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Justice Stevens
| 1,986 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Allen v. Illinois
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111745/allen-v-illinois/
|
Attorney of the county wherein such person is so charged."[7] Like the prosecution for a criminal offense, "the burden of proof required to commit a defendant to confinement as a sexually dangerous person shall be the standard of proof required in a criminal proceeding of proof beyond a reasonable doubt."[8] Like the prosecution for a criminal offense, if the prosecutor sustains his burden of proof, "the court shall appoint the Director of Corrections guardian of the person found to be sexually dangerous and such person shall stand committed to the custody of such guardian."[9] Indeed, the Act even defines a "sexually dangerous person" with respect to criminal law, or rather, with respect to "criminal propensities": "All persons suffering from a mental disorder, which mental disorder has existed for a period of not less than one year, immediately prior to the filing of the petition hereinafter provided for, coupled with criminal propensities to the commission of sex offenses, and who have demonstrated propensities toward acts of sexual assault or acts of sexual molestation of children, are hereby declared sexually dangerous persons."[10] According to the Illinois Supreme Court's interpretation of this definition, moreover, the prosecutor must prove that the individual charged with being a sexually dangerous person committed a criminal offense: "It is clear that the statute requires more than the proof of mere `propensity'; it also requires that the State prove that the defendant has `demonstrated' this propensity. This language can only mean that the State must prove at least one act of or attempt at sexual *379 assault or sexual molestation." Thus, the Illinois "sexually dangerous person" proceeding may only be triggered by a criminal incident; may only be initiated by the sovereign State's prosecuting authorities; may only be established with the burden of proof applicable to the criminal law; may only proceed if a criminal offense is established; and has the consequence of incarceration in the State's prison system in this case, Illinois' maximum-security prison at Menard. It seems quite clear to me, in view of the consequences of conviction and the heavy reliance on the criminal justice system for its definition of the prohibited conduct, for the discretion of the prosecutor, for the standard of proof, and for the Director of Corrections as custodian that the proceeding must be considered "criminal" for purposes of the Fifth Amendment.[11] II The principal argument advanced by the State and accepted by the Court, ante, at 369-370 is that the statute has a benign purpose. The State points out that the statute, in appointing the Director of
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,986 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Allen v. Illinois
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111745/allen-v-illinois/
|
points out that the statute, in appointing the Director of Corrections as guardian, requires that the Director provide "care and treatment for the person committed to him designed to effect recovery";[12] requires *380 that the Director place his ward "in any facility in the Department of Corrections or portion thereof set aside for the care and treatment of sexually dangerous persons";[13] and requires that the individual be released if "found to be no longer dangerous."[14] The Illinois Supreme Court has stated unambiguously that "treatment, not punishment, is the aim of the statute." The Illinois court, of course, is the final authority on the meaning and the purpose of Illinois legislation. Nevertheless, the ultimate characterization of the sexually-dangerous-person proceeding for Fifth Amendment purposes remains a federal constitutional question. A goal of treatment is not sufficient, in and of itself, to render inapplicable the Fifth Amendment, or to prevent a characterization of proceedings as "criminal." With respect to a conventional criminal statute, if a State declared that its goal was "treatment" and "rehabilitation," it is obvious that the Fifth Amendment would still apply. The sexually-dangerous-person proceeding similarly may not escape a characterization as "criminal" simply because a goal is "treatment." If this were not the case, moreover, nothing would prevent a State from creating an entire corpus of "dangerous person" statutes to shadow its criminal code. Indeterminate commitment would derive from proven violations of criminal statutes, combined with findings of mental disorders and "criminal propensities," and constitutional protections for criminal defendants would be simply inapplicable. The goal would be "treatment"; the result would be evisceration of criminal law and its accompanying protections. The Illinois Attorney General nevertheless argues that the importance of treatment in the Act has a special significance. *381 The State contends that recognizing a right to silence would make it impossible to reach a correct diagnosis concerning the existence of a mental disorder and the need for treatment. However, the Illinois General Assembly has squarely rejected this argument in other civil commitment proceedings. Illinois' civil commitment procedure expressly protects the individual's right to silence.[15] Quoting the Governor's Commission for the Revision of the Mental Health Code of Illinois, the Illinois Appellate Court explained this unequivocal State policy: "Experience in the public and private sectors has shown that application of the privilege against self-incrimination does not seriously impair the State's ability to achieve the valid objectives of civil commitment." In re Rizer, The Attorney General's emphasis on the interference with treatment that the right of silence would create thus indeed has a significance, but not the one he suggests. For,
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,986 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Allen v. Illinois
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111745/allen-v-illinois/
|
has a significance, but not the one he suggests. For, not only would a characterization of the proceeding as "criminal" lead to a right to silence under the Fifth Amendment, but a characterization of the proceeding as "civil" would also lead to a right to silence under state law. It is only in the "sexually dangerous person" proceeding that the individual may be compelled to give evidence that will be used to deprive him of his liberty. The fact that this proceeding is unique neither *382 wholly criminal nor civil surely cannot justify the unique deprivation of a constitutional protection. III It is, of course, true that "the State has a substantial interest in protecting the public from sexually dangerous persons." But the fact that an individual accused of being a "sexually dangerous person" is also considered a danger to the community cannot justify the denial of the Fifth Amendment privilege; if so, the privilege would never be available for any person accused of a violent crime. The fact that it may be more difficult for the State to obtain evidence that will lead to incarceration similarly cannot prevent the applicability of the Fifth Amendment; if so, the right would never be justified, for it could always be said to have that effect. Nor can the fact that proof of sexual dangerousness requires evidence of noncriminal elements the continuing requirement that a future criminal "propensity" be proved, for instance prevent the applicability of the Fifth Amendment; if anything, that requirement should be the subject of greater, rather than lesser, concern.[16] In the end, this case requires a consideration of the role and value of the Fifth Amendment. The privilege sometimes does serve the interest in making the truth-seeking function of a trail more reliable.[17] Indeed, a review of the *383 psychiatrists' reports in this very case suggests the propriety of that concern.[18] The basic justification for the constitutional protection, however, also rests on the nature of our free society. As a distinguished leader of the Bar stated more than 30 years ago: "[T]he Fifth Amendment can serve as a constant reminder of the high standards set by the Founding Fathers, based on their experience with tyranny. It is an ever-present reminder of our belief in the importance of the individual, a symbol of our highest aspirations. As such, it is a clear and eloquent expression of our basic opposition to collectivism, to the unlimited power of the state. It would never be allowed by communists, and thus it may well be regarded as one of the
|
Justice Souter
| 1,992 | 20 |
majority
|
United States v. RLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112709/united-states-v-rlc/
|
The provisions of the Juvenile Delinquency Act require the length of official detention in certain circumstances to be limited to "the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult." 18 U.S. C. 5037(c)(1)(B). We hold that this limitation refers to the maximum sentence that could be imposed if the juvenile were being sentenced after application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. I Early in the morning of November 5, after a night of drinking, the then-16-year-old respondent R. L. C. and another juvenile stole a car with which they struck another automobile, fatally injuring one of its passengers, 2-year-old La Tesha Mountain. R. L. C. is a member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, and these events took place on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, which is within Indian *295 country as defined by federal law. These circumstances provide federal jurisdiction in this case. See 18 U.S. C. 1151, 1162, 1153. Upon certifying that a proceeding was authorized in federal court under 5032 on the ground that no state court had jurisdiction over the offense, the Government charged R. L. C. with an act of juvenile delinquency. After a bench trial, the District Court found R. L. C. to be a juvenile who had driven a car recklessly while intoxicated and without the owner's authorization, causing Mountain's death. R. L. C. was held to have committed an act of juvenile delinquency within the meaning of 5031, since his acts would have been the crime of involuntary manslaughter in violation of 1112(a) and 1153 if committed by an adult. The maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter under 18 U.S. C. 1112(b) is three years. At R. L. C.'s dispositional hearing, the District Court granted the Government's request to impose the maximum penalty for respondent's delinquency and accordingly committed him to official detention for three years. Despite the manslaughter statute's provision for an adult sentence of that length, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated R. L. C.'s sentence and remanded for resentencing, after concluding that 36 months exceeded the cap imposed by 5037(c)(1)(B) upon the period of detention to which a juvenile delinquent may be sentenced. Although the statute merely provides that juvenile detention may not extend beyond "the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult,"[1] the *296 Court of Appeals read this language to bar a juvenile term longer than the sentence a court could have imposed on a similarly situated adult
|
Justice Souter
| 1,992 | 20 |
majority
|
United States v. RLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112709/united-states-v-rlc/
|
a court could have imposed on a similarly situated adult after applying the United States Sentencing Guidelines. Under the Guidelines, involuntary manslaughter caused by recklessness has a base offense level of 14. United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual 2A1.4(a)(2) The court found, and the Government agrees, see Brief for United States 22, n. 5, that because R. L. C. had the lowest possible criminal history level, Category I, the Guidelines would yield a sentencing range of 15-21 months for a similarly situated adult. The Court of Appeals therefore concluded that the maximum period of detention to which R. L. C. could be sentenced was 21 months. The Government sought no stay of mandate from the Court of Appeals, and on remand the District Court imposed detention for 18 months. Although R. L. C. has now served this time, his failure to complete the 3-year detention originally imposed and the possibility that the remainder of it could be imposed saves the case from mootness. See United We granted the Government's petition for certiorari, to resolve the conflict between the Eighth Circuit's holding in this case and the Ninth Circuit's position, adopted in United and endorsed by the Government. II A The Government suggests a straightforward enquiry into plain meaning to explain what is "authorized." It argues that the word "authorized" must mean the maximum term of imprisonment provided for by the statute defining the offense, since only Congress can "authorize" a term of imprisonment in punishment for a crime. As against the position that the Sentencing Guidelines now circumscribe a trial court's authority, the Government insists that our concern must be with the affirmative authority for imposing a sentence, which necessarily stems from statutory law. It maintains that in any event the Sentencing Commission's congressional authorization to establish sentencing guidelines does not create affirmative authority to set punishments for crime, and that the Guidelines do not purport to authorize the punishments to which they relate. But this is too easy. The answer to any suggestion that the statutory character of a specific penalty provision gives it primacy over administrative sentencing guidelines is that the mandate to apply the Guidelines is itself statutory. See 18 U.S. C. 3553(b). More significantly, the Government's argument that "authorization" refers only to what is affirmatively provided by penal statutes, without reference to the Sentencing Guidelines to be applied under statutory mandate, seems to us to beg the question. Of course it is true that no penalty would be "authorized" without a statute providing specifically for the penal consequences of defined criminal activity. The question, however, is
|
Justice Souter
| 1,992 | 20 |
majority
|
United States v. RLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112709/united-states-v-rlc/
|
penal consequences of defined criminal activity. The question, however, is whether Congress intended the courts to treat the upper limit of such a penalty as "authorized" even when proper application of a statutorily mandated Guideline in an adult case would bar imposition up to the limit, and an unwarranted upward departure *298 from the proper Guideline range would be reversible error. 3742. Here it suffices to say that the Government's construction is by no means plain. The text is at least equally consistent with treating "authorized" to refer to the result of applying all statutes with a required bearing on the sentencing decision, including not only those that empower the court to sentence but those that limit the legitimacy of its exercise of that power. This, indeed, is arguably the more natural construction. Plain-meaning analysis does not, then, provide the Government with a favorable answer. The most that can be said from examining the text in its present form is that the Government may claim its preferred construction to be one possible resolution of statutory ambiguity. B On the assumption that ambiguity exists, we turn to examine the textual evolution of the limitation in question and the legislative history that may explain or elucidate it.[2] The *299 predecessor of 5037(c) as included in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 provided that a juvenile adjudged delinquent could be committed to the custody of the Attorney General for a period "not [to]extend beyond the juvenile's twenty-first birthday or the maximum term which could have been imposed on an adult convicted of the same offense, whichever is sooner." 18 U.S. C. 5037(b) (1982 ed.) (emphasis added). In its current form, the statute refers to the "maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult." 18 U.S. C. 5037(c) (emphasis added). On its face, the current language suggests a change in reference from abstract consideration of the penalty permitted in punishment of the adult offense, to a focused enquiry into the maximum that would be available in the circumstances of the particular juvenile before the court. The intervening history supports this reading. With the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (chapter II of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, Pub. L. 98 473, 214(a), 98 Stat. ), 5037 was rewritten. As 5037(c)(1)(B), its relevant provision became "the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized by section 3581(b) if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult." 18 U.S. C. 5037(c)(1)(B), (c)(2)(B)(ii) (1982 ed., Supp. II) (emphasis added). The
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Justice Souter
| 1,992 | 20 |
majority
|
United States v. RLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112709/united-states-v-rlc/
|
C. 5037(c)(1)(B), (c)(2)(B)(ii) (1982 ed., Supp. II) (emphasis added). The emphasized language was quickly deleted, however, by the Criminal Law and Procedure Technical Amendments Act of 1986, Pub. L. 99-646, 21(a)(2), resulting in the present statutory text, "the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult." It thus lost the reference to 3581(b), which would have guided the sentencing court in identifying the "authorized" term of imprisonment. *300 R. L. C. argues that this loss is highly significant. Section 3581(b)[3] was, and still is, part of a classification system adopted in 1984 for use in setting the incidents of punishment for federal offenses by reference to letter grades reflecting their relative seriousness. One provision, for example, sets the maximum period of supervised release for each letter grade. 3583. Section 3581(b) sets out the maximum term of imprisonment for each letter grade, providing, for instance, that the authorized term of imprisonment for a class C felony is not more than 12 years, for a class D not more than 6, and for a class E not more than 3. The deletion of the reference to 3581(b) with its specific catalog of statutory maximums would seem to go against the Government's position. Since, for example, a juvenile who had committed what would have been an adult class E felony would apparently have been subject to three years of detention, because 3581(b) "authorized" up to three years of imprisonment for an adult, the deletion of the reference to 3581(b) would appear to indicate some congressional intent to broaden the range of enquiry when determining what was authorized.[4] The Government, however, finds a different purpose, disclosed in the section-by-section analysis prepared by the Department *301 of Justice to accompany the bill that became the Technical Amendments Act. The Department's analysis included this explanation for the proposal to delete the reference to 3581(b): "Because of the effect of 18 U.S. C. 3559(b)(2), deleting the reference to 18 U.S. C. 3581(b) will tie the maximum sentences for juveniles to the maximum for adults, rather than making juvenile sentences more severe than adult sentences." 131 Cong. Rec. 14177 (1985). Congress had enacted 3559 to reconcile the new sentencing schedule, providing for the incidents of conviction according to the offense's assigned letter grade, with the pre-existing body of federal criminal statutes, which of course included no assignments of letter grades to the particular offenses they created. Section 3559(a) provides a formula for assigning the missing letter based on the maximum term of imprisonment set by the statute
|
Justice Souter
| 1,992 | 20 |
majority
|
United States v. RLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112709/united-states-v-rlc/
|
on the maximum term of imprisonment set by the statute creating the offense. Thus, as it stood at the time of the Technical Amendments Act, it read: "(a) Classification "An offense that is not specifically classified by a letter grade in the section defining it, is classified "(1) if the maximum term of imprisonment authorized is "(A) life imprisonment, or if the maximum penalty is death, as a Class A felony; "(B) twenty years or more, as a Class B felony; "(C) less than twenty years but ten or more years, as a Class C felony; "(D) less than ten years but five or more years, as a Class D felony; "(E) less than five years but more than one year, as a Class E felony; "(F) one year or less but more than six months, as a Class A misdemeanor; "(G) six months or less but more than thirty days, as a Class B misdemeanor; *302 "(H) thirty days or less but more than five days, as a Class C misdemeanor; or "(I) five days or less, or if no imprisonment is authorized, as an infraction. "(b) Effect of classification "An offense classified under subsection (a) carries all the incidents assigned to the applicable letter designation except that: "(1) the maximum fine that may be imposed is the fine authorized by the statute describing the offense, or by this chapter, whichever is the greater; and "(2) the maximum term of imprisonment is the term authorized by the statute describing the offense." 18 U.S. C. 3559 (1982 ed., Supp. II). The Government explains that limiting the length of a juvenile detention to that authorized for an adult under 3581(b) could in some circumstances have appeared to authorize a longer sentence than an adult could have received, when the offense involved was assigned no letter grade in its defining statute. Thus an offense created without letter grade and carrying a maximum term of two years would be treated under 3559(a) as a class E felony. Section 3581(b) provides that a class E felony carried a maximum of three years. Regardless of that classification, 3559(b)(2) would certainly preclude sentencing any adult offender to more than two years. Tension would arise, however, where a juvenile had committed the act constituting the offense. Insofar as 5037(c) capped the juvenile detention by reference to what was authorized for an adult, the maximum would have been two years; but insofar as it capped it by reference to what was authorized by 3581(b), the limit might have appeared to be three. It was to break this tension,
|
Justice Souter
| 1,992 | 20 |
majority
|
United States v. RLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112709/united-states-v-rlc/
|
appeared to be three. It was to break this tension, according to the Government, that the reference to 3581(b) was deleted guaranteeing that no juvenile would be given detention longer than the maximum adult sentence authorized by the *303 statute creating the offense. The amendment also, the Government says, left the law clear in its reference to the statute creating the offense as the measure of an "authorized" sentence. This conclusion is said to be confirmed by a statement in the House Report that the amendment "delet[es an] incorrect cross-referenc[e]," H. R. Rep. No. 99-797, p. 21 (1986), which, the Government argues, "suggests that no substantive change was intended." Brief for United States 20, n. 4. We agree with the Government's argument up to a point. A sentencing court could certainly have been confused by the reference to 3581(b). A sentencing judge considering a juvenile defendant charged with an offense bearing no letter classification, and told to look for "the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized [according to letter grade] by section 3581(b)," would have turned first to 3559(a) to obtain a letter classification. The court perhaps would have felt obliged to ignore the provision of 3559(b) that "the maximum term of imprisonment is the term authorized by the statute describing the offense" in favor of a longer term provided for by the appropriate letter grade in 3581(b). Indeed, the sentencing judge would have been faced with this puzzle in virtually every case, since the system of classifying by letter grades adopted in 1984 was only to be used in future legislation defining federal criminal offenses. See Brief for United States 16. No federal offense on the books at the time the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 was adopted carried a letter grade in its defining statute, and Congress has used the device only rarely in the ensuing years. Thus, while it included a reference to 3581(b), 5037(c) was ambiguous. This ambiguity was resolved by an amendment that, absent promulgation of the Guidelines, might have left the question of the "authorized" maximum term of imprisonment to be determined only by reference to the penalty provided by the statute creating the offense, whether *304 expressed as a term of years or simply by reference to letter grade. The legislative history does not prove, however, that Congress intended "authorized" to refer solely to the statute defining the offense despite the enactment of a statute requiring application of the Sentencing Guidelines, a provision that will generally provide a ceiling more favorable to the juvenile than that contained in the offense-defining statute.
|
Justice Souter
| 1,992 | 20 |
majority
|
United States v. RLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112709/united-states-v-rlc/
|
to the juvenile than that contained in the offense-defining statute. Indeed, the contrary intent would seem the better inference. The Justice Department analysis of the Criminal Law and Procedure Technical Amendments Act of 1986, upon which the Government relies, went on to say that "deleting the reference to 18 U.S. C. 3581(b) will tie the maximum sentences for juveniles to the maximum for adults, rather than making juvenile sentences more severe than adult sentences." 131 Cong. Rec. 14177 (1985). This is an expression of purpose that today can be achieved only by reading "authorized" to refer to the maximum period of imprisonment that may be imposed consistently with 18 U.S. C. 3553(b). That statute provides that "[t]he court shall impose a sentence within the range" established for the category of offense as set forth in the Guidelines, "unless the court finds that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that described." 3553(b). The point is reinforced by other elements of the legislative history. The Senate Report accompanying the 1986 Technical Amendments Act states that the amendment "makes clear that juvenile sentences are to be of equal length as those for adult offenders committing the same crime." S. Rep. No. 99-278, p. 3 (1986). This, in turn, reflects the statement in the Senate Report accompanying the Sentencing Reform Act, that the changes in juvenile sentencing law were included "in order to conform it to the changes made in adult sentencing laws." S. Rep. No. 98-225, p. 155 *305 The most fundamental of the Sentencing Reform Act's changes was, of course, the creation of the Sentencing Commission, authorized to promulgate the guidelines required for use by sentencing courts. It hardly seems likely that Congress adopted the current 5037(c) with a purpose to conform juvenile and adult maximum sentences without intending the recently authorized Guidelines scheme to be considered for that purpose. The legislative history thus reinforces our initial conclusion that 5037 is better understood to refer to the maximum sentence permitted under the statute requiring application of the Guidelines.[5] C We do not think any ambiguity survives. If any did, however, we would choose the construction yielding the shorter sentence by resting on the venerable rule of lenity, see, e. g., United rooted in "`the instinctive distaste against men languishing in prison unless the lawmaker has clearly said they should,' " While the rule has been applied not only to resolve issues about the
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Justice Souter
| 1,992 | 20 |
majority
|
United States v. RLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112709/united-states-v-rlc/
|
has been applied not only to resolve issues about the substantive scope of criminal statutes, but to answer questions about the severity of sentencing, see its application is unnecessary in this case, since "we have always reserved lenity for those situations in which a reasonable doubt persists about a statute's intended scope even after resort to `the language and structure, legislative history, and motivating policies' of the *306 statute."[6] III We hold, therefore, that application of the language in 5037(c)(1)(B) permitting detention for a period not to exceed "the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult" refers to the maximum length of sentence to which a similarly situated adult would be subject if convicted of the adult counterpart of the offense and sentenced under the statute requiring application of the Guidelines, 3553(b). Although determining the maximum permissible sentence under 5037(c)(1)(B) will therefore require sentencing and reviewing courts to determine an appropriate Guideline range in juvenile-delinquency proceedings, we emphasize *307 that it does not require plenary application of the Guidelines to juvenile delinquents.[7] Where that statutory provision applies, a sentencing court's concern with the Guidelines goes solely to the upper limit of the proper Guideline range as setting the maximum term for which a juvenile may be committed to official detention, absent circumstances that would warrant departure under 3553(b). The judgment of the Court of Appeals is Affirmed. Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Kennedy and Justice Thomas join, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,977 | 13 |
majority
|
Commissioner v. Kowalski
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109748/commissioner-v-kowalski/
|
This case presents the question whether cash payments to state police troopers, designated as meal allowances, are included in gross income under 61 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 26 U.S. C. 61 (a),[1] and, if so, are otherwise excludable under 11 of the Code, 26 U.S. C. 11.[2] *7 I The pertinent facts are not in dispute. Respondent[3] is a state police trooper employed by the Division of State Police of the Department of Law and Public Safety of the State of New Jersey. During 170, the tax year in question, he received a base salary of $8,73.38, and an additional $1,67.54[4] designated as an allowance for meals. The State instituted the cash meal allowance for its state police officers in July 14. Prior to that time, all troopers were provided with midshift[5] meals in kind at various meal stations located throughout the State. A trooper unable to eat at an official meal station could, however, eat at a restaurant and obtain reimbursement. The meal-station system proved unsatisfactory to the State because it required troopers to leave their assigned areas of patrol unguarded for extended *80 periods of time. As a result, the State closed its meal stations and instituted a cash-allowance system. Under this system, troopers remain on call in their assigned patrol areas during their midshift break. Otherwise, troopers are not restricted in any way with respect to where they may eat in the patrol area and, indeed, may eat at home if it is located within that area. Troopers may also bring their midshift meal to the job and eat it in or near their patrol cars. The meal allowance is paid biweekly in advance and is included, although separately stated, with the trooper's salary. The meal-allowance money is also separately accounted for in the State's accounting system. Funds are never commingled between the salary and meal-allowance accounts. Because of these characteristics of the meal-allowance system, the Tax Court concluded that the "meal allowance was not intended to represent additional compensation." Notwithstanding this conclusion, it is not disputed that the meal allowance has many features inconsistent with its characterization as a simple reimbursement for meals that would otherwise have been taken at a meal station. For example, troopers are not required to spend their meals allowances on their midshift meals, nor are they required to account for the manner in which the money is spent. With one limited exception not relevant here,[6] no reduction in the meal allowance is made for periods when a trooper is not on patrol because, for example, he is assigned
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,977 | 13 |
majority
|
Commissioner v. Kowalski
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109748/commissioner-v-kowalski/
|
is not on patrol because, for example, he is assigned to a headquarters building or is away from active duty on vacation, leave, or sick leave. In addition, the cash allowance for meals is described on a state police recruitment brochure as an item of salary to be received in addition to an officer's base salary and the amount of the meal allowance is a subject of negotiations between the State and the police troopers' union. Finally, the amount of an officer's *81 cash meal allowance varies with his rank[7] and is included in his gross pay for purposes of calculating pension benefits. On his 170 income tax return, respondent reported $,066 in wages. That amount included his salary plus $326.45 which represented cash meal allowances reported by the State on respondent's Wage and Tax Statement (Form W-2).[8] The remaining amount of meal allowance, $1,371.0, was not reported. On audit, the determined that this amount should have been included in respondent's 170 income and assessed a deficiency. Respondent sought review in the United States Tax Court, arguing that the cash meal allowance was not compensatory but was furnished for the convenience of the employer and hence was not "income" within the meaning of 61 (a) and that, in any case, the allowance could be excluded under 11. In a reviewed decision, the Tax Court, with six dissents,[] held that the cash meal payments were income within the meaning of 61 and, further, that such payments were not excludable under 11.[10] The Court of Appeals for *82 the Third Circuit, in a per curiam opinion, held that its earlier decision in which determined that cash payments under the New Jersey meal-allowance program were not taxable, required reversal. We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals on the question.[11] We reverse. II A The starting point in the determination of the scope of "gross income" is the cardinal principle that Congress in creating the income tax intended "to use the full measure of its taxing power." ; accord, ; ; (125). In applying this principle to the construction of 22 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 13[12] this Court stated that "Congress applied no limitations as to the source of taxable receipts, nor restrictive labels as to their nature[, but intended] to tax all * gains except those specifically exempted." 42-430 (5), citing 4 (14), and 23 U.S. 84, 87-1 (134). Although Congress simplified the definition of gross income in 61 of the Code, it did not intend thereby to narrow the scope of that concept. See
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,977 | 13 |
majority
|
Commissioner v. Kowalski
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109748/commissioner-v-kowalski/
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intend thereby to narrow the scope of that concept. See and n. 11; H. R. Rep. No. d Cong., 2d Sess., A18 ; S. Rep. No. d Cong., 2d Sess., 168[13] In the absence of a specific exemption, therefore, respondent's meal-allowance payments are income within the meaning of 61 since, like the payments involved in Glenshaw Glass the payments are "undeniabl[y] accessions to wealth, clearly realized, and over which the [respondent has] complete dominion." See also 2 (6); Van (1). Respondent contends, however, that 11 can be construed to be a specific exemption covering the meal-allowance payments to New Jersey troopers. Alternatively, respondent argues that notwithstanding 11 a specific exemption may be found in a line of lower-court cases and administrative rulings which recognize that benefits conferred by an employer on an employee "for the convenience of the employer"at least when such benefits are not "compensatory"are not income within the meaning of the Internal Revenue Code. In responding to these contentions, we turn first to 11. Since we hold that 11 does not cover cash payments of any kind, we then trace the development over several decades of the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine as a determinant *84 of the tax status of meals and lodging, turning finally to the question whether the doctrine as applied to meals and lodging survives the enactment of the Internal Revenue Code of B Section 11 provides that an employee may exclude from income "the value of any meals furnished to him by his employer for the convenience of the emloyer, but only if the meals are furnished on the business premises of the employer" By its terms, 11 covers meals furnished by the employer and not cash reimbursements for meals. This is not a mere oversight. As we shall explain at greater length below, the form of 11 which Congress enacted originated in the Senate and the Report accompanying the Senate bill is very clear: "Section 11 applies only to meals or lodging furnished in kind." S. Rep. No. d Cong., 2d Sess., 10 See also Treas. Reg. 1.11-1 (2), 26 CFR 1.11-1 Accordingly, respondent's meal-allowance payments are not subject to exclusion under 11. C The convenience-of-the-employer doctrine is not a tidy one. The phrase "convenience of the employer" first appeared in O. D. 265, 1 Cum. Bull. 71 (11), in a ruling exempting from the income tax board and lodging furnished seamen aboard ship. The following year, T. D. 22, 2 Cum. Bull. 76 (120), was issued and added a convenience-of-the-employer section to Treas. Regs. 45, Art. 33, the income tax regulations then in effect.[14]
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| 1,977 | 13 |
majority
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Commissioner v. Kowalski
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109748/commissioner-v-kowalski/
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45, Art. 33, the income tax regulations then in effect.[14] As modified, Art. 33 stated: "Art. 33. Compensation paid other than in cash. When living quarters such as camps are furnished to *85 employees for the convenience of the employer, the ratable value need not be added to the cash compensation of the employee, but where a person receives as compensation for services rendered a salary and in addition thereto living quarters, the value to such person of the quarters furnished constitutes income subject to tax." While T. D. 22 extended the convenience-of-the-employer test as a general rule solely to items received in kind, O. D. 514, 2 Cum. Bull. 0 (120), extended the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine to cash payments for "supper money."[] The rationale of both T. D. 22 and O. D. 514 appears to have been that benefits conferred by an employer on an employee in the designated circumstances were not compensation for services and hence not income. Subsequent rulings equivocate on whether the noncompensatory character of a benefit could be inferred merely from its characterization by the employer or whether there must be additional evidence that employees are granted a benefit solely because the employer's business could not function properly unless an employee was furnished that benefit on the employer's premises. O. D. 514, for example, focuses only on the employer's characterization.[16] Two rulings issued in 121, however, *86 dealing respectively with cannery workers[17] and hospital employees,[18] emphasize the necessity of the benefits to the functioning of the employer's business, and this emphasis was made the authoritative interpretation of the convenience-of-the-employer provisions of the regulations in Mim. 5023, 140-1 Cum. Bull. 14.[1] Adding complexity, however, is Mim. 62, 0-1 Cum. Bull. issued in 0. This mimeograph states in relevant part: "The `convenience of the employer' rule is simply an administrative test to be applied only in cases in which the compensatory character of benefits is not otherwise determinable. It follows that the rule should not be applied in any case in which it is evident from the other circumstances involved that the receipt of quarters or meals by the employee represents compensation for services rendered." *87 Mimeograph 62 expressly modified all previous rulings which had suggested that meals and lodging could be excluded from income upon a simple finding that the furnishing of such benefits was necessary to allow an employee to perform his duties properly.[20] However, the ruling apparently did not affect O. D. 514, which, as noted above, creates an exclusion from income based solely on an employer's characterization of a payment as noncompensatory. Coexisting with
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Justice Brennan
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Commissioner v. Kowalski
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an employer's characterization of a payment as noncompensatory. Coexisting with the regulations and administrative determinations of the Treasury, but independent of them, is a body of case law also applying the convenience-of-the-employer test to exclude from an employee's statutory income benefits conferred by his employer. An early case is (125). There the Court of Claims ruled that neither the value of quarters provided an Army officer for nine months of a tax year nor payments in commutation of quarters paid the officer for the remainder of the year were includable in income. The decision appears to rest both on a conclusion that public quarters by tradition and law were not "compensation received as such" within the meaning of 213 of the Revenue Act of 121, and also on the proposition that "public quarters for the housing of officers is as much a military necessity as the procurement of implements of warfare or the training of troops." 60 Ct. Cl., at 56; see The Court of Claims, in addition, rejected the argument that money paid in commutation of quarters was income on the ground that it was not "gain derived from labor" within the meaning of 252 U.S. 18 (120), but apparently was at most a reimbursement to the officer for furnishing himself with a necessity of his job in those instances in which the Government found it convenient to leave the task of procuring quarters to an individual -578. *88 Subsequent judicial development of the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine centered primarily in the Tax Court. In two reviewed cases decided more than a decade apart, Benaglia v. 36 B. T. A. and Van (1), that court settled on the business-necessity rationale for excluding food and lodging from an employee's income.[21]Van Rosen's unanimous decision is of particular interest in interpreting the legislative history of the recodification of the Internal Revenue Code since it predates that recodification by only three years. There, the Tax Court expressly rejected any reading of that would make tax consequences turn on the intent of the employer, even though the employer in Van Rosen as in was the United States and, also as in the subsistence payments involved in the litigation were provided by military regulation.[22] In addition, Van Rosen refused to follow *8 the holding with respect to cash allowances, apparently on the theory that a civilian who receives cash allowances for expenses otherwise nondeductible has funds he can "take, appropriate, use and expend," 17 T.C., at in substantially the same manner as "any other civilian employee whose employment is such as to permit him to live at
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Justice Brennan
| 1,977 | 13 |
majority
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Commissioner v. Kowalski
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employment is such as to permit him to live at home while performing the duties of his employment." ; see at -840. It is not clear from the opinion whether the last conclusion is based on notions of equity among taxpayers or is simply an evidentiary conclusion that, since Van Rosen was allowed to live at home while performing his duties, there was no business purpose for the furnishing of food and lodging. Two years later, the Tax Court in an unreviewed decision in (3), returned in part to the employer's-characterization rationale rejected by Van Rosen. In Doran, the taxpayer was furnished lodging in kind by a state school. State law required the value of the lodging to be included in the employee's compensation. Although the court concluded that the lodging was furnished to allow the taxpayer to be on 24-hour call, a reason normally sufficient to justify a convenience-of-the-employer exclusion,[23] it required the value of the lodging to be included in income on the basis of the characterization of the lodging as compensation under state law. The approach taken in Doran is the same as that in Mim. 62, supra.[24] However, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in 0 F. 2d 264 (5), on facts indistinguishable from Doran, reviewed the law prior to and held that the business-necessity view of the convenience-of-the-employer test, "having persisted through the interpretations of the Treasury and the Tax Court throughout years of re-enactment of the Internal Revenue Code," was the sole test to be applied. D Even if we assume that respondent's meal-allowance payments could have been excluded from income under the 13 Code pursuant to the doctrine we have just sketched, we must nonetheless inquire whether such an implied exclusion survives the recodification of the Internal Revenue Code. Cf. 305 U.S. 7, (138). Two provisions of the Code are relevant to this inquiry: 11 and 120,[25] now repealed,[26] which allowed police officers to exclude from income subsistence allowances of up to $5 per day. In enacting 11, the Congress was determined to "end the confusion as to the tax status of meals and lodging furnished an employee by his employer." H. R. Rep. No. d Cong., 2d Sess., 18 ; S. Rep. No. d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 However, the House and Senate initially *1 differed on the significance that should be given the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine for the purposes of 11. As explained in its Report, the House proposed to exclude meals from gross income "if they [were] furnished at the place of employment and the employee [was] required to
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Justice Brennan
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majority
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Commissioner v. Kowalski
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109748/commissioner-v-kowalski/
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the place of employment and the employee [was] required to accept them at the place of employment as a condition of his employment." H. R. Rep. No. ; see H. R. 00, d Cong., 2d Sess., 11 Since no reference whatsoever was made to the concept, the House view apparently was that a statute "designed to end the confusion as to the tax status of meals and lodging furnished an employee by his employer" required complete disregard of the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine. The Senate, however, was of the view that the doctrine had at least a limited role to play. After noting the existence of the doctrine and the Tax Court's reliance on state law to refuse to apply it in the Senate Report states: "Your committee believes that the House provision is ambiguous in providing that meals or lodging furnished on the employer's premises, which the employee is required to accept as a condition of his employment, are excludable from income whether or not furnished as compensation. Your committee has provided that the basic test of exclusion is to be whether the meals or lodging are furnished primarily for the convenience of the employer (and thus excludable) or whether they were primarily for the convenience of the employee (and therefore taxable). However, in deciding whether they were furnished for the convenience of the employer, the fact that a State statute or an employment contract fixing the terms of the employment indicate the meals or lodging are intended as compensation is not to be determinative. This means that employees of State institutions who are required to live and eat on the premises will not be taxed *2 on the value of the meals and lodging even though the State statute indicates the meals and lodging are part of the employee's compensation." S. Rep. No. at 1. In a technical appendix, the Senate Report further elaborated: "Section 11 applies only to meals or lodging furnished in kind. Therefore, any cash allowances for meals or lodging received by an employee will continue to be includible in gross income to the extent that such allowances constitute compensation." at 10-11. After conference, the House acquiesced in the Senate's version of 11. Because of this, respondent urges that 11 as passed did not discard the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine, but indeed endorsed the doctrine shorn of the confusion created by Mim. 62 and cases like Doran. Respondent further argues that, by negative implication, the technical appendix to the Senate Report creates a class of noncompensatory cash meal payments that are to be excluded from income. We disagree. The
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Justice Brennan
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Commissioner v. Kowalski
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that are to be excluded from income. We disagree. The Senate unquestionably intended to overrule Doran and rulings like Mim. 62. Equally clearly the Senate refused completely to abandon the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine as the House wished to do. On the other hand, the Senate did not propose to leave undisturbed the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine as it had evolved prior to the promulgation of Mim. 62. The language of 11[27] quite plainly rejects the reasoning behind rulings like O. D. 514. see n. which rest on the employer's characterization of the nature of a payment.[28] This conclusion is buttressed *3 by the Senate's choice of a term of art, "convenience of the employer," in describing one of the conditions for exclusion under 11. In so choosing, the Senate obviously intended to adopt the meaning of that term as it had developed over time, except, of course, to the extent 11 overrules decisions like Doran. As we have noted above, Van (1), provided the controlling court definition at the time of the recodification and it expressly rejected the theory of "convenience of the employer"and by implication the theory of O. D. 514 and adopted as the exclusive rationale the business-necessity theory. See 17 T.C., at -840. The business-necessity theory was also the controlling administrative interpretation of "convenience of the employer" prior to Mim. 62. See and n. 1. Finally, although the Senate Report did not expressly define "convenience of the employer" it did describe those situations in which it wished to reverse the courts and create an exclusion as those where "an employee must accept meals or lodging in order properly to perform his duties." S. Rep. No. at 10. As the last step in its restructuring of prior law, the Senate adopted an additional restriction created by the House and not theretofore a part of the law, which required that meals subject to exclusion had to be taken on the business premises of the employer. Thus 11 comprehensively modified the prior law, both expanding and contracting the exclusion for meals and lodging previously provided, and it must therefore be construed as its draftsmen obviously intended it to be as a replacement for the prior law, designed to "end [its] confusion." Because 11 replaces prior law, respondent's further argument that the technical appendix in the Senate Report *4 recognized the existence under 61 of an exclusion for a class of noncompensatory cash paymentsis without merit. If cash meal allowances could be excluded on the mere showing that such payments served the convenience of the employer, as respondent suggests, then cash would be more
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Justice Brennan
| 1,977 | 13 |
majority
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Commissioner v. Kowalski
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the employer, as respondent suggests, then cash would be more widely excluded from income than meals in kind, an extraordinary result given the presumptively compensatory nature of cash payments and the obvious intent of 11 to narrow the circumstances in which meals could be excluded. Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that Congress would have wanted to recognize a class of excludable cash meal payments. The two precedents for the exclusion of cashO. D. 514 and both rest on the proposition that the convenience of the employer can be inferred from the characterization given the cash payments by the employer, and the heart of this proposition is undercut by both the language of 11 and the Senate Report. also rests on 252 U.S. 18 (120), but Congress had no reason to read Eisner's definition of income into 61 and, indeed, any assumption that Congress did is squarely at odds with (5).[2] See Finally, as petitioner suggests, it is much more reasonable to assume that the cryptic statement in the technical appendix"cash allowances will continue to be includable in gross income to the extent that such allowances constitute compensation"was meant to indicate *5 only that meal payments otherwise deductible under 162 (a) (2) of the Code[30] were not affected by 11. Moreover, even if we were to assume with respondent that cash meal payments made for the convenience of the employer could qualify for an exclusion notwithstanding the express limitations upon the doctrine embodied in 11, there would still be no reason to allow the meal allowance here to be excluded. Under the pre- convenience-of-the-employer doctrine respondent's allowance is indistinguishable from that in Van and hence it is income. Indeed, the form of the meal allowance involved here has drastically changed from that passed on in relied on by the Third Circuit below, see and in its present form the allowance is not excludable even under Saunders' analysis.[31] In any case, to avoid the completely unwarranted result of creating a larger exclusion for cash than kind, the meal allowances here would have to be demonstrated to be necessary to allow respondent "properly to perform his duties." There is not even a suggestion on this record of any such necessity. Finally, respondent argues that it is unfair that members of the military may exclude their subsistence allowances from income while respondent cannot. While this may be so, arguments of equity have little force in construing the boundaries *6 of exclusions and deductions from income many of which, to be administrable, must be arbitrary. In any case, Congress has already considered respondent's
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Justice Scalia
| 2,001 | 9 |
majority
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118410/whitman-v-american-trucking-assns-inc/
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These cases present the following questions: (1) Whether 109(b)(1) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) delegates legislative power to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (). (2) Whether the Administrator may consider the costs of implementation in setting national ambient air qualy s (NAAQS) under 109(b)(1). (3) Whether the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to review the 's interpretation of Part D of Tle I of the CAA, 42 U.S. C. 7501-7515, wh respect to implementing the revised ozone NAAQS. (4) If so, whether the 's interpretation of that part was permissible. I Section 109(a) of the CAA, as added, and amended, 42 U.S. C. 7(a), requires the Administrator of the to promulgate NAAQS for each air pollutant for which "air qualy creria" have been issued under 108, 42 U.S. C. 7408. Once a NAAQS has been promulgated, the Administrator must review the (and the creria *463 on which is based) "at five-year intervals" and make "such revisions as may be appropriate." CAA 109(d)(1), 42 U.S. C. 7(d)(1). These cases arose when, on July 18, 1997, the Administrator revised the NAAQS for particulate matter and ozone. See NAAQS for Particulate Matter, ); NAAQS for Ozone, ). American Trucking Associations, and s corespondents in No. 99-1which include, in addion to other private companies, the of Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginiachallenged the new s in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circu, pursuant to 42 U.S. C. 7607(b)(1). The District of Columbia Circu accepted some of the challenges and rejected others. It agreed wh the No. 99 1 respondents (hereinafter respondents) that 109(b)(1) delegated legislative power to the Administrator in contravention of the Uned Constution, Art. I, 1, because found that the had interpreted the statute to provide no "intelligible principle" to guide the agency's exercise of authory. American Trucking Assns., The court thought, however, that the could perhaps avoid the unconstutional delegation by adopting a restrictive construction of 109(b)(1), so instead of declaring the section unconstutional the court remanded the NAAQS to the agency. (On this delegation point, Judge Tatel dissented, finding the statute constutional as wrte) On the second issue that the Court of Appeals addressed, unanimously rejected respondents' argument that the court should depart from the rule of Lead Industries Ass, that the may not consider the cost of implementing a NAAQS in setting the inial It also rejected respondents' argument that the implementation provisions for ozone found in Part D, Subpart 2, of Tle I of the CAA, 42 U.S. C. 7511-7511f, were *464 so tied to the existing ozone that the lacked the
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Justice Scalia
| 2,001 | 9 |
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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so tied to the existing ozone that the lacked the power to revise the The court held that although Subpart 2 constrained the agency's method of implementing the new did not prevent the from revising the and designating areas of the country as "nonattainment areas," see 42 U.S. C. 7407(d)(1), by reference to -8. On the 's petion for rehearing, the panel adhered to s posion on these points, and unanimously rejected the 's new argument that the court lacked jurisdiction to reach the implementation question because there had been no "final" implementation actio American Trucking Assns., The Court of Appeals denied the 's suggestion for rehearing en banc, wh five judges dissenting. The Administrator and the petioned this Court for review of the first, third, and fourth questions described in the first paragraph of this opinio Respondents condionally cross-petioned for review of the second questio We granted certiorari on both petions, ; and scheduled the cases for argument in tandem. We have now consolidated the cases for purposes of decisio II In Lead Industries Ass, at the District of Columbia Circu held that "economic considerations [may] play no part in the promulgation of ambient air qualy s under Section 109" of the CAA. In the present cases, the court adhered to that -1, as had done on many other occasions. See, e. g., American Lung Ass v. ; NRDC v. Administrator, vacated in part on other grounds, NRDC v. ; American Petroleum Instute v. Costle, Respondents argue that these *465 decisions are incorrect. We disagree; and since the first step in assessing whether a statute delegates legislative power is to determine what authory the statute confers, we address that issue of interpretation first and reach respondents' constutional arguments in Part III, infra. Section 109(b)(1) instructs the to set primary ambient air qualy s "the attainment and maintenance of which are requise to protect the public health" wh "an adequate margin of safety." 42 U.S. C. 7(b)(1). Were not for the hundreds of pages of briefing respondents have submted on the issue, one would have thought fairly clear that this text does not perm the to consider costs in setting the s. The language, as one scholar has noted, "is absolute." D. Currie, Air Pollution: Federal Law and Analysis 4-15 The "based on" the information about health effects contained in the technical "creria" documents compiled under 108(a)(2), 42 U.S. C. 7408(a)(2), is to identify the maximum airborne concentration of a pollutant that the public health can tolerate, decrease the concentration to provide an "adequate" margin of safety, and set the
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Justice Scalia
| 2,001 | 9 |
majority
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118410/whitman-v-american-trucking-assns-inc/
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to provide an "adequate" margin of safety, and set the at that level. Nowhere are the costs of achieving such a made part of that inial calculatio Against this most natural of readings, respondents make a lengthy, spired, but ultimately unsuccessful attack. They begin wh the object of 109(b)(1)'s focus, the "public health." When the term first appeared in federal clean air legislationin the Act of July 14, 1955 (1955 Act), which expressed "recognion of the dangers to the public health" from air pollutions ordinary meaning was "[t]he health of the communy." Webster's New International Dictionary 2005 (2d ed. 1950). Respondents argue, however, that 109(b)(1), as added by the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, meant to use the term's secondary meaning: "[t]he ways and means of conserving the health *466 of the members of a communy, as by preventive medicine, organized care of the sick, etc." Words that can have more than one meaning are given content, however, by their surroundings, ; Jones v. Uned and in the context of 109(b)(1) this second definion makes no sense. Congress could not have meant to instruct the Administrator to set NAAQS at a level "requise to protect" "the art and science dealing wh the protection and improvement of communy health." Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1836 We therefore revert to the primary definion of the term: the health of the public. Even so, respondents argue, many more factors than air pollution affect public health. In particular, the economic cost of implementing a very stringent might produce health losses sufficient to offset the health gains achieved in cleaning the airfor example, by closing down whole industries and thereby impoverishing the workers and consumers dependent upon those industries. That is unquestionably true, and Congress was unquestionably aware of Thus, Congress had commissioned in the Air Qualy Act of 1967 (1967 Act) "a detailed estimate of the cost of carrying out the provisions of this Act; a comprehensive study of the cost of program implementation by affected uns of government; and a comprehensive study of the economic impact of air qualy s on the Nation's industries, communies, and other contributing sources of pollutio" 2, The 1970 Congress, armed wh the results of this study, see The Cost of Clean Air, S. Doc. No. 91-40 (1969) (publishing the results of the study), not only anticipated that compliance costs could injure the public health, but provided for that precise exigency. Section 110(f)(1) of the CAA permted the Administrator to waive the compliance deadline for stationary sources if, inter *467 alia, sufficient control measures were simply unavailable and
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Justice Scalia
| 2,001 | 9 |
majority
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118410/whitman-v-american-trucking-assns-inc/
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inter *467 alia, sufficient control measures were simply unavailable and "the continued operation of such sources is essential to the public health or welfare." Other provisions explicly permted or required economic costs to be taken into account in implementing the air qualy s. Section 111(b)(1)(B), for example, commanded the Administrator to set "s of performance" for certain new sources of emissions that as specified in 111(a)(1) were to "reflec[t] the degree of emission limation achievable through the application of the best system of emission reduction which (taking into account the cost of achieving such reduction) the Administrator determines has been adequately demonstrated." Section 202(a)(2) prescribed that emissions s for automobiles could take effect only "after such period as the Administrator finds necessary to perm the development and application of the requise technology, giving appropriate consideration to the cost of compliance whin such period." See also 202(b)(5)(C) (similar limation for interim s); 211(c)(2) (similar limation for fuel addives); (b) (similar limation for implementation of aircraft emission s). Subsequent amendments to the CAA have added many more provisions directing, in explic language, that the Administrator consider costs in performing various duties. See, e. g., 42 U.S. C. 7(k)(1) (reformulate gasoline to "require the greatest reduction in emissions taking into consideration the cost of achieving such emissions reductions"); 7547(a)(3) (emission reduction for nonroad vehicles to be set "giving appropriate consideration to the cost" of the s). We have therefore refused to find implic in ambiguous sections of the CAA an authorization to consider costs that has elsewhere, and so often, been expressly granted. See Union Elec. v. Cf. General Mo- tors v. Uned *468 (refusing to infer in certain provisions of the CAA deadlines and enforcement limations that had been expressly imposed elsewhere). Accordingly, to prevail in their present challenge, respondents must show a textual commment of authory to the to consider costs in setting NAAQS under 109(b)(1). And because 109(b)(1) and the NAAQS for which provides are the engine that drives nearly all of Tle I of the CAA, 42 U.S. C. 7401-7515, that textual commment must be a clear one. Congress, we have held, does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes. See MCI Telecommunications ; Respondents' textual arguments ultimately founder upon this principle. Their first claim is that 109(b)(1)'s terms "adequate margin" and "requise" leave room to pad health effects wh cost concerns. Just as we found "highly unlikely that Congress would leave the determination of whether an industry will be entirely, or
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118410/whitman-v-american-trucking-assns-inc/
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the determination of whether an industry will be entirely, or even substantially, rateregulated to agency discretionand even more unlikely that would achieve that through such a subtle device as permission to `modify' rate-filing requirements," MCI Telecommunications at so also we find implausible that Congress would give to the through these modest words the power to determine whether implementation costs should moderate national air qualy s. Accord, ("The implausibily of Congress's leaving a highly significant issue unaddressed (and thus `delegating' s resolution to the administering agency) is assuredly one of the factors *469 to be considered in determining whether there is ambiguy" (emphasis deleted)).[1] The same defect inheres in respondents' next two arguments: that while the Administrator's judgment about what is requise to protect the public health must be "based on [the] creria" documents developed under 108(a)(2), see 109(b)(1), need not be based solely on those creria; and that those creria themselves, while they must include "effects on public health or welfare which may be expected from the presence of such pollutant in the ambient air," are not necessarily limed to those effects. Even if we were to concede those premises, we still would not conclude that one of the unenumerated factors that the agency can consider in developing and applying the creria is cost of implementatio That factor is both so indirectly related to public health and so full of potential for canceling the conclusions drawn from direct health effects that would surely have been expressly mentioned in 108 and 109 had Congress meant to be considered. Yet while those provisions describe in detail how the health effects of pollutants in the ambient air are to be calculated and given effect, see 108(a)(2), they say not a word about costs. Respondents point, finally, to a number of provisions in the CAA that do require attainment cost data to be generated. Section 108(b)(1), for example, instructs the Administrator to "issue to the" simultaneously wh the creria documents, "information on air pollution control techniques, which information shall include data relating to the cost of installation and operatio" 42 U.S. C. 7408(b)(l). And *470 109(d)(2)(C)(iv) requires the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Commtee to "advise the Administrator of any adverse public health, welfare, social, economic, or energy effects which may result from various strategies for attainment and maintenance" of NAAQS.[2] 42 U.S. C. 7(d)(2)(C)(iv). Respondents argue that these provisions make no sense unless costs are to be considered in setting the NAAQS. That is not so. These provisions enable the Administrator to assist the in carrying out their statutory role as primary implementers of
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Justice Scalia
| 2,001 | 9 |
majority
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118410/whitman-v-american-trucking-assns-inc/
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in carrying out their statutory role as primary implementers of the NAAQS. It is to the that the CAA assigns inial and primary responsibily for deciding what emissions reductions will be required from which sources. See 42 U.S. C. 7407(a), 7410 (giving the duty of developing implementation plans). It would be impossible to perform that task intelligently whout considering which abatement technologies are most efficient, and most economically feasiblewhich is why we have said that "the most important forum for consideration of claims of economic and technological infeasibily is before the state agency formulating the implementation plan," Union Elec. v. Thus, federal clean air legislation has, from the very beginning, directed federal agencies to develop and transm implementation data, including cost data, to the See 1955 Act, *471 2(b), ; Clean Air Act of 1963, amending 3(a), (b) of the CAA, ; 1967 Act, 103(a)(d), 107(c), -488. That Congress chose to carry forward this research program to assist in choosing the means through which they would implement the s is perfectly sensible, and has no bearing upon whether cost considerations are to be taken into account in formulating the s.[3] It should be clear from what we have said that the canon requiring texts to be so construed as to avoid serious constutional problems has no application here. No matter how severe the constutional doubt, courts may choose only between reasonably available interpretations of a text. See, e. g., ; Pennsylvania Dept. of The text of 109(b), interpreted in s statutory and historical context and wh appreciation for s importance to the CAA as a whole, unambiguously bars cost considerations from the NAAQS-setting process, and thus ends the matter for us as well as the[4] We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals on this point. *472 III Section 109(b)(1) of the CAA instructs the to set "ambient air qualy s the attainment and maintenance of which in the judgment of the Administrator, based on [the] creria [documents of 108] and allowing an adequate margin of safety, are requise to protect the public health." 42 U.S. C. 7(b)(1). The Court of Appeals held that this section as interpreted by the Administrator did not provide an "intelligible principle" to guide the 's exercise of authory in setting NAAQS. "[The]" said, "lack[ed] any determinate creria for drawing lines. It has failed to state intelligibly how much is too " 175 F.3d, at The court hence found that the 's interpretation (but not the statute self) violated the nondelegation doctrine. We disagree. In a delegation challenge, the constutional question is whether
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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disagree. In a delegation challenge, the constutional question is whether the statute has delegated legislative power to the agency. Article I, 1, of the Constution vests "[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted in a Congress of the Uned" This text perms no delegation of those powers, Loving v. Uned ; see and so we repeatedly have said that when Congress confers decisionmaking authory upon agencies Congress must "lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to [act] is directed to conform." J. W. Hampton, Jr., & v. Uned We have never suggested that an agency can cure an unlawful delegation of legislative power by adopting in s discretion a liming construction of the statute. Both and Lichter v. Uned mention agency regulations in the course of their nondelegation discussions, but Lichter did so because a subsequent Congress had incorporated the regulations into a revised version of the statute, ib and Fahey because the customary *473 practices in the area, implicly incorporated into the statute, were reflected in the regulations, The idea that an agency can cure an unconstutionally less delegation of power by declining to exercise some of that power seems to us internally contradictory. The very choice of which portion of the power to exercisethat is to say, the prescription of the that Congress had omtedwould self be an exercise of the forbidden legislative authory. Whether the statute delegates legislative power is a question for the courts, and an agency's voluntary selfdenial has no bearing upon the answer. We agree wh the Solicor General that the text of 109(b)(1) of the CAA at a minimum requires that "[f]or a discrete set of pollutants and based on published air qualy creria that reflect the latest scientific knowledge, [the] must establish uniform national s at a level that is requise to protect public health from the adverse effects of the pollutant in the ambient air." Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 99-1, p. 5. Requise, in turn, "mean[s] sufficient, but not more than necessary." These lims on the 's discretion are strikingly similar to the ones we approved in Touby v. Uned which permted the Attorney General to designate a drug as a controlled substance for purposes of criminal drug enforcement if doing so was "`necessary to avoid an imminent hazard to the public safety.' " They also resemble the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 provision requiring the agency to "`set the which most adequately assures, to the extent feasible, on the basis of the best available evidence, that no employee will suffer
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Justice Scalia
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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of the best available evidence, that no employee will suffer any impairment of health' "which the Court upheld in Industrial Union Dept., AFLCIO v. American Petroleum Instute, and which even then-Justice Rehnquist, who alone in that case thought the statute violated the nondelegation doctrine, see would have upheld if, like the statute *474 here, did not perm economic costs to be considered. See American Textile Mfrs. Instute, The scope of discretion 109(b)(1) allows is in fact well whin the outer lims of our nondelegation precedents. In the history of the Court we have found the requise "intelligible principle" lacking in only two statutes, one of which provided lerally no guidance for the exercise of discretion, and the other of which conferred authory to regulate the entire economy on the basis of no more precise a than stimulating the economy by assuring "fair competio" See Panama Refining v. Ryan, ; A. L. A. Schechter Poultry v. Uned We have, on the other hand, upheld the validy of 11(b)(2) of the Public Utily Holding Company Act of 1935, which gave the Securies and Exchange Commission authory to modify the structure of company systems so as to ensure that they are not "unduly or unnecessarily complicate[d]" and do not "unfairly or inequably distribute voting power among secury holders." American Power & Light v. SEC, We have approved the wartime conferral of agency power to fix the prices of commodies at a level that "`will be generally fair and equable and will effectuate the [in some respects conflicting] purposes of th[e] Act.' " Yakus v. Uned And we have found an "intelligible principle" in various statutes authorizing regulation in the "public interest." See, e. g., National Broadcasting v. Uned ; New York Central Securies v. Uned In short, we have "almost never felt qualified to second-guess Congress regarding the permissible degree of policy judgment that can be left to those executing or applying *475 the law." Mistretta v. Uned ; see (majory opinion). It is true enough that the degree of agency discretion that is acceptable varies according to the scope of the power congressionally conferred. See Loving v. Uned 517 U. S., 72-773; Uned v. Mazurie, While Congress need not provide any direction to the regarding the manner in which is to define "country elevators," which are to be exempt from newstationary-source regulations governing grain elevators, see 42 U.S. C. 7411(i), must provide substantial guidance on setting air s that affect the entire national economy. But even in sweeping regulatory schemes we have never demanded, as the Court of Appeals did here, that
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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never demanded, as the Court of Appeals did here, that statutes provide a "determinate crerion" for saying "how much [of the regulated harm] is too " 175 F.3d, at In Touby, for example, we did not require the statute to decree how "imminent" was too imminent, or how "necessary" was necessary enough, or evenmost relevant herehow "hazardous" was too -167. Similarly, the statute at issue in Lichter authorized agencies to recoup "excess profs" paid under wartime Government contracts, yet we did not insist that Congress specify how much prof was too 334 U.S., at -786. It is therefore not conclusive for delegation purposes that, as respondents argue, ozone and particulate matter are "nonthreshold" pollutants that inflict a continuum of adverse health effects at any airborne concentration greater than zero, and hence require the to make judgments of degree. "[A] certain degree of discretion, and thus of lawmaking, inheres in most executive or judicial actio" Mistretta v. Uned (emphasis deleted); see -379 (majory opinion). Section 109(b)(1) of the CAA, which to repeat we interpret as requiring the to set air qualy s at the level that is "requise"that *476 is, not lower or higher than is necessaryto protect the public health wh an adequate margin of safety, fs comfortably whin the scope of discretion permted by our precedent. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals remanding for reinterpretation that would avoid a supposed delegation of legislative power. It will remain for the Court of Appealson the remand that we direct for other reasonsto dispose of any other preserved challenge to the NAAQS under the judicial-review provisions contained in 42 U.S. C. 7607(d)(9). IV The final two issues on which we granted certiorari concern the 's authory to implement the revised ozone NAAQS in areas whose ozone levels currently exceed the maximum level permted by that The CAA designates such areas "nonattainment," 107(d)(1), 42 U.S. C. 7407(d)(1); see also Pub. L. 105-178, 6103, and exposes them to addional restrictions over and above the implementation requirements imposed generally by 110 of the CAA. These addional restrictions are found in the five substantive subparts of Part D of Tle I, 42 U.S. C. 7501-7515. Subpart 1, 7501-7509a, contains general nonattainment regulations that pertain to every pollutant for which a NAAQS exists. Subparts 2 through 5, 7511 7514a, contain rules tailored to specific individual pollutants. Subpart 2, added by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 103, Stat. 2423, addresses ozone. 42 U.S. C. 7511 7511f. The dispute before us here, in a nutshell, is whether Subpart 1 alone (as the agency determined),
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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nutshell, is whether Subpart 1 alone (as the agency determined), or rather Subpart 2 or some combination of Subparts 1 and 2, controls the implementation of the revised ozone NAAQS in nonattainment areas. *477 A The Administrator first urges, however, that we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals on this issue because lacked jurisdiction to review the 's implementation policy. Section 307(b)(1) of the CAA, 42 U.S. C. 7607(b)(1), gives the court jurisdiction over "any nationally applicable regulations promulgated, or final action taken, by the Administrator," but the argues that s implementation policy was not agency "action," was not "final" action, and is not ripe for review. We reject each of these three contentions. At the same time the proposed the revised ozone NAAQS in 1996, also proposed an "interim implementation policy" for the NAAQS, see that was to govern until the details of implementation could be put in final form through specific "rulemaking actions." The preamble to this proposed policy declared that "the interim implementation policy represent[s] 's preliminary views on these issues and, while may include various statements that must take certain actions, these statements are made pursuant to 's preliminary interpretations, and thus do not bind the and public as a matter of law." If the had done no more, we perhaps could accept s current claim that s action was not final. However, after the agency had accepted comments on s proposed policy, and on the same day that the final ozone NAAQS was promulgated, the Whe House published in the Federal Register what tled a "Memorandum for the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency" that prescribed implementation procedures for the to follow. (For purposes of our analysis we shall assume that this memorandum was not self action by the) The supplemented this memorandum wh an explanation of the implementation procedures, which published in the explanatory preamble to s final ozone *478 NAAQS under the heading, "Final decision on the primary" "In light of comments received regarding the interpretation proposed in the Interim Implementation Policy," the announced, had "reconsidered that interpretation" and settled on a new one. The provisions of "subpart 1 of part D of Tle I of the Act" will immediately "apply to the implementation of the new 8-hour [ozone] s." ; see also (new to be implemented "simultaneously [wh the old ] under the provisions of subpart 1"). Moreover, the provisions of subpart 2 "will [also] continue to apply as a matter of law for so long as an area is not attaining the [old] 1-hour" Once the area reaches attainment
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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not attaining the [old] 1-hour" Once the area reaches attainment for the old however, "the provisions of subpart 2 will have been achieved and those provisions will no longer apply." ; see also We have ltle trouble concluding that this constutes final agency action subject to review under 307. The be in the phrase "final action" (which bears the same meaning in 307(b)(1) that does under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S. C. 704, see ), is not in the word "action," which is meant to cover comprehensively every manner in which an agency may exercise s power. See FTC v. Standard Oil of Cal., 238, 7 It is rather in the word "final," which requires that the action under review "mark the consummation of the agency's decisionmaking process." Only if the " has rendered s last word on the matter" in question, at is s action "final" and thus reviewable. That is satisfied here. The 's "decisionmaking process," which began wh the 1996 proposal and continued wh the reception of public comments, concluded *479 when the agency, "in light of [these comments]," and in conjunction wh a corresponding directive from the Whe House, adopted the interpretation of Part D at issue here. Since that interpretation issued, the has refused in subsequent rulemakings to reconsider explaining to disappointed commenters that s earlier decision was conclusive. See 31018-31019 Though the agency has not dressed s decision wh the conventional procedural accoutrements of finaly, s own behavior thus belies the claim that s interpretation is not final. The decision is also ripe for our review. "Ripeness `requir[es] us to evaluate both the fness of the issues for judicial decision and the hardship to the parties of wh court consideratio' " Texas v. Uned The question before us here is purely one of statutory interpretation that would not "benef from further factual development of the issues presented." Ohio Forestry Ass, v. Sierra Nor will our review "inappropriately interfere wh further administrative action," ib since the has concluded s consideration of the implementation issue. Finally, as for hardship to the parties: The respondent muston pain of forfeing to the control over implementation of the NAAQSpromptly undertake the lengthy and expensive task of developing state implementation plans (SIP's) that will attain the new, more stringent whin five years. See 42 U.S. C. 7410, 7502. Whether or not this would suffice in an ordinary case brought under the review provisions of the APA, see 5 U.S. C. 704, we have characterized the special judicial-review provision of the CAA, 42 U.S. C. 7607(b), as one of
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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of the CAA, 42 U.S. C. 7607(b), as one of those statutes that specifically provides for "preenforcement" review, see Ohio Forestry Ass, v. Sierra 37. Such statutes, we have said, perm "judicial review directly, even before the *480 concrete effects normally required for APA review are felt." The effects at issue here surely meet that lower Beyond all this, the implementation issue was fairly included whin the challenges to the final ozone rule that were properly before the Court of Appeals. Respondents argued below that the could not revise the ozone because to do so would trigger the use of Subpart 1, which had been supplanted (for ozone) by the specific rules of Subpart 2. Brief for Industry Petioners and Intervenors in No. 97-1441 (and consolidated cases) (CADC), pp. 32-34. The responded that Subpart 2 did not supplant but simply supplemented Subpart 1, so that the latter section still "applies to all nonattainment areas for all NAAQS,. including nonattainment areas for any revised ozone" Final Brief for in No. 97-1441 (and consolidated cases) (CADC), pp. 67-68. The agency later reerated that Subpart 2 "does not supplant implementation provisions for revised ozone s. This interpretation fully harmonizes Subpart 2 wh 's clear authory to revise any NAAQS." 1. In other words, the was arguing that the revised could be issued, despe s apparent incompatibily wh portions of Subpart 2, because would be implemented under Subpart 1 rather than Subpart 2. The District of Columbia Circu ultimately agreed that Subpart 2 could be harmonized wh the 's authory to promulgate revised NAAQS, but not because Subpart 2 is entirely inapplicablewhich is one of 's assignments of error. It is unreasonable to contend, as the now does, that the Court of Appeals was obligated to reach the agency's preferred result, but forbidden to assess the reasons the had given for reaching that result. The implementation issue was fairly included whin respondents' challenge to the ozone rule, which all parties agree is final agency action ripe for review. *481 B Our approach to the mers of the parties' dispute is the familiar one of Chevron U. S. A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, If the statute resolves the question whether Subpart 1 or Subpart 2 (or some combination of the two) shall apply to revised ozone NAAQS, then "that is the end of the matter." at 842 843. But if the statute is "silent or ambiguous" wh respect to the issue, then we must defer to a "reasonable interpretation made by the administrator of an agency." We cannot agree wh the Court of Appeals
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Justice Scalia
| 2,001 | 9 |
majority
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118410/whitman-v-american-trucking-assns-inc/
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an agency." We cannot agree wh the Court of Appeals that Subpart 2 clearly controls the implementation of revised ozone NAAQS, see 175 F.3d, at 8-1050, because we find the statute to some extent ambiguous. We conclude, however, that the agency's interpretation goes beyond the lims of what is ambiguous and contradicts what in our view is que clear. We therefore hold the implementation policy unlawful. See AT&T v. Iowa Utilies Bd., The text of Subpart 1 at first seems to point the way to a clear answer to the question, which Subpart controls? Two sections of Subpart 1, 7502(a)(1)(C) and 7502(a)(2)(D), contain swching provisions stating that if the classification of ozone nonattainment areas is "specifically provided [for] under other provisions of [Part D]," then those provisions will control instead of Subpart 1's. Thus, is true but incomplete to note, as the Administrator does, that the substantive language of Subpart 1 is broad enough to apply to revised ozone s. See, e. g., 7502(a)(1)(A) (instructing the Administrator to classify nonattainment areas according to "any revised including a revision of any in effect on November 15, "); 7502(a)(2)(A) (setting attainment deadlines). To determine whether that language does apply one must resolve the further textual issue whether some other provision, namely Subpart 2, provides for the classification of ozone nonattainment areas. If *482 does, then according to the swching provisions of Subpart 1 will control. So, does Subpart 2 provide for classifying nonattainment ozone areas under the revised ? It unquestionably does. The backbone of the subpart is Table 1, printed in 7511(a)(1) and reproduced in the margin here,[5] which defines five categories of ozone nonattainment areas and prescribes attainment deadlines for each. Section 7511(a)(1) funnels all nonattainment areas into the table for classification, declaring that "[e]ach area designated nonattainment for ozone shall be classified at the time of such designation, under table 1, by operation of law." And once an area has been classified, "the primary attainment date for ozone shall be as expediously as practicable but not later than the date provided in table 1." The argues that this text is not as clear or comprehensive as seems, because the tle of 7511(a) reads "Classification and attainment dates for 1989 nonattainment areas," which suggests that Subpart 2 applies only to areas that were in nonattainment in 1989, and not to areas later designated nonattainment *483 under a revised ozone The suggestion must be rejected, however, because 7511(b)(1) specifically provides for the classification of areas that were in attainment in 1989 but have subsequently slipped into nonattainment. It thus makes clear
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Justice Scalia
| 2,001 | 9 |
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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but have subsequently slipped into nonattainment. It thus makes clear that Subpart 2 is not limed solely to 1989 nonattainment areas. This eliminates the interpretive role of the tle, which may only "she[d] light on some ambiguous word or phrase in the statute self," Carter v. Uned (internal quotation marks omted) ). It may well be, as the arguesand as the concurring opinion below on denial of rehearing pointed out, see -12that some provisions of Subpart 2 are ill fted to implementation of the revised Using the old 1-hour averages of ozone levels, for example, as Subpart 2 requires, see 7511(a)(1); (1979), would produce at best an inexact estimate of the new 8-hour averages, see 40 CFR 50.10, and App. I Also, to the extent that the new ozone is stricter than the old one, see Reply Brief for Petioners in No. 99-1, p. 17 ("the stricter 8-hour NAAQS"); 38858 (8-hour of 0.09 ppm rather than 0.08 ppm would have "generally represent[ed] the continuation of the [old] level of protection"), the classification system of Subpart 2 contains a gap, because fails to classify areas whose ozone levels are greater than the new (and thus nonattaining) but less than the approximation of the old codified by Table 1. And finally, Subpart 2's method for calculating attainment dateswhich is simply to count forward a certain number of years from November 15, (the date the CAA Amendments took force), depending on how far out of attainment the area startedseems to make no sense for areas that are first classified under a new after November 15, *484 If, for example, areas were classified in the year 2000, many of the deadlines would already have expired at the time of classificatio These gaps in Subpart 2's scheme prevent us from concluding that Congress clearly intended Subpart 2 to be the exclusive, permanent means of enforcing a revised ozone in nonattainment areas. The statute is in our view ambiguous concerning the manner in which Subpart 1 and Subpart 2 interact wh regard to revised ozone s, and we would defer to the 's reasonable resolution of that ambiguy. See 529 U. S., 2; We cannot defer, however, to the interpretation the has give Whatever effect may be accorded the gaps in Subpart 2 as implying some limed applicabily of Subpart 1, they cannot be thought to render Subpart 2's carefully designed restrictions on discretion utterly nugatory once a new has been promulgated, as the has concluded. The principal distinction between Subpart 1 and Subpart 2 is that the latter eliminates regulatory discretion that the former allowed.
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Justice Scalia
| 2,001 | 9 |
majority
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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that the latter eliminates regulatory discretion that the former allowed. While Subpart 1 perms the to establish classifications for nonattainment areas, Subpart 2 classifies areas as a matter of law based on a table. Compare 7502(a)(1) wh 7511(a)(1) (Table 1). Whereas the has discretion under Subpart 1 to extend attainment dates for as long as 12 years, under Subpart 2 may grant no more than 2 years' extensio Compare 7502(a)(2)(A) and (C) wh 7511(a)(5). Whereas Subpart 1 gives the considerable discretion to shape nonattainment programs, Subpart 2 prescribes large parts of them by law. Compare 7502(c) and (d) wh 7511a. Yet according to the Subpart 2 was simply Congress's "approach to the implementation of the [old] 1-hour" and so there was no reason that "the new could not simultaneously be implemented under subpart 1." 62 Fed. Reg. *485 38856, 38885 ; see also ("[T]he provisions of subpart 1 would apply to the implementation of the new 8-hour ozone s"). To use a few apparent gaps in Subpart 2 to render s textually explic applicabily to nonattainment areas under the new utterly inoperative is to go over the edge of reasonable interpretatio The may not construe the statute in a way that completely nullifies textually applicable provisions meant to lim s discretio The 's interpretation making Subpart 2 abruptly obsolete is all the more astonishing because Subpart 2 was obviously wrten to govern implementation for some time. Some of the elements required to be included in SIP's under Subpart 2 were not to take effect until many years after the passage of the CAA. See 7511a(e)(3) (restrictions on "electric utily and industrial and commercial boiler[s]" to be "effective 8 years after November 15, "); 7511a(c)(5)(A) (vehicle monoring program to "[b]egi[n] 6 years after November 15, "); 7511a(g)(1) (emissions milestone requirements to be applied "6 years after November 15, and at intervals of every 3 years thereafter"). A plan reaching so far into the future was not enacted to be abandoned the next time the reviewed the ozone which Congress knew could happen at any time, since the technical staff papers had already been completed in late 1989. See 13010 (1993); see also 42 U.S. C. 7(d)(1) (NAAQS must be reviewed and, if appropriate, revised at least once every five years). Yet nothing in the 's interpretation would have prevented the agency from aborting Subpart 2 the day after was enacted. Even now, if the 's interpretation were correct, some areas of the country could be required to meet the new, more stringent ozone in at most the same time that Subpart
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Justice Scalia
| 2,001 | 9 |
majority
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Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118410/whitman-v-american-trucking-assns-inc/
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stringent ozone in at most the same time that Subpart 2 had allowed them to meet the old Compare 7502(a)(2) (Subpart 1 attainment dates) wh 7511(a) (Subpart 2 attainment dates). Los Angeles, for instance, "would *486 be required to attain the revised NAAQS under Subpart 1 no later than the same year that marks the outer time lim for attaining Subpart 2's one-hour ozone" Brief for Petioners in No. 99-1, p. 49. An interpretation of Subpart 2 so at odds wh s structure and manifest purpose cannot be sustained. We therefore find the 's implementation policy to be unlawful, though not in the precise respect determined by the Court of Appeals. After our remand, and the Court of Appeals' final disposion of these cases, is left to the to develop a reasonable interpretation of the nonattainment implementation provisions insofar as they apply to revised ozone NAAQS. * * * To summarize our s in these unusually complex cases: (1) The may not consider implementation costs in setting primary and secondary NAAQS under 109(b) of the CAA. (2) Section 109(b)(1) does not delegate legislative power to the in contravention of Art. I, 1, of the Constutio (3) The Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to review the 's interpretation of Part D of Tle I of the CAA, relating to the implementation of the revised ozone NAAQS. (4) The 's interpretation of that Part is unreasonable. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the cases are remanded for proceedings consistent wh this opinio It is so ordered.
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
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American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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Here is the nutshell version of this case, unfortunately obscured in the Court’s decision. The owner of a small restaurant (Italian Colors) thinks that American Express (Amex) has used its monopoly power to force merchants to accept a form contract violating the antitrust laws. The restaurateur wants to challenge the allegedly unlawful provision (imposing a tying arrangement), but the same contract’s arbitration clause prevents him from doing so. That term imposes a variety of procedural bars that would make pursuit of the antitrust claim a fool’s errand. So if the arbitration clause is enforceable, Amex has insulated itself from antitrust liability—even if it has in fact violated the law. The monopolist gets to use its monopoly power to insist on a contract effectively depriving its victims of all legal recourse. And here is the nutshell version of today’s opinion, admirably flaunted rather than camouflaged: Too darn bad. That answer is a betrayal of our precedents, and of federal statutes like the antitrust laws. Our decisions have developed a mechanism—called the effective- vindication rule—to prevent arbitration clauses from choking off a plaintiff ’s ability to enforce congressionally 2 AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS RESTAURANT KAGAN, J., dissenting created That doctrine bars applying such a clause when (but only when) it operates to confer immunity from potentially meritorious federal claims. In so doing, the rule reconciles the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) with all the rest of federal law—and indeed, promotes the most fundamental purposes of the FAA itself. As applied here, the rule would ensure that Amex’s arbitration clause does not foreclose Italian Colors from vindicating its right to redress antitrust harm. The majority barely tries to explain why it reaches a contrary result. It notes that we have not decided this exact case before—neglecting that the principle we have established fits this case hand in glove. And it concocts a special exemption for class-arbitration waivers—ignoring that this case concerns much more than that. Through- out, the majority disregards our decisions’ central tenet: An arbitration clause may not thwart federal law, ir- respective of exactly how it does so. Because the Court today prevents the effective vindication of federal statutory rights, I respectfully dissent. I Start with an uncontroversial proposition: We would refuse to enforce an exculpatory clause insulating a com- pany from antitrust liability—say, “Merchants may bring no Sherman Act claims”—even if that clause were con- tained in an arbitration agreement. See ante, Con- gress created the Sherman Act’s private cause of action not solely to compensate individuals, but to promote “the public interest in vigilant enforcement of the antitrust
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
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American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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promote “the public interest in vigilant enforcement of the antitrust laws.” Lawlor v. National Screen Service Corp., 349 U.S. 322, 329 (1955). Accordingly, courts will not enforce a prospective waiver of the right to gain redress for an antitrust injury, whether in an arbitration agreement or any other contract. See Motors and n. 19 Cite as: 570 U. S. (2013) 3 KAGAN, J., dissenting (1985). The same rule applies to other important federal statutory See 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, 556 U.S. 247, 273 (Age Discrimination in Employment Act); Brooklyn Savings (1945) (Fair Labor Standards Act). But its necessity is nowhere more evident than in the antitrust context. Without the rule, a company could use its monopoly power to protect its monopoly power, by coercing agreement to contractual terms eliminating its antitrust liability. If the rule were limited to baldly exculpatory provi- sions, however, a monopolist could devise numerous ways around it. Consider several alternatives that a party drafting an arbitration agreement could adopt to avoid antitrust liability, each of which would have the identical effect. On the front end: The agreement might set out- landish filing fees or establish an absurd (e.g., one-day) statute of limitations, thus preventing a claimant from gaining access to the arbitral forum. On the back end: The agreement might remove the arbitrator’s authority to grant meaningful relief, so that a judgment gets the claimant nothing worthwhile. And in the middle: The agreement might block the claimant from presenting the kind of proof that is necessary to establish the defendant’s liability—say, by prohibiting any economic testimony (good luck proving an antitrust claim without that!). Or else the agreement might appoint as an arbitrator an obviously biased person—say, the CEO of Amex. The possibilities are endless—all less direct than an express exculpatory clause, but no less fatal. So the rule against prospective waivers of federal rights can work only if it applies not just to a contract clause explicitly barring a claim, but to others that operate to do so. And sure enough, our cases establish this proposition: An arbitration clause will not be enforced if it prevents the effective vindication of federal statutory rights, however it achieves that result. The rule originated in 4 AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS RESTAURANT KAGAN, J., dissenting where we held that claims brought under the Sherman Act and other federal laws are generally subject to arbitration. By agreeing to arbitrate such a claim, we explained, “a party does not forgo the substantive rights afforded by the statute; it only submits to their resolution in an arbitral, rather
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
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American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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it only submits to their resolution in an arbitral, rather than a judicial, forum.” But crucial to our decision was a limiting principle, designed to safeguard federal rights: An arbitration clause will be enforced only “so long as the prospective litigant effectively may vindicate its statutory cause of action in the arbitral forum.” at If an arbitration provi- sion “operated as a prospective waiver of a party’s right to pursue statutory remedies,” we emphasized, we would “condemn[ ]” it. at n. 19. Similarly, we stated that such a clause should be “set[] aside” if “pro- ceedings in the contractual forum will be so gravely diffi- cult” that the claimant “will for all practical purposes be deprived of his day in court.” (internal quota- tion marks omitted). And in the decades since we have repeated its admonition time and again, instruct- ing courts not to enforce an arbitration agreement that effectively (even if not explicitly) forecloses a plaintiff from remedying the violation of a federal statutory right. See (1991); Vimar Seguros y Reaseguros, S. 515 U.S. 5, ; 14 Penn Plaza, 556 U. S., at 266, 273–274. Our decision in Green Tree Financial confirmed that this principle applies when an agreement thwarts federal law by making arbitration prohibitively expensive. The plaintiff there (seeking relief under the Truth in Lending Act) argued that an arbitration agreement was unenforceable be- cause it “create[d] a risk” that she would have to “bear prohibitive arbitration costs” in the form of high filing and administrative fees. (internal quotation marks Cite as: 570 U. S. (2013) 5 KAGAN, J., dissenting omitted). We rejected that contention, but not because we doubted that such fees could prevent the effective vindica- tion of statutory To the contrary, we invoked our rule from making clear that it applied to the case before us. See 538 U. S., Indeed, we added a burden of proof: “[W]here, as here,” we held, a party as- serting a federal right “seeks to invalidate an arbitration agreement on the ground that arbitration would be prohib- itively expensive, that party bears the burden of showing the likelihood of incurring such costs.” Ran- dolph, we found, had failed to meet that burden: The evidence she offered was “too speculative.” But even as we dismissed Randolph’s suit, we reminded courts to protect against arbitration agreements that make fed- eral claims too costly to bring. Applied as our precedents direct, the effective- vindication rule furthers the purposes not just of laws like the Sherman Act, but of the FAA itself. That statute reflects a federal policy favoring actual arbitration—that is,
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
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American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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That statute reflects a federal policy favoring actual arbitration—that is, arbitration as a streamlined “method of resolving dis- putes,” not as a foolproof way of killing off valid claims. Rodriguez de Put otherwise: What the FAA prefers to litigation is arbitration, not de facto immunity. The effective-vindication rule furthers the statute’s goals by ensuring that arbitration remains a real, not faux, method of dispute resolution. With the rule, companies have good reason to adopt arbitral procedures that facili- tate efficient and accurate handling of complaints. With- out it, companies have every incentive to draft their agreements to extract backdoor waivers of statutory rights, making arbitration unavailable or pointless. So down one road: More arbitration, better enforcement of federal statutes. And down the other: Less arbitration, poorer enforcement of federal statutes. Which would you prefer? Or still more aptly: Which do you think Congress 6 AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS RESTAURANT KAGAN, J., dissenting would? The answer becomes all the more obvious given the limits we have placed on the rule, which ensure that it does not diminish arbitration’s benefits. The rule comes into play only when an agreement “operate[s] as a prospective waiver”—that is, forecloses (not diminishes) a plaintiff ’s opportunity to gain relief for a statutory viola- tion. 473 U. S., at n. 19. So, for example, Randolph assessed whether fees in arbitration would be “prohibitive” (not high, excessive, or extravagant). 531 U. S., Moreover, the plaintiff must make that show- ing through concrete proof: “[S]peculative” risks, “un- founded assumptions,” and “unsupported statements” will not suffice. –91, and n. 6. With the inquiry that confined and the evidentiary requirements that high, courts have had no trouble assessing the matters the rule makes relevant. And for almost three decades, courts have followed our edict that arbitration clauses must usually prevail, declining to enforce them in only rare cases. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26– 27. The effective-vindication rule has thus operated year in and year out without undermining, much less “de- stroy[ing],” the prospect of speedy dispute resolution that arbitration secures. Ante, at 9. And this is just the kind of case the rule was meant to address. Italian Colors, as I have noted, alleges that Amex used its market power to impose a tying arrange- ment in violation of the Sherman Act. The antitrust laws, all parties agree, provide the restaurant with a cause of action and give it the chance to recover treble damages. Here, that would mean Italian Colors could take home up to $38,549. But a problem looms. As this case comes
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
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American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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to $38,549. But a problem looms. As this case comes to us, the evidence shows that Italian Colors cannot prevail in arbitration without an economic analysis defining the relevant markets, establishing Amex’s monopoly power, showing anticompetitive effects, and measuring damages. Cite as: 570 U. S. (2013) 7 KAGAN, J., dissenting And that expert report would cost between several hun- dred thousand and one million dollars.1 So the expense involved in proving the claim in arbitration is ten times what Italian Colors could hope to gain, even in a best-case scenario. That counts as a “prohibitive” cost, in Ran- dolph’s terminology, if anything does. No rational actor would bring a claim worth tens of thousands of dollars if doing so meant incurring costs in the hundreds of thousands. An arbitration agreement could manage such a mis- match in many ways, but Amex’s disdains them all. As the Court makes clear, the contract expressly prohibits class arbitration. But that is only part of the problem.2 The agreement also disallows any kind of joinder or con- solidation of claims or parties. And more: Its confidential- ity provision prevents Italian Colors from informally arranging with other merchants to produce a common expert report. And still more: The agreement precludes any shifting of costs to Amex, even if Italian Colors pre- vails. And beyond all that: Amex refused to enter into any stipulations that would obviate or mitigate the need for —————— 1 The evidence relating to these costs comes from an affidavit submit- ted by an economist experienced in proving similar antitrust claims. The Second Circuit found that Amex “ha[d] brought no serious chal- lenge” to that factual showing. See, e.g., And in this Court, Amex conceded that Italian Colors would need an expert economic report to prevail in arbitration. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 15. Perhaps that is not really true. A hallmark of arbitration is its use of procedures tailored to the type of dispute and amount in controversy; so arbitrators might properly decline to demand such a rigorous eviden- tiary showing in small antitrust cases. But that possibility cannot disturb the factual premise on which this case comes to us, and which the majority accepts: that Italian Colors’s tying claim is an ordinary kind of antitrust claim; and that it is worth about a tenth the cost of arbitration. 2 The majority contends that the class-action waiver is the only part we should consider. See ante, –8, n. 4. I explain below why that assertion is wrong. See infra, –12. 8 AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS RESTAURANT KAGAN, J., dissenting
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
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American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS RESTAURANT KAGAN, J., dissenting the economic analysis. In short, the agreement as applied in this case cuts off not just class arbitration, but any avenue for sharing, shifting, or shrinking necessary costs. Amex has put Italian Colors to this choice: Spend way, way, way more money than your claim is worth, or relin- quish your Sherman Act So contra the majority, the court below got this case right. Italian Colors proved what the plaintiff in Ran- dolph could not—that a standard-form agreement, taken as a whole, renders arbitration of a claim “prohibitively expensive.” 531 U. S., The restaurant thus estab- lished that the contract “operate[s] as a prospective waiver,” and prevents the “effective[ ] vindicat[ion]” of Sherman Act 473 U. S., at and n. 19. I would follow our precedents and decline to compel arbitration. II The majority is quite sure that the effective-vindication rule does not apply here, but has precious little to say about why. It starts by disparaging the rule as having “originated as dictum.” Ante, But it does not rest on that swipe, and for good reason. As I have explained, see at 3–4, the rule began as a core part of : We held there that federal statutory claims are subject to arbitration “so long as” the claimant “effectively may vindicate its [rights] in the arbitral forum.” 473 U. S., at (emphasis added). The rule thus served as an essen- tial condition of the decision’s holding.3 And in Randolph, —————— 3 The majority is dead wrong when it says that reserved judgment on “whether the arbitration agreement’s potential depriva- tion of a claimant’s right to pursue federal remedies may render that agreement unenforceable.” Ante, n. 2. What the Court had “no occasion to speculate on” was whether a particular agreement in fact eliminated the claimant’s federal n. 19. But we stated expressly that if the agreement did so (as Amex’s does), Cite as: 570 U. S. (2013) 9 KAGAN, J., dissenting we provided a standard for applying the rule when a claimant alleges “prohibitive costs” (“Where, as here,” etc., see ), and we then applied that standard to the parties before us. So whatever else the majority might think of the effective-vindication rule, it is not dictum. The next paragraph of the Court’s decision (the third of Part IV) is the key: It contains almost the whole of the majority’s effort to explain why the effective-vindication rule does not stop Amex from compelling arbitration. The majority’s first move is to describe and Ran- dolph as covering only discrete situations:
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
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American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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to describe and Ran- dolph as covering only discrete situations: The rule, the majority asserts, applies to arbitration agreements that eliminate the “right to pursue statutory remedies” by “forbidding the assertion” of the right (as addressed in ) or imposing filing and administrative fees “so high as to make access to the forum impracticable” (as addressed in Randolph). Ante, (emphasis deleted; internal quotation marks omitted). Those cases are not this case, the majority says: Here, the agreement’s provi- sions went to the possibility of “proving a statutory rem- edy.” Ante, But the distinction the majority proffers, which excludes problems of proof, is one and Randolph (and our decisions reaffirming them) foreclose. Those decisions establish what in some quarters is known as a principle: When an arbitration agreement prevents the effective vindication of federal rights, a party may go to court. That principle, by its nature, operates in diverse circum- stances—not just the ones that happened to come before the Court. See at 3–4. It doubtless covers the baldly exculpatory clause and prohibitive fees that the majority acknowledges would preclude an arbitration agreement’s enforcement. But so too it covers the world of other provi- sions a clever drafter might devise to scuttle even the most —————— we would invalidate it. ; see 10 AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS RESTAURANT KAGAN, J., dissenting meritorious federal claims. Those provisions might deny entry to the forum in the first instance. Or they might deprive the claimant of any remedy. Or they might pre- vent the claimant from offering the necessary proof to prevail, as in my “no economic testimony” hypothetical— and in the actual circumstances of this case. See at 3. The variations matter not at all. Whatever the precise mechanism, each “operate[s] as a prospective waiver of a party’s [federal] right[s]”—and so confers immunity on a wrongdoer. 473 U. S., at n. 19. And that is what counts under our decisions.4 Nor can the majority escape the principle we have estab- lished by observing, as it does at one point, that Amex’s agreement merely made arbitration “not worth the ex- pense.” Ante, That suggestion, after all, runs smack into Randolph, which likewise involved an allegation that arbitration, as specified in a contract, “would be prohibi- tively expensive.” 531 U. S., Our decision there made clear that a provision raising a plaintiff ’s costs could foreclose consideration of federal claims, and so run afoul of the effective-vindication rule. The expense at issue in Randolph came from a filing fee combined with a per-diem payment for the arbitrator. But nothing about those particular costs
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
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American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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payment for the arbitrator. But nothing about those particular costs is distinctive; and indeed, a rule confined to them would be weirdly idiosyncratic. Not surprisingly, then, Randolph gave no hint of distinguishing among the different ways an arbitration agreement can make a claim —————— 4 Gilmer and Vimar Seguros, which the majority relies on, see ante, at 8, fail to advance its argument. The plaintiffs there did not claim, as Italian Colors does, that an arbitration clause altogether precluded them from vindicating their federal They averred only that arbitration would be less convenient or effective than a proceeding in court. See 31– 32 (1991); Vimar Seguros y Reaseguros, S. A. v. M/V Sky Reefer, 515 U.S. 5, 533 As I have explained, that kind of showing does not meet the effective-vindication rule’s high bar. See Cite as: 570 U. S. (2013) 11 KAGAN, J., dissenting too costly to bring. Its rationale applies whenever an agreement makes the vindication of federal claims impos- sibly expensive—whether by imposing fees or proscribing cost-sharing or adopting some other device. That leaves the three last sentences in the majority’s core paragraph. Here, the majority conjures a special reason to exclude “class-action waiver[s]” from the effective- vindication rule’s compass. Ante, –8, and n. 4. Rule 23, the majority notes, became law only in 1938— decades after the Sherman Act. The majority’s conclusion: If federal law in the interim decades did not eliminate a plaintiff ’s rights under that Act, then neither does this agreement. But that notion, first of all, rests on a false premise: that this case is only about a class-action waiver. See ante, at 7, n. 4 (confining the case to that issue). It is not, and indeed could not sensibly be. The effective-vindication rule asks whether an arbitration agreement as a whole precludes a claimant from enforcing federal statutory No single provision is properly viewed in isolation, because an agreement can close off one avenue to pursue a claim while leaving others open. In this case, for example, the agreement could have prohibited class arbitration without offending the effective-vindication rule if it had provided an alternative mechanism to share, shift, or reduce the necessary costs. The agreement’s problem is that it bars not just class actions, but also all mecha- nisms—many existing long before the Sherman Act, if that matters—for joinder or consolidation of claims, informal coordination among individual claimants, or amelioration of arbitral expenses. See And contrary to the majority’s assertion, the Second Circuit well understood that point: It considered, for example, whether Italian Colors could shift expert expenses to Amex
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
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American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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example, whether Italian Colors could shift expert expenses to Amex if its claim prevailed (no) or could join with merchants bringing simi- lar claims to produce a common expert report (no again). 12 AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS RESTAURANT KAGAN, J., dissenting See It is only in this Court that the case has become strangely narrow, as the majority stares at a single provision rather than considering, in the way the effective-vindication rule demands, how the entire contract operates.5 In any event, the age of the relevant procedural mecha- nisms (whether class actions or any other) does not mat- ter, because the effective-vindication rule asks about the world today, not the world as it might have looked when Congress passed a given statute. Whether a particular procedural device preceded or post-dated a particular statute, the question remains the same: Does the arbi- tration agreement foreclose a party—right now—from effectively vindicating the substantive rights the statute provides? This case exhibits a whole raft of changes since Congress passed the Sherman Act, affecting both parties to the dispute—not just new procedural rules (like Rule 23), but also new evidentiary requirements (like the demand here for an expert report) and new contract provi- sions affecting arbitration (like this agreement’s confiden- tiality clause). But what has stayed the same is this: Congress’s intent that antitrust plaintiffs should be able to enforce their rights free of any prior waiver. See at 2–3; 473 U. S., at n. 19. The effective- vindication rule carries out that purpose by ensuring that —————— 5 In defense of this focus, the majority quotes the Second Circuit as concluding that “the only economically feasible means” for Italian Colors to enforce its statutory rights “is via a class action.” Ante, – 8, n. 4 ( ; internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added by the Court). But the Court of Appeals reached that conclusion only after finding that the agreement prohibited all other forms of cost-sharing and cost-shifting. See (That opinion was vacated on other grounds, but its analysis continued to inform—indeed, was essential to—the Second Circuit’s final decision in the case. See) The Second Circuit therefore did exactly what the majority refuses to do—look to the agreement as a whole to determine whether it permits the vindication of federal Cite as: 570 U. S. (2013) 13 KAGAN, J., dissenting any arbitration agreement operating as such a waiver is unenforceable. And that requires courts to determine in the here and now—rather than in ye olde glory days— whether an agreement’s provisions foreclose even merito- rious antitrust claims. Still, the majority takes
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
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American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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foreclose even merito- rious antitrust claims. Still, the majority takes one last stab: “Truth to tell,” it claims, AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. (2011), “all but resolves this case.” Ante, at 8. In that decision, the majority recounts, this Court held that the FAA preempted a state “law conditioning enforcement of arbitration on the availability of class procedure.” ; see 563 U. S., at (slip op., at 9). According to the ma- jority, that decision controls here because “[w]e specifically rejected the argument that class arbitration was neces- sary.” Ante, at 9. Where to begin? Well, maybe where I just left off: Italian Colors is not claiming that a class action is necessary—only that it have some means of vindicating a meritorious claim. And as I have shown, non-class options abound. See The idea that AT&T Mobility controls here depends entirely on the majority’s view that this case is “class action or bust.” Were the majority to drop that pretense, it could make no claim for AT&T Mobility’s relevance. And just as this case is not about class actions, AT&T Mobility was not—and could not have been—about the effective-vindication rule. Here is a tip-off: AT&T Mobility nowhere cited our effective-vindication precedents. That was so for two reasons. To begin with, the state law in question made class-action waivers unenforceable even when a party could feasibly vindicate her claim in an individual arbitration. The state rule was designed to preserve the broad-scale “deterrent effects of class ac- tions,” not merely to protect a particular plaintiff ’s right to assert her own claim. 563 U. S., at (slip op., at 3). Indeed, the Court emphasized that the complaint in that 14 AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS RESTAURANT KAGAN, J., dissenting case was “most unlikely to go unresolved” because AT&T’s agreement contained a host of features ensuring that “aggrieved customers who filed claims would be essentially guaranteed to be made whole.” at (slip op., at 17–18) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). So the Court professed that AT&T Mobility did not impli- cate the only thing (a party’s ability to vindicate a merito- rious claim) this case involves. And if that is not enough, AT&T Mobility involved a state law, and therefore could not possibly implicate the effective-vindication rule. When a state rule allegedly conflicts with the FAA, we apply standard preemption principles, asking whether the state law frustrates the FAA’s purposes and objectives. If the state rule does so— as the Court found in AT&T Mobility—the Supremacy Clause requires its invalidation. We have no earthly interest (quite the contrary)
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Justice Kagan
| 2,013 | 3 |
dissenting
|
American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/903973/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/
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its invalidation. We have no earthly interest (quite the contrary) in vindicating that law. Our effective-vindication rule comes into play only when the FAA is alleged to conflict with another federal law, like the Sherman Act here. In that all-federal context, one law does not automatically bow to the other, and the effective- vindication rule serves as a way to reconcile any tension between them. Again, then, AT&T Mobility had no occa- sion to address the issue in this case. The relevant deci- sions are instead and Randolph. * * * The Court today mistakes what this case is about. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And to a Court bent on diminishing the usefulness of Rule 23, everything looks like a class action, ready to be dismantled. So the Court does not consider that Amex’s agreement bars not just class actions, but “other forms of cost-sharing that could provide effective vindication.” Ante, n. 4. In short, the Court does not consider—and does not decide— Italian Colors’s (and similarly situated litigants’) actual Cite as: 570 U. S. (2013) 15 KAGAN, J., dissenting argument about why the effective-vindication rule pre- cludes this agreement’s enforcement. As a result, Amex’s contract will succeed in depriving Italian Colors of any effective opportunity to challenge monopolistic conduct allegedly in violation of the Sherman Act. The FAA, the majority says, so requires. Do not be fooled. Only the Court so requires; the FAA was never meant to produce this outcome. The FAA conceived of arbitration as a “method of resolving disputes”—a way of using tailored and streamlined procedures to facilitate redress of injuries. Rodriguez de 490 U. S., at (emphasis added). In the hands of today’s majority, arbi- tration threatens to become more nearly the opposite—a mechanism easily made to block the vindication of merito- rious federal claims and insulate wrongdoers from liabil- ity. The Court thus undermines the FAA no less than it does the Sherman Act and other federal statutes providing rights of action. I respectfully dissent
|
Justice Powell
| 1,977 | 17 |
second_dissenting
|
Nyquist v. Mauclet
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109687/nyquist-v-mauclet/
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I am persuaded, for the reasons set forth in MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST'S dissent, that New York's scheme of financial assistance to higher education does not discriminate against a suspect class. The line New York has drawn in this case is not between aliens and citizens, but between aliens who prefer to retain foreign citizenship and all others. "The system of alleged discrimination and the class it defines have none of the traditional indicia of suspectness: the class is not saddled with such disabilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process." San Antonio School Our prior cases dealing with discrimination against all aliens as a class, In re Griffiths, ; and against subclasses of aliens without regard to ability or willingness to acquire citizenship, do not justify the application of strict judicial scrutiny to the legislative scheme before us today.[*] *16 I also agree with MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST that the line New York has drawn in extending scholarship assistance in higher education is a rational one. I see no basis for the Court's statement that offering incentives to resident alien scholars to become naturalized "is not a permissible [purpose] for a State." Ante, at 10. In my view, the States have a substantial interest in encouraging allegiance to the United States on the part of all persons, including resident aliens, who have come to live within their borders. As the New York Legislature declared in enacting a predecessor to the present financial assistance scheme: "The future progress of the state and nation and the general welfare of the people depend upon the individual development of the maximum number of citizens to provide the broad range of leadership, inventive genius, and source of economic and cultural growth for oncoming generations." 1961 N. Y. Laws, c. 389, 1 (a). As long as its program neither discriminates "on the basis of alienage," nor conflicts with federal immigration and naturalization policy, it is my view that New York legitimately may reserve its scholarship assistance to citizens, and to those resident aliens who *17 declare their intention to become citizens, of both the Nation and the State. MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE joins, dissenting. I am troubled by the somewhat mechanical application of the Court's equal protection jurisprudence to this case. I think one can accept the premise of ; In re Griffiths, ; and and therefore agree with the Court that classifications based on alienage are inherently suspect, but nonetheless
|
Justice Powell
| 1,977 | 17 |
second_dissenting
|
Nyquist v. Mauclet
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109687/nyquist-v-mauclet/
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that classifications based on alienage are inherently suspect, but nonetheless feel that this case is wrongly decided. In those cases, the reason postulated for the elevation of alienage classifications to strict scrutiny was directly related to the express exclusion of aliens found in the State's classification. Here, however, we have a significantly different case. The State's classification trenches not at all upon the sole reason underlying the strict scrutiny afforded alienage classifications by this Court. is, of course, the starting point of analysis, as it was the first case to explicitly conclude that alienage classifications, like those based on race or nationality, would be subject to strict scrutiny when challenged under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Graham 403 U.S., : "Aliens as a class are a prime example of a `discrete and insular' minority ) for whom such heightened judicial solicitude is appropriate." It is clear, therefore, that the reason alienage classifications receive heightened judicial scrutiny is because aliens, qua aliens, are a "discrete and insular" minority. See also Presumptively, such a minority group, like blacks or Orientals, is one identifiable by *18 a status over which the members are powerless. Cf. 417 U.S. 6, And it is no doubt true that all aliens are, at some time, members of a discrete and insular minority in that they are identified by a status which they are powerless to change until eligible to become citizens of this country. Since, as the Court notes, federal law generally requires five years' residence by aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence as a prerequisite to the seeking of naturalization, 8 U.S. C. 1427 (a), aliens residing in this country necessarily are subject to a period of time during which they must bear this status of an "alien."[1] If a classification, therefore, places aliens in one category, and citizens in another, then, thereafter, every entering resident alien must pass through a period of time in this country during which he falls into the one category and *19 not the other. Nothing except time can remove him from his identified status as an "alien" and from whatever associated disabilities the statute might place on one occupying that status. In this sense, it is possible to view aliens as a discrete and insular minority, since they are categorized by a factor beyond their control. The prior alienage cases from this Court, utilizing strict scrutiny to strike down state statutes, all dealt with statutes where the line drawn necessarily suffered that infirmity; in all of those cases, the line drawn necessarily left incoming resident aliens afflicted
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Justice Powell
| 1,977 | 17 |
second_dissenting
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Nyquist v. Mauclet
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109687/nyquist-v-mauclet/
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cases, the line drawn necessarily left incoming resident aliens afflicted with the disability for some period of time. Nothing except the passage of time could remove the alien from the classification and the disability. The statutes, therefore, involved the precise infirmity which led this Court to accord aliens "suspect classification" treatment: The line drawn by the legislature was drawn on the basis of a status, albeit temporary, that the included members were powerless to change.[2] While the majority seems to view as somehow different, ante, at 8-9, it is clear that the statute involved in that case suffered from the same weakness. By making aliens, but not citizens, await a durational residency requirement, aliens coming into the State were, because of their status, treated differently from citizens for a period of time, and during that period of time, the incoming aliens were *20 powerless to remove themselves from that disability (unless they could become citizens). There was nothing else the alien could do to avoid the period of discriminatory treatment. In all of these cases, then, the classification made by the State conformed to the reason underlying the strict scrutiny this Court applied. But it would seem to follow that if a state statute classifies in a way which necessarily avoids the underlying reason for the strict scrutiny, the statute should be viewed in a different light. This is such a case. Under this New York statute, a resident alien has, at all times, the power to remove himself from one classification and to place himself in the other, for, at all times, he may become entitled to benefits either by becoming a citizen or by declaring his intention to become a citizen as soon as possible.[3] Here, unlike the other cases, the resident alien is not a member of a discrete and insular minority for purposes of the classification, even during the period that he must remain an alien, because he has at all times the means to remove himself immediately from the disfavored classification. There is no temporal disability since the resident alien may declare an intent, thereby at once removing himself from the disabled class, even if the intent cannot come to fruition for some period of time. Unlike the situation in Griffiths, Sugarman, and Graham, there exists no period of disability, defined by status, from which the alien cannot escape. The alien is not, therefore, *21 for any period of time, forced into a position as a discrete and insular minority.[4] Since the New York statute under challenge in this case does not create a discrete
|
Justice Powell
| 1,977 | 17 |
second_dissenting
|
Nyquist v. Mauclet
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109687/nyquist-v-mauclet/
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under challenge in this case does not create a discrete and insular minority by placing an inevitable disability based on status, the Court's heightened judicial scrutiny is unwarranted. The reason for the more rigorous constitutional test having ceased, the applicability of the test should likewise cease. Applying the rational-basis test, it is obvious that the statutory scheme in question should be sustained. The funds that New York wishes to spend on its higher education assistance programs are, of course, limited. New York's choice to distribute these limited funds to resident citizens and to resident aliens who intend to become citizens, while denying them to aliens who have no intention of becoming citizens, is a natural legislative judgment. By limiting the available pool of recipients to resident citizens and aliens who will become citizens, New York is able to give such recipients a larger payment from the same quantum of funds than would be the case were other aliens recipients as well. A State is entitled to decide, in distributing benefits, that resident citizens, whether or not they will remain residents of New York, are more likely to contribute to the future well-being of the State, either directly (by settling there) or indirectly (by living in some other State, but maintaining economic or social ties with New York or by improving the general well-being of the United States) than are aliens who are unwilling to renounce citizenship in a foreign country, and who may be thought more likely to return there. New *22 York may also decide, in providing student loans pursuant to N. Y. Educ. Law 680-684 (McKinney Supp. 1976), that it will be easier to collect repayment sums from citizens than from aliens, should these loans be defaulted upon. These are permissible legislative judgments. Cf. ; Ohio Bureau of Employment When we deal, as we do here, with questions of economic legislation, our deference to the actions of a State is extremely great. New York's decision to deny educational monetary benefits to aliens who do not wish to become citizens of this country, while extending such benefits to citizens and other resident aliens, is rational, and should be sustained.
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,996 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Leavitt v. Jane L.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118046/leavitt-v-jane-l/
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The severability issue discussed in the Court's per curiam opinion is purely a question of Utah It is contrary to our settled practice to grant a petition for certiorari for the sole purpose of deciding a state-law question ruled upon by a federal court of appeals. The justifications for that practice are well established: The courts of appeals are more familiar with and thus better qualified than we to interpret the laws of the States within their Circuits; the decision of a federal court (even this Court) on a question of state law is not binding on state tribunals; and a decision of a state-law issue by a court of appeals, whether right or wrong, does not have the kind of national significance that is the typical predicate for the exercise of our certiorari jurisdiction.[*] The underlying substantive issue in this case generates what Justice Holmes once described as a kind of "hydraulic pressure" that motivates ad hoc decisionmaking. Northern Securities Even if the court of appeals has rendered an incorrect decision, that is no reason for us to jettison the traditional guides to our practice of certiorari review. The doctrine of judicial restraint counsels the opposite course. *147 The majority counters with a pair of cases that supposedly show the absence of a settled practice regarding review of state-law questions. One of thoseWichita Royalty was a diversity case decided in the wake of Erie R. Just four weeks before we handed down Erie, the Court of Appeals had disclaimed its obligation to follow a controlling decision by the Texas Supreme Court (indeed, one rendered in an earlier stage of the same proceedings) on a matter of Texas commercial The Court of Appeals then denied rehearing on the theory that the Texas court had changed its mind and now agreed with the former's view of the Our decision to hear that case, which resulted in our rejection of the lower court's conclusion, was plainly motivated by a concern to give effect to Erie `s new mandate. That leaves the single example of in which this Court granted certiorari because the lower court's judgment "undermine[d] the transportation policy of Texas." Decided nearly 50 years ago and without successor, Steele is the exception that proves the rule. However irregular such grants were in the past, they are now virtually unheard of. Indeed, in 1980 we codified our already longstanding practice by eliminating as a consideration for deciding whether to review a case the fact that "a court of appeals has decided an important state or territorial question in a way in conflict
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,993 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112835/pioneer-investment-services-co-v-brunswick-associates-ltd-partnership/
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Today the Court replaces the straightforward analysis commended by the language of Bankruptcy Rule 9006(b)(1) with a balancing test. Because the Court's approach is inconsistent with the Rule's plain language and unduly complicates the task of courts called upon to apply it, I respectfully dissent. I Bankruptcy Rule 9006(b)(1) provides that, if a party moves for permission to act after having missed a deadline, the court "may at any time in its discretion permit the act to be done where the failure to act was the result of excusable neglect." This language establishes two requirements that must be met before untimely action will be permitted. First, no relief is available unless the failure to comply with the deadline "was the result of excusable neglect." Bkrtcy. Rule 9006(b)(1). Second, the court may withhold relief if it believes forbearance inappropriate; the statute does not require the court to forgive every omission caused by excusable neglect, but states that the court "may " grant relief "in its discretion." Thus, the court must at the threshold determine its authority to allow untimely action by asking whether the failure to meet the deadline resulted from excusable neglect; if the answer is yes, then the court should consider the equities and decide whether to excuse the error. Instead of following the plain meaning of the Rule and examining this case in these two steps, the Court employs a *400 multifactor balancing test covering numerous equitable considerations, including (and perhaps not limited to) "the danger of prejudice to the debtor, the length of the delay and its potential impact on judicial proceedings, the reason for the delay, and whether the movant acted in good faith." Ante, at 395. But Rule 9006(b) does not simply command courts to permit late filing whenever it would be "equitable" in light of all the circumstances. Rather, it establishes that the courts may exercise their discretion in accord with the equities only if the failure to meet the deadline resulted from excusable neglect in the first place. Whether the failure resulted from excusable neglect depends on the nature of the omission itself, both in terms of cause and culpability. Consequently, until the reason for the omission is determined to be sufficiently blameless, the consequences of the failure, such as the effect on the parties or the impact on the judicial system, are not relevant. In re Vertientes, Ltd. ; In re South Atlantic Financial cert. denied, ; see also Although the Court pays lipservice to the existence of a threshold determination regarding excusable neglect, see ante, at 382 ("Rule 9006(b)(1) empowers a
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,993 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112835/pioneer-investment-services-co-v-brunswick-associates-ltd-partnership/
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excusable neglect, see ante, at 382 ("Rule 9006(b)(1) empowers a bankruptcy court to permit a late filing if the movant's failure to comply with an earlier deadline `was the result of excusable neglect' "), it holds that the threshold question is "at bottom an equitable one." Ante, at 395. Our case law is to the contrary. In we applied the virtually identical language of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b). Under that Rule, as under *401 this one, a court may not permit untimely filing unless it "find[s] as a substantive matter that the failure to file on time `was the result of excusable neglect.' " Characterizing that "obstacle" as "the greatest of all," we examined the reasons for the movant's failure to make a timely filing. Nowhere in our discussion did we mention the equities or the consequences of the movant's failure to file. Instead, we concentrated exclusively on the asserted cause of the failure and the movant's culpability. See The Court concedes that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b) and Bankruptcy Rule 9006(b) have virtually identical language; indeed, it even relies on the former to support its interpretation of the latter. Ante, at 391-392. Yet the majority provides no reason why we should depart from the analysis we so recently employed in Lujan, except to say it reads that case differently. See ante, at 395, n. 13. While it is true that we did not "define" the phrase "excusable neglect" in Lujan, ante, at 395, n. 13, there is no denying that we applied that phrase to the facts before us: There is simply no other explanation for the opinion's discussion of whether the movant had overcome that "greatest" of "substantive obstacle[s]," But even if Lujan might be read differently, the majority offers no affirmative reason to believe that the equities should bear on whether neglect is "excusable." Instead it states: "Because Congress has provided no other guideposts for determining what sorts of neglect will be considered `excusable,' we conclude that the determination is at bottom an equitable one, taking account of all relevant circumstances surrounding the party's omission." Ante, at 395. In my view, Congress has provided "guideposts" as to how courts should determine whether "neglect will be considered `excusable.' " The majority simply fails to follow them. *402 First is the remaining language of Rule 9006(b)(1) itself, a good portion of which the majority fails to consult. The Rule, read in its entirety, establishes that the excusable neglect determination requires inquiry into causation rather than consequences: Unless "the failure to act was the result " of
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,993 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112835/pioneer-investment-services-co-v-brunswick-associates-ltd-partnership/
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Unless "the failure to act was the result " of the excusable neglect, relief is unavailable. "It is clear from this language that the focus of [the Rule] is on the movant's actions and the reasons for those actions, not on the effect that an extension might have on the other parties' positions." In re South Atlantic Financial at Moreover, Rule 9006(b)(1) indicates that the court must determine whether the neglect was "excusable" as of the moment it occurred rather than in light of facts known when untimely action is proposed. The Rule authorizes relief in cases where the failure "was " the result of excusable neglect, not as to incidents where the neglect is excusable in light of current knowledge. The majority also overlooks a second and dispositive guidepostthe accepted dictionary definition of "excusable neglect." That definition does not incorporate the results or consequences of a failure to take appropriate and timely action; to the contrary, it turns on the cause or reasons for the failure and the culpability involved. According to Black's Law Dictionary 566 "excusable neglect" is: "[A] failure to take the proper steps at the proper time, not in consequence of the party's own carelessness, inattention, or willful disregard of the process of the court, but in consequence of some unexpected or unavoidable hindrance or accident, or reliance on the care and vigilance of his counsel or on promises made by the adverse party. As used in rule (e. g. Fed. R. Civil P. 6(b)) authorizing court to permit an act to be done after expiration of the time within which under the rules such act was required to be done, where failure to act was the result of `excusable neglect', quoted phrase is ordinarily *403 understood to be the act of a reasonably prudent person under the same circumstances." Cf. 4A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure 1165, pp. 480, 482 ("Excusable neglect [in Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 6(b)] seems to require a demonstration of good faith on the part of the party seeking an enlargement and some reasonable basis for noncompliance Absent a showing along these lines, relief will be denied"). Of course, we are not bound to accept Black's Law Dictionary as the authoritative expositor of American law. But if Congress had intended to depart from the accepted meaning of excusable neglectsupplementing its exclusive focus on the reason for the error with an emphasis on its effect surely it would have so indicated. In any event, it is quite unnatural to read the term "excusable neglect" to mean a variety
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,993 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112835/pioneer-investment-services-co-v-brunswick-associates-ltd-partnership/
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to read the term "excusable neglect" to mean a variety of neglect that, in light of subsequent events and all the equities, turns out to be excusable. Not only does such an interpretation suffer from circularityexcusable neglect becomes the neglect that the court in its equitable discretion chooses to excusebut it also renders critical language in the Rule superfluous. After all, the majority's interpretation would be no different if Rule 9006(b) afforded courts discretion to give relief in cases of "neglect" rather than "excusable neglect." The term "neglect" would describe the acceptable level of culpability, see ante, at 387-395, and the equities still would move the court's discretionary decision on whether it in fact would excuse the error once "neglect" was shown. The Court's interpretation thus reads the word "excusable" right out of the Rule. In my view, Congress included the word "excusable" to convey the notion that some types of neglectat a minimum, the highly culpable and the willfulcannot be forgiven, regardless of the consequences. The Court does recognize one guidepost. It states that the requirement of "excusable neglect" should be construed so as to "deter creditors or other parties from freely ignoring *404 court-ordered deadlines in the hopes of winning a permissive reprieve under Rule 9006(b)(1)." Ante, at 395. But rather than concentrating on the types of culpable neglect that ought to be deterred, the majority immediately shifts its focus to considerations such as the effect of the failure to take timely action, including prejudice to the debtor and the effect on judicial proceedings. If the goal of requiring neglect to be "excusable" is to deter culpable noncompliance, the consequences of such noncompliance should be irrelevant. To hold otherwise not only undermines deterrence but excuses the inexcusable. II The Court's approach also undermines the interests the Bankruptcy Rules seek to promote. Because the majority's balancing test is indeterminate, its results frequently will be called into question. Reasonable minds often differ greatly on what the equities require. This case is a prime example. Applying much the same test the Court applies today, two courts below held that respondents' neglect was inexcusable. Then the Court of Appeals substituted its view and held otherwise. Today the Court evens the score at two to two. We ought not unnecessarily introduce so much uncertainty into a routine matter like an "excusable neglect" determination. Nor should we unhesitatingly endorse an approach that invites litigants to seek redetermination of their procedural disputes from four different courts. Direct application of Rule 9006(b)(1)'s plain language to this case, in contrast, is straightforward. First, we must examine the
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,993 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112835/pioneer-investment-services-co-v-brunswick-associates-ltd-partnership/
|
case, in contrast, is straightforward. First, we must examine the failure to act itself and ask if it resulted from excusable neglect. If it did, then the lower court may, in its discretion, permit untimely action in accord with the equities. But if the failure did not result from excusable neglect, there is no reason to consider the effects of the failure. That, of course, brings us to the question to which the majority devotes the bulk of its discussion: whether mere *405 negligence can qualify as excusable neglect. Ante, at 387 395. As the majority points out, ante, at 387, the Courts of Appeals have disagreed on this matter. Some require the omission to result from circumstances beyond counsel's reasonable control. See, e. g., In re South Atlantic Financial 767 F. 2d, at and cases cited ante, at 387, n. 3. Others hold that negligence may constitute excusable neglect but distinguish among different types of negligence. Cf. Consolidated Freightways of (Fed. Rule App. Proc. 4), cert. denied sub nom. Consolidated Freightways of In my view, we need not resolve that dispute in this case. Once we properly clarify the factors that are relevant to the excusable neglect determination, the Bankruptcy Court's findings compel the conclusion that respondents' neglect was inexcusable under any standard. The Bankruptcy Court expressly found that respondents' former counsel's failure to file a timely proof of claim resulted from negligence and, to some degree, an attitude of "indifference" toward the deadline. App. 172a. In addition, the court noted that the client, a sophisticated business person and an active participant in the bankruptcy proceedings, had received actual notice of, and was aware of, the deadline. at 171a. Thus, this is not a case of a clerical or other minor error yielding an untoward result despite counsel's best efforts; it is a case in which counsel simply failed to look after his business properly, even if that failure was not the result of bad faith. The Court of Appeals held the neglect excusable nonetheless for two reasons. First, it thought it inequitable to saddle the client with the mistakes of its attorney. The Court *406 today properly rejects that rationale. Ante, at 396-397. The second reason offered by the Court of Appeals was that the notice containing the deadline was incorporated in a document entitled "Notice for Meeting of Creditors." That designation, the court explained, was not enough to put those without extensive bankruptcy experience on notice that the "bar date" at the end of the notice was the final date for filing proofs of claims. In re
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,993 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112835/pioneer-investment-services-co-v-brunswick-associates-ltd-partnership/
|
the final date for filing proofs of claims. In re Pioneer Investment Services Co., In addition, the court noted that use of the term "bar date" to designate the deadline for filing a proof of claim was "dramatic[ally] ambigu[ous]" since there are many bar dates in bankruptcy, not all of them for the filing of proofs of claims. The Court today signals its agreement. Ante, at 398, and n. 15. The majority and the Court of Appeals may be correct that the form of notice was unorthodox; they also may be correct in asserting that, if the inadequacy of notice caused respondents to miss the deadline, respondents' failure was the result of "excusable neglect." But they are not correct in asserting that respondents' former lawyer overlooked the deadline "as a result of" the unorthodox form of notice. The Bankruptcy Court made no such finding. Nor did it find that the notice's ambiguity somehow led counsel astray. On the contrary, the Bankruptcy Court found that both counsel and client had actual notice of the deadline and that the cause of their failure to file on time was indifference and negligence. App. 172a. To be sure, we would not be obligated to accept those findings if they were not supported by the record. But they are supported by the record. Indeed, in a commendable display of candor, respondents' former counsel admitted that the "foul-up" was "particularly" his own. at 72a. Accord, at 112a ("[T]he foul-up I can't lay to the clients' shoes because it really is probably mine"). There is no indication that he blamed his error on petitioner's form of notice. Rather, he appealed to the Bankruptcy Court's sense of fairness, *407 arguing that it would be inequitable to penalize his client so greatly where the "delay was occasioned not by [the client], but by its counsel." at 73a. Accord, ("[U]nder all the circumstances, we think it would be unfair and inequitable to visit the sins of the lawyer on the client"); at 112a (Although the foul-up was respondents' attorney's, given "the lack of prejudice [and] the totality of all the circumstances, [it would be] inherently inequitable to visit the sins on the client for this situation"). Perhaps it would have been desirable for the Bankruptcy Court to make a specific factual finding on whether the unorthodox form of notice actually caused respondents' former counsel to miss the deadline. Given that respondents' lawyer offered no reason why he overlooked the bar date, it is not inconceivable that the notice's unorthodoxy led him astray. at 57a (no recollection of seeing the order
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,993 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112835/pioneer-investment-services-co-v-brunswick-associates-ltd-partnership/
|
him astray. at 57a (no recollection of seeing the order setting the deadline); at 103a (same). But if there is uncertainty, the answer is to remand to the Bankruptcy Court for appropriate factual findings. Based on the current state of the record and the findings the Bankruptcy Court did make, I cannot accept the majority's finding that counsel's failure in fact resulted from the inadequacy of notice. Respondents' former counsel's error may represent a relatively unaggravated instance of negligence. He did not miss deadlines repeatedly despite clear warnings. Nor did he act in bad faith. But respondents, their former lawyer, the Court of Appeals, and the majority today have all failed to produce a reasonable explanation for this rather major error. More important still, the Bankruptcy Court did explain the error. It found that respondents' failure to meet the deadline resulted at least in part from counsel's "indifference." The majority offers no reason for ignoring that finding. Even accepting the conclusion that excusable neglect may cover some instances of negligence, indifference falls outside the range of the "excusable." Because the failure to act in this case did not result from excusable neglect, there is no *408 occasion to consider whether the Bankruptcy Court properly exercised its discretion in light of the equities; respondents were ineligible for relief in any event. The Court's only response is that, even if one focuses exclusively on the nature of the error and why it occurred, the parties can still litigate the Rule's application. Ante, at 395 396, n. 14. But that objection can be made to any approach; courts always must apply law to facts. The point is that following the plain language of Rule 9006(b)(1) renders the law's application both easier and more certain. A determination that a party missed the filing deadline on account of "indifference" or some other reason is not as "susceptible of litigation," as the result of multifactor balancing. The determination is factual and, as such, may be overturned on review only if clearly erroneous. In fact, no oneneither the parties nor any of the many courts that have reviewed this casehas suggested that there was clear error here. Rather, in this case, as in most others like it, the Bankruptcy Court's findings are more than adequately supported by the record. Indeed, the majority succeeds in circumventing the finding of "indifference" only by ignoring it, concentrating instead on other considerations in the multifactor test. The Court's technique will no doubt prove instructive to anyone appealing an excusable neglect determination in the future, for it highlights the indeterminacy of the
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,993 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112835/pioneer-investment-services-co-v-brunswick-associates-ltd-partnership/
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in the future, for it highlights the indeterminacy of the test: A simple shift in focus from one factor to anotherhere, from cause to effectsshifts the balance and the result. The approach required by the Rule itself, in contrast, precludes that slippery tactic. At the threshold, there is but one question on which to focus: the reason the deadline was missed. Contrary to the Court's assertion, that singular focus does not require us to hold today that all incidents of negligence are inexcusable. We need hold only that indifference is inexcusable. That, I would have thought, goes without saying. *409 III When courts depart from the language of a congressional command, they often create unintended difficulties in the process. This case, I fear, may prove no exception. The majority's single-step, multifactor, equitable balancing approach to "excusable neglect" is contrary to the language of Rule 9006(b) and inconsistent with sensible notions of judicial economy. Its indeterminacy not only renders consistent application unlikely but also invites unproductive recourse to appeal. Such consequences are especially unfortunate in the Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. An entity in bankruptcy can ill afford to waste resources on litigation; every dollar spent on lawyers is a dollar creditors will never see. Congress established in Rule 9006(b) the inquiry that should be made when courts contemplate permitting untimely action. Under the approach commended by that Rule, respondents are barred from filing an untimely proof of claim because its omission resulted from a neglect that, on this record, was simply inexcusable; the equities, no matter how compelling, cannot propel respondents over that hurdle. I therefore respectfully dissent.
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,986 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Lyng v. Payne
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111696/lyng-v-payne/
|
When Congress enacts a generous program to provide relief for the victims of a natural disaster, the Secretary of Agriculture has a duty to implement that program in the spirit which motivated its enactment even if he believes a more parsimonious policy will serve the national interest. On January 2, 1974, Congress enacted such a program to benefit, among others, the Florida farmers who had suffered serious losses as the result of a disaster that the President had declared on May 26, 1973. On the date the statute was enacted, as well as the date of the disaster and the date of the President's declaration, regulations were in place that required the Department to give appropriate notice to the State Director, the appropriate county officials, the agricultural lenders in the area, and the public. See (a) Ante, at 930-931, n. 1. The regulations plainly stated that effective notice should be given "immediately." The District Court found and the Court does not disagree that the Secretary failed to comply with 1832.3(a). For several weeks after the enactment of the statute, the Secretary took no public action. On February 27, he promulgated a new announcement which was explicitly intended to "supplement" the existing notice regulations requiring that advice be given to the news media. Pursuant to that announcement, an ambiguous and uninformative news release was prepared and distributed. The Court nevertheless holds that (1) the release complied with the supplementary regulation issued on February 27 and (2) the supplementary regulation somehow superseded the specific 1832.3(a) notice provisions which were already in place when the *944 statute was enacted. These holdings, I submit, misread the regulations and are not faithful to the intent of the Congress that enacted the governing statute. Before explaining in greater detail why I agree with the District Court and the Court of Appeals' findings concerning the Secretary's flagrant violation of the notice regulations, I shall briefly comment on the timeliness of the action and the Court's correct rejection of the Government's primary challenge to the propriety of that remedy. I This litigation was commenced on August 19, 1976. In the Court of Appeals, the Secretary contended that the action was not timely because the emergency loan program authorized by expired on April 2, 1974. The Court of Appeals held, however, that "where, as here, exigent circumstances beyond the farmers' control precluded intended beneficiaries from applying for loans, the agency had the power to extend the loan period and the District Court was within its power in ordering the agency to do so. To hold
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,986 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Lyng v. Payne
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111696/lyng-v-payne/
|
power in ordering the agency to do so. To hold otherwise would allow the FmHA to totally fail to provide notice to congressionally intended potential beneficiaries and avoid being called to task for such conduct."[1] In this Court, the Secretary has abandoned his claim that he had no power to extend the deadline for loan applications. Ante, at 935, n. 5. The Secretary has argued, however, that the remedy ordered by the District Court was improper because it rested on an equitable estoppel theory. The Court today correctly and unanimously rejects this argument, thus answering the central question of law that prompted it to grant *945 certiorari in a way that completely repudiates the submission of the Solicitor General.[2] Thus, neither the doctrine of estoppel nor the passage of time since the emergency loan program's administrative deadline was authorized has any bearing on the question that controls the outcome of the case. That question is whether the Secretary provided the intended beneficiaries of the emergency loan program with the notice that was required by law. The question is best answered after briefly describing the historical context in which it arose. II In 1972 and 1973, the Secretary of Agriculture took the position that he was not obligated to implement emergency loan programs authorized by Congress if he thought it was unwise *946 to do so.[3] His position was consistent with administration policy concerning other programs authorized by Congress at that time. See ; As a consequence of this fundamental disagreement between the Secretary and Congress, two legislative measures were adopted that provide the background for this case. First, in response to the Secretary's view that the then existing emergency loan programs were too generous, Congress made three important changes in the programs effective on April 20, 1973. It increased the interest rates from one percent to five percent; it denied eligibility to farmers who could obtain credit elsewhere; and it discontinued the practice of forgiving $5,000 of the principal indebtedness. Thus, after April 20, 1973, the emergency loans were considerably less attractive than they had been before. Second, after several months of uncertainty as to whether the old or the new terms applied to disasters during the period in which this case arose, Congress adopted for the specific purpose of making the earlier, more generous loan terms available to a specific class of farmers, including those in northern Florida, who suffered severe crop losses as a result of a specific disaster. Thus, respondent farmers had two opportunities to apply for emergency loans between May 26, 1973, and
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,986 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Lyng v. Payne
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111696/lyng-v-payne/
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apply for emergency loans between May 26, 1973, and January 2, 1974, at the higher rate, and between January 2, 1974, and April 2, 1974, at the more favorable rate. Throughout this period and for several years thereafter the Secretary's regulations provided a detailed procedure for giving notice "immediately" to the appropriate County Supervisors and requiring the State Directors to *947 make "such public announcements as appear appropriate."[4] The District Court found, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that the Secretary not only failed to comply with this provision, but actually disseminated a good deal of misinformation. Thus, for example, the State Director advised the County Supervisors, in information intended for public release, that applications had to be filed prior to July 30, 1973 which was correct for loans relating to physical damage but totally omitted any reference to the fact that the deadline for production loss loans was several months later. In my opinion, however, the more important violations were those that occurred during the second application period after January 2, 1974, when Congress authorized loans at an interest rate of one percent and on terms that it is difficult to believe any informed and eligible farmer would have refused. III The notice regulations that were in effect during the first application period remained in effect during the 90 days after the enactment of on January 2, 1974.[5] Notwithstanding *948 the dramatic change in the loan terms authorized by that Act, no notice of any kind was published in the Federal Register or anywhere else until February 27, 1974, when two-thirds of the reopened application period had already expired. This complete silence for a period of almost two months was unquestionably a plain violation of the regulations' command if the regulations were, in fact, applicable that the "State Director will notify the appropriate County Supervisors immediately and will make such public announcements as appear appropriate." (a)(1) On February 27, 1974, the Secretary did publish the conditions of the new program in the Federal Register, and also supplemented the existing notice regulation with the publication of staff instructions that State Directors and County Supervisors should inform the news media of the provisions of See -7571. It is thus perfectly clear that the Secretary did not comply with the 1832.3(a) notice regulations that were in effect when was enacted. The Court does not disagree with this conclusion. Rather, it takes the remarkable position that the failure to follow those notice provisions is irrelevant because the Secretary did comply with the instructions
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,986 | 16 |
dissenting
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Lyng v. Payne
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111696/lyng-v-payne/
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is irrelevant because the Secretary did comply with the instructions promulgated in February. This reasoning is severely flawed. First, the Court's conclusion does not accord with the language and structure of the February 27 notice provisions. Nothing in these new staff instructions stated or implied that they were intended to replace or to withdraw any of the preexisting notice procedures. Instead, the published notice explicitly stated that the publication of the new provisions "supplements and modifies" the existing regulations, including 1832.3(a). (1974). "Supplementing" and "modifying" are hardly words that suggest the kind of wholesale obliteration envisioned by the majority.[6] *949 Second, under the Court's own logic, 1832.3(a) should have been fully applicable for the first two months of the second loan period. If, as the Court suggests, it was the February 27 Federal Register publication that superseded the existing regulations with respect to then presumably the earlier regulations were fully in force until then. Yet the Court flatly states that 1832 simply was inapplicable in the second loan period even for the significant amount of time in which the "superseding" regulation was not in place. Finally, the Court's analysis conflicts with the obvious purpose of Congress in passing If the new instructions are given the construction that the Court accepts today, they enabled the Secretary to defy or ignore the will of Congress just as effectively as when he simply refused to make emergency loans on the terms authorized by Congress. Given the fact that regulations requiring adequate notice were in effect at the time Congress adopted a special statute to benefit the victims of specific disasters already declared by the President, surely the Secretary had a duty to comply with the pre-existing regulations during the 90-day period specified in the Act. To conclude otherwise, as the Court does, has an anomalous result. Under the Court's analysis, Congress, in liberalizing and extending the loan program, also created some kind of Bermuda Triangle that made blatant violations of the longstanding 1832.3(a) notice requirements mysteriously disappear and have no legal effect. Indeed, the incongruous consequence of the Court's reasoning is that, if Congress had never passed the new statute, the Secretary would have continued to be bound by the extensive *950 1832.3 notice provisions in January and February 1974. For those months would have been within the original loan period. By extending the period and making the terms more favorable, however, Congress somehow vitiated or permitted the Secretary to vitiate those notice provisions for the months and program in question. Thus, the majority's conclusion that 1832.3(a) did not apply
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,986 | 16 |
dissenting
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Lyng v. Payne
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111696/lyng-v-payne/
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question. Thus, the majority's conclusion that 1832.3(a) did not apply to the Secretary's administration of is erroneous. I also disagree with the majority's conclusion that the Secretary's efforts satisfied the February 27 notice requirements, which were later codified at 7 CFR 1832.82 Those duly promulgated requirements unequivocally stated a mandatory obligation: "State Director and County Supervisors will inform the news media including newspapers, radio, and television in the affected counties of the provisions of P. L. 93-237." (1974). The Secretary does not argue that the single publication of the emergency loan terms in the Federal Register itself constituted compliance with this duty. His claim of compliance during the second application period also rests on the preparation and distribution of a news release. That release, however, did not disclose the loan terms that were authorized by Indeed, the only reference to the new statute, the "provisions" of which the Department had a mandatory obligation to explain, was the following: "These loan applications will be taken under the terms of a new law (P. L. 93-237) enacted January 2, 1974." App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a. An instruction to inform the news media "of the provisions of P. L. 93-237" surely should be construed to require that the news media be informed of the loan terms that the statute authorized.[7] Such a construction would reflect, not an interpretation *951 that "runs roughshod over the established proposition that an agency's construction of its own regulations is entitled to substantial deference," ante, at 939, but a simple adherence to the regulation's "plain language." Cf. Young v. Community Nutrition Institute, post, p. 974. It is therefore clear that the new 1832.82 requirements also were not followed. In short, the Secretary followed neither the pre-existing 1832.3 requirements nor the newly promulgated 1832.82 requirements. The effect was predictable. Although thousands of farmers were eligible for the program, no more than four received loans. As a result, although Congress had shown its intense commitment to this program by repeatedly legislating and by honing the program in an attempt to overcome executive intransigence, the sustained congressional efforts went for naught.[8] *952 IV In my opinion, the Court's holding allows an executive agency far too much discretion to disregard the plain intent of Congress. The Secretary did not implement the program authorized by in the spirit in which it was enacted. "As conceived and passed in both Houses, the legislation was intended to provide a firm commitment of substantial sums within a relatively limited period of time in an effort to achieve an early solution of what was deemed an
|
per_curiam
| 2,007 | 200 |
per_curiam
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Los Angeles County, California v. Rettele
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145728/los-angeles-county-california-v-rettele/
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Deputies of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department obtained a valid warrant to search a house, but they were unaware that the suspects being sought had moved out three months earlier. When the deputies searched the house, they found in a bedroom two residents who were of a different race than the suspects. The deputies ordered these innocent residents, who had been sleeping unclothed, out of bed. The deputies required them to stand for a few minutes before allowing them to dress. The residents brought suit under Rev. Stat. 1979, 42 U.S.C. 1983, naming the deputies and other parties and accusing them of violating the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The District Court granted summary judgment to all named defendants. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, concluding both that the deputies violated the Fourth Amendment and that they were not entitled to qualified immunity because a reasonable deputy would have stopped the search upon discovering that respondents were of a different race than the suspects and because a reasonable deputy would not have ordered respondents from their bed. We grant the petition for certiorari and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals by this summary disposition. I From September to December Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department Deputy Dennis Watters investigated a fraud and identity-theft crime ring. There were four suspects of the investigation. One had registered a 9-millimeter Glock handgun. The four suspects were known to be African-Americans. On December 11, Watters obtained a search warrant for two houses in Lancaster, California, where he believed he could find the suspects. The warrant authorized *1991 him to search the homes and three of the suspects for documents and computer files. In support of the search warrant an affidavit cited various sources showing the suspects resided at respondents' home. The sources included Department of Motor Vehicles reports, mailing address listings, an outstanding warrant, and an Internet telephone directory. In this Court respondents do not dispute the validity of the warrant or the means by which it was obtained. What Watters did not know was that one of the houses (the first to be searched) had been sold in September to a Max Rettele. He had purchased the home and moved into it three months earlier with his girlfriend Judy Sadler and Sadler's 17-year-old son Chase Hall. All three, respondents here, are Caucasians. On the morning of December 19, Watters briefed six other deputies in preparation for the search of the houses. Watters informed them they would be searching for three African-American suspects,
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per_curiam
| 2,007 | 200 |
per_curiam
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Los Angeles County, California v. Rettele
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145728/los-angeles-county-california-v-rettele/
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informed them they would be searching for three African-American suspects, one of whom owned a registered handgun. The possibility a suspect would be armed caused the deputies concern for their own safety. Watters had not obtained special permission for a night search, so he could not execute the warrant until 7 a.m. See Cal.Penal Code Ann. 1533 (West 2000). Around 7:15 Watters and six other deputies knocked on the door and announced their presence. Chase Hall answered. The deputies entered the house after ordering Hall to lie face down on the ground. The deputies' announcement awoke Rettele and Sadler. The deputies entered their bedroom with guns drawn and ordered them to get out of their bed and to show their hands. They protested that they were not wearing clothes. Rettele stood up and attempted to put on a pair of sweatpants, but deputies told him not to move. Sadler also stood up and attempted, without success, to cover herself with a sheet. Rettele and Sadler were held at gunpoint for one to two minutes before Rettele was allowed to retrieve a robe for Sadler. He was then permitted to dress. Rettele and Sadler left the bedroom within three to four minutes to sit on the couch in the living room. By that time the deputies realized they had made a mistake. They apologized to Rettele and Sadler, thanked them for not becoming upset, and left within five minutes. They proceeded to the other house the warrant authorized them to search, where they found three suspects. Those suspects were arrested and convicted. Rettele and Sadler, individually and as guardians ad litem for Hall, filed this 1983 suit against Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Deputy Watters, and other members of the sheriff's department. Respondents alleged petitioners violated their Fourth Amendment rights by obtaining a warrant in reckless fashion and conducting an unreasonable search and detention. The District Court held that the warrant was obtained by proper procedures and the search was reasonable. It concluded in the alternative that any Fourth Amendment rights the deputies violated were not clearly established and that, as a result, the deputies were entitled to qualified immunity. On appeal respondents did not challenge the validity of the warrant; they did argue that the deputies had conducted the search in an unreasonable manner. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed in an unpublished opinion. The majority held that "because (1) no African-Americans lived in [respondents'] home; (2) [respondents], a Caucasian couple, purchased the residence several months before the *1992
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per_curiam
| 2,007 | 200 |
per_curiam
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Los Angeles County, California v. Rettele
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145728/los-angeles-county-california-v-rettele/
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Caucasian couple, purchased the residence several months before the *1992 search and the deputies did not conduct an ownership inquiry; (3) the African-American suspects were not accused of a crime that required an emergency search; and (4) [respondents] were ordered out of bed naked and held at gunpoint while the deputies searched their bedroom for the suspects and a gun, we find that a reasonable jury could conclude that the search and detention were `unnecessarily painful, degrading, or prolonged,' and involved `an undue invasion of privacy,' (9th Cir.1994)." Turning to whether respondents' Fourth Amendment rights were clearly established, the majority held that a reasonable deputy should have known the search and detention were unlawful. Judge Cowen dissented. In his view the deputies had authority to detain respondents for the duration of the search and were justified in ordering respondents from their bed because weapons could have been concealed under the bedcovers. He also concluded that, assuming a constitutional violation, the law was not clearly established. The Court of Appeals denied rehearing and rehearing en banc. II Because respondents were of a different race than the suspects the deputies were seeking, the Court of Appeals held that "[a]fter taking one look at [respondents], the deputies should have realized that [respondents] were not the subjects of the search warrant and did not pose a threat to the deputies' safety." We need not pause long in rejecting this unsound proposition. When the deputies ordered respondents from their bed, they had no way of knowing whether the African-American suspects were elsewhere in the house. The presence of some Caucasians in the residence did not eliminate the possibility that the suspects lived there as well. As the deputies stated in their affidavits, it is not uncommon in our society for people of different races to live together. Just as people of different races live and work together, so too might they engage in joint criminal activity. The deputies, who were searching a house where they believed a suspect might be armed, possessed authority to secure the premises before deciding whether to continue with the search. In this Court held that officers executing a search warrant for contraband may "detain the occupants of the premises while a proper search is conducted." In weighing whether the search in was reasonable the Court first found that "detention represents only an incremental intrusion on personal liberty when the search of a home has been authorized by a valid warrant." Against that interest, it balanced "preventing flight in the event that incriminating evidence is found"; "minimizing the risk of harm
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per_curiam
| 2,007 | 200 |
per_curiam
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Los Angeles County, California v. Rettele
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145728/los-angeles-county-california-v-rettele/
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that incriminating evidence is found"; "minimizing the risk of harm to the officers"; and facilitating "the orderly completion of the search." In executing a search warrant officers may take reasonable action to secure the premises and to ensure their own safety and the efficacy of the search. ; see also (KENNEDY, J., concurring); Unreasonable actions include the use of excessive force or restraints that cause unnecessary pain or are imposed for a prolonged and unnecessary period of time. ; The orders by the police to the occupants, in the context of this lawful search, were permissible, and perhaps necessary, to protect the safety of the deputies. Blankets and bedding can conceal a weapon, and one of the suspects was known to own a firearm, factors which underscore this point. The Constitution does not require an officer to ignore the possibility that an armed suspect may sleep with a weapon within reach. The reports are replete with accounts of suspects sleeping close to weapons. See United ; see also United ; United ; (officers "pulled back the bed covers and found a38 caliber Model 10 Smith and Wesson revolver located near where defendant's left hand had been"); The deputies needed a moment to secure the room and ensure that other persons were not close by or did not present a danger. Deputies were not required to turn their backs to allow Rettele and Sadler to retrieve clothing or to cover themselves with the sheets. Rather, "[t]he risk of harm to both the police and the occupants is minimized if the officers routinely exercise unquestioned command of the situation." 452 U.S., This is not to say, of course, that the deputies were free to force Rettele and Sadler to remain motionless and standing for any longer than necessary. We have recognized that "special circumstances, or possibly a prolonged detention" might render a search unreasonable. See n. 21, There is no accusation that the detention here was prolonged. The deputies left the home less than 15 minutes after arriving. The detention was shorter and less restrictive than the 2- to 3-hour handcuff detention upheld in See 544 U.S., And there is no allegation that the deputies prevented Sadler and Rettele from dressing longer than necessary to protect their safety. Sadler was unclothed for no more than two minutes, and Rettele for only slightly more time than that. Sadler testified that once the police were satisfied that no immediate threat was presented, "they wanted us to get dressed and they were pressing us really fast to hurry up and get some clothes on." Deposition
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per_curiam
| 2,007 | 200 |
per_curiam
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Los Angeles County, California v. Rettele
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145728/los-angeles-county-california-v-rettele/
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fast to hurry up and get some clothes on." Deposition of Judy Lorraine Sadler in No. CV-0206262-RSWL (RNBX) Doc. 26, Exh. 4, p. 55. The Fourth Amendment allows warrants to issue on probable cause, a standard well short of absolute certainty. Valid warrants will issue to search the innocent, and people like Rettele and Sadler unfortunately bear the cost. Officers executing search warrants on occasion enter a house when residents are engaged in private activity; and the resulting frustration, embarrassment, and humiliation may be real, as was true here. When officers execute a valid warrant and act in a reasonable manner to protect themselves *1994 from harm, however, the Fourth Amendment is not violated. As respondents' constitutional rights were not violated, "there is no necessity for further inquiries concerning qualified immunity." 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. Justice SOUTER would deny the petition for a writ of certiorari. Justice STEVENS, with whom Justice GINSBURG joins, concurring in the judgment.
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per_curiam
| 2,002 | 200 |
per_curiam
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Woodford v. Visciotti
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/122243/woodford-v-visciotti/
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The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the grant of habeas relief to respondent John after concluding that he had been prejudiced by ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. Because this decision exceeds the limits imposed on federal habeas review by (d), we reverse. I Respondent and a co-worker, Brian Hefner, devised a plan to rob two fellow employees, Timothy Dykstra and Michael Wolbert, on November 8, 1982, their payday. They invited the pair to join them at a party. As the four were driving to that supposed destination in Wolbert's car, respondent asked Wolbert to stop in a remote area so that he could relieve himself. When all four men had left the car, respondent pulled a gun, demanded the victims' wallets (which turned out to be almost empty), and got Wolbert to tell him where in the car the cash was hidden. After Hefner had retrieved the cash, respondent walked over to the seated Dykstra and killed him with a shot in the chest from a distance of three or four feet. Respondent then raised the gun in both hands and shot Wolbert three times, in the torso and left shoulder, and finally, from a distance of about two feet, in the left eye. Respondent and Hefner fled the scene in Wolbert's car. Wolbert miraculously survived to testify against them. Respondent was convicted by a California jury of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and armed robbery, with a special-circumstance finding that the murder was committed during the commission of a robbery. The same jury determined that respondent should suffer death. The California Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence. *21 Respondent filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the California Supreme Court, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. That court appointed a referee to hold an evidentiary hearing and make findings of factafter which, and after briefing on the merits, it denied the petition in a lengthy opinion. In re The California Supreme Court assumed that respondent's trial counsel provided constitutionally inadequate representation during the penalty phase, but concluded that this did not prejudice the jury's sentencing decision. 1006. Respondent filed a federal habeas petition in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. That court determined that respondent had been denied effective assistance of counsel during the penalty phase of his trial, and granted the habeas petition as to his sentence. The State appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Court of Appeals correctly observed that a federal habeas application can only be granted if
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per_curiam
| 2,002 | 200 |
per_curiam
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Woodford v. Visciotti
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/122243/woodford-v-visciotti/
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that a federal habeas application can only be granted if it meets the requirements of (d), which provides: "An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim "(1) 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; or "(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." The Court of Appeals found that the California Supreme Court decision ran afoul of both the "contrary to" and the *22 "unreasonable application" conditions of 2254(d)(1), and affirmed the District Court's grant of relief. See -1119. The State of California petitioned for a writ of certiorari, which we now grant along with respondent's motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. II A We consider first the Ninth Circuit's holding that the California Supreme Court's decision was "contrary to" our decision in held that to prove prejudice the defendant must establish a "reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different," ; it specifically rejected the proposition that the defendant had to prove it more likely than not that the outcome would have been altered, The Court of Appeals read the State Supreme Court opinion in this case as applying the latter test as requiring respondent to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the result of the sentencing proceedings would have been different. See -1109. That is, in our view, a mischaracterization of the state-court opinion, which expressed and applied the proper standard for evaluating prejudice. The California Supreme Court began its analysis of the prejudice inquiry by setting forth the "reasonable probability" criterion, with a citation of the relevant passage in ; and it proceeded to state that "[t]he question we must answer is whether there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors and omissions, the sentencing authority would have found that the balance of aggravating and mitigating factors did not warrant imposition of the death penalty," again with a citation of In re (citing ). Twice, the court framed its inquiry as *23 turning on whether there was a "reasonable probability" that the sentencing jury would have reached a more favorable penalty-phase 1004. The
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per_curiam
| 2,002 | 200 |
per_curiam
|
Woodford v. Visciotti
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/122243/woodford-v-visciotti/
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jury would have reached a more favorable penalty-phase 1004. The following passage, moreover, was central to the California Supreme Court's analysis: "In In re Fields, we addressed the process by which the court assesses prejudice at the penalty phase of a capital trial at which counsel was, allegedly, incompetent in failing to present mitigating evidence: `What kind of evidentiary showing will undermine confidence in the outcome of a penalty trial that has resulted in a death verdict? and the cases it cites offer some guidance. United States v. Agurs, the first case cited by spoke of evidence which raised a reasonable doubt, although not necessarily of such character as to create a substantial likelihood of acquittal. United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, the second case cited by referred to evidence which is "material and favorable in ways not merely cumulative."'" at -354, "Undermin[ing] confidence in the outcome" is exactly 's description of what is meant by the "reasonable probability" standard. "A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." Despite all these citations of, and quotations from, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the California Supreme Court had held respondent to a standard of proof higher than what that case prescribes for one reason: in three places (there was in fact a fourth) the opinion used the term "probable" without the modifier "reasonably." -1109, and n. 11. This was error. The California Supreme Court's opinion painstakingly describes the standard. Its occasional shorthand reference to that *24 standard by use of the term "probable" without the modifier may perhaps be imprecise, but if so it can no more be considered a repudiation of the standard than can this Court's own occasional indulgence in the same imprecision. See ; The Court of Appeals made no effort to reconcile the state court's use of the term "probable" with its use, elsewhere, of 's term "reasonably probable," nor did it even acknowledge, much less discuss, the California Supreme Court's proper framing of the question as whether the evidence "undermines confidence" in the outcome of the sentencing proceeding. This readiness to attribute error is inconsistent with the presumption that state courts know and follow the law. See, e.g., ; overruled on other grounds, ; It is also incompatible with 2254(d)'s "highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings," which demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt. B The Court of Appeals also held that, regardless of whether the California Supreme Court applied the proper standard for determining prejudice under its decision involved an unreasonable application of our clearly established Specifically, the
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per_curiam
| 2,002 | 200 |
per_curiam
|
Woodford v. Visciotti
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/122243/woodford-v-visciotti/
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involved an unreasonable application of our clearly established Specifically, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the determination that suffered no prejudice as a result of his trial counsel's deficiencies was "objectively unreasonable." Under 2254(d)'s "unreasonable application" clause, a federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the state-court decision applied *25 incorrectly. See ; Rather, it is the habeas applicant's burden to show that the state court applied to the facts of his case in an objectively unreasonable manner. An "unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law." ; see The Ninth Circuit did not observe this distinction, but ultimately substituted its own judgment for that of the state court, in contravention of (d). The Ninth Circuit based its conclusion of "objective unreasonableness" upon its perception (1) that the California Supreme Court failed to "take into account" the totality of the available mitigating evidence, and "to consider" the prejudicial impact of certain of counsel's actions, and (2) that the "aggravating factors were not overwhelming." There is no support for the first of these contentions. All of the mitigating evidence, and all of counsel's prejudicial actions, that the Ninth Circuit specifically referred to as having been left out of account or consideration were in fact described in the California Supreme Court's lengthy and careful opinion. The Court of Appeals asserted that the California Supreme Court "completely ignored the mitigating effect of 's brain damage," and failed to consider the prejudicial effect of counsel's "multiple concessions during closing argument." However, the California Supreme Court specifically considered the fact that an expert "had testified at the guilt phase that [] had a minimal brain injury of a type associated with impulse disorder and learning disorder." In re And it noted that under the trial court's instructions, this and other evidence that had been introduced "might have been considered mitigating at the penalty phase," despite trial counsel's concessions during closing argument. *26 The California Supreme Court then focused on counsel's failure to introduce mitigating evidence about respondent's background, including expert testimony that could have been presented about his "growing up in a dysfunctional family in which he suffered continual psychological abuse." This discussion referred back to a lengthy, detailed discussion about the undiscovered mitigating evidence that trial counsel might have presented during the penalty phase. See -998. The California Supreme Court concluded that despite the failure to present evidence of respondent's "troubled family background," which included his being "berated," being "markedly lacking in self-esteem and depressed," having been "born
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per_curiam
| 2,002 | 200 |
per_curiam
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Woodford v. Visciotti
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/122243/woodford-v-visciotti/
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being "markedly lacking in self-esteem and depressed," having been "born with club feet," having "feelings of inadequacy, incompetence, inferiority," and the like, moving "20 times" while he was growing up, and possibly suffering a "seizure disorder," -998, the aggravating factors were overwhelming. In the state court's judgment, the circumstances of the crime (a cold-blooded execution-style killing of one victim and attempted execution-style killing of another, both during the course of a preplanned armed robbery) coupled with the aggravating evidence of prior offenses (the knifing of one man, and the stabbing of a pregnant woman as she lay in bed trying to protect her unborn baby) was devastating. See ; see also The California Supreme Court found these aggravating factors to be so severe that it concluded respondent suffered no prejudice from trial counsel's (assumed) inadequacy. In re The Court of Appeals disagreed with this assessment, suggesting that the fact that the jury deliberated for a full day and requested additional guidance on the meaning of "moral justification" and "extreme duress" meant that the "aggravating factors were not overwhelming." *27 Perhaps so. However, "under 2254(d)(1), it is not enough to convince a federal habeas court that, in its independent judgment, the state-court decision applied incorrectly." The federal habeas scheme leaves primary responsibility with the state courts for these judgments, and authorizes federal-court intervention only when a state-court decision is objectively unreasonable. It is not that here. Whether or not we would reach the same conclusion as the California Supreme Court, "we think at the very least that the state court's contrary assessment was not `unreasonable.'" Habeas relief is therefore not permissible under 2254(d). * * * The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is Reversed
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678133/pom-wonderful-llc-v-coca-cola-co/
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POM Wonderful LLC makes and sells pomegranate juice products, including a pomegranate-blueberry juice blend. App. 23a. One of POM’s competitors is the Coca- Cola Company. Coca-Cola’s Minute Maid Division makes a juice blend sold with a label that, in describing the con- tents, displays the words “pomegranate blueberry” with far more prominence than other words on the label that show the juice to be a blend of five juices. In truth, the Coca-Cola product contains but 0.3% pomegranate juice and 0.2% blueberry juice. Alleging that the use of that label is deceptive and misleading, POM sued Coca-Cola under of the Lan- ham Act. as amended, 15 U.S. C. That provision allows one competitor to sue another if it alleges unfair competition arising from false or misleading product descriptions. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that, in the realm of labeling for food and beverages, a Lanham Act claim like POM’s is precluded by a second federal statute. The second statute is the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), which forbids the 2 POM WONDERFUL LLC v. COCA-COLA CO. Opinion of the Court misbranding of food, including by means of false or mis- leading labeling. 403, 1047, as amended, 21 U.S. C. 343. The ruling that POM’s Lanham Act cause of action is precluded by the FDCA was incorrect. There is no statu- tory text or established interpretive principle to support the contention that the FDCA precludes Lanham Act suits like the one brought by POM in this case. Nothing in the text, history, or structure of the FDCA or the Lanham Act shows the congressional purpose or design to forbid these suits. Quite to the contrary, the FDCA and the Lanham Act complement each other in the federal regulation of misleading food and beverage labels. Competitors, in their own interest, may bring Lanham Act claims like POM’s that challenge food and beverage labels that are regulated by the FDCA. I A This case concerns the intersection and complementar- ity of these two federal laws. A proper beginning point is a description of the statutes. Congress enacted the Lanham Act nearly seven decades ago. See (16). As the Court explained earlier this Term, it “requires no guesswork” to ascertain Congress’ intent regarding this federal law, for Congress included a “detailed statement of the statute’s purposes.” Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U. S. (2014) (slip op., at 12). Section 45 of the Lanham Act provides: “The intent of this chapter is to regulate commerce within the control of Congress by making actionable the deceptive and
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678133/pom-wonderful-llc-v-coca-cola-co/
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the control of Congress by making actionable the deceptive and misleading use of marks in such commerce; to protect registered marks used in such commerce from interference by State, or territorial legislation; to protect persons engaged in such com- Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 3 Opinion of the Court merce against unfair competition; to prevent fraud and deception in such commerce by the use of repro- ductions, copies, counterfeits, or colorable imitations of registered marks; and to provide rights and reme- dies stipulated by treaties and conventions respecting trademarks, trade names, and unfair competition en- tered into between the United States and foreign na- tions.” 15 U.S. C. The Lanham Act’s trademark provisions are the primary means of achieving these ends. ut the Act also creates a federal remedy “that goes beyond trademark protection.” Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 539 U.S. 23, 29 (2003). The broader remedy is at issue here. The Lanham Act creates a cause of action for unfair competition through misleading advertising or labeling. Though in the end consumers also benefit from the Act’s proper enforcement, the cause of action is for competitors, not consumers. The term “competitor” is used in this opinion to indicate all those within the class of persons and entities protected by the Lanham Act. Competitors are within the class that may invoke the Lanham Act because they may suffer “an injury to a commercial interest in sales or business repu- tation proximately caused by [a] defendant’s misrepresen- tations.” at (slip op., at 22). The petitioner here asserts injury as a competitor. The cause of action the Act creates imposes civil liability on any person who “uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading descrip- tion of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which misrepresents the nature, characteristics, quali- ties, or geographic origin of his or her or another person’s goods, services, or commercial activities.” 15 U.S. C. As the Court held this Term, the private 4 POM WONDERFUL LLC v. COCA-COLA CO. Opinion of the Court remedy may be invoked only by those who “allege an injury to a commercial interest in reputation or sales. A consumer who is hoodwinked into purchasing a disap- pointing product may well have an injury-in-fact cogniza- ble under Article III, but he cannot invoke the protection of the Lanham Act.” 572 U. S., at (slip op., at 13). This principle reflects the Lanham Act’s purpose of “ ‘protect[ing] persons engaged in [commerce within the control
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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of “ ‘protect[ing] persons engaged in [commerce within the control of Congress] against unfair competition.’ ” at (slip op., at 12). POM’s cause of action would be straightforward enough but for Coca-Cola’s contention that a separate federal statutory regime, the FDCA, al- lows it to use the label in question and in fact precludes the Lanham Act claim. So the FDCA is the second statute to be discussed. The FDCA statutory regime is designed primarily to protect the health and safety of the public at large. See 62 Cases of ; FDCA, 21 U.S. C. (agency may issue certain regulations to “promote honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers”). The FDCA prohibits the misbranding of food and drink. 21 U.S. C. 331. A food or drink is deemed misbranded if, inter alia, “its labeling is false or misleading,” information re- quired to appear on its label “is not prominently placed thereon,” or a label does not bear “the common or usual name of the food, if any there be,” To im- plement these provisions, the Food and Drug Administra- tion (FDA) promulgated regulations regarding food and beverage labeling, including the labeling of mixes of dif- ferent types of juice into one juice blend. See 21 CFR (2013). One provision of those regulations is particularly relevant to this case: If a juice blend does not name all the juices it contains and mentions only juices that are not predominant in the blend, then it must either declare the percentage content of the named juice or Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 5 Opinion of the Court “[i]ndicate that the named juice is present as a flavor or flavoring,” e.g., “raspberry and cranberry flavored juice drink.” (d). The Government represents that the FDA does not preapprove juice labels under these regula- tions. See rief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Opposition 16. That contrasts with the FDA’s regulation of other types of labels, such as drug labels, see 21 U.S. C. and is consistent with the less extensive role the FDA plays in the regulation of food than in the regulation of drugs. Unlike the Lanham Act, which relies in substantial part for its enforcement on private suits brought by injured competitors, the FDCA and its regulations provide the United States with nearly exclusive enforcement author- ity, including the authority to seek criminal sanctions in some circumstances. 21 U.S. C. 337. Private parties may not bring enforcement suits. Also unlike the Lanham Act, the FDCA contains a provision pre-empting certain state laws on misbranding. That provision, which Congress added
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678133/pom-wonderful-llc-v-coca-cola-co/
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certain state laws on misbranding. That provision, which Congress added to the FDCA in the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, 104 Stat. 2362–2364, forecloses a “State or political subdivi- sion of a State” from establishing requirements that are of the type but “not identical to” the requirements in some of the misbranding provisions of the FDCA. 21 U.S. C. It does not address, or refer to, other federal statutes or the preclusion thereof. POM Wonderful LLC is a grower of pomegranates and a distributor of pomegranate juices. Through its POM Wonderful brand, POM produces, markets, and sells a variety of pomegranate products, including a pomegranate- blueberry juice blend. App. 23a. POM competes in the pomegranate-blueberry juice market with the Coca-Cola Company. Coca-Cola, under 6 POM WONDERFUL LLC v. COCA-COLA CO. Opinion of the Court its Minute Maid brand, created a juice blend containing 99.4% apple and grape juices, 0.3% pomegranate juice, 0.2% blueberry juice, and 0.1% raspberry juice. at 38a; rief for Respondent 8. Despite the minuscule amount of pomegranate and blueberry juices in the blend, the front label of the Coca-Cola product displays the words “pomegranate blueberry” in all capital letters, on two separate lines. App. 38a. elow those words, Coca-Cola placed the phrase “flavored blend of 5 juices” in much smaller type. And below that phrase, in still smaller type, were the words “from concentrate with added ingre- dients”—and, with a line break before the final phrase— “and other natural flavors.” The product’s front label also displays a vignette of blueberries, grapes, and raspberries in front of a halved pomegranate and a halved apple. Claiming that Coca-Cola’s label tricks and deceives consumers, all to POM’s injury as a competitor, POM brought suit under the Lanham Act. POM alleged that the name, label, marketing, and advertising of Coca-Cola’s juice blend mislead consumers into believing the product consists predominantly of pomegranate and blueberry juice when it in fact consists predominantly of less expen- sive apple and grape juices. at 27a. That confusion, POM complained, causes it to lose sales. at 28a. POM sought damages and injunctive relief. at 32a–33a. The District Court granted partial summary judgment to Coca-Cola on POM’s Lanham Act claim, ruling that the FDCA and its regulations preclude challenges to the name and label of Coca-Cola’s juice blend. The District Court reasoned that in the juice blend regulations the “FDA has directly spoken on the issues that form the basis of Pom’s Lanham Act claim against the naming and labeling of ” Coca-Cola’s product, but has not prohibited any, and indeed expressly has permitted some,
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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has not prohibited any, and indeed expressly has permitted some, aspects of Coca- Cola’s label. Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 7 Opinion of the Court The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in relevant part. Like the District Court, the Court of Ap- peals reasoned that Congress decided “to entrust matters of juice beverage labeling to the FDA”; the FDA has prom- ulgated “comprehensive regulation of that labeling”; and the FDA “apparently” has not imposed the requirements on Coca-Cola’s label that are sought by POM. 679 F.3d 1170, 1178 (2012). “[U]nder [Circuit] precedent,” the Court of Appeals explained, “for a court to act when the FDA has not—despite regulating extensively in this area— would risk undercutting the FDA’s expert judgments and authority.” For these reasons, and “[o]ut of respect for the statutory and regulatory scheme,” the Court of Appeals barred POM’s Lanham Act claim. at 1178. II A This Court granted certiorari to consider whether a private party may bring a Lanham Act claim challenging a food label that is regulated by the FDCA. 571 U. S. (2014). The answer to that question is based on the fol- lowing premises. First, this is not a pre-emption case. In pre-emption cases, the question is whether state law is pre-empted by a federal statute, or in some instances, a federal agency action. See This case, however, concerns the alleged preclusion of a cause of action under one federal statute by the provisions of another federal statute. So the state-federal balance does not frame the inquiry. ecause this is a preclusion case, any “presumption against pre-emption,” n. 3, has no force. In addition, the preclusion analysis is not governed by the Court’s complex categorization of the types of pre-emption. See Although 8 POM WONDERFUL LLC v. COCA-COLA CO. Opinion of the Court the Court’s pre-emption precedent does not govern preclu- sion analysis in this case, its principles are instructive insofar as they are designed to assess the interaction of laws that bear on the same subject. Second, this is a statutory interpretation case and the Court relies on traditional rules of statutory interpreta- tion. That does not change because the case involves multiple federal statutes. See Nor does it change because an agency is involved. See Analysis of the statutory text, aided by established princi- ples of interpretation, controls. See Chickasaw Nation v. United States, A principle of interpretation is “often countered, of course, by some maxim pointing in a different direction.” Circuit City Stores, It is thus unsurprising that in this case a thresh- old dispute has arisen as
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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in this case a thresh- old dispute has arisen as to which of two competing max- ims establishes the proper framework for decision. POM argues that this case concerns whether one statute, the FDCA as amended, is an “implied repeal” in part of an- other statute, i.e., the Lanham Act. See, e.g., Carcieri v. Salazar, POM contends that in such cases courts must give full effect to both statutes unless they are in “irreconcilable conflict,” see ib and that this high standard is not satisfied here. Coca-Cola resists this canon and its high standard. Coca-Cola argues that the case concerns whether a more specific law, the FDCA, clarifies or narrows the scope of a more general law, the Lanham Act. See, e.g., United ; rief for Respondent 18. The Court’s task, it claims, is to “reconcil[e]” the laws, ib and it says the best reconciliation is that the more specific provisions of the FDCA bar certain causes of action au- thorized in a general manner by the Lanham Act. The Court does not need to resolve this dispute. Even Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 9 Opinion of the Court assuming that Coca-Cola is correct that the Court’s task is to reconcile or harmonize the statutes and not, as POM urges, to enforce both statutes in full unless there is a genuinely irreconcilable conflict, Coca-Cola is incorrect that the best way to harmonize the statutes is to bar POM’s Lanham Act claim. eginning with the text of the two statutes, it must be observed that neither the Lanham Act nor the FDCA, in express terms, forbids or limits Lanham Act claims chal- lenging labels that are regulated by the FDCA. y its terms, the Lanham Act subjects to suit any person who “misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin” of goods or services. 15 U.S. C. This comprehensive imposition of liability ex- tends, by its own terms, to misrepresentations on labels, including food and beverage labels. No other provision in the Lanham Act limits that understanding or purports to govern the relevant interaction between the Lanham Act and the FDCA. And the FDCA, by its terms, does not preclude Lanham Act suits. In consequence, food and beverage labels regulated by the FDCA are not, under the terms of either statute, off limits to Lanham Act claims. No textual provision in either statute discloses a purpose to bar unfair competition claims like POM’s. This absence is of special significance because the Lan- ham Act and the FDCA have coexisted since the passage of the Lanham Act in 16. (16); ch.
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678133/pom-wonderful-llc-v-coca-cola-co/
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the passage of the Lanham Act in 16. (16); ch. 675, (1938). If Congress had concluded, in light of experience, that Lanham Act suits could interfere with the FDCA, it might well have enacted a provision address- ing the issue during these 70 years. See at 574 (“If Congress thought state-law suits posed an obsta- cle to its objectives, it surely would have enacted an ex- press pre-emption provision at some point during the 10 POM WONDERFUL LLC v. COCA-COLA CO. Opinion of the Court FDCA’s 70-year history”). Congress enacted amendments to the FDCA and the Lanham Act, see, e.g., Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, ; Trademark Law Revision Act of 1988, 102 Stat. 36, including an amendment that added to the FDCA an express pre-emption provision with respect to state laws addressing food and beverage misbranding, 104 Stat. 2362. Yet Congress did not enact a provision addressing the preclusion of other federal laws that might bear on food and beverage labeling. This is “powerful evidence that Congress did not intend FDA oversight to be the exclusive means” of ensuring proper food and beverage labeling. See Perhaps the closest the statutes come to addressing the preclusion of the Lanham Act claim at issue here is the pre-emption provision added to the FDCA in 1990 as part of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act. See 21 U.S. C. ut, far from expressly precluding suits arising under other federal laws, the provision if anything suggests that Lanham Act suits are not precluded. This pre-emption provision forbids a “State or political subdivision of a State” from imposing requirements that are of the type but “not identical to” corresponding FDCA requirements for food and beverage labeling. It is significant that the complex pre-emption provision distin- guishes among different FDCA requirements. It forbids state-law requirements that are of the type but not identi- cal to only certain FDCA provisions with respect to food and beverage labeling. See (citing some but not all of the subsections of – 2364 (codified at 21 U.S. C. and note following). Just as significant, the provision does not refer to re- quirements imposed by other sources of law, such as fed- eral statutes. For purposes of deciding whether the FDCA displaces a regulatory or liability scheme in another stat- ute, it makes a substantial difference whether that other Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 11 Opinion of the Court statute is state or federal. y taking care to mandate express pre-emption of some state laws, Congress if any- thing indicated it did not intend the FDCA to preclude
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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thing indicated it did not intend the FDCA to preclude requirements arising from other sources. See Setser v. United States, 566 U. S. (2012) (slip op., at 6–7) (applying principle of expressio unius est exclusio alterius). Pre-emption of some state requirements does not suggest an intent to preclude federal claims. The structures of the FDCA and the Lanham Act rein- force the conclusion drawn from the text. When two stat- utes complement each other, it would show disregard for the congressional design to hold that Congress nonethe- less intended one federal statute to preclude the operation of the other. See J. E. M. Ag (“[W]e can plainly regard each statute as effective because of its different requirements and protections”); see also at 578–579. The Lanham Act and the FDCA complement each other in major respects, for each has its own scope and purpose. Although both statutes touch on food and beverage labeling, the Lanham Act protects commercial interests against unfair competition, while the FDCA protects public health and safety. Compare 572 U. S., at (slip op., at 12–13), with 62 Cases of Jam, 340 U.S., at The two statutes impose “different require- ments and protections.” J. E. M. Ag at The two statutes complement each other with respect to remedies in a more fundamental respect. Enforcement of the FDCA and the detailed prescriptions of its implement- ing regulations is largely committed to the FDA. The FDA, however, does not have the same perspective or expertise in assessing market dynamics that day-to-day competitors possess. Competitors who manufacture or distribute products have detailed knowledge regarding how consumers rely upon certain sales and marketing strategies. Their awareness of unfair competition prac- 12 POM WONDERFUL LLC v. COCA-COLA CO. Opinion of the Court tices may be far more immediate and accurate than that of agency rulemakers and regulators. Lanham Act suits draw upon this market expertise by empowering private parties to sue competitors to protect their interests on a case-by-case basis. y “serv[ing] a distinct compensatory function that may motivate injured persons to come for- ward,” Lanham Act suits, to the extent they touch on the same subject matter as the FDCA, “provide incentives” for manufacturers to behave well. See Allowing Lanham Act suits takes advantage of synergies among multiple methods of regulation. This is quite consistent with the congressional design to enact two different stat- utes, each with its own mechanisms to enhance the protec- tion of competitors and consumers. A holding that the FDCA precludes Lanham Act claims challenging food and beverage labels would not only ignore the distinct functional aspects of
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678133/pom-wonderful-llc-v-coca-cola-co/
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labels would not only ignore the distinct functional aspects of the FDCA and the Lan- ham Act but also would lead to a result that Congress likely did not intend. Unlike other types of labels regu- lated by the FDA, such as drug labels, see 21 U.S. C. it would appear the FDA does not preapprove food and beverage labels under its regulations and instead relies on enforcement actions, warning letters, and other measures. See rief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Opposition 16. ecause the FDA acknowledges that it does not necessarily pursue enforcement measures regard- ing all objectionable labels, ib if Lanham Act claims were to be precluded then commercial interests—and indirectly the public at large—could be left with less effec- tive protection in the food and beverage labeling realm than in many other, less regulated industries. It is un- likely that Congress intended the FDCA’s protection of health and safety to result in less policing of misleading food and beverage labels than in competitive markets for other products. Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 13 Opinion of the Court C Coca-Cola argues the FDCA precludes POM’s Lanham Act claim because Congress intended national uniformity in food and beverage labeling. Coca-Cola notes three aspects of the FDCA to support that position: delegation of enforcement authority to the Federal Government rather than private parties; express pre-emption with respect to state laws; and the specificity of the FDCA and its imple- menting regulations. ut these details of the FDCA do not establish an intent or design to preclude Lanham Act claims. Coca-Cola says that the FDCA’s delegation of enforce- ment authority to the Federal Government shows Con- gress’ intent to achieve national uniformity in labeling. ut POM seeks to enforce the Lanham Act, not the FDCA or its regulations. The centralization of FDCA enforce- ment authority in the Federal Government does not indi- cate that Congress intended to foreclose private enforce- ment of other federal statutes. Coca-Cola next appeals to the pre-emption provision added to the FDCA in 1990. See It argues that allowing Lanham Act claims to proceed would undermine the pre-emption provision’s goal of ensuring that food and beverage manufacturers can market nationally without the burden of complying with a patchwork of require- ments. A significant flaw in this argument is that the pre- emption provision by its plain terms applies only to cer- tain state-law requirements, not to federal law. See Part II–, Coca-Cola in effect asks the Court to ignore the words “State or political subdivision of a State” in the statute. Even if it
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678133/pom-wonderful-llc-v-coca-cola-co/
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subdivision of a State” in the statute. Even if it were proper to stray from the text in this way, it is far from clear that Coca-Cola’s assertions about na- tional uniformity in fact reflect the congressional design. Although the application of a federal statute such as the Lanham Act by judges and juries in courts throughout the 14 POM WONDERFUL LLC v. COCA-COLA CO. Opinion of the Court country may give rise to some variation in outcome, this is the means Congress chose to enforce a national policy to ensure fair competition. It is quite different from the disuniformity that would arise from the multitude of state laws, state regulations, state administrative agency rul- ings, and state-court decisions that are partially forbidden by the FDCA’s pre-emption provision. Congress not infre- quently permits a certain amount of variability by author- izing a federal cause of action even in areas of law where national uniformity is important. Compare onito oats, Inc. v. Thunder Craft oats, Inc., (“One of the fundamental purposes behind the Patent and Copyright Clauses of the Constitution was to promote national uniformity in the realm of intellectual property”), with 35 U.S. C. (private right of action for patent infringement); see (“[T]he [FDCA] contemplates that federal juries will resolve most mis- branding claims”). The Lanham Act itself is an example of this design: Despite Coca-Cola’s protestations, the Act is uniform in extending its protection against unfair compe- tition to the whole class it describes. It is variable only to the extent that those rights are enforced on a case-by-case basis. The variability about which Coca-Cola complains is no different than the variability that any industry covered by the Lanham Act faces. And, as noted, Lanham Act actions are a means to implement a uniform policy to prohibit unfair competition in all covered markets. Finally, Coca-Cola urges that the FDCA, and particu- larly its implementing regulations, addresses food and bev- erage labeling with much more specificity than is found in the provisions of the Lanham Act. That is true. The pages of FDA rulemakings devoted only to juice-blend labeling attest to the level of detail with which the FDA has examined the subject. E.g., Food Labeling; Declara- tion of Ingredients; Common or Usual Name for Non- standardized Foods; Diluted Juice everages, 58 Fed. Reg. Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 15 Opinion of the Court 2897–2926 (1993). ecause, as we have explained, the FDCA and the Lanham Act are complementary and have separate scopes and purposes, this greater specificity would matter only if the Lanham Act and the FDCA can-
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678133/pom-wonderful-llc-v-coca-cola-co/
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matter only if the Lanham Act and the FDCA can- not be implemented in full at the same time. See RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated ank, 566 U. S. (2012) (slip op., at 5–7). ut neither the statutory structure nor the empirical evidence of which the Court is aware indicates there will be any difficulty in fully enforc- ing each statute according to its terms. See Part II–, D The Government disagrees with both Coca-Cola and POM. It submits that a Lanham Act claim is precluded “to the extent the FDCA or FDA regulations specifically require or authorize the challenged aspects of [the] label.” rief for United States as Amicus Curiae 11. Applying that standard, the Government argues that POM may not bring a Lanham Act challenge to the name of Coca-Cola’s product, but that other aspects of the label may be chal- lenged. That is because, the Government argues, the FDA regulations specifically authorize the names of juice blends but not the other aspects of the label that are at issue. In addition to raising practical concerns about drawing a distinction between regulations that “specifically authorize” a course of conduct and those that merely tolerate that course, at 10–11, the flaw in the Govern- ment’s intermediate position is the same as that in Coca- Cola’s theory of the case. The Government assumes that the FDCA and its regulations are at least in some circum- stances a ceiling on the regulation of food and beverage labeling. ut, as discussed above, Congress intended the Lanham Act and the FDCA to complement each other with respect to food and beverage labeling. 16 POM WONDERFUL LLC v. COCA-COLA CO. Opinion of the Court The Government claims that the “FDA’s juice-naming regulation reflects the agency’s ‘weigh[ing of] the compet- ing interests relevant to the particular requirement in question.’ ” (quoting Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U.S. 470, 501 (1996)). The rulemaking indeed does al- lude, at one point, to a balancing of interests: It styles a particular requirement as “provid[ing] manufacturers with flexibility for labeling products while providing consumers with information that they need.” – 2920. ut that rulemaking does not discuss or even cite the Lanham Act, and the Government cites no other statement in the rulemaking suggesting that the FDA considered the full scope of the interests the Lanham Act protects. In addition, and contrary to the language quoted above, the FDA explicitly encouraged manufacturers to include material on their labels that is not required by the regulations. A single isolated reference to a desire for flexibility is not sufficient to
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,014 | 4 |
majority
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POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678133/pom-wonderful-llc-v-coca-cola-co/
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reference to a desire for flexibility is not sufficient to transform a rule- making that is otherwise at best inconclusive as to its interaction with other federal laws into one with preclu- sive force, even on the assumption that a federal regula- tion in some instances might preclude application of a federal statute. Cf. Williamson v. Mazda Motor of Amer- ica, Inc., 562 U. S. (2011) (slip op., at 10–11). In addition, Geier v. American Honda Motor Co., 529 U.S. 861 does not support the Government’s ar- gument. In Geier, the agency enacted a regulation delib- erately allowing manufacturers to choose between differ- ent options because the agency wanted to encourage diversity in the industry. A subsequent lawsuit chal- lenged one of those choices. The Court concluded that the action was barred because it directly conflicted with the agency’s policy choice to encourage flexibility to foster innovation. Here, by contrast, the FDA has not made a policy judgment that is inconsistent with POM’s Lanham Act suit. This is not a case where a law- Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 17 Opinion of the Court suit is undermining an agency judgment, and in any event the FDA does not have authority to enforce the Lanham Act. It is necessary to recognize the implications of the United States’ argument for preclusion. The Government asks the Court to preclude private parties from availing them- selves of a well-established federal remedy because an agency enacted regulations that touch on similar subject matter but do not purport to displace that remedy or even implement the statute that is its source. Even if agency regulations with the force of law that purport to bar other legal remedies may do so, see ; see also it is a bridge too far to accept an agen- cy’s after-the-fact statement to justify that result here. An agency may not reorder federal statutory rights without congressional authorization. * * * Coca-Cola and the United States ask the Court to ele- vate the FDCA and the FDA’s regulations over the private cause of action authorized by the Lanham Act. ut the FDCA and the Lanham Act complement each other in the federal regulation of misleading labels. Congress did not intend the FDCA to preclude Lanham Act suits like POM’s. The position Coca-Cola takes in this Court that because food and beverage labeling is involved it has no Lanham Act liability here for practices that allegedly mislead and trick consumers, all to the injury of competi- tors, finds no support in precedent or the statutes. The judgment of the Court of
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Justice Stevens
| 2,002 | 16 |
dissenting
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Republican Party of Minn. v. White
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/121170/republican-party-of-minn-v-white/
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In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ginsburg has cogently explained why the Court's holding is unsound. I therefore join her opinion without reservation. I add these comments to emphasize the force of her arguments and to explain why I find the Court's reasoning even more troubling than its holding. The limits of the Court's holding are evident: Even if the Minnesota Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board (Board) may not sanction a judicial candidate for announcing his views on issues likely to come before him, it may surely advise the electorate that such announcements demonstrate the speaker's unfitness for judicial office. If the solution to harmful speech must be more speech, so be it. The Court's reasoning, however, will unfortunately endure beyond the next election cycle. By obscuring the fundamental distinction between campaigns for the judiciary and the political branches, and by failing to recognize the difference between statements made in articles or opinions and those made on the campaign trail, the Court defies any sensible notion of the judicial office and the importance of impartiality in that context. The Court's disposition rests on two seriously flawed premisesan inaccurate appraisal of the importance of judicial independence and impartiality, and an assumption that judicial candidates should have the same freedom "`to express themselves on matters of current public importance' " as do all other elected officials. Ante, at 781-782. Elected judges, no less than appointed judges, occupy an office of trust that is fundamentally different from that occupied by policymaking officials. Although the fact that they must stand for election makes their job more difficult than that of the tenured judge, that fact does not lessen their duty to respect essential attributes of the judicial office that have been embedded in Anglo-American law for centuries. *798 There is a critical difference between the work of the judge and the work of other public officials. In a democracy, issues of policy are properly decided by majority vote; it is the business of legislators and executives to be popular. But in litigation, issues of law or fact should not be determined by popular vote; it is the business of judges to be indifferent to unpopularity. Sir Matthew Hale pointedly described this essential attribute of the judicial office in words which have retained their integrity for centuries: "`11. That popular or court applause or distaste have no influence in anything I do, in point of distribution of justice. "`12. Not to be solicitous what men will say or think, so long as I keep myself exactly according to the rule of justice.' "[1] Consistent with that fundamental
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Justice Stevens
| 2,002 | 16 |
dissenting
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Republican Party of Minn. v. White
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/121170/republican-party-of-minn-v-white/
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to the rule of justice.' "[1] Consistent with that fundamental attribute of the office, countless judges in countless cases routinely make rulings that are unpopular and surely disliked by at least 50 percent of the litigants who appear before them. It is equally common for them to enforce rules that they think unwise, or that are contrary to their personal predilections. For this reason, opinions that a lawyer may have expressed before becoming a judge, or a judicial candidate, do not disqualify anyone for judicial service because every good judge is fully aware of the distinction between the law and a personal point of view. It is equally clear, however, that such expressions after a lawyer has been nominated to judicial office shed little, if any, light on his capacity for judicial service. Indeed, to the extent that such statements seek to enhance the popularity of the candidate by indicating how he would rule in specific cases if elected, they evidence a lack of fitness for the office. *799 Of course, any judge who faces reelection may believe that he retains his office only so long as his decisions are popular. Nevertheless, the elected judge, like the lifetime appointee, does not serve a constituency while holding that office. He has a duty to uphold the law and to follow the dictates of the Constitution. If he is not a judge on the highest court in the State, he has an obligation to follow the precedent of that court, not his personal views or public opinion polls.[2] He may make common law, but judged on the merits of individual cases, not as a mandate from the voters. By recognizing a conflict between the demands of electoral politics and the distinct characteristics of the judiciary, we *800 do not have to put States to an all or nothing choice of abandoning judicial elections or having elections in which anything goes. As a practical matter, we cannot know for sure whether an elected judge's decisions are based on his interpretation of the law or political expediency. In the absence of reliable evidence one way or the other, a State may reasonably presume that elected judges are motivated by the highest aspirations of their office. But we do know that a judicial candidate, who announces his views in the context of a campaign, is effectively telling the electorate: "Vote for me because I believe X, and I will judge cases accordingly." Once elected, he may feel free to disregard his campaign statements, ante, at 780-781, but that does not change the fact that the
|
Justice Stevens
| 2,002 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Republican Party of Minn. v. White
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/121170/republican-party-of-minn-v-white/
|
780-781, but that does not change the fact that the judge announced his position on an issue likely to come before him as a reason to vote for him. Minnesota has a compelling interest in sanctioning such statements. A candidate for judicial office who goes beyond the expression of "general observation about the law in order to obtain favorable consideration" of his candidacy, demonstrates either a lack of impartiality or a lack of understanding of the importance of maintaining public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary. It is only by failing to recognize the distinction, clearly stated by then-Justice Rehnquist, between statements made during a campaign or confirmation hearing and those made before announcing one's candidacy, that the Court is able to conclude: "[S]ince avoiding judicial preconceptions on legal issues is neither possible nor desirable, pretending otherwise by attempting to preserve the `appearance' of that type of impartiality can hardly be a compelling state interest either," ante, at 778. Even when "impartiality" is defined in its narrowest sense to embrace only "the lack of bias for or against either party to the proceeding," ante, at 775, the announce clause serves that interest. Expressions that stress a candidate's unbroken *801 record of affirming convictions for rape,[3] for example, imply a bias in favor of a particular litigant (the prosecutor) and against a class of litigants (defendants in rape cases). Contrary to the Court's reasoning in its first attempt to define impartiality, ante, at 775-776, an interpretation of the announce clause that prohibits such statements serves the State's interest in maintaining both the appearance of this form of impartiality and its actuality. When the Court evaluates the importance of impartiality in its broadest sense, which it describes as "the interest in openmindedness, or at least in the appearance of openmindedness," ante, at 778, it concludes that the announce clause is "so woefully underinclusive as to render belief in that purpose a challenge to the credulous," ante, at 780. It is under inclusive, in the Court's view, because campaign statements are an infinitesimal portion of the public commitments to legal positions that candidates make during their professional careers. It is not, however, the number of legal views that a candidate may have formed or discussed in his prior career that is significant. Rather, it is the ability both to reevaluate them in the light of an adversarial presentation, and to apply the governing rule of law even when inconsistent with those views, that characterize judicial openmindedness. The Court boldly asserts that respondents have failed to carry their burden of demonstrating "that campaign
|
Justice Stevens
| 2,002 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Republican Party of Minn. v. White
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/121170/republican-party-of-minn-v-white/
|
have failed to carry their burden of demonstrating "that campaign statements are uniquely destructive of openmindedness," ante, at 781. But the very purpose of most statements prohibited by the announce clause is to convey the message that the candidate's mind is not open on a particular issue. The lawyer who writes an article advocating harsher penalties for polluters surely does not commit to that position to the same degree as the candidate who says "vote for me because I believe all polluters deserve harsher penalties." At the *802 very least, such statements obscure the appearance of openmindedness. More importantly, like the reasoning in the Court's opinion, they create the false impression that the standards for the election of political candidates apply equally to candidates for judicial office.[4] The Court seems to have forgotten its prior evaluation of the importance of maintaining public confidence in the "disinterestedness" of the judiciary. Commenting on the danger that participation by judges in a political assignment might erode that public confidence, we wrote: "While the problem of individual bias is usually cured through recusal, no such mechanism can overcome the appearance of institutional partiality that may arise from judiciary involvement in the making of policy. The legitimacy of the Judicial Branch ultimately depends on its reputation for impartiality and nonpartisanship. That reputation may not be borrowed by the political Branches to cloak their work in the neutral colors of judicial action." Conversely, the judicial reputation for impartiality and openmindedness is compromised by electioneering that emphasizes the candidate's personal predilections rather than his qualifications for judicial office. As an elected judge recently noted: "Informed criticism of court rulings, or of the professional or personal conduct of judges, should play an *803 important role in maintaining judicial accountability. However, attacking courts and judgesnot because they are wrong on the law or the facts of a case, but because the decision is considered wrong simply as a matter of political judgmentmaligns one of the basic tenets of judicial independenceintellectual honesty and dedication to enforcement of the rule of law regardless of popular sentiment. Dedication to the rule of law requires judges to rise above the political moment in making judicial decisions. What is so troubling about criticism of court rulings and individual judges based solely on political disagreement with the outcome is that it evidences a fundamentally misguided belief that the judicial branch should operate and be treated just like another constituency-driven political arm of government. Judges should not have `political constituencies.' Rather, a judge's fidelity must be to enforcement of the rule of law regardless of perceived
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,997 | 4 |
majority
|
Harbor Tug & Barge Co. v. Papai
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118110/harbor-tug-barge-co-v-papai/
|
Adjudication to determine whether a maritime employee is a seaman under the Jones Act, 46 U.S. C. App. 688(a), or a maritime employee covered by the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 44 Stat. (pt. 2) 1424, as amended, 33 U.S. C. 901 et seq., continues to be of concern in our system. The distinction between the two mutually exclusive categories can be difficult to implement, and many cases turn on their specific facts. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in this case that there was a jury question as to whether an injured worker was a Jones Act seaman. Granting the employer's petition for a writ of certiorari, we brought two questions before us. The first is whether an administrative ruling in favor of the employee on his claim of coverage under the LHWCA bars his claim of seaman status in the Jones Act suit he wishes to pursue in district court. The second is whether this record would permit a reasonable jury to conclude the employee is a Jones Act seaman. We resolve the second question in the employer's favor and, as it is dispositive of the case, we do not reach the first. On the question of seaman status, there is an issue of significance beyond the facts of this case. Our statement in an earlier case that a worker may establish seaman status based on the substantiality of his connection to "an identifiable group of vessels" in navigation, see has been subject to differing interpretations, and we seek to provide clarification. I Respondent John Papai was painting the housing structure of the tug Pt. Barrow when a ladder he was on moved, he alleges, causing him to fall and injure his knee. App. 50. Petitioner Harbor Tug & Barge the tug's operator, had hired Papai to do the painting work. A prime coat of paint had been applied and it was Papai's task to apply the finish coat. There was no vessel captain on board and Papai reported to the port captain, who had a dockside office. The employment was expected to begin and end the same day, and Papai was not going to sail with the vessel after he finished painting, Papai had been employed by Harbor Tug on 12 previous occasions in the 2[1]20442 months before his injury. Papai received his jobs with Harbor Tug through the Inland Boatman's Union (IBU) hiring hall. He had been getting jobs with various vessels through the hiring hall for about 2[1]20444 years. All the jobs were short term. The longest lasted about 40
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,997 | 4 |
majority
|
Harbor Tug & Barge Co. v. Papai
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118110/harbor-tug-barge-co-v-papai/
|
the jobs were short term. The longest lasted about 40 days and most were for 3 days or under. In a deposition, Papai described the work as coming under three headings: maintenance, longshoring, and deckhand. Papai said maintenance work involved chipping rust and painting aboard docked vessels. Longshoring work required helping to discharge vessels. Deckhand work involved manning the lines on- and off-board vessels while they docked or undocked. As for the assignments he obtained through the hiring hall over 2[1]20444 years, most of them, says Papai, involved deckhand work. After his alleged injury aboard the Pt. Barrow, Papai sued Harbor Tug in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming negligence under *552 the Jones Act and unseaworthiness under general maritime law, in addition to other causes of action. His wife joined as a plaintiff, claiming loss of consortium. Harbor Tug sought summary judgment on Papai's Jones Act and unseaworthiness claims, contending he was not a seaman and so could not prevail on either claim. The District Court granted Harbor Tug's motion and later denied Papai's motion for reconsideration. After our decisions in McDermott Int'l, and Southwest Marine, the District Court granted a motion by Harbor Tug "to confirm" the earlier summary adjudication of Papai's nonseaman status. The District Court reasoned, under a test since superseded, see that Papai was not a seaman within the meaning of the Jones Act or the general maritime law, because "he did not have a `more or less permanent connection' with the vessel on which he was injured nor did he perform substantial work on the vessel sufficient for seaman status." App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded for a trial of Papai's seaman status and his corresponding Jones Act and unseaworthiness claims. Based on our decision in the court described the relevant inquiry as "not whether plaintiff had a permanent connection with the vessel [but] whether plaintiff's relationship with a vessel (or a group of vessels) was substantial in terms of duration and nature, which requires consideration of the total circumstances of his employment." A majority of the panel believed it would be reasonable for a jury to conclude the employee satisfied that test. In the majority's view, "[i]f the type of work a maritime worker customarily performs would entitle him to seaman status if performed for a single employer, the worker should not be deprived of that status simply because the industry operates under a daily assignment rather than a permanent employment system." The majority also said
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,997 | 4 |
majority
|
Harbor Tug & Barge Co. v. Papai
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118110/harbor-tug-barge-co-v-papai/
|
rather than a permanent employment system." The majority also said the *553 "circumstance" that Papai had worked for Harbor Tug on 12 occasions during the 2[1]20442 months before his injury "may in itself provide a sufficient connection" to Harbor Tug's vessels to establish seaman status. Judge Poole dissented from the majority's holding that there was a triable issue as to Papai's seaman status. He recognized that held out the possibility of being a seaman without a substantial connection to a particular vessel in navigation, provided one nevertheless had the required connection to "`an identifiable group of such vessels.' " ( 515 U.S., at ). Judge Poole said, however, it would be a mistake to view as holding that, for seaman-status purposes, a "group may be identified simply as those vessels on which a sailor sails, not just those of a particular employer or controlling entity. Th[e majority's holding] renders the `identifiable group' or `fleet' requirement a nullity." Judge Poole also noted that the majority's position conflicted with that of the Fifth Circuit and of a Third Circuit panel. ; ); see also ; but see We granted certiorari, and now reverse. II The LHWCA, a maritime workers' compensation scheme, excludes from its coverage "a master or member of a crew of any vessel," 33 U.S. C. 902(3)(G). These masters and crew members are the seamen entitled to sue for damages under the Jones Act. -358. In other words, the LHWCA and the Jones Act are "mutually exclusive." *554 Our recent cases explain the proper inquiry to determine seaman status. We need not restate that doctrinal development, see at 355-; 1-354, to resolve Papai's claim. It suffices to cite which held, in pertinent part: "[T]he essential requirements for seaman status are twofold. First, an employee's duties must contribut[e] to the function of the vessel or to the accomplishment of its mission. "Second, and most important for our purposes here, a seaman must have a connection to a vessel in navigation (or to an identifiable group of such vessels) that is substantial in terms of both its duration and its nature." 515 U.S., at The seaman inquiry is a mixed question of law and fact, and it often will be inappropriate to take the question from the jury. Nevertheless, "summary judgment or a directed verdict is mandated where the facts and the law will reasonably support only one conclusion." ; see also 515 U. S., at -369. Harbor Tug does not dispute that it would be reasonable for a jury to conclude Papai's duties aboard the Pt. Barrow (or any other vessel
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,997 | 4 |
majority
|
Harbor Tug & Barge Co. v. Papai
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118110/harbor-tug-barge-co-v-papai/
|
Papai's duties aboard the Pt. Barrow (or any other vessel he worked on through the IBU hiring hall) contributed to the function of the vessel or the accomplishment of its mission, satisfying ` first standard. Nor does Harbor Tug dispute that a reasonable jury could conclude that the Pt. Barrow or other vessels Papai worked on were in navigation. The result, as will often be the case, is that seaman status turns on the part of ` second standard which requires the employee to show "a connection to a vessel in navigation (or to an identifiable group of such vessels) that is substantial in terms of both its duration and its nature." at We explained the rule as follows: *555 "The fundamental purpose of th[e] substantial connection requirement is to give full effect to the remedial scheme created by Congress and to separate the seabased maritime employees who are entitled to Jones Act protection from those land-based workers who have only a transitory or sporadic connection with a vessel in navigation, and therefore whose employment does not regularly expose them to the perils of the sea." For the substantial connection requirement to serve its purpose, the inquiry into the nature of the employee's connection to the vessel must concentrate on whether the employee's duties take him to sea. This will give substance to the inquiry both as to the duration and nature of the employee's connection to the vessel and be helpful in distinguishing land-based from sea-based employees. Papai argues, and the Court of Appeals majority held, that Papai meets ` second test based on his employments with the various vessels he worked on through the IBU hiring hall in the 2[1]20444 years before his injury, vessels owned, it appears, by three different employers not linked by any common ownership or control, App. 38. He also did longshoring work through the hiring hall, and it appears this was for still other employers, As noted above, Papai testified at his deposition that the majority of his work during this period was deckhand work. According to Papai, this satisfies because the group of vessels Papai worked on through the IBU hiring hall constitutes "an identifiable group of vessels" to which he has a "substantial connection." 515 U.S., at The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was the first to hold that a worker could qualify as a seaman based on his connection to a group of vessels rather than a particular one. In the court held the employer was not entitled to summary judgment on the seaman-status question where an *556
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,997 | 4 |
majority
|
Harbor Tug & Barge Co. v. Papai
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118110/harbor-tug-barge-co-v-papai/
|
to summary judgment on the seaman-status question where an *556 employee's job was to perform maintenance work on the employer's fleet of ferry boats, often while the boats were running: "The usual thing, of course, is for a person to have a Jones Act seaman status in relation to a particular vessel. But there is nothing about this concept to limit it mechanically to a single ship." There is "no insurmountable difficulty," the court explained, in finding seaman status based on the employee's relationship to "several specific vessels""an identifiable fleet"as opposed to a single one. We, in turn, adverted to the group of vessels concept in We described it as a rule "allow[ing] seaman status for those workers who had the requisite connection with an `identifiable fleet' of vessels, a finite group of vessels under common ownership or control." The majority in the Court of Appeals did not discuss our description of the group of vessels concept as requiring common ownership or control, nor did it discuss other Courts of Appeals cases applying the concept, see, e. g., The court pointed to this statement from : "[W]e see no reason to limit the seaman status inquiry exclusively to an examination of the overall course of a worker's service with a particular employer." -372. It interpreted this to mean "it may be necessary to examine the work performed by the employee while employed by different employers during the relevant time period." 67 F.3d, at The court did not define what it meant by "the relevant time period." In any event, the context of our statement in makes clear our meaning, which is that the employee's prior work history with a particular employer may not affect the seaman inquiry if the employee was injured on a new assignment with the same employer, an assignment with different "essential duties" from his previous In the words "particular employer" give emphasis to the point that the inquiry into the nature *557 of the employee's duties for seaman-status purposes may concentrate on a narrower, not broader, period than the employee's entire course of employment with his current employer. There was no suggestion of a need to examine the nature of an employee's duties with prior employers. See also ], the Fifth Circuit consistently has analyzed the problem [of determining seaman status] in terms of the percentage of work performed on vessels for the employer in question"). The Court of Appeals majority interpreted the words "particular employer" outside the limited discussion in which we used them and, as a result, gave the phrase a meaning opposite from
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,997 | 4 |
majority
|
Harbor Tug & Barge Co. v. Papai
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118110/harbor-tug-barge-co-v-papai/
|
as a result, gave the phrase a meaning opposite from what the context requires. The Court of Appeals stressed that various of Papai's employers had "join[ed] together to obtain a common labor pool on which they draw by means of a union hiring hall." 67 F.3d, at ; see also at n. 3 There is no evidence in the record that the contract Harbor Tug had with the IBU about employing deckhands (IBU Deckhands Agreement) was negotiated by a multi employer bargaining group, and, even if it had been, that would not affect the result here. There was no showing that the group of vessels the court sought to identify were subject to unitary ownership or control in any aspect of their business or operation. So far as the record shows, each employer was free to hire, assign, and direct workers for whatever tasks and time period they each determined, limited, at most, by the IBU Deckhands Agreement. In deciding whether there is an identifiable group of vessels of relevance for a Jones Act seaman-status determination, the question is whether the vessels are subject to common ownership or control. The requisite link is not established by the mere use of the same hiring hall which draws from the same pool of employees. *558 Considering prior employments with independent employers in making the seaman-status inquiry would undermine "the interests of employers and maritime workers alike in being able to predict who will be covered by the Jones Act (and, perhaps more importantly for purposes of the employers' workers' compensation obligations, who will be covered by the LHWCA) before a particular work day begins." There would be no principled basis for limiting which prior employments are considered for determining seaman status. The Court of Appeals spoke of a "relevant time period" but, as noted above, it did not define this term. Since the substantial connection standard is often, as here, the determinative element of the seaman inquiry, it must be given workable and practical confines. When the inquiry further turns on whether the employee has a substantial connection to an identifiable group of vessels, common ownership or control is essential for this purpose. Papai contends his various employers through the hiring hall would have been able to predict his status as a seaman under the Jones Act based on the seagoing nature of some of the duties he could have been hired to perform consistent with his classification as a "qualified deckhand" under the IBU Deckhands Agreement. By the terms of the agreement, Papai was qualified as a "satisfactory helmsman and lookout,"
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,997 | 4 |
majority
|
Harbor Tug & Barge Co. v. Papai
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118110/harbor-tug-barge-co-v-papai/
|
agreement, Papai was qualified as a "satisfactory helmsman and lookout," for example, and he could have been hired to serve a vessel while it was underway, in which case his duties would have included "conduct[ing] a check of the engine room status a minimum of two (2) times each watch for vessel safety reasons." App. 77. In South Chicago Coal & Dock v. Bassett, we rejected a claim to seaman status grounded on the employee's job title, which also happened to be "deckhand." "The question," we said, "concerns his actual duties." See also Northeast Marine Terminal v. Caputo, The question is what connection the employee had in actual fact to vessel operations, not what a union agreement says. Papai was qualified under the IBU Deckhands Agreement to perform nonseagoing work in addition to the seagoing duties described above. His actual duty on the Pt. Barrow throughout the employment in question did not include any seagoing activity; he was hired for one day to paint the vessel at dockside and he was not going to sail with the vessel after he finished painting it. App. 44, 48, 51. This is not a case where the employee was hired to perform seagoing work during the employment in question, however brief, and we need not consider here the consequences of such an employment. The IBU Deckhands Agreement gives no reason to assume that any particular percentage of Papai's work would be of a seagoing nature, subjecting him to the perils of the sea. In these circumstances, the union agreement does not advance the accuracy of the seamanstatus inquiry. Papai argues he qualifies as a seaman if we consider his 12 prior employments with Harbor Tug over the 2[1]20442 months before his injury. Papai testified at his deposition that he worked aboard the Pt. Barrow on three or four occasions before the day he was injured, the most recent of which was more than a week earlier. Each of these engagements involved only maintenance work while the tug was docked. -35. The nature of Papai's connection to the Pt. Barrow was no more substantial for seamanstatus purposes by virtue of these engagements than the one during which he was injured. Papai does not identify with specificity what he did for Harbor Tug the other eight or nine times he worked for the company in the 2[1]20442 months before his injury. The closest he comes is his deposition testimony that 70 percent of his work over the 2[1]20444 years before his injury was deckhand work. Coupled with *560 the fact that none of Papai's work
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,997 | 4 |
majority
|
Harbor Tug & Barge Co. v. Papai
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118110/harbor-tug-barge-co-v-papai/
|
Coupled with *560 the fact that none of Papai's work aboard the Pt. Barrow was of a seagoing nature, it would not be reasonable to infer from Papai's testimony that his recent engagements with Harbor Tug involved work of a seagoing nature. In any event, these discrete engagements were separate from the one in question, which was the sort of "transitory or sporadic" connection to a vessel or group of vessels that, as we explained in does not qualify one for seaman status. 515 U.S., at Jones Act coverage is confined to seamen, those workers who face regular exposure to the perils of the sea. An important part of the test for determining who is a seaman is whether the injured worker seeking coverage has a substantial connection to a vessel or a fleet of vessels, and the latter concept requires a requisite degree of common ownership or control. The substantial connection test is important in distinguishing between sea- and land-based employment, for land-based employment is inconsistent with Jones Act coverage. This was the holding in and we adhere to it here. The only connection a reasonable jury could identify among the vessels Papai worked aboard is that each hired some of its employees from the same union hiring hall from which Papai was hired. That is not sufficient to establish seaman status under the group of vessels concept. Papai had the burden at summary judgment to "set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(e). He failed to meet it. The Court of Appeals erred in holding otherwise. Its judgment is reversed. It is so ordered.
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,004 | 4 |
second_dissenting
|
Blakely v. Washington
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/136995/blakely-v-washington/
|
The majority opinion does considerable damage to our laws and to the administration of the criminal justice system for all the reasons well stated in JUSTCE O'CONNOR's dissent, plus one more: The Court, in my respectful submission, disregards the fundamental principle under our constitutional system that different branches of government "converse with each other on matters of vital common interest" As the Court in Mistretta explained, the Constitution establishes a system of government that presupposes, not just "`autonomy'" and "`separateness,'" but also "`interdependence'" and "`reciprocity'" ) Constant, constructive discourse between our courts and our legislatures is an integral and admirable part of the constitutional design Case-by-case judicial determinations often yield intelligible patterns that can be refined by legislatures and codified into statutes or rules as general standards As these legislative enactments are followed by incremental judicial interpretation, the legislatures *327 may respond again, and the cycle repeats This recurring dialogue, an essential source for the elaboration and the evolution of the law, is basic constitutional theory in action Sentencing guidelines are a prime example of this collaborative process Dissatisfied with the wide disparity in sentencing, participants in the criminal justice system, including judges, pressed for legislative reforms n response, legislators drew from these participants' shared experiences and enacted measures to correct the problems, which, as JUSTCE O'CONNOR explains, could sometimes rise to the level of a constitutional injury As Mistretta recognized, this interchange among different actors in the constitutional scheme is consistent with the Constitution's structural protections To be sure, this case concerns the work of a state legislature, and not of Congress f anything, however, this distinction counsels even greater judicial caution Unlike Mistretta, the case here implicates not just the collective wisdom of legislators on the other side of the continuing dialogue over fair sentencing, but also the interest of the States to serve as laboratories for innovation and experiment See New State ce With no apparent sense of irony that the effect of today's decision is the destruction of a sentencing scheme devised by democratically elected legislators, the majority shuts down alternative, nonjudicial, sources of ideas and experience t does so under a faintly disguised distrust of judges and their purported usurpation of the jury's function in criminal trials t tells not only trial judges who have spent years studying the problem but also legislators who have devoted valuable time and resources "calling upon the accumulated wisdom and experience of the Judicial Branch on a matter uniquely within the ken of judges," Mistretta, that their efforts and judgments were all for naught Numerous States that have enacted
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