silica.
S. Rep. No. 91-411, supra, at 7-8; H. R. Rep. No. 91-563, supra, at 15-16.
There was evidence before Congress that the complicated stage of the disease is sometimes exhibited with “mild pulmonary function changes and little or no disability.” Hearings on S. 355, supra, n. 1, at 858.
Ibid.
Ibid.
As of December 31, 1974, 556,200 claims had been filed under Part B of the law. As of that date, with all but 400 cases decided, 509,900 individuals had established eligibility as black lung beneficiaries under the Act. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Fifth Annual Report to Congress on the Administration of Part B of Title IV of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, p. 3 (1975).
The individual claimant is entitled to benefits at a rate equal to 50% of the minimum monthly payment to which a totally disabled federal employee in Grade GS-2 is entitled. § 412(a) (1), 30 U. S. C. §922 (a)(1). At current rates, the individual claimant's entitlement is $196.80 per month, or $2,361.60 per year. 40 Fed. Reg. 56886-56887 (1975); see 20 CFR §410.510 (1975). These basic benefits are increased if the claimant has dependents; the maximum increase of 100% is available if the claimant has three or more dependents. § 412 (a) (4), 30 U. S. C. § 922 (a) (4) (1970 ed., Supp. IY). See also 30 U. S. C. §§ 922 (a) (3), (5) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). Thus, the maximum in benefits to which a claimant could be entitled is $393.60 per month, or $4,723.20 per year. Benefits under Part C are reduced to account for certain alternative income. § 422 (g), 30 U. S. C. § 932 (g). In addition to these monthly benefits, the operators are responsible for claimants’ medical expenses. See § 422 (a), 30 U. S. C. § 932 (a) (1970 ed., Supp. IY), incorporating 33 U. S. C. §907 (1970 ed., Supp. IV).
Section 402 (f), as set forth in 30 TJ. S. C. §902 (f) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), provides in full:
“The term ‘total disability’ has the meaning given it by regulations of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, except that such regulations shall provide that a miner shall be considered totally disabled when pneumoconiosis prevents him from engaging in gainful employment requiring the skills and abilities comparable to those of any employment in a mine or mines in which he previously engaged with some regularity and over a substantial period of time. Such regulations shall not provide more restrictive criteria than those applicable under section 423 (d) of Title 42.”
The Act defines “pneumoconiosis” as “a chronic dust disease of the lung arising out of employment in a coal mine.” §402 (b), 30 U. S. C. § 902 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. IV).
These presumptions are applicable directly to Part B adjudications by the Secretary of HEW, and indirectly to transition-period and Part C adjudications by the Secretary of Labor by operation of §§ 422 (h) and 411 (b), 30 U. S. C. §§ 932 (h) and 921 (b) (1970 ed. and Supp. IV). See S. Rep. No. 92-743, p. 21 (1972). See also §§422 (f)(2), 430, 30 U. S. C. §§932 (f)(2), 940 (1970 ed., Supp. IV).
The use of this presumption in Part C adjudications is limited in some regards not significant in this case. See §§ 422 (f) (2), 430, 30 U. S. C. §§ 932 (f) (2), 940 (1970 ed., Supp. IV).
Section 413 (b), as set forth in 30 U. S. C. § 923 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), provides in pertinent part: “[N]o claim for benefits under this part shall be denied solely on the basis of the results of a chest roentgenogram.” (Emphasis added.) Section 413 (b) is found in Part B of Title IV. Section 430, as set forth in 30 U. S. C. §940 (1970 ed., Supp. IV), provides, however, that “[t]he amendments made by the Black Lung Benefits Act of 1972 to part B ... shall, to the extent appropriate, also apply [with limitations not relevant here] to . . . part [C].” The legislative history, moreover, makes clear that the § 413 (b) limitation on use of X-ray evidence, enacted as § 4 (f) of the 1972 Act, was intended to apply to Part C claims as well as Part B claims, see H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 92-1048, p. 9 (1972), and the Operators so concede. Brief for Operators 21.
For simplicity of discussion, we will generally refer to claims as though presented by the miner himself, although they may in fact be maintained upon death by a survivor. Neither the District Court nor the parties have distinguished miners’ claims from survivors’ claims under the constitutional attacks raised in this case.
The Federal Parties suggest that since a claim for benefits under Part C must be filed within three years of the discovery of total disability due to pneumoconiosis (or the date of death), § 422 (f) (1), 30 U. S. C. § 932 (f) (1) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), the operators will not ordinarily be liable for any disabilities maturing before enactment of their responsibility. See also § 422 (f) (2), 30 U. S. C. § 932 (f)(2) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). This does not hold true, however, for nonunderground operators, since Part C liability did not apply to them until 1972. See Black Lung Benefits Act of 1972, § 3, 86 Stat. 153, amending §§401, 402 (b), (d), 411 (c)(1), (2), 422 (a), (h), 423 (a), 30 U. S. C. §§901, 902 (b), (d), 921 (c)(1), (2), 932 (a), (h), 933 (a) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). In any event, we think the point unnecessary to our conclusion.
The Operators have not contended, however, that the Act is constitutionally defective insofar as it requires them to provide compensation for -present employees whose disabilities may stem from exposure that was terminated before enactment of the Act.
Whether or not a person who could have anticipated the potential liability attaching to his chosen course of conduct would have avoided the liability by altering his conduct has been significant in at least one line of cases in this Court. In Welch v. Henry, 305 U. S. 134 (1938), the Court upheld against a due process attack a state statute enacted in 1935 taxing 1933 dividend income that the 1933 taxing statute had explicitly exempted. Adopting the view that a stockholder would have continued to receive corporate dividends even if he knew that the dividends would subsequently be taxed, the Court distinguished prior cases invalidating the retroactive taxation of gifts on the ground that the donor might have refrained from making the gift had he anticipated the tax. Id., at 147-148. But see Carpenter v. Wabash R. Co., 309 U. S. 23 (1940); Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 219 U. S. 467 (1911).
Coal miner’s pneumoconiosis was recognized in Great Britain as early as 1943. It was not generally recognized in the United States as an entity distinct from silicosis until the 1950’s. S. Rep. No. 91-411, p. 8 (1969).
Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, joined by Justices Brandéis, Stone, and Cardozo, dissented from the Court's invalidating the Railroad Retirement Act altogether, but agreed with the Court that the pro’vision for allowances to former employees was arbitrary. 295 U. S., at 374, 389.
For the full text of § 402 (f) see n. 9, supra.
Section. 411 (c)(3), as set forth in 30 U. S. C. §921 (c)(3) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), provides:
“ [I] f a miner is suffering or suffered from a chronic dust disease of the lung which (A) when diagnosed by chest roentgenogram, yields one or more large opacities (greater than one centimeter in diameter) and would be classified in category A, B, or C in the International Classification of Radiographs of the Pneumoconioses by the International Labor Organization, (B) when diagnosed by biopsy or autopsy, yields massive lesions in the lung, or (C) when diagnosis is made by other means, would be a condition which could reasonably be expected to yield results described in clause (A) or (B) if diagnosis had been made in the manner prescribed in clause (A) or (B), then there shall be an irrebuttable presumption that he is totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis or that his death was due to pneu-moconiosis or that at the time of his death he was totally disabled by pneumoconiosis, as the case may be.”
Although the premise of §411 (c)(3), that the miner have a “chronic dust disease of the lung,” does not explicitly provide that the disease must be one arising out of employment in a coal mine, it is clear under § 422 (a), and hence under § 415 (a) (5) as well, that an operator can be liable only for pneumoconiosis arising out of employment in a coal mine. Section 422 (a), as set forth in 30 U. S. C. §932 (a) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), provides that Part C liability “[shall] be applicable to each operator of a coal mine . . . with respect to death or total disability due to pneumoconiosis arising out of employment in such mine.”
The original House and Senate bills that gave rise to the Conference bill enacted as Title IV of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 each provided for compensation only for complicated pneumoconiosis. H. R. 13950, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., §§ 112 (b) (1), (7) (B), as it passed the House, 115 Cong, Rec. 32061 (1969), contained the diagnostic criteria presently embodied in §411 (c)(3), and deemed complicated pneumoconiosis to be “totally disabling” and compensable. S. 2917, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., §§ 501-504, as amended on the floor, 115 Cong. Rec. 27632 (1969), and passed, id., at 28243, established a program of interim benefits for total disability due to complicated pneumoconiosis, and directed the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to develop standards for determining total disability due to complicated pneumoconiosis.
S. Rep. No. 92-743, p. 8 (1972).
Under the present scheme, the payment of monthly benefits is not without limit. Section 422 (e), as set forth in 30 U. S. C. § 932 (e) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), quite clearly provides that “[n]o payment of benefits shall be required under this section ... (2) for any period prior to January 1, 1974; or (3) for any period after twelve years after December 30, 1969.” This time limitation, applicable in Part C cases by its terms, is also applicable to transition-period cases by virtue of §415 (a) (5), 30 U. S. C. § 925 (a) (5) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). Thus, the operator is liable for monthly payments only for a period of eight years. The total amount payable to a single dependent survivor during this period, under current rates, is approximately $18,900. The maximum amount for which the operator would be liable, if the miner had four or more dependent survivors, is approximately $37,800. See n. 8, swpra.
Our analysis of the retrospective application of the § 411 (c) (3) presumption of death due to pneumoconiosis is, of course, fully applicable to the retrospective application of any other provisions that might be construed to authorize benefits in the case of miners who die with, but not from, totally disabling pneumoconiosis. See §§422 (a), (c), 412(a)(2), (3), (5), 411 (a), 30 U. S. C. §§932 (a), (c), 922 (a)(2), (3), (5), 921 (a) (1970 ed. and Supp. IV).
Section 411 (c)(1), as set forth in 30 U. S. C. §921 (c)(1) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), provides in full:
“[I]f a miner who is suffering or suffered from pneumoconiosis was employed for ten years or more in one or more coal mines there shall be a rebuttable presumption that his pneumoconiosis arose out of such employment.”
Section 411 (c)(2), as set forth in 30 U. S. C. §921 (c)(2) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), provides in full:
“[I]f a deceased miner was employed for ten years or more in one or more coal mines and died from a respirable disease there shall be a rebuttable presumption that his death was due to pneumoconiosis.”
See, e. g., Hearings on S. 355, supra, n. 1, at 699 (testimony of Dr. Werner A. Laqueur).
Section 411 (c)(4), as set forth in 30 U. S. C. §921 (c)(4) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), provides in full:
"[I]f a miner was employed for fifteen years or more in one or more underground coal mines, and if there is a chest roentgenogram submitted in connection with such miner’s, his widow’s, his child’s, his parent’s, his brother’s, his sister’s, or his dependent’s claim under this subchapter and it is interpreted as negative with respect to the requirements of paragraph (3) of this subsection, and if other evidence demonstrates the existence of a totally disabling respiratory or pulmonary impairment, then there shall be a rebuttable presumption that such miner is totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis, that his death was due to pneumoconiosis, or that at the time of his death he was totally disabled by pneumoconiosis. In the case of a living miner, a wife’s affidavit may not be used by itself to establish the presumption. The Secretary shall not apply all or a portion of the requirement of this paragraph that the miner work in an underground mine where he determines that conditions of a miner’s employment in a coal mine other than an underground mine were substantially similar to conditions in an underground mine. The Secretary may rebut such presumption only by establishing that (A) such miner does not, or did not, have pneumoconiosis, or that (B) his respiratory or pulmonary impairment did not arise out of, or in connection with, employment in a coal mine.”
See S. Rep. No. 92-743, p. 13 (1972).
See n. 12, supra.
The Operators frame their argument by saying that the effect of § 413 (b) is to render the rebuttable presumptions of § 411 (c) effectively irrebuttable. But this dressing adds nothing. Once it is determined that the limitation on X-ray evidence is permissible generally, it is irrelevant that the burden of going forward with some rebuttal evidence is thrown upon the operator by a permissible presumption rather than by the claimant’s affirmative factual showing.
Our attention has not been directed to any authoritative indications that X-ray evidence of the presence of pneumoconiosis is untrustworthy.
Evidence was produced at the Senate hearings showing that in one study “approximately 25 percent of a random sample of some 200 coal miners whose medical records based upon X-ray findings showed no coal-worker’s pneumoconiosis were found on post mortem examination to have the disease.” S. Rep. No. 92-743, supra, at 12.
Id., at 9-16; H. R. Rep. No. 92-460, pp. 8-10 (1971).
Section 413 (b) directs additionally that
“[i]n determining the validity of claims under this part, all relevant evidence shall be considered, including, where relevant, medical tests such as blood gas studies, X-ray examination, electrocardiogram, pulmonary function studies, or physical performance tests, and any medical history, evidence submitted by the claimant’s physician, or his wife’s affidavits, and in the case of a deceased miner, other appropriate affidavits of persons with knowledge of the miner’s physical condition, and other supportive materials.” 30 U. S. C. §923 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. IY).
This evidence was brought to the hearings by the Social Security Administration, whose rules the § 413 (b) limitation was designed to overrule, and was credited by the minority of the House Committee on Education and Labor. H. R. Rep. No. 92-460, supra, at 22, 29-30.
S. Rep. No. 92-743, supra, at 11.
Id., at 12. Similarly, the Conference Report refers to the limitation only as running against “the Secretary.” S. Conf. Rep. No. 92-780, p. 8 (1972); H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 92-1048, p. 8 (1972).
It follows from our discussion of the § 411 (c) (4) limitation on rebuttal that these regulations cannot stand as authoritative administrative interpretations of the statute itself. But the role of regulations is not merely interpretative; they may instead be designedly creative in a substantive sense, if so authorized. See, e. g., Mourning v. Family Publications Service, Inc., 411 U. S. 356 (1973), If the regulations promulgated here are to be upheld, it must be in this latter sense.
We see no reason to remand the ease to the three-judge District Court for the purpose of determining whether the Operators should be granted leave to amend their complaint to include a statutory and constitutional challenge to the regulations. The three-judge court remanded to a single judge all questions regarding the validity of regulations challenged in the Operators’ complaint, and that portion of the case is pending before a single judge. Any motion for leave to amend the complaint to include a challenge to any additional regulations can be addressed to that single judge. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the petitioner of the case. The petitioner is the party who petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. This party is variously known as the petitioner or the appellant. Characterize the petitioner as the Court's opinion identifies them.
Identify the petitioner by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.
Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the petitioner is actually single entity or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single petitioner, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name. | Who is the petitioner of the case? | [
"attorney general of the United States, or his office",
"specified state board or department of education",
"city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit",
"state commission, board, committee, or authority",
"county government or county governmental unit, except school district",
"court or judicial district",
"state department or agency",
"governmental employee or job applicant",
"female governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority governmental employee or job applicant",
"minority female governmental employee or job applicant",
"not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable",
"retired or former governmental employee",
"U.S. House of Representatives",
"interstate compact",
"judge",
"state legislature, house, or committee",
"local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough",
"governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact",
"state or U.S. supreme court",
"local school district or board of education",
"U.S. Senate",
"U.S. senator",
"foreign nation or instrumentality",
"state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of",
"state college or university",
"United States",
"State",
"person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime",
"advertising business or agency",
"agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor",
"airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes",
"airline",
"distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages",
"alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked",
"American Medical Association",
"National Railroad Passenger Corp.",
"amusement establishment, or recreational facility",
"arrested person, or pretrial detainee",
"attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association",
"author, copyright holder",
"bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company",
"bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization",
"establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store",
"water transportation, stevedore",
"bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines",
"brewery, distillery",
"broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm",
"construction industry",
"bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle",
"business, corporation",
"buyer, purchaser",
"cable TV",
"car dealer",
"person convicted of crime",
"tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband",
"chemical company",
"child, children, including adopted or illegitimate",
"religious organization, institution, or person",
"private club or facility",
"coal company or coal mine operator",
"computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software",
"consumer, consumer organization",
"creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company",
"person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial",
"defendant",
"debtor",
"real estate developer",
"disabled person or disability benefit claimant",
"distributor",
"person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector",
"drug manufacturer",
"druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy",
"employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of",
"employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan",
"electric equipment manufacturer",
"electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company",
"eleemosynary institution or person",
"environmental organization",
"employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.",
"farmer, farm worker, or farm organization",
"father",
"female employee or job applicant",
"female",
"movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of",
"fisherman or fishing company",
"food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard",
"foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity",
"franchiser",
"franchisee",
"lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization",
"person who guarantees another's obligations",
"handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to",
"health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor",
"heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be",
"hospital, medical center",
"husband, or ex-husband",
"involuntarily committed mental patient",
"Indian, including Indian tribe or nation",
"insurance company, or surety",
"inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder",
"investor",
"injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related",
"juvenile",
"government contractor",
"holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor",
"magazine",
"male",
"medical or Medicaid claimant",
"medical supply or manufacturing co.",
"racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant",
"minority female employee or job applicant",
"manufacturer",
"management, executive officer, or director, of business entity",
"military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist",
"mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company",
"mother",
"auto manufacturer",
"newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service",
"radio and television network, except cable tv",
"nonprofit organization or business",
"nonresident",
"nuclear power plant or facility",
"owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels",
"shareholders to whom a tender offer is made",
"tender offer",
"oil company, or natural gas producer",
"elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly",
"out of state noncriminal defendant",
"political action committee",
"parent or parents",
"parking lot or service",
"patient of a health professional",
"telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company",
"physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society",
"public interest organization",
"physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee",
"pipe line company",
"package, luggage, container",
"political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official",
"indigent, needy, welfare recipient",
"indigent defendant",
"private person",
"prisoner, inmate of penal institution",
"professional organization, business, or person",
"probationer, or parolee",
"protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer",
"public utility",
"publisher, publishing company",
"radio station",
"racial or ethnic minority",
"person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination",
"racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"realtor",
"journalist, columnist, member of the news media",
"resident",
"restaurant, food vendor",
"retarded person, or mental incompetent",
"retired or former employee",
"railroad",
"private school, college, or university",
"seller or vendor",
"shipper, including importer and exporter",
"shopping center, mall",
"spouse, or former spouse",
"stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder",
"retail business or outlet",
"student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution",
"taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only",
"tenant or lessee",
"theater, studio",
"forest products, lumber, or logging company",
"person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent",
"trucking company, or motor carrier",
"television station",
"union member",
"unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant",
"union, labor organization, or official of",
"veteran",
"voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)",
"wholesale trade",
"wife, or ex-wife",
"witness, or person under subpoena",
"network",
"slave",
"slave-owner",
"bank of the united states",
"timber company",
"u.s. job applicants or employees",
"Army and Air Force Exchange Service",
"Atomic Energy Commission",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force",
"Department or Secretary of Agriculture",
"Alien Property Custodian",
"Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army",
"Board of Immigration Appeals",
"Bureau of Indian Affairs",
"Bonneville Power Administration",
"Benefits Review Board",
"Civil Aeronautics Board",
"Bureau of the Census",
"Central Intelligence Agency",
"Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
"Department or Secretary of Commerce",
"Comptroller of Currency",
"Consumer Product Safety Commission",
"Civil Rights Commission",
"Civil Service Commission, U.S.",
"Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs",
"Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission",
"Drug Enforcement Agency",
"Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)",
"Department or Secretary of Energy",
"Department or Secretary of the Interior",
"Department of Justice or Attorney General",
"Department or Secretary of State",
"Department or Secretary of Transportation",
"Department or Secretary of Education",
"U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner",
"Equal Employment Opportunity Commission",
"Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator",
"Federal Aviation Agency or Administration",
"Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director",
"Federal Bureau of Prisons",
"Farm Credit Administration",
"Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)",
"Federal Credit Union Administration",
"Food and Drug Administration",
"Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Energy Administration",
"Federal Election Commission",
"Federal Energy Regulatory Commission",
"Federal Housing Administration",
"Federal Home Loan Bank Board",
"Federal Labor Relations Authority",
"Federal Maritime Board",
"Federal Maritime Commission",
"Farmers Home Administration",
"Federal Parole Board",
"Federal Power Commission",
"Federal Railroad Administration",
"Federal Reserve Board of Governors",
"Federal Reserve System",
"Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation",
"Federal Trade Commission",
"Federal Works Administration, or Administrator",
"General Accounting Office",
"Comptroller General",
"General Services Administration",
"Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare",
"Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services",
"Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development",
"Interstate Commerce Commission",
"Indian Claims Commission",
"Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement",
"Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of",
"Information Security Oversight Office",
"Department or Secretary of Labor",
"Loyalty Review Board",
"Legal Services Corporation",
"Merit Systems Protection Board",
"Multistate Tax Commission",
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
"Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy",
"National Credit Union Administration",
"National Endowment for the Arts",
"National Enforcement Commission",
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration",
"National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer",
"National Mediation Board",
"National Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Nuclear Regulatory Commission",
"National Security Agency",
"Office of Economic Opportunity",
"Office of Management and Budget",
"Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator",
"Office of Personnel Management",
"Occupational Safety and Health Administration",
"Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission",
"Office of Workers' Compensation Programs",
"Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of",
"Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)",
"Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation",
"U.S. Public Health Service",
"Postal Rate Commission",
"Provider Reimbursement Review Board",
"Renegotiation Board",
"Railroad Adjustment Board",
"Railroad Retirement Board",
"Subversive Activities Control Board",
"Small Business Administration",
"Securities and Exchange Commission",
"Social Security Administration or Commissioner",
"Selective Service System",
"Department or Secretary of the Treasury",
"Tennessee Valley Authority",
"United States Forest Service",
"United States Parole Commission",
"Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster",
"United States Sentencing Commission",
"Veterans' Administration",
"War Production Board",
"Wage Stabilization Board",
"General Land Office of Commissioners",
"Transportation Security Administration",
"Surface Transportation Board",
"U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.",
"Reconstruction Finance Corp.",
"Department or Secretary of Homeland Security",
"Unidentifiable",
"International Entity"
] | [
257
] | sc_petitioner |
JOHANNS, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, et al. v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSOCIATION et al.
No. 03-1164.
Argued December 8, 2004
Decided May 23, 2005
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O’Connor, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., post, p. 567, and Breyer, J., post, p. 569, filed concurring opinions. Ginsburg, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 569. Kennedy, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 570. Souter, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens and Kennedy,-JJ., joined, post, p. 570.
Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler argued the cause for the federal petitioners in No. 03-1164. With him on the briefs in .both cases were Acting Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General Keisler, Irving L. Gornstein, Douglas N. Letter, and Matthew M. Collette.
Gregory G. Garre argued the cause for petitioners in No. 03-1165. With him on the briefs was Lorane F. Hebert.
Laurence H. Tribe argued the cause for respondents in both cases. With him on the brief were Thomas Goldstein, Amy Howe, Philip Olsson, Ronald A. Parsons, Jr., and Scott N. Heidepriem.
Together with No. 03-1165, Nebraska Cattlemen, Inc., et al. v. Livestock Marketing Association et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in both cases were filed for the State of California by Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of California, Richard M. Frank, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Mary E. Hackenbracht, Senior Assistant Attorney General, and Linda L. Berg, Deputy Attorney General; for the State of Texas et al. by Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas, R. Ted Cruz, Solicitor General, Ranee L. Craft, Assistant Solicitor General, Barry R. McBee, First Assistant Attorney General, and Edward D. Burbach, Deputy Attorney General, by William Vázquez Irizarry, Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Terry Goddard of Arizona, Mike Beebe of Arkansas, Ken Salazar of Colorado, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Charles J. Crist, Jr., of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Gregory D. Stumbo of Kentucky, Charles C. Foti, Jr., of Louisiana, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Michael A. Cox of Michigan, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Patricia A. Madrid of New Mexico, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Jim Petro of Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Gerald J. Pappert of Pennsylvania, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Jerry W. Kilgore of Virginia, Christine 0. Gregoire of Washington, Peggy A. Lautenschlager of Wisconsin, and Patrick J. Crank of Wyoming; for the American Cotton Shippers Association et al. by Walter Dellinger and Pamela Harris; for the California Agricultural Issues Forum by Seth P. Waxman, Randolph D. Moss, Todd Zubler, and Brian M. Boynton; for the Michigan Pork Producers Association, Inc., et al. by Edward M. Mansfield; for Thad Cochran et al. by David A. Bono and Gerald P. Norton; and for 113 Agricultural Industry Associations by Charles L. Babcock and David T. Moran.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance in both cases were filed for the Campaign for Family Farms et al. by Susan E. Stokes, David R. Moeller, and Karen R. Krub; for the Coalition of Cotton Apparel Importers by Carter G. Phillips, Man Charles Raul, Eric A. Shumsky, and Michael C. Soules; for the DKT Liberty Project et al. by Julie M. Carpenter, Daniel Mach, and Robert M. O’Neil; for Public Citizen, Inc., by Scott L. Nelson; for Rose Acre Farms, Inc., by Corinne R. Finnerty and Loren D. Reuter; for the Washington Legal Foundation et al. by Daniel J. Popeo and Richard A. Samp; for Jeanne Charter et al. by Erik S. Jaffe, Brian C. Leigh-ton, James A. Moody, Steven B. Gold, Renee Giachino, Michael P. McMahon, and Virginia B. Townes; and for Joseph Cochran et al. by William H. Mellor, Steven M. Simpson, and Scott G. Bullock.
Barry Richard, Hank B. Campbell, and Monterey Campbell filed a brief in both cases for the State of Florida, Department of Citrus, as amicus curiae.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
For the third time in eight years, we consider whether a federal program that finances generic advertising to promote an agricultural product violates the First Amendment. In these cases, unlike the previous two, the dispositive question is whether the generic advertising at issue is the Government’s own speech and therefore is exempt from First Amendment scrutiny.
I
A
The Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985 (Beef Act or Act), 99 Stat. 1597, announces a federal policy of promoting the marketing and consumption of “beef and beef products,” using funds raised by an assessment on cattle sales and importation. 7 U. S. C. § 2901(b). The statute directs the Secretary of Agriculture to implement this policy by issuing a Beef Promotion and Research Order (Beef Order or Order), §2903, and specifies four key terms it must contain: The Secretary is to appoint a Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board (Beef Board or Board), whose members are to be a geographically representative group of beef producers and importers, nominated by trade associations. § 2904(1). The Beef Board is to convene an Operating Committee, composed of 10 Beef Board members and 10 representatives named by a federation of state beef councils. §2904(4)(A). The Secretary is to impose a $l-per-head assessment (or “checkoff”) on all sales or importation of cattle and a comparable assessment on imported beef products. §2904(8). And the assessment is to be used to fund beef-related projects, including promotional campaigns, designed by the Operating Committee and approved by the Secretary. §§ 2904(4)(B), (C).
The Secretary promulgated the Beef Order with the specified terms. The assessment is collected primarily by state beef councils, which then forward the proceeds to the Beef Board. 7 CFR § 1260.172(a)(5) (2004). The Operating Committee proposes projects to be funded by the checkoff including promotion and research. § 1260.167(a). The Secretary or his designee (see §§2.22(a)(l)(viii)(X), 2.79(a)(8)(xxxii)) approves each project and, in the case of promotional materials, the content of each communication. §§ 1260.168(e), 1260.169; App. 114, 143.
The Beef Order was promulgated in 1986 on a temporary basis, subject to a referendum among beef producers on whether to make it permanent. 7 U. S. C. §§2903, 2906(a). In May 1988, a large majority voted to continue it. Since that time, more than $1 billion has been collected through the checkoff, 132 F. Supp. 2d 817, 820 (SD 2001), and a large fraction of that sum has been spent on promotional projects authorized by the Beef Act — many using the familiar trademarked slogan “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner.” App. 50. In fiscal year 2000, for example, the Beef Board collected over $48 million in assessments and spent over $29 million on domestic promotion. The Board also funds overseas marketing efforts; market and food-science research, such as evaluations of the nutritional value of beef; and informational campaigns for both consumers and beef producers. See 7 U. S. C. §§2902(6), (9), (15), 2904(4)(B).
Many promotional messages funded by the checkoff (though not all, see App. 52-53) bear the attribution “Funded by America’s Beef Producers.” E. g., id., at 50-51. Most print and television messages also bear a Beef Board logo, usually a checkmark with the word “BEEF.” E. g., id., at 50-52.
B
Respondents are two associations whose members collect and pay the checkoff, and several individuals who raise and sell cattle subject to the checkoff. Id., at 17-19. They sued . the Secretary, the Department of Agriculture, and the Board in Federal District Court on a number of constitutional and statutory grounds not before us — in particular, that the Board impermissibly used checkoff funds to send communications supportive of the beef program to beef producers. 132 F. Supp. 2d, at 823. Petitioners in No. 03-1165, a state beef producers’ association and two individual producers, intervened as defendants to argue in support of the program. The District Court granted a limited preliminary injunction, which forbade the continued use of checkoff funds to laud the beef program or to lobby for governmental action relating to the checkoff. Id., at 832.
While the litigation was pending, we held in United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405 (2001), that a mandatory checkoff for generic mushroom advertising violated the First Amendment. Noting that the mushroom program closely resembles the beef program, respondents amended their complaint to assert a First Amendment challenge to the use of the beef checkoff for promotional activity. 207 F. Supp. 2d 992, 996 (SD 2002); App. 30-32. Respondents noted that the advertising promotes beef as a generic commodity, which, they contended, impedes their efforts to promote the superiority of, inter alia, American beef, grain-fed beef, or certified Angus or Hereford beef.
After a bench trial, the District Court ruled for respondents on their First Amendment claim. It declared that the Beef Act and Beef Order unconstitutionally compel respondents to subsidize speech to which they object, and rejected the Government’s contention that the checkoff survives First Amendment scrutiny because it funds only government speech. 207 F. Supp. 2d, at 1002-1007. The court entered a permanent injunction barring any further collection of the beef checkoff, even from producers willing to pay (allowing continued collection of voluntary checkoffs, the court thought, would require “rewrit[ing]” the Beef Act). Id., at 1007-1008. Believing that the cost of calculating the share of the checkoff attributable to the compelled subsidy would be too great, the court also declined to order a refund of checkoff funds already collected. Ibid. Finally, the court made permanent its earlier injunction against “producer communications” praising the beef program or seeking to influence governmental policy. Id., at 1008. The court did not rule on respondents’ other claims, but certified its resolution of the First Amendment claim as final pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). 207 F. Supp. 2d, at 1008.
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 335 F. 3d 711 (2003). Unlike the District Court, the Court of Appeals did not dispute that the challenged advertising is government speech; instead, it held that government speech status is relevant only to First Amendment challenges to the speech’s content, not to challenges to its compelled funding. See id., at 720-721. Compelled funding of speech, it held, may violate the First Amendment even if the speech in question is the government’s. Ibid.
We granted certiorari. 541 U. S. 1062 (2004).
II
We have sustained First Amendment challenges to allegedly compelled expression in two categories of cases: true “compelled-speech” cases, in which an individual is obliged personally to express a message he disagrees with, imposed by the government; and “compelled-subsidy” cases, in which an individual is required by the government to subsidize a message he disagrees with, expressed by a private entity. We have not heretofore considered the First Amendment consequences of government-compelled subsidy of the government’s own speech.
We first invalidated an outright compulsion of speech in West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943). The State required every schoolchild to recite the Pledge of Allegiance while saluting the American flag, on pain of expulsion from the public schools. We held that the First Amendment does not “le[ave] it open to public authorities to compel [a person] to utter” a message with which he does not agree. Id., at 634. Likewise, in Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705 (1977), we held that requiring a New Hampshire couple to bear the State’s motto, “Live Free or Die,” on their cars’ license plates was an impermissible compulsion of expression. Obliging people to “use their private property as a ‘mobile billboard’ for the State’s ideological message” amounted to impermissible compelled expression. Id., at 715.
The reasoning of these compelled-speech cases has been carried over to certain instances in which individuals are compelled not to speak, but to subsidize a private message with which they disagree. Thus, although we have upheld state-imposed requirements that lawyers be members of the state bar and pay its annual dues, and that public school teachers either join the labor union representing their “shop” or pay “service fees” equal to the union dues, we have invalidated the use of the compulsory fees to fund speech on political matters. See Keller v. State Bar of Cal., 496 U. S. 1 (1990); Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209 (1977). Bar or union speech with such content, we held, was not germane to the regulatory interests that justified compelled membership, and accordingly, making those who disagreed with it pay for it violated the First Amendment. See Keller, supra, at 15-16; Abood, supra, at 234-235.
These latter cases led us to sustain a compelled-subsidy challenge to an assessment very similar to the beef checkoff, imposed to fund mushroom advertising. United Foods, supra; see 335 F. 3d, at 717 (“[W]e agree with the district court that ‘[t]he beef checkoff is,-in all material respects, identical to the mushroom checkoff’” at issue in United Foods). Deciding the case on the assumption that the advertising was private speech, not government speech, see 533 U. S., at 416-417, we concluded that Abood and Keller were controlling. As in those cases, mushroom producers were obliged by “law or necessity” to pay the checkoff; although Abood and Keller would permit the mandatory fee if it were “germane” to a “broader regulatory scheme,” in United Foods the only regulatory purpose was the funding of the advertising. 533 U. S., at 413, 415-416.
In all of the cases invalidating exactions to subsidize speech, the speech was, or was presumed to be, that of an entity other than the government itself. See Keller, supra, at 11, 15-16; Abood, supra, at 212-213; United Foods, supra, at 416-417; see also Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. 217, 229, 230 (2000) (because “[t]he University ha[s] disclaimed that the speech is its own,” Abood and Keller “provide the beginning point for our analysis”); cf. Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 851-852 (1995) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (university’s Student Activities Fund likely does not unconstitutionally compel speech because it “represents not government resources . . . but a fund that simply belongs to the students”). Our compelled-subsidy cases have consistently respected the principle that “Compelled support of a private association is fundamentally different from compelled support of government.” Abood, supra, at 259, n. 13 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment). “Compelled support of government” — even those programs of government one does not approve — is of course perfectly constitutional, as every taxpayer must attest. And some government programs involve, or entirely consist of, advocating a position. “The government, as a general rule, may support valid programs and policies by taxes or other exactions binding on protesting parties. Within this broader principle it seems inevitable that funds raised by the government will be spent for speech and other expression to advocate and defend its own policies.” Southworth, 529 U. S., at 229. We have generally assumed, though not yet squarely held, that compelled funding of government speech does not alone raise First Amendment concerns. See ibid.; Keller, supra, at 12-13; Rosenberger, supra, at 833; see also Wooley, supra, at 721 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).
1 — I I — I hH
Respondents do not seriously dispute these principles, nor do they contend that, as a general matter, their First Amendment challenge requires them to show only that their checkoff dollars pay for speech with which they disagree. Rather, they assert that the challenged promotional campaigns differ dispositively from the type of government speech that, our cases suggest, is not susceptible to First Amendment challenge. They point to the role of the Beef Board and its Operating Committee in designing the promotional campaigns, and to the use of a mandatory assessment on beef producers to fund the advertising. We consider each in turn.
A
The Secretary of Agriculture does not write ad copy himself. Rather, the Beef Board’s promotional campaigns are designed by the Beef Board’s Operating Committee, only half of whose members are Beef Board members appointed by the Secretary. (All members of the Operating Committee are subject to removal by the Secretary. 7 CFR § 1260.213 (2004).) Respondents contend that speech whose content is effectively controlled by a nongovernmental entity — the Operating Committee — cannot be considered “government speech.” We need not address this contention, because we reject its premise: The message of the promotional campaigns is effectively controlled by the Federal Government itself.
The message set out in the beef promotions is from beginning to end the message established by the Federal Gov-eminent. Congress has directed the implementation of a “coordinated program” of promotion, “including paid advertising, to advance the image and desirability of beef and beef products.” 7 U. S. C. §§ 2901(b), 2902(13). Congress and the Secretary have also specified, in general terms, what the promotional campaigns shall contain, see, e. g., § 2904(4)(B)(i) (campaigns “shall . . . take into account” different types of beef products), and what they shall not, see, e. g., 7 CFR § 1260.169(d) (2004) (campaigns shall not, without prior approval, refer “to a brand or trade name of any beef product”). Thus, Congress and the Secretary have set out the overarching message and some of its elements, and they have left the development of the remaining details to an entity whose members are answerable to the Secretary (and in some cases appointed by him as well).
Moreover, the record demonstrates that the Secretary exercises final approval authority over every word used in every promotional campaign. All proposed promotional messages are reviewed by Department officials both for substance and for wording, and some proposals are rejected or rewritten by the Department. App. 114, 118-121, 274-275. Nor is the Secretary’s role limited to final approval or rejection: Officials of the Department also attend and participate in the open meetings at which proposals are developed. Id., at 111-112.
This degree of governmental control over the message funded by the checkoff distinguishes these cases from Keller. There the state bar’s communicative activities to which the plaintiffs objected were not prescribed by law in their general outline and not developed under official government supervision. Indeed, many of them consisted of lobbying the state legislature on various issues. See 496 U. S., at 5, and n. 2. When, as here, the government sets the overall message to be communicated and approves every word that is disseminated, it is not precluded from relying on the government-speech doctrine merely because it solicits assistance from nongovernmental sources in developing specific messages.
B
Respondents also contend that the beef program does not qualify as “government speech” because it is funded by a targeted assessment on beef producers, rather than by general revenues. This funding mechanism, they argue, has two relevant effects: It gives control over the beef program not to politically accountable legislators, but to a narrow interest group that will pay no heed to respondents’ dissenting views, and it creates the perception that the advertisements speak for beef producers such as respondents.
We reject the first point. The compelled-sw&si<% analysis is altogether unaffected by whether the funds for the promotions are raised by general taxes or through a targeted assessment. Citizens may challenge compelled support of private speech, but have no First Amendment right not to fund government speech. And that is no less true when the funding is achieved through targeted assessments devoted exclusively to the program to which the assessed citizens object. Cf. United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252, 260 (1982) (“There is no principled way ... to distinguish between general taxes and those imposed under the Social Security Act” in evaluating the burden on the right to free exercise of religion). The First Amendment does not confer a right to pay one’s taxes into the general fund, because the injury of compelled funding (as opposed to the injury of compelled speech) does not stem from the Government’s mode of accounting. Cf. Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693, 700 (1986) (“The Free Exercise Clause . . . does not afford an individual a right to dictate the conduct of the Government’s internal procedures”); id., at 716-717 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in result).
Some of our cases have justified compelled funding of government speech by pointing out that government speech is subject to democratic accountability. See, e. g., Abood, 431 U. S., at 259, n. 13 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment); Southworth, 529 U. S., at 235. But our references to “traditional political controls,” id., at 229, do not signify that the First Amendment duplicates the Appropriations Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 7, or that every instance of government speech must be funded by a line item in an appropriations bill. Here, the beef advertisements are subject to political safeguards more than adequate to set them apart from private messages. The program is authorized and the basic message prescribed by federal statute, and specific requirements for the promotions’ content are imposed by federal regulations promulgated after notice and comment. The Secretary of Agriculture, a politically accountable official, oversees the program, appoints and dismisses the key personnel, and retains absolute veto power over the advertisements’ content, right down to the wording. And Congress, of course, retains oversight authority, not to mention the ability to reform the program at any time. No more is required.
As to the second point, respondents’ argument proceeds as follows: They contend that crediting the advertising to “America’s Beef Producers” impermissibly uses not only their money but also their seeming endorsement to promote a message with which they do not agree. Communications cannot be “government speech,” they argue, if they are attributed to someone other than the government; and the person to whom they are attributed, when he is, by compulsory funding, made the unwilling instrument of communication, may raise a First Amendment objection.
We need not determine the validity of this argument— which relates to compelled speech rather than compelled subsidy — with regard to respondents’ facial challenge. Since neither the Beef Act nor the Beef Order requires attri-' bution, neither can be the cause of any possible First Amendment harm. The District Court’s order enjoining the enforcement of the Act and the Order thus cannot be sustained on this theory.
On some set of facts, this second theory might (again, we express no view on the point) form the basis for an as-applied challenge — if it were established, that is, that individual beef advertisements were attributed to respondents. The record, however, includes only a stipulated sampling of these promotional materials, see App. 47, and none of the exemplars provides any support for this attribution theory except for the tagline identifying the funding. Respondents apparently presented no other evidence of attribution at trial, and the District Court made no factual findings on the point. Indeed, in the only trial testimony on the subject that any party has identified, an employee of one of the respondent associations said he did not think the beef promotions would be attributed to his group. Whether the individual respondents who are beef producers would be associated with speech labeled as coming from “America’s Beef Producers” is a question on which the trial record is altogether silent. We have only the funding tagline itself, a trademarked term that, standing alone, is not sufficiently specific to convince a reasonable factfinder that any particular beef producer, or all beef producers, would be tarred with the content of each trademarked ad. We therefore conclude that on the record before us an as-applied First Amendment challenge to the individual advertisements affords no basis on which to sustain the Eighth Circuit’s judgment, even in part.
* * *
Respondents’ complaint asserted a number of other grounds for declaring the Beef Act, the Beef Order, or both invalid in their entirety. The District Court, having enjoined the Act and the Order on the basis of the First Amendment, had no occasion to address these other grounds. Respondents may now proceed on these other claims.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
In most cases, only 50 cents per head is remitted to the Beef Board, because the Beef Act and Beef Order allow domestic producers to deduct from their $1 assessment up to 50 cents in voluntary contributions to their state beef councils. 7 U. S. C. §2904(8)(C); 7 CFR § 1260.172(a)(3) (2004).
The Department of Agriculture oversees similar programs of promotional advertising, funded by checkoffs, for a number of other agricultural commodities. See 7 CFR § 1205.10 et seq. (2004) (cotton); § 1207.301 et seq. (potatoes); §1210.301 et seq. (watermelons); §1215.1 et seq. (popcorn); § 1216.1 et seq. (peanuts); § 1218.1 et seq. (blueberries); § 1219.1 et seq. (Hass avocados); §1220.101 et seq. (soybeans); §1230.1 et seq. (pork); §1240.1 et seq. (honey); § 1250.301 et seq. (eggs); § 1280.101 et seq. (lamb).
In United Foods, the Court distinguished (and the dissent relied on) Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457 (1997), which upheld the use of mandatory assessments to fund generic advertising promoting California tree fruit. In Glickman, as in United Foods, the Government did not argue that the advertising was permissible government speech. See 521 U. S., at 482, n. 2 (Souter, J., dissenting) (noting that the Government had waived any such argument). Rather, the Government contended,-and we agreed, that compelled support for generic advertising was legitimately part of the Government’s “collectivist” centralization of the market for tree fruit. Id., at 475 (opinion of the Court). Here, as in United Foods, “there is no broader regulatory system in place” that collectivizes aspects of the beef market unrelated to speech, so Glickman is not controlling. 533 U. S., at 415.
We therefore need not label the Operating Committee as “governmental” or “nongovernmental.” The entity to which assessments are remitted is the Beef Board, all of whose members are appointed by the Secretary pursuant to law. The Operating Committee’s only relevant involvement is ancillary — it designs the promotional campaigns, which the Secretary supervises and approves — and its status as a state actor thus is not directly at issue.
The principal dissent suggests that if this is so, then the Government has adopted at best a mixed message, because it also promulgates dietary guidelines that, if followed, would discourage excessive consumption of beef. Post, at 577, n. 5 (opinion of Souter, J.); see also post, at 569-570 (Ginsburg, J., concurring in judgment). Even if we agreed that the protection of the government-speech doctrine must be forfeited whenever there is inconsistency in the message, we would nonetheless accord the protection here. The beef promotions are perfectly compatible with the guidelines’ message of moderate consumption — the ads do not insist that beef is also What’s for Breakfast, Lunch, and Midnight Snack.
Congress also required a referendum among producers before permanently implementing the checkoff, and allowed the Secretary to call another referendum upon demand of a “representative group” comprising 10 percent of cattle producers. 7 U. S. C. §§ 2906(a) — (b). Even before they amended their complaint to challenge the checkoff as compelled speech, respondents were seeking in this litigation to force such a referendum. See 207 F. Supp. 2d 992, 995 (SD 2002).
The principal dissent finds some “First Amendment affront” in all compelled fiinding of government speech — and when, it says, “a targeted assessment ... makes the First Amendment affront more galling,... greater care is required to ensure that the political process can practically respond to limit the compulsion.” Post, at 576. That greater care consists, the dissent says, of a requirement that government speech funded by a targeted assessment must identify government as the speaker. Post, at 576-578. The dissent cites no prior practice, no precedent, and no authority for this highly refined elaboration — not even anyone who has ever before thought of it. It is more than we think can be found within “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech.” Of course, nothing in the Beef Act or Beef Order prevents the Government from identifying itself as sponsor of the ads — much less requires concealment of the ads’ provenance — so even if it were correct, this theory would not sustain the judgment below, which altogether enjoined the Act and the Order. But the correct focus is not on whether the ads’ audience realizes the Government is speaking, but on the compelled assessment’s purported interference with respondents’ First Amendment rights. As we hold today, respondents enjoy no right not to fund government speech — whether by broad-based taxes or targeted assessments, and whether or not the reasonable viewer would identify the speech as the government’s. If a viewer would identify the speech as respondents’, however, the analysis would be different. See infra this page and 565-567, and n. 8.
The principal dissent conflates the two concepts into something it describes as citizens’ “presumptive autonomy as speakers to decide what to say and what to pay for others to say.” Post, at 576. As we discuss in the text, there might be a valid objection if “those singled out to pay the tax are closely linked with the expression” (post, at 575-576) in a way that makes them appear to endorse the government message. But this compelled-speech argument (like the Wooley and Barnette opinions on which it draws) differs substantively from the compelled-subsidy analysis. The latter invalidates an exaction not because being forced to pay for speech that is unattributed violates personal autonomy, but because being forced to fund someone else’s private speech unconnected to any legitimate government purpose violates personal autonomy. Supra, at 557-558 (discussing Keller and Abood). Such a violation does not occur when the exaction funds government speech. Apportioning the burden of funding government operations (including speech) through taxes and other levies does not violate autonomy simply because individual taxpayers feel “singled out” or find the exaction “galling,” post, at 575-576, and n. 4.
An employee of respondent Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) testified as follows:
“Q When someone would see an ad that says, ‘Beef, it’s what’s for dinner,’ do you believe anyone looks at that ad and says that message is coming from WORC?
“A I don’t think so.
“Q . .'. [D]o you have any basis to actually believe that any of these messages promoted by the Cattlemen’s Beef Board are attributed to WORC as an organization?
“A No, I don’t think so.” Tr. 46-47 (Jan. 14, 2002). .
The phrase “America’s Beef Producers” has apparently been trademarked by the Board since 1999, see http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr? regser=registration&entry=2352917 (as visited May 20,2005, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file), and some promotional materials are attributed to “America’s Beef ProducersSM.” Other promotional materials in the record, however, bear other attributions (such as a notice identifying the Beef Board as the copyright holder, or the apparently untrademarked phrase “Funded by America’s Veal Producers through the Beef Checkoff”). App. 52.
“America’s Beef Producers” might be thought more plausibly to refer to a particular organization of beef producers, and such an organization might have a valid First Amendment objection if the ads’ message were incorrectly attributed to it. Cf. Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 572-573 (1995). But neither of the respondent groups claims that it would be mistaken for “America’s Beef Producers,” see n. 9, supra, and none of the individual respondents claims to be injured because of his membership in an organization. Rather, respondents claim that “America’s Beef Producers” is precise enough to identify the speech as coming from Robert Thullner, John Smith, Ernie Mertz, and the other respondents who are American beef producers. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases. | What is the ideological direction of the decision? | [
"Conservative",
"Liberal",
"Unspecifiable"
] | [
0
] | sc_decisiondirection |
OHIO ex rel. EATON v. PRICE, CHIEF OF POLICE.
No. 30.
Argued April 19, 1960.
Decided June 27, 1960.
Greene Chandler Furman and Elbert E. Blakely argued the cause for appellant. With them on the briefs were Stanley Denlinger and Stanley Robinson, Jr.
Charles S. Rhyne and Joseph P. Duffy argued the cause for appellee. With them on the briefs was S. White Rhyne, Jr.
Roger Amebergh, Alexander G. Brown, Claude V. Jones, Henry P. Kucera, John C. Melaniphy, David Stahl and Harrison L. Winter filed a brief for the Member Municipalities of the National Institute of Municipal Law Officers, as amici curiae, urging affirmance.
Per Curiam.
The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
Mr. Justice Stewart took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Mr. Justice Brennan, with whom The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Black, and Mr. Justice Douglas join.
The judgment of the Ohio Supreme Court in this case is being affirmed ex necessitate, by an equally divided Court. Four of the Justices participating are of opinion that the judgment should be affirmed, while we four think it should be reversed. Accordingly, the judgment is without force as precedent. The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66, 126; Etting v. Bank of the United, States, 11 Wheat. 59, 78. In such circumstances, as those leading cases indicate, the usual practice is not to express any opinion, for such an expression is unnecessary where nothing is settled. But in this case, even before the cause was argued, four Justices made public record of their votes to affirm the judgment, and their basis therefor. 360 U. S. 246, 248-249. These four Justices stated that they were “of the view that this case is controlled by, and should be affirmed on the authority of, Frank v. Maryland, 359 U. S. 360.” Their opinion further states that they deemed “the decision in the Maryland case to be completely controlling upon the Ohio decision.” In a longer opinion, one of the four Justices developed his views on the merits further. 360 U. S., at 249-250. The usual practice of not expressing opinions upon an equal division has the salutary force of preventing the identification of the Justices holding the differing views as to the issue, and this may well enable the next case presenting it to be approached with less commitment. But the action we have described prevents this from being the case here; and so the reason for the usual practice is not applicable. Accordingly, since argument has been had, and votes on the merits are now in order, we express our opinion.
This case involves Earl Taylor, who is in his sixties and has been working at his trade of plumber for 40 years, and the home at 130 Henry Street, in Dayton, Ohio, which he and his wife bought and in which they have lived for over a decade. He describes it as a little cottage, all in one floor, with a front room, a middle room, two bedrooms, a dining room and a little utility room, and a bathroom and a little kitchen at the back. What was evidently Taylor’s first involvement with the criminal law occurred in this fashion. One day three men who were housing inspectors came to his door, and said they wanted to come into the house and go through the house and inspect the inside of the house. They had no credentials, only a sheet of yellow note paper, and Taylor said to them, “You have nothing to show me you have got a right to go through my house.” The response was, “We don’t have to have, according to the law passed four years ago.” Replied Taylor, “That don’t show me that you got anything in there that you want for inspection, and, further, I don’t have nothing in my house that has to be inspected.” The man said, “Well, you know, according to this ordinance, that we got a right to go through your house and inspect your house.” “No, I don’t think you have, unless you got a search warrant,” answered Taylor. This has been his position ever since, and it is the issue that divides us.
The men went away, but later there was a second attempt to gain access to Taylor’s house, and a telephone call to the same end. Taylor said, “I don’t see what right that you got coming into my house. Until you show me in writing, or some kind of facts, that you got a right to come into my house and inspect the house, I will not let you in.” The third time the men came, there were two of them. One had some sort of credential with a photograph on it. Neither had a warrant of any kind. One said the housing inspector wanted to inspect Taylor’s house. Taylor said, “What do you have in there that you want to inspect? I have nothing in my house for inspection.” He was told: “We have a right to come in your house, go through your house, inspect the whole inside of your house.” Taylor’s reaction to this was: “You have nothing wrote down on paper. You don’t have a thing to show me you are going to come in there to inspect anything, and as far as that goes you aren’t coming in unless you have a search warrant to get in.” The men never came back, with a search warrant, but as they left, one said, “If you ain’t going to let us in, we are entitled to get in, and if you don’t let us in, I am going to leave it up to the Prosecutor.” Whereupon Taylor said: “I don’t care what you do. You aren’t coming in.” Taylor later testified that then the man “walked over and got in his car and that was the end of it.”
But it was not. Taylor and his wife each received through the mail a registered letter from the city prosecutor, notifying them to appear at his office to answer a complaint against them. They did not appear; whereupon the police came to Taylor’s home, and finally served him with a warrant — a warrant to appear in court to answer criminal charges brought against him for failing to admit the inspectors to his home. He appeared in court and was held for trial; and not being then able to make bond of $1,000, he was committed to jail, to await trial on the charges, which could have resulted in a fine of $200 and an incarceration of 30 days for each day’s recalcitrance. One Eaton, an attorney, filed a petition for habeas corpus on Taylor’s behalf in the State Common Pleas Court. The Common Pleas Court found the ordinance unconstitutional, and discharged Taylor from custody; but the Court of Appeals reversed, 105 Ohio App. 376, 152 N. E. 2d 776, and its judgment was upheld by the Ohio Supreme Court. 168 Ohio St. 123, 151 N. E. 2d 523. We noted probable jurisdiction. 360 U. S. 246.
The municipal ordinance in question provides numerous requirements for dwellings, deemed by the city to be appropriate in the interests of the public health, safety and comfort. Several of the requirements apply to private dwelling houses, such as the Taylors’. None of these requirements is at all questioned here. What is questioned is the ordinance provision, Code of General Ordinances § 806-30, authorizing the Housing Inspector to enter at any reasonable hour any dwelling whatsoever, and commanding the owner or occupant to give him free access at any reasonable hour for the purpose of his inspection. It was armed with the naked authority of this provision, and not with any warrant (the ordinance provides for none) that the inspectors approached Taylor’s door, even after he had made clear to them his intent not to admit them on this basis. Neither before a magistrate empowered to issue warrants, nor in this proceeding, have the inspectors offered any justification for their entry. They have not shown any probable cause or grounds to believe that a proscribed condition existed within the cottage, or even that they had suspicion or complaint thereof. They have not shown that they desired to make the inspection in pursuance of a regular, routinized spot check of individual homes, or in pursuance of a planned blanket check of all the homes in a particular neighborhood, or the like. These might be said to be the usual reasons which would impel inspectors to seek to gain admittance to a private dwelling; but none of them is shown by the record to have been present. Most significantly, on the initial recalcitrance of Taylor, the inspectors were not required to, and did not, repair before any independent magistrate to demonstrate to him their reasons for wanting to gain access to Taylor’s cottage, and to obtain his warrant for their entry — the authorization on which Taylor was insisting. The judgment below is, on this record, bottomed on the proposition that the inspectors have the right to enter a private dwelling, and the householder can be bound under criminal penalties to admit them, though there is demonstration neither of reason to believe there exists an improper condition within the dwelling, nor of the existence of any plan of inspection, apart from such a belief, which would include the inspection of the dwelling in question. We think that affirmance of this judgment would reduce the protection of the householder “against unreasonable searches” to the vanishing point.
In support of the judgment below, much reliance at the bar has been put on Frank v. Maryland, 359 U. S. 360. We would not be candid to say that on its own facts we have become reconciled to that judgment. To us, it remains “the dubious pronouncement of a gravely divided Court.” Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1, 24 (concurring opinion). “A single decision by a closely divided court, unsupported by the confirmation of time, cannot check” the course of constitutional adjudication here. See Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 89 (concurring opinion). We continue to agree with Judge Prettyman in District of Columbia v. Little, 85 U. S. App. D. C. 242, 246, 178 F. 2d 13, 17, aff’d on other grounds, 339 U. S. 1, that: “To say that a man suspected of crime has a right to protection against search of his home without a warrant, but that a man not suspected of crime has no such protection, is a fantastic absurdity.” Nothing demonstrated in the Frank case indicates otherwise to us. But the present case goes much further than Frank; and as to the reasonableness of searches, it has been stressed that factual differences may weigh heavily. Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344, 357. The search in Frank was for the nesting place of rats. There were ample grounds on the part of the inspecting officer to believe its existence in the house. There had been complaint of rats in the neighborhood; and an external inspection of the house in question revealed that it was “in an 'extreme state of decay’ ” and that behind it there was a pile of “rodent feces mixed with straw and trash and debris to approximately half a ton.” See 359 U. S., at 361. The case was decided by the narrowest of divisions; and one member of the majority found it necessary to express in a concurring opinion that the sole purpose of the search was an attempt “to locate the habitat of disease-carrying rodents known to be somewhere in the immediate area.” 359 U. S., at 373 (concurring opinion). There was no case of a “systematic area-by-area search” before the Court, and although certain remarks were made as applicable to such a search, 359 U. S., at 372, their character as dicta is patent. Thus, even accepting the judgment in Frank, of such expressions the classic language of Justice Brandéis, dissenting in Jaybird Mining Co. v. Weir, 271 U. S. 609, 619, can be said again: “It is a peculiar virtue of our system of law that the process of inclusion and exclusion, so often employed in developing a rule, is not allowed to end with its enunciation and that an expression in an opinion yields later to the impact of facts unforeseen.”
In this case we pass beyond the situation in Frank, where the inspector was looking for a specific violation, and where he had, and was able to demonstrate, considerable grounds to believe it existed in Frank’s house. Here it would appear from Taylor’s testimony that, even without a warrant, if a specific matter was cited to him by the inspector, he would have permitted the inspection in that regard. On the contrary, Frank’s denial of access was described as based on “a rarely voiced denial of any official justification for seeking to enter his home.” 359 U. S., at 366. There then was a specific demand for inspection, met by a refusal on the broadest of grounds. Here we have the most general of demands, supported by no particularized justification, either directed at the conditions in Taylor’s cottage, or in terms of some over-all systematic plan which would include it. This is met not by an attitude of defiance, but by a request by the householder that a specific authorization be furnished him. Not a search warrant, but a criminal complaint is the upshot. We would grossly tone down the protections afforded the householder by the Constitution were we to put an authoritative sanction on the judgment that condemns his refusal.
Much argument is made of the need of the authorities to perform inspections on a “spot check” or on an area-by-area basis. The judgment below cannot be said to present this problem, because there was no evidence that this in fact was what was being done; that the inspectors in fact were proceeding according to a reasonable plan of one sort or another. For all that appears here, the inspectors could have been acting in accordance with no particular plan of spot checks or area-by-area searches which could be justified as “reasonable,” and which would give probable cause for entry; their action could have been based on caprice or on personal or political spite. It hardly contradicts experience to suggest that the practical administration of local government in this country can be infected with such motives. Building inspection ordinances can lend themselves readily to such abuse. We do not at all say this to be the case here, and Taylor has made no proof of it, to be sure; but that simply points up the issue. The inspectors have not been required to make any justification for their entry. The judgment below upholds the charges as sufficient, based on a demand for entry without any such justification.
But if we were to assume that the inspectors were proceeding according to a plan, and even if evidence of the plan were put in at the trial, we think that the result should be the same. The time to make such justification is not in the criminal proceeding, after the householder has acted at his peril in denying access. The time to make it is in advance of prosecution, and the place is before a magistrate empowered to issue warrants, which will put the seal of legitimacy — the seal the Constitution specifically provides for — on the demand of the inspector, if indeed it is a reasonable one. Such a warrant need not be sought except where the householder does not consent. This is precisely the procedure followed by England in this particular area, see Public Health Act, 1936, 26 Geo. 5, & 1 Edw. 8, c. 49, § 287 (2); and no complaint is heard that this stultifies enforcement there of the regulation of the public health and safety. Certainly with this procedure available — the procedure of antecedent justification before a magistrate that is central to the Fourth Amendment, see McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 455-456—there is no need to be satisfied with lesser standards in this area. Cf. Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S. 349. The public interest in the cleanliness and adequacy of the dwellings of the people is great. So too is the public interest that the tools of counterfeiting and the paraphernalia of the illicit narcotics traffic not remain active. On an adequate and appropriate showing in particular cases, the privacy of the home must bow before these interests of the public. But none of these interests provides an open sesame to those who enforce them. The Fourth Amendment’s procedure establishes the way in which these general public interests are to be brought into specific focus to require the individual householder to open his door.
It has been suggested that if the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of a search warrant is acknowledged to be applicable here, the result will be a general watering-down of the standards for the issuance of search warrants. For it is said that since it is agreed that a warrant for a health and safety inspection can be made on a showing quite different in kind from that which would, for example, justify a search for narcotics, magistrates will become lax generally in issuing warrants. The suggested preventive for this laxity is a drastic one: dispense with warrants for these inspections. We cannot believe that here it is necessary thus to burn down the house to roast the pig. To be sure, the showing that will justify a housing inspection to check compliance with health and safety regulations is different from that which would justify a search for narcotics. But we should not assume that magistrates will become so obtuse as not to bear this in mind. Search warrants to look for counterfeiting equipment, for example, are not issued on a showing of probable cause to believe the existence of an untaxed still. To each specific warrant, an appropriate specific showing is necessary. This can scarcely be thought to tax the capacities of the magistrate. And of course where the rule prevails that evidence obtained in violation of the constitutional guarantee is not admissible, there will be judicial review of the magistrate’s action if the fruits of a search are tendered in evidence.
Apart from the very significant factual distinctions presented by this case from the Frank case, there is another reason why we would reverse the judgment here. It has now become clear that the Frank decision may have turned in substantial part on the positing of a distinction between the affirmative guaranty of privacy against official incursion raised by the Fourth Amendment against federal action, and that raised by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth against state action. The concurring opinion of one of the majority in that sharply divided decision indicates some concern in that respect. 359 U. S., at 373. After the greatest consideration, this Court in Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 27-28, declared: “The security of one’s privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police — which is at the core of the Fourth Amendment— is basic to a free society. It is therefore implicit in 'the concept of ordered liberty’ and as such enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause.” It is now clear that part of the majority of the Court in the Frank case does not subscribe to the clear import of that statement. Elkins v. United States, ante, pp. 206, 237-240 (dissenting opinion). But the Wolf statement continues to be the ruling doctrine in this Court. Elkins v. United States, ante, p. 206. The guarantees are of the same dimension, matters of enforcement, such as the exclusionary rule, aside.
The classic debate on the import of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause as to the applicability of the Bill of Rights to the States, we submit, does not even involve the theory that the matter is one for the judges to solve on an ad hoc .basis, according to their overall reaction to particular cases. Some of us have expressed the conviction that the preferable view of the Fourteenth Amendment is that it makes the guarantees of the Bill of Rights generally enforceable against the States. See Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 68 (dissenting opinion) . But to them, as well as to us, who have neither accepted nor rejected that view, it is clear that the celebrated passage of Justice Cardozo's opinion in Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 323-325, can have no common ground with the view of the Wolf case that a minority of the Court now expounds. And see Adamson v. California, supra, at 85-86, 89 (dissenting opinion). For the Palko opinion refers to “a process of absorption,” 302 U. S., at 326, of specific Bill of Rights guarantees in the Fourteenth Amendment’s standard. It is not a license to the judiciary to administer a watered-down, subjective version of the individual guarantees of the Bill of Rights when state cases come before us. To be sure, the contrary view has been urged, occasionally with success; the right to counsel was put on an ad hoc basis, Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455, despite what seems the clear implication to the contrary in Palko, 302 U. S., at 324; and recently the surprising suggestion has even been made (never by the Court) that the freedom of speech and of the press may be secured by the Fourteenth Amendment with less vigor than it is secured by the First. See Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U. S. 250, 288 (dissenting opinion); Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 505-506 (separate opinion); Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 169 (separate opinion).
In Elkins today we have rejected such a- view of the affirmative guarantees of the Fourth Amendment. The opinion of the Court in Frank is very likely a product of such a rejected approach. For that reason, even if it were on all fours with the present case, it should not be followed, and the judgment below should be reversed.
Expressions of views, despite equal divisions, have been made before where there was a question whether one fact situation was to be distinguished from a related one on which a majority of the Court had rendered an opinion. Raley v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 423, 440-442, 442-445. The question whether this case is to be distinguished from Frank presents an analogy to this.
The reference is apparently to the ordinance around which this case turns. Section 806-30 (a) of the Dayton, Ohio, Code of General Ordinances provides:
“The Housing Inspector is hereby authorized and directed to make inspections to determine the condition of dwellings, dwelling units, rooming houses, rooming units and premises located within the City of Dayton in order that he may perform his duty of safeguarding the health and safety of the occupants of dwellings and of the general public. For the purpose of making such inspections and upon showing appropriate identification the Housing Inspector is hereby authorized to enter, examine and survey at any reasonable hour all dwellings, dwelling units, rooming houses, rooming units, and premises. The owner or occupant of every dwelling, dwelling unit, rooming house, and rooming unit or the person in charge thereof, shall give the Housing Inspector free access to such dwelling, dwelling unit, rooming house or rooming unit and its premises at any reasonable hour for the purpose of such inspection, examination and survey.”
This command is backed by the penalty that “Any person who shall violate any provision of this ordinance shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not less than twenty dollars ($20.00) nor more than two hundred dollars ($200) or by imprisonment of not less than two (2) days nor more than thirty (30) days, or both, and each day of failure to comply with any such provision shall constitute a separate violation.” § 806-83.
Evidently habeas corpus lies in Ohio to test the constitutionality of the ordinance under which one .is being held through charges pending in a court of inferior jurisdiction, as all the. state courts proceeded to pass on the merits of the claims of the relator Eaton, appellant here, that the ordinance under which the charges were brought infringed Taylor’s constitutional rights. Accordingly we may now review that determination on the merits, the habeas corpus proceeding, independent of the criminal prosecution itself, having proceeded to a final judgment. New York ex rel. Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U. S. 63, 70.
Those desiring to make the inspection did not so testify; and such a planned blanket check, or its nature, is hardly inferable from Taylor’s statement that “they had been going up and down there, door-to-door, looking through everybody’s houses”; his statement being the only thing resembling evidence on the point.
See Frank v. Maryland, supra, at 383 (dissenting opinion).
The procedure cited is that prescribed by statute in the case of health inspections under the Public Health Act. There are other statutes providing for other inspections, an English commentator points out, which do not contain this safeguard. See Waters, Rights of Entry in Administrative Officers, 27 U. of Chi. L. Rev. 79, 85. Accordingly, “the private occupier is faced with a bewildering number of persons claiming a variety of rights.” Id,., at 83. The author is in favor of the Public Health Act procedure, and regrets that “the consistent application to good works is yet lacking.” “The object should be the creation of warrant provisions in a statutory code of powers of entry, guaranteeing to the individual thereby the impartial, if rarely invoked, judgment by magistrates of the fairness and legality of any attempted entry.” Id., at 93.
See Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383.
“We reach a different plane of social and moral values when we pass to the privileges and immunities that have been taken over from the earlier articles of the federal bill of rights and brought within the Fourteenth Amendment by a process of absorption. These in their origin were effective against the federal government alone. If the Fourteenth Amendment has absorbed them, the process of absorption has had its source in the belief that neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed. . . . This is true, for illustration, of freedom of thought, and speech. Of that freedom one may say that it is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom. . . .” 302 U. S., at 326-327.
Contrast the statement in Palko, 302 U. S., at 324. For the latest of many reiterations of the settled doctrine that the First Amendment's guarantees obtain against the States, see Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 149-150; Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 522-523. See Staub v. Baxley, 355 U. S. 313, 321. For a collection of many of the cases to this effect, see Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 530 (concurring opinion). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state associated with the respondent. If the respondent is a federal court or federal judge, note the "state" as the United States. The same holds for other federal employees or officials. | What state is associated with the respondent? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
40
] | sc_respondentstate |
SEILA LAW LLC, Petitioner
v.
CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU
No. 19-7
Supreme Court of the United States.
Argued March 3, 2020
Decided June 29, 2020
Mr. Kannon K. Shanmugam, for Petitioner.
Mr. Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco for the respondent supporting vacatur, by Mr. Paul D. Clement, appointed by this Court, as amicus curiae in support of the judgment below, and by Mr. Douglas N. Letter for the United States House of Representatives as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court
Thomas H. Bienert, Jr., Anthony Bisconti, Bienert Katzman PC, 903 Calle Amanecer, Suite 350, San Clemente, CA, Melina M. Meneguin Layerenza, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind,, Wharton & Garrison LLP, 1285 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, Kannon K. Shanmugam, Masha G. Hansford, William T. Marks, Joel S. Johnson, Laura E. Cox, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, 2001 K Street, N.W., Washington, DC, for Petitioner.
Noel J. Francisco, Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III.
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Congress established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an independent regulatory agency tasked with ensuring that consumer debt products are safe and transparent. In organizing the CFPB, Congress deviated from the structure of nearly every other independent administrative agency in our history. Instead of placing the agency under the leadership of a board with multiple members, Congress provided that the CFPB would be led by a single Director, who serves for a longer term than the President and cannot be removed by the President except for inefficiency, neglect, or malfeasance. The CFPB Director has no boss, peers, or voters to report to. Yet the Director wields vast rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudicatory authority over a significant portion of the U. S. economy. The question before us is whether this arrangement violates the Constitution's separation of powers.
Under our Constitution, the "executive Power"-all of it-is "vested in a President," who must "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Art. II, § 1, cl. 1 ; id. , § 3. Because no single person could fulfill that responsibility alone, the Framers expected that the President would rely on subordinate officers for assistance. Ten years ago, in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd. , 561 U.S. 477, 130 S.Ct. 3138, 177 L.Ed.2d 706 (2010), we reiterated that, "as a general matter," the Constitution gives the President "the authority to remove those who assist him in carrying out his duties," id. , at 513-514, 130 S.Ct. 3138. "Without such power, the President could not be held fully accountable for discharging his own responsibilities; the buck would stop somewhere else." Id. , at 514, 130 S.Ct. 3138.
The President's power to remove-and thus supervise-those who wield executive power on his behalf follows from the text of Article II, was settled by the First Congress, and was confirmed in the landmark decision Myers v. United States , 272 U.S. 52, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926). Our precedents have recognized only two exceptions to the President's unrestricted removal power. In Humphrey's Executor v. United States , 295 U.S. 602, 55 S.Ct. 869, 79 L.Ed. 1611 (1935), we held that Congress could create expert agencies led by a group of principal officers removable by the President only for good cause. And in United States v. Perkins , 116 U.S. 483, 6 S.Ct. 449, 29 L.Ed. 700 (1886), and Morrison v. Olson , 487 U.S. 654, 108 S.Ct. 2597, 101 L.Ed.2d 569 (1988), we held that Congress could provide tenure protections to certain inferior officers with narrowly defined duties.
We are now asked to extend these precedents to a new configuration: an independent agency that wields significant executive power and is run by a single individual who cannot be removed by the President unless certain statutory criteria are met. We decline to take that step. While we need not and do not revisit our prior decisions allowing certain limitations on the President's removal power, there are compelling reasons not to extend those precedents to the novel context of an independent agency led by a single Director. Such an agency lacks a foundation in historical practice and clashes with constitutional structure by concentrating power in a unilateral actor insulated from Presidential control.
We therefore hold that the structure of the CFPB violates the separation of powers. We go on to hold that the CFPB Director's removal protection is severable from the other statutory provisions bearing on the CFPB's authority. The agency may therefore continue to operate, but its Director, in light of our decision, must be removable by the President at will.
I
A
In the summer of 2007, then-Professor Elizabeth Warren called for the creation of a new, independent federal agency focused on regulating consumer financial products. Warren, Unsafe at Any Rate, Democracy (Summer 2007). Professor Warren believed the financial products marketed to ordinary American households-credit cards, student loans, mortgages, and the like-had grown increasingly unsafe due to a "regulatory jumble" that paid too much attention to banks and too little to consumers. Ibid. To remedy the lack of "coherent, consumer-oriented" financial regulation, she proposed "concentrat[ing] the review of financial products in a single location"-an independent agency modeled after the multimember Consumer Product Safety Commission. Ibid.
That proposal soon met its moment. Within months of Professor Warren's writing, the subprime mortgage market collapsed, precipitating a financial crisis that wiped out over $10 trillion in American household wealth and cost millions of Americans their jobs, their retirements, and their homes. In the aftermath, the Obama administration embraced Professor Warren's recommendation. Through the Treasury Department, the administration encouraged Congress to establish an agency with a mandate to ensure that "consumer protection regulations" in the financial sector "are written fairly and enforced vigorously." Dept. of Treasury, Financial Regulatory Reform: A New Foundation 55 (2009). Like Professor Warren, the administration envisioned a traditional independent agency, run by a multimember board with a "diverse set of viewpoints and experiences." Id. , at 58.
In 2010, Congress acted on these proposals and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as an independent financial regulator within the Federal Reserve System. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), 124 Stat. 1376. Congress tasked the CFPB with "implement[ing]" and "enforc[ing]" a large body of financial consumer protection laws to "ensur[e] that all consumers have access to markets for consumer financial products and services and that markets for consumer financial products and services are fair, transparent, and competitive." 12 U. S. C. § 5511(a). Congress transferred the administration of 18 existing federal statutes to the CFPB, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and the Truth in Lending Act. See §§ 5512(a), 5481(12), (14). In addition, Congress enacted a new prohibition on "any unfair, deceptive, or abusive act or practice" by certain participants in the consumer-finance sector. § 5536(a)(1)(B). Congress authorized the CFPB to implement that broad standard (and the 18 pre-existing statutes placed under the agency's purview) through binding regulations. §§ 5531(a)-(b), 5581(a)(1)(A), (b).
Congress also vested the CFPB with potent enforcement powers. The agency has the authority to conduct investigations, issue subpoenas and civil investigative demands, initiate administrative adjudications, and prosecute civil actions in federal court. §§ 5562, 5564(a), (f). To remedy violations of federal consumer financial law, the CFPB may seek restitution, disgorgement, and injunctive relief, as well as civil penalties of up to $1,000,000 (inflation adjusted) for each day that a violation occurs. §§ 5565(a), (c)(2); 12 CFR § 1083.1(a), Table (2019). Since its inception, the CFPB has obtained over $11 billion in relief for over 25 million consumers, including a $1 billion penalty against a single bank in 2018. See CFPB, Financial Report of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Fiscal Year 2015, p. 3; CFPB, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Announces Settlement With Wells Fargo for Auto-Loan Administration and Mortgage Practices (Apr. 20, 2018).
The CFPB's rulemaking and enforcement powers are coupled with extensive adjudicatory authority. The agency may conduct administrative proceedings to "ensure or enforce compliance with" the statutes and regulations it administers. 12 U. S. C. § 5563(a). When the CFPB acts as an adjudicator, it has "jurisdiction to grant any appropriate legal or equitable relief." § 5565(a)(1). The "hearing officer" who presides over the proceedings may issue subpoenas, order depositions, and resolve any motions filed by the parties. 12 CFR § 1081.104(b). At the close of the proceedings, the hearing officer issues a "recommended decision," and the CFPB Director considers that recommendation and "issue[s] a final decision and order." §§ 1081.400(d), 1081.402(b); see also § 1081.405.
Congress's design for the CFPB differed from the proposals of Professor Warren and the Obama administration in one critical respect. Rather than create a traditional independent agency headed by a multimember board or commission, Congress elected to place the CFPB under the leadership of a single Director. 12 U. S. C. § 5491(b)(1). The CFPB Director is appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. § 5491(b)(2). The Director serves for a term of five years, during which the President may remove the Director from office only for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." §§ 5491(c)(1), (3).
Unlike most other agencies, the CFPB does not rely on the annual appropriations process for funding. Instead, the CFPB receives funding directly from the Federal Reserve, which is itself funded outside the appropriations process through bank assessments. Each year, the CFPB requests an amount that the Director deems "reasonably necessary to carry out" the agency's duties, and the Federal Reserve grants that request so long as it does not exceed 12% of the total operating expenses of the Federal Reserve (inflation adjusted). §§ 5497(a)(1), (2)(A)(iii), 2(B). In recent years, the CFPB's annual budget has exceeded half a billion dollars. See CFPB, Fiscal Year 2019: Ann. Performance Plan and Rep., p. 7.
B
Seila Law LLC is a California-based law firm that provides debt-related legal services to clients. In 2017, the CFPB issued a civil investigative demand to Seila Law to determine whether the firm had "engag[ed] in unlawful acts or practices in the advertising, marketing, or sale of debt relief services." 2017 WL 6536586, *1 (C.D. Cal., Aug. 25, 2017). See also 12 U. S. C. § 5562(c)(1) (authorizing the agency to issue such demands to persons who "may have any information[ ] relevant to a violation" of one of the laws enforced by the CFPB). The demand (essentially a subpoena) directed Seila Law to produce information and documents related to its business practices.
Seila Law asked the CFPB to set aside the demand, objecting that the agency's leadership by a single Director removable only for cause violated the separation of powers. The CFPB declined to address that claim and directed Seila Law to comply with the demand.
When Seila Law refused, the CFPB filed a petition to enforce the demand in the District Court. See § 5562(e)(1) (creating cause of action for that purpose). In response, Seila Law renewed its defense that the demand was invalid and must be set aside because the CFPB's structure violated the Constitution. The District Court disagreed and ordered Seila Law to comply with the demand (with one modification not relevant here).
The Court of Appeals affirmed. 923 F.3d 680 (C.A.9 2019). The Court observed that the "arguments for and against" the constitutionality of the CFPB's structure had already been "thoroughly canvassed" in majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions by the en banc Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in PHH Corp. v. CFPB , 881 F.3d 75 (2018), which had rejected a challenge similar to the one presented here. 923 F.3d at 682. The Court saw "no need to re-plow the same ground." Ibid. Instead, it provided a brief explanation for why it agreed with the PHH Court's core holding. The Court took as its starting point Humphrey's Executor , which had approved for-cause removal protection for the Commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In applying that precedent, the Court recognized that the CFPB wields "substantially more executive power than the FTC did back in 1935" and that the CFPB's leadership by a single Director (as opposed to a multimember commission) presented a "structural difference" that some jurists had found "dispositive." 923 F.3d at 683-684. But the Court felt bound to disregard those differences in light of our decision in Morrison , which permitted a single individual (an independent counsel) to exercise a core executive power (prosecuting criminal offenses) despite being insulated from removal except for cause. Because the Court found Humphrey's Executor and Morrison "controlling," it affirmed the District Court's order requiring compliance with the demand. 923 F.3d at 684.
We granted certiorari to address the constitutionality of the CFPB's structure. 589 U. S. ----, 140 S.Ct. 427, 205 L.Ed.2d 244 (2019). We also requested argument on an additional question: whether, if the CFPB's structure violates the separation of powers, the CFPB Director's removal protection can be severed from the rest of the Dodd-Frank Act.
Because the Government agrees with petitioner on the merits of the constitutional question, we appointed Paul Clement to defend the judgment below as amicus curiae . He has ably discharged his responsibilities.
II
We first consider three threshold arguments raised by the appointed amicus for why we may not or should not reach the merits. Each is unavailing.
First, amicus argues that the demand issued to petitioner is not "traceable" to the alleged constitutional defect because two of the three Directors who have in turn played a role in enforcing the demand were (or now consider themselves to be) removable by the President at will. Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 21-24. Amicus highlights the Government's argument below that the demand, originally issued by former Director Richard Cordray, had been ratified by an acting CFPB Director who, according to the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), was removable by the President at will. See Brief for Appellee in No. 17-56324 (CA9), pp. 1, 10, 13-19 (citing Designating an Acting Director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, 41 Op. OLC ----, ---- (Nov. 25, 2017)). Amicus further observes that current CFPB Director Kathleen Kraninger, now responsible for enforcing the demand, agrees with the Solicitor General's position in this case that her for-cause removal protection is unconstitutional. See Brief for Respondent on Pet. for Cert. 20; Letter from K. Kraninger, CFPB Director, to M. McConnell, Majority Leader, U. S. Senate, p. 2 (Sept. 17, 2019); Letter from K. Kraninger, CFPB Director, to N. Pelosi, Speaker, U. S. House of Representatives, p. 2 (Sept. 17, 2019). In amicus ' view, these developments reveal that the demand would have been issued-and would continue to be enforced-even in the absence of the CFPB Director's removal protection, making the asserted separation of powers dispute "artificial." Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 22.
Even if that were true, it would not deprive us of jurisdiction. Amicus ' traceability argument appears to challenge petitioner's Article III standing. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (explaining that the plaintiff 's injury must be "fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant" (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)). But amicus ' argument does not cast any doubt on the jurisdiction of the District Court because petitioner is the defendant and did not invoke the Court's jurisdiction. See Bond v. United States , 564 U.S. 211, 217, 131 S.Ct. 2355, 180 L.Ed.2d 269 (2011) (When the plaintiff has standing, " Article III does not restrict the opposing party's ability to object to relief being sought at its expense.").
It is true that "standing must be met by persons seeking appellate review, just as it must be met by persons appearing in courts of first instance."
Hollingsworth v. Perry , 570 U.S. 693, 705, 133 S.Ct. 2652, 186 L.Ed.2d 768 (2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). But petitioner's appellate standing is beyond dispute. Petitioner is compelled to comply with the civil investigative demand and to provide documents it would prefer to withhold, a concrete injury. That injury is traceable to the decision below and would be fully redressed if we were to reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand with instructions to deny the Government's petition to enforce the demand.
Without engaging with these principles, amicus contends that a litigant wishing to challenge an executive act on the basis of the President's removal power must show that the challenged act would not have been taken if the responsible official had been subject to the President's control. See Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 21-24. Our precedents say otherwise. We have held that a litigant challenging governmental action as void on the basis of the separation of powers is not required to prove that the Government's course of conduct would have been different in a "counterfactual world" in which the Government had acted with constitutional authority. Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 512, n. 12, 130 S.Ct. 3138. In the specific context of the President's removal power, we have found it sufficient that the challenger "sustain[s] injury" from an executive act that allegedly exceeds the official's authority. Bowsher v. Synar , 478 U.S. 714, 721, 106 S.Ct. 3181, 92 L.Ed.2d 583 (1986).
Second, amicus contends that the proper context for assessing the constitutionality of an officer's removal restriction is a contested removal. See Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 24-27. While that is certainly one way to review a removal restriction, it is not the only way. Our precedents have long permitted private parties aggrieved by an official's exercise of executive power to challenge the official's authority to wield that power while insulated from removal by the President. See Bowsher , 478 U.S., at 721, 106 S.Ct. 3181 (lawsuit filed by aggrieved third party in the absence of contested removal); Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 487, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (same); Morrison , 487 U.S., at 668-669, 108 S.Ct. 2597 (defense to subpoena asserted by third party in the absence of contested removal). Indeed, we have expressly "reject[ed]" the "argument that consideration of the effect of a removal provision is not 'ripe' until that provision is actually used," because when such a provision violates the separation of powers it inflicts a "here-and-now" injury on affected third parties that can be remedied by a court. Bowsher , 478 U.S., at 727, n. 5, 106 S.Ct. 3181 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court of Appeals therefore correctly entertained petitioner's constitutional defense on the merits.
Lastly, amicus contends that we should dismiss the case because the parties agree on the merits of the constitutional question and the case therefore lacks "adverseness." Tr. of Oral Arg. 42-43, 45-46. That contention, however, is foreclosed by United States v. Windsor , 570 U.S. 744, 133 S.Ct. 2675, 186 L.Ed.2d 808 (2013). There, we explained that a lower court order that presents real-world consequences for the Government and its adversary suffices to support Article III jurisdiction-even if "the Executive may welcome" an adverse order that "is accompanied by the constitutional ruling it wants." Id. , at 758, 133 S.Ct. 2675. Here, petitioner and the Government disagree about whether petitioner must comply with the civil investigative demand. The lower courts sided with the Government, and the Government has not volunteered to relinquish that victory and withdraw the demand. To the contrary, while the Government agrees that the agency is unconstitutionally structured, it believes it may nevertheless enforce the demand on remand. See infra , at 2207 - 2208. Accordingly, our "decision will have real meaning" for the parties. INS v. Chadha , 462 U.S. 919, 939, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983). And, as in Windsor , any prudential concerns with deciding an important legal question in this posture can be addressed by "the practice of entertaining arguments made by an amicus when the Solicitor General confesses error with respect to a judgment below," which we have done. 570 U.S., at 760, 133 S.Ct. 2675.
We therefore turn to the merits of petitioner's constitutional challenge.
III
We hold that the CFPB's leadership by a single individual removable only for inefficiency, neglect, or malfeasance violates the separation of powers.
A
Article II provides that "[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President," who must "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Art. II, § 1, cl. 1 ; id. , § 3. The entire "executive Power" belongs to the President alone. But because it would be "impossib[le]" for "one man" to "perform all the great business of the State," the Constitution assumes that lesser executive officers will "assist the supreme Magistrate in discharging the duties of his trust." 30 Writings of George Washington 334 (J. Fitzpatrick ed. 1939).
These lesser officers must remain accountable to the President, whose authority they wield. As Madison explained, "[I]f any power whatsoever is in its nature Executive, it is the power of appointing, overseeing, and controlling those who execute the laws." 1 Annals of Cong. 463 (1789). That power, in turn, generally includes the ability to remove executive officials, for it is "only the authority that can remove" such officials that they "must fear and, in the performance of [their] functions, obey." Bowsher , 478 U.S., at 726, 106 S.Ct. 3181 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The President's removal power has long been confirmed by history and precedent. It "was discussed extensively in Congress when the first executive departments were created" in 1789. Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 492, 130 S.Ct. 3138. "The view that 'prevailed, as most consonant to the text of the Constitution' and 'to the requisite responsibility and harmony in the Executive Department,' was that the executive power included a power to oversee executive officers through removal." Ibid. (quoting Letter from James Madison to Thomas Jefferson (June 30, 1789), 16 Documentary History of the First Federal Congress 893 (2004)). The First Congress's recognition of the President's removal power in 1789 "provides contemporaneous and weighty evidence of the Constitution's meaning," Bowsher , 478 U.S., at 723, 106 S.Ct. 3181 (internal quotation marks omitted), and has long been the "settled and well understood construction of the Constitution," Ex parte Hennen , 13 Pet. 230, 259, 10 L.Ed. 138 (1839).
The Court recognized the President's prerogative to remove executive officials in Myers v. United States , 272 U.S. 52, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160. Chief Justice Taft, writing for the Court, conducted an exhaustive examination of the First Congress's determination in 1789, the views of the Framers and their contemporaries, historical practice, and our precedents up until that point. He concluded that Article II "grants to the President" the "general administrative control of those executing the laws, including the power of appointment and removal of executive officers." Id. , at 163-164, 47 S.Ct. 21 (emphasis added). Just as the President's "selection of administrative officers is essential to the execution of the laws by him, so must be his power of removing those for whom he cannot continue to be responsible." Id. , at 117, 47 S.Ct. 21. "[T]o hold otherwise," the Court reasoned, "would make it impossible for the President ... to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Id. , at 164, 47 S.Ct. 21.
We recently reiterated the President's general removal power in Free Enterprise Fund . "Since 1789," we recapped, "the Constitution has been understood to empower the President to keep these officers accountable-by removing them from office, if necessary." 561 U.S., at 483, 130 S.Ct. 3138. Although we had previously sustained congressional limits on that power in certain circumstances, we declined to extend those limits to "a new situation not yet encountered by the Court"-an official insulated by two layers of for-cause removal protection. Id., at 483, 514, 130 S.Ct. 3138. In the face of that novel impediment to the President's oversight of the Executive Branch, we adhered to the general rule that the President possesses "the authority to remove those who assist him in carrying out his duties." Id., at 513-514, 130 S.Ct. 3138.
Free Enterprise Fund left in place two exceptions to the President's unrestricted removal power. First, in Humphrey's Executor , decided less than a decade after Myers , the Court upheld a statute that protected the Commissioners of the FTC from removal except for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." 295 U.S. at 620, 55 S.Ct. 869 (quoting 15 U. S. C. § 41 ). In reaching that conclusion, the Court stressed that Congress's ability to impose such removal restrictions "will depend upon the character of the office." 295 U.S. at 631, 55 S.Ct. 869.
Because the Court limited its holding "to officers of the kind here under consideration," id., at 632, 55 S.Ct. 869, the contours of the Humphrey's Executor exception depend upon the characteristics of the agency before the Court. Rightly or wrongly, the Court viewed the FTC (as it existed in 1935) as exercising "no part of the executive power." Id., at 628, 55 S.Ct. 869. Instead, it was "an administrative body" that performed "specified duties as a legislative or as a judicial aid." Ibid. It acted "as a legislative agency" in "making investigations and reports" to Congress and "as an agency of the judiciary" in making recommendations to courts as a master in chancery. Ibid. "To the extent that [the FTC] exercise[d] any executive function [,] as distinguished from executive power in the constitutional sense," it did so only in the discharge of its "quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial powers." Ibid. (emphasis added).
The Court identified several organizational features that helped explain its characterization of the FTC as non-executive. Composed of five members-no more than three from the same political party-the Board was designed to be "non-partisan" and to "act with entire impartiality." Id. , at 624, 55 S.Ct. 869 ; see id. , at 619-620, 55 S.Ct. 869. The FTC's duties were "neither political nor executive," but instead called for "the trained judgment of a body of experts" "informed by experience." Id. , at 624, 55 S.Ct. 869 (internal quotation marks omitted). And the Commissioners' staggered, seven-year terms enabled the agency to accumulate technical expertise and avoid a "complete change" in leadership "at any one time." Ibid .
In short, Humphrey's Executor permitted Congress to give for-cause removal protections to a multimember body of experts, balanced along partisan lines, that performed legislative and judicial functions and was said not to exercise any executive power. Consistent with that understanding, the Court later applied "[t]he philosophy of Humphrey's Executor " to uphold for-cause removal protections for the members of the War Claims Commission-a three-member "adjudicatory body" tasked with resolving claims for compensation arising from World War II. Wiener v. United States , 357 U.S. 349, 356, 78 S.Ct. 1275, 2 L.Ed.2d 1377 (1958).
While recognizing an exception for multimember bodies with "quasi-judicial" or "quasi-legislative" functions, Humphrey's Executor reaffirmed the core holding of Myers that the President has "unrestrictable power ... to remove purely executive officers." 295 U.S. at 632, 55 S.Ct. 869. The Court acknowledged that between purely executive officers on the one hand, and officers that closely resembled the FTC Commissioners on the other, there existed "a field of doubt" that the Court left "for future consideration." Ibid.
We have recognized a second exception for inferior officers in two cases, United States v. Perkins and Morrison v. Olson . In Perkins , we upheld tenure protections for a naval cadet-engineer. 116 U.S. at 485, 6 S.Ct. 449. And, in Morrison , we upheld a provision granting good-cause tenure protection to an independent counsel appointed to investigate and prosecute particular alleged crimes by high-ranking Government officials. 487 U.S. at 662-663, 696-697, 108 S.Ct. 2597. Backing away from the reliance in Humphrey's Executor on the concepts of "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial" power, we viewed the ultimate question as whether a removal restriction is of "such a nature that [it] impede[s] the President's ability to perform his constitutional duty." 487 U.S. at 691, 108 S.Ct. 2597. Although the independent counsel was a single person and performed "law enforcement functions that typically have been undertaken by officials within the Executive Branch," we concluded that the removal protections did not unduly interfere with the functioning of the Executive Branch because "the independent counsel [was] an inferior officer under the Appointments Clause, with limited jurisdiction and tenure and lacking policymaking or significant administrative authority." Ibid.
These two exceptions-one for multimember expert agencies that do not wield substantial executive power, and one for inferior officers with limited duties and no policymaking or administrative authority-"represent what up to now have been the outermost constitutional limits of permissible congressional restrictions on the President's removal power." PHH , 881 F.3d at 196 (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Director Kraninger did not indicate whether she would disregard her statutory removal protection if the President attempted to remove her without cause.
The Court's conclusion that the FTC did not exercise executive power has not withstood the test of time. As we observed in Morrison v. Olson , 487 U.S. 654, 108 S.Ct. 2597, 101 L.Ed.2d 569 (1988), "[I]t is hard to dispute that the powers of the FTC at the time of Humphrey's Executor would at the present time be considered 'executive,' at least to some degree." Id., at 690, n. 28, 108 S.Ct. 2597. See also Arlington v. FCC , 569 U.S. 290, 305, n. 4, 133 S.Ct. 1863, 185 L.Ed.2d 941 (2013) (even though the activities of administrative agencies "take 'legislative' and 'judicial' forms," "they are exercises of-indeed, under our constitutional structure they must be exercises of-the 'executive Power' " (quoting Art. II, § 1, cl. 1 )).
Article II distinguishes between two kinds of officers-principal officers (who must be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate) and inferior officers (whose appointment Congress may vest in the President, courts, or heads of Departments). § 2, cl. 2. While "[o]ur cases have not set forth an exclusive criterion for distinguishing between principal and inferior officers," we have in the past examined factors such as the nature, scope, and duration of an officer's duties. Edmond v. United States , 520 U.S. 651, 661, 117 S.Ct. 1573, 137 L.Ed.2d 917 (1997). More recently, we have focused on whether the officer's work is "directed and supervised" by a principal officer. Id., at 663, 117 S.Ct. 1573.
B
Neither Humphrey's Executor nor Morrison resolves whether the CFPB Director's insulation from removal is constitutional. Start with Humphrey's Executor. Unlike the New Deal-era FTC upheld there, the CFPB is led by a single Director who cannot be described as a "body of experts" and cannot be considered "non-partisan" in the same sense as a group of officials drawn from both sides of the aisle. 295 U.S. at 624, 55 S.Ct. 869. Moreover, while the staggered terms of the FTC Commissioners prevented complete turnovers in agency leadership and guaranteed that there would always be some Commissioners who had accrued significant expertise, the CFPB's single-Director structure and five-year term guarantee abrupt shifts in agency leadership and with it the loss of accumulated expertise.
In addition, the CFPB Director is hardly a mere legislative or judicial aid. Instead of making reports and recommendations to Congress, as the 1935 FTC did, the Director possesses the authority to promulgate binding rules fleshing out 19 federal statutes, including a broad prohibition on unfair and deceptive practices in a major segment of the U. S. economy. And instead of submitting recommended dispositions to an Article III court, the Director may unilaterally issue final decisions awarding legal and equitable relief in administrative adjudications. Finally, the Director's enforcement authority includes the power to seek daunting monetary penalties against private parties on behalf of the United States in federal court-a quintessentially executive power not considered in Humphrey's Executor .
The logic of Morrison also does not apply. Everyone agrees the CFPB Director is not an inferior officer, and her duties are far from limited. Unlike the independent counsel, who lacked policymaking or administrative authority, the Director has the sole responsibility to administer 19 separate consumer-protection statutes that cover everything from credit cards and car payments to mortgages and student loans. It is true that the independent counsel in Morrison was empowered to initiate criminal investigations and prosecutions, and in that respect wielded core executive power. But that power, while significant, was trained inward to high-ranking Governmental actors identified by others, and was confined to a specified matter in which the Department of Justice had a potential conflict of interest. By contrast, the CFPB Director has the authority to bring the coercive power of the state to bear on millions of private citizens and businesses, imposing even billion-dollar penalties through administrative adjudications and civil actions.
In light of these differences, the constitutionality of the CFPB Director's insulation from removal cannot be settled by Humphrey's Executor or Morrison alone.
C
The question instead is whether to extend those precedents to the "new situation" before us, namely an independent agency led by a single Director and vested with significant executive power. Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 483, 130 S.Ct. 3138. We decline to do so. Such an agency has no basis in history and no place in our constitutional structure.
1
"Perhaps the most telling indication of [a] severe constitutional problem" with an executive entity "is [a] lack of historical precedent" to support it. Id., at 505, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (internal quotation marks omitted). An agency with a structure like that of the CFPB is almost wholly unprecedented.
After years of litigating the agency's constitutionality, the Courts of Appeals, parties, and amici have identified "only a handful of isolated" incidents in which Congress has provided good-cause tenure to principal officers who wield power alone rather than as members of a board or commission. Ibid. "[T]hese few scattered examples"-four to be exact-shed little light. NLRB v. Noel Canning , 573 U.S. 513, 538, 134 S.Ct. 2550, 189 L.Ed.2d 538 (2014).
First, the CFPB's defenders point to the Comptroller of the Currency, who enjoyed removal protection for one year during the Civil War. That example has rightly been dismissed as an aberration. It was "adopted without discussion" during the heat of the Civil War and abandoned before it could be "tested by executive or judicial inquiry." Myers , 272 U.S., at 165, 47 S.Ct. 21. (At the time, the Comptroller may also have been an inferior officer, given that he labored "under the general direction of the Secretary of the Treasury." Ch. 58, 12 Stat. 665.)
Second, the supporters of the CFPB point to the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC), which has been headed by a single officer since 1978. But this first enduring single-leader office, created nearly 200 years after the Constitution was ratified, drew a contemporaneous constitutional objection from the Office of Legal Counsel under President Carter and a subsequent veto on constitutional grounds by President Reagan. See Memorandum Opinion for the General Counsel, Civil Service Commission, 2 Op. OLC 120, 122 (1978); Public Papers of the Presidents, Ronald Reagan, Vol. II, Oct. 26, 1988, pp. 1391-1392 (1991). In any event, the OSC exercises only limited jurisdiction to enforce certain rules governing Federal Government employers and employees. See 5 U. S. C. § 1212. It does not bind private parties at all or wield regulatory authority comparable to the CFPB.
Third, the CFPB's defenders note that the Social Security Administration (SSA) has been run by a single Administrator since 1994. That example, too, is comparatively recent and controversial. President Clinton questioned the constitutionality of the SSA's new single-Director structure upon signing it into law. See Public Papers of the Presidents, William J. Clinton, Vol. II, Aug. 15, 1994, pp. 1471-1472 (1995) (inviting a "corrective amendment" from Congress). In addition, unlike the CFPB, the SSA lacks the authority to bring enforcement actions against private parties. Its role is largely limited to adjudicating claims for Social Security benefits.
The only remaining example is the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), created in 2008 to assume responsibility for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That agency is essentially a companion of the CFPB, established in response to the same financial crisis. See Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, 122 Stat. 2654. It regulates primarily Government-sponsored enterprises, not purely private actors. And its single-Director structure is a source of ongoing controversy. Indeed, it was recently held unconstitutional by the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc. See Collins v. Mnuchin , 938 F.3d 553, 587-588 (2019).
With the exception of the one-year blip for the Comptroller of the Currency, these isolated examples are modern and contested. And they do not involve regulatory or enforcement authority remotely comparable to that exercised by the CFPB. The CFPB's single-Director structure is an innovation with no foothold in history or tradition.
2
In addition to being a historical anomaly, the CFPB's single-Director configuration is incompatible with our constitutional structure. Aside from the sole exception of the Presidency, that structure scrupulously avoids concentrating power in the hands of any single individual.
"The Framers recognized that, in the long term, structural protections against abuse of power were critical to preserving liberty." Bowsher , 478 U.S., at 730, 106 S.Ct. 3181. Their solution to governmental power and its perils was simple: divide it. To prevent the "gradual concentration" of power in the same hands, they enabled "[a]mbition ... to counteract ambition" at every turn. The Federalist No. 51, p. 349 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (J. Madison). At the highest level, they "split the atom of sovereignty" itself into one Federal Government and the States. Gamble v. United States , 587 U. S. ----, ----, 139 S.Ct. 1960, 1968, 204 L.Ed.2d 322 (2019) (internal quotation marks omitted). They then divided the "powers of the new Federal Government into three defined categories, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial." Chadha , 462 U.S., at 951, 103 S.Ct. 2764.
They did not stop there. Most prominently, the Framers bifurcated the federal legislative power into two Chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate, each composed of multiple Members and Senators. Art. I, §§ 2, 3.
The Executive Branch is a stark departure from all this division. The Framers viewed the legislative power as a special threat to individual liberty, so they divided that power to ensure that "differences of opinion" and the "jarrings of parties" would "promote deliberation and circumspection" and "check excesses in the majority." See The Federalist No. 70, at 475 (A. Hamilton); see also id ., No. 51, at 350. By contrast, the Framers thought it necessary to secure the authority of the Executive so that he could carry out his unique responsibilities. See id ., No. 70, at 475-478. As Madison put it, while "the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be ... divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified." Id ., No. 51, at 350.
The Framers deemed an energetic executive essential to "the protection of the community against foreign attacks," "the steady administration of the laws," "the protection of property," and "the security of liberty." Id ., No. 70, at 471. Accordingly, they chose not to bog the Executive down with the "habitual feebleness and dilatoriness" that comes with a "diversity of views and opinions." Id. , at 476. Instead, they gave the Executive the "[d]ecision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch" that "characterise the proceedings of one man." Id. , at 472.
To justify and check that authority-unique in our constitutional structure-the Framers made the President the most democratic and politically accountable official in Government. Only the President (along with the Vice President) is elected by the entire Nation. And the President's political accountability is enhanced by the solitary nature of the Executive Branch, which provides "a single object for the jealousy and watchfulness of the people." Id., at 479. The President "cannot delegate ultimate responsibility or the active obligation to supervise that goes with it," because Article II "makes a single President responsible for the actions of the Executive Branch." Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 496-497, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (quoting Clinton v. Jones , 520 U.S. 681, 712-713, 117 S.Ct. 1636, 137 L.Ed.2d 945 (1997) (BREYER, J., concurring in judgment)).
The resulting constitutional strategy is straightforward: divide power everywhere except for the Presidency, and render the President directly accountable to the people through regular elections. In that scheme, individual executive officials will still wield significant authority, but that authority remains subject to the ongoing supervision and control of the elected President. Through the President's oversight, "the chain of dependence [is] preserved," so that "the lowest officers, the middle grade, and the highest" all "depend, as they ought, on the President, and the President on the community." 1 Annals of Cong. 499 (J. Madison).
The CFPB's single-Director structure contravenes this carefully calibrated system by vesting significant governmental power in the hands of a single individual accountable to no one. The Director is neither elected by the people nor meaningfully controlled (through the threat of removal) by someone who is. The Director does not even depend on Congress for annual appropriations. See The Federalist No. 58, at 394 (J. Madison) (describing the "power over the purse" as the "most compleat and effectual weapon" in representing the interests of the people). Yet the Director may unilaterally , without meaningful supervision, issue final regulations, oversee adjudications, set enforcement priorities, initiate prosecutions, and determine what penalties to impose on private parties. With no colleagues to persuade, and no boss or electorate looking over her shoulder, the Director may dictate and enforce policy for a vital segment of the economy affecting millions of Americans.
The CFPB Director's insulation from removal by an accountable President is enough to render the agency's structure unconstitutional. But several other features of the CFPB combine to make the Director's removal protection even more problematic. In addition to lacking the most direct method of presidential control-removal at will-the agency's unique structure also forecloses certain indirect methods of Presidential control.
Because the CFPB is headed by a single Director with a five-year term, some Presidents may not have any opportunity to shape its leadership and thereby influence its activities. A President elected in 2020 would likely not appoint a CFPB Director until 2023, and a President elected in 2028 may never appoint one. That means an unlucky President might get elected on a consumer-protection platform and enter office only to find herself saddled with a holdover Director from a competing political party who is dead set against that agenda. To make matters worse, the agency's single-Director structure means the President will not have the opportunity to appoint any other leaders-such as a chair or fellow members of a Commission or Board-who can serve as a check on the Director's authority and help bring the agency in line with the President's preferred policies.
The CFPB's receipt of funds outside the appropriations process further aggravates the agency's threat to Presidential control. The President normally has the opportunity to recommend or veto spending bills that affect the operation of administrative agencies. See Art. I, § 7, cl. 2; Art. II, § 3. And, for the past century, the President has annually submitted a proposed budget to Congress for approval. See Budget and Accounting Act, 1921, ch. 18, § 201, 42 Stat. 20. Presidents frequently use these budgetary tools "to influence the policies of independent agencies." PHH , 881 F.3d at 147 (Henderson, J., dissenting) (citing Pasachoff, The President's Budget as a Source of Agency Policy Control, 125 Yale L. J. 2182, 2191, 2203-2204 (2016) ). But no similar opportunity exists for the President to influence the CFPB Director. Instead, the Director receives over $500 million per year to fund the agency's chosen priorities. And the Director receives that money from the Federal Reserve, which is itself funded outside of the annual appropriations process. This financial freedom makes it even more likely that the agency will "slip from the Executive's control, and thus from that of the people." Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 499, 130 S.Ct. 3138.
3
Amicus raises three principal arguments in the agency's defense. At the outset, amicus questions the textual basis for the removal power and highlights statements from Madison, Hamilton, and Chief Justice Marshall expressing "heterodox" views on the subject. Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 4-5, 28-29. But those concerns are misplaced. It is true that "there is no 'removal clause' in the Constitution," id. , at 1, but neither is there a "separation of powers clause" or a "federalism clause." These foundational doctrines are instead evident from the Constitution's vesting of certain powers in certain bodies. As we have explained many times before, the President's removal power stems from Article II's vesting of the "executive Power" in the President. Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 483, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (quoting Art. II, § 1, cl. 1 ). As for the opinions of Madison, Hamilton, and Chief Justice Marshall, we have already considered the statements cited by amicus and discounted them in light of their context (Madison), the fact they reflect initial impressions later abandoned by the speaker (Hamilton), or their subsequent rejection as ill-considered dicta (Chief Justice Marshall). See Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 500, n. 6, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (Madison) ; Myers , 272 U.S., at 136-139, 142-144, 47 S.Ct. 21 (Hamilton and Chief Justice Marshall).
Next, amicus offers a grand theory of our removal precedents that, if accepted, could leave room for an agency like the CFPB-and many other innovative intrusions on Article II. According to amicus , Humphrey's Executor and Morrison establish a general rule that Congress may impose "modest" restrictions on the President's removal power, with only two limited exceptions. Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 33-37. Congress may not reserve a role for itself in individual removal decisions (as it attempted to do in Myers and Bowsher ). And it may not eliminate the President's removal power altogether (as it effectively did in Free Enterprise Fund ). Outside those two situations, amicus argues, Congress is generally free to constrain the President's removal power. See also post , at 2232 - 2236 (KAGAN, J., concurring in judgment with respect to severability and dissenting in part) (hereinafter dissent) (expressing similar view).
But text, first principles, the First Congress's decision in 1789, Myers , and Free Enterprise Fund all establish that the President's removal power is the rule, not the exception. While we do not revisit Humphrey's Executor or any other precedent today, we decline to elevate it into a freestanding invitation for Congress to impose additional restrictions on the President's removal authority.
Finally, amicus contends that if we identify a constitutional problem with the CFPB's structure, we should avoid it by broadly construing the statutory grounds for removing the CFPB Director from office. See Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 50-53; Tr. of Oral Arg. 57-62. The Dodd-Frank Act provides that the Director may be removed for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." 12 U. S. C. § 5491(c)(3). In amicus ' view, that language could be interpreted to reserve substantial discretion to the President. Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 51.
We are not persuaded. For one, Humphrey's Executor implicitly rejected an interpretation that would leave the President free to remove an officer based on disagreements about agency policy. See 295 U.S., at 619, 625-626, 55 S.Ct. 869. In addition, while both amicus and the House of Representatives invite us to adopt whatever construction would cure the constitutional problem, they have not advanced any workable standard derived from the statutory language. Amicus suggests that the proper standard might permit removals based on general policy disagreements, but not specific ones; the House suggests that the permissible bases for removal might vary depending on the context and the Presidential power involved. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 58-60, 76-77. They do not attempt to root either of those standards in the statutory text. Further, although nearly identical language governs the removal of some two-dozen multimember independent agencies, amicus suggests that the standard should vary from agency to agency, morphing as necessary to avoid constitutional doubt. Tr. of Oral Arg. 55-56. We decline to embrace such an uncertain and elastic approach to the text.
Amicus and the House also fail to engage with the Dodd-Frank Act as a whole, which makes plain that the CFPB is an "independent bureau." 12 U. S. C. § 5491(a) ; see also 44 U. S. C. § 3502(5)
(listing the CFPB as an "independent regulatory agency"). Neither amicus nor the House explains how the CFPB would be "independent" if its head were required to implement the President's policies upon pain of removal. See Black's Law Dictionary 838 (9th ed. 2009) (defining "independent" as "[n]ot subject to the control or influence of another"). The Constitution might of course compel the agency to be dependent on the President notwithstanding Congress's contrary intent, but that result cannot fairly be inferred from the statute Congress enacted.
Constitutional avoidance is not a license to rewrite Congress's work to say whatever the Constitution needs it to say in a given situation. Without a proffered interpretation that is rooted in the statutory text and structure, and would avoid the constitutional violation we have identified, we take Congress at its word that it meant to impose a meaningful restriction on the President's removal authority.
The dissent, for its part, largely reprises points that the Court has already considered and rejected: It notes the lack of an express removal provision, invokes Congress's general power to create and define executive offices, highlights isolated statements from individual Framers, downplays the decision of 1789, minimizes Myers , brainstorms methods of Presidential control short of removal, touts the need for creative congressional responses to technological and economic change, and celebrates a pragmatic, flexible approach to American governance. See post , at 2224 - 2238, 2241 - 2243, 2245.
If these arguments sound familiar, it's because they are. They were raised by the dissent in Free Enterprise Fund . Compare post , at 2224 - 2238, 2241 - 2243, 2245, with Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 515-524, 530, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (BREYER, J., dissenting). The answers to these repeated concerns (beyond those we have already covered) are the same today as they were ten years ago. Today, as then, Congress's "plenary control over the salary, duties, and even existence of executive offices" makes "Presidential oversight" more critical-not less-as the "[o]nly" tool to "counter [Congress's] influence." Id. , at 500, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (opinion of the Court). Today, as then, the various "bureaucratic minutiae" a President might use to corral agency personnel is no substitute for at will removal. Ibid. And today, as always, the urge to meet new technological and societal problems with novel governmental structures must be tempered by constitutional restraints that are not known-and were not chosen-for their efficiency or flexibility. Id., at 499, 130 S.Ct. 3138.
As we explained in Free Enterprise Fund , "One can have a government that functions without being ruled by functionaries, and a government that benefits from expertise without being ruled by experts." Ibid. While "[n]o one doubts Congress's power to create a vast and varied federal bureaucracy," the expansion of that bureaucracy into new territories the Framers could scarcely have imagined only sharpens our duty to ensure that the Executive Branch is overseen by a President accountable to the people. Ibid.
IV
Having concluded that the CFPB's leadership by a single independent Director violates the separation of powers, we now turn to the appropriate remedy. We directed the parties to brief and argue whether the Director's removal protection was severable from the other provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act that establish the CFPB. If so, then the CFPB may continue to exist and operate notwithstanding Congress's unconstitutional attempt to insulate the agency's Director from removal by the President. There is a live controversy between the parties on that question, and resolving it is a necessary step in determining petitioner's entitlement to its requested relief.
As the defendant in this action, petitioner seeks a straightforward remedy. It asks us to deny the Government's petition to enforce the civil investigative demand and dismiss the case. The Government counters that the demand, though initially issued by a Director unconstitutionally insulated from removal, can still be enforced on remand because it has since been ratified by an Acting Director accountable to the President. The parties dispute whether this alleged ratification in fact occurred and whether, if so, it is legally sufficient to cure the constitutional defect in the original demand. That debate turns on case-specific factual and legal questions not addressed below and not briefed here. A remand for the lower Courts to consider those questions in the first instance is therefore the appropriate course-unless such a remand would be futile.
In petitioner's view, it would be. Before the Court of Appeals, petitioner contended that, regardless of any ratification, the demand is unenforceable because the statutory provision insulating the CFPB Director from removal cannot be severed from the other statutory provisions that define the CFPB's authority. See Brief for Appellant in No. 17-56324 (CA9), pp. 27-28, 30-32. If petitioner is correct, and the offending removal provision means the entire agency is unconstitutional and powerless to act, then a remand would be pointless. With no agency left with statutory authority to maintain this suit or otherwise enforce the demand, the appropriate disposition would be to reverse with instructions to deny the Government's petition to enforce the agency's demand for documents and dismiss the case, as petitioner requests.
Accordingly, there is a live controversy over the question of severability. And that controversy is essential to our ability to provide petitioner the relief it seeks: If the removal restriction is not severable, then we must grant the relief requested, promptly rejecting the demand outright. If, on the other hand, the removal restriction is severable, we must instead remand for the Government to press its ratification arguments in further proceedings. Unlike the lingering ratification issue, severability presents a pure question of law that has been fully briefed and argued by the parties. We therefore proceed to address it.
It has long been settled that "one section of a statute may be repugnant to the Constitution without rendering the whole act void." Loeb v. Columbia Township Trustees , 179 U.S. 472, 490, 21 S.Ct. 174, 45 L.Ed. 280 (1900) (quoting Treasurer of Fayette Cty. v. People's & Drovers' Bank , 47 OhioSt. 503, 523, 25 N.E. 697, 702 (1890) ). Because a "statute bad in part is not necessarily void in its entirety," "[p]rovisions within the legislative power may stand if separable from the bad."
Dorchy v. Kansas , 264 U.S. 286, 289-290, 44 S.Ct. 323, 68 L.Ed. 686 (1924).
"Generally speaking, when confronting a constitutional flaw in a statute, we try to limit the solution to the problem, severing any problematic portions while leaving the remainder intact." Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 508, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (internal quotation marks omitted). Even in the absence of a severability clause, the "traditional" rule is that "the unconstitutional provision must be severed unless the statute created in its absence is legislation that Congress would not have enacted." Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock , 480 U.S. 678, 685, 107 S.Ct. 1476, 94 L.Ed.2d 661 (1987). When Congress has expressly provided a severability clause, our task is simplified. We will presume "that Congress did not intend the validity of the statute in question to depend on the validity of the constitutionally offensive provision ... unless there is strong evidence that Congress intended otherwise." Id., at 686, 107 S.Ct. 1476.
The only constitutional defect we have identified in the CFPB's structure is the Director's insulation from removal. If the Director were removable at will by the President, the constitutional violation would disappear. We must therefore decide whether the removal provision can be severed from the other statutory provisions relating to the CFPB's powers and responsibilities.
In Free Enterprise Fund , we found a set of unconstitutional removal provisions severable even in the absence of an express severability clause because the surviving provisions were capable of "functioning independently" and "nothing in the statute's text or historical context [made] it evident that Congress, faced with the limitations imposed by the Constitution, would have preferred no Board at all to a Board whose members are removable at will." 561 U.S., at 509, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (internal quotation marks omitted).
So too here. The provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act bearing on the CFPB's structure and duties remain fully operative without the offending tenure restriction. Those provisions are capable of functioning independently, and there is nothing in the text or history of the Dodd-Frank Act that demonstrates Congress would have preferred no CFPB to a CFPB supervised by the President. Quite the opposite. Unlike the Sarbanes-Oxley Act at issue in Free Enterprise Fund , the Dodd-Frank Act contains an express severability clause. There is no need to wonder what Congress would have wanted if "any provision of this Act" is "held to be unconstitutional" because it has told us: "the remainder of this Act" should "not be affected." 12 U. S. C. § 5302.
Petitioner urges us to disregard this plain language for three reasons. None is persuasive. First, petitioner dismisses the clause as non-probative "boilerplate" because it applies "to the entire, 848-page Dodd-Frank Act" and "appears almost 600 pages before the removal provision at issue." Brief for Petitioner 45. In petitioner's view, that means we cannot be certain that Congress really meant to apply the clause to each of the Act's provisions. But boilerplate is boilerplate for a reason-because it offers tried-and-true language to ensure a precise and predictable result. That is the case here. The language unmistakably references "any provision of this Act." 12 U. S. C. § 5302 (emphasis added). And it appears in a logical and prominent place, immediately following the Act's title and definitions sections, reinforcing the conclusion that it applies to the entirety of the Act. Congress was not required to laboriously insert duplicative severability clauses, provision by provision, to accomplish its stated objective.
Second, petitioner points to an additional severability clause in the Act that applies only to one of the Act's subtitles. See 15 U. S. C. § 8232. In petitioner's view, that clause would be superfluous if Congress meant the general severability clause to apply across the Act. But "our preference for avoiding surplusage constructions is not absolute." Lamie v. United States Trustee , 540 U.S. 526, 536, 124 S.Ct. 1023, 157 L.Ed.2d 1024 (2004). In this instance, the redundant language appears to reflect the fact that the subtitle to which it refers originated as a standalone bill that was later incorporated into Dodd-Frank. Compare 15 U. S. C. § 8232 with H. R. 2571, 111th Cong., 1st Sess., § 302 (2009). And petitioner does not offer any construction that would give effect to both provisions, making the redundancy both inescapable and unilluminating. See Microsoft Corp. v. i4i L. P. , 564 U.S. 91, 106, 131 S.Ct. 2238, 180 L.Ed.2d 131 (2011) ("The canon against superfluity assists only where a competing interpretation gives effect to every clause and word of a statute." (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Finally, petitioner argues more broadly that Congress would not have wanted to give the President unbridled control over the CFPB's vast authority. Petitioner highlights the references to the CFPB's independence in the statutory text and legislative history, as well as in Professor Warren's and the Obama administration's original proposals. See Brief for Petitioner 43-44 (collecting examples). And petitioner submits that Congress might not have exempted the CFPB from congressional oversight via the appropriations process if it had known that the CFPB would come under executive control.
These observations certainly confirm that Congress preferred an independent CFPB to a dependent one; but they shed little light on the critical question whether Congress would have preferred a dependent CFPB to no agency at all. That is the only question we have the authority to decide, and the answer seems clear. Petitioner assumes that, if we eliminate the CFPB, regulatory and enforcement authority over the statutes it administers would simply revert back to the handful of independent agencies previously responsible for them. See id. , at 46. But, as the Solicitor General and House of Representatives explain, that shift would trigger a major regulatory disruption and would leave appreciable damage to Congress's work in the consumer-finance arena. See Reply Brief for Respondent 21-22; Tr. of Oral Arg. 67-68. One of the agencies whose regulatory authority was transferred to the CFPB no longer exists. See 12 U. S. C. §§ 5412 - 5413 (Office of Thrift Supervision). The others do not have the staff or appropriations to absorb the CFPB's 1,500-employee, 500-million-dollar operations. And none has the authority to administer the Dodd-Frank Act's new prohibition on unfair and deceptive practices in the consumer-finance sector. Given these consequences, it is far from evident that Congress would have preferred no CFPB to a CFPB led by a Director removable at will by the President.
Justice THOMAS would have us junk our settled severability doctrine and start afresh, even though no party has asked us to do so. See post , at 2219 - 2220 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). Among other things, he objects that it is sheer "speculation" that Congress would prefer that its consumer protection laws be enforced by a Director accountable to the President rather than not at all. Post , at 2223 - 2224. We think it clear that Congress would prefer that we use a scalpel rather than a bulldozer in curing the constitutional defect we identify today. And such an approach by this Court can come as no surprise to Congress, which was on notice of constitutional objections to single-Director agencies by multiple past Presidents from both political parties, supra , at 2201 - 2202, and enacted Dodd-Frank against the background of our established severability doctrine.
As in every severability case, there may be means of remedying the defect in the CFPB's structure that the Court lacks the authority to provide. Our severability analysis does not foreclose Congress from pursuing alternative responses to the problem-for example, converting the CFPB into a multimember agency. The Court's only instrument, however, is a blunt one. We have "the negative power to disregard an unconstitutional enactment," Massachusetts v. Mellon , 262 U.S. 447, 488, 43 S.Ct. 597, 67 L.Ed. 1078 (1923) ; see Marbury v. Madison , 1 Cranch 137, 178, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803), but we cannot re-write Congress's work by creating offices, terms, and the like. "[S]uch editorial freedom ... belongs to the Legislature, not the Judiciary." Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 510, 130 S.Ct. 3138.
Because we find the Director's removal protection severable from the other provisions of Dodd-Frank that establish the CFPB, we remand for the Court of Appeals to consider whether the civil investigative demand was validly ratified.
* * *
A decade ago, we declined to extend Congress's authority to limit the President's removal power to a new situation, never before confronted by the Court. We do the same today. In our constitutional system, the executive power belongs to the President, and that power generally includes the ability to supervise and remove the agents who wield executive power in his stead. While we have previously upheld limits on the President's removal authority in certain contexts, we decline to do so when it comes to principal officers who, acting alone, wield significant executive power. The Constitution requires that such officials remain dependent on the President, who in turn is accountable to the people.
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice THOMAS, with whom Justice GORSUCH joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The Court's decision today takes a restrained approach on the merits by limiting Humphrey's Executor v. United States , 295 U.S. 602, 55 S.Ct. 869, 79 L.Ed. 1611 (1935), rather than overruling it. At the same time, the Court takes an aggressive approach on severability by severing a provision when it is not necessary to do so. I would do the opposite.
Because the Court takes a step in the right direction by limiting Humphrey's Executor to "multimember expert agencies that do not wield substantial executive power ," ante , at 2219 (emphasis added), I join Parts I, II, and III of its opinion. I respectfully dissent from the Court's severability analysis, however, because I do not believe that we should address severability in this case.
I
The decision in Humphrey's Executor poses a direct threat to our constitutional structure and, as a result, the liberty of the American people. The Court concludes that it is not strictly necessary for us to overrule that decision. See ante , at 2119 - 2192, 2197 - 2200. But with today's decision, the Court has repudiated almost every aspect of Humphrey's Executor . In a future case, I would repudiate what is left of this erroneous precedent.
A
"The Constitution does not vest the Federal Government with an undifferentiated 'governmental power.' " Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads , 575 U.S. 43, 67, 135 S.Ct. 1225, 191 L.Ed.2d 153 (2015) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment). It sets out three branches and vests a different form of power in each-legislative, executive, and judicial. See Art. I, § 1; Art. II, § 1, cl. 1 ; Art. III, § 1.
Article II of the Constitution vests "[t]he executive Power" in the "President of the United States of America," § 1, cl. 1, and directs that he shall "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," § 3. Of course, the President cannot fulfill his role of executing the laws without assistance. See Myers v. United States , 272 U.S. 52, 117, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926). He therefore must "select those who [are] to act for him under his direction in the execution of the laws." Ibid. While these officers assist the President in carrying out his constitutionally assigned duties, "[t]he buck stops with the President." Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd. , 561 U.S. 477, 493, 130 S.Ct. 3138, 177 L.Ed.2d 706 (2010). "Since 1789, the Constitution has been understood to empower the President to keep [his] officers accountable-by removing them from office, if necessary." Id. , at 483, 130 S.Ct. 3138. The Framers "insist[ed]" upon "unity in the Federal Executive" to "ensure both vigor and accountability" to the people. Printz v. United States , 521 U.S. 898, 922, 117 S.Ct. 2365, 138 L.Ed.2d 914 (1997) ; see also ante , at 2203.
Despite the defined structural limitations of the Constitution and the clear vesting of executive power in the President, Congress has increasingly shifted executive power to a de facto fourth branch of Government-independent agencies. These agencies wield considerable executive power without Presidential oversight. They are led by officers who are insulated from the President by removal restrictions, "reduc[ing] the Chief Magistrate to [the role of] cajoler-in-chief." Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 502, 130 S.Ct. 3138. But "[t]he people do not vote for the Officers of the United States. They instead look to the President to guide the assistants or deputies subject to his superintendence." Id. , at 497-498, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (alterations, internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Because independent agencies wield substantial power with no accountability to either the President or the people, they "pose a significant threat to individual liberty and to the constitutional system of separation of powers and checks and balances." PHH Corp. v. CFPB , 881 F.3d 75, 165 (C.A.D.C. 2018) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting).
Unfortunately, this Court "ha[s] not always been vigilant about protecting the structure of our Constitution," at times endorsing a "more pragmatic, flexible approach" to our Government's design. Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Assn. , 575 U.S. 92, 115-116, 135 S.Ct. 1199, 191 L.Ed.2d 186 (2015) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment) (internal quotation marks omitted). Our tolerance of independent agencies in Humphrey's Executor is an unfortunate example of the Court's failure to apply the Constitution as written. That decision has paved the way for an ever-expanding encroachment on the power of the Executive, contrary to our constitutional design.
B
1
The lead up to Humphrey's Executor begins with this Court's decision in Myers , 272 U.S., 52, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160. Myers involved a federal statute that prohibited the President from removing certain postmasters except "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." Id. , at 107, 47 S.Ct. 21 (internal quotation marks omitted). The question presented was "whether under the Constitution the President has the exclusive power of removing executive officers of the United States whom he has appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." Id. , at 106, 47 S.Ct. 21. In a 70-page opinion by Chief Justice Taft, the Court held that the Constitution did vest such power in the President.
The Court anchored its analysis in evidence from the founding era. It acknowledged that the "subject [of removal] was not discussed in the Constitutional Convention," id. , at 109-110, 47 S.Ct. 21, but it reviewed in detail the First Congress' vigorous debate about the removal of executive officers in what is known as the Decision of 1789, id. , at 111-135, 47 S.Ct. 21. In the course of analyzing the Decision of 1789, the Court explained that Article II vests "the executive power of the Government ... in one person"-the President-and that the executive power includes the authority to "select those who [are] to act for him under his direction in the execution of the laws." Id. , at 116-117, 47 S.Ct. 21. Reiterating the position of James Madison and other Members of the First Congress, the Court noted that allowing limits on the President's removal authority would grant Congress "the means of thwarting the Executive in the exercise of his great powers and in the bearing of his great responsibility, by fastening upon him, as subordinate executive officers, men who by their inefficient service under him, by their lack of loyalty to the service, or by their different views of policy might make his taking care that the laws be faithfully executed most difficult or impossible." Id. , at 131, 47 S.Ct. 21. After "devot[ing] much space to [the] discussion and decision of the question of the Presidential power of removal in the First Congress" as well as its understanding of the executive power, id. , at 136, 47 S.Ct. 21, the Court concluded that "the power to remove officers appointed by the President and the Senate vested in the President alone," id. , at 114, 47 S.Ct. 21. It repeatedly described this removal power as "unrestricted." Id. , at 115, 134, 150, 172, 176, 47 S.Ct. 21.
The Court noted that the First Congress' understanding of the removal question was quickly "accepted as a final decision of the question by all branches of the Government." Id. , at 136, 47 S.Ct. 21. The decision was "affirmed by this Court in unmistakable terms." Id. , at 148, 152-153, 47 S.Ct. 21 (discussing Ex parte Hennen , 13 Pet. 230, 259, 10 L.Ed. 138 (1839) ; Parsons v. United States , 167 U.S. 324, 330, 17 S.Ct. 880, 42 L.Ed. 185 (1897) ). Presidents had "uniform[ly]" adopted the First Congress' view "whenever an issue ha[d] clearly been raised." Myers , 272 U.S., at 169, 47 S.Ct. 21. And "Congress, in a number of acts, followed and enforced the legislative decision of 1789 for seventy-four years." Id. , at 145, 47 S.Ct. 21. While disputes with President Andrew Johnson over Reconstruction led Congress to "enact legislation to curtail the then acknowledged powers of the President,"
id. , at 165, 47 S.Ct. 21, the Myers Court declined to give these politically charged acts any weight, id., at 175-176, 47 S.Ct. 21.
After exhaustively analyzing the historical evidence, the Court had "no hesitation in holding that [the First Congress'] conclusion [was] correct." Id. , at 176, 47 S.Ct. 21. Accordingly, the Court held that "the provision of the law [at issue], by which the unrestricted power of removal of first class postmasters is denied to the President, [was] in violation of the Constitution, and invalid." Ibid.
2
Nine years after Myers , the Court decided Humphrey's Executor . That case arose from the attempted removal of Commissioner William Humphrey from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In 1931, President Herbert Hoover appointed Humphrey to serve a 7-year term as one of the FTC's five Commissioners. By all accounts, Humphrey proved to be a controversial figure. See Crane, Debunking Humphrey's Executor , 83 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1836, 1841 (2015); Winerman, The FTC at Ninety: History Through Headlines, 72 Antitrust L. J. 871, 878-879 (2005) ; Yoo, Calabresi, & Nee, The Unitary Executive During the Third Half-Century, 1889-1945, 80 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1, 64 (2004). He reportedly "vowed not to approve any Commission action that did not have as its goal to help business help itself," "threaten[ed] criminal prosecution against other commissioners who publicly dissented," and "called his fellow commissioners men drunk with their own greatness" when they voted to initiate an investigation. Crane, supra , at 1841 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Less than two years into Humphrey's term, newly inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote Humphrey a letter, asking for his resignation. The President explained that, in his view, "the aims and purposes of the Administration with respect to the work of the Commission [could] be carried out most effectively with personnel of [his] own selection." Humphrey's Executor , 295 U.S., at 618, 55 S.Ct. 869 (internal quotation marks omitted). A little over a month after his first letter, President Roosevelt wrote Humphrey again to ask for his resignation. The letter stated: "You will, I know, realize that I do not feel that your mind and my mind go along together on either the policies or the administering of the [FTC], and, frankly, I think it is best for the people of this country that I should have a full confidence." Id. , at 619, 55 S.Ct. 869 (internal quotation marks omitted). Humphrey declined to resign. In October 1933, President Roosevelt informed Humphrey that he was removed from his position. Humphrey did not comply, continuing "to insist that he was still a member of the commission, entitled to perform its duties and receive the compensation provided by law." Ibid.
Four months later, Humphrey died. The executor of his estate brought suit in the Court of Claims, seeking to recover Humphrey's salary from the date of his removal until the date of his death. The Court of Claims certified two questions to this Court: (1) whether § 1 of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, ch. 311, 38 Stat. 717, prohibited the President from removing FTC Commissioners except for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office," and (2) if so, whether that restriction was constitutional. 295 U.S., at 619, 55 S.Ct. 869 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Court answered both of these questions in favor of Humphrey's estate. It first held that the FTC Act "limit[ed] the executive power of removal to the causes enumerated" therein-inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. Id. , at 626, 55 S.Ct. 869. In the Court's view, this construction of the Act was clear from "the face of the statute" and "the character of the commission," id. , at 624, 55 S.Ct. 869, which the Court described as a "body of experts" that operates "independent of executive authority ... and free to exercise its judgment without the leave or hindrance of any other official," id. , at 625-626, 55 S.Ct. 869.
Then, notwithstanding the text of Article II of the Constitution and the decision in Myers , the Court held that the Act's restriction on the President's authority to remove Commissioners was constitutional. The Court acknowledged that the "recently decided" Myers decision had "fully review[ed] the general subject of the power of executive removal" and "examine[d] at length the historical, legislative and judicial data bearing upon the question." Humphrey's Executor , 295 U.S., at 626, 55 S.Ct. 869. And it conceded that executive officers are "subject to the exclusive and illimitable power of removal by the Chief Executive." Id. , at 627, 55 S.Ct. 869 ; see also id. , at 631, 55 S.Ct. 869 (recognizing "the President's illimitable power of removal" over executive officers). The Court, however, claimed that "[t]he office of a postmaster is so essentially unlike the office [of an FTC Commissioner] that the decision in the Myers case [could not] be accepted as controlling." Id. , at 627, 55 S.Ct. 869. In the Court's view, unlike the postmaster in Myers , FTC commissioners did not qualify as "purely executive officers." 295 U.S., at 632, 55 S.Ct. 869.
The Court grounded its analysis in its assertion that the FTC "occupies no place in the executive department and ... exercises no part of the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President." Id. , at 628, 55 S.Ct. 869. Rather, in the Court's view, by "filling in and administering the details embodied by [the FTC Act's] general standard[,] the commission act[ed] in part quasi-legislatively and in part quasi-judicially." Ibid. The Court stated that the FTC acted "as a legislative agency" by "making investigations and reports thereon for the information of Congress" and acted "as an agency of the judiciary" when performing its role "as a master in chancery under rules prescribed by the court." Ibid. "Such a body," the Court explained, "cannot in any proper sense be characterized as an arm or an eye of the executive." Ibid.
After distinguishing "purely executive officers" from officers exercising "quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial powers," ibid. , the Court held that "[w]hether the power of the President to remove an officer shall prevail over the authority of Congress to condition the power by ... precluding a removal except for cause, will depend upon the character of the office," id. , at 631, 55 S.Ct. 869. "[P]urely executive officers" are subject to the President's "unrestrictable power ... to remove." Id. , at 632, 55 S.Ct. 869. But with regard to "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial" officers, the Court concluded that "no removal [could] be made ... except for one or more of the causes named." Ibid.
3
Humphrey's Executor laid the foundation for a fundamental departure from our constitutional structure with nothing more than handwaving and obfuscating phrases such as "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial." Unlike the thorough analysis in Myers , the Court's thinly reasoned decision is completely "devoid of textual or historical precedent for the novel principle it set forth." Morrison v. Olson , 487 U.S. 654, 726, 108 S.Ct. 2597, 101 L.Ed.2d 569 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting). The exceptional weakness of the reasoning could be a product of the circumstances under which the case was decided-in the midst of a bitter standoff between the Court and President Roosevelt -or it could be just another example of this Court departing from the strictures of the Constitution for a "more pragmatic, flexible approach" to our government's design. Perez , 575 U.S., at 116, 135 S.Ct. 1199 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (internal quotation marks omitted). But whatever the motivation, Humphrey's Executor does not comport with the Constitution.
Humphrey's Executor relies on one key premise: the notion that there is a category of "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial" power that is not exercised by Congress or the Judiciary, but that is also not part of "the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President." Humphrey's Executor , supra , at 628, 55 S.Ct. 869. Working from that premise, the Court distinguished the "illimitable" power of removal recognized in Myers , Humphrey's Executor , 295 U.S., at 627-628, 55 S.Ct. 869, and upheld the FTC Act's removal restriction, while simultaneously acknowledging that the Constitution vests the President with the entirety of the executive power, id. , at 628, 55 S.Ct. 869.
The problem is that the Court's premise was entirely wrong. The Constitution does not permit the creation of officers exercising "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial powers" in "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial agencies." Id., at 628-629, 55 S.Ct. 869. No such powers or agencies exist. Congress lacks the authority to delegate its legislative power, Whitman v. American Trucking Assns. , Inc., 531 U.S. 457, 472, 121 S.Ct. 903, 149 L.Ed.2d 1 (2001), and it cannot authorize the use of judicial power by officers acting outside of the bounds of Article III, Stern v. Marshall , 564 U.S. 462, 484, 131 S.Ct. 2594, 180 L.Ed.2d 475 (2011). Nor can Congress create agencies that straddle multiple branches of Government. The Constitution sets out three branches of Government and provides each with a different form of power-legislative, executive, and judicial. See Art. I, § 1; Art. II, § 1, cl. 1 ; Art. III, § 1. Free-floating agencies simply do not comport with this constitutional structure.
"[A]gencies have been called quasi-legislative, quasi-executive or quasi-judicial, as the occasion required, in order to validate their functions within the separation-of-powers scheme of the Constitution." FTC v. Ruberoid Co. , 343 U.S. 470, 487, 72 S.Ct. 800, 96 L.Ed. 1081 (1952) (Jackson, J., dissenting). But "[t]he mere retreat to the qualifying 'quasi' is implicit with confession that all recognized classifications have broken down, and 'quasi' is a smooth cover which we draw over our confusion as we might use a counterpane to conceal a disordered bed." Id. , at 487-488, 72 S.Ct. 800.
That is exactly what happened in Humphrey's Executor . The Court upheld the FTC Act's removal restriction by using the "quasi" label to support its claim that the FTC "exercise[d] no part of the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President." Humphrey's Executor , supra , at 628, 55 S.Ct. 869. But "it is hard to dispute that the powers of the FTC at the time of Humphrey's Executor would at the present time be considered 'executive,' at least to some degree." Morrison , supra , at 690, n. 28, 108 S.Ct. 2597 ; see ante , at 2198 n.2; see post , at 2201 n.7 (KAGAN, J., concurring in judgment with respect to severability and dissenting in part).
C
Today's decision constitutes the latest in a series of cases that have significantly undermined Humphrey's Executor . First, in Morrison , the Court repudiated the reasoning of the decision. 487 U.S. at 689, 108 S.Ct. 2597. Then, in Free Enterprise Fund , we returned to the principles set out in the "landmark case of Myers ." 561 U.S., at 492, 130 S.Ct. 3138. And today, the Court rightfully limits Humphrey's Executor to "multimember expert agencies that do not wield substantial executive power." Ante , at ----. After these decisions, the foundation for Humphrey's Executor is not just shaky. It is nonexistent.
This Court's repudiation of Humphrey's Executor began with its decision in Morrison . There, the Court upheld a statute insulating an independent counsel from removal by the Attorney General absent a showing of "good cause." Morrison , supra , at 659-660, 108 S.Ct. 2597. In doing so, the Court set aside the reasoning of Humphrey's Executor . It recognized that Humphrey's Executor "rel[ied] on the terms 'quasilegislative' and 'quasi-judicial' to distinguish the officials involved in Humphrey's Executor ... from those in Myers ." 487 U.S., at 689, 108 S.Ct. 2597. But it then immediately stated that its "present considered view is that the determination of whether the Constitution allows Congress to impose a 'good cause'-type restriction on the President's power to remove an official cannot be made to turn on whether or not that official is classified as 'purely executive.' " Ibid. The Court also rejected Humphrey's Executor 's conclusion that the FTC did not exercise executive power, stating that "the powers of the FTC at the time of Humphrey's Executor would at the present time be considered 'executive.' " Morrison , supra , at 690, n. 28, 108 S.Ct. 2597. The lone dissenter, Justice Scalia, disagreed with much of the Court's analysis but noted that the Court had rightfully "swept" Humphrey's Executor "into the dustbin of repudiated constitutional principles." 487 U.S., at 725, 108 S.Ct. 2597. Thus, all Members of the Court who heard Morrison rejected the core rationale of Humphrey's Executor .
The reasoning of the Court's decision in Free Enterprise Fund created further tension (if not outright conflict) with Humphrey's Executor . In Free Enterprise Fund , the Court concluded that a dual layer of for-cause removal restrictions for members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board violated the Constitution. In its analysis, the Court recognized that allowing officers to "execute the laws" beyond the President's control "is contrary to Article II's vesting of the executive power in the President ." 561 U.S., at 496, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (emphasis added). The Court acknowledged that "the executive power include[s] a power to oversee executive officers through removal." Id. , at 492, 130 S.Ct. 3138. And it explained that, without the power of removal, the President cannot "be held fully accountable" for the exercise of the executive power, " 'greatly diminish[ing] the intended and necessary responsibility of the chief magistrate himself.' " Id. , at 514, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (quoting The Federalist No. 70, p. 478 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton)). Accountability, the Court repeatedly emphasized, plays a central role in our constitutional structure. See, e.g. , Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 498, 130 S.Ct. 3138 ("[E]xecutive power without the Executive's oversight ... subverts the President's ability to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed-as well as the public's ability to pass judgment on his efforts"); id. , at 513, 130 S.Ct. 3138 ("The Constitution that makes the President accountable to the people for executing the laws also gives him the power to do so"). Humphrey's Executor is at odds with every single one of these principles: It ignores Article II's Vesting Clause, sidesteps the President's removal power, and encourages the exercise of executive power by unaccountable officers. The reasoning of the two decisions simply cannot be reconciled.
Finally, today's decision builds upon Morrison and Free Enterprise Fund , further eroding the foundation of Humphrey's Executor . The Court correctly notes that "[t]he entire 'executive Power' belongs to the President alone." Ante , at 2197. The President therefore must have "power to remove-and thus supervise-those who wield executive power on his behalf." Ante , at 2191 - 2192. As a result, the Court concludes that Humphrey's Executor must be limited to "multimember expert agencies that do not wield substantial executive power ." Ante, at 2219 - 2220 (emphasis added). And, at the same time, it recognizes (as the Court did in Morrison ) that "[t]he Court's conclusion that the FTC did not exercise executive power has not withstood the test of time." Ante , at 2198 n.2. In other words, Humphrey's Executor does not even satisfy its own exception.
In light of these decisions, it is not clear what is left of Humphrey's Executor 's rationale. But if any remnant of that decision is still standing, it certainly is not enough to justify the numerous, unaccountable independent agencies that currently exercise vast executive power outside the bounds of our constitutional structure.
* * *
Continued reliance on Humphrey's Executor to justify the existence of independent agencies creates a serious, ongoing threat to our Government's design. Leaving these unconstitutional agencies in place does not enhance this Court's legitimacy; it subverts political accountability and threatens individual liberty. We have a "responsibility to 'examin[e] without fear, and revis[e] without reluctance,' any 'hasty and crude decisions' rather than leaving 'the character of [the] law impaired, and the beauty and harmony of the [American constitutional] system destroyed by the perpetuity of error.' " Gamble v. United States , 587 U. S. ----, ----, 139 S.Ct. 1960, 1984, 204 L.Ed.2d 322 (2019) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (quoting 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law 444 (1826); some alterations in original). We simply cannot compromise when it comes to our Government's structure. Today, the Court does enough to resolve this case, but in the future, we should reconsider Humphrey's Executor in toto . And I hope that we will have the will to do so.
II
While I think that the Court correctly resolves the merits of the constitutional question, I do not agree with its decision to sever the removal restriction in 12 U. S. C. § 5491(c)(3). See ante , at 2207 - 2211; post , at 2244 - 2245. To resolve this case, I would simply deny the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) petition to enforce the civil investigative demand.
A
Article III of the Constitution vests "[t]he judicial Power of the United States" in the "supreme Court" and the lower federal courts established by Congress. § 1. "[T]he judicial power is, fundamentally, the power to render judgments in individual cases" or controversies that are properly before the court. Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. , 584 U. S. ----, --- - ----, 138 S.Ct. 1461, 1485-1486, 200 L.Ed.2d 854 (2018) (THOMAS, J., concurring); see also Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc. , 514 U.S. 211, 219, 115 S.Ct. 1447, 131 L.Ed.2d 328 (1995) (" '[A] "judicial Power" is one to render dispositive judgments' "); Baude, The Judgment Power, 96 Geo. L. J. 1807, 1815-1816 (2008). "[T]he power exercised is that of ascertaining and declaring the law applicable to the controversy." Massachusetts v. Mellon , 262 U.S. 447, 488, 43 S.Ct. 597, 67 L.Ed. 1078 (1923). In the context of a constitutional challenge, "[i]t amounts to little more than the negative power to disregard an unconstitutional enactment." Ibid. ; see also Mitchell, The Writ-of-Erasure Fallacy, 104 Va. L. Rev. 933, 936 (2018). Thus, if a party argues that a statute and the Constitution conflict, "then courts must resolve that dispute and, ... follow the higher law of the Constitution." Murphy , 584 U. S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1486 (THOMAS, J., concurring).
Consistent with this understanding, "[e]arly American courts did not have a severability doctrine." Id. , at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1485 (citing Walsh, Partial Unconstitutionality, 85 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 738, 769 (2010) ). If a statute was unconstitutional, the court would just decline to enforce the statute in the case before it. 584 U. S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1486 (THOMAS, J., concurring). That was the end of the matter. "[T]here was no 'next step' in which [a] cour[t]" severed portions of a statute. Walsh, supra , at 777.
Our modern severability precedents create tension with this historic practice. Instead of declining to enforce an unconstitutional statute in an individual case, this Court has stated that courts must "seve[r] and excis[e]" portions of a statute to "remedy" the constitutional problem. United States v. Booker , 543 U.S. 220, 245, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005) ;
Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock , 480 U.S. 678, 686, 107 S.Ct. 1476, 94 L.Ed.2d 661 (1987). The Court's rhetoric when discussing severance implies that a court's decision to sever a provision "formally suspend[s] or erase[s it], when [the provision] actually remains on the books as a law." Mitchell, supra , at 1017. The Federal Judiciary does not have the power to excise, erase, alter, or otherwise strike down a statute. Murphy , supra , at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1486 (THOMAS, J., concurring) Mitchell, supra , at 936. And the Court's reference to severability as a "remedy" is inaccurate. Traditional remedies-like injunctions, declarations, or damages-" 'operate with respect to specific parties,' not 'on legal rules in the abstract.' " Murphy , supra , at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1486 (THOMAS, J., concurring) (quoting Harrison, Severability, Remedies, and Constitutional Adjudication, 83 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 56, 85 (2014) ).
Because the power of judicial review does not allow courts to revise statutes, Mitchell, supra , at 983, the Court's severability doctrine must be rooted in statutory interpretation. But, even viewing severability as an interpretive question, I remain skeptical of our doctrine. As I have previously explained, "the severability doctrine often requires courts to weigh in on statutory provisions that no party has standing to challenge, bringing courts dangerously close to issuing advisory opinions." Murphy , 584 U. S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1487 (concurring opinion). And the application of the doctrine "does not follow basic principles of statutory interpretation." Id. , at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1486. Instead of determining the meaning of a statute's text, severability involves "nebulous inquir[ies] into hypothetical congressional intent." Booker , supra, at 320, n. 7, 125 S.Ct. 738 (THOMAS, J., dissenting in part).
B
Consistent with the traditional understanding of the judicial power, I would deny CFPB's petition to enforce the civil investigative demand that it issued to Seila. See § 5562(e)(1). Seila "challenge[d] the validity of both the civil investigative demand and the ensuing enforcement action." Reply Brief for Petitioner 5. Seila has not countersued or sought affirmative relief preventing the CFPB from acting in the future; it simply asks us to "reverse the court of appeals' judgment." Brief for Petitioner 35. I would do just that. As the Court recognizes, the enforcement of a civil investigative demand by an official with unconstitutional removal protection injures Seila. See ante , at 2195 - 2196. Presented with an enforcement request from an unconstitutionally insulated Director, I would simply deny the CFPB's petition for an order of enforcement. This approach would resolve the dispute before us without addressing the issue of severability.
The Court, however, does more. In the plurality's view, because the CFPB raised a ratification argument before the Court of Appeals, we can (and should) reach the question of severability. See ante , at 2207 - 2208. But as explained more fully below, resolving this question is wholly unnecessary. Regardless of whether the CFPB's ratification theory is valid, the Court of Appeals on remand must reach the same outcome: The CFPB's civil investigative demand cannot be enforced against Seila.
The ratification argument presented by the CFPB is quite simple. Since its creation in 2010, the CFPB has had three Directors-first Director Richard Cordray, then Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, and now Director Kathleen Kraninger. The CFPB's first Director, Director Cordray, issued a civil investigative demand to Seila and initiated the enforcement action. The CFPB has conceded that these actions were unconstitutional. But, in the Ninth Circuit, the CFPB argued that the investigative demand was ratified by Acting Director Mulvaney, who it claimed was not insulated by the removal provision. Brief for Appellee in No. 17-56324, pp. 13-19. In the CFPB's view, the President could remove Acting Director Mulvaney at will because the "removal provision by its terms applies only to 'the Director,' not to an Acting Director," and the Federal Vacancy Reform Act "does not limit the President's ability to designate a different person as Acting Director." Id. , at 14. Based on this ratification theory, the CFPB asked the Ninth Circuit to affirm the District Court's order granting the CFPB's petition to enforce its investigative demand.
The CFPB does not ask this Court to address ratification on the merits, but it does rely on its unresolved ratification theory to assert that the Court should reach severability. In doing so, the CFPB relies on the same theory that it presented to the Ninth Circuit. Thus, the only live ratification claim is the theory that Acting Director Mulvaney ratified the civil investigative demand. See ante , at 2207 - 2208.
The resolution of the CFPB's Acting-Director ratification theory, however, has no bearing on the outcome of the dispute before us and therefore provides no basis for addressing severability. If the Acting Director did not ratify the investigative demand, then there is obviously no need to address severability. And even if he did, the Court still does not need to address severability because the alleged ratification does not cure the constitutional injury-enforcement of an investigative demand by an unconstitutionally insulated Director. Seila "challenge[d] the validity of both the civil investigative demand and the ensuing enforcement action ." Reply Brief for Petitioner 5 (emphasis added). Acting Director Mulvaney may (or may not) have properly ratified the issuance of the investigative demand and the initiation of the enforcement proceedings. But he certainly could not ratify the continuance of the enforcement action by his successor, Director Kraninger. Id. , at 7. Thus, even if the CFPB's ratification theory is valid, Seila still has an injury: It has been (and continues to be) subjected to enforcement of an investigative demand by Director Kraninger, who "remains statutorily insulated from removal." Reply Brief for Respondent 7; see also Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 513, 130 S.Ct. 3138 ; ante , at 2196. Thus, we should decline to enforce the civil investigative demand against Seila. See supra, at 2198 - 2199.
Ultimately, I cannot see how the resolution of the severability question affects the dispute before us. And even if severability could affect this case in some hypothetical scenario, I would not reach out to resolve the issue given my growing discomfort with our current severability precedents.
C
Confident that it can address the question of severability, the plurality moves on to conduct its analysis. It starts by pointing to the severability clause in the Dodd-Frank Act. See ante , at 2209. That clause states: "If any provision of this Act, an amendment made by this Act, or the application of such provision or amendment to any person or circumstance is held to be unconstitutional, the remainder of this Act, the amendments made by this Act, and the application of the provisions of such to any person or circumstance shall not be affected thereby." § 5302. The plurality states that "[i]f the Director were removable at will by the President, the constitutional violation would disappear." Ante , at 2208 - 2209. Then, relying on language in the severability clause, it concludes that the removal provision, § 5491(c)(3), should be severed.
The plurality suggests that its analysis is a matter of simply enforcing the "plain language" of the severability clause. See ante , at 2209. But I am not sure it is that simple. For one, the plurality does not actually analyze the statutory language. Second, the analysis the plurality does provide looks nothing like traditional statutory interpretation. Generally, when we interpret a statute, we do not hold that the text sets out a "presum[ption]" that can be rebutted by looking to atextual evidence of legislative intent. Ante , at 2208 - 2209. A text-based interpretation does not allow a free-ranging inquiry into what " 'Congress, faced with the limitations imposed by the Constitution, would have preferred' " had it known of a constitutional issue. Ante , at 2209 (quoting Free Enterprise Fund , supra , at 509, 130 S.Ct. 3138 ). Nor does it consider whether Congress would have wanted to avoid "a major regulatory disruption." Ante , at 2210 - 2211. Statutory interpretation focuses on the text.
Even treating the question as a matter of pure statutory interpretation and assuming that the plurality points to the correct language, the text of the severability clause cannot, in isolation, justify severance of the removal provision. In some instances, a constitutional injury arises as a result of two or more statutory provisions operating together. See, e.g. , Free Enterprise Fund , supra , at 509, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (stating that the convergence of "a number of statutory provisions" produce a constitutional violation); Booker , 543 U.S., at 316-317, 125 S.Ct. 738 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (explaining that "the concerted action of [ 18 U. S. C.] § 3553(b)(1) and the operative Guidelines and the relevant Rule of Criminal Procedure resulted in unconstitutional judicial factfinding"); Lea, Situation Severability, 103 Va. L. Rev. 735, 778-780 (2017) (discussing statutory convergences). That is precisely the situation we have in this case.
As in Free Enterprise Fund , the provision requiring "good-cause removal is only one of [the] statutory provisions that, working together, produce a constitutional violation." 561 U.S., at 509, 130 S.Ct. 3138. The constitutional violation results from, at a minimum, the combination of the removal provision, 12 U. S. C. § 5491(c)(3), and the provision allowing the CFPB to seek enforcement of a civil investigative demand, § 5562(e)(1). When confronted with two provisions that operate together to violate the Constitution, the text of the severability clause provides no guidance as to which provision should be severed. Thus, we must choose, based on something other than the severability clause, which provision to sever.
Without text to guide us, the severability inquiry moves away from statutory interpretation and falls back on this Court's questionable precedents. See Murphy , 584 U. S., at --- - ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1486-1488 (THOMAS, J., concurring). An analysis of the Court's decisions in Booker and Free Enterprise Fund illustrates the Court's approach to determining which provision to sever when confronting an injury caused by an unconstitutional convergence of multiple statutory provisions.
In Booker , a Rule of Criminal Procedure, a subset of provisions in the Sentencing Guidelines, and a statutory provision operated together to require unconstitutional judicial factfinding. To determine which aspect of the sentencing scheme to sever, the Court sought to divine "what Congress would have intended in light of the Court's constitutional holding." Booker , 543 U.S., at 246, 125 S.Ct. 738 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court "recognize[d] that sometimes severability questions ... can arise [in the context of] a legislatively unforeseen constitutional problem." Id. , at 247, 125 S.Ct. 738. But it nonetheless felt qualified to craft a remedy that would "move sentencing in Congress' preferred direction." Id. , at 264, 125 S.Ct. 738. Surprisingly, that "move" did not involve enforcing the constitutional aspects of Congress' sentencing scheme. The Court stated that "we cannot assume that Congress, if faced with the statute's invalidity in key applications, would have preferred to apply the statute in as many other instances as possible." Id. , at 248, 125 S.Ct. 738. Despite the fact that there were a plethora of cases in which mandatory Sentencing Guidelines would have posed no constitutional problem, the Court decided to "sever and excise ... the provision that requires sentencing courts to impose a sentence within the applicable Guidelines range," along with another provision which was not even at issue in the case. Id. , at 259, 125 S.Ct. 738. In essence, the Court crafted a new sentencing scheme, transforming the Sentencing Guidelines into an entirely discretionary system based on its estimation that Congress would have wanted that result.
The Court in Free Enterprise Fund declined to explicitly engage in Booker 's free-wheeling inquiry into Congress' hypothetical preferences, but it did not replace that inquiry with a clear standard. In that case, the Court held that a "number of statutory provisions ..., working together, produce[d] a constitutional violation" similar to the violation at issue here. Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 509, 130 S.Ct. 3138. The Court decided to sever the Board's removal restriction. It explicitly recognized that there were multiple ways to address the constitutional injury, stating that the Court could, for example, "blue-pencil a sufficient number of the Board's responsibilities," or "restrict the Board's enforcement powers." Ibid. But it described these alternative options as involving "editorial freedom-far more extensive than [the] holding today-[that] belongs to the Legislature, not the Judiciary." Id. , at 510, 130 S.Ct. 3138. The Court did not explain, however, why the option that it chose was not also "editorial freedom" that belongs to the Legislature or why the alternatives involved "more extensive" "editorial freedom" than its preferred option. Ibid. The most that the Court provided was a suggestion that fewer provisions would have to be severed under its approach. Id. , at 509-510, 130 S.Ct. 3138.
Today's plurality opinion provides no further guidance. In fact, the plurality does not even recognize that it has made a choice between the provisions that cause the constitutional injury. It merely states that "[i]f the Director were removable at will by the President, the constitutional violation would disappear." Ante , at 2209. Fair enough. But if the Director lacked executive authority under the statute to seek enforcement of a civil investigative demand, § 5562(e)(1), the constitutional violation in this case would also disappear. The plurality thus chooses which of the provisions to sever.
In short, when multiple provisions of law combine to cause a constitutional injury, the Court's current approach allows the Court to decide which provision to sever. The text of a severability clause does not guide that choice. Nor does the practice of early American courts. See supra , at 2218 - 2219. The Court is thus left to choose based on nothing more than speculation as to what the Legislature would have preferred. And the result of its choice can have a dramatic effect on the governing statutory scheme. See Booker , supra , at 259, 125 S.Ct. 738 (converting the entirety of the Sentencing Guidelines from a mandatory to a discretionary system). This is not a simple matter of following the "plain language" of a statute. Ante , at 2209. It is incumbent on us to take a close look at our precedents to make sure that we are not exceeding the scope of the judicial power.
* * *
Given my concerns about our modern severability doctrine and the fact that severability makes no difference to the dispute before us, I would resolve this case by simply denying the CFPB's petition to enforce the civil investigative demand.
Justice KAGAN, with whom Justice GINSBURG, Justice BREYER, and Justice SOTOMAYOR join, concurring in the judgment with respect to severability and dissenting in part.
Throughout the Nation's history, this Court has left most decisions about how to structure the Executive Branch to Congress and the President, acting through legislation they both agree to. In particular, the Court has commonly allowed those two branches to create zones of administrative independence by limiting the President's power to remove agency heads. The Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The National Labor Relations Board. Statute after statute establishing such entities instructs the President that he may not discharge their directors except for cause-most often phrased as inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. Those statutes, whose language the Court has repeatedly approved, provide the model for the removal restriction before us today. If precedent were any guide, that provision would have survived its encounter with this Court-and so would the intended independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Our Constitution and history demand that result. The text of the Constitution allows these common for-cause removal limits. Nothing in it speaks of removal. And it grants Congress authority to organize all the institutions of American governance, provided only that those arrangements allow the President to perform his own constitutionally assigned duties. Still more, the Framers' choice to give the political branches wide discretion over administrative offices has played out through American history in ways that have settled the constitutional meaning. From the first, Congress debated and enacted measures to create spheres of administration-especially of financial affairs-detached from direct presidential control. As the years passed, and governance became ever more complicated, Congress continued to adopt and adapt such measures-confident it had latitude to do so under a Constitution meant to "endure for ages to come." McCulloch v. Maryland , 4 Wheat. 316, 415, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819) (approving the Second Bank of the United States). Not every innovation in governance-not every experiment in administrative independence-has proved successful. And debates about the prudence of limiting the President's control over regulatory agencies, including through his removal power, have never abated. But the Constitution-both as originally drafted and as practiced-mostly leaves disagreements about administrative structure to Congress and the President, who have the knowledge and experience needed to address them. Within broad bounds, it keeps the courts-who do not-out of the picture.
The Court today fails to respect its proper role. It recognizes that this Court has approved limits on the President's removal power over heads of agencies much like the CFPB. Agencies possessing similar powers, agencies charged with similar missions, agencies created for similar reasons. The majority's explanation is that the heads of those agencies fall within an "exception"-one for multimember bodies and another for inferior officers-to a "general rule" of unrestricted presidential removal power. Ante, at 2197 - 2198. And the majority says the CFPB Director does not. That account, though, is wrong in every respect. The majority's general rule does not exist. Its exceptions, likewise, are made up for the occasion-gerrymandered so the CFPB falls outside them. And the distinction doing most of the majority's work-between multimember bodies and single directors-does not respond to the constitutional values at stake. If a removal provision violates the separation of powers, it is because the measure so deprives the President of control over an official as to impede his own constitutional functions. But with or without a for-cause removal provision, the President has at least as much control over an individual as over a commission-and possibly more. That means the constitutional concern is, if anything, ameliorated when the agency has a single head. Unwittingly, the majority shows why courts should stay their hand in these matters. "Compared to Congress and the President, the Judiciary possesses an inferior understanding of the realities of administration" and the way "political power[ ] operates." Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd. , 561 U.S. 477, 523, 130 S.Ct. 3138, 177 L.Ed.2d 706 (2010) (BREYER, J., dissenting).
In second-guessing the political branches, the majority second-guesses as well the wisdom of the Framers and the judgment of history. It writes in rules to the Constitution that the drafters knew well enough not to put there. It repudiates the lessons of American experience, from the 18th century to the present day. And it commits the Nation to a static version of governance, incapable of responding to new conditions and challenges. Congress and the President established the CFPB to address financial practices that had brought on a devastating recession, and could do so again. Today's decision wipes out a feature of that agency its creators thought fundamental to its mission-a measure of independence from political pressure. I respectfully dissent.
I
The text of the Constitution, the history of the country, the precedents of this Court, and the need for sound and adaptable governance-all stand against the majority's opinion. They point not to the majority's "general rule" of "unrestricted removal power" with two grudgingly applied "exceptions." Ante, at 2197 - 2198, 2199 - 2200. Rather, they bestow discretion on the legislature to structure administrative institutions as the times demand, so long as the President retains the ability to carry out his constitutional duties. And most relevant here, they give Congress wide leeway to limit the President's removal power in the interest of enhancing independence from politics in regulatory bodies like the CFPB.
A
What does the Constitution say about the separation of powers-and particularly about the President's removal authority? (Spoiler alert: about the latter, nothing at all.)
The majority offers the civics class version of separation of powers-call it the Schoolhouse Rock definition of the phrase. See Schoolhouse Rock! Three Ring Government (Mar. 13, 1979), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKSGyiT-o3o ("Ring one, Executive. Two is Legislative, that's Congress. Ring three, Judiciary"). The Constitution's first three articles, the majority recounts, "split the atom of sovereignty" among Congress, the President, and the courts. Ante, at 2202 - 2203 (internal quotation marks omitted). And by that mechanism, the Framers provided a "simple" fix "to governmental power and its perils." Ibid.
There is nothing wrong with that as a beginning (except the adjective "simple"). It is of course true that the Framers lodged three different kinds of power in three different entities. And that they did so for a crucial purpose-because, as James Madison wrote, "there can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person[ ] or body" or where "the power of judging [is] not separated from the legislative and executive powers." The Federalist No. 47, p. 325 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (quoting Baron de Montesquieu).
The problem lies in treating the beginning as an ending too-in failing to recognize that the separation of powers is, by design, neither rigid nor complete. Blackstone, whose work influenced the Framers on this subject as on others, observed that "every branch" of government "supports and is supported, regulates and is regulated, by the rest." 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 151 (1765). So as James Madison stated, the creation of distinct branches "did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial agency in, or no controul over the acts of each other." The Federalist No. 47, at 325 (emphasis deleted). To the contrary, Madison explained, the drafters of the Constitution-like those of then-existing state constitutions-opted against keeping the branches of government "absolutely separate and distinct." Id., at 327. Or as Justice Story reiterated a half-century later: "[W]hen we speak of a separation of the three great departments of government," it is "not meant to affirm, that they must be kept wholly and entirely separate." 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 524, p. 8 (1833). Instead, the branches have-as they must for the whole arrangement to work-"common link[s] of connexion [and] dependence." Ibid.
One way the Constitution reflects that vision is by giving Congress broad authority to establish and organize the Executive Branch. Article II presumes the existence of "Officer[s]" in "executive Departments." § 2, cl. 1. But it does not, as you might think from reading the majority opinion, give the President authority to decide what kinds of officers-in what departments, with what responsibilities-the Executive Branch requires. See ante, at 2197 ("The entire 'executive Power' belongs to the President alone"). Instead, Article I's Necessary and Proper Clause puts those decisions in the legislature's hands. Congress has the power "[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" not just its own enumerated powers but also "all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." § 8, cl. 18. Similarly, the Appointments Clause reflects Congress's central role in structuring the Executive Branch. Yes, the President can appoint principal officers, but only as the legislature "shall ... establish[ ] by Law" (and of course subject to the Senate's advice and consent). Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. And Congress has plenary power to decide not only what inferior officers will exist but also who (the President or a head of department) will appoint them. So as Madison told the first Congress, the legislature gets to "create[ ] the office, define[ ] the powers, [and] limit[ ] its duration." 1 Annals of Cong. 582 (1789). The President, as to the construction of his own branch of government, can only try to work his will through the legislative process.
The majority relies for its contrary vision on Article II's Vesting Clause, see ante, at 2197, 2204 - 2205, but the provision can't carry all that weight. Or as Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote of a similar claim in Morrison v. Olson , 487 U.S. 654, 108 S.Ct. 2597, 101 L.Ed.2d 569 (1988), "extrapolat[ing]" an unrestricted removal power from such "general constitutional language"-which says only that "[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President"-is "more than the text will bear." Id., at 690, n. 29, 108 S.Ct. 2597. Dean John Manning has well explained why, even were it not obvious from the Clause's "open-ended language." Separation of Powers as Ordinary Interpretation, 124 Harv. L. Rev. 1939, 1971 (2011). The Necessary and Proper Clause, he writes, makes it impossible to "establish a constitutional violation simply by showing that Congress has constrained the way '[t]he executive Power' is implemented"; that is exactly what the Clause gives Congress the power to do. Id., at 1967. Only "a specific historical understanding" can bar Congress from enacting a given constraint. Id., at 2024. And nothing of that sort broadly prevents Congress from limiting the President's removal power. I'll turn soon to the Decision of 1789 and other evidence of Post-Convention thought. See infra , at 2228 - 2231. For now, note two points about practice before the Constitution's drafting. First, in that era, Parliament often restricted the King's power to remove royal officers-and the President, needless to say, wasn't supposed to be a king. See Birk, Interrogating the Historical Basis for a Unitary Executive, 73 Stan. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2021). Second, many States at the time allowed limits on gubernatorial removal power even though their constitutions had similar vesting clauses. See Shane, The Originalist Myth of the Unitary Executive, 19 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 323, 334-344 (2016). Historical understandings thus belie the majority's "general rule."
Nor can the Take Care Clause come to the majority's rescue. That Clause cannot properly serve as a "placeholder for broad judicial judgments" about presidential control. Goldsmith & Manning, The Protean Take Care Clause, 164 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1835, 1867 (2016) ; but see ante, at 2197, 2206 n.11 (using it that way). To begin with, the provision-"he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"-speaks of duty, not power. Art. II, § 3. New scholarship suggests the language came from English and colonial oaths taken by, and placing fiduciary obligations on, all manner and rank of executive officers. See Kent, Leib, & Shugerman, Faithful Execution and Article II, 132 Harv. L. Rev. 2111, 2121-2178 (2019). To be sure, the imposition of a duty may imply a grant of power sufficient to carry it out. But again, the majority's view of that power ill comports with founding-era practice, in which removal limits were common. See, e.g., Corwin, Tenure of Office and the Removal Power Under the Constitution, 27 Colum. L. Rev. 353, 385 (1927) (noting that New York's Constitution of 1777 had nearly the same clause, though the State's executive had "very little voice" in removals). And yet more important, the text of the Take Care Clause requires only enough authority to make sure "the laws [are] faithfully executed"-meaning with fidelity to the law itself, not to every presidential policy preference. As this Court has held, a President can ensure " 'faithful execution' of the laws"-thereby satisfying his "take care" obligation-with a removal provision like the one here. Morrison , 487 U.S., at 692, 108 S.Ct. 2597. A for-cause standard gives him "ample authority to assure that [an official] is competently performing [his] statutory responsibilities in a manner that comports with the [relevant legislation's] provisions." Ibid.
Finally, recall the Constitution's telltale silence: Nowhere does the text say anything about the President's power to remove subordinate officials at will. The majority professes unconcern. After all, it says, "neither is there a 'separation of powers clause' or a 'federalism clause.' " Ante, at 2204 - 2205. But those concepts are carved into the Constitution's text-the former in its first three articles separating powers, the latter in its enumeration of federal powers and its reservation of all else to the States. And anyway, at-will removal is hardly such a "foundational doctrine[ ]," ibid. : You won't find it on a civics class syllabus. That's because removal is a tool -one means among many, even if sometimes an important one, for a President to control executive officials. See generally Free Enterprise Fund, 561 U.S., at 524, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (BREYER, J., dissenting). To find that authority hidden in the Constitution as a "general rule" is to discover what is nowhere there.
B
History no better serves the majority's cause. As Madison wrote, "a regular course of practice" can "liquidate & settle the meaning of " disputed or indeterminate constitutional provisions. Letter to Spencer Roane (Sept. 2, 1819), in 8 Writings of James Madison 450 (G. Hunt ed. 1908); see NLRB v. Noel Canning , 573 U.S. 513, 525, 134 S.Ct. 2550, 189 L.Ed.2d 538 (2014). The majority lays claim to that kind of record, asserting that its muscular view of "[t]he President's removal power has long been confirmed by history." Ante , at 2197. But that is not so. The early history-including the fabled Decision of 1789-shows mostly debate and division about removal authority. And when a "settle[ment of] meaning" at last occurred, it was not on the majority's terms. Instead, it supports wide latitude for Congress to create spheres of administrative independence.
1
Begin with evidence from the Constitution's ratification. And note that this moment is indeed the beginning: Delegates to the Constitutional Convention never discussed whether or to what extent the President would have power to remove executive officials. As a result, the Framers advocating ratification had no single view of the matter. In Federalist No. 77, Hamilton presumed that under the new Constitution "[t]he consent of [the Senate] would be necessary to displace as well as to appoint" officers of the United States. Id., at 515. He thought that scheme would promote "steady administration": "Where a man in any station had given satisfactory evidence of his fitness for it, a new president would be restrained" from substituting "a person more agreeable to him." Ibid. By contrast, Madison thought the Constitution allowed Congress to decide how any executive official could be removed. He explained in Federalist No. 39: "The tenure of the ministerial offices generally will be a subject of legal regulation, conformably to the reason of the case, and the example of the State Constitutions." Id., at 253. Neither view, of course, at all supports the majority's story.
The second chapter is the Decision of 1789, when Congress addressed the removal power while considering the bill creating the Department of Foreign Affairs. Speaking through Chief Justice Taft-a judicial presidentialist if ever there was one-this Court in Myers v. United States , 272 U.S. 52, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926), read that debate as expressing Congress's judgment that the Constitution gave the President illimitable power to remove executive officials. The majority rests its own historical claim on that analysis (though somehow also finding room for its two exceptions). See ante, at 2197 - 2198. But Taft's historical research has held up even worse than Myers ' holding (which was mostly reversed, see infra , at 2200 - 2201). As Dean Manning has concluded after reviewing decades' worth of scholarship on the issue, "the implications of the debate, properly understood, [are] highly ambiguous and prone to overreading." Manning, 124 Harv. L. Rev., at 1965, n. 135; see id., at 2030-2031.
The best view is that the First Congress was "deeply divided" on the President's removal power, and "never squarely addressed" the central issue here. Id., at 1965, n. 135; Prakash, New Light on the Decision of 1789, 91 Cornell L. Rev. 1021, 1072 (2006). The congressional debates revealed three main positions. See Corwin, 27 Colum. L. Rev., at 361. Some shared Hamilton's Federalist No. 77 view: The Constitution required Senate consent for removal. At the opposite extreme, others claimed that the Constitution gave absolute removal power to the President. And a third faction maintained that the Constitution placed Congress in the driver's seat: The legislature could regulate, if it so chose, the President's authority to remove. In the end, Congress passed a bill saying nothing about removal, leaving the President free to fire the Secretary of Foreign Affairs at will. But the only one of the three views definitively rejected was Hamilton's theory of necessary Senate consent. As even strong proponents of executive power have shown, Congress never "endorse[d] the view that [it] lacked authority to modify" the President's removal authority when it wished to. Prakash, supra, at 1073 ; see Manning, supra, at 1965, n. 135, 2030-2031. The summer of 1789 thus ended without resolution of the critical question: Was the removal power "beyond the reach of congressional regulation?" Prakash, supra, at 1072.
At the same time, the First Congress gave officials handling financial affairs-as compared to diplomatic and military ones-some independence from the President. The title and first section of the statutes creating the Departments of Foreign Affairs and War designated them "executive departments." Act of July 27, 1789, ch. 4, 1 Stat. 28; Act of Aug. 7, 1789, ch. 7, 1 Stat. 49. The law creating the Treasury Department conspicuously avoided doing so. See Act of Sept. 2, 1789, ch. 12, 1 Stat. 65. That difference in nomenclature signaled others of substance. Congress left the organization of the Departments of Foreign Affairs and War skeletal, enabling the President to decide how he wanted to staff them. See Casper, An Essay in Separation of Powers, 30 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 211, 239-241 (1989). By contrast, Congress listed each of the offices within the Treasury Department, along with their functions. See ibid. Of the three initial Secretaries, only the Treasury's had an obligation to report to Congress when requested. See § 2, 1 Stat. 65-66. And perhaps most notable, Congress soon deemed the Comptroller of the Treasury's settlements of public accounts "final and conclusive." Act of Mar. 3, 1795, ch. 48, § 4, 1 Stat. 441-442. That decision, preventing presidential overrides, marked the Comptroller as exercising independent judgment. True enough, no statute shielded the Comptroller from discharge. But even James Madison, who at this point opposed most removal limits, told Congress that "there may be strong reasons why an officer of this kind should not hold his office at the pleasure" of the Secretary or President. 1 Annals of Cong. 612. At the least, as Professor Prakash writes, "Madison maintained that Congress had the [constitutional] authority to modify [the Comptroller's] tenure." Prakash, supra , at 1071.
Contrary to the majority's view, then, the founding era closed without any agreement that Congress lacked the power to curb the President's removal authority. And as it kept that question open, Congress took the first steps-which would launch a tradition-of distinguishing financial regulators from diplomatic and military officers. The latter mainly helped the President carry out his own constitutional duties in foreign relations and war. The former chiefly carried out statutory duties, fulfilling functions Congress had assigned to their offices. In addressing the new Nation's finances, Congress had begun to use its powers under the Necessary and Proper Clause to design effective administrative institutions. And that included taking steps to insulate certain officers from political influence.
2
As the decades and centuries passed, those efforts picked up steam. Confronting new economic, technological, and social conditions, Congress-and often the President-saw new needs for pockets of independence within the federal bureaucracy. And that was especially so, again, when it came to financial regulation. I mention just a few highlights here-times when Congress decided that effective governance depended on shielding technical or expertise-based functions relating to the financial system from political pressure (or the moneyed interests that might lie behind it). Enacted under the Necessary and Proper Clause, those measures-creating some of the Nation's most enduring institutions-themselves helped settle the extent of Congress's power. "[A] regular course of practice," to use Madison's phrase, has "liquidate[d]" constitutional meaning about the permissibility of independent agencies. See supra, at 2228 - 2229.
Take first Congress's decision in 1816 to create the Second Bank of the United States-"the first truly independent agency in the republic's history." Lessig & Sunstein, The President and the Administration, 94 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 30 (1994). Of the twenty-five directors who led the Bank, the President could appoint and remove only five. See Act of Apr. 10, 1816, § 8, 3 Stat. 269. Yet the Bank had a greater impact on the Nation than any but a few institutions, regulating the Nation's money supply in ways anticipating what the Federal Reserve does today. Of course, the Bank was controversial-in large part because of its freedom from presidential control. Andrew Jackson chafed at the Bank's independence and eventually fired his Treasury Secretary for keeping public moneys there (a dismissal that itself provoked a political storm). No matter. Innovations in governance always have opponents; administrative independence predictably (though by no means invariably) provokes presidential ire. The point is that by the early 19th century, Congress established a body wielding enormous financial power mostly outside the President's dominion.
The Civil War brought yet further encroachments on presidential control over financial regulators. In response to wartime economic pressures, President Lincoln (not known for his modest view of executive power) asked Congress to establish an office called the Comptroller of the Currency. The statute he signed made the Comptroller removable only with the Senate's consent-a version of the old Hamiltonian idea, though this time required not by the Constitution itself but by Congress. See Act of Feb. 25, 1863, ch. 58, 12 Stat. 665. A year later, Congress amended the statute to permit removal by the President alone, but only upon "reasons to be communicated by him to the Senate." Act of June 3, 1864, § 1, 13 Stat. 100. The majority dismisses the original version of the statute as an "aberration." Ante, at 2201. But in the wake of the independence given first to the Comptroller of the Treasury and then to the national Bank, it's hard to conceive of this newest Comptroller position as so great a departure. And even the second iteration of the statute preserved a constraint on the removal power, requiring a President in a firing mood to explain himself to Congress-a demand likely to make him sleep on the subject. In both versions of the law, Congress responded to new financial challenges with new regulatory institutions, alert to the perils in this area of political interference.
And then, nearly a century and a half ago, the floodgates opened. In 1887, the growing power of the railroads over the American economy led Congress to create the Interstate Commerce Commission. Under that legislation, the President could remove the five Commissioners only "for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office"-the same standard Congress applied to the CFPB Director. Act of Feb. 4, 1887, § 11, 24 Stat. 383. More-many more-for-cause removal provisions followed. In 1913, Congress gave the Governors of the Federal Reserve Board for-cause protection to ensure the agency would resist political pressure and promote economic stability. See Act of Dec. 23, 1913, ch. 6, 38 Stat. 251. The next year, Congress provided similar protection to the FTC in the interest of ensuring "a continuous policy" "free from the effect" of "changing [White House] incumbency." 51 Cong. Rec. 10376 (1914). The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In the financial realm, "independent agencies have remained the bedrock of the institutional framework governing U. S. markets." Gadinis, From Independence to Politics in Financial Regulation, 101 Cal. L. Rev. 327, 331 (2013). By one count, across all subject matter areas, 48 agencies have heads (and below them hundreds more inferior officials) removable only for cause. See Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 541, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (BREYER, J., dissenting). So year by year by year, the broad sweep of history has spoken to the constitutional question before us: Independent agencies are everywhere.
C
What is more, the Court's precedents before today have accepted the role of independent agencies in our governmental system. To be sure, the line of our decisions has not run altogether straight. But we have repeatedly upheld provisions that prevent the President from firing regulatory officials except for such matters as neglect or malfeasance. In those decisions, we sounded a caution, insisting that Congress could not impede through removal restrictions the President's performance of his own constitutional duties. (So, to take the clearest example, Congress could not curb the President's power to remove his close military or diplomatic advisers.) But within that broad limit, this Court held, Congress could protect from at-will removal the officials it deemed to need some independence from political pressures. Nowhere do those precedents suggest what the majority announces today: that the President has an "unrestricted removal power" subject to two bounded exceptions. Ante , at 2188 - 2189.
The majority grounds its new approach in Myers , ignoring the way this Court has cabined that decision. Myers , the majority tells us, found an unrestrained removal power "essential to the [President's] execution of the laws." Ante, at 2197 - 2198 (quoting Myers, 272 U.S., at 117, 47 S.Ct. 21 ). What the majority does not say is that within a decade the Court abandoned that view (much as later scholars rejected Taft's one-sided history, see supra, at 2229 - 2230). In Humphrey's Executor v. United States , 295 U.S. 602, 55 S.Ct. 869, 79 L.Ed. 1611 (1935), the Court unceremoniously-and unanimously-confined Myers to its facts. "[T]he narrow point actually decided" there, Humphrey's stated, was that the President could "remove a postmaster of the first class, without the advice and consent of the Senate." 295 U.S., at 626, 55 S.Ct. 869. Nothing else in Chief Justice Taft's prolix opinion "c[a]me within the rule of stare decisis ." Ibid. (Indeed, the Court went on, everything in Myers "out of harmony" with Humphrey's was expressly "disapproved." 295 U.S., at 626, 55 S.Ct. 869.) Half a century later, the Court was more generous. Two decisions read Myers as standing for the principle that Congress's own "participation in the removal of executive officers is unconstitutional." Bowsher v. Synar , 478 U.S. 714, 725, 106 S.Ct. 3181, 92 L.Ed.2d 583 (1986) ; see Morrison , 487 U.S., at 686, 108 S.Ct. 2597 ("As we observed in Bowsher , the essence" of " Myers was the judgment that the Constitution prevents Congress from draw[ing] to itself " the power to remove (internal quotation marks omitted)). Bowsher made clear that Myers had nothing to say about Congress's power to enact a provision merely "limit[ing] the President's powers of removal" through a for-cause provision. 478 U.S., at 724, 106 S.Ct. 3181. That issue, the Court stated, was "not presented" in "the Myers case." Ibid. Instead, the relevant cite was Humphrey's .
And Humphrey's found constitutional a statute identical to the one here, providing that the President could remove FTC Commissioners for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." 295 U.S., at 619, 55 S.Ct. 869. The Humphrey's Court, as the majority notes, relied in substantial part on what kind of work the Commissioners performed. See id., at 628, 631, 55 S.Ct. 869 ; ante, at 2231 - 2232. (By contrast, nothing in the decision turned-as the majority suggests, see ante, at 2231 - 2232-on any of the agency's organizational features. See infra , at 2240 - 2241.) According to Humphrey's , the Commissioners' primary work was to "carry into effect legislative policies"-"filling in and administering the details embodied by [a statute's] general standard." 295 U.S., at 627-628, 55 S.Ct. 869. In addition, the Court noted, the Commissioners recommended dispositions in court cases, much as a special master does. Given those "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial"-as opposed to "purely executive"-functions, Congress could limit the President's removal authority. Id., at 628, 55 S.Ct. 869. Or said another way, Congress could give the FTC some "independen[ce from] executive control." Id., at 629, 55 S.Ct. 869.
About two decades later, an again-unanimous Court in Wiener v. United States , 357 U.S. 349, 78 S.Ct. 1275, 2 L.Ed.2d 1377 (1958), reaffirmed Humphrey's . The question in Wiener was whether the President could dismiss without cause members of the War Claims Commission, an entity charged with compensating injuries arising from World War II. Disdaining Myers and relying on Humphrey's , the Court said he could not. The Court described as "short-lived" Myers ' view that the President had "inherent constitutional power to remove officials, no matter what the relation of the executive to the discharge of their duties." 357 U.S., at 352, 78 S.Ct. 1275. Here, the Commissioners were not close agents of the President, who needed to be responsive to his preferences. Rather, they exercised adjudicatory responsibilities over legal claims. Congress, the Court found, had wanted the Commissioners to do so "free from [political] control or coercive influence." Id., at 355, 78 S.Ct. 1275 (quoting Humphrey's , 295 U.S., at 629, 55 S.Ct. 869 ). And that choice, as Humphrey's had held, was within Congress's power. The Constitution enabled Congress to take down "the Damocles' sword of removal" hanging over the Commissioners' heads. 357 U.S., at 356, 78 S.Ct. 1275.
Another three decades on, Morrison both extended Humphrey's domain and clarified the standard for addressing removal issues. The Morrison Court, over a one-Justice dissent, upheld for-cause protections afforded to an independent counsel with power to investigate and prosecute crimes committed by high-ranking officials. The Court well understood that those law enforcement functions differed from the rulemaking and adjudicatory duties highlighted in Humphrey's and Wiener . But that difference did not resolve the issue. An official's functions, Morrison held, were relevant to but not dispositive of a removal limit's constitutionality. The key question in all the cases, Morrison saw, was whether such a restriction would "impede the President's ability to perform his constitutional duty." 487 U.S., at 691, 108 S.Ct. 2597. Only if it did so would it fall outside Congress's power. And the protection for the independent counsel, the Court found, did not. Even though the counsel's functions were "purely executive," the President's "need to control the exercise of [her] discretion" was not "so central to the functioning of the Executive Branch as to require" unrestricted removal authority. Id., at 690-691, 108 S.Ct. 2597. True enough, the Court acknowledged, that the for-cause standard prevented the President from firing the counsel for discretionary decisions or judgment calls. But it preserved "ample authority" in the President "to assure that the counsel is competently performing" her "responsibilities in a manner that comports with" all legal requirements. Id., at 692, 108 S.Ct. 2597. That meant the President could meet his own constitutional obligation "to ensure 'the faithful execution' of the laws." Ibid. ; see supra, at 2228.
The majority's description of Morrison , see ante, at 2198 - 2199, is not true to the decision. (Mostly, it seems, the majority just wishes the case would go away. See ante, at 2200, n. 4.) First, Morrison is no "exception" to a broader rule from Myers . Morrison echoed all of Humphrey's criticism of the by-then infamous Myers "dicta." 487 U.S., at 687, 108 S.Ct. 2597. It again rejected the notion of an "all-inclusive" removal power. Ibid. It yet further confined Myers ' reach, making clear that Congress could restrict the President's removal of officials carrying out even the most traditional executive functions. And the decision, with care, set out the governing rule-again, that removal restrictions are permissible so long as they do not impede the President's performance of his own constitutionally assigned duties. Second, as all that suggests, Morrison is not limited to inferior officers. In the eight pages addressing the removal issue, the Court constantly spoke of "officers" and "officials" in general. 487 U.S., at 685-693, 108 S.Ct. 2597. By contrast, the Court there used the word "inferior" in just one sentence (which of course the majority quotes), when applying its general standard to the case's facts. Id., at 691, 108 S.Ct. 2597. Indeed, Justice Scalia's dissent emphasized that the counsel's inferior-office status played no role in the Court's decision. See id., at 724, 108 S.Ct. 2597 ("The Court could have resolved the removal power issue in this case by simply relying" on that status, but did not). As Justice Scalia noted, the Court in United States v. Perkins , 116 U.S. 483, 484-485, 6 S.Ct. 449, 29 L.Ed. 700 (1886), had a century earlier allowed Congress to restrict the President's removal power over inferior officers. See Morrison , 487 U.S., at 723-724, 108 S.Ct. 2597. Were that Morrison 's basis, a simple citation would have sufficed.
Even Free Enterprise Fund , in which the Court recently held a removal provision invalid, operated within the framework of this precedent-and in so doing, left in place a removal provision just like the one here. In that case, the Court considered a "highly unusual" scheme of double for-cause protection. 561 U.S., at 505, 130 S.Ct. 3138. Members of an accounting board were protected from removal by SEC Commissioners, who in turn were protected from removal by the President. The Court found that the two-layer structure deprived the President of "adequate control" over the Board members. Id., at 508, 130 S.Ct. 3138. The scheme "impaired" the President's "ability to execute the laws," the Court explained, because neither he nor any fully dependent agent could decide "whether[ ] good cause exists" for a discharge. Id., at 495-496, 130 S.Ct. 3138. That holding cast no doubt on ordinary for-cause protections, of the kind in the Court's prior cases (and here as well). Quite the opposite. The Court observed that it did not "take issue with for-cause limitations in general"-which do enable the President to determine whether good cause for discharge exists (because, say, an official has violated the law). Id., at 501, 130 S.Ct. 3138. And the Court's solution to the constitutional problem it saw was merely to strike one level of insulation, making the Board removable by the SEC at will. That remedy left the SEC's own for-cause protection in place. The President could thus remove Commissioners for malfeasance or neglect, but not for policy disagreements. See ante, at 2206 - 2207.
So caselaw joins text and history in establishing the general permissibility of for-cause provisions giving some independence to agencies. Contrary to the majority's view, those laws do not represent a suspicious departure from illimitable presidential control over administration. For almost a century, this Court has made clear that Congress has broad discretion to enact for-cause protections in pursuit of good governance.
D
The deferential approach this Court has taken gives Congress the flexibility it needs to craft administrative agencies. Diverse problems of government demand diverse solutions. They call for varied measures and mixtures of democratic accountability and technical expertise, energy and efficiency. Sometimes, the arguments push toward tight presidential control of agencies. The President's engagement, some people say, can disrupt bureaucratic stagnation, counter industry capture, and make agencies more responsive to public interests. See, well, Kagan, Presidential Administration, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 2245, 2331-2346 (2001). At other times, the arguments favor greater independence from presidential involvement. Insulation from political pressure helps ensure impartial adjudications. It places technical issues in the hands of those most capable of addressing them. It promotes continuity, and prevents short-term electoral interests from distorting policy. (Consider, for example, how the Federal Reserve's independence stops a President trying to win a second term from manipulating interest rates.) Of course, the right balance between presidential control and independence is often uncertain, contested, and value-laden. No mathematical formula governs institutional design; trade-offs are endemic to the enterprise. But that is precisely why the issue is one for the political branches to debate-and then debate again as times change. And it's why courts should stay (mostly) out of the way. Rather than impose rigid rules like the majority's, they should let Congress and the President figure out what blend of independence and political control will best enable an agency to perform its intended functions.
Judicial intrusion into this field usually reveals only how little courts know about governance. Even everything I just said is an over-simplification. It suggests that agencies can easily be arranged on a spectrum, from the most to the least presidentially controlled. But that is not so. A given agency's independence (or lack of it) depends on a wealth of features, relating not just to removal standards, but also to appointments practices, procedural rules, internal organization, oversight regimes, historical traditions, cultural norms, and (inevitably) personal relationships. It is hard to pinpoint how those factors work individually, much less in concert, to influence the distance between an agency and a President. In that light, even the judicial opinions' perennial focus on removal standards is a bit of a puzzle. Removal is only the most obvious, not necessarily the most potent, means of control. See generally Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 524, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (BREYER, J., dissenting). That is because informal restraints can prevent Presidents from firing at-will officers-and because other devices can keep officers with for-cause protection under control. Of course no court, as Free Enterprise Fund noted, can accurately assess the "bureaucratic minutiae" affecting a President's influence over an agency. Id. , at 500, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (majority opinion); ante, at 2208 (reprising the point). But that is yet more reason for courts to defer to the branches charged with fashioning administrative structures, and to hesitate before ruling out agency design specs like for-cause removal standards.
Our Constitution, as shown earlier, entrusts such decisions to more accountable and knowledgeable actors. See supra, at 2226 - 2229. The document-with great good sense-sets out almost no rules about the administrative sphere. As Chief Justice Marshall wrote when he upheld the first independent financial agency: "To have prescribed the means by which government should, in all future time, execute its powers, would have been to change, entirely, the character of the instrument." McCulloch , 4 Wheat. at 415. That would have been, he continued, "an unwise attempt to provide, by immutable rules, for exigencies which, if foreseen at all, must have been seen dimly." Ibid. And if the Constitution, for those reasons, does not lay out immutable rules, then neither should judges. This Court has usually respected that injunction. It has declined to second-guess the work of the political branches in creating independent agencies like the CFPB. In reversing course today-in spurning a "pragmatic, flexible approach to American governance" in favor of a dogmatic, inflexible one, ante, at 2207-the majority makes a serious error.
II
As the majority explains, the CFPB emerged out of disaster. The collapse of the subprime mortgage market "precipitat[ed] a financial crisis that wiped out over $10 trillion in American household wealth and cost millions of Americans their jobs, their retirements, and their homes." Ante, at 2192. In that moment of economic ruin, the President proposed and Congress enacted legislation to address the causes of the collapse and prevent a recurrence. An important part of that statute created an agency to protect consumers from exploitative financial practices. The agency would take over enforcement of almost 20 existing federal laws. See 12 U. S. C. § 5581. And it would administer a new prohibition on "unfair, deceptive, or abusive act[s] or practice[s]" in the consumer-finance sector. § 5536(a)(1)(B).
No one had a doubt that the new agency should be independent. As explained already, Congress has historically given-with this Court's permission-a measure of independence to financial regulators like the Federal Reserve Board and the FTC. See supra, at 2197 - 2200. And agencies of that kind had administered most of the legislation whose enforcement the new statute transferred to the CFPB. The law thus included an ordinary for-cause provision-once again, that the President could fire the CFPB's Director only for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." § 5491(c)(3). That standard would allow the President to discharge the Director for a failure to "faithfully execute[ ]" the law, as well as for basic incompetence. U. S. Const., Art. II, § 3 ; see supra, at 2195, 2202. But it would not permit removal for policy differences.
The question here, which by now you're well equipped to answer, is whether including that for-cause standard in the statute creating the CFPB violates the Constitution.
A
Applying our longstanding precedent, the answer is clear: It does not. This Court, as the majority acknowledges, has sustained the constitutionality of the FTC and similar independent agencies. See ante, at 2191 - 2192, 2231 - 2233. The for-cause protections for the heads of those agencies, the Court has found, do not impede the President's ability to perform his own constitutional duties, and so do not breach the separation of powers. See supra, at 2200 - 2203. There is nothing different here. The CFPB wields the same kind of power as the FTC and similar agencies. And all of their heads receive the same kind of removal protection. No less than those other entities-by now part of the fabric of government-the CFPB is thus a permissible exercise of Congress's power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to structure administration.
First, the CFPB's powers are nothing unusual in the universe of independent agencies. The CFPB, as the majority notes, can issue regulations, conduct its own adjudications, and bring civil enforcement actions in court-all backed by the threat of penalties. See ante, at 2191; 12 U. S. C. §§ 5512, 5562 - 5565. But then again, so too can (among others) the FTC and SEC, two agencies whose regulatory missions parallel the CFPB's. See 15 U. S. C. §§ 45, 53, 57a, 57b-3, 78u, 78v, 78w. Just for a comparison, the CFPB now has 19 enforcement actions pending, while the SEC brought 862 such actions last year alone. See Brief for Petitioner 7; SEC, Div. of Enforcement 2019 Ann. Rep. 14. And although the majority bemoans that the CFPB can "bring the coercive power of the state to bear on millions of private citizens," ante, at 2200 - 2201, that scary-sounding description applies to most independent agencies. Forget that the more relevant factoid for those many citizens might be that the CFPB has recovered over $11 billion for banking consumers. See ante, at 2193. The key point here is that the CFPB got the mass of its regulatory authority from other independent agencies that had brought the same "coercive power to bear." See 12 U. S. C. § 5581 (transferring power from, among others, the Federal Reserve, FTC, and FDIC). Congress, to be sure, gave the CFPB new authority over "unfair, deceptive, or abusive act[s] or practice[s]" in transactions involving a "consumer financial product or service." §§ 5517(a)(1), 5536(a)(1). But again, the FTC has power to go after "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce"-a portfolio spanning a far wider swath of the economy. 15 U. S. C. § 45(a)(1). And if influence on economic life is the measure, consider the Federal Reserve, whose every act has global consequence. The CFPB, gauged by that comparison, is a piker.
Second, the removal protection given the CFPB's Director is standard fare. The removal power rests with the President alone; Congress has no role to play, as it did in the laws struck down in Myers and Bowsher . See supra, at 2233 - 2234. The statute provides only one layer of protection, unlike the law in Free Enterprise Fund . See supra, at 2236. And the clincher, which you have heard before: The for-cause standard used for the CFPB is identical to the one the Court upheld in Humphrey's . Both enable the President to fire an agency head for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." See 12 U. S. C. § 5491(c)(3) ; 15 U. S. C. § 41 ; supra, at 2234. A removal provision of that kind applied to a financial agency head, this Court has held, does not "unduly trammel[ ] on executive authority," even though it prevents the President from dismissing the official for a discretionary policy judgment. Morrison , 487 U.S., at 691, 108 S.Ct. 2597. Once again: The removal power has not been "completely stripped from the President," providing him with no means to "ensure the 'faithful execution' of the laws." Id., at 692, 108 S.Ct. 2597 ; see supra, at 2202. Rather, this Court has explained, the for-cause standard gives the President "ample authority to assure that [the official] is competently performing his or her statutory responsibilities in a manner that comports with" all legal obligations. 487 U.S., at 692, 108 S.Ct. 2597 ; see supra, at 2235. In other words-and contra today's majority-the President's removal power, though not absolute, gives him the "meaningful[ ] control[ ]" of the Director that the Constitution requires. Ante, at 2203 - 2204.
The analysis is as simple as simple can be. The CFPB Director exercises the same powers, and receives the same removal protections, as the heads of other, constitutionally permissible independent agencies. How could it be that this opinion is a dissent?
B
The majority focuses on one (it says sufficient) reason: The CFPB Director is singular, not plural. "Instead of placing the agency under the leadership of a board with multiple members," the majority protests, "Congress provided that the CFPB would be led by a single Director." Ante, at 2191. And a solo CFPB Director does not fit within either of the majority's supposed exceptions. He is not an inferior officer, so (the majority says) Morrison does not apply; and he is not a multimember board, so (the majority says) neither does Humphrey's . Further, the majority argues, "[a]n agency with a [unitary] structure like that of the CFPB" is "novel"-or, if not quite that, "almost wholly unprecedented." Ante, at 2188 - 2189, 2200 - 2201. Finally, the CFPB's organizational form violates the "constitutional structure" because it vests power in a "single individual" who is "insulated from Presidential control." Ante, at 2188 - 2189, 2203 - 2204.
I'm tempted at this point just to say: No. All I've explained about constitutional text, history, and precedent invalidates the majority's thesis. But I'll set out here some more targeted points, taking step by step the majority's reasoning.
First, as I'm afraid you've heard before, the majority's "exceptions" (like its general rule) are made up. See supra, at 2232 - 2236. To begin with, our precedents reject the very idea of such exceptions. "The analysis contained in our removal cases," Morrison stated, shuns any attempt "to define rigid categories" of officials who may (or may not) have job protection. 487 U.S., at 689, 108 S.Ct. 2597. Still more, the contours of the majority's exceptions don't connect to our decisions' reasoning. The analysis in Morrison , as I've shown, extended far beyond inferior officers. See supra, at 2235 - 2236. And of course that analysis had to apply to individual officers: The independent counsel was very much a person, not a committee. So the idea that Morrison is in a separate box from this case doesn't hold up. Similarly, Humphrey's and later precedents give no support to the majority's view that the number of people at the apex of an agency matters to the constitutional issue. Those opinions mention the "groupness" of the agency head only in their background sections. The majority picks out that until-now-irrelevant fact to distinguish the CFPB, and constructs around it an until-now-unheard-of exception. So if the majority really wants to see something "novel," ante, at 2191 - 2192, it need only look to its opinion.
By contrast, the CFPB's single-director structure has a fair bit of precedent behind it. The Comptroller of the Currency. The Office of the Special Counsel (OSC). The Social Security Administration (SSA). The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). Maybe four prior agencies is in the eye of the beholder, but it's hardly nothing. I've already explained why the earliest of those agencies-the Civil-War-era Comptroller-is not the blip the majority describes. See supra, at 2231 - 2232. The office is one in a long line, starting with the founding-era Comptroller of the Treasury (also one person), of financial regulators designed to do their jobs with some independence. As for the other three, the majority objects: too powerless and too contested. See ante, at 2200 - 2203. I think not. On power, the SSA runs the Nation's largest government program-among other things, deciding all claims brought by its 64 million beneficiaries; the FHFA plays a crucial role in overseeing the mortgage market, on which millions of Americans annually rely; and the OSC prosecutes misconduct in the two-million-person federal workforce. All different from the CFPB, no doubt; but the majority can't think those matters beneath a President's notice. (Consider: Would the President lose more votes from a malfunctioning SSA or CFPB?) And controversial? Well, yes, they are. Almost all independent agencies are controversial, no matter how many directors they have. Or at least controversial among Presidents and their lawyers. That's because whatever might be said in their favor, those agencies divest the President of some removal power. If signing statements and veto threats made independent agencies unconstitutional, quite a few wouldn't pass muster. Maybe that's what the majority really wants (I wouldn't know)-but it can't pretend the disputes surrounding these agencies had anything to do with whether their heads are singular or plural.
Still more important, novelty is not the test of constitutionality when it comes to structuring agencies. See Mistretta v. United States , 488 U.S. 361, 385, 109 S.Ct. 647, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989) ("[M]ere anomaly or innovation" does not violate the separation of powers). Congress regulates in that sphere under the Necessary and Proper Clause, not (as the majority seems to think) a Rinse and Repeat Clause. See supra, at 2227. The Framers understood that new times would often require new measures, and exigencies often demand innovation. See McCulloch , 4 Wheat. at 415 ; supra, at 2237. In line with that belief, the history of the administrative sphere-its rules, its practices, its institutions-is replete with experiment and change. See supra, at 2228 - 2233. Indeed, each of the agencies the majority says now fits within its "exceptions" was once new; there is, as the saying goes, "a first time for everything." National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius , 567 U.S. 519, 549, 132 S.Ct. 2566, 183 L.Ed.2d 450 (2012). So even if the CFPB differs from its forebears in having a single director, that departure is not itself "telling" of a "constitutional problem." Ante, at 2200 - 2201. In deciding what this moment demanded, Congress had no obligation to make a carbon copy of a design from a bygone era.
And Congress's choice to put a single director, rather than a multimember commission, at the CFPB's head violates no principle of separation of powers. The purported constitutional problem here is that an official has "slip[ped] from the Executive's control" and "supervision"-that he has become unaccountable to the President. Ante, at 2203, 2205 (internal quotation marks omitted). So to make sense on the majority's own terms, the distinction between singular and plural agency heads must rest on a theory about why the former more easily "slip" from the President's grasp. But the majority has nothing to offer. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true: To the extent that such matters are measurable, individuals are easier than groups to supervise.
To begin with, trying to generalize about these matters is something of a fool's errand. Presidential control, as noted earlier, can operate through many means-removal to be sure, but also appointments, oversight devices (e.g., centralized review of rulemaking or litigating positions), budgetary processes, personal outreach, and more. See Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 524, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (BREYER, J., dissenting); supra, at 2236 - 2237. The effectiveness of each of those control mechanisms, when present, can then depend on a multitude of agency-specific practices, norms, rules, and organizational features. In that complex stew, the difference between a singular and plural agency head will often make not a whit of difference. Or to make the point more concrete, a multimember commission may be harder to control than an individual director for a host of reasons unrelated to its plural character. That may be so when the two are subject to the same removal standard, or even when the individual director has greater formal job protection. Indeed, the very category of multimember commissions breaks apart under inspection, spoiling the majority's essential dichotomy. See generally Brief for Rachel E. Barkow et al. as Amici Curiae . Some of those commissions have chairs appointed by the President; others do not. Some of those chairs are quite powerful; others are not. Partisan balance requirements, term length, voting rules, and more-all vary widely, in ways that make a significant difference to the ease of presidential control. Why, then, would anyone distinguish along a simple commission/single-director axis when deciding whether the Constitution requires at-will removal?
But if the demand is for generalization, then the majority's distinction cuts the opposite way: More powerful control mechanisms are needed (if anything) for commissions. Holding everything else equal, those are the agencies more likely to "slip from the Executive's control." Ante, at 2204. Just consider your everyday experience: It's easier to get one person to do what you want than a gaggle. So too, you know exactly whom to blame when an individual-but not when a group-does a job badly. The same is true in bureaucracies. A multimember structure reduces accountability to the President because it's harder for him to oversee, to influence-or to remove, if necessary-a group of five or more commissioners than a single director. Indeed, that is why Congress so often resorts to hydra-headed agencies. "[M]ultiple membership," an influential Senate Report concluded, is "a buffer against Presidential control" (especially when combined, as it often is, with partisan-balance requirements). Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Study on Federal Regulation, S. Doc. No. 95-91, vol. 5, p. 75 (1977). So, for example, Congress constructed the Federal Reserve as it did because it is "easier to protect a board from political control than to protect a single appointed official." R. Cushman, The Independent Regulatory Commissions 153 (1941). It is hard to know why Congress did not take the same tack when creating the CFPB. But its choice brought the agency only closer to the President-more exposed to his view, more subject to his sway. In short, the majority gets the matter backward: Where presidential control is the object, better to have one than many.
Because it has no answer on that score, the majority slides to a different question: Assuming presidential control of any independent agency is vanishingly slim, is a single-head or a multi-head agency more capable of exercising power, and so of endangering liberty? See ante, at 2202 - 2204. The majority says a single head is the greater threat because he may wield power "unilaterally " and "[w]ith no colleagues to persuade." Ante, at 2203 - 2204 (emphasis in original). So the CFPB falls victim to what the majority sees as a constitutional anti-power-concentration principle (with an exception for the President).
If you've never heard of a statute being struck down on that ground, you're not alone. It is bad enough to "extrapolat[e]" from the "general constitutional language" of Article II's Vesting Clause an unrestricted removal power constraining Congress's ability to legislate under the Necessary and Proper Clause. Morrison , 487 U.S., at 690, n. 29, 108 S.Ct. 2597 ; see supra, at 2227 - 2228. It is still worse to extrapolate from the Constitution's general structure (division of powers) and implicit values (liberty) a limit on Congress's express power to create administrative bodies. And more: to extrapolate from such sources a distinction as prosaic as that between the SEC and the CFPB-i.e., between a multi-headed and single-headed agency. That is, to adapt a phrase (or two) from our precedent, "more than" the emanations of "the text will bear." Morrison , 487 U.S., at 690, n. 29, 108 S.Ct. 2597. By using abstract separation-of-powers arguments for such purposes, the Court "appropriate[s]" the "power delegated to Congress by the Necessary and Proper Clause" to compose the government. Manning, Foreword: The Means of Constitutional Power, 128 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 78 (2014). In deciding for itself what is "proper," the Court goes beyond its own proper bounds.
And in doing so, the majority again reveals its lack of interest in how agencies work. First, the premise of the majority's argument-that the CFPB head is a mini-dictator, not subject to meaningful presidential control, see ante , at 2203 - 2204-is wrong. As this Court has seen in the past, independent agencies are not fully independent. A for-cause removal provision, as noted earlier, leaves "ample" control over agency heads in the hands of the President. Morrison , 487 U.S., at 692, 108 S.Ct. 2597 ; see supra , at 2235. He can discharge them for failing to perform their duties competently or in accordance with law, and so ensure that the laws are "faithfully executed." U. S. Const., Art. II, § 3 ; see supra, at 2229, 2235. And he can use the many other tools attached to the Office of the Presidency-including in the CFPB's case, rulemaking review-to exert influence over discretionary policy calls. See supra , at 2242, and n.13. Second, the majority has nothing but intuition to back up its essentially functionalist claim that the CFPB would be less capable of exercising power if it had more than one Director (even supposing that were a suitable issue for a court to address). Ante , at 2202 - 2204. Maybe the CFPB would be. Or maybe not. Although a multimember format tends to frustrate the President's control over an agency, see supra , at 2209 - 2211, it may not lessen the agency's own ability to act with decision and dispatch. (Consider, for a recent example, the Federal Reserve Board.) That effect presumably would depend on the agency's internal organization, voting rules, and similar matters. At the least: If the Court is going to invalidate statutes based on empirical assertions like this one, it should offer some empirical support. It should not pretend that its assessment that the CFPB wields more power more dangerously than the SEC comes from someplace in the Constitution. But today the majority fails to accord even that minimal respect to Congress.
III
Recall again how this dispute got started. In the midst of the Great Recession, Congress and the President came together to create an agency with an important mission. It would protect consumers from the reckless financial practices that had caused the then-ongoing economic collapse. Not only Congress but also the President thought that the new agency, to fulfill its mandate, needed a measure of independence. So the two political branches, acting together, gave the CFPB Director the same job protection that innumerable other agency heads possess. All in all, those branches must have thought, they had done a good day's work. Relying on their experience and knowledge of administration, they had built an agency in the way best suited to carry out its functions. They had protected the public from financial chicanery and crisis. They had governed.
And now consider how the dispute ends-with five unelected judges rejecting the result of that democratic process. The outcome today will not shut down the CFPB: A different majority of this Court, including all those who join this opinion, believes that if the agency's removal provision is unconstitutional, it should be severed. But the majority on constitutionality jettisons a measure Congress and the President viewed as integral to the way the agency should operate. The majority does so even though the Constitution grants to Congress, acting with the President's approval, the authority to create and shape administrative bodies. And even though those branches, as compared to courts, have far greater understanding of political control mechanisms and agency design.
Nothing in the Constitution requires that outcome; to the contrary. "While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government." Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer , 343 U.S. 579, 635, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). The Framers took pains to craft a document that would allow the structures of governance to change, as times and needs change. The Constitution says only a few words about administration. As Chief Justice Marshall wrote: Rather than prescribing "immutable rules," it enables Congress to choose "the means by which government should, in all future time, execute its powers." McCulloch , 4 Wheat. at 415. It authorizes Congress to meet new exigencies with new devices. So Article II does not generally prohibit independent agencies. Nor do any supposed structural principles. Nor do any odors wafting from the document. Save for when those agencies impede the President's performance of his own constitutional duties, the matter is left up to Congress.
Our history has stayed true to the Framers' vision. Congress has accepted their invitation to experiment with administrative forms-nowhere more so than in the field of financial regulation. And this Court has mostly allowed it to do so. The result is a broad array of independent agencies, no two exactly alike but all with a measure of insulation from the President's removal power. The Federal Reserve Board; the FTC; the SEC; maybe some you've never heard of. As to each, Congress thought that formal job protection for policymaking would produce regulatory outcomes in greater accord with the long-term public interest. Congress may have been right; or it may have been wrong; or maybe it was some of both. No matter-the branches accountable to the people have decided how the people should be governed.
The CFPB should have joined the ranks. Maybe it will still do so, even under today's opinion: The majority tells Congress that it may "pursu[e] alternative responses" to the identified constitutional defect-"for example, converting the CFPB into a multimember agency." Ante , at 2211. But there was no need to send Congress back to the drawing board. The Constitution does not distinguish between single-director and multimember independent agencies. It instructs Congress, not this Court, to decide on agency design. Because this Court ignores that sensible-indeed, that obvious-division of tasks, I respectfully dissent.
The dissent would have us ignore the reasoning of Humphrey's Executor and instead apply the decision only as part of a reimagined Humphrey's -through-Morrison framework. See post , at 2234 n.7, 2234 - 2236 (KAGAN, J., concurring in judgment with respect to severability and dissenting in part) (hereinafter dissent). But we take the decision on its own terms, not through gloss added by a later Court in dicta. The dissent also criticizes us for suggesting that the 1935 FTC may have had lesser responsibilities than the present FTC. See post , at 2239 n.10. Perhaps the FTC possessed broader rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudicatory powers than the Humphrey's Court appreciated. Perhaps not. Either way, what matters is the set of powers the Court considered as the basis for its decision, not any latent powers that the agency may have had not alluded to by the Court.
The dissent suggests that the Comptroller still enjoyed some degree of insulation after his removal protection was repealed because the President faced a new requirement to "communicate[ ]" his "reasons" for terminating the Comptroller to the Senate. Post, at 2232 (quoting Act of June 3, 1864, ch. 106, § 1, 13 Stat. 100). But the President could still remove the Comptroller for any reason so long as the President was, in the dissent's phrase, "in a firing mood." Post , at 2232.
The OSC should not be confused with the independent counsel in Morrison or the special counsel recently appointed to investigate allegations related to the 2016 Presidential election. Despite sharing similar titles, those individuals have no relationship to the OSC.
An Act similar to the one vetoed by President Reagan was eventually signed by President George H. W. Bush after extensive negotiations and compromises with Congress. See Public Papers of the Presidents, George H. W. Bush, Vol. I, Apr. 10, 1989, p. 391 (1990).
The dissent categorizes the CFPB as one of many "financial regulators" that have historically enjoyed some insulation from the President. See post , at 2230 - 2233. But even assuming financial institutions like the Second Bank and the Federal Reserve can claim a special historical status, the CFPB is in an entirely different league. It acts as a mini legislature, prosecutor, and court, responsible for creating substantive rules for a wide swath of industries, prosecuting violations, and levying knee-buckling penalties against private citizens. See supra, at 2192 - 2193. And, of course, it is the only agency of its kind run by a single Director.
Amicus and the dissent try to diminish the CFPB's insulation from Presidential control by observing that the CFPB's final rules can be set aside by a super majority of the Financial Stability and Oversight Council (FSOC). See Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 40; post , at 2242 n.13, 2244. But the FSOC's veto power is statutorily reserved for extreme situations, when two-thirds of the Council concludes that a CFPB regulation would "put the safety and soundness of the United States banking system or the stability of the financial system of the United States at risk." 12 U. S. C. §§ 5513(a), (c)(3). That narrow escape hatch has no impact on the CFPB's enforcement or adjudicatory authority and has never been used in the ten years since the agency's creation. It certainly does not render the CFPB's independent, single-Director structure constitutional.
The dissent likewise points to Madison's statement in The Federalist No. 39 that the "tenure" of "ministerial offices generally will be a subject of legal regulation." Post , at 2229 - 22230 (quoting The Federalist No. 39, p. 253 (J. Cooke ed. 1961)). But whatever Madison may have meant by that statement, he later led the charge in contending, on the floor of the First Congress, that "inasmuch as the power of removal is of an Executive nature ... it is beyond the reach of the Legislative body." 1 Annals of Cong. 464 (1789); see also id. , at 462-464, 495-496. Like the dissent in Free Enterprise Fund , the dissent goes on to "attribute[ ] to Madison a belief that ... the Comptroller[ ] could be made independent of the President. But Madison's actual proposal, consistent with his view of the Constitution, was that the Comptroller hold office for a term of 'years, unless sooner removed by the President'; he would thus be 'dependent upon the President, because he can be removed by him,' and also 'dependent upon the Senate, because they must consent to his [reappointment] for every term of years.' " Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd. , 561 U.S. 477, 499, 500 n. 6, 130 S.Ct. 3138, 177 L.Ed.2d 706 (2010) (citation omitted) (quoting 1 Annals of Cong. 612). See post , at 2229 n.4. The dissent further notes that, at the time of the founding, some States placed limitations on their Governors' removal power. See post , at 2227 - 2228. But the Framers hardly viewed State Governors as a reliable guide in fashioning the Federal Executive. Indeed, they expressly rejected the "executive council" structure favored by most States, fearing that subjecting the President to oversight, as the States had, would "distract and ... enervate the whole system of administration" and inject it with "habitual feebleness and dilatoriness." The Federalist No. 70, at 473, 476 (A. Hamilton).
Building on amicus ' proposal, the dissent would endorse whatever "the times demand, so long as the President retains the ability to carry out his constitutional functions." Post , at 2226. But that amorphous test provides no real limiting principle. The "clearest" (and only) "example" the dissent can muster for what may be prohibited is a for-cause removal restriction placed on the President's "close military or diplomatic advisers." Post , at 2233. But that carveout makes no logical or constitutional sense. In the dissent's view, for-cause removal restrictions are permissible because they guarantee the President "meaningful control" over his subordinates. Post , at 2239 - 2240 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted); see also post , at 2228, 2235, 2238 - 2239, 2244. If that is the theory, then what is the harm in giving the President the same "meaningful control" over his close advisers? The dissent claims to see a constitutional distinction between the President's "own constitutional duties in foreign relations and war" and his duty to execute laws passed by Congress. Post , at 2231. But the same Article that establishes the President's foreign relations and war duties expressly entrusts him to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. And, from the perspective of the governed, it is far from clear that the President's core and traditional powers present greater cause for concern than peripheral and modern ones. If anything, "[t]he growth of the Executive Branch, which now wields vast power and touches almost every aspect of daily life, heightens the concern that it may slip from the Executive's control, and thus from that of the people." Free Enterprise Fund , 561 U.S., at 499, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (emphasis added).
Justice THOMAS believes that any ratification is irrelevant. In his view, even if the issuance of the demand and initiation of this suit have been validly ratified, Director Kraninger's activities in litigating the case-after inheriting it from an Acting Director, but before becoming removable at will herself in light of our decision-present a distinct constitutional injury requiring immediate dismissal. See post , at 2233 - 2235 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). But whether and when the temporary involvement of an unconstitutionally insulated officer in an otherwise valid prosecution requires dismissal falls outside the questions presented, has not been fully briefed, and is best resolved by the lower courts in the first instance.
For a comprehensive review of the Decision of 1789, see Prakash, New Light on the Decision of 1789, 91 Cornell L. Rev. 1021 (2006).
The explicit and repeated recognition of the President's "illimitable power" in Humphrey's Executor highlights the dissent's error in claiming that Humphrey's Executor "abandoned [the] view" set out in Myers v. United States , 272 U.S. 52, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926). Post , at 2233 (KAGAN, J., concurring in judgment with respect to severability and dissenting in part) (hereinafter dissent). Humphrey's Executor did not abandon Myers ; it distinguished Myers based on the flawed premise that the FTC exercised "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial" power that is not part of "the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President." Humphrey's Executor , 295 U.S., at 628, 55 S.Ct. 869 ; see also infra , at 2216 - 2217.
A number of historical sources indicate that President Roosevelt saw Humphrey's Executor v. United States , 295 U.S. 602, 55 S.Ct. 869, 79 L.Ed. 1611 (1935), as an attack on his administration. Given the Court's recent decision in Myers , the Roosevelt administration was reportedly "stunned" by the Court's decision in Humphrey's Executor , and the President was particularly annoyed that the decision "ma[de] it appear that he had been willfully violating the Constitution." See W. Leuchtenberg, The Supreme Court Reborn 78 (1995). Justice Jackson, who was serving in the Roosevelt administration at the time, stated in an interview that " 'the decision that made Roosevelt madder at the Court than any other decision was that ... little case of Humphrey's Executor v. United States . The President thought they went out of their way to spite him personally.' " E. Gerhart, America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson 99 (1958) (quoting 1949 interview with Justice Jackson).
The dissent, while vigorously defending the holding of Humphrey's Executor , can muster no defense for the reasoning of the decision. The dissent does not defend the notion of "quasi" powers or "quasi" agencies, recognizing that the power exercised by the FTC was executive power. See post , at 2234 n.7. And, in 39 pages, it cannot explain how any aspect of Humphrey's Executor (other than its holding) survived Morrison v. Olson , 487 U.S. 654, 108 S.Ct. 2597, 101 L.Ed.2d 569 (1988), and Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd. , 561 U.S. 477, 130 S.Ct. 3138, 177 L.Ed.2d 706 (2010). Instead, the dissent simply claims that Humphrey's Executor was "extended" and "clarified" in Morrison , post , at 2234 - 2235, attempting to breathe validity into Humphrey's Executor through the Court's Morrison decision. But the dissent's reading of Morrison as "extend[ing] Humphrey's domain" is baffling. Post , at 2234 - 2235. Morrison expressly repudiated the substantive reasoning of Humphrey's Executor . See supra , at 2217 - 2218.
The dissent provides no analysis of severability, simply stating "if the agency's removal provision is unconstitutional, it should be severed." Post, at 2245.
The Court-appointed amicus suggests that the CFPB's current Director, Director Kraninger, ratified the enforcement proceeding by maintaining the suit after she stated her belief that the removal provision is unconstitutional. But the CFPB expressly disclaimed the notion that Director Kraninger had the power to ratify the civil investigative demand, stating that she "remains statutorily insulated from removal, regardless whether she believes the law is invalid." Reply Brief for Respondent 7.
The severability clause refers to three alternative scenarios: (1) a "provision of [the] Act ... is held to be unconstitutional"; (2) "an amendment made by [the] Act ... is held unconstitutional"; and (3) "the application of [a] provision or amendment [of the Act] to any person or circumstance is held to be unconstitutional." 12 U. S. C. § 5302. The plurality assumes, with no analysis, that this case falls in the first scenario, calling for a provision to be severed from the Dodd-Frank Act. See ante , at 2209. But, as discussed below, there is no single "provision" of the Act that has led to the constitutional injury in this case. See infra , at 2235 - 2236. It is the attempted enforcement of a civil investigative demand under § 5562(e)(1) by an unconstitutionally insulated Director that causes the constitutional injury in this case. There is at least a nonfrivolous argument that this case implicates the third scenario contemplated by the severability clause-i.e., "the application of [a] provision" in a certain "circumstance." § 5302. If that were so, the text of the severability clause would not require any "provision" to be severed; the unconstitutional application of § 5562(e)(1) simply would not affect other provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. Such a reading would be consistent with the traditional limits on the judicial power. See supra , at 2218 - 2219.
This statement in Booker is irreconcilable with the plurality's assertion here that "Congress would prefer that we use a scalpel rather than a bulldozer in curing the constitutional defect." Ante, at 2210 - 2211. Thus, it appears that the plurality either sub silentio "junk[s] our settled severability doctrine," ibid. , or invokes, without explanation, different assumptions for different cases.
In the academic literature, compare, e.g., Kagan, Presidential Administration, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 2245, 2331-2346 (2001) (generally favoring presidential control over agencies), with, e.g., Strauss, Overseer, or "The Decider"? The President in Administrative Law, 75 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 696, 704, 713-715 (2007) (generally favoring administrative independence).
The principle of separation of powers, Madison continued, maintained only that "where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution[ ] are subverted." The Federalist No. 47, at 325-326.
Article II's Opinions Clause also demonstrates the possibility of limits on the President's control over the Executive Branch. Under that Clause, the President "may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices." § 2, cl. 1. For those in the majority's camp, that Clause presents a puzzle: If the President must always have the direct supervisory control they posit, including by threat of removal, why would he ever need a constitutional warrant to demand agency heads' opinions? The Clause becomes at least redundant-though really, inexplicable-under the majority's idea of executive power.
The majority dismisses Federalist Nos. 77 and 39 as "reflect[ing] initial impressions later abandoned." Ante, at 2205, and n.10. But even Hamilton's and Madison's later impressions are less helpful to the majority than it suggests. Assuming Hamilton gave up on the Senate's direct participation in removal (the evidence is sketchy but plausible), there is no evidence to show he accepted the majority's view. And while Madison opposed the first Congress's enactment of removal limits (as the majority highlights), he also maintained that the legislature had constitutional power to protect the Comptroller of the Treasury from at-will firing. See infra , at 2230 - 2231, 2231. In any event, such changing minds and inconstant opinions don't usually prove the existence of constitutional rules.
As President Jefferson explained: "[W]ith the settlement of the accounts at the Treasury I have no right to interfere in the least," because the Comptroller of the Treasury "is the sole & supreme judge for all claims of money against the US. and would no more receive a direction from me" than would "one of the judges of the supreme court." Letter from T. Jefferson to B. Latrobe (June 2, 1808), in Thomas Jefferson and the National Capital 429, 431 (S. Padover ed. 1946). A couple of decades later, Attorney General William Wirt reached the same conclusion, stating that "the President has no right to interpose in the settling of accounts" because Congress had "separated" the Comptroller from the President's authority. 1 Op. Atty. Gen. 636, 637 (1824); 1 Op. Atty. Gen. 678, 680 (1824). And indeed, Wirt believed that Congress could restrict the President's authority to remove such officials, at least so long as it "express[ed] that intention clearly." 1 Op. Atty. Gen. 212, 213 (1818).
The Comptroller legislation of the Civil War provided a key precedent for what does appear a historical "aberration"-the Tenure of Office Act of 1867. See ch. 154, 14 Stat. 430. Anxious to prevent President Andrew Johnson from interfering with reconstruction policies-including through his command of the military-Congress barred presidential removal of any Senate-confirmed officials without the Senate's consent. The law thus severed the President's removal authority over even officials like the Secretaries of War and State. The statute became the basis for the Nation's first presidential impeachment, but was repealed in 1887. See Act of Mar. 3, 1887, ch. 353, 24 Stat. 500. In one sense, the two-decade-long existence of the Tenure of Office Act reveals the 19th-century political system's comfort with expansive restrictions on presidential removal. But the ultimate repudiation of the law, and the broad historical consensus that it went too far, just as strongly shows the limits that system later accepted on legislative power-that Congress may not impose removal restrictions preventing the President from carrying out his own constitutionally assigned functions in areas like war or foreign affairs. See Morrison v. Olson , 487 U.S. 654, 689-691, 108 S.Ct. 2597, 101 L.Ed.2d 569 (1988) (recognizing that limit as the constitutional standard).
The majority is quite right that today we view all the activities of administrative agencies as exercises of "the 'executive Power.' " Arlington v. FCC , 569 U.S. 290, 305, n. 4, 133 S.Ct. 1863, 185 L.Ed.2d 941 (2013) (quoting Art. II, § 1, cl.1); see ante, at 2198 n.2, n. 2. But we well understand, just as the Humphrey's Court did, that those activities may "take 'legislative' and 'judicial' forms." Arlington , 569 U.S., at 305, n. 4, 133 S.Ct. 1863. The classic examples are agency rulemakings and adjudications, endemic in agencies like the FTC and CFPB. In any event, the Court would soon make clear that Congress can also constrain the President's removal authority over officials performing even the most "executive" of functions. See infra , at 2234 - 2235.
Expressing veiled contempt as only he could, Justice Frankfurter wrote for the Court that Chief Justice Taft's opinion had "laboriously traversed" American history and that it had failed to "restrict itself to the immediate issue before it." 357 U.S., at 351, 78 S.Ct. 1275. No wonder Humphrey's had "narrowly confined the scope of the Myers decision." 357 U.S., at 352, 78 S.Ct. 1275. Justice Frankfurter implied that the "Chief Justice who himself had been President" was lucky his handiwork had not been altogether reversed. Id., at 351, 78 S.Ct. 1275.
Pretending this analysis is mine rather than Morrison 's, the majority registers its disagreement. See ante, at 2240, n. 11. In its view, a test asking whether a for-cause provision impedes the President's ability to carry out his constitutional functions has "no real limiting principle." Ibid. If the provision leaves the President with constitutionally sufficient control over some subordinates (like the independent counsel), the majority asks, why not over even his close military or diplomatic advisers? See ibid. But the Constitution itself supplies the answer. If the only presidential duty at issue is the one to ensure faithful execution of the laws, a for-cause provision does not stand in the way: As Morrison recognized, it preserves authority in the President to ensure (just as the Take Care Clause requires) that an official is abiding by law. See 487 U.S., at 692, 108 S.Ct. 2597. But now suppose an additional constitutional duty is implicated-relating, say, to the conduct of foreign affairs or war. To carry out those duties, the President needs advisers who will (beyond complying with law) help him devise and implement policy. And that means he needs the capacity to fire such advisers for disagreeing with his policy calls.
The majority suggests that the FTC was a different animal when this Court upheld its independent status in Humphrey's . See ante, at 2200. But then, as now, the FTC's organic statute broadly "empowered and directed" the agency "to prevent persons" or businesses "from using unfair methods of competition in commerce." Act of Sept. 26, 1914, § 5, 38 Stat. 719. To fulfill that mandate, the agency could and did run investigations, bring administrative charges, and conduct adjudications. See ibid. ; § 6(a), id. , at 721; FTC Ann. Rep. (1935) (describing the FTC's extensive enforcement activities in the year before Humphrey's ). And if any person refused to comply with an order, the agency could seek its enforcement in federal court under a highly deferential standard. See § 5, 38 Stat. 720; FTC v. Pacific States Paper Trade Assn. , 273 U.S. 52, 63, 47 S.Ct. 255, 71 L.Ed. 534 (1927). Still more, the FTC has always had statutory rulemaking authority, even though (like several other agencies) it relied on adjudications until the 1960s. See § 6(g), 38 Stat. 722; National Petroleum Refiners Assn. v. FTC , 482 F.2d 672, 686 (C.A.D.C. 1973). (The majority's reply that a court including Charles Evans Hughes, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and Harlan Stone somehow misunderstood these powers, see ante, at 2200 n.4, lacks all plausibility.) And in any case, the relevant point of comparison is the present-day FTC, which remains independent even if it now has some expanded powers-and which remains constitutional under not only Humphrey's but also Morrison . See supra, at 2234 - 2235.
The majority briefly mentions, but understandably does not rely on, two other features of Congress's scheme. First, the majority notes that the CFPB receives its funding outside the normal appropriations process. See ante , at 2204 - 2205. But so too do other financial regulators, including the Federal Reserve Board and the FDIC. See 12 U. S. C. §§ 243, 1815(d), 1820(e). And budgetary independence comes mostly at the expense of Congress's control over the agency, not the President's. (Because that is so, it actually works to the President's advantage.) Second, the majority complains that the Director's five-year term may prevent a President from "shap[ing the agency's] leadership" through appointments. Ante , at 2204. But again that is true, to one degree or another, of quite a few longstanding independent agencies, including the Federal Reserve, the FTC, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Postal Service Board of Governors. See, e.g. , §§ 241, 242; 15 U. S. C. § 41 ; 5 U. S. C. §§ 1201, 1202 ; 39 U. S. C. § 202. (If you think the last is unimportant, just ask the current President whether he agrees.)
The majority, seeking some other way to distinguish Morrison , asserts that the independent counsel's "duties" were more "limited" than the CFPB Director's. Ante , at 2200 - 2201. That's true in a sense: All (all?) the special counsel had to do was decide whether the President and his top advisers had broken the law. But I doubt (and I suspect Presidents would too) whether the need to control those duties was any less "central to the functioning of the Executive Branch" than the need to control the CFPB's. Morrison , 487 U.S., at 691-692, 108 S.Ct. 2597. And in any event, as I've shown, Morrison did much more than approve a specific removal provision; it created a standard to govern all removal cases that is at complete odds with the majority's reasoning. See supra, at 2234 - 2236.
To use one important example, Congress provided for executive oversight of all the CFPB's rulemaking. The Financial Stability Oversight Council can veto by a two-thirds vote any CFPB regulation it deems a threat to the "safety and soundness" of the financial system. 12 U. S. C. § 5513(a). The FSOC is chaired by the Treasury Secretary, and most of its members are under the direct supervision of the President. See § 5321. So the majority is wrong in saying that the CFPB's Director can "unilaterally " issue final regulations. Ante , at 2203 - 2204 (emphasis in original). Indeed, the President has more control over rulemaking at the CFPB than at any similar independent agency. And the majority is similarly wrong to think that because the FSOC has not yet issued a formal veto, its review authority makes no practical difference. See ante, at 2204 n.9. Regulatory review, whether by the Office of Management and Budget or the FSOC, usually relies more on the threat of vetoes than on their execution. OMB casts a long shadow over rulemaking in the Executive Branch, but rarely uses its veto pen. See Sunstein, The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs: Myths and Realities, 126 Harv. L. Rev. 1838, 1846-1847, n. 37 (2013).
I could go on. A recent study prepared for the Administrative Conference of the United States noted that "[g]overnance by multiple members limits the President's influence." J. Selin & D. Lewis, Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies 89 (2d ed. 2018). And the General Accounting Office has recognized that the desire for "greater independence" is what "most likely explains why the Congress in the past has opted to head independent regulatory bodies with multimember commissions rather than single administrators." Hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on the Consumer of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, 100th Cong., 1st Sess., 135 (1987) (Statement of F. Frazier). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the reason, if any, given by the court for granting the petition for certiorari. | What reason, if any, does the court give for granting the petition for certiorari? | [
"case did not arise on cert or cert not granted",
"federal court conflict",
"federal court conflict and to resolve important or significant question",
"putative conflict",
"conflict between federal court and state court",
"state court conflict",
"federal court confusion or uncertainty",
"state court confusion or uncertainty",
"federal court and state court confusion or uncertainty",
"to resolve important or significant question",
"to resolve question presented",
"no reason given",
"other reason"
] | [
9
] | sc_certreason |
DOGGETT v. UNITED STATES
No. 90-857.
Argued October 9, 1991
Reargued February 24, 1992
Decided June 24, 1992
Souxer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which White, Black-mun, Stevens, and Kennedy, JJ., joined. O’Connor, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 658. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia, J., joined, post, p. 659.
Wm. J. Sheppard reargued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Elizabeth L. White.
Deputy Solicitor General Bryson reargued the cause for the United States. Assistant Attorney General Mueller argued the cause for the United States on the original argument. With them on the briefs were Solicitor General Starr, Ronald J. Mann, and Patty Merkamp Stemler.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we consider whether the delay of 8V2 years between petitioner’s indictment and arrest violated his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. We hold that it did.
I
On February 22, 1980, petitioner Marc Doggett was indicted for conspiring with several others to import and distribute cocaine. See 84 Stat. 1265, 1291, as amended, 21 U. S. C. §§846, 963. Douglas Driver, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) principal agent investigating the conspiracy, told the United States Marshal’s Service that the DEA would oversee the apprehension of Doggett and his confederates. On March 18, 1980, two police officers set out under Driver’s orders to arrest Doggett at his parents’ house in Raleigh, North Carolina, only to find that he was not there. His mother told the officers that he had left for Colombia four days earlier.
To catch Doggett on his return to the United States, Driver sent word of his outstanding arrest warrant to all United States Customs stations and to a number of law enforcement organizations. He also placed Doggett’s name in the Treasury Enforcement Communication System (TECS), a computer network that helps Customs agents screen people entering the country, and in the National Crime Information Center computer system, which serves similar ends. The TECS entry expired that September, however, and Doggett’s name vanished from the system.
In September 1981, Driver found out that Doggett was under arrest on drug charges in Panama and, thinking that a formal extradition request would be futile, simply asked Panama to “expel” Doggett to the United States. Although the Panamanian authorities promised to comply when their own proceedings had run their course, they freed Doggett the following July and let him go to Colombia, where he stayed with an aunt for several months. On September 25, 1982, he passed unhindered through Customs in New York City and settled down in Virginia. Since his return to the United States, he has married, earned a college degree, found a steady job as a computer operations manager, lived openly under his own name, and stayed within the law.
Doggett’s travels abroad had not wholly escaped the Government’s notice, however. In 1982, the American Embassy in Panama told the State Department of his departure to Colombia, but that information, for whatever reason, eluded the DEA, and Agent Driver assumed for several years that his quarry was still serving time in a Panamanian prison. Driver never asked DEA officials in Panama to check into Doggett’s status, and only after his own fortuitous assignment to that country in 1985 did he discover Doggett’s departure for Colombia. Driver then simply assumed Doggett had settled there, and he made no effort to find out for sure or to track Doggett down, either abroad or in the United States. Thus Doggett remained lost to the American criminal justice system until September 1988, when the Marshal’s Service ran a simple credit check on several thousand people subject to outstanding arrest warrants and, within minutes, found out where Doggett lived and worked. On September 5,1988, nearly 6 years after his return to the United States and 8V2 years after his indictment, Doggett was arrested.
He naturally moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the Government’s failure to prosecute him earlier violated his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. The Federal Magistrate hearing his motion applied the criteria for assessing speedy trial claims set out in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U. S. 514 (1972): “[ljength of delay, the reason for the delay, the defendant’s assertion of his right, and prejudice to the defendant.” Id., at 530 (footnote omitted). The Magistrate found that the delay between Doggett’s indictment and arrest was long enough to be “presumptively prejudicial,” Magistrate’s Report, reprinted at App. to Pet. for Cert. 27-28, that the delay “clearly [was] attributable to the negligence of the government,” id., at 39, and that Doggett could not be faulted for any delay in asserting his right to a speedy trial, there being no evidence that he had known of the charges against him until his arrest, id., at 42-44. The Magistrate also found, however, that Doggett had made no affirmative showing that the delay had impaired his ability to mount a successful defense or had otherwise prejudiced him. In his recommendation to the District Court, the Magistrate contended that this failure to demonstrate particular prejudice sufficed to defeat Doggett’s speedy trial claim.
The District Court took the recommendation and denied Doggett’s motion. Doggett then entered a conditional guilty plea under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2), expressly reserving the right to appeal his ensuing conviction on the speedy trial claim.
A split panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed. 906 F. 2d 573 (CA11 1990). Following Circuit precedent, see Ringstaff v. Howard, 885 F. 2d 1542 (CA11 1989) (en banc), the court ruled that Doggett could prevail only by proving “actual prejudice” or by establishing that “the first three Barker factors weighted] heavily in his favor.” 906 F. 2d, at 582. The majority agreed with the Magistrate that Doggett had not shown actual prejudice, and, attributing the Government’s delay to “negligence” rather than “bad faith,” id., at 578-579, it concluded that Barker’s first three factors did not weigh so heavily against the Government as to make proof of specific prejudice unnecessary. Judge Clark dissented, arguing, among other things, that the majority had placed undue emphasis on Doggett’s inability to prove actual prejudice.
We granted Doggett’s petition for certiorari, 498 U. S. 1119 (1991), and now reverse.
II
The Sixth Amendment guarantees that, “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy ... trial_” On its face, the Speedy Trial Clause is written with such breadth that, taken literally, it would forbid the government to delay the trial of an “accused” for any reason at all. Our cases, however, have qualified the literal sweep of the provision by specifically recognizing the relevance of four separate enquiries: whether delay before trial was uncommonly long, whether the government or the criminal defendant is more to blame for that delay, whether, in due course, the defendant asserted his right to a speedy trial, and whether he suffered prejudice as the delay’s result. See Barker, supra, at 530.
The first of these is actually a double enquiry. Simply to trigger a speedy trial analysis, an accused must allege that the interval between accusation and trial has crossed the threshold dividing ordinary from “presumptively prejudicial” delay, 407 U. S., at 530-531, since, by definition, he cannot complain that the government has denied him a “speedy” trial if it has, in fact, prosecuted his case, with customary promptness. If the accused makes this showing, the court must then consider, as one factor among several, the extent to which the delay stretches beyond the bare minimum needed to trigger judicial examination of the claim. See id., at 533-534. This latter enquiry is significant to the speedy trial analysis because, as we discuss below, the presumption that pretrial delay has prejudiced the accused intensifies over time. In this case, the extraordinary 8V2-year lag between Doggett’s indictment and arrest clearly suffices to trigger the speedy trial enquiry; its further significance within that enquiry will be dealt with later.
As for Barker’s second criterion, the Government claims to have sought Doggett with diligence. The findings of the courts below are to the contrary, however, and we review trial court determinations of negligence with considerable deference. See Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U. S. 384, 402 (1990); McAllister v. United States, 348 U. S. 19, 20-22 (1954); 9 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §2590 (1971). The Government gives us nothing to gainsay the findings that have come up to us, and we see nothing fatal to them in the record. For six years, the Government’s investigators made no serious effort to test their progressively more questionable assumption that Doggett was living abroad, and, had they done so, they could have found him within minutes. While the Government’s lethargy may have reflected no more than Doggett’s relative unimportance in the world of drug trafficking, it was still findable negligence, and the finding stands.
The Government goes against the record again in suggesting that Doggett knew of his indictment years before he was arrested. Were this true, Barker’s third factor, concerning invocation of the right to a speedy trial, would be weighed heavily against him. But here again, the Government is trying to revisit the facts. At the hearing on Doggett’s speedy trial motion, it introduced no evidence challenging the testimony of Doggett’s wife, who said that she did not know of the charges until his arrest, and of his mother, who claimed not to have told him or anyone else that the police had come looking for him. From this the Magistrate implicitly concluded, Magistrate’s Report, reprinted at App. to Pet. for Cert. 42-44, and the Court of Appeals expressly reaffirmed, 906 F. 2d, at 579-580, that Doggett had won the evidentiary battle on this point. Not only that, but.in the factual basis supporting Doggett’s guilty plea, the Government explicitly conceded that it had
“no information that Doggett was aware of the indictment before he left the United States in March 1980, or prior to his arrest. His mother testified at the suppression hearing that she never told him, and Barnes and Riddle [Doggett’s confederates] state they did not have contact with him after their arrest [in 1980].” 2 Record, Exh. 63, p. 2.
While one of the Government’s lawyers later expressed amazement that “that particular stipulation is in the factual basis,” Tr. 13 (Mar. 31, 1989), he could not make it go away, and the trial and appellate courts were entitled to accept the defense’s unrebutted and largely substantiated claim of Doggett’s ignorance. Thus, Doggett is not to be taxed for invoking his speedy trial right only after his arrest.
HH h-l
The Government is left, then, with its principal contention: that Doggett fails to make out a suecessM speedy trial claim because he has not shown precisely how he was prejudiced by the delay between his indictment and trial.
A
We have observed in prior cases that unreasonable delay between formal accusation and trial threatens to produce more than one sort of harm, including "oppressive pretrial incarceration,” “anxiety and concern of the accused,” and “the possibility that the [accused’s] defense will be impaired” by dimming memories and loss of exculpatory evidence. Barker, 407 U. S., at 532; see also Smith v. Hooey, 393 U. S. 374, 377-379 (1969); United States v. Ewell, 383 U. S. 116, 120 (1966). Of these forms of prejudice, “the most serious is the last, because the inability of a defendant adequately to prepare his case skews the fairness of the entire system.” 407 U. S., at 532. Doggett claims this kind of prejudice, and there is probably no other kind that he can claim, since he was subjected neither to pretrial detention nor, he has successfully contended, to awareness of unresolved' charges against him.
The Government answers Doggett’s claim by citing language in three cases, United States v. Marion, 404 U. S. 307, 320-323 (1971), United States v. MacDonald, 456 U. S. 1, 8 (1982), and United States v. Loud Hawk, 474 U. S. 302, 312 (1986), for the proposition that the Speedy Trial Clause does not significantly protect a criminal defendant’s interest in fair adjudication. In so arguing, the Government asks us, in effect, to read part of Barker right out of the law, and that we will not do. In context, the cited passages support nothing beyond the principle, which we have independently based on textual and historical grounds, see Marion, supra, at 313-320, that the Sixth Amendment right of the accused to a speedy trial has no application beyond the confines of a formal criminal prosecution. Once triggered by arrest, indictment, or other official accusation, however, the speedy trial enquiry must weigh the effect of delay on the accused’s defense just as it has to weigh any other form of prejudice that Barker recognized. See Moore v. Arizona, 414 U. S. 25, 26-27, and n. 2 (1973); Barker, supra, at 532; Smith, supra, at 377-379; Ewell, supra, at 120.
As an alternative to limiting Barker, the Government claims Doggett has failed to make any affirmative showing that the delay weakened his ability to raise specific defenses, elicit specific testimony, or produce specific items of evidence. Though Doggett did indeed come up short in this respect, the Government’s argument takes it only so far: consideration of prejudice is not limited to the specifically demonstrable, and, as it concedes, Brief for United States 28, n. 21; Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-34 (Feb. 24, 1992), affirmative proof of particularized prejudice is not essential to every speedy trial claim. See Moore, supra, at 26; Barker, supra, at 533. Barker explicitly recognized that impairment of one’s defense is the most difficult form of speedy trial prejudice to prove because time’s erosion of exculpatory evidence and testimony “can rarely be shown.” 407 U. S., at 532. And though time can tilt the case against either side, see id., at 521; Loud Hawk, supra, at 315, one cannot generally be sure which of them it has prejudiced more severely. Thus, we generally have to recognize that excessive delay presumptively compromises the reliability of a trial in ways that neither party can prove or, for that matter, identify. While such presumptive prejudice cannot alone carry a Sixth Amendment claim without regard to the other Barker criteria, see Loud Hawk, supra, at 315, it is part of the mix of relevant facts, and its importance increases with the length of delay.
B
This brings us to an enquiry into the role that presumptive prejudice should play in the disposition of Doggett’s speedy trial claim. We begin with hypothetical and somewhat easier cases and work our way to this one.
Our speedy trial standards recognize that pretrial delay is often both inevitable and wholly justifiable. The government may need time to collect witnesses against the accused, oppose his pretrial motions, or, if he goes into hiding, track him down. We attach great weight to such considerations when balancing them against the costs of going forward with a trial whose probative accuracy the passage of time has begun by degrees to throw into question. See Loud Hawk, supra, at 315-317. Thus, in this case, if the Government had pursued Doggett with reasonable diligence from his indictment to his arrest, his speedy trial claim would fail. Indeed, that conclusion would generally follow as a matter of course however great the delay, so long as Doggett could not show specific prejudice to his defense.
The Government concedes, on the other hand, that Dog-gett would prevail if he could show that the Government had intentionally held back in its prosecution of him to gain some impermissible advantage at trial. See Brief for United States 28, n. 21; Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-34 (Feb. 24,1992). That we cannot doubt. Barker stressed that official bad faith in causing delay will be weighed heavily against the government, 407 U. S., at 531, and a bad-faith delay the length of this negligent one would, present an overwhelming case for dismissal.
Between diligent prosecution and bad-faith delay, official negligence in bringing an accused to trial occupies the mid-die ground. While not compelling relief in every case where bad-faith delay would make relief virtually automatic, neither is negligence automatically tolerable simply because the accused cannot demonstrate exactly how it has prejudiced him. It was on this point that the Court of Appeals erred, and on the. facts before us, it was reversible error.
Barker made it clear that “different weights [are to be] assigned to different reasons” for delay. Ibid. Although negligence is obviously to be weighed more lightly than a deliberate intent to harm the accused’s defense, it still falls on the wrong side of the divide between acceptable and unacceptable reasons for delaying a criminal prosecution once it has begun. And such is the nature of the prejudice presumed that the weight we assign to official negligence compounds over time as the presumption of evidentiary prejudice grows. Thus, our toleration of such negligence varies inversely with its protraetedness, cf. Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U. S. 51 (1988), and its consequent threat to the fairness of the accused’s trial. Condoning prolonged and unjustifiable delays in prosecution would both penalize many defendants for the state’s fault and simply encourage the .government to gamble with the interests of criminal suspects assigned a low prosecutorial priority. The Government, indeed, can hardly complain too loudly, for persistent neglect in concluding a criminal prosecution indicates an uncommonly feeble interest in bringing an accused to justice; the more weight the Government attaches to securing a conviction, the harder it will try to get it.
To be sure, to warrant granting relief, negligence unaccompanied by particularized trial prejudice must have lasted longer than negligence demonstrably causing such prejudice. But even so, the Government’s egregious persistence in failing to prosecute Doggett is clearly sufficient. The lag between Doggett’s indictment and arrest was 8V2 years, and he would have faced trial 6 years earlier than he did but for the Government’s inexcusable oversights. The portion of the delay attributable to the Government’s negligence far exceeds the threshold needed to state a speedy trial claim; indeed, we have called shorter delays “extraordinary.” See Barker, supra, at 533. When the Government’s negligence thus causes delay six times as long as that generally sufficient to trigger judicial review, see n. 1, supra, and when the presumption of prejudice, albeit unspecified, is neither extenuated, as by the defendant’s acquiescence, e. g., 407 U. S., at 534-536, nor persuasively rebutted, the defendant is entitled to relief.
IV
We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Depending on the nature of the charges, the lower courts have generally found postaccusation delay "presumptively prejudicial” at least as it approaches one year. See 2 W. LaFave & J. Israel, Criminal Procedure § 18.2, p. 405 (1984); Joseph, Speedy Trial Rights in Application, 48 Ford. L. Rev. 611, 623, n. 71 (1980) (citing cases). We note that, as the term is used in this threshold context, “presumptive prejudice” does not necessarily indicate a statistical probability of prejudice; it simply marks the point at which courts deem the delay unreasonable enough to trigger the Barker enquiry. Cf. Uviller, Barker v. Wingo: Speedy Trial Gets a Fast Shuffle, 72 Colum. L. Rev. 1376, 1384-1385 (1972).
Thus, we reject the Government's argument that the effect of delay on adjudicative accuracy is exclusively a matter for consideration under the Due Process Clause. We leave intact our earlier observation, see United States v. MacDonald, 456 U. S. 1, 7 (1982), that a defendant may invoke due process to challenge delay both before and after official accusation.
Citing United States v. Broce, 488 U. S. 563, 569 (1989), the Government . argues that, by pleading guilty, Doggett waived any right to claim that the delay would have prejudiced him had he gone to trial. Brief for United States 30. Yet Doggett did not sign a guilty plea simpliciter, but a conditional guilty plea under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2), thereby securing the Government’s explicit consent to his reservation of “the right to appeal the adverse Court ruling on his Motion to Dismiss for violation of Constitutional Speedy Trial provisions based upon post-indictment delay.” Plea Agreement, 2 Record, Exh. 66, p. 1. One cannot reasonably construe this agreement to bar Doggett from pursuing as effective an appeal as he could have raised had he not pleaded guilty.
While the Government ably counters Doggett’s efforts to demonstrate particularized trial prejudice, it has not, and probably could not have, affirmatively proved that the delay left his ability to defend himself unimpaired. Cf. Uviller, 72 Colum. L. Rev., at 1394-1395. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the bases on which the Supreme Court rested its decision with regard to the legal provision that the Court considered in the case. Consider "judicial review (national level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of the federal government, including an interstate compact. Consider "judicial review (state level)" if the majority determined the constitutionality of some action taken by some unit or official of a state or local government. Consider "statutory construction" for cases where the majority interpret a federal statute, treaty, or court rule; if the Court interprets a federal statute governing the powers or jurisdiction of a federal court; if the Court construes a state law as incompatible with a federal law; or if an administrative official interprets a federal statute. Do not consider "statutory construction" where an administrative agency or official acts "pursuant to" a statute, unless the Court interprets the statute to determine if administrative action is proper. Consider "interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order" if the majority treats federal administrative action in arriving at its decision.Consider "diversity jurisdiction" if the majority said in approximately so many words that under its diversity jurisdiction it is interpreting state law. Consider "federal common law" if the majority indicate that it used a judge-made "doctrine" or "rule; if the Court without more merely specifies the disposition the Court has made of the case and cites one or more of its own previously decided cases unless the citation is qualified by the word "see."; if the case concerns admiralty or maritime law, or some other aspect of the law of nations other than a treaty; if the case concerns the retroactive application of a constitutional provision or a previous decision of the Court; if the case concerns an exclusionary rule, the harmless error rule (though not the statute), the abstention doctrine, comity, res judicata, or collateral estoppel; or if the case concerns a "rule" or "doctrine" that is not specified as related to or connected with a constitutional or statutory provision. Consider "Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction" otherwise (i.e., the residual code); for issues pertaining to non-statutorily based Judicial Power topics; for cases arising under the Court's original jurisdiction; in cases in which the Court denied or dismissed the petition for review or where the decision of a lower court is affirmed by a tie vote; or in workers' compensation litigation involving statutory interpretation and, in addition, a discussion of jury determination and/or the sufficiency of the evidence. | What is the basis of the Supreme Court's decision? | [
"judicial review (national level)",
"judicial review (state level)",
"Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction",
"statutory construction",
"interpretation of administrative regulation or rule, or executive order",
"diversity jurisdiction",
"federal common law"
] | [
0
] | sc_authoritydecision |
ALEXANDER et al. v. VIRGINIA
No. 71-1315.
Argued October 19, 1972 —
Decided June 25, 1973
Stanley M. Dietz argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioners.
James E. Kulp, Assistant Attorney General of Virginia, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Andrew P. Miller, Attorney General, and Robert E. Shepherd, Jr., Assistant Attorney General.
Ralph J. Schwarz, Jr., Mel S. Friedman, and Joel Hirschhorn filed a brief for the First Amendment Lawyers’ Association as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Per Curiam.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia is vacated and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with Miller v. California, ante, at 23-25, Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, ante, at 58 n. 7, and Heller v. New York, ante, p. 483. See United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, ante, at 129-130 and n. 7. A trial by jury is not constitutionally required in this state civil proceeding pursuant to § 18.1-236.3 of the Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended. See Melancon v. McKeithen, 345 F. Supp. 1025, 1027, 1035-1045, 1048 (ED La.), aff'd sub nom. Mayes v. Ellis, 409 U. S. 943 (1972), and Hill v. Mc- Keithen, 409 U. S. 943 (1972). Cf. Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U. S. 436, 443-444 (1957).
Vacated and remanded.
Mr. Justice Douglas would reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia. See Miller v. California, ante, p. 37 (Douglas, J., dissenting). | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. | What is the issue area of the decision? | [
"Criminal Procedure",
"Civil Rights",
"First Amendment",
"Due Process",
"Privacy",
"Attorneys",
"Unions",
"Economic Activity",
"Judicial Power",
"Federalism",
"Interstate Relations",
"Federal Taxation",
"Miscellaneous",
"Private Action"
] | [
2
] | sc_issuearea |
UNITED STATES v. CERTAIN PARCELS OF LAND IN THE COUNTY OF FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA, et al.
No. 253.
Argued January 9, 1953.
Decided April 6, 1953.
Assistant Attorney General Kirks argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Cummings and Assistant Attorney General Mclnerney.
Frederick A. Ballard argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief was Joseph W. Wyatt.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This nine-year-old proceeding is for the condemnation of certain easements in land and title to sewer mains which together comprise the sewerage system of Belle Haven, a residential subdivision in Fairfax County, Virginia. It was brought under the authority of Title II, § 202 of the Act of June 28, 1941, 55 Stat. 361, and a rider on the Appropriation Act of July 15, 1943, 57 Stat. 565, both amendments to the Lanham Act of October 14, 1940, 54 Stat. 1125, 42 U. S. C. § 1521 et seq. Questions important in the administration of the Act moved us to grant certiorari, 344 U. S. 812, to review the dismissal of the government petition. 196 F. 2d 657, aff’g 101 F. Supp. 172.
During World War II, defense housing needs in the Washington area led the government to construct a large sewer project to serve defense housing properties in Fair-fax County. It sought to utilize, as a part of its trunk-line sewer, existing easements containing sewer pipes in the system originally constructed by respondent Belle Haven Realty Corporation. Negotiations produced an agreement under which the corporation, still holder of the fee, was to accept nominal compensation for its sewer properties on the condition that the government take the entire system and that the final order protect the Belle Haven householders against any future charges for its use. The government then filed a condemnation petition together with a declaration of taking and deposited estimated just compensation of $2. Possession was taken under court order, Belle Haven’s outfalls into the Potomac River blocked off, and its sewage diverted into the government’s trunk-line system. In .1948, a group of Belle Haven householders intervened as defendants, alleging that the government had leased the integrated system to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and that the latter had undertaken to assess a use charge of $2 per month against each householder in Belle Haven subdivision. The intervenors claimed that they were the equitable owners in fee of the Belle Haven system since the developing corporation had included its construction cost in the purchase price of their lots, that they had been granted easements of user in that system and that the use charges assessed exceeded reasonable maintenance and operation costs. The prayer was that the court, in lieu of direct compensation for their interests, protect them against having to contribute to the amortization of the integrated system. The court decided that the householders had acquired implied easements in the Belle Haven system for which they were entitled to claim compensation, and intervention was granted. 89 F. Supp. 571. But the district judge held that he could not make an award in the form of a limitation on future use charges and he denied a temporary injunction against the collection of current bills. 89 F. Supp. 567. The in-tervenors then amended their answer to attack the taking as unauthorized under the Lanham Act. The Belle Haven Realty Corporation, which had not previously answered the government’s petition, did so in 1950, claiming it was the legal owner of the system and entitled to its present reproduction cost, less depreciation, as just compensation.
The District Court dismissed the petition on the ground that the Lanham Act, as amended, required the consent of the intervenors as well as the realty corporation, that the corporation had only conditionally consented to the taking and that the householders had not consented at all. While the Court of Appeals approved the trial court’s reading of the statutory consent requirement, it declined to base its affirmance on that ground because, “It is perfectly clear . . . that the power of condemnation given by the Lanham Act extends only to lands or interests in lands; . . . there is nothing in the act which authorizes the condemnation of a public works system such as this.” 196 F. 2d 657, 662, relying on Puerto Rico R. Light & Power Co. v. United States, 131 F. 2d 491.
The original Lanham Act of October 14,. 1940, 54 Stat. 1125, was designed to provide relief for defense areas found by the President to be suffering from an existing or impending housing shortage. In such cases, the Federal Works Administrator was empowered to acquire “improved or unimproved lands or interests in lands” for construction sites by purchase, donation, exchange, lease or condemnation. The quoted language describing the kind of property which the Administrator could condemn was carried over into Title II of the Act, added in 1941, which extended the statute to public works shortages in defense areas. “Public work,” as defined, included sewers and sewage facilities. § 201. While the general language “improved or unimproved lands or interests in lands” included within § 202 of Title II of the Lanham Act appears to authorize the taking here, United States v. Carmack, 329 U. S. 230, 242, 243, n. 13 (1946), it is not necessary to depend on that section alone. In 1943, the Act was amended to provide that “none of the funds authorized herein shall be used to acquire public works already operated by public or private agencies, except where funds are allotted for substantial additions or improvements to such public works and with the consent of the owners thereof . . . .” 57 Stat. 565, 42 U. S. C. § 1534, note. The 1943 amendment was in effect when the present petition was filed and its applicability here is common ground among the parties. It explicitly authorized the condemnation of such property subject to the conditions stated.
In this connection, we do not believe that the consent requirement bars acquisitions by condemnation. This interpretation would strip it of significance since the other means of acquiring property described in the statute necessarily rest on consensual transactions. Although condemnation is sometimes regarded as a taking without the owner’s consent, 1 Lewis, Eminent Domain (3d ed.), § 1, it is not anomalous to provide for such consent which can, in effect, represent an election to have value determined by a court rather than by the parties. In addition, “friendly” condemnation proceedings are often used to obtain clear title where price is already settled. Cf. Danforth v. United States, 308 U. S. 271 (1939). Thus construed, all of the statutory terms are given effect.
Here, the consent of Belle Haven Realty Corporation was implicit in its promise to accept-nominal damages. That consent cannot be characterized as conditional. Indeed, the corporation’s answer, filed six years later, recognized this; rather than resisting the taking, it merely asserted a claim for more than nominal compensation.
Whether the intervening householders were “owners” whose consent was required is a different matter. Their interests were regarded by both courts below as implied easements or rights of user in the sewer system. It is true that easement holders have been held to be “owners” as that term is used in condemnation statutes. Swanson v. United States, 156 F. 2d 442, 445; United States v. Welch, 217 U. S. 333 (1910); cf. United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U. S. 373, 378 (1945). But the relevant question in those cases is whether the holders of such interests are entitled to compensation under the Constitution. The compensability of these interests is not in issue here; it follows that the cases on which inter-venors rely are not controlling. In deciding who are “owners” here, we look to the scheme of the Act itself. We think it unlikely that, in providing for the condemnation of public works, Congress at the same time intended to make preliminary negotiations so cumbersome as to virtually nullify the power granted. Yet the interpretation pressed by respondents would have that effect. It would compel the government, before taking public works, to deal with the holder of every servitude to which the property might be subject. We hold that intervenors were not “owners” under the 1943 amendment and that the government was not required before condemning to engage in a round robin to secure from each of them a self-serving “Barkis is willin’.”
We do not pass on other issues raised by respondents, some of which if decided adversely to the government might be cured by amendment, and others we deem not ripe for adjudication because of factual questions not yet resolved.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“Sec. 202. Whenever the President finds that in any area or locality an acute shortage of public works or equipment for public works necessary to the health, safety, or welfare of persons engaged in national-defense activities exists or impends which would impede national-defense activities, and that such public works or equipment cannot otherwise be provided when needed, or could not be provided without the imposition of an increased excessive tax burden or an unusual or excessive increase in the debt limit of the taxing or borrowing authority in which such shortage exists, the Federal Works Administrator is authorized, with the approval of the President, in order to relieve such shortage—
“(a) To acquire, . . . improved or unimproved lands or interests in lands by purchase, donation, exchange, lease ... or condemnation ... for such public works.”
“. . . none of the funds authorized herein shall be used to acquire public works already operated by public or private agencies, except where funds are allotted for substantial additions or improvements to such public works and with the consent of the owners thereof . . . .”
Since the district judge deemed himself unable to order the government to restore the Belle Haven system to its original condition, the householders were remitted by dismissal of the condemnation petition to a separate action for any compensable damage they suffered because of the taking. Under this ruling, the property taken would remain part of the integrated system whether title is in the government or the realty corporation. In each case, the rights of the householders, if any, to an award remain to be determined. One effect of upholding the condemnation is to have that question tried on remand in this proceeding. | What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the state of the court in which the case originated. Consider the District of Columbia as a state. | What is the state of the court in which the case originated? | [
"Alabama",
"Alaska",
"American Samoa",
"Arizona",
"Arkansas",
"California",
"Colorado",
"Connecticut",
"Delaware",
"District of Columbia",
"Federated States of Micronesia",
"Florida",
"Georgia",
"Guam",
"Hawaii",
"Idaho",
"Illinois",
"Indiana",
"Iowa",
"Kansas",
"Kentucky",
"Louisiana",
"Maine",
"Marshall Islands",
"Maryland",
"Massachusetts",
"Michigan",
"Minnesota",
"Mississippi",
"Missouri",
"Montana",
"Nebraska",
"Nevada",
"New Hampshire",
"New Jersey",
"New Mexico",
"New York",
"North Carolina",
"North Dakota",
"Northern Mariana Islands",
"Ohio",
"Oklahoma",
"Oregon",
"Palau",
"Pennsylvania",
"Puerto Rico",
"Rhode Island",
"South Carolina",
"South Dakota",
"Tennessee",
"Texas",
"Utah",
"Vermont",
"Virgin Islands",
"Virginia",
"Washington",
"West Virginia",
"Wisconsin",
"Wyoming",
"United States",
"Interstate Compact",
"Philippines",
"Indian",
"Dakota"
] | [
54
] | sc_caseoriginstate |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.