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Justice Kennedy | 1,994 | 4 | concurring | ABF Freight System, Inc. v. NLRB | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112925/abf-freight-system-inc-v-nlrb/ | 1989, to the date of his subsequent reinstatement, and (3) the posting of a notice on ABF's premises, reciting its commitments under the cease-and-desist order, and its commitment to give *331 Manso backpay. All of this would have made it clear enough to ABF and to ABF's employees that violating the National Labor Relations Act does not pay. Had the posted notice also included, instead of ABF's commitment to reinstate Manso (which is what the Board ordered), a statement to the effect that Manso's reinstatement would have been ordered but for his false testimony, then it also would have been made clear to ABF and to ABF's employees that perjury does not pay. I would have felt no need to write separately if I thought that, as the Court puts it, the Board has simply decided "to rely on `other civil and criminal remedies' for false testimony." My impression, however, from the Board's opinion and from its presentation to this Court, is that it is really not very much concerned about false testimony. I concur in the judgment of the Court that the NLRB did nothing against the law, and regret that it missed an opportunity to do something for the law. |
Justice Stevens | 1,982 | 16 | majority | Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds v. Robinson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110664/mine-workers-health-and-retirement-funds-v-robinson/ | This case involves a discrimination between two classes of widows of coal miners who died prior to December 6, 1974 those whose husbands were receiving pensions when they died and those whose husbands were still working although they were eligible for pensions. The 1974 collective-bargaining agreement between the United Mine Workers of America and the Bituminous Coal Operators' Association, Inc., increased the health benefits for widows in the former class but *564 made no increase for those in the latter class. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that this discrimination was arbitrary and therefore violated 302(c)(5) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (LMRA).[1] 205 U. S. App. D. C. 330, We granted certiorari to decide whether 302(c)(5) authorizes federal courts to review for reasonableness the provisions of a collective-bargaining agreement allocating health benefits among potential beneficiaries of an employee benefit trust fund. I A description of the origin of the discrimination may explain why the Court of Appeals considered it arbitrary. The *565 1950 collective-bargaining agreement between the union and the operators established a fund to provide pension, health, and other benefits for certain miners and their dependents. That agreement defined the operators' obligation to contribute to the fund but delegated the authority to define the amount of benefits and the conditions of eligibility to the trustees of the fund.[2] In 1967 the trustees adopted two resolutions governing benefits for widows. Under the first, a widow of a retired miner who was receiving a pension at the time of his death was entitled to a death benefit of $2,000 payable over a 2-year period, and a widow of a miner who was eligible for a pension but who was still working at the time of his death was entitled to a $5,000 benefit payable over a 5-year period.[3] The second resolution authorized hospital and medical-care benefits for unremarried widows of deceased miners while they were receiving the widows' benefit *566 authorized by the first resolution.[4] The effect of these two resolutions was to provide a greater health benefit for widows of working miners who were eligible for pensions than for widows of miners who were receiving pension benefits. In 1974, because of their concerns about compliance with minimum funding standards of the recently enacted Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), as amended, 29 U.S. C. 1001 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. IV), and about the actuarial soundness of the 1950 fund, the union and the operators agreed to restructure the industry's benefit program. They agreed that the amount of |
Justice Stevens | 1,982 | 16 | majority | Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds v. Robinson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110664/mine-workers-health-and-retirement-funds-v-robinson/ | the industry's benefit program. They agreed that the amount of benefits and the eligibility requirements, as well as the level of contributions, should be specified in their collective-bargaining agreement. They also decided to replace the single 1950 fund with four separate funds, two of which provided pension benefits while two others, the "1950 Benefit Trust" and the "1974 Benefit Trust," provided health and death benefits. The 1950 Benefit Trust, which is at issue in this case, extended lifetime health coverage to certain widows of miners who died before December 6, 1974, the effective date of the 1974 collective-bargaining agreement.[5] *567 During the 1974 negotiations, the union originally demanded that all unremarried widows who were entitled to health benefits for either two years or five years under the old plan be extended lifetime health coverage. Both the amount and the uncertainty of the cost of such coverage for these widows concerned the operators. Relatively early in the negotiations they nevertheless accepted the demand as it related to widows of miners who would die after the agreement became effective, but they objected to the requested increase for widows of already deceased miners. The operators estimated that the latter class consisted of between 25,000 and 50,000 widows, whereas the union's estimate was approximately 40,000. Of that total, about 10% were believed to be widows of miners who had been working at the time of their death, even though eligible for pensions, and thus already had been entitled to five years of health benefits. In the final stages of the 1974 negotiations, after a strike had begun, the operators made a package proposal to the union that excluded this smaller group of perhaps 4,000 or 5,000 widows from any increased health benefits. Besides making it possible to conclude an otherwise acceptable, complex collective-bargaining agreement and to avoid a prolonged strike, the union received no separately identifiable quid pro quo for the rejection of this portion of its demands. II Respondents are widows of coal miners who died in 1967 and 1971, respectively. Their husbands were over age 55, had been employed in the industry for over 20 years, and had spent most of their careers in the employ of contributing employers. *568 They were eligible for pensions but were still working at the time of their deaths. Under the 1950 plan, respondents were entitled to $5,000 death benefits and health benefits for five years. They received no additional benefits from the 1974 agreement. Had their husbands applied for the pensions for which they were eligible, they now would be entitled to lifetime health coverage. |
Justice Stevens | 1,982 | 16 | majority | Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds v. Robinson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110664/mine-workers-health-and-retirement-funds-v-robinson/ | eligible, they now would be entitled to lifetime health coverage. On their own behalf and as representatives of a class of similarly situated widows and dependents of deceased coal miners, respondents brought this action against the trustees of the funds in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.[6] They alleged that the requirement that a miner actually be receiving a pension for which he was eligible at the time of his death in order to make his survivors eligible for lifetime health benefits has no rational relationship with the purposes of the trust funds and therefore was illegal under 302 of the LMRA. They prayed that the requirement be declared null and void and that the trustees be ordered to pay to them health benefits retrospectively and prospectively. After certifying the respondents' class,[7] and after indicating that the plaintiffs had made a prima facie showing of arbitrariness, the court scheduled a hearing to give the petitioners an opportunity to prove that the discrimination against respondents was not arbitrary. At that hearing the District Court received documents prepared during the 1974 collective-bargaining *569 negotiations and heard the testimony of participants in those negotiations. Based on that evidence, the District Court found that "the question of whether or not to provide plaintiffs the benefits they now seek was the subject of explicit, informed and intense bargaining." App. to Pet. for Cert. 25a. The court rejected the argument that the eligibility requirement was arbitrary and capricious and held that "the trustees are bound to adhere to the terms of the agreement." The court concluded: "Public policy dictates the limited role of courts in reviewing collectively bargained agreements. The familiar history of the anguished relations between the bargaining parties in this case only underscores the delicacy of the balance set in each agreement. Plaintiffs' relief, if indeed any is due, cannot come from the courts." A divided panel of the Court of Appeals reversed. Relying on the 302(c)(5) requirement that jointly administered pension trusts be maintained "for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees of [the contributing] employer, and their families and dependents," the court held that any rule denying benefits to employees on whose behalf significant contributions had been made must be explained to its satisfaction, particularly if benefits were authorized for others who had worked a lesser period of time for contributing employers. 205 U. S. App. D. C., at In this case, the trustees were unable to produce an acceptable explanation for the discrimination between widows of pensioners and widows of pension-eligible miners. Specifically, the court held |
Justice Stevens | 1,982 | 16 | majority | Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds v. Robinson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110664/mine-workers-health-and-retirement-funds-v-robinson/ | pensioners and widows of pension-eligible miners. Specifically, the court held that it was "not enough that the particular eligibility standards were adopted simply because that enabled resolution of a collective bargaining dispute." Recognizing the legitimacy of a concern about actuarial soundness of pension trust funds, the court held that "financial integrity must be secured by methods dividing beneficiaries from nonbeneficiaries on lines reasonably *570 calculated to further the fund's purposes." at 337-, -424. Judge Robb, in dissent, agreed with the reasoning of the District Court and added the observation that the discrimination against widows of active miners was rational because those widows had received a larger death benefit than widows of pensioners, and because their needs may have been lesser than those of the families of pensioners since their husbands had continued to work after they were eligible for pensions. III The Court of Appeals held that the requirement in 302(c)(5) that an employee benefit trust fund be maintained "for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees and their families and dependents" means that eligibility rules fixed by a collective-bargaining agreement must meet a reasonableness standard. The statutory language hardly embodies this reasonableness requirement. Its plain meaning is simply that employer contributions to employee benefit trust funds must accrue to the benefit of employees and their families and dependents, to the exclusion of all others. Indeed, this has been this Court's consistent interpretation of 302(c)(5). Just last Term, the Court reiterated that "the `sole purpose' of 302(c)(5) is to ensure that employee benefit trust funds `are legitimate trust funds, used actually for the specified benefits to the employees of the employers who contribute to them ' " (quoting 93 Cong. Rec. 4678 (1947), reprinted in 2 Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, p. 1305 (Leg. Hist. LMRA)). See[8] Accord, ; (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). This reading is amply supported by the legislative history. See, e. g., 93 Cong. Rec. 4877 (1947), 2 Leg. Hist. LMRA, at 1312;[9] 93 Cong. Rec., at 4752-4753, 2 Leg. Hist. LMRA, at 1321-1322.[10] The section was meant to protect employees *572 from the risk that funds contributed by their employers for the benefit of the employees and their families might be diverted to other union purposes or even to the private benefit of faithless union leaders. Proponents of this section were concerned that pension funds administered entirely by union leadership might serve as "war chests" to support union programs or political factions, or might become vehicles through which "racketeers" accepted bribes or extorted money from employers. Our interpretation of the purpose of |
Justice Stevens | 1,982 | 16 | majority | Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds v. Robinson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110664/mine-workers-health-and-retirement-funds-v-robinson/ | extorted money from employers. Our interpretation of the purpose of the "sole and exclusive benefit" requirement is reinforced by the other requirements of 302(c)(5). Section 302(c)(5) is an exception in a criminal statute that broadly prohibits employers from making direct or indirect payments to unions or union officials. Each of the specific conditions that must be satisfied to exempt employer contributions to pension funds from the criminal sanction is consistent with the nondiversion purpose. The fund must be established "for the sole and exclusive benefit" of employees and their families and dependents; contributions must be held in trust for that purpose and must be used exclusively for health, retirement, death, disability, or unemployment benefits; the basis for paying benefits must be specified in a written agreement; and the fund must be jointly administered by representatives of management and labor.[11] All the conditions in the section fortify the basic requirement that employer contributions be administered for the sole and exclusive benefit of employees. None of the conditions places any restriction on the allocation of the funds among the persons protected by 302(c)(5). *573 The Court of Appeals did not attempt to ground its holding on the text or legislative history of 302(c)(5). Rather, the court relied upon cases in which trustees of employee benefit trust funds, not the collective-bargaining agreement, fixed the eligibility rules and benefit levels. The Court of Appeals has held in those cases "that the Trustees have `full authority. with respect to questions of coverage and eligibility' and that the court's role is limited to ascertaining whether the Trustees' broad discretion has been abused by the adoption of arbitrary or capricious standards." Pete v. United Mine Workers of America Welfare & Retirement Fund of 1950, 171 U. S. App. D. C. 1, 9, (footnote omitted). Noting that "[t]he institutional arrangements creating this Fund and specifying the purposes to which it is to be devoted are cast expressly in fiduciary form," the court stated that "the Trustees, like all fiduciaries, are subject to judicial correction in a proper case upon a showing that they have acted arbitrarily or capriciously towards one of the persons to whom their trust obligations run." cert. denied, Those cases, however, provide no support for the Court of Appeals' holding in this case.[12] The petitioner trustees were not given "full authority" to determine eligibility requirements and benefit levels, for these were fixed by the 1974 collective-bargaining agreement. By the terms of the trust created by that agreement, the trustees are obligated to enforce these *574 determinations unless modification is required to comply with applicable federal |
Justice Stevens | 1,982 | 16 | majority | Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds v. Robinson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110664/mine-workers-health-and-retirement-funds-v-robinson/ | determinations unless modification is required to comply with applicable federal law.[13] The common law of trusts does not alter this obligation. See -337; Restatement (Second) of Trusts 164 (1959). Cf. 29 U.S. C. 1104(a)(1)(D) (1976 ed., Supp. IV). Absent conflict with federal law, then, the trustees breached no fiduciary duties in administering the 1950 Benefit Trust in accordance with the terms established in the 1974 collective-bargaining agreement. Section 302(c)(5) plainly does not impose the Court of Appeals' reasonableness requirement, and respondents do not offer any alternative federal law to sustain the court's holding. There is no general requirement that the complex schedule of the various employee benefits must withstand judicial review under an undefined standard of reasonableness. This is no less true when the potential beneficiaries subject to discriminatory treatment are not members of the bargaining unit; we previously have recognized that former members and their families may suffer from discrimination in collective-bargaining agreements because the union need not "affirmatively. represent [them] or take into account their interests in making bona fide economic decisions in behalf *575 of those whom it does represent." Chemical & Alkali Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass[14] Moreover, because finite contributions must be allocated among potential beneficiaries, inevitably financial and actuarial considerations sometimes will provide the only justification for an eligibility condition that discriminates between different classes of potential applicants for benefits. As long as such conditions do not violate federal law or policy, they are entitled to the same respect as any other provision in a collective-bargaining agreement. The substantive terms of jointly administered employee benefit plans must comply with the detailed and comprehensive standards of the ERISA. The terms of any collective-bargaining agreement must comply with federal laws that prohibit discrimination on grounds of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;[15] that protect veterans;[16] that regulate certain industries;[17] and that preserve our competitive economy.[18] Obviously, an agreement must also be substantively consistent with the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S. C. 151 et seq.[19] Moreover, in the collective-bargaining *576 process, the union must fairly represent the interests of all employees in the unit.[20] But when neither the collective-bargaining process nor its end product violates any command of Congress, a federal court has no authority to modify the substantive terms of a collective-bargaining contract.[21] The record in this case discloses no violation of 302(c)(5) or of any other federal law. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed. It is so ordered. |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | dissenting | Antoine v. Washington | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109193/antoine-v-washington/ | I do not agree with the Court's conclusion, ante, at 198, that "[c]ongressional approval was given" to the provisions of Art. 6 of the Agreement of May 9, 1891. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution specifies both "Laws" and "Treaties" as enactments which are the supreme law of the land, "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." If the game laws enacted by the State of Washington, containing customary provisions respecting seasons in which deer may be hunted, are invalid under the Supremacy Clause, they must be so by virtue of either a treaty or a law enacted by Congress. Concededly the Agreement of 1891, between Commissioners appointed by the President and members of the Colville Confederated Tribes was not a treaty; it was not intended to be such, and Congress had explicitly provided 20 years earlier that Indian tribes were not to be considered as independent nations with which the United could deal under the treaty power. Washington's game laws, therefore, can only be invalid by reason of some law enacted by Congress. The Court's opinion refers us to the Act of Congress of June 21, 1906, which authorized monetary compensation to the Colvilles for the termination of the northern half of their reservation, and to a series of appropriation measures enacted during the following five years. There is, however, not one syllable in any of these Acts about Indian hunting or fishing rights, and it is fair to say that a member of Congress voting for or against them would not have had the remotest idea, even from the most careful of readings, that they would preserve Indian hunting and fishing rights. But because the language in the Act of 1906 states that it was enacted for the purpose of *214 "carrying out" the Agreement of 1891, and because language in subsequent appropriations Acts described the Act of 1906 as "ratifying" the Agreement of 1891, the Court concludes that Congress enacted as substantive law all 12 articles of the agreement. The Court relies on three earlier decisions of this Court as settling the proposition that Congress could legislatively ratify the 1891 Agreement, and that once accomplished, the "legislation ratifying the 1891 Agreement, constituted those provisions `Laws of the United in Pursuance' of the Constitution, and the supreme law of the land." Ante, at 204. Congress could undoubtedly have enacted the provisions of the 1891 Agreement, but the critical question is whether it did so. Far from supporting the result reached by the Court in this case, the decisions of this Court |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | dissenting | Antoine v. Washington | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109193/antoine-v-washington/ | the Court in this case, the decisions of this Court in and show instead how virtually devoid of support in either precedent or reason that result is. Each of those cases did involve an agreement negotiated between Commissioners representing the United and Indian bands and tribes. Each of the agreements was held to have been ratified by Congress, and its substantive provisions to have thereby been made law. But the contrast with the manner in which Congress accomplished ratification in those cases, and the manner in which it acted in this case, is great indeed. Choate involved the Atoka Agreement negotiated between the Dawes Commission and Choctaw and Chickasaw representatives in 1897. The following year, Congress enacted the Curtis Act, the relevant provisions of 29 of which are as follows: "That the agreement made by the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes with commissions representing *215 the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes of Indians on the twenty-third day of April, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, as herein amended, is hereby ratified and confirmed." The section then proceeds to set out in haec verba the full text of the Atoka Agreement. involved the sale of liquor on ceded land, contrary to a prohibition contained in the cession agreement negotiated with the Sioux Indians in December 1892. That agreement was ratified by Congress in an Act of Aug. 15, 1894, 314, in which Congress used much the same method as it had employed in Choate: "SEC. 12. The following agreement, made by is hereby accepted, ratified, and confirmed." Then followed, within the text of the Act of Congress itself, the articles of agreement in haec verba. Likewise, ratification of the agreement involved in was accomplished by explicit statutory language and in haec verba incorporation of the articles of agreement. The Court today treats the Act of June 21, 1906, as simply another one of these instances in which Congress exercised its power to elevate mere agreements into the supreme law of the land. But it has done so with little attention to the critical issue, that of whether Congress actually exercised this power. Whereas the exercise was manifest in Choate, Perrin, and it is evidenced in the present case by nothing more than little scraps of language, ambiguous at best, in several Acts of Congress which contain not a word of the language of Art. 6 of the 1891 Agreement. I think consideration of all of the legislative materials, including the actual language used by Congress on the occasions when it spoke, rather than the elided excerpts relied upon by the Court, show that |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | dissenting | Antoine v. Washington | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109193/antoine-v-washington/ | the elided excerpts relied upon by the Court, show that there was no ratification of Art. 6. *216 The original Colville Reservation was created by Executive Order in 1872. It consisted of over three million acres lying between the Okanogan and Columbia Rivers in the northern part of the State of Washington. In 1890 Congress created a Commission to "negotiate with said Colville and other bands of Indians on said reservation for the cession of such portion of said reservation as said Indians may be willing to dispose of, that the same may be open to white settlement." 355. The following year Commissioners appointed by the President met with representatives of the Colville Confederated Tribes. The Agreement of May 9, 1891, was executed to "go into effect from and after its approval by Congress." Article 1 of the Agreement provided that the northern half of the Colville Reservation, as it existed under the Executive Order of 1872, should be vacated. Article 5 provided that "in consideration of the cession surrender and relinquishment to the United " of the northern half of the reservation, the United would pay to the members of the tribe the sum of $1,500,000. Article 6, quoted in the opinion of the Court, contained provisions respecting tax exemption and Indian hunting and fishing rights. The Agreement was presented to the 52d Congress for ratification, but that body adamantly refused to approve it. The characterization in the Court's opinion of the Act of July 1, 1892, as the "first" in a series of statutes in which congressional approval was given to the Agreement of May 9, 1891, is a bit of historical legerdemain. Doubts were expressed as to whether the Indians had title to the reservation, since it had been created by Executive Order, thus again highlighting disagreement between the Executive and Legislative Branches as to how best to deal with the Indian tribes. *217 The Act of July 1, 1892, vacated the northern half of the Colville Reservation, as it had been established by President Grant, "notwithstanding any executive order or other proceeding whereby the same was set apart as a reservation for any Indians or bands of Indians," and declared that "the same shall be open to settlement and entry by the proclamation of the President of the United and shall be disposed of under the general laws applicable to the disposition of public lands in the State of Washington." Section 4 of the Act tracked Art. 2 of the agreement, providing that each Indian then residing on the ceded portion of the reservation should be |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | dissenting | Antoine v. Washington | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109193/antoine-v-washington/ | residing on the ceded portion of the reservation should be entitled to select 80 acres of the ceded land to be allotted to him in severalty. Section 5 of the Act tracked Art. 3 of the agreement, providing that Indians then residing in the ceded portion of the reservation should have a right to occupy and reside on its remaining parts, if they chose that in preference to receiving an allotment. Section 6 of the Act tracked Art. 4 of the agreement, and concerned various school and mill sites within the ceded portion. But conspicuous by their absence from the Act of July 1, 1892, were any provision for the payment of the $1,500,000, and any reference whatsoever to the Agreement's provisions dealing with hunting and fishing rights and immunity from taxation. Far from being the "first" of a series of Acts ratifying the entirety of the 1891 Agreement, the Act provided, in 8: "That nothing herein contained shall be construed as recognizing title or ownership of said Indians to any part of the said Colville Reservation, whether that hereby restored to the public domain or that still reserved by the Government for their use and occupancy." The Act of July 1, 1892, became law without the signature *218 of President Harrison. Members of the Colville Confederated Tribes became justifiably alarmed that it had terminated the northern half of the reservation without authorizing the compensation for which they had bargained. After a 14-year campaign, described in detail in the report of Butler and Vale v. United they obtained congressional relief. But the relief embodied in the statutes enacted in 1906 and subsequent years did not amount to a full adoption and ratification of the 1891 Agreement. Rather, the description of the efforts to obtain relief, as well as the legislation which resulted, demonstrates that the Indians were concerned only with the compensation promised by the 1891 Agreement, and not with whatever ancillary rights were accorded by its Art. 6. The following excerpts from the Court of Claims opinion, which would appear to have the added authenticity that is given by contemporaneity, describe some of the events: "In pursuance of the [1891] agreement the lands so ceded were by act of Congress thrown open to public settlement; but no appropriation of money was made, and that part of the agreement providing for its payment was never complied with until the passage of the act of June 21, 1906. The Indians became anxious and, justly, quite solicitous Their appeals to the Congress subsequent to their agreement was met in 1892 by an |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | dissenting | Antoine v. Washington | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109193/antoine-v-washington/ | subsequent to their agreement was met in 1892 by an adverse report from the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, in which their right to compensation as per agreement was directly challenged by a most positive denial of their title to the lands in question. "In May, 1894, the said Colville Indians entered into a contract with Levi Maish, of Pennsylvania, and Hugh H. Gordon, of Georgia, attorneys and *219 counselors at law, by the terms of which the said attorneys were to prosecute their said claim against the United and receive as compensation therefore 15 per cent of whatever amount they might recover. Nothing was accomplished for the Indians under the Maish-Gordon contract. Not-withstanding its expiration, however, a number of attorneys claim to have rendered efficient services and to have accomplished, by the permission and authority of the Congress and the committees thereof, the final compliance with the agreement of 1891 and secured by the act of June 21, 1906, an appropriation covering the money consideration mentioned in said agreement." -515 The agreement which formed the basis of the suit in Butler and Vale was, as just described, entered into between the Colvilles and two attorneys whom they retained to press their claim. It, too, recites that the Indians' concern was directed to the Government's failure to compensate them for the northern half of the reservation: " `And whereas the principal consideration to said Indians for the cession and surrender of said portion of the reservation was the express agreement upon the part of the United Government to pay to said Indians `the sum of one million five hundred thousand dollars ($1,500,000) ;' " `And whereas the United Government has failed to comply with the terms of said agreement, and no provision has been made to pay said Indians the amount stipulated in the said agreement for the cession of said lands; " `And whereas the said Indians entered into said agreement with an implicit trust in the good faith *220 of the United Government, and now most earnestly protest that their lands should not be taken from them without the payment of the just compensation stipulated in said agreement; " `. The purpose of this agreement is to secure the presentation and prosecution of the claims of said Indians for payment for their interest in said ceded lands and to secure the services of said Maish and Gordon as counsel and attorneys for the prosecution and collection of said claims.' " Similarly, the letter of protest by the Chairman of the Colville Indian Commission, ante, at 199 n. 6, |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | dissenting | Antoine v. Washington | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109193/antoine-v-washington/ | of the Colville Indian Commission, ante, at 199 n. 6, focused solely of Congress' failure to provide the Indians "the solace of compensation." As a result of the efforts of the Indians, their friends, and their attorneys, Congress ultimately acceded to their claim for compensation. It did so in the Act of June 21, 1906, which is the Indian Department Appropriations Act of 1906. With respect to the Colville Confederated Tribes, the Act provided as follows: "To carry into effect the agreement bearing date May ninth, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, there shall be set aside and held in the Treasury of the United for the use and benefit of said Indians, which shall at all times be subject to the appropriation of Congress and payment to said Indians, in full payment for one million five hundred thousand [1,500,000] acres of land opened to settlement by the Act of Congress, approved July first, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, the sum of one million five hundred thousand dollars [$1,500,000]" -378. *221 This Act is surely the major recognition by Congress of the claims of the Colvilles, and even with the most liberal construction I do not see how it can be read to do more than authorize the appropriation of $1,500,000 to effectuate the compensation article of the 1891 Agreement. Not a word is said about tax exemption, nor about hunting and fishing rights. The Court also relies on language in the Indian Department Appropriations Act of 1907, and substantially identical language in each of the succeeding four annual Indian Department Appropriation Acts. After the usual language of appropriation, the Act goes on to provide: "In part payment to the Indians residing on the Colville Reservation for the cession by said Indians to the United of one million five hundred thousand acres of land opened to settlement by an Act of Congress approved July first, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, being a part of the full sum set aside and held in the Treasury of the United in payment for said land under the terms of the Act approved June twenty-first, nineteen hundred and six, ratifying the agreement ceding said land to the United under date of May ninth, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, three hundred thousand dollars" -1051. Thus the Court rests its decision in this case on two legislative pronouncements. The first is the 1906 Act authorizing payment of money to the Colvilles and reciting that the authorization was made to "carry into effect" the 1891 Agreement. The second is the series of Acts appropriating funds to cover the 1906 authorization and referring |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | dissenting | Antoine v. Washington | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109193/antoine-v-washington/ | Acts appropriating funds to cover the 1906 authorization and referring to the authorization as "ratifying the agreement ceding said land." On the basis of these Acts, both of which are part of the mechanism by which Congress expends *222 public funds, the Court has concluded that provisions of the 1891 agreement utterly unrelated to the payment of money became the supreme law of the land, even though there is no indication that the Colvilles sought any relief other than with respect to the Government's failure to pay compensation, or that Congress intended any relief affecting the use of land it quite plainly had determined should be returned to the public domain. A far more reasoned interpretation of these legislative materials would begin by placing them in the context of the Executive/Legislative dispute over Indian policy and authority. A year after the signing of the 1891 Agreement, Congress clearly indicated its doubt as to whether President Grant was justified in setting aside three million acres for the Colvilles, and as to whether his Executive Order actually conveyed title. In the Act of July 1, 1892, Congress chose to take what the Indians had expressed a willingness to surrender, but to give only part of what the Commissioners had agreed the Government should give in return. The Colvilles, after a 14-year battle in and around the legislative halls of Congress, obtained the monetary relief which they sought. Sympathy with their plight should not lead us now to distort what is on its face no more than congressional response to demands for payment into congressional enactment of the entire 1891 agreement. I would affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of Washington. |
Justice Powell | 1,980 | 17 | dissenting | Ohio v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110172/ohio-v-kentucky/ | The Court today holds that the present boundary between Ohio and Kentucky is the low-water mark of the northern shore of the Ohio River when Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792. This curious result frustrates the terms of the Virginia Cession of 1784 that first established the Ohio-Kentucky border, ignores Mr. Chief Justice Marshall's construction of that grant in Handly's is contrary to common-law rules of riparian boundaries, and creates a largely unidentifiable border. Accordingly, I dissent. I In 1784, the Commonwealth of Virginia ceded to the United States all of its territory "to the northwest of the river Ohio." 1 Laws of the United States 472, 474 ( B. & D. ed. 1815). As this Court recently observed, the border question "`depends chiefly on the land law of Virginia, and on the cession made by that State to the United States.'" quoting Handly's The 1784 Cession was construed definitively in Handly's Lessee, a case involving a dispute over land that was connected to Indiana when the Ohio River was low, but which was separated from Indiana when the water was high. The Court held that since the 1784 Cession required that the river remain within Kentucky, the proper *342 border was the low-water mark on the northern or northwestern shore. Consequently, the land in issue belonged to Indiana. Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, writing for the Court, pointed out that Virginia originally held the land that became both Indiana and Kentucky. Under the terms of the Virginia Cession, he stated: "These States, then, are to have the [Ohio] river itself, wherever that may be, for their boundary." The Chief Justice found support for that conclusion in the original Cession: "[W]hen, as in this case, one State [Virginia] is the original proprietor, and grants the territory on one side only, it retains the river within its own domain, and the newly-created State [Indiana] extends to the river only. The river, however, is its boundary." Such a riparian border, the Chief Justice emphasized, cannot be stationary over time. He wrote: "Any gradual accretion of land, then, on the Indiana side of the Ohio, would belong to Indiana." This rule avoids the "inconvenience" of having a strip of land belonging to one State between another State and the river. "Wherever the river is a boundary between States, it is the main, the permanent river, which constitutes that boundary; and the mind will find itself embarrassed with insurmountable difficulty in attempting to draw any other line than the low water mark." -381. Because the boundary between Ohio and Kentucky was established by |
Justice Powell | 1,980 | 17 | dissenting | Ohio v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110172/ohio-v-kentucky/ | Because the boundary between Ohio and Kentucky was established by the same events that drew the line between Indiana and Kentucky, the holding in Handly's Lessee should control this case.[1] The Ohio River must remain the border between the States and within the domain of Kentucky. The *343 only way to ensure this result is to recognize the current low-water mark on the northern shore as the boundary. The approach taken by the Court today defeats the express terms of the Virginia Cession and ignores the explicit language of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in Handly's Lessee.[2] The Court's holding that the boundary forever remains where the low-water mark on the northern shore of the river was in 1792, regardless of the river's movements over time, may produce bizarre results. If erosion and accretion were to shift the river to the north of the 1792 low-water mark, today's ruling would place the river entirely within the State of Ohio. The river would thus pass completely out of Kentucky's borders despite the holding in Handly's Lessee that the Ohio "[R]iver itself, wherever that may be, [is the] boundary." The river would not be the boundary between the two States nor would Kentucky as successor to Virginia "retai[n] the river within its own domain" as Mr. Chief Justice Marshall declared that it must. Similarly, if the river were to move to the south of the 1792 line, Ohio would be denied a shore on the river. Sensible people could not have intended such results, which not only would violate the plain language of the 1784 Cession, but also would mock the congressional resolution accepting Ohio into the Union as a State "bounded on the South by the Ohio [R]iver." Ch. XL, II The Court, like the Special Master, disregards the teaching of Handly's Lessee. Instead, the Court relies heavily on the *344 decision in where Mr. Justice Field wrote that with respect to Kentucky's northern border, the State's "dominion and jurisdiction continue as they existed at the time she was admitted into the Union [1792], unaffected by the action of the forces of nature upon the course of the river." ; ante, at 339. Kentucky argues, with some force, that the Court in 1890 found no change from the 1792 boundary because that case concerned the abandonment of a channel by the river, the sort of avulsive change in course that ordinarily does not alter riparian boundaries. There is no sign of an avulsive change in the length of the Ohio River at issue in this case. Moreover, went on to find that |
Justice Powell | 1,980 | 17 | dissenting | Ohio v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110172/ohio-v-kentucky/ | issue in this case. Moreover, went on to find that Indiana had acquiesced in Kentucky's prescription of the land at issue. There has been no showing before us that Kentucky has acquiesced to Ohio's claim that the 1792 low-water mark establishes the entire boundary between the two States. See n. 3, infra. Absent such a showing, I do not believe the holding in should be applied here. In any event, the force of Mr. Justice Field's opinion as a precedent may be questioned on its face. The decision cannot be reconciled with Handly's Lessee or with any normal or practical construction of Virginia's Cession in 1784. Indeed, the Court's opinion is essentially devoid of reasoning. After reproducing the passages in Handly's Lessee that establish that Kentucky must retain jurisdiction over the river, Mr. Justice Field states abruptly that, nevertheless, the boundary should be set at the low-water mark "when Kentucky became a State." 136 U.S., Mr. Justice Field apparently was unaware that, in effect, he was overruling the case on which he purported to rely. His conclusion is based simply on the startling view that when Kentucky "succeeded to the ancient right and possession of Virginia" in 1792, the new State received a boundary that "could not be affected by any subsequent change of the Ohio River." *345 The opinion offers no further explanation for its holding. Of course, Kentucky did succeed to Virginia's rights in 1792. After the Cession of 1784, Virginia was entitled to have the river within its jurisdiction and to have the northern low-water mark as the boundary between it and that part of the Northwest Territory that became Ohio and Indiana. Kentucky's entry into the Union could not, without more, replace those rights with the immutable boundary found by Mr. Justice Field. Neither Mr. Justice Field in 1890 nor the State of Ohio in this litigation pointed to any suggestion by Congress in 1792 that it intended such a result. III Today's decision also contravenes the common law of riparian boundaries. In a dispute over the line between Arkansas and Tennessee along the Mississippi River, this Court noted: "[W]here running streams are the boundaries between States, the same rule applies as between private proprietors, namely, that when the bed and channel are changed by the natural and gradual processes known as erosion and accretion, the boundary follows the varying course of the stream." See Bonelli Cattle This rule has an intensely practical basis, since it is exceedingly difficult to establish where a river flowed many years ago. Physical evidence of the river's path is almost |
Justice Powell | 1,980 | 17 | dissenting | Ohio v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110172/ohio-v-kentucky/ | years ago. Physical evidence of the river's path is almost certain to wash away over time, and documentary evidence either may not survive or may not be reliable. The Court suggests that the Ohio-Kentucky boundary should not be determined by reference to previous river boundary decisions because the border in this case is not "the river itself, but its northerly bank." Ante, at 338. This *346 contention contradicts Mr. Chief Justice Marshall's statement, quoted by the Court, that with respect to Kentucky's northern border, "`[t]he river, however, is its boundary.'" In addition, the Court does not explain why established principles of riparian law are inapplicable simply because the northern low-water mark, not the center of the river, is the boundary. Since both lines shift over time, it is only sensible to adopt the common-law view that borders defined by those lines will move with them.[3] IV Following today's decision, all boundary matters between Ohio and Kentucky will turn on the location almost 200 years *347 ago of the northern low-water mark of the Ohio River. This cumbersome and uncertain outcome might be justified if it were dictated by unambiguous language in the Virginia Cession. But since the Court's decision is not only unworkable but also does violence to that deed as it has been construed by this Court, I cannot agree with its ruling today. |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | majority | Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Board of Equalization of SD | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111825/western-air-lines-inc-v-board-of-equalization-of-sd/ | In this case we consider whether the South Dakota Airline Flight Property Tax, S D Codified Laws, ch 10-29 (1982), violates the Airport and Airway Improvement Act of 1982, 49 US C App 1513(d) We conclude that because the South Dakota Airline Flight Property Tax is an "in lieu tax which is wholly utilized for airport and aeronautical purposes," 49 US C App 1513(d)(3), the tax does not violate 1513(d) I The federal provision at issue is part of a series of congressional actions dedicated to improving the Nation's air transportation system Aloha In 1970, following findings that "substantial expansion and improvement of the airport and airway system is [sic] required to meet the demands of interstate commerce, the postal service, and the national defense," H R Conf Rep No 91-1074, p 29 (1970), Congress required the Secretary of Transportation to prepare a plan for the development of public airports, and authorized the Secretary to make grants to States and localities for airport development Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970, Stat 219 Congress also established an Airport and Airway Trust Fund, maintained by federal aviation taxes, to finance airport development projects 208, Soon afterward, Congress acted to limit state taxation of air transportation Concluding that state passenger use taxes placed "an unnecessary burden on interstate commerce," and had "a stifling effect on air transportation," H R Rep No 93-157, p 4 (1973), Congress prohibited such taxes in the Airport Development Acceleration Act of 1973, Pub L 93-44, 7(a), In the Airport and Airway Improvement Act of 1982, Congress added a 7(d) to the Airway Development Acceleration Act of 1973, prohibiting the imposition of discriminatory property taxes on air carriers That prohibition, as codified 9 US C App 1513(d), reads: "(d) Acts which unreasonably burden and discriminate against interstate commerce; definitions "(1) The following acts unreasonably burden and discriminate against interstate commerce and a State, subdivision of a State, or authority acting for a State or subdivision of a State may not do any of them: "(A) assess air carrier transportation property at a value that has a higher ratio to the true market value of the air carrier transportation property than the ratio that the assessed value of other commercial and industrial property of the same type in the same assessment jurisdiction has to the true market value of the other commercial and industrial property; *126 "(B) levy or collect a tax on an assessment that may not be made under subparagraph (A) of this paragraph; or "(C) levy or collect an ad valorem property tax on air carrier |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | majority | Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Board of Equalization of SD | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111825/western-air-lines-inc-v-board-of-equalization-of-sd/ | or collect an ad valorem property tax on air carrier transportation property at a tax rate that exceeds the tax rate applicable to commercial and industrial property in the same assessment jurisdiction "(2) In this subsection "(D) `commercial and industrial property' means property, other than transportation property and land used primarily for agricultural purposes or timber growing, devoted to commercial and industrial use and subject to a property tax levy; "(3) This subsection shall not apply to any in lieu tax which is wholly utilized for airport and aeronautical purposes" The South Dakota Airline Flight Property Tax, which appellants allege violates 1513(d), was enacted in 1961 Flight property is defined as "all aircraft fully equipped ready for flight used in air commerce" S D Codified Laws 10-29-1(4) (1982) The portion of the value of flight property subject to the tax is based on flight tonnage, flight time, and revenue ton miles, 10-29-10, and this value is taxed at the "average mill rate," 10-29-14 The statute also provides that "[t]he taxes imposed by this chapter shall be allocated by the secretary of revenue to the airports where such airlines companies make regularly scheduled landings and shall be used exclusively by such airports for airport purposes " 10-29-15 The South Dakota statute provides that "[f]light property of airline companies operating in the state shall be assessed for the purpose of taxation by the department of revenue and not otherwise," 10-29-2 Airline flight property is 1 of 10 specific categories of property that are centrally assessed for *127 purposes of taxation (The other categories are certain property of railroads, private car-line companies, express companies, telephone companies, telegraph companies, electric, heating, water and gas companies, rural electric companies, rural water supply companies, and pipeline companies See S D Codified Laws chs 10-28 through 10-37) Each of these categories was an exception from the general South Dakota scheme of local property tax assessment at the county level S D Codified Laws 10-3-16 (1982) In 1978, South Dakota exempted from ad valorem taxation all personal property that was locally rather than centrally assessed, 10-4-61 In May 1983, appellants, four airline companies operating in South Dakota, paid their flight property taxes for the first six months of 1983 under protest Appellants then sued the appropriate county treasurers for a refund Appellants alleged that, because airline flight property was subject to taxation while most other personal property was exempt, the South Dakota flight property tax violated 1513(d)(1)(A) and (C) In each case the county answered that the state flight property tax was "utilized wholly for airport and |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | majority | Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Board of Equalization of SD | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111825/western-air-lines-inc-v-board-of-equalization-of-sd/ | state flight property tax was "utilized wholly for airport and aeronautical purposes and is in lieu of property taxes and is therefore permitted by 49 US C [App ] 1513(d)(3)" App 10-11 Following an unsuccessful request to seven county boards of commissioners to abate and refund flight property taxes paid after the effective date of the Airport and Airway Improvement Act of 1982, appellants sued the county commissions for abatement and refund App 17 Finally, appellants appealed the property tax assessment to the South Dakota State Board of Equalization The Board of Equalization unanimously denied the appeal, holding that "the airline flight property tax is in lieu of personal property tax and is totally utilized for airport and aeronautical purposes, therefore, in conformity with Section [1513](d)(3), this tax is lawful and not a violation of Federal law" All the lawsuits described above were consolidated in the Circuit Court *128 for the Sixth Judicial Circuit in Hughes County, South Dakota That court agreed with the counties and the Board of Equalization that the flight property tax was permitted under 1513(d)(3) App to Juris Statement 19a-21a On appeal, the Supreme Court of South Dakota disagreed with the conclusion that the flight property tax was authorized under 1513(d) In order to be an "in lieu tax," the court reasoned, the flight property tax must be a substitute for another tax on flight property "In the case at bar, however, the tax is not a substitute for an ad valorem personal property tax It is in fact the first imposition of personal property tax on the airline flight property" The State Supreme Court affirmed the Circuit Court, however, on an alternative ground Under 1513(d)(1)(A) and (C), the discriminatory nature of assessment ratios or tax rates applied to airline property is determined by comparison to the rations and ratios and rates applied to other "commercial and industrial property" "Commercial and industrial property" is defined as "property, other than transportation property and land used primarily for agricultural purposes or timber growing, devoted to commercial and industrial use and subject to a property tax levy" 1513(d)(2)(D) (emphasis supplied) Because locally assessed personal property was not subject to a property tax levy, the State Supreme Court concluded that such property "cannot be included as commercial or industrial property for comparison under either" 1513(d)(1)(A) or (C) Because appellants' claims under 1513(d) were based on a comparison between flight property and property no longer subject to a tax levy, the court concluded that the claims must be rejected South Dakota Supreme Court Justice Henderson concurred in the court's interpretation of |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | majority | Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Board of Equalization of SD | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111825/western-air-lines-inc-v-board-of-equalization-of-sd/ | Supreme Court Justice Henderson concurred in the court's interpretation of the "in lieu tax" provision, but dissented from the court's interpretation of " `commercial and industrial property' " The State Supreme Court holding, Justice Henderson observed, permitted " `greater discrimination *129 when the [commercial and industrial] property is completely exempt than when it is taxed, but at a lower rate' " quoting Northwest v State Board of Equalization, 358 NW2d 515, Such an interpretation of the federal antidiscrimination provisions was unreasonable, Justice Henderson concluded "Since the level of assessment on commercial and industrial personal property is zero, the level of assessment of the airlines' personal property must be reduced to zero" 372 NW2d, In their jurisdictional statement to this Court appellants challenged the Supreme Court of South Dakota's interpretation of "commercial and industrial property" under 1513(d) Appellees defended the judgment on the basis of the same reasoning used by the Supreme Court of South Dakota We noted probable jurisdiction, 475 US 1008 Following oral argument, we requested supplemental briefing from the parties, and called for the views of the United States, on the following questions: (1) Is the question whether a state tax is an "in lieu tax which is wholly utilized for airport and aeronautical purposes," one of state or federal law, and "(2) If federal law governs the question whether a tax is an in lieu tax under 1513(d)(3), is the South Dakota Airline Flight Property Tax an `in lieu tax' under 1513(d)(3)?" 479 US 958 Because our conclusions on these two questions resolve this case, we do not reach the question of the interpretation of "commercial and industrial property" under 1513(d) II The parties and the United States agree that the question whether a state tax is an "in lieu tax which is wholly utilized for airport and aeronautical purposes," under 1513 (d)(3), is ultimately one of federal law The general principle that, absent a clear indication to the contrary, the meaning of words in a federal statute is a question of federal law has especial force when the purpose of the federal statute *130 is to eliminate discriminatory state treatment of interstate commerce Indeed, in Aloha Inc v Director of 464 U S, at 13-14, this Court held that a state legislature's characterization of a tax could not shield the tax from application of another subsection of 1513 In the present case, as in Aloha we must examine the "purpose and effect" of the state tax in light of the policy embodied in the federal provision Congress has given us little material with which to interpret |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | majority | Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Board of Equalization of SD | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111825/western-air-lines-inc-v-board-of-equalization-of-sd/ | Congress has given us little material with which to interpret the in lieu tax exception The provision was added to the Act at conference, and there is no legislative history specifically discussing it[*] The language of 1513(d)(3) itself, *131 and the policies reflected in the Airport and Airway Improvement Act of 1982, however, lead us to the conclusion that the in lieu tax provision exempts the South Dakota Airline Flight Property Tax from the restrictions of 1513(d) Section 1513(d)(3) uses two characteristics to identify a group of airline property taxes that are exempted from the restrictions of 1513(d)(1) First, and perhaps most important, to fall under the protection of 1513(d)(3) a tax must be "wholly utilized for airport and aeronautical purposes" Section 1513(d) is modeled on similar provisions in the 4-R Act and the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 See 49 US C 11503, 11503a The legislative history of the antidiscrimination provision in the 4-R Act demonstrates Congress' awareness that interstate carriers "are easy prey for State and local tax assessors" in that they are "nonvoting, often nonresident, targets for local taxation," who cannot easily remove themselves from the locality S Rep No 91-630, p 3 (1969) The Department of Transportation had observed that "[s]tate and local governments derive substantial revenues from taxes on property owned by common carriers" It is this temptation to excessively tax nonvoting, nonresident businesses in order to subsidize general welfare services for state residents that made federal legislation in this area necessary The ability to use taxes levied on an interstate carrier to subsidize general welfare spending does not exist, of course, when the proceeds are allocated directly and entirely to the benefit of the carrier Not only is the possibility of discriminatory benefits to state residents *132 eliminated, but also the specter of discriminatory burdens on the carrier is avoided by the recycling of the tax revenues into the specific facilities used by the carrier Second, the phrase "in lieu tax" restricts the protection of 1513(d)(3) to property taxes applied to the exclusion of any other tax on the property, in other words, to taxes applied in lieu of any other possible property tax This requirement reinforces the policy reflected in the "wholly utilized for airport and aeronautical purposes" phrase If the revenues collected pursuant to a property tax are specifically used for the benefit of those from whom the tax was collected, then, as explained above, the tax does not discriminatorily take from some in order to benefit others If the same property is also subjected to tax used to subsidize general state |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | majority | Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Board of Equalization of SD | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111825/western-air-lines-inc-v-board-of-equalization-of-sd/ | is also subjected to tax used to subsidize general state expenditures, however, then the potential for abuse remains Two individually nondiscriminatory taxes a tax used for general welfare spending that meets the assessment ratio and rate restrictions of 1513(d)(1), and a tax the proceeds of which are devoted entirely to the industry from which it is collected obviously can become discriminatorily burdensome when combined South Dakota levies a tax on airline flight property, the proceeds of which are wholly utilized for airport and aeronautical purposes See S D Codified Laws 10-29-15 (1982), The South Dakota Airline Flight Property Tax establishes a method of taxing a particular type of property to the exclusion of any other tax on that property It therefore stands in lieu of the generally applicable ad valorem property tax that had been assessed on most other commercial and industrial property in the State at the time the airline flight property tax was established The language and logic of 1513(d)(3), therefore, lead to the conclusion that the South Dakota Airline Flight Property Tax falls under the in lieu tax exemption Appellants argue, however, that these characteristics alone are not sufficient for a tax to be exempted by *133 1513(d)(3) Appellants advocate the position taken by the Supreme Court of South Dakota, that in order to be exempted under this provision a tax must take the place of another tax that historically had been applied to the airline property The fact that a property tax is applied to the exclusion of all other property taxes is immaterial, appellants assert, unless some past tax was actually replaced by the present tax Because South Dakota's taxation of airline flight property has always taken the form of the taxation scheme at issue in this case, appellants argue, the South Dakota Airline Flight Property Tax is not a true "in lieu tax" Admittedly the phrase "in lieu tax" is open to this interpretation The illogical results of applying such an interpretation, however, argue strongly against the conclusion that Congress intended these results when it drafted 1513(d)(3) Under the interpretation appellants advocate, the question whether a tax would be exempted under the in lieu tax provision would, at best, turn on historical fortuity The identical taxation scheme South Dakota utilizes would be exempted under 1513(d)(3) if South Dakota had at one time applied some other taxation scheme to airline flight property Thus, if at one time the proceeds of the airline flight property tax had gone to general state expenditures rather than directly to the benefit of airports and airlines, the present |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | majority | Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Board of Equalization of SD | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111825/western-air-lines-inc-v-board-of-equalization-of-sd/ | directly to the benefit of airports and airlines, the present tax would be exempted Because South Dakota has always chosen to devote its taxes on airline flight property solely to the benefit of those airlines, it is not exempted, according to appellants Why a State that has consistently chosen to levy, to the exclusion of all other property taxes, a tax utilized wholly for aeronautical purposes should be penalized for its consistency is unexplained At worst, appellants' interpretation of 1513(d)(3) would do no more than place a meaningless hurdle before state legislatures seeking to conform their tax scheme to the requirements of this provision A closer examination of how this proposed replacement requirement would operate in *134 practice illustrates the point Appellants do not suggest and have no basis upon which to suggest that in order to be an "in lieu tax" under 1513(d)(3) the airline flight property tax must have replaced some other tax by the effective date of the federal provision If one tax must replace another, therefore, the replacement could take place at any time Moreover, it could not be a condition of 1513(d)(3) coverage that the "in lieu tax" replace a tax that had met the antidiscrimination restrictions of 1513(d) If the tax described in 1513(d)(3) could replace only a tax that met all the requirements of 1513(d)(1), then 1513(d)(3) would not be an exemption at all; it would simply add a restriction on how the taxes could be spent with no corresponding latitude on how they may be collected Ultimately, therefore, South Dakota could satisfy appellants' interpretation of 1513(d)(3) by simply amending its tax code so that its airline flight property tax took some other form, then the following session substituting for that tax a tax utilized wholly for aeronautical purposes This exercise of replacing one tax with another, while contributing somewhat to a state legislature's workload, would contribute nothing to the policies of the Airport and Airway Improvement Act In sum, the language of 1513(d)(3), while at first glance ambiguous, should be interpreted in a manner that comports with the policies of the Airport and Airway Improvement Act That interpretation is that 1513(d)(3) exempts from the antidiscrimination provisions of 1513(d)(1) a tax on airline flight property, applied to the exclusion of any other possible tax on that property, the proceeds of which are wholly utilized for airport and aeronautical purposes Because the South Dakota Airline Flight Property Tax fits this description, it does not violate the antidiscrimination provisions of 1513(d) For this reason, the judgment of the Supreme Court of South Dakota |
Justice Brennan | 1,973 | 13 | majority | Goosby v. Osser | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108661/goosby-v-osser/ | The question is whether 28 US C 2281[1] required the convening of a three-judge court in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to hear this case It is a class action brought by and on behalf of peons awaiting trial and confined in Philadelphia County prisons because either unable to afford bail or because charged with nonbailable offenses The complaint alleges that provisions of the Pennsylvania Election Code, in violation of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, absolutely deny petitione' class the right to vote in *514 that they neither permit membe of the class to leave prison to register and vote, nor provide facilities for the purpose at the prisons, and in that they expressly prohibit peons "confined in penal institutions" from voting by absentee ballot[2] The complaint names as defendants two Commonwealth officials, the Attorney General and Secretary of State of Pennsylvania, and certain municipal officials of the Country and City of Philadelphia: the City Commissione of Philadelphia who constitute the Board of and Registration Commission of the City and Country of Philadelphia, the Voting Registration Supervisor for the City and Country, and the Superintendent of Prisons for the Country On oral argument before a single judge on petitione' motion for a temporary restraining order, the Commonwealth officials appeared by a Deputy Attorney General, who conceded that the challenged provisions of the Election Code, as applied to petitione' class, were unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment The municipal officials, on the other hand, vigorously defended the constitutionality of the provisions as so applied The single judge deemed the contrary view of the municipal officials to be irrelevant, as he regarded the Commonwealth officials to be the "principal defendants" See *515 n 3, infra He therefore ruled that the concession on behalf of the Commonwealth officials meant there was no case or controvey before the court as required by Art III of the Constitution, and dismissed the complaint[3] On petitione' appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed We do not, however, read the per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals as resting the affirmance on agreement with the single judge that the concession of the Commonwealth officials meant there was no case or controvey before the court Rather, we read the per curiam opinion as either implying disagreement with the single judge on that question, or as at least assuming that a case or controvey existed, for the opinion states that, in the view of the Court of Appeals, petitione' constitutional claims were wholly insubstantial under in which |
Justice Brennan | 1,973 | 13 | majority | Goosby v. Osser | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108661/goosby-v-osser/ | Appeals, petitione' constitutional claims were wholly insubstantial under in which circumstance, *516 the Court of Appeals held, was authority that 28 US C 2281 did not require the assembly of a three-judge court and that dismissal by the single judge was therefore A petition for rehearing en banc was denied, three judges dissenting We granted certiorari, We revee the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand with direction to enter an appropriate order puuant to 28 US C 2281 for the convening of a three-judge court to hear this case I The single judge clearly erred in holding that the concession of the Commonwealth officials foreclosed the existence of a case or controvey All parties are in accord that Pennsylvania law did not oblige the municipal officials to defer to the concession of the Commonwealth officials, or otherwise give the Commonwealth officials a special status as "principal defendants"[4] Indeed, the brief filed in this Court by the Commonwealth officials forthrightly argues that "[t]he District Court made an egregious error The Attorney General and the Secretary of the Commonwealth are not the only defendants in this case The City Commissione of Philadelphia, the Voting Registration Supervisor, the Registration Commission, and the Superintendent of Prisons for Philadelphia Country are also parties These parties have contested vigorously the issues raised by petitione both in the District Court and on appeal *517 They have provided adveity of interest, and will sharply define the issues, to the extent they are not already clear" Brief for Respondents Commonwealth of Pennsylvania et al 4-5[5] Thus, there is satisfied the requisite of Art III that "[t]he constitutional question be presented in the context of a specific live grievance" As between petitione and the municipal officials, the District Court was "called upon to adjudge the legal rights of litigants in actual controveies," Liverpool, N Y & P S S and "the interests of [petitione' class] require the use of judicial authority for [petitione'] protection against actual interference" United Public Worke of Since the municipal officials peist in their asserted right to enforce the challenged provisions of the Election Code, there is a "real and substantial controvey" "touching the legal relations of parties having advee legal interests," Aetna Life Ins in which circumstance the concession of the Commonwealth officials could not have the effect of dissipating the existence of a case or controvey Cf In re Metropolitan Railway Receivehip, 208 US (18) *518 II The Court of Appeals also erred We disagree with its holding that rendered petitione' constitutional claims wholly insubstantial Title 28 US C 2281 does not |
Justice Brennan | 1,973 | 13 | majority | Goosby v. Osser | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108661/goosby-v-osser/ | claims wholly insubstantial Title 28 US C 2281 does not require the convening of a three-judge court when the constitutional attack upon the state statutes is insubstantial "Constitutional insubstantiality" for this purpose has been equated with such concepts as "essentially fictitious," ; "wholly insubstantial," ibid; "obviously frivolous," Hannis Distilling ; and "obviously without merit," Ex parte 2 US 30, The limiting words "wholly" and "obviously" have cogent legal significance In the context of the effect of prior decisions upon the substantiality of constitutional claims, those words import that claims are constitutionally insubstantial only if the prior decisions inescapably render the claims frivolous; previous decisions that merely render claims of doubtful or questionable merit do not render them insubstantial for the purposes of 28 US C 2281 A claim is insubstantial only if " `its unsoundness so clearly results from the previous decisions of this court as to foreclose the subject and leave no room for the inference that the questions sought to be raised can be the subject of controvey' " Ex parte at quoting from Hannis Distilling at ; see also Levering & Garrigues ; (19) Under this test, it is clear that McDonald is not a prior decision of this Court that "foreclose[s] the subject" of petitione' constitutional attack upon the Pennsylvania statutory scheme; it is demonstrably not a decision that *519 "leave[s] no room for the inference that the question sought to be raised [by petitione] can be the subject of controvey" In McDonald, appellants were a class of pretrial detainees in Cook Country, Illinois, already registered to vote, who sought to vote only by absentee ballot Their timely applications to the Cook Country Board of Election Commissione for absentee ballots were denied on the ground that pretrial detainees were not included among those peons specifically permitted by the Illinois Election Code to vote by absentee ballot Appellants brought suit alleging that in that circumstance the Illinois Election Code denied them equal protection of the laws, particularly as the Code provided absentee ballots for those "medically incapacitated," and for pretrial detainees who were residents of Cook Country but incarcerated outside of Cook Country[6] The threshold question presented in McDonald was "how stringent a standard to use in evaluating the classifications made [by the Illinois absentee ballot provisions] and whether the distinctions must be justified by a compelling state interest " 4 US, at 6 In resolving this question, the Court analyzed the Illinois scheme in light of our decisions that required the application of the more stringent compelling state interest test when either a fundamental right, such |
Justice Brennan | 1,973 | 13 | majority | Goosby v. Osser | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108661/goosby-v-osser/ | compelling state interest test when either a fundamental right, such as the right to vote, was allegedly infringed, ; ; 3 US 89 or when the statutory classifications were drawn on the basis of suspect criteria, such as wealth or race, Harper v Virginia Board of ; 4 US, at 7 Our analysis led us to conclude that neither situation was presented by the Illinois absentee voting provisions We held that "the distinctions made by Illinois' absentee provisions are not drawn on the basis of wealth or race," ibid, and, with respect to the alleged infringement of appellants' right to vote, that: "[T]here is nothing in the record to indicate that the Illinois statutory scheme has an impact on appellants' ability to exercise the fundamental right to vote It is thus not the right to vote that is at stake here but a claimed right to receive absentee ballots Despite appellants' claim to the contrary, the absentee statutes, which are designed to make voting more available to some groups who cannot easily get to the polls, do not themselves deny appellants the exercise of the franchise; not, indeed, does Illinois' Election Code so operate as a whole, for the State's statutes specifically disenfranchise only those who have been convicted and sentenced, and not those similarly situated to appellants [Citation omitted] Faced as we are with a constitutional question, we cannot lightly assume, with nothing in the record to support such an assumption, that Illinois has in fact precluded appellants from voting" Id, at 7-8 (Emphasis supplied) For all that appeared, Illinois might make the franchise available by other means: "Appellants agree that the record is barren of any indication that the State might not, for instance, *521 possibly furnish the jails with special polling booths or facilities on election day, or provide guarded transportation to the polls themselves for certain inmates, or entertain motions for temporary reductions in bail to allow some inmates to get to the polls on their own" Id, at 8 n 6 Thus, "[s]ince there is nothing in the record to show that appellants are in fact absolutely prohibited from voting by the State " id, at 8 n 7, we concluded that the Illinois absentee ballot provisions were to be tested by the "more traditional standards for evaluating equal protection claims," id, at 8, and that under those standards the provisions could not be said to be arbitrary or unreasonable, particularly since "there is nothing to show that a judicially incapacitated, pretrial detainee is absolutely prohibited from exercising the franchise" Id, at 9 Petitione' constitutional |
Justice Brennan | 1,973 | 13 | majority | Goosby v. Osser | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108661/goosby-v-osser/ | prohibited from exercising the franchise" Id, at 9 Petitione' constitutional challenges to the Pennsylvania scheme are in sharp contrast Petitione allege[7] that, unlike the appellants in McDonald, the Pennsylvania statutory scheme absolutely prohibits them from voting, both because a specific provision affirmatively excludes "peons confined in a penal institution" from voting by absentee ballot, Pa Stat Ann, Tit 25, 2602 (w) *522 (12) (Supp 1972-1973), and because requests by membe of petitione' class to register and to vote either by absentee ballot, or by peonal or proxy appearance at polling places outside the prison, or at polling booths and registration facilities set up at the prisons, or generally by any means satisfactory to the election officials, had been denied Thus, petitione' complaint alleges a situation that McDonald itself suggested might make a different case This is not to say, of coue, that petitione are as a matter of law entitled to the relief sought We neither decide nor intimate any view upon the merits[8] It suffices that we hold that McDonald does not "foreclose the subject" of petitione' challenge to the Pennsylvania statutory scheme The significant differences between that scheme and the Illinois scheme leave ample "room for the inference that the questions sought to be raised [by petitione] can be the subject of controvey" See We therefore conclude that this case must be "heard and determined by a district court of three judges " 28 US C 2281 The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reveed and the case is remanded with direction to enter an appropriate order puuant to that section for the convening of a three-judge court to hear and determine the merits of petitione' constitutional claims, see Kennedy v Mendoza-Martinez, 372 US 144, ; Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp v *523 Epstein, 370 US 713 ; Borden Co v Liddy, 309 F2d 871, cert denied, 372 US 953 ; Riss & Co v Hoch, 99 F2d 553, ; see also C Wright, The Law of Federal Courts 1-191 (2d ed 1970), or, if deemed appropriate, to abstain from such determination pending state court proceedings See Lake Carrie' Assn v MacMullan, 406 US 498, It is so ordered |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | This case illustrates that tragic facts make bad law. The Court holds that a state tort jury, rather than the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is ultimately responsible for regulating warning labels for prescription drugs. That result cannot be reconciled with or general principles of conflict pre-emption. I respectfully dissent. I The Court frames the question presented as a "narro[w]" onenamely, whether Wyeth has a duty to provide "an adequate warning about using the IV-push method" to administer Phenergan. Ante, at 1194. But that ignores the antecedent question of whothe FDA or a jury in Vermont has the authority and responsibility for determining the "adequacy" of Phenergan's warnings. Moreover, it is unclear how a "stronger" warning could have helped respondent, see ante, at 1199; after *1218 all, the physician's assistant who treated her disregarded at least six separate warnings that are already on Phenergan's labeling, so respondent would be hard pressed to prove that a seventh would have made a difference.[1] More to the point, the question presented by this case is not a "narrow" one, and it does not concern whether Phenergan's label should bear a "stronger" warning. Rather, the real issue is whether a state tort jury can countermand the FDA's considered judgment that Phenergan's FDA-mandated warning label renders its intravenous (IV) use "safe." Indeed, respondent's amended complaint alleged that Phenergan is "not reasonably safe for intravenous administration," App. 15, ¶ 6; respondent's attorney told the jury that Phenergan's label should say, "`Do not use this drug intravenously,'" ; respondent's expert told the jury, "I think the drug should be labeled `Not for IV use,'" ; and during his closing argument, respondent's attorney told the jury, "Thank God we don't rely on the FDA to make the safe[ty] decision. You will make the decision. The FDA doesn't make the decision, you do,"[2] Federal law, however, does rely on the FDA to make safety determinations like the one it made here. The FDA has long known about the risks associated with IV push in general and its use to administer Phenergan in particular. Whether wisely or not, the FDA has concludedover the course of extensive, 54-year-long regulatory proceedingsthat the drug is "safe" and "effective" when used in accordance with its FDA-mandated labeling. The unfortunate fact that respondent's healthcare providers ignored Phenergan's labeling may make this an ideal medical-malpractice case.[3] But turning a common-law tort suit into a "frontal assault" on the FDA's regulatory regime for drug labeling upsets the well-settled meaning of the Supremacy Clause and our conflict pre-emption jurisprudence. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 21. *1219 |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | jurisprudence. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 21. *1219 II A To the extent that "[t]he purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone in every pre-emption case," Medtronic, Congress made its "purpose" plain in authorizing the FDAnot state tort juriesto determine when and under what circumstances a drug is "safe." "[T]he process for approving new drugs is at least as rigorous as the premarket approval process for medical devices," and we held that the latter pre-empted a state-law tort suit that conflicted with the FDA's determination that a medical device was "safe," at 128 S.Ct., at Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), a drug manufacturer may not market a new drug before first submitting a new drug application (NDA) to the FDA and receiving the agency's approval. See (a). An NDA must contain, among other things, "the labeling proposed to be used for such drug," 355(b)(1)(F), "full reports of investigations which have been made to show whether or not such drug is safe for use and whether such drug is effective in use," 355(b)(1)(A), and "a discussion of why the benefits exceed the risks [of the drug] under the conditions stated in the labeling," 21 CFR 314.50(d)(5)(viii) The FDA will approve an NDA only if the agency finds, among other things, that the drug is "safe for use under the conditions prescribed, recommended, or suggested in the proposed labeling thereof," there is "substantial evidence that the drug will have the effect it purports or is represented to have under the conditions of use prescribed, recommended, or suggested in the proposed labeling thereof," and the proposed labeling is not "false or misleading in any particular." (d). After the FDA approves a drug, the manufacturer remains under an obligation to investigate and report any adverse events associated with the drug, see 21 CFR 314.80, and must periodically submit any new information that may affect the FDA's previous conclusions about the safety, effectiveness, or labeling of the drug, (k). If the FDA finds that the drug is not "safe" when used in accordance with its labeling, the agency "shall" withdraw its approval of the drug. 355(e). The FDA also "shall" deem a drug "misbranded" if "it is dangerous to health when used in the dosage or manner, or with the frequency or duration prescribed, recommended, or suggested in the labeling thereof." 352(j). Thus, a drug's warning label "serves as the standard under which the FDA determines whether a product is safe and effective." 50 Fed.Reg. 7470 (1985). Labeling is "[t]he centerpiece of risk management," as it "communicates to health |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | "[t]he centerpiece of risk management," as it "communicates to health care practitioners the agency's formal, authoritative conclusions regarding the conditions under which the product can be used safely and effectively." 71 Fed.Reg. 3934 (2006). The FDA has underscored the importance it places on drug labels by promulgating comprehensive regulationsspanning an entire part of the Code of Federal Regulations, see 21 CFR pt. 201, with seven subparts and 70 separate sectionsthat set forth drug manufacturers' labeling obligations. Under those regulations, the FDA must be satisfied that a drug's warning label contains, among other things, "a summary of the essential scientific information needed for the safe and effective use of the drug," 201.56(1), including a *1220 description of "clinically significant adverse reactions," "other potential safety hazards," "limitations in use imposed by them, and steps that should be taken if they occur," 201.57(c)(6)(i). Neither the FDCA nor its implementing regulations suggest that juries may second-guess the FDA's labeling decisions. B 1 Where the FDA determines, in accordance with its statutory mandate, that a drug is on balance "safe," our conflict pre-emption cases prohibit any State from countermanding that determination. See, e.g., ; International Paper ; Chicago & North Western Transp. Thus, as the Court itself recognizes, it is irrelevant in conflict pre-emption cases whether Congress "enacted an express pre-emption provision at some point during the FDCA's 70-year history." Ante, at 1200; see also (holding the absence of an express pre-emption clause "does not bar the ordinary working of conflict pre-emption principles"). Rather, the ordinary principles of conflict pre-emption turn solely on whether a State has upset the regulatory balance struck by the federal agency. ; see also Chicago & North Western Transp. (describing conflict pre-emption as "a two-step process of first ascertaining the construction of the [federal and state laws] and then determining the constitutional question whether they are actually in conflict" ). 2 A faithful application of this Court's conflict pre-emption cases compels the conclusion that the FDA's 40-year-long effort to regulate the safety and efficacy of Phenergan pre-empts respondent's tort suit. Indeed, that result follows directly from our conclusion in arose under the National Traffic and Motor Safety Vehicle Act of 1966, which directs the Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT) to "establish by order motor vehicle safety standards," 15 U.S.C. 1392(a) (1988 ed.), which are defined as "minimum standard[s] for motor vehicle performance, or motor vehicle equipment performance," 1391(2). Acting pursuant to that statutory mandate, the Secretary of Transportation promulgated Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208, which required car manufacturers to include passive restraint systems (i.e., devices that work |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | manufacturers to include passive restraint systems (i.e., devices that work automatically to protect occupants from injury during a collision) in a certain percentage of their cars built in or after See 49 CFR 571.208 (1999). Standard 208 did not require installation of any particular type of passive restraint; instead, it gave manufacturers the option to install automatic *1221 seatbelts, airbags, or any other suitable technology that they might develop, provided the restraint(s) met the performance requirements specified in the rule. Alexis drove her Honda Accord into a tree, and although she was wearing her seatbelt, she nonetheless suffered serious injuries. She then sued Honda under state tort law, alleging that her car was negligently and defectively designed because it lacked a driver's-side airbag. She argued that Congress had empowered the Secretary to set only "minimum standard[s]" for vehicle safety. 15 U.S.C. 1391(2). She also emphasized that the National Traffic and Motor Safety Vehicle Act contains a saving clause, which provides that "[c]ompliance with any Federal motor vehicle safety standard issued under this subchapter does not exempt any person from any liability under common law." 1397(k). Notwithstanding the statute's saving clause, and notwithstanding the fact that Congress gave the Secretary authority to set only "minimum" safety standards, we held 's state tort suit pre-empted. In reaching that result, we relied heavily on the view of the Secretary of Transportationexpressed in an amicus briefthat Standard 208 "`embodies the Secretary's policy judgment that safety would best be promoted if manufacturers installed alternative protection systems in their fleets rather than one particular system in every car.'" (quoting Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae, O.T.1999, No. 98-1811, p. 25). Because the Secretary determined that a menu of alternative technologies was "safe," the doctrine of conflict pre-emption barred 's efforts to deem some of those federally approved alternatives "unsafe" under state tort law. The same rationale applies here. Through Phenergan's label, the FDA offered medical professionals a menu of federally approved, "safe" and "effective" alternativesincluding IV pushfor administering the drug. Through a state tort suit, respondent attempted to deem IV push "unsafe" and "ineffective." To be sure, federal law does not prohibit Wyeth from contraindicating IV push, just as federal law did not prohibit Honda from installing airbags in all its cars. But just as we held that States may not compel the latter, so, too, are States precluded from compelling the former. See also Fidelity Fed. Sav. & Loan If anything, a finding of pre-emption is even more appropriate here because the FDCAunlike the National Traffic and Motor Safety Vehicle Actcontains no evidence that |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | National Traffic and Motor Safety Vehicle Actcontains no evidence that Congress intended the FDA to set only "minimum standards," and the FDCA does not contain a saving clause.[4] See also ante, at *1222 1200 (conceding Congress' "silence" on the issue). III In its attempt to evade 's applicability to this case, the Court commits both factual and legal errors. First, as a factual matter, it is demonstrably untrue that the FDA failed to consider (and strike a "balance" between) the specific costs and benefits associated with IV push. Second, as a legal matter, does not stand for the legal propositions espoused by the dissenters (and specifically rejected by the majority) in that case. Third, drug labeling by jury verdict undermines both our broader pre-emption jurisprudence and the broader workability of the federal drug-labeling A Phenergan's warning label has been subject to the FDA's strict regulatory oversight since the 1950's. For at least the last 34 years, the FDA has focused specifically on whether IV-push administration of Phenergan is "safe" and "effective" when performed in accordance with Phenergan's label. The agency's ultimate decisionto retain IV push as one means for administering Phenergan, albeit subject to stringent warningsis reflected in the plain text of Phenergan's label (sometimes in boldfaced font and all-capital letters). And the record contains ample evidence that the FDA specifically considered and reconsidered the strength of Phenergan's IV-push-related warnings in light of new scientific and medical data. The majority's factual assertions to the contrary are mistaken. 1 The FDA's focus on IV push as a means of administering Phenergan dates back at least to 1975. In August of that year, several representatives from both the FDA and Wyeth met to discuss Phenergan's warning label. At that meeting, the FDA specifically proposed "that Phenergan Injection should not be used in Tubex & reg;." 2 Record 583, 586 (Plaintiff's Trial Exh. 17, Internal Correspondence from W.E. Langeland to File (Sept. 5, 1975) (hereinafter 1975 Memo)). "Tubex" is a syringe system used exclusively for IV push. See App. 43. An FDA official explained that the agency's concerns arose from medical-malpractice lawsuits involving IV push of the drug, see 1975 Memo 586, and that the FDA was aware of "5 cases involving amputation where the drug had been administered by Tubex together with several additional cases involving necrosis," Rather than contraindicating Phenergan for IV push, however, the agency and Wyeth agreed "that there was a need for better instruction regarding the problems of intraarterial injection." The next year, the FDA convened an advisory committee to study, among other things, the risks associated with |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | committee to study, among other things, the risks associated with the Tubex system and IV push. App. 294. At the conclusion of its study, the committee recommended an additional IV-push-specific warning for Phenergan's label, see ib but did not recommend eliminating IV push from the drug label altogether. In response to the committee's recommendations, the FDA instructed Wyeth to make several changes to strengthen Phenergan's label, including the addition of upper case warnings related to IV push. See *1223 In the FDA directed Wyeth to amend its label to include the following text: "`[1] When used intravenously, [Phenergan] should be given in a concentration no greater than 25 mg/ml and at a rate not to exceed 25 mg/minute. [2] Injection through a properly running intravenous infusion may enhance the possibility of detecting arterial placement.'" The first of the two quoted sentences refers specifically to IV push; as respondent's medical expert testified at trial, the label's recommended rate of administration (not to exceed 25 mg per minute) refers to "IV push, as opposed to say being in a bag and dripped over a couple of hours." The second of the two quoted sentences refers to IV drip. See In its labeling order, the FDA cited voluminous materials to "suppor[t]" its new and stronger warnings related to IV push and the preferability of IV drip.[5] at 313. One of those articles specifically discussed the relative advantages and disadvantages of IV drip compared to IV push, as well as the costs and benefits of administering Phenergan via IV push.[6] The FDA also cited published case reports from the 1960's of gangrene caused by the intra-arterial injection of Phenergan,[7] and the FDA instructed Wyeth to amend Phenergan's label in accordance with the latest medical research.[8] The FDA also studied drugs similar to Phenergan and cited numerous cautionary articlesone of which urged the agency to consider contraindicating *1224 such drugs for IV use altogether.[9] In "support" of its labeling order, the FDA also cited numerous articles that singled out the inner crook of the elbowknown as the "antecubital fossa" in the medical communitywhich is both a commonly used injection site, see and a universally recognized high-risk area for inadvertent intra-arterial injections. One of the articles explained: "Because of the numerous superficial positions the ulnar artery might occupy, it has often been entered during attempted venipuncture [of the antecubital fossa]. However, the brachial and the radial arteries might also be quite superficial in the elbow region. The arterial variations of the arm, especially in and about the cubital fossa, are common and numerous. If venipuncture must |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | the cubital fossa, are common and numerous. If venipuncture must be performed in this area, a higher index of suspicion must be maintained to forestall misdirected injections." Stone & Donnelly, The Accidental Intra-arterial Injection of Thiopental, 22 Anesthesiology 995, 996 (1961) (footnote omitted; cited in App. 315, no. 20).[10] *1225 Based on this and other research, the FDA ordered Wyeth to include a specific warning related to the use of the antecubital space for IV push.[11] 2 When respondent was injured in Phenergan's label specifically addressed IV push in several passages (sometimes in lieu of and sometimes in addition to those discussed above). For example, the label warned of the risks of intra-arterial injection associated with "aspiration," which is a technique used only in conjunction with IV push.[12] The label also cautioned against the use of "syringes with rigid plungers," App. 390, which are used only to administer the drug via IV push. As respondent's medical expert testified at trial, "by talking plungers and rigid needles, that's the way you do it, to push it with the plunger." Moreover, Phenergan's label devoted almost a full page to discussing the "Tubex system," see which, as noted above, is used only to administer the drug via IV push. While Phenergan's label very clearly authorized the use of IV push, it also made clear that IV push is the delivery method of last resort. The label specified that "[t]he preferred parenteral route of administration is by deep intramuscular injection." If an intramuscular injection is ineffective, then "it is usually preferable to inject [Phenergan] through the tubing of an intravenous infusion set that is known to be functioning satisfactorily." See also (conceding that the best way to determine that an IV set is functioning satisfactorily is to use IV drip). Finally, if for whatever reason a medical professional chooses to use IV push, he or she is on notice that "INADVERTENT INTRA-ARTERIAL INJECTION CAN RESULT IN GANGRENE OF THE AFFECTED EXTREMITY." ; see also Phenergan's label also directs medical practitioners to choose veins wisely when using IV push: "Due to the close proximity of arteries and veins in the areas most commonly used for intravenous injection, extreme care should be exercised to avoid perivascular extravasation or inadvertent intra-arterial injection. Reports compatible with inadvertent intra-arterial injection of Phenergan Injection, usually in conjunction with other drugs intended for intravenous use, suggest that pain, severe chemical irritation, severe spasm of distal vessels, and resultant gangrene requiring amputation are likely under such circumstances." Thus, it is demonstrably untrue that, as of Phenergan's "labeling did not contain a specific |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | that, as of Phenergan's "labeling did not contain a specific warning about the risks of *1226 IV-push administration." Ante, at 1192. And whatever else might be said about the extensive medical authorities and case reports that the FDA cited in "support" of its approval of IV-push administration of Phenergan, it cannot be said that the FDA "paid no more than passing attention to" IV push, ante, at 1193; nor can it be said that the FDA failed to weigh its costs and benefits, Brief for Respondent 50. 3 For her part, respondent does not dispute the FDA's conclusion that IV push has certain benefits. At trial, her medical practitioners testified that they used IV push in order to help her "in a swift and timely way" when she showed up at the hospital for the second time in one day complaining of "intractable" migraines, "terrible pain," inability to "bear light or sound," sleeplessness, hours-long spasms of "retching" and "vomiting," and when "every possible" alternative treatment had "failed." App. 40 ; Rather than disputing the benefits of IV push, respondent complains that the FDA and Wyeth underestimated its costs (and hence did not provide sufficient warnings regarding its risks). But when the FDA mandated that Phenergan's label read, "INADVERTENT INTRA-ARTERIAL INJECTION CAN RESULT IN GANGRENE OF THE AFFECTED EXTREMITY," and when the FDA required Wyeth to warn that "[u]nder no circumstances should Phenergan Injection be given by intra-arterial injection," the agency could reasonably assume that medical professionals would take care not to inject Phenergan intra-arterially. See also 71 Fed.Reg. 3934 (noting that a drug's warning label "communicates to health care practitioners the agency's formal, authoritative conclusions regarding the conditions under which the product can be used safely and effectively"). Unfortunately, the physician's assistant who treated respondent in this case disregarded Phenergan's label and pushed the drug into the single spot on her arm that is most likely to cause an inadvertent intra-arterial injection. As noted above, when the FDA approved Phenergan's label, it was textbook medical knowledge that the "antecubital fossa" creates a high risk of inadvertent intra-arterial injection, given the close proximity of veins and arteries. See ; see also The Lippincott Manual of Nursing Practice 99 (noting, in a red-text "NURSING ALERT," that the antecubital fossa is "not recommended" for administering dangerous drugs, "due to the potential for extravasation").[13] According to the physician's assistant who injured respondent, however, "[i]t never crossed my mind" that an antecubital injection of Phenergan could hit an artery. App. 110; see also Oblivious to the risks emphasized in Phenergan's warnings, the physician's assistant pushed |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | the risks emphasized in Phenergan's warnings, the physician's assistant pushed a double dose of the drug into an antecubital artery over the course of "[p]robably about three to four minutes," ; notwithstanding respondent's complaints of a "`burn[ing]'" sensation that she subsequently described as "`one of the most extreme pains that I've ever felt,'" at *1227 110, 180-181. And when asked why she ignored Phenergan's label and failed to stop pushing the drug after respondent complained of burning pains, the physician's assistant explained that it would have been "just crazy" to "worr[y] about an [intra-arterial] injection" under the circumstances, The FDA, however, did not think that the risks associated with IV pushespecially in the antecubital spacewere "just crazy." That is why Phenergan's label so clearly warns against them. B Given the "balance" that the FDA struck between the costs and benefits of administering Phenergan via IV push, compels the pre-emption of tort suits (like this one) that would upset that balance. The contrary conclusion requires turning yesterday's dissent into today's majority opinion. First, the Court denies the existence of a federal-state conflict in this case because Vermont merely countermanded the FDA's determination that IV push is "safe" when performed in accordance with Phenergan's warning label; the Court concludes that there is no conflict because Vermont did not "mandate a particular" label as a "replacement" for the one that the jury nullified, and because the State stopped short of altogether "contraindicating IV-push administration." Ante, at 1194. But as we emphasized in (over the dissent's assertions to the contrary), the degree of a State's intrusion upon federal law is irrelevantthe Supremacy Clause applies with equal force to a state tort law that merely countermands a federal safety determination and to a state law that altogether prohibits car manufacturers from selling cars without airbags. -882, with (STEVENS, J., dissenting). Indeed, as recently as last Term, we held that the Supremacy Clause pre-empts a "[s]tate tort law that requires a manufacturer's catheters to be safer, but hence less effective, than the model the FDA has approved." Riegel, 552 U.S., at It did not matter there that the State stopped short of altogether prohibiting the use of FDA-approved cathetersjust as it does not matter here that Vermont stopped short of altogether prohibiting an FDA-approved method for administering Phenergan. See also (BREYER, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (noting it would be an "anomalous result" if pre-emption applied differently to a state tort suit premised on the inadequacy of the FDA's safety regulations and a state law that specifically prohibited an FDA-approved design). Second, the |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | state law that specifically prohibited an FDA-approved design). Second, the Court today distinguishes because the FDA articulated its pre-emptive intent "without offering States or other interested parties notice or opportunity for comment." Ante, at 1201; see also ante, at 1203. But the Court specifically rejected the argument (again made by the dissenters in that case) that conflict pre-emption is appropriate only where the agency expresses its pre-emptive intent through notice-and-comment rulemaking. ("To insist on a specific expression of agency intent to pre-empt, made after notice-and-comment rulemaking, would be in certain cases to tolerate conflicts that an agency, and therefore Congress, is most unlikely to have intended. The dissent, as we have said, apparently welcomes that result We do not"), with (STEVENS, J., dissenting) (emphasizing that "we generally expect an administrative regulation to declare any intention to *1228 pre-empt state law with some specificity," and that "[t]his expectation serves to ensure that States will be able to have a dialog with agencies regarding pre-emption decisions ex ante through the normal notice-and-comment procedures of the Administrative Procedure Act" ). Indeed, pre-emption is arguably more appropriate here than in because the FDA (unlike the DOT) declared its pre-emptive intent in the Federal Register. See 71 Fed.Reg. 3933-3936. Yet the majority dismisses the FDA's published preamble as "inherently suspect," ante, at 1201, and an afterthought that is entitled to "no weight," ante, at 1204. (opinion of BREYER, J.) (emphasizing that the FDA has a "special understanding of the likely impact of both state and federal requirements, as well as an understanding of whether (or the extent to which) state requirements may interfere with federal objectives," and that "[t]he FDA can translate these understandings into particularized pre-emptive intentions through statements in `regulations, preambles, interpretive statements, and responses to comments'"). Third, the Court distinguishes because the DOT's regulation "bear[s] the force of law," whereas the FDA's preamble does not. Ante, at 1203; see also ante, at 1200. But it is irrelevant that the FDA's preamble does not "bear the force of law" because the FDA's labeling decisions surely do. See It is well within the FDA's discretion to make its labeling decisions through administrative adjudications rather than through less-formal and less-flexible rulemaking proceedings, see and we have never previously held that our pre-emption analysis turns on the agency's choice of the latter over the former. Moreover, it cannot be said that 's outcome hinged on the agency's choice to promulgate a rule. See ante, at 1200, 1203. The Court reliedagain over the dissenters' protestationson materials other than the Secretary's regulation to explain the conflict between state |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | than the Secretary's regulation to explain the conflict between state and federal law. with (STEVENS, J., dissenting), and ante, at 1204 (BREYER, J., concurring). Fourth, the Court sandwiches its discussion of between the "presumption against pre-emption," ante, at 1200, and heavy emphasis on "the longstanding coexistence of state and federal law and the FDA's traditional recognition of state-law remedies," ante, at 1203. But the Court specifically rejected the argument (again made by the dissenters in that case) that the "presumption against pre-emption" is relevant to the conflict pre-emption analysis. See -907, (STEVENS, J., dissenting) ("[T]he Court simply ignores the presumption [against pre-emption]"). Rather than invoking such a "presumption," the Court emphasized that it was applying "ordinary," "longstanding," and "experience-proved principles of conflict pre-emption." Under these principles, the sole question is whether there is an "actual conflict" between state and federal law; if so, then pre-emption follows automatically by operation of the Supremacy Clause. See also -, ("[P]etitioner's dealings with the FDA were prompted by [federal law], and the very subject matter of petitioner's statements [to the FDA] were dictated by [federal law]. Accordinglyand in contrast to situations implicating `federalism concerns and the historic primacy of state regulation of matters of health and safety'no presumption *1229 against pre-emption obtains in this case" (citation omitted)).[14] Finally, the Court went out of its way to emphasize (yet again over the dissenters' objections) that it placed "some weight" on the DOT's amicus brief, which explained the agency's regulatory objectives and the effects of state tort suits on the federal regulatory ; compare (STEVENS, J., dissenting) (criticizing the majority for "uph[olding] a regulatory claim of frustration-of-purposes implied conflict pre-emption based on nothing more than an ex post administrative litigating position and inferences from regulatory history and final commentary"). See also (recognizing that the FDA is "uniquely qualified" to explain whether state law conflicts with the FDA's objectives). Yet today, the FDA's explanation of the conflict between state tort suits and the federal labeling regime, set forth in the agency's amicus brief, is not even mentioned in the Court's opinion. Instead of relying on the FDA's explanation of its own regulatory purposes, the Court relies on a decade-old and now-repudiated statement, which the majority finds preferable. See ante, at 1201-1202, 1203, n. 13. Cf. Riegel, 552 U.S., at ; Altria Group, And Justice BREYER suggests that state tort suits may "help the [FDA]," ante, at 1204 (concurring opinion), notwithstanding the FDA's insistence that state tort suits will "disrupt the agency's balancing of health risks and benefits," Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 9. does not |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 9. does not countenance the use of state tort suits to second-guess the FDA's labeling decisions. And the Court's contrary conclusion has potentially far-reaching consequences. C By their very nature, juries are ill-equipped to perform the FDA's cost-benefit-balancing function. As we explained in Riegel, juries tend to focus on the risk of a *1230 particular product's design or warning label that arguably contributed to a particular plaintiff's injury, not on the overall benefits of that design or label; "the patients who reaped those benefits are not represented in court." 552 U.S., at Indeed, patients like respondent are the only ones whom tort juries ever see, and for a patient like respondentwho has already suffered a tragic accidentPhenergan's risks are no longer a matter of probabilities and potentialities. In contrast, the FDA has the benefit of the long view. Its drug-approval determinations consider the interests of all potential users of a drug, including "those who would suffer without new medical [products]" if juries in all 50 States were free to contradict the FDA's expert determinations. at And the FDA conveys its warnings with one voice, rather than whipsawing the medical community with 50 (or more) potentially conflicting ones. After today's ruling, however, parochialism may prevail. The problem is well illustrated by the labels borne by "vesicant" drugs, many of which are used for chemotherapy. As a class, vesicants are much more dangerous than drugs like Phenergan,[15] but the vast majority of vesicant labelslike Phenergan'seither allow or do not disallow IV push. See Appendix, infra. Because vesicant extravasation can have devastating consequences, and because the potentially lifesaving benefits of these drugs offer hollow solace to the victim of such a tragedy, a jury's cost-benefit analysis in a particular case may well differ from the FDA's. For example, consider Mustargen (mechlorethamine HCl)the injectable form of mustard gaswhich can be used as an anticancer drug. Mustargen's FDA-approved label warns in several places that "This drug is HIGHLY TOXIC."[16] Indeed, the drug is so highly toxic: "Should accidental eye contact occur, copious irrigation for at least 15 minutes with water, normal saline or a balanced salt ophthalmic irrigating solution should be instituted immediately, followed by prompt ophthalmologic consultation. Should accidental skin contact occur, the affected part must be irrigated immediately with copious amounts of water, for at least 15 minutes while removing contaminated clothing and shoes, followed by 2% sodium thiosulfate solution. Medical attention should be sought immediately. Contaminated clothing should be destroyed."[17] Yet when it comes to administering this highly toxic drug, the label provides that "the |
Justice Alito | 2,009 | 8 | dissenting | Wyeth v. Levine | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145902/wyeth-v-levine/ | administering this highly toxic drug, the label provides that "the drug may be injected directly into any suitable vein, [but] it is injected preferably into the rubber or plastic tubing of a flowing intravenous infusion set. This reduces the possibility of severe local reactions due to extravasation or high concentration of the drug." (Emphasis added.) Similarly, the FDA-approved labels for other powerful chemotherapeutic vesicantsincluding *1231 Dactinomycin, Oxaliplatin, Vinblastine, and Vincristinespecifically allow IV push, notwithstanding their devastating effects when extravasated. The fact that the labels for such drugs allow IV push is strikingboth because vesicants are much more dangerous than Phenergan, and also because they are so frequently extravasated, see Boyle & Engelking, Vesicant Extravasation: Myths and Realities, 22 Oncology Nursing Forum 57, 58 (1995) (arguing that the rate of extravasation is "considerably higher" than 6.4% of all vesicant administrations). Regardless of the FDA's reasons for not contraindicating IV push for these drugs, it is odd (to say the least) that a jury in Vermont can now order for Phenergan what the FDA has chosen not to order for mustard gas.[18] * * * To be sure, state tort suits can peacefully coexist with the FDA's labeling regime, and they have done so for decades. Ante, at 1199-1200. But this case is far from peaceful coexistence. The FDA told Wyeth that Phenergan's label renders its use "safe." But the State of Vermont, through its tort law, said: "Not so." The state-law rule at issue here is squarely pre-empted. Therefore, I would reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Vermont. APPENDIX TO OPINION OF ALITO, J. ---------------------------------------------------------- Vesicant[1] IV Push[2] ---------------------------------------------------------- Dactinomycin Specifically allowed ---------------------------------------------------------- Mechlorethamine ---------------------------------------------------------- (Mustargen) Specifically allowed ---------------------------------------------------------- Oxaliplatin Specifically allowed ---------------------------------------------------------- Vinblastine Specifically allowed ---------------------------------------------------------- Vincristine Specifically allowed ---------------------------------------------------------- Bleomycin Neither mentioned nor prohibited ---------------------------------------------------------- Carboplatin Neither mentioned nor prohibited ---------------------------------------------------------- Dacarbazine Neither mentioned nor prohibited ---------------------------------------------------------- Mitomycin Neither mentioned nor prohibited ---------------------------------------------------------- Carmustine Not prohibited; IV drip recommended ---------------------------------------------------------- Cisplatin Not prohibited; IV drip recommended ---------------------------------------------------------- Epirubicin Not prohibited; IV drip recommended ---------------------------------------------------------- Etoposide Not prohibited; IV drip recommended ---------------------------------------------------------- Ifosfamide Not prohibited; IV drip recommended ---------------------------------------------------------- Mitoxantrone Not prohibited; IV drip recommended ---------------------------------------------------------- Paclitaxel Not prohibited; IV drip recommended ---------------------------------------------------------- Teniposide Not prohibited; IV drip recommended ---------------------------------------------------------- Vinorelbine Not prohibited; IV drip recommended ---------------------------------------------------------- Daunorubicin Prohibited ---------------------------------------------------------- Doxorubicin Prohibited ---------------------------------------------------------- |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112073/chick-kam-choo-v-exxon-corp/ | This case concerns the propriety of an injunction entered by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The injunction prohibited specified parties from litigating a certain matter in the Texas state courts. We must determine whether this injunction is permissible under the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U.S. C. 2283, which generally bars federal courts from granting injunctions to stay proceedings in state courts. I In 1977 Leong Chong, a resident of the Republic of Singapore, was accidentally killed in that country while performing repair work on a ship owned by respondent Esso Tankers, a subsidiary of respondent Exxon Corporation. Petitioner Chick Kam Choo, also a resident of Singapore, is Chong's widow.[] In 1978 she brought suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, presenting claims under the Jones Act, 46 U.S. C. 688, the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), 46 U.S. C. 761, the general maritime law of the United States, App. 4, and the Texas Wrongful Death Statute, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. 71.001-71.031 Respondents moved for summary judgment on the Jones Act and DOHSA claims, arguing that Chong was not a seaman, which rendered the Jones Act inapplicable, and that Chong had not died on the "high seas" but while the ship was in port, which rendered the DOHSA inapplicable. App. 9-10. Respondents also moved for summary judgment on the claim involving the general maritime law of the United *143 States, arguing that due to the lack of substantial contacts with the United States, the maritime law of Singapore, not that of the United States, governed. at 10 ; ). In addition to seeking summary judgment, respondents moved for dismissal under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, arguing that under the criteria identified in Gulf Oil the District Court was not a convenient forum. In 1980, the District Court, adopting the memorandum and recommendations of a Magistrate, granted respondents' motion for summary judgment on the Jones Act and DOHSA claims. The court agreed with respondents that those statutes were inapplicable. App. 29-31, 34. With respect to the general maritime law claim, the District Court applied factors identified in Lauritzen and Hellenic s to the choice-of-law question and concluded that the "statutory and maritime law of the United States should not be applied." App. 32. This conclusion led the court to grant summary judgment on petitioner's general maritime law claim, as well as to consider whether dismissal of the rest of the case was warranted under the doctrine of forum non conveniens. After reviewing the various factors |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112073/chick-kam-choo-v-exxon-corp/ | doctrine of forum non conveniens. After reviewing the various factors set out in Gilbert, the court concluded that dismissal was appropriate and accordingly granted respondents' motion to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds, provided respondents submit to the jurisdiction of the Singapore courts. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. Chick Kam Rather than commence litigation in Singapore, however, petitioner filed suit in the Texas state courts. Although the state complaint initially included all the claims in the federal complaint, as well as a claim based on Singapore law, petitioner later voluntarily dismissed the federal claims. This *144 left only the Texas state law claim and the Singapore law claim. See Brief for Petitioners 4, n. 4. Respondents briefly succeeded in removing the case to the District Court on the basis of diversity of citizenship, but the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ultimately held that complete diversity did not exist and the case was returned to the District Court with instructions to remand it to state court. Respondents then initiated a new action in federal court requesting an injunction to prevent petitioner and her attorneys, Benton Musslewhite and Joseph C. Blanks, "from seeking to relitigate in any state forum the issues finally decided" in the federal court's 1980 dismissal. App. 93. Petitioner moved to dismiss, arguing that the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U.S. C. 2283, prohibited the issuance of such an injunction. App. 96-98. Respondents, in turn, moved for summary judgment and a final injunction. The District Court granted respondents' motion and permanently enjoined petitioner and her attorneys "from prosecuting or commencing any causes of action or claims against [respondents] in the courts of the State of Texas or any other state arising out of or related to the alleged wrongful death of Leong Chong." Petitioner appealed, reiterating her contention that the injunction violated the Anti-Injunction Act. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected this argument. The panel majority concluded that the injunction here fell within the "relitigation" exception to the Act, which permits a federal court to issue an injunction "to protect or effectuate its judgments." The majority reasoned that an injunction was necessary to prevent relitigation of the forum non conveniens issue because petitioner pointed to no additional factor that made the "Texas court in Houston a more convenient forum for this litigation than a United States District Court in Houston." The majority acknowledged that due to an "open courts" provision in *145 the Texas Constitution, Art. I, 13, which is reflected in the Texas Wrongful Death Statute, Tex. |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112073/chick-kam-choo-v-exxon-corp/ | which is reflected in the Texas Wrongful Death Statute, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. 71.031 the state courts may not apply the same, or indeed, any forum non conveniens analysis to petitioner's case. Rather, as the Court of Appeals noted, it is possible that "Texas has constituted itself the world's forum of final resort, where suit for personal injury or death may always be filed if nowhere else." In this maritime context, however, the Court of Appeals majority concluded that the so-called "reverse-Erie" uniformity doctrine, see, e. g., Offshore Logistics, required that federal forum non conveniens determinations pre-empt state law. Because the Court of Appeals found any independent state forum non conveniens inquiry to be pre-empted, it held that the injunction was permissible. Chief Judge Clark wrote separately but joined this conclusion. Judge Reavley dissented, maintaining that the Texas courts should be allowed to apply their own open courts forum non conveniens standard. The dissent also criticized the majority's "bold new rule of preemption" which had the effect of "nullify[ing] the Texas open forum law for admiralty cases." The Court of Appeals' ruling conflicted with a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, cert. pending sub nom. Crowley Maritime Corp. v. Zipfel, No. 87-1122, which held that the Anti-Injunction Act precluded an injunction in similar circumstances. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, and now reverse and remand. II The Anti-Injunction Act generally prohibits the federal courts from interfering with proceedings in the state courts: "A court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State Court except as expressly *146 authorized by Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to protect or effectuate its judgments." 28 U.S. C. 2283. The Act, which has existed in some form since 1793, see Act of Mar. 2, 1793, ch. 22, 5, is a necessary concomitant of the Framers' decision to authorize, and Congress' decision to implement, a dual system of federal and state courts. It represents Congress' considered judgment as to how to balance the tensions inherent in such a system. Prevention of frequent federal court intervention is important to make the dual system work effectively. By generally barring such intervention, the Act forestalls "the inevitable friction between the state and federal courts that ensues from the injunction of state judicial proceedings by a federal court." Vendo Due in no small part to the fundamental constitutional independence of the States, Congress adopted a general policy under which state proceedings "should normally be allowed to continue unimpaired |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112073/chick-kam-choo-v-exxon-corp/ | which state proceedings "should normally be allowed to continue unimpaired by intervention of the lower federal courts, with relief from error, if any, through the state appellate courts and ultimately this Court." Atlantic Coast R. Congress, however, has permitted injunctions in certain, specific circumstances, namely, when expressly authorized by statute, necessary in aid of the court's jurisdiction, or necessary to protect or effectuate the court's judgment. These exceptions are designed to ensure the effectiveness and supremacy of federal law. But as the Court has recognized, the exceptions are narrow and are "not [to] be enlarged by loose statutory construction." See also Clothing Because an injunction staying state proceedings is proper only if it falls within one of the statutory exceptions, Atlantic Coast at 286-, and because the last of the three exceptions is the only one even arguably applicable *147 here, the central question in this case is whether the District Court's injunction was necessary "to protect or effectuate" the District Court's 1980 judgment dismissing petitioner's lawsuit from federal court. The relitigation exception was designed to permit a federal court to prevent state litigation of an issue that previously was presented to and decided by the federal court. It is founded in the well-recognized concepts of res judicata and collateral estoppel. The proper scope of the exception is perhaps best illustrated by this Court's decision in Atlantic Coast That case arose out of a union's decision to picket a railroad. The railroad immediately sought an injunction from a Federal District Court to prevent the picketing. The court refused to enjoin the union, issuing an order in 1967 that concluded, in part, that the unions were "free to engage in self-help." The railroad then went to state court, where an injunction was granted. Two years later this Court held that the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S. C. 151 et seq., prohibited state court injunctions such as the one the railroad had obtained. Railroad This decision prompted the union to move in state court to dissolve the injunction, but the state court declined to do so. Rather than appeal, however, the union returned to federal court and obtained an injunction against the enforcement of the state court injunction. The District Court read its 1967 order as deciding not just that federal law did not authorize an injunction, but that federal law pre-empted the State from interfering with the union's right of self-help by issuing an injunction. Accordingly, the court concluded that an injunction was necessary to protect that judgment. The Court of Appeals affirmed, but this Court reversed, holding that the federal |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112073/chick-kam-choo-v-exxon-corp/ | Appeals affirmed, but this Court reversed, holding that the federal court injunction was improper even assuming that the state court's refusal to dissolve its injunction was n. 5. After carefully *148 reviewing the arguments actually presented to the District Court in the original 1967 litigation and the precise language of the District Court's order, we rejected the District Court's later conclusion that its 1967 order had addressed the propriety of an injunction issued by a state court: "Based solely on the state of the record when the [1967] order was entered, we are inclined to believe that the District Court did not determine whether federal law precluded an injunction based on state law. Not only was that point never argued to the court, but there is no language in the order that necessarily implies any decision on that question." Thus, as Atlantic Coast makes clear, an essential prerequisite for applying the relitigation exception is that the claims or issues which the federal injunction insulates from litigation in state proceedings actually have been decided by the federal court. Moreover, Atlantic Coast illustrates that this prerequisite is strict and narrow. The Court assessed the precise state of the record and what the earlier federal order actually said; it did not permit the District Court to render a post hoc judgment as to what the order was intended to say. With these principles in mind, we turn to the two claims petitioner seeks to litigate in the Texas state courts. First, petitioner asserts a claim under Singapore law. App. 40. The District Court did not resolve the merits of this claim in its 1980 order. Rather, the only issue decided by the District Court was that petitioner's claims should be dismissed under the federal forum non conveniens doctrine. Federal forum non conveniens principles simply cannot determine whether Texas courts, which operate under a broad "open-courts" mandate, would consider themselves an appropriate forum for petitioner's lawsuit. See Tex. Const., Art. I, 13; Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. 71.031 Cf. Pennzoil Respondents' arguments to the District Court in 1980 reflected *149 this distinction, citing federal cases almost exclusively and discussing only federal forum non conveniens principles. See App. 10-12, 17-26. Moreover, the Court of Appeals expressly recognized that the Texas courts would apply a significantly different forum non conveniens Thus, whether the Texas state courts are an appropriate forum for petitioner's Singapore law claims has not yet been litigated, and an injunction to foreclose consideration of that issue is not within the relitigation exception. Respondents seek to avoid this problem by arguing that |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112073/chick-kam-choo-v-exxon-corp/ | exception. Respondents seek to avoid this problem by arguing that any separate state law determination is pre-empted under the "reverse-Erie" principle of federal maritime law. See generally Offshore Logistics, 477 U. S., at ; Knickerbocker Ice ; Southern Pacific Under this view, which was shared by the Court of Appeals, the only permissible forum non conveniens determination in this maritime context is the one made by the District Court, and an injunction may properly issue to prevent the state courts from undertaking any different approach. The contention that an independent state forum non conveniens determination is pre-empted by federal maritime law, however, does little to help respondents unless that pre-emption question was itself actually litigated and decided by the District Court. Since respondents concede that it was not, Tr. of Oral Arg. 32, the relitigation exception cannot apply. As we have previously recognized, "a federal court does not have inherent power to ignore the limitations of 2283 and to enjoin state court proceedings merely because those proceedings interfere with a protected federal right or invade an area pre-empted by federal law, even when the interference is unmistakably clear." Atlantic Coast See also Clothing Rather, when a state proceeding presents a federal issue, even a pre-emption *150 issue, the proper course is to seek resolution of that issue by the state court. This is the course respondents must follow with respect to the Singapore law claim. It may be that respondents' reading of the pre-emptive force of federal maritime forum non conveniens determinations is correct. This is a question we need not reach and on which we express no opinion. We simply hold that respondents must present their pre-emption argument to the Texas state courts, which are presumed competent to resolve federal issues. Cf. Pennzoil ; Clothing Accordingly, insofar as the District Court enjoined the state courts from considering petitioner's Singapore law claim, the injunction exceeded the restrictions of the Anti-Injunction Act. Finally, petitioner asserts a claim under Texas state law. In contrast to the Singapore law claim, the validity of this claim was adjudicated in the original federal action. Respondents argued to the District Court in 1980 that under applicable choice-of-law principles, the law of Singapore must control petitioner's suit. See App. 10. The District Court expressly agreed, noting that only two of the eight relevant factors "point toward American law," and concluding that the "statutory and maritime law of the United States should not be applied." Petitioner seeks to relitigate this issue in state court by arguing that "there are substantial and/or significant contacts" with the United States such |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112073/chick-kam-choo-v-exxon-corp/ | are substantial and/or significant contacts" with the United States such that "the application of American and Texas law is mandated." Because in its 1980 decision the District Court decided that Singapore law must control petitioner's lawsuit, a decision that necessarily precludes the application of Texas law, an injunction preventing relitigation of that issue in state court is within the scope of the relitigation exception to the Anti-Injunction Act. Accordingly, insofar as the District Court enjoined the state courts from considering petitioner's *151 claim under the substantive law of Texas, the injunction was permissible. Because the injunction actually entered by the District Court, was broader than the limited injunction we find acceptable, we must reverse the judgment approving a broad injunction and remand for entry of a more narrowly tailored order. Of course, the fact that an injunction may issue under the Anti-Injunction Act does not mean that it must issue. On remand the District Court should decide whether it is appropriate to enter an injunction. Accordingly, 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 Blackmun | 1,987 | 11 | second_dissenting | Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111958/nollan-v-california-coastal-commn/ | I do not understand the Court's opinion in this case to implicate in any way the public-trust doctrine. The Court certainly had no reason to address the issue, for the Court of Appeal of California did not rest its decision on Art. X, 4, of the California Constitution. Nor did the parties base their arguments before this Court on the doctrine. I disagree with the Court's rigid interpretation of the necessary correlation between a burden created by development and a condition imposed pursuant to the State's police power to mitigate that burden. The land-use problems this country faces require creative solutions. These are not advanced by an "eye for an eye" mentality. The close nexus between benefits and burdens that the Court now imposes on permit conditions creates an anomaly in the ordinary requirement that a State's exercise of its police power need be no more than rationally based. See, e. g., In my view, the easement exacted from appellants and the problems their development created are adequately related to the governmental interest in providing public access to the beach. Coastal development by its very nature makes public access to the shore generally more difficult. Appellants' structure is part of that general development and, in particular, it diminishes the public's visual access to the ocean and decreases the public's sense that it may have physical access to the beach. These losses in access can be counteracted, at least in part, by the condition on appellants' construction permitting public passage that ensures access along the beach. Traditional takings analysis compels the conclusion that there is no taking here. The governmental action is a valid exercise of the police power, and, so far as the record reveals, *866 has a nonexistent economic effect on the value of appellants' property. No investment-backed expectations were diminished. It is significant that the Nollans had notice of the easement before they purchased the property and that public use of the beach had been permitted for decades. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent. JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE BLACKMUN joins, dissenting. The debate between the Court and JUSTICE BRENNAN illustrates an extremely important point concerning government regulation of the use of privately owned real estate. Intelligent, well-informed public officials may in good faith disagree about the validity of specific types of land-use regulation. Even the wisest lawyers would have to acknowledge great uncertainty about the scope of this Court's takings jurisprudence. Yet, because of the Court's remarkable ruling in First English Evangelical Lutheran of local governments and officials must pay the price for the necessarily vague standards |
Justice Blackmun | 1,987 | 11 | second_dissenting | Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111958/nollan-v-california-coastal-commn/ | officials must pay the price for the necessarily vague standards in this area of the law. In his dissent in San Diego Gas & Electric JUSTICE BRENNAN proposed a brand new constitutional rule.[*] He argued that a mistake such as the one that a majority of the Court believes that the California Coastal Commission made in this case should automatically give rise to pecuniary liability for a "temporary taking." Notwithstanding the unprecedented chilling effect that such a rule will obviously have on public officials charged with the responsibility for drafting and implementing regulations designed to protect the environment *867 and the public welfare, six Members of the Court recently endorsed JUSTICE BRENNAN'S novel proposal. See First English Evangelical Lutheran I write today to identify the severe tension between that dramatic development in the law and the view expressed by JUSTICE BRENNAN's dissent in this case that the public interest is served by encouraging state agencies to exercise considerable flexibility in responding to private desires for development in a way that threatens the preservation of public resources. See ante, at 846-848. I like the hat that JUSTICE BRENNAN has donned today better than the one he wore in San Diego, and I am persuaded that he has the better of the legal arguments here. Even if his position prevailed in this case, however, it would be of little solace to landuse planners who would still be left guessing about how the Court will react to the next case, and the one after that. As this case demonstrates, the rule of liability created by the Court in First English is a shortsighted one. Like JUSTICE BRENNAN, I hope that "a broader vision ultimately prevails." Ante, at 864. I respectfully dissent. |
Justice Kavanaugh | 2,019 | 23 | majority | Air & Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4601080/air-liquid-systems-corp-v-devries/ | In maritime tort cases, we act as a common-law court, subject to any controlling statutes enacted by Congress. See Exxon Shipping 507–508 (2008). This maritime tort case raises a question about the scope of a manufacturer’s duty to warn. The manufac- turers here produced equipment such as pumps, blowers, and turbines for three Navy ships. The equipment re- quired asbestos insulation or asbestos parts in order to function as intended. When used on the ships, the equip- ment released asbestos fibers into the air. Two Navy veterans who were exposed to asbestos on the ships devel- oped cancer and later died. The veterans’ families sued the equipment manufacturers, claiming that the manufac- turers were negligent in failing to warn of the dangers of asbestos. The plaintiffs contend that a manufacturer has a duty to warn when the manufacturer’s product requires incorpo- 2 AIR & LIQUID SYSTEMS CORP. v. DEVRIES Opinion of the Court ration of a part (here, asbestos) that the manufacturer knows is likely to make the integrated product dangerous for its intended uses. The manufacturers respond that they had no duty to warn because they did not themselves incorporate the asbestos into their equipment; rather, the Navy added the asbestos to the equipment after the equipment was already on board the ships. We agree with the plaintiffs. In the maritime tort con- text, a product manufacturer has a duty to warn when (i) its product requires incorporation of a part, (ii) the manu- facturer knows or has reason to know that the integrated product is likely to be dangerous for its intended uses, and (iii) the manufacturer has no reason to believe that the product’s users will realize that danger. The District Court did not apply that test when granting summary judgment to the defendant manufacturers. Although we do not agree with all of the reasoning of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, we affirm its judgment requiring the District Court to reconsider its prior grants of summary judgment to the defendant manufacturers. I Kenneth McAfee served in the U. S. Navy for more than 20 years. As relevant here, McAfee worked on the U. S. S. Wanamassa from 1977 to 1980 and then on the U. S. S. Commodore from 1982 to 1986. John DeVries served in the U. S. Navy from 1957 to 1960. He worked on the U. S. S. Turner. Those ships were outfitted with equipment such as pumps, blowers, and turbines. That equipment required asbestos insulation or asbestos parts in order to function as intended. When used as intended, |
Justice Kavanaugh | 2,019 | 23 | majority | Air & Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4601080/air-liquid-systems-corp-v-devries/ | in order to function as intended. When used as intended, that equipment can cause the release of asbestos fibers into the air. If inhaled or ingested, those fibers may cause various illnesses. Five businesses—Air and Liquid Systems, CBS, Foster Wheeler, Ingersoll Rand, and General Electric—produced Cite as: 586 U. S. (2019) 3 Opinion of the Court some of the equipment that was used on the ships. Al- though the equipment required asbestos insulation or asbestos parts in order to function as intended, those businesses did not always incorporate the asbestos into their products. Instead, the businesses delivered much of the equipment to the Navy without asbestos. The equip- ment was delivered in a condition known as “bare-metal.” In those situations, the Navy later added the asbestos to the equipment.1 McAfee and DeVries allege that their exposure to the asbestos caused them to develop cancer. They and their wives sued the equipment manufacturers in Pennsylvania state court. (McAfee and DeVries later died during the course of the ongoing litigation.) The plaintiffs did not sue the Navy because they apparently believed the Navy was immune. See The plaintiffs also could not recover much from the manu- facturers of the asbestos insulation and asbestos parts because those manufacturers had gone bankrupt. As to the manufacturers of the equipment—such as the pumps, blowers, and turbines—the plaintiffs claimed that those manufacturers negligently failed to warn them of the dangers of asbestos in the integrated products. If the manufacturers had provided warnings, the workers on the ships presumably could have worn respiratory masks and thereby avoided the danger. Invoking federal maritime jurisdiction, the manufactur- ers removed the cases to federal court. The manufacturers then moved for summary judgment on the ground that manufacturers should not be liable for harms caused by later-added third-party parts. That defense is known as the “bare-metal defense.” —————— 1 Sometimes, the equipment manufacturers themselves added the asbestos to the equipment. Even in those situations, however, the Navy later replaced the asbestos parts with third-party asbestos parts. 4 AIR & LIQUID SYSTEMS CORP. v. DEVRIES Opinion of the Court The District Court granted the manufacturers’ motions for summary judgment. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated and remanded. In re Asbestos Prods. Liability The Third Circuit held that “a manufacturer of a bare-metal product may be held liable for a plaintiff ’s injuries suf- fered from later-added asbestos-containing materials” if the manufacturer could foresee that the product would be used with the later-added asbestos-containing materials. We granted certiorari to resolve a disagreement among the Courts of Appeals about |
Justice Kavanaugh | 2,019 | 23 | majority | Air & Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4601080/air-liquid-systems-corp-v-devries/ | to resolve a disagreement among the Courts of Appeals about the validity of the bare-metal defense under maritime law. 584 U. S. (2018). Com- pare (case below), with II Article III of the Constitution grants the federal courts jurisdiction over maritime cases. Under 28 U.S. C. the federal courts have “original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of [a]ny civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled.” When a federal court decides a maritime case, it acts as a federal “common law court,” much as state courts do in state common-law cases. Exxon Shipping Co., 554 U.S., at 507. Subject to direction from Congress, the federal courts fashion federal maritime law. See ; ; United ; Detroit Trust Co. v. The Thomas Barlum, 3 U.S. 21, 42–44 (1934). In formulating federal maritime law, the federal courts may examine, among other sources, judicial opinions, legislation, treatises, and scholarly writings. See Exxon Co., U. S. A. v. Sofec, Inc., 517 U.S. 830, 839 ; East River S. S. v. Transamerica Cite as: 586 U. S. (2019) 5 Opinion of the Court Delaval Inc., This is a maritime tort case. The plaintiffs allege that the defendant equipment manufacturers were negligent in failing to warn about the dangers of asbestos. “The gen- eral maritime law has recognized the tort of negligence for more than a century” Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock ; see also Maritime law has likewise recognized common-law principles of products liability for decades. See East River S. S. In this negligence case, we must decide whether a man- ufacturer has a duty to warn when the manufacturer’s product requires later incorporation of a dangerous part— here, asbestos—in order for the integrated product to function as intended. We start with basic tort-law principles. Tort law im- poses “a duty to exercise reasonable care” on those whose conduct presents a risk of harm to others. 1 Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm p. 77 For the manufacturer of a product, the general duty of care includes a duty to warn when the manufacturer “knows or has reason to know” that its product “is or is likely to be dangerous for the use for which it is supplied” and the manufacturer “has no reason to believe” that the product’s users will realize that dan- ger. 2 Restatement (Second) of Torts p. 301 (1963– 1964). In tort cases, the federal and state courts have not reached consensus on how to apply that general tort-law “duty to |
Justice Kavanaugh | 2,019 | 23 | majority | Air & Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4601080/air-liquid-systems-corp-v-devries/ | consensus on how to apply that general tort-law “duty to warn” principle when the manufacturer’s product requires later incorporation of a dangerous part in order for the integrated product to function as intended. Three approaches have emerged. The first approach is the more plaintiff-friendly foresee- ability rule that the Third Circuit adopted in this case: A 6 AIR & LIQUID SYSTEMS CORP. v. DEVRIES Opinion of the Court manufacturer may be liable when it was foreseeable that the manufacturer’s product would be used with another product or part, even if the manufacturer’s product did not require use or incorporation of that other product or part. See, 873 F.3d, ; ; Chi- (ED Pa., Oct. 5, 2004); McKenzie v. A. W. Chesterson Co., 7 Ore. App. 728, 749–750, The second approach is the more defendant-friendly bare-metal defense that the manufacturers urge here: If a manufacturer did not itself make, sell, or distribute the part or incorporate the part into the product, the manufac- turer is not liable for harm caused by the integrated prod- uct—even if the product required incorporation of the part and the manufacturer knew that the integrated product was likely to be dangerous for its intended uses. See, 495–497; Evans v. CBS ; Cabasug v. Crane Co., 989 F. Supp. 2d 10, The third approach falls between those two approaches. Under the third approach, foreseeability that the product may be used with another product or part that is likely to be dangerous is not enough to trigger a duty to warn. But a manufacturer does have a duty to warn when its product requires incorporation of a part and the manufacturer knows or has reason to know that the integrated product is likely to be dangerous for its intended uses. Under that approach, the manufacturer may be liable even when the manufacturer does not itself incorporate the required part into the product. See, ; In re New York City Asbestos N.Y. 3d 765, 793–794, 59 N.E.3d 458, 474 ; v. Air & Liquid Systems 1 A.3d 984, We conclude that the third approach is the most appro- Cite as: 586 U. S. (2019) 7 Opinion of the Court priate for this maritime tort context. To begin, we agree with the manufacturers that a rule of mere foreseeability would sweep too broadly. See gener- ally 1 Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm Comment j, at 82; 2 Restatement (Second) of Torts Comment j, at 330. Many products can foreseeably be used in numerous ways with numerous other products and parts. Requiring a product manufac- turer |
Justice Kavanaugh | 2,019 | 23 | majority | Air & Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4601080/air-liquid-systems-corp-v-devries/ | numerous other products and parts. Requiring a product manufac- turer to imagine and warn about all of those possible uses—with massive liability looming for failure to correctly predict how its product might be used with other prod- ucts or parts—would impose a difficult and costly burden on manufacturers, while simultaneously overwarning users. In light of that uncertainty and unfairness, we reject the foreseeability approach for this maritime context. That said, we agree with the plaintiffs that the bare- metal defense ultimately goes too far in the other direc- tion. In urging the bare-metal defense, the manufacturers contend that a business generally has “no duty” to “control the conduct of a third person as to prevent him from caus- ing physical harm to another.” at 122. That is true, but it is also beside the point here. After all, when a manufacturer’s product is dangerous in and of itself, the manufacturer “knows or has reason to know” that the product “is or is likely to be dangerous for the use for which it is supplied.” at 301. The same holds true, we conclude, when the manufacturer’s product re- quires incorporation of a part that the manufacturer knows or has reason to know is likely to make the inte- grated product dangerous for its intended uses. As a matter of maritime tort law, we find no persuasive reason to distinguish those two similar situations for purposes of a manufacturer’s duty to warn. See Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability Comment i, p. 30 (1997) (“[W]arnings also may be needed to inform users and 8 AIR & LIQUID SYSTEMS CORP. v. DEVRIES Opinion of the Court consumers of nonobvious and not generally known risks that unavoidably inhere in using or consuming the product”). Importantly, the product manufacturer will often be in a better position than the parts manufacturer to warn of the danger from the integrated product. See generally G. Calabresi, The Costs of Accidents 311–318 (1970). The product manufacturer knows the nature of the ultimate integrated product and is typically more aware of the risks associated with that integrated product. By contrast, a parts manufacturer may be aware only that its part could conceivably be used in any number of ways in any number of products. A parts manufacturer may not always be aware that its part will be used in a way that poses a risk of danger.2 To be sure, as the manufacturers correctly point out, issuing a warning costs time and money. But the burden usually is not significant. Manufacturers already have a duty to warn of the dangers |
Justice Kavanaugh | 2,019 | 23 | majority | Air & Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4601080/air-liquid-systems-corp-v-devries/ | Manufacturers already have a duty to warn of the dangers of their own products. That duty typically imposes a light burden on manufacturers. See, (CA9 1968); Butler v. L. Sonneborn Sons, Inc., 6 F.2d 623, 625–626 (CA2 1961); Ross Labs. v. Thies, 725 P.2d 1076, 1079 ; Moran v. Faberge, Inc., 3 Md. 538, 543–544, Requiring a manu- facturer to also warn when the manufacturer knows or has reason to know that a required later-added part is likely to make the integrated product dangerous for its intended uses should not meaningfully add to that burden. The manufacturers also contend that requiring a warn- ing even when they have not themselves incorporated the part into the product will lead to uncertainty about when product manufacturers must provide warnings. But the —————— 2 We do not rule out the possibility that, in certain circumstances, the parts manufacturer may also have a duty to warn. Cite as: 586 U. S. (2019) 9 Opinion of the Court manufacturers have not pointed to any substantial confu- sion in those jurisdictions that have adopted this ap- proach. And the rule that we adopt here is tightly cabined. The rule does not require that manufacturers warn in cases of mere foreseeability. The rule requires that manu- facturers warn only when their product requires a part in order for the integrated product to function as intended. The manufacturers further assert that requiring a warning in these circumstances will lead to excessive warning of consumers. Again, however, we are not aware of substantial overwarning problems in those jurisdictions that have adopted this approach. And because the rule we adopt here applies only in certain narrow circumstances, it will not require a plethora of new warnings. Requiring the product manufacturer to warn when its product requires incorporation of a part that makes the integrated product dangerous for its intended uses—and not just when the manufacturer itself incorporates the part into the product—is especially appropriate in the maritime context. Maritime law has always recognized a “special solicitude for the welfare” of those who undertake to “venture upon hazardous and unpredictable sea voy- ages.” American Export Lines, 446 U.S. 4, 285 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted). The plain- tiffs in this case are the families of veterans who served in the U. S. Navy. Maritime law’s longstanding solicitude for sailors reinforces our decision to require a warning in these circumstances. See Yamaha Motor U. S. A. v. Calhoun, ; ; (1970). For those reasons, we conclude as follows: In the mari- time tort context, a product manufacturer has a duty to warn |
Justice Kavanaugh | 2,019 | 23 | majority | Air & Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4601080/air-liquid-systems-corp-v-devries/ | tort context, a product manufacturer has a duty to warn when (i) its product requires incorporation of a part, (ii) the manufacturer knows or has reason to know that the integrated product is likely to be dangerous for its 10 AIR & LIQUID SYSTEMS CORP. v. DEVRIES Opinion of the Court intended uses, and (iii) the manufacturer has no reason to believe that the product’s users will realize that danger. We do not purport to define the proper tort rule outside of the maritime context. One final point for clarity: Courts have determined that this rule applies in certain related situations, including when: (i) a manufacturer directs that the part be incorpo- rated, see, Bell v. Foster Wheeler Energy WL 5780104, *6–*7 ; (ii) a manufac- turer itself makes the product with a part that the manu- facturer knows will require replacement with a similar part, see, 713–714 ; 17 F. Supp. 3d, at ; 446 Md., at 1 A. 3d, at ; or (iii) a product would be useless without the part, see, In re New York City Asbestos N.Y. 3d, at 793–794, 59 N.E. 3d, at 474. In all of those situations, courts have said that the product in effect requires the part in order for the integrated product to function as intended. We agree. The maritime tort rule we adopt today therefore encom- passes those situations, so long as the manufacturer knows or has reason to know that the integrated product is likely to be dangerous for its intended uses, and the manufacturer has no reason to believe that the product’s users will realize that danger. * * * In the maritime tort context, we hold that a product manufacturer has a duty to warn when (i) its product requires incorporation of a part, (ii) the manufacturer knows or has reason to know that the integrated product is likely to be dangerous for its intended uses, and (iii) the manufacturer has no reason to believe that the product’s users will realize that danger. The District Court should evaluate the evidence under that rule. Although we do not agree with all of the reasoning of the Third Circuit, we Cite as: 586 U. S. (2019) 11 Opinion of the Court affirm its judgment requiring the District Court to recon- sider its prior grants of summary judgment to the defend- ant manufacturers. It is so ordered. Cite as: 586 U. S. (2019) 1 GORSUCH, J., dissenting SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 17–1104 AIR AND LIQUID SYSTEMS CORP., ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ROBERTA G. DEVRIES, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS |
Justice Stevens | 1,992 | 16 | concurring | United States v. Felix | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112713/united-states-v-felix/ | While I join Parts I and II of the Court's opinion, I do not join Part III because I do not think there is "considerable justification," ante, at 387-388, for the Court of ' conclusion that the Double Jeopardy Clause, as interpreted in bars prosecution of Felix for the conspiracy charge contained in count 1 of the indictment. In Grady, we held that "the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a subsequent prosecution if, to establish an essential element of an offense charged in that prosecution, the government will prove conduct that constitutes an offense for which the defendant has already been prosecuted." But as the dissenting opinion of the Court of explained, "the overt acts at issue here did not meaningfully `establish' an essential element of the conspiracy" because there is no overt act requirement in the federal drug conspiracy statute and the overt acts did not establish an agreement between Felix and his co-conspirators. I would thus reverse for the reasons explained in Parts I and II of the Court's opinion, ante, at 381-387, and Part IIIB of the dissenting opinion of the Court of 926 F.2d, at -1539. |
Justice Thomas | 2,016 | 1 | majority | Musacchio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3171723/musacchio-v-united-states/ | In this case, the Government failed to object to a jury instruction that erroneously added an element that it had to prove, and petitioner failed to press a statute-of- limitations defense until his appeal. We address two questions arising from the parties’ failures to raise timely challenges. We first consider how a court should assess a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence in a criminal case when a jury instruction adds an element to the charged crime and the Government fails to object. We conclude that the sufficiency of the evidence should be assessed against the elements of the charged crime. We next consider whether the statute-of-limitations defense contained in 18 U.S. C. (the general federal criminal statute of limitations) may be successfully raised for the first time on appeal. We conclude that it may not be. I Petitioner Michael Musacchio served as president of a logistics company, Exel Transportation Services (ETS), until his resignation in 2004. In he formed a rival company, Total Transportation Services (TTS). Musacchio 2 MUSACCHIO v. UNITED STATES Opinion of the Court was soon joined there by Roy Brown, who previously headed ETS’s information-technology department. At TTS, Brown, using a password, continued to access ETS’s com- puter system without ETS’s authorization. Brown also gave Musacchio access to ETS’s system. This improper access of ETS’s system kept on until early 2006. In November 2010, a grand jury indicted Musacchio under 18 U.S. C. Under that provision, a person commits a crime when he “intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access,” and in doing so “obtains information from any protected computer.” (Emphasis added.) The statute thus provides two ways of committing the crime of improperly accessing a protected computer: (1) obtaining access with- out authorization; and (2) obtaining access with authoriza- tion but then using that access improperly. See ibid.; (defining “exceeds authorized access”). Count 1 of the indictment charged Musacchio with conspiring to commit both types of improper access. Count 23 charged him with making unauthorized access to ETS’s e-mail server “[o]n or about” November 24, App. 70–71.1 In 2012, the Government filed a superseding indictment amending those charges. Count 1 dropped the charge of conspiracy to exceed authorized access, limiting that charge to conspiracy to make unauthorized access. Count 2 amended the allegations originally contained in count 23 by alleging that Musacchio accessed specific ETS e-mail accounts “[o]n or about” November 23–25, at 83–84. The Government later filed a second superseding indictment that made no changes relevant here. Musacchio proceeded to a jury trial. At no time before or during trial |
Justice Thomas | 2,016 | 1 | majority | Musacchio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3171723/musacchio-v-united-states/ | a jury trial. At no time before or during trial did he argue that his prosecution violated —————— 1 Counts 2 through 22 charged other defendants with exceeding au- thorized access to specific e-mail accounts. App. 68–70. Those defend- ants pleaded guilty, and later indictments dropped those counts. Cite as: 577 U. S. (20) 3 Opinion of the Court the 5-year statute of limitations applicable to count 2. See 18 U.S. C. (providing general 5-year statute of limitations). For the Government’s part, it submitted proposed jury instructions on the conspiracy count before and during the trial. Each set of proposed instructions identified that count as involving “Unauthorized Access to Protected Computer[s],” and none required the jury additionally to find that Musacchio conspired to exceed authorized access to protected computers. Musacchio did not propose in- structions on the conspiracy count. Diverging from the indictment and the proposed in- structions, the District Court instructed the jury on count 1 that “makes it a crime for a person to intentionally access a computer without authorization and exceed authorized access.” App. 8 (emphasis added). The parties agree that this instruction was erroneous: By using the conjunction “and” when referring to both ways of violating the instruction required the Government to prove an additional element. Yet the Government did not object to this error in the instructions. The jury found Musacchio guilty on both counts 1 and 2. The District Court sentenced him to 60 months’ impris- onment. Musacchio appealed, making the two challenges that he again advances in this Court. First, he challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conspiracy conviction on count 1. He maintained, moreover, that the sufficiency of the evidence should be assessed against the erroneous jury instruction that included the additional element. Second, he argued, for the first time, that his prosecution on count 2—for unauthorized access—was barred by the 5-year statute of limitations because the superseding indictment was filed seven years after the crime and did not relate back to the timely original indictment. The Fifth Circuit rejected both challenges and affirmed 4 ( per curiam). First, the Court of Appeals concluded that it should assess Musacchio’s sufficiency challenge against the charged elements of the conspiracy count, not against the erroneous jury instruction. See –363. Un- der Fifth Circuit precedent, the court explained, errone- ously heightened jury instructions generally become the binding “law of the case” on appeal. (internal quotation marks omitted). Circuit precedent supplies an exception, however, when (1) the jury instruction is “ ‘pa- tently erroneous,’ ” and (2) “ ‘the issue is not misstated in |
Justice Thomas | 2,016 | 1 | majority | Musacchio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3171723/musacchio-v-united-states/ | ” and (2) “ ‘the issue is not misstated in the indictment.’ ” ). The Fifth Circuit con- cluded that those conditions for applying the exception were satisfied. See 590 Fed. Appx., –363. The court explained that the instruction’s requirement of an addi- tional element was “an obvious clerical error,” and that the indictment correctly charged Musacchio only with “Conspiracy To Make Unauthorized Access to [a] Protected Computer.” Therefore, the Fifth Circuit did not assess Musacchio’s sufficiency challenge under the heightened jury instruction. –363. Because Musacchio did not dispute that the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction under the elements set out in the indictment, the Fifth Circuit rejected his challenge. at 363. Second, the Fifth Circuit rejected Musacchio’s statute- of-limitations defense, concluding that he had “waived” the defense by failing to raise it at trial. We granted certiorari to resolve two questions that have divided the lower courts. 576 U. S. (2015). The first question is whether the sufficiency of the evidence in a criminal case should be measured against the elements described in the jury instructions where those instruc- tions, without objection, require the Government to prove more elements than do the statute and indictment. Com- Cite as: 577 U. S. (20) 5 Opinion of the Court pare, e.g., United 1272– 1273 (CA10 1998) (explaining that sufficiency is measured against heightened jury instructions), with Guevara, at (adopting an exception to that rule). The second question is whether a statute-of-limitations defense not raised at or before trial is reviewable on ap- peal. Compare, e.g., United 681 F.3d 1, 12, and n. 18 (CA1 2012) (limitations defense not raised and preserved before or at trial is reviewable on appeal for plain error), with United States v. Walsh, 700 F.2d 846, 855–856 (CA2 1983) (limitations defense not properly raised below is not reviewable on appeal). II We first address how a court should assess a sufficiency challenge when a jury instruction adds an element to the charged crime and the Government fails to object. We hold that, when a jury instruction sets forth all the ele- ments of the charged crime but incorrectly adds one more element, a sufficiency challenge should be assessed against the elements of the charged crime, not against the erroneously heightened command in the jury instruction. That conclusion flows from the nature of a court’s task in evaluating a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge. Sufficiency review essentially addresses whether “the government’s case was so lacking that it should not have even been submitted to the jury.” On sufficiency review, a reviewing court makes a limited inquiry tailored to ensure |
Justice Thomas | 2,016 | 1 | majority | Musacchio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3171723/musacchio-v-united-states/ | a reviewing court makes a limited inquiry tailored to ensure that a defendant receives the minimum that due process requires: a “meaningful opportunity to defend” against the charge against him and a jury finding of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 314–315 (1979). The reviewing court considers only the “legal” question “whether, after viewing the evi- dence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any 6 MUSACCHIO v. UNITED STATES Opinion of the Court rational trier of fact could have found the essential ele- ments of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” (emphasis in original). That limited review does not in- trude on the jury’s role “to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.” A reviewing court’s limited determination on sufficiency review thus does not rest on how the jury was instructed. When a jury finds guilt after being instructed on all ele- ments of the charged crime plus one more element, the jury has made all the findings that due process requires. If a jury instruction requires the jury to find guilt on the elements of the charged crime, a defendant will have had a “meaningful opportunity to defend” against the charge. And if the jury instruction requires the jury to find those elements “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the defendant has been accorded the procedure that this Court has required to protect the presumption of innocence. –315. The Government’s failure to introduce evi- dence of an additional element does not implicate the principles that sufficiency review protects. All that a defendant is entitled to on a sufficiency challenge is for the court to make a “legal” determination whether the evi- dence was strong enough to reach a jury at all. The Government’s failure to object to the heightened jury instruction thus does not affect the court’s review for sufficiency of the evidence.2 —————— 2 In resolving the first question presented, we leave open several mat- ters. First, we express no view on the question whether sufficiency of the evidence at trial must be judged by reference to the elements charged in the indictment, even if the indictment charges one or more elements not required by statute. Second, we do not suggest that the Government adds an element to a crime for purposes of sufficiency review when the indictment charges different means of committing a crime in the conjunctive. Third, we also do not suggest that an errone- ous jury instruction cannot result in reversible error just because the evidence was |
Justice Thomas | 2,016 | 1 | majority | Musacchio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3171723/musacchio-v-united-states/ | cannot result in reversible error just because the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction. Cite as: 577 U. S. (20) 7 Opinion of the Court Musacchio does not contest that the indictment here properly charged him with the statutory elements for conspiracy to obtain unauthorized access. The jury in- structions required the jury to find all of the elements of that charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Nor does he dispute that the evidence was sufficient to convict him of the crime charged in the indictment—of conspiring to make unauthorized access. Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit correctly rejected his sufficiency challenge. The Fifth Circuit erred, however, in basing that conclu- sion on the law-of-the-case doctrine. See 590 Fed. Appx., –363. That doctrine does not apply here. The law- of-the-case doctrine generally provides that “ ‘when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case.’ ” (quoting (1983)). The doctrine “expresses the practice of courts generally to refuse to reopen what has been decided,” but it does not “limit [courts’] power.” Thus, the doctrine may describe an appellate court’s decision not to depart from a ruling that it made in a prior appeal in the same case. See C. Wright et al., 18B Federal Practice and Procedure p. 646, and n. (2d ed. 2002) (collecting cases). But the doctrine is “something of a misnomer” when used to de- scribe how an appellate court assesses a lower court’s rulings. United (1997). An appellate court’s function is to revisit matters decided in the trial court. When an appellate court re- views a matter on which a party failed to object below, its review may well be constrained by other doctrines such as waiver, forfeiture, and estoppel, as well as by the type of challenge that it is evaluating. But it is not bound by district court rulings under the law-of-the-case doctrine. That doctrine does not bear on how to assess a sufficiency 8 MUSACCHIO v. UNITED STATES Opinion of the Court challenge when a jury convicts a defendant after being instructed—without an objection by the Government— on all charged elements of a crime plus an additional element. III We now consider whether a defendant may successfully raise the statute-of-limitations bar in 18 U.S. C. for the first time on appeal. Musacchio argues that he may do so, either because imposes a nonwaivable limit on federal courts’ subject-matter jurisdiction or because a previously unraised limitations claim may constitute plain error that can be noticed on appeal. We disagree with |
Justice Thomas | 2,016 | 1 | majority | Musacchio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3171723/musacchio-v-united-states/ | error that can be noticed on appeal. We disagree with both points, and hold that a defendant cannot successfully raise this statute-of-limitations bar for the first time on appeal. A Statutes of limitations and other filing deadlines “ordi- narily are not jurisdictional.” Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center, 568 U. S. (2013) (slip op., at 8). We treat a time bar as jurisdictional only if Congress has “clearly stated” that it is. at (slip op., at 6–7); (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted); see, e.g., (requiring a “clear indication” that a statute is jurisdic- tional (internal quotation marks omitted)). To determine whether Congress has made the necessary clear state- ment, we examine the “text, context, and relevant histori- cal treatment” of the provision at issue. Reed 6 Congress has not made such a clear statement here. Rather, the statutory text, context, and history establish that imposes a nonjurisdictional defense that becomes part of a case only if a defendant raises it in the district court. Cite as: 577 U. S. (20) 9 Opinion of the Court The statutory text suggests that does not im- pose a jurisdictional limit. Section 3282(a) provides: “Except as otherwise expressly provided by law, no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or the information is instituted within five years next af- ter such offense shall have been committed.” Although uses mandatory language, it does not expressly refer to subject-matter jurisdiction or speak in jurisdictional terms. The text of does not, there- fore, provide a “clear indication that Congress wanted that provision to be treated as having jurisdictional attributes.” Context confirms that does not impose a juris- dictional limit. Federal courts’ general criminal subject- matter jurisdiction comes from 18 U.S. C. which states: “The district courts shall have original jurisdic- tion of all offenses against the laws of the United States.” Section 3231 speaks squarely to federal courts’ “jurisdiction,” in marked contrast to which does not mention “jurisdiction” or a variant of that term. And, nothing in “conditions its jurisdictional grant on” compliance with ’s statute of limitations. Reed at 5. This context supports the conclu- sion that is not jurisdictional. The history of the limitations bar in demon- strates that it is a defense that becomes part of a case only if the defendant presses it in the district court. This Court held in United 17 Wall. 8 that a statute of limitations—identical in all relevant respects to —was “a matter of defence and must be pleaded or given in evidence by the accused.” ; |
Justice Thomas | 2,016 | 1 | majority | Musacchio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3171723/musacchio-v-united-states/ | be pleaded or given in evidence by the accused.” ; see 1 Stat. 119 (statute of limitations); see also at 173, and n. * (citing and describing statute of limitations). When a defendant introduces the limitations defense into 10 MUSACCHIO v. UNITED STATES Opinion of the Court the case, the Government then has “the right to reply or give evidence” on the limitations was decided more than 140 years ago, and we have adhered to its holding. Just three Terms ago, we reaf- firmed that “[c]ommission of [a federal] crime within the statute-of-limitations period is not an element of the offense,” and “it is up to the defendant to raise the limita- tions defense.” Smith v. United States, 568 U. S. (2013) (slip op., at 6) (citing ; emphasis deleted); see also (“The statute of limitations is a defense and must be asserted on the trial by the de- fendant in criminal cases ” (citing )). There is, in sum, a long history of treating the operative language in as providing a nonjurisdictional defense that a defendant must press at trial to insert into the case. In keeping with ’s text, context, and history, we conclude that provides a nonjurisdictional de- fense, not a jurisdictional limit. B Because does not impose a jurisdictional limit, the failure to raise it at or before trial means that it is reviewable on appeal—if at all—only for plain error. See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 52(b) (providing for consideration of “[a] plain error that affects substantial rights” even though the error “was not brought to the court’s atten- tion”). We conclude, however, that a district court’s failure to enforce an unraised limitations defense under cannot be a plain error.3 —————— 3 Because we conclude that the failure to enforce ’s limita- tions defense cannot be plain error, we do not resolve whether the failure to raise that defense in the District Court amounts to waiver (which some courts have held to preclude all appellate review of the defense) or forfeiture (which some courts have held to allow at least plain-error review). See United Cite as: 577 U. S. (20) 11 Opinion of the Court As explained above, a statute-of-limitations defense becomes part of a case only if the defendant puts the defense in issue. When a defendant presses a limitations defense, the Government then bears the burden of estab- lishing compliance with the statute of limitations by pre- senting evidence that the crime was committed within the limitations period or by establishing an exception to the limitations period. See When a defendant fails to press |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,980 | 19 | concurring | Deposit Guaranty Nat. Bank v. Roper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110225/deposit-guaranty-nat-bank-v-roper/ | I write briefly to state what seems to me to be sufficient differences between this case and United States Parole Comm'n v. Geraghty, post, p. 388, to allow the appeal of the denial of class certification in this case, and to dismiss the attempted appeal of the same question in Geraghty as moot. If I were writing on a clean slate, I might well resolve both these cases against the respondents. But the Court today has not cleaned the slate or been successful in formulating any sound principles *341 to replace what seem to me to be the muddled and inconsistent ones of the past. Compare with ; United Airlines, with Pasadena City Bd. of ; Coopers & with Indianapolis School ; and now this case, with United States Parole Comm'n v. Geraghty. Article III, and this Court's precedents in and require dismissal of the action in Geraghty because there is simply no individual interest remaining, no certified class or intervenors to supply that interest, and the action is not within that "narrow class of cases" that are "distinctly `capable of repetition, yet evading review.'" The facts in this case, in contrast, fit within the framework of the precedents permitting continuation of the action. The distinguishing feature here is that the defendant has made an unaccepted offer of tender in settlement of the individual putative representative's claim. The action is moot in the Art. III sense only if this Court adopts a rule that an individual seeking to proceed as a class representative is required to accept a tender of only his individual claims. So long as the court does not require such acceptance, the individual is required to prove his case and the requisite Art. III adversity continues. Acceptance need not be mandated under our precedents since the defendant has not offered all that has been requested in the complaint (i. e., relief for the class) and any other rule would give the defendant the practical power to make the denial of class certification questions unreviewable. Since adversity is in fact retained, and this set of facts fits within a "narrow class of cases" where a contrary rule would lead to the "reality" that "otherwise the issue would evade review," I think our precedents provide for the maintenance *342 of this action. Sosna, ; Accordingly, I join in the opinion of the Court in this case and in MR. JUSTICE POWELL's dissent in Geraghty. MR. |
Justice Souter | 2,005 | 20 | majority | Rompilla v. Beard | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/ | This case calls for specific application of the standard of reasonable competence required on the part of defense counsel by the Sixth Amendment. We hold that even when a capital defendant's family members and the defendant himself have suggested that no mitigating evidence is available, his lawyer is bound to make reasonable efforts to obtain and review material that counsel knows the prosecution will probably rely on as evidence of aggravation at the sentencing phase of trial. I On the morning of January 14, 1988, James Scanlon was discovered dead in a bar he ran in Allentown, Pennsylvania, his body having been stabbed repeatedly and set on fire. Ronald was indicted for the murder and related offenses, and the Commonwealth gave notice of intent to ask *378 for the death penalty. Two public defenders were assigned to the case. The jury at the guilt phase of trial found guilty on all counts, and during the ensuing penalty phase, the prosecutor sought to prove three aggravating factors to justify a death sentence: that the murder was committed in the course of another felony; that the murder was committed by torture; and that had a significant history of felony convictions indicating the use or threat of violence. See (d)(6), (8), (9) (2002). The Commonwealth presented evidence on all three aggravators, and the jury found all proven. 's evidence in mitigation consisted of relatively brief testimony: five of his family members argued in effect for residual doubt, and beseeched the jury for mercy, saying that they believed was innocent and a good man. 's 14-year-old son testified that he loved his father and would visit him in prison. The jury acknowledged this evidence to the point of finding, as two factors in mitigation, that 's son had testified on his behalf and that rehabilitation was possible. But the jurors assigned the greater weight to the aggravating factors, and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed both conviction and sentence. In December with new lawyers, filed claims under the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act, et seq. including ineffective assistance by trial counsel in failing to present significant mitigating evidence about 's childhood, mental capacity and health, and alcoholism. The postconviction court found that trial counsel had done enough to investigate the possibilities of a mitigation case, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the denial of relief. *379 then petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S. C. 2254 in Federal District Court, raising claims that included inadequate representation. The District Court found that the State Supreme Court had unreasonably |
Justice Souter | 2,005 | 20 | majority | Rompilla v. Beard | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/ | District Court found that the State Supreme Court had unreasonably applied as to the penalty phase of the trial, and granted relief for ineffective assistance of counsel. The court found that in preparing the mitigation case the defense lawyers had failed to investigate "pretty obvious signs" that had a troubled childhood and suffered from mental illness and alcoholism, and instead had relied unjustifiably on 's own description of an unexceptional background. No. CIV.A.99-737 App. 1307-1308. A divided Third Circuit panel reversed. The majority found nothing unreasonable in the state court's application of given defense counsel's efforts to uncover mitigation material, which included interviewing and certain family members, as well as consultation with three mental health experts. Although the majority noted that the lawyers did not unearth the "useful information" to be found in 's "school, medical, police, and prison records," it thought the lawyers were justified in failing to hunt through these records when their other efforts gave no reason to believe the search would yield anything helpful. The panel thus distinguished 's case from Whereas Wiggins's counsel failed to investigate adequately, to the point even of ignoring the leads their limited enquiry yielded, the Court of Appeals saw the investigation as going far enough to leave counsel with reason for thinking further efforts would not be a wise use of the limited resources they had. But Judge Sloviter's dissent stressed that trial counsel's failure to obtain relevant records on 's background was owing to the lawyers' unreasonable reliance on *380 family members and medical experts to tell them what records might be useful. The Third Circuit denied rehearing en banc by a vote of 6 to 5. We granted certiorari, and now reverse.[1] II Under 28 U.S. C. 2254, 's entitlement to federal habeas relief turns on showing that the state court's resolution of his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under "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," 2254(d)(1). An "unreasonable application" occurs when a state court "`identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts' of petitioner's case." ). That is, "the state court's decision must have been [not only] incorrect or erroneous [but] objectively unreasonable." -521 (quoting ). Ineffective assistance under is deficient performance by counsel resulting in with performance being measured against an "objective standard of reasonableness," "under prevailing professional norms," ibid.; This case, like some others recently, looks to norms of adequate investigation in |
Justice Souter | 2,005 | 20 | majority | Rompilla v. Beard | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/ | some others recently, looks to norms of adequate investigation in preparing for the sentencing phase of a capital trial, when defense counsel's job is to counter the *381 State's evidence of aggravated culpability with evidence in mitigation. In judging the defense's investigation, as in applying generally, hindsight is discounted by pegging adequacy to "counsel's perspective at the time" investigative decisions are made, and by giving a "heavy measure of deference to counsel's judgments," A A standard of reasonableness applied as if one stood in counsel's shoes spawns few hard-edged rules, and the merits of a number of counsel's choices in this case are subject to fair debate. This is not a case in which defense counsel simply ignored their obligation to find mitigating evidence, and their workload as busy public defenders did not keep them from making a number of efforts, including interviews with and some members of his family, and examinations of reports by three mental health experts who gave opinions at the guilt phase. None of the sources proved particularly helpful. 's own contributions to any mitigation case were minimal. Counsel found him uninterested in helping, as on their visit to his prison to go over a proposed mitigation strategy, when told them he was "bored being here listening" and returned to his cell. App. 668. To questions about childhood and schooling, his answers indicated they had been normal, ib save for quitting school in the ninth grade, There were times when was even actively obstructive by sending counsel off on false leads. The lawyers also spoke with five members of 's family (his former wife, two brothers, a sister-in-law, and his son), and counsel testified that they developed a good relationship with the family in the course of their representation, The state postconviction court found that counsel spoke to the relatives in a "detailed manner," attempting to unearth mitigating information, although the weight of this finding is qualified by the *382 lawyers' concession that "the overwhelming response from the family was that they didn't really feel as though they knew him all that well since he had spent the majority of his adult years and some of his childhood years in custody," ; see also Defense counsel also said that because the family was "coming from the position that [] was innocent they weren't looking for reasons for why he might have done this." The third and final source tapped for mitigating material was the cadre of three mental health witnesses who were asked to look into 's mental state as of the time of the offense |
Justice Souter | 2,005 | 20 | majority | Rompilla v. Beard | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/ | 's mental state as of the time of the offense and his competency to stand trial. But their reports revealed "nothing useful" to 's case, and the lawyers consequently did not go to any other historical source that might have cast light on 's mental condition. When new counsel entered the case to raise 's postconviction claims, however, they identified a number of likely avenues the trial lawyers could fruitfully have followed in building a mitigation case. School records are one example, which trial counsel never examined in spite of the professed unfamiliarity of the several family members with 's childhood, and despite counsel's knowledge that left school after the ninth grade. Other examples are records of 's juvenile and adult incarcerations, which counsel did not consult, although they were aware of their client's criminal record. And while counsel knew from police reports provided in pretrial discovery that had been drinking heavily at the time of his offense, Lodging to App. 111-120 (hereinafter Lodging), and although one of the mental health experts reported that 's troubles with alcohol merited further investigation, App. 723-724, counsel did not look for evidence of a history of dependence on alcohol that might have extenuating significance. Before us, trial counsel and the Commonwealth respond to these unexplored possibilities by emphasizing this Court's *383 recognition that the duty to investigate does not force defense lawyers to scour the globe on the off chance something will turn up; reasonably diligent counsel may draw a line when they have good reason to think further investigation would be a waste. See ; ; The Commonwealth argues that the information trial counsel gathered from and the other sources gave them sound reason to think it would have been pointless to spend time and money on the additional investigation espoused by postconviction counsel, and we can say that there is room for debate about trial counsel's obligation to follow at least some of those potential lines of enquiry. There is no need to say more, however, for a further point is clear and dispositive: the lawyers were deficient in failing to examine the court file on 's prior conviction. B There is an obvious reason that the failure to examine 's prior conviction file fell below the level of reasonable performance. Counsel knew that the Commonwealth intended to seek the death penalty by proving had a significant history of felony convictions indicating the use or threat of violence, an aggravator under state law. Counsel further knew that the Commonwealth would attempt to establish this history by proving 's prior conviction for |
Justice Souter | 2,005 | 20 | majority | Rompilla v. Beard | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/ | to establish this history by proving 's prior conviction for rape and assault, and would emphasize his violent character by introducing a transcript of the rape victim's testimony given in that earlier trial. App. 665-666. There is no question that defense counsel were on notice, since they acknowledge that a "plea letter," written by one of them four days *384 prior to trial, mentioned the prosecutor's plans. It is also undisputed that the prior conviction file was a public document, readily available for the asking at the very courthouse where was to be tried. It is clear, however, that defense counsel did not look at any part of that file, including the transcript, until warned by the prosecution a second time. In a colloquy the day before the evidentiary sentencing phase began, the prosecutor again said he would present the transcript of the victim's testimony to establish the prior conviction. "[DEFENSE]: I would also like to review whatever he's going to read from. "[PROSECUTOR]: Well, I told you that I was going to do this a long time ago. You certainly had the opportunity to review the Transcript. "[DEFENSE]: Well, I would like a copy of this. "[PROSECUTOR]: I don't think that's my duty to provide you with a copy. That's a public record, and you could have gotten that Transcript at any time prior to this Trial. I made one copy for myself, and I'd like to have it now. "[DEFENSE]: Well, Judge, then I'm going to need to get a copy of it. I'm going to need to get a copy of it."[2] *385 At the postconviction evidentiary hearing, 's lawyer confirmed that she had not seen the transcript before the hearing in which this exchange took place, and crucially, even after obtaining the transcript of the victim's testimony on the eve of the sentencing hearing, counsel apparently examined none of the other material in the file.[3] With every effort to view the facts as a defense lawyer would have done at the time, it is difficult to see how counsel could have failed to realize that without examining the readily available file they were seriously compromising their opportunity to respond to a case for aggravation. The prosecution was going to use the dramatic facts of a similar prior offense, and 's counsel had a duty to make all reasonable efforts to learn what they could about the offense. Reasonable efforts certainly included obtaining the Commonwealth's own readily available file on the prior conviction to learn what the Commonwealth knew about the crime, to discover any mitigating evidence |
Justice Souter | 2,005 | 20 | majority | Rompilla v. Beard | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/ | Commonwealth knew about the crime, to discover any mitigating evidence the Commonwealth would downplay, and to anticipate the details of the aggravating *386 evidence the Commonwealth would emphasize.[4] Without making reasonable efforts to review the file, defense counsel could have had no hope of knowing whether the prosecution was quoting selectively from the transcript, or whether there were circumstances extenuating the behavior described by the victim. The obligation to get the file was particularly pressing here owing to the similarity of the violent prior offense to the crime charged and 's sentencing strategy stressing residual doubt. Without making efforts to learn the details and rebut the relevance of the earlier crime, a convincing argument for residual doubt was certainly beyond any hope.[5] *387 The notion that defense counsel must obtain information that the State has and will use against the defendant is not simply a matter of common sense. As the District Court points out, the American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice in circulation at the time of 's trial describes the obligation in terms no one could misunderstand in the circumstances of a case like this one: "It is the duty of the lawyer to conduct a prompt investigation of the circumstances of the case and to explore all avenues leading to facts relevant to the merits of the case and the penalty in the event of conviction. The investigation should always include efforts to secure information in the possession of the prosecution and law enforcement authorities. The duty to investigate exists regardless of the accused's admissions or statements to the lawyer of facts constituting guilt or the accused's stated desire to plead guilty." 1 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 4-4.1 (2d ed. 1982 Supp.).[6] "[W]e long have referred [to these ABA Standards] as `guides to determining what is reasonable.'" (quoting 466 U. S., ), and the Commonwealth has come up with no reason to think the quoted standard impertinent here.[7] *388 At argument the most that Pennsylvania (and the United States as amicus) could say was that defense counsel's efforts to find mitigating evidence by other means excused them from looking at the prior conviction file. Tr. of Oral Arg. 37-39, 45-46. And that, of course, is the position taken by the state postconviction courts. Without specifically discussing the prior case file, they too found that defense counsel's *389 efforts were enough to free them from any obligation to enquire No. 682/1988 (Pa. Ct. Common Pleas, Aug. 23, 1996), App. 263-264, 272-273. We think this conclusion of the state court fails to answer the considerations we have |
Justice Souter | 2,005 | 20 | majority | Rompilla v. Beard | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/ | the state court fails to answer the considerations we have set out, to the point of being an objectively unreasonable conclusion. It flouts prudence to deny that a defense lawyer should try to look at a file he knows the prosecution will cull for aggravating evidence, let alone when the file is sitting in the trial courthouse, open for the asking. No reasonable lawyer would forgo examination of the file thinking he could do as well by asking the defendant or family relations whether they recalled anything helpful or damaging in the prior victim's testimony. Nor would a reasonable lawyer compare possible searches for school reports, juvenile records, and evidence of drinking habits to the opportunity to take a look at a file disclosing what the prosecutor knows and even plans to read from in his case. Questioning a few more family members and searching for old records can promise less than looking for a needle in a haystack, when a lawyer truly has reason to doubt there is any needle there. E. g., But looking at a file the prosecution says it will use is a sure bet: whatever may be in that file is going to tell defense counsel something about what the prosecution can produce. The dissent thinks this analysis creates a "rigid, per se" rule that requires defense counsel to do a complete review of the file on any prior conviction introduced, post, at 9 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.), but that is a mistake. Counsel fell short here because they failed to make reasonable efforts to review the prior conviction file, despite knowing that the prosecution intended to introduce 's prior conviction not merely by entering a notice of conviction into evidence but by quoting damaging testimony of the rape victim in that case. The unreasonableness of attempting no more than they did was heightened by the easy availability of the file *390 at the trial courthouse, and the great risk that testimony about a similar violent crime would hamstring counsel's chosen defense of residual doubt. It is owing to these circumstances that the state courts were objectively unreasonable in concluding that counsel could reasonably decline to make any effort to review the file. Other situations, where a defense lawyer is not charged with knowledge that the prosecutor intends to use a prior conviction in this way, might well warrant a different assessment. C Since counsel's failure to look at the file fell below the line of reasonable practice, there is a further question about that is, whether "there is a reasonable probability that, but for |
Justice Souter | 2,005 | 20 | majority | Rompilla v. Beard | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/ | is, whether "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Because the state courts found the representation adequate, they never reached the issue of App. 265, 272-273, and so we examine this element of the claim de novo, and agree with the dissent in the Court of Appeals. We think has shown beyond any doubt that counsel's lapse was prejudicial; Pennsylvania, indeed, does not even contest the claim of If the defense lawyers had looked in the file on 's prior conviction, it is uncontested they would have found a range of mitigation leads that no other source had opened up. In the same file with the transcript of the prior trial were the records of 's imprisonment on the earlier conviction, App. 508, 571, 631, which defense counsel testified she had never seen, The prison files pictured 's childhood and mental health very differently from anything defense counsel had seen or heard. An evaluation by a corrections counselor states that was "reared in the slum environment of Allentown, Pa. vicinity. He early came to [the] attention of juvenile authorities, quit *391 school at 16, [and] started a series of incarcerations in and out Penna. often of assaultive nature and commonly related to over-indulgence in alcoholic beverages." Lodging 40. The same file discloses test results that the defense's mental health experts would have viewed as pointing to schizophrenia and other disorders, and test scores showing a third grade level of cognition after nine years of schooling.[8] The accumulated entries would have destroyed the benign conception of 's upbringing and mental capacity defense counsel had formed from talking with himself and some of his family members, and from the reports of the mental health experts. With this information, counsel would have become skeptical of the impression given by the five family members and would unquestionably have gone further to build a mitigation case. Further effort would presumably have unearthed much of the material post-conviction counsel found, including testimony from several members of 's family, whom trial counsel did not interview. Judge Sloviter summarized this evidence: "'s parents were both severe alcoholics who drank constantly. His mother drank during her pregnancy *392 with and he and his brothers eventually developed serious drinking problems. His father, who had a vicious temper, frequently beat 's mother, leaving her bruised and black-eyed, and bragged about his cheating on her. His parents fought violently, and on at least one occasion his mother stabbed his father. He was abused by his father who beat him |
Justice Souter | 2,005 | 20 | majority | Rompilla v. Beard | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/ | father. He was abused by his father who beat him when he was young with his hands, fists, leather straps, belts and sticks. All of the children lived in terror. There were no expressions of parental love, affection or approval. Instead, he was subjected to yelling and verbal abuse. His father locked and his brother Richard in a small wire mesh dog pen that was filthy and excrement filled. He had an isolated background, and was not allowed to visit other children or to speak to anyone on the phone. They had no indoor plumbing in the house, he slept in the attic with no heat, and the children were not given clothes and attended school in rags." (citations omitted). The jury never heard any of this and neither did the mental health experts who examined before trial. While they found "nothing helpful to ['s] case," their post-conviction counterparts, alerted by information from school, medical, and prison records that trial counsel never saw, found plenty of "`red flags'" pointing up a need to test When they tested, they found that "suffers from organic brain damage, an extreme mental disturbance significantly impairing several of his cognitive functions." They also said that "'s problems relate back to his childhood, and were likely caused by fetal alcohol syndrome [and that] 's capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the law was substantially impaired at the time of the offense." *393 These findings in turn would probably have prompted a look at school and juvenile records, all of them easy to get, showing, for example, that when was 16 his mother "was missing from home frequently for a period of one or several weeks at a time." Lodging 44. The same report noted that his mother "has been reported frequently under the influence of alcoholic beverages, with the result that the children have always been poorly kept and on the filthy side which was also the condition of the home at all times." School records showed 's IQ was in the mentally retarded range. This evidence adds up to a mitigation case that bears no relation to the few naked pleas for mercy actually put before the jury, and although we suppose it is possible that a jury could have heard it all and still have decided on the death penalty, that is not the test. It goes without saying that the undiscovered "mitigating evidence, taken as a whole, `might well have influenced the jury's appraisal' of ['s] culpability," (quoting ), and the likelihood of a different |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | Petitioner Jose Padilla, a native of Honduras, has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States for more than 40 years. Padilla served this Nation with honor as a member of the U. S. Armed Forces during the Vietnam War. He now faces deportation after pleading guilty to the transportation of a large amount of marijuana in his tractor-trailer in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.1 n this postconviction proceeding, Padilla claims that his counsel not only failed to advise him of this consequence prior to his entering the plea, but also told him that he “ ‘did not have to worry about immigration status since he had been in the country so long.’ ” Padilla relied on his counsel’s erroneous ad vice when he pleaded guilty to the drug charges that made his deportation virtually mandatory. He alleges that he would have insisted on going to trial if he had not received incorrect advice from his attorney. Assuming the truth of his allegations, the Supreme —————— 1 Padilla’s crime, like virtually every drug offense except for only the most insignificant marijuana offenses, is a deportable offense under 8 U.S. C. 2 PADLLA v. KENTUCKY Opinion of the Court Court of Kentucky denied Padilla postconviction relief without the benefit of an evidentiary hearing. The court held that the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of effective assistance of counsel does not protect a criminal defendant from erroneous advice about deportation because it is merely a “collateral” consequence of his conviction. at 485. n its view, neither counsel’s failure to advise peti tioner about the possibility of removal, nor counsel’s incor rect advice, could provide a basis for relief. We granted certiorari, 555 U. S. (2009), to decide whether, as a matter of federal law, Padilla’s counsel had an obligation to advise him that the offense to which he was pleading guilty would result in his removal from this country. We agree with Padilla that constitutionally competent counsel would have advised him that his con viction for drug distribution made him subject to auto matic deportation. Whether he is entitled to relief de pends on whether he has been prejudiced, a matter that we do not address. The scape of federal immigration law has changed dramatically over the last 90 years. While once there was only a narrow class of deportable offenses and judges wielded broad discretionary authority to prevent deporta tion, immigration reforms over time have expanded the class of deportable offenses and limited the authority of judges to alleviate the harsh consequences of deportation. The “drastic measure” of deportation or removal, Fong Haw |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | deportation. The “drastic measure” of deportation or removal, Fong Haw is now virtually inevitable for a vast number of noncitizens convicted of crimes. The Nation’s first 0 years was “a period of unimpeded immigration.” C. Gordon & H. Rosenfield, mmigration Law and Procedure p. 5 (1959). An early effort to empower the President to order the deportation of those Cite as: 559 U. S. (20) 3 Opinion of the Court immigrants he “judge[d] dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States,” Act of June 25, 1798, ch. 58, 1 Stat. 571, was short lived and unpopular. Gordon at 5. t was not until 1875 that Congress first passed a statute barring convicts and prostitutes from entering the coun try, Act of Mar. 3, 1875, ch. 141, Gordon at 6. n 1891, Congress added to the list of exclud able persons those “who have been convicted of a felony or other infamous crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude.” Act of Mar. 3, 1891, ch. 551, 26 Stat. 84.2 The mmigration and Nationality Act of 1917 (1917 Act) brought “radical changes” to our law. S. Rep. No. 1515, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 54–55 (1950). For the first time in our history, Congress made classes of noncitizens de portable based on conduct committed on American soil. Section 19 of the 1917 Act authorized the de portation of “any alien who is hereafter sentenced to im prisonment for a term of one year or more because of conviction in this country of a crime involving moral turpi tude, committed within five years after the entry of the alien to the United States” And also rendered deportable noncitizen recidivists who com mit two or more crimes of moral turpitude at any time after entry. Congress did not, however, define the term “moral turpitude.” While the 1917 Act was “radical” because it authorized deportation as a consequence of certain convictions, the Act also included a critically important procedural protec tion to minimize the risk of unjust deportation: At the time of sentencing or within 30 days thereafter, the sen tencing judge in both state and federal prosecutions had the power to make a recommendation “that such alien —————— 2 n 1907, Congress expanded the class of excluded persons to include individuals who “admit” to having committed a crime of moral turpi tude. Act of Feb. 20, 1907, ch. 1134, 4 PADLLA v. KENTUCKY Opinion of the Court shall not be deported.”3 This procedure, known as a judicial recommendation against deportation, or JRAD, had the effect of binding the Executive to pre vent deportation; |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | the effect of binding the Executive to pre vent deportation; the statute was “consistently inter preted as giving the sentencing judge conclusive authority to decide whether a particular conviction should be disre garded as a basis for deportation,” Thus, from 1917 forward, there was no such creature as an automatically deportable offense. Even as the class of deportable of fenses expanded, judges retained discretion to ameliorate unjust results on a case-by-case basis. Although narcotics offenses—such as the offense at issue in this case—provided a distinct basis for deporta tion as early as 1922,4 the JRAD procedure was generally —————— 3 Asenacted, the statute provided: “That the provision of this section respecting the deportation of aliens convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude shall not apply to one who has been pardoned, nor shall such deportation be made or directed if the court, or judge thereof, sentencing such alien for such crime shall, at the time of imposing judgment or passing sentence or within thirty days thereafter, make a recommendation to the Secretary of Labor that such alien shall not be deported in pursuance of this Act.” 1917 Act, –890. This provision was codified in 8 U.S. C. ( ed.) (transferred to (2006 ed. )). The judge’s nondeportation recommendation was binding on the Secretary of Labor and, later, the Attorney General after control of immigration removal matters was transferred from the former to the latter. See 4 Congress first identified narcotics offenses as a special category of crimes triggering deportation in the 1922 Narcotic Drug Act. Act of May 26, 1922, ch. 202, After the 1922 Act took effect, there was some initial confusion over whether a narcotics offense also had to be a crime of moral turpitude for an individual to be deportable. See (holding that an individual who committed narcotics offense was not deportable because offense did not involve moral turpitude). However, lower courts even tually agreed that the narcotics offense provision was “special,” Chung Cite as: 559 U. S. (20) 5 Opinion of the Court available to avoid deportation in narcotics convictions. See United (CA8 1954). Except for “technical, inadvertent and insignificant violations of the laws relating to narcotics,” it ap pears that courts treated narcotics offenses as crimes involving moral turpitude for purposes of the 1917 Act’s broad JRAD provision. See (recognizing that until 1952 a JRAD in a narcotics case “was effective to prevent deportation” (citing Dang 0–1 (CA9 1934))). n light of both the steady expansion of deportable offenses and the significant ameliorative effect of a JRAD, it is unsurprising that, in the wake of |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | a JRAD, it is unsurprising that, in the wake of the Second Circuit held that the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel applies to a JRAD request or lack thereof, see See also United n its view, seeking a JRAD was “part of the sentencing” process, 793 F.2d, at even if deportation itself is a civil action. Under the Sec ond Circuit’s reasoning, the impact of a conviction on a noncitizen’s ability to remain in the country was a central issue to be resolved during the sentencing process—not merely a collateral matter outside the scope of counsel’s duty to provide effective representation. However, the JRAD procedure is no longer part of our law. Congress first circumscribed the JRAD provision in the 1952 mmigration and Nationality Act (NA),5 and in —————— Que ; thus, a narcotics offense did not need also to be a crime of moral turpitude (or to satisfy other requirements of the 1917 Act) to trigger deportation. See United States ex rel. ; Todaro v. Munster, 5 The Act separately codified the moral turpitude offense provision and the narcotics offense provision within 8 U.S. C. ( ed.) under subsections (a)(4) and (a)(11), respectively. See 204, 6 PADLLA v. KENTUCKY Opinion of the Court Congress entirely eliminated it, 4 Stat. 5050. n 1996, Congress also eliminated the Attorney General’s authority to grant discretionary relief from deportation, 1 Stat. 3009–596, an authority that had been exercised to prevent the deportation of over000 noncitizens during the 5-year period prior to 1996, NS v. St. 533 U.S. 289, 296 Under contemporary law, if a non citizen has committed a removable offense after the 1996 effective date of these amendments, his removal is practi cally inevitable but for the possible exercise of limited remnants of equitable discretion vested in the Attorney General to cancel removal for noncitizens convicted of particular classes of offenses.6 See 8 U.S. C. Subject to limited exceptions, this discretionary relief is not available for an offense related to trafficking in a controlled substance. See §11(a)(43)(B); These changes to our immigration law have dramati cally raised the stakes of a noncitizen’s criminal convic tion. The importance of accurate legal advice for nonciti zens accused of crimes has never been more important. These changes confirm our view that, as a matter of fed eral law, deportation is an integral part—indeed, some times the most important part 7—of the penalty that may be imposed on noncitizen defendants who plead guilty to specified crimes. —————— 206. The JRAD procedure, codified in 8 U.S. C. ( ed.), applied only to the “provisions |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | 8 U.S. C. ( ed.), applied only to the “provisions of subsection (a)(4),” the crimes-of-moral turpitude provision. ; see United 213 F.2d 759, (CA8 1954) (recognizing that, under the 1952 Act, narcotics offenses were no longer eligible for JRADs). 6 The changes to our immigration law have also involved a change in nomenclature; the statutory text now uses the term “removal” rather than “deportation.” See n. 1 7 See Brief for Asian American Justice Center et al. as Amici Curiae 12–27 (providing real-world examples). Cite as: 559 U. S. (20) 7 Opinion of the Court Before deciding whether to plead guilty, a defendant is entitled to “the effective assistance of competent counsel.” ; Strick The Supreme Court of Kentucky rejected Padilla’s ineffectiveness claim on the ground that the advice he sought about the risk of deportation con cerned only collateral matters, i.e., those matters not within the sentencing authority of the state trial court.8 253 S.W.3d, at –484 ). n its view, “collateral consequences are outside the scope of representation required by the Sixth Amendment,” and, therefore, the “failure of defense counsel to advise the defendant of possible deportation consequences is not cognizable as a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel.” 253 S.W.3d, at The Kentucky high court is far from alone in this view.9 —————— 8 There is some disagreement among the courts over how to distin guish between direct and collateral consequences. See Roberts, gno rance is Effectively Bliss: Collateral Consequences, Silence, and Misin formation in the Guilty-Plea Process, (2009). The disagreement over how to apply the direct/collateral distinction has no bearing on the disposition of this case because, as even JUSTCE ALTO agrees, counsel must, at the very least, advise a noncitizen “defendant that a criminal conviction may have adverse immigration consequences,” post, at 1 (opinion concurring in judgment). See also post, at 14 (“ do not mean to suggest that the Sixth Amend ment does no more than require defense counsel to avoid misinforma tion”). n his concurring opinion, JUSTCE ALTO has thus departed from the strict rule applied by the Supreme Court of Kentucky and in the two federal cases that he cites, post, at 2. 9 See, United ; United ; United States v. Yearwood, ; ; (CA 2004); United ; Oyekoya v. State, ; State v. Rosas, 183 8 PADLLA v. KENTUCKY Opinion of the Court We, however, have never applied a distinction between direct and collateral consequences to define the scope of constitutionally “reasonable professional assistance” required under Strick, Whether that distinction is appropriate is a question we need not consider in |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | is appropriate is a question we need not consider in this case because of the unique nature of deportation. We have long recognized that deportation is a particu larly severe “penalty,” Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 740 (1893); but it is not, in a strict sense, a criminal sanction. Although removal proceedings are civil in nature, see 468 U.S. 32, deportation is nevertheless intimately related to the criminal process. Our law has enmeshed criminal convictions and the penalty of deportation for nearly a century, see Part at 2–7. And, importantly, recent changes in our immigration law have made removal nearly an automatic result for a broad class of noncitizen offenders. Thus, we find it “most difficult” to divorce the penalty from the conviction in the deportation context. United Moreover, we are quite confident that noncitizen defen dants facing a risk of deportation for a particular offense find it even more difficult. See St. (“There can be little doubt that, as a general matter, alien defendants considering whether to enter into a plea agreement are acutely aware of the immigration conse quences of their convictions”). Deportation as a consequence of a criminal conviction is, because of its close connection to the criminal process, uniquely difficult to classify as either a direct or a collat eral consequence. The collateral versus direct distinction —————— Ariz. 421, ; State v. Montalban, –2739 (La. 2/26/02), 8 So. 2d 16; Cite as: 559 U. S. (20) 9 Opinion of the Court is thus ill-suited to evaluating a Strick claim concern ing the specific risk of deportation. We conclude that advice regarding deportation is not categorically removed from the ambit of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Strick applies to Padilla’s claim. Under Strick, we first determine whether counsel’s representation “fell below an objective standard of reason ableness.” Then we ask whether “there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unpro fessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” The first prong—constitu tional deficiency—is necessarily linked to the practice and expectations of the legal community: “The proper measure of attorney performance remains simply reasonableness under prevailing professional norms.” We long have recognized that “[p]revailing norms of practice as reflected in American Bar Association standards and the like are guides to determining what is reasonable” ; Bobby v. Van Hook, 558 U. S. (2009) (per curiam) (slip op., at 3); 191, and n. 6 (2004); 539 U.S. 5, (2003); Although they are “only guides,” Strick, 466 U.S., at 688, and not “inexorable commands,” Bobby, 558 U. S., at (slip op., |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | not “inexorable commands,” Bobby, 558 U. S., at (slip op., at 5), these standards may be valuable meas ures of the prevailing professional norms of effective rep resentation, especially as these standards have been adapted to deal with the intersection of modern criminal prosecutions and immigration law. The weight of prevailing professional norms supports the view that counsel must advise her client regarding the risk of deportation. National Legal Aid and Defender Assn., Performance Guidelines for Criminal Representa tion ; G. Herman, Plea Bargaining PADLLA v. KENTUCKY Opinion of the Court pp. 20–21 (1997); Chin & Holmes, Effective Assistance of Counsel and the Consequences of Guilty Pleas, 87 Cornell L. Rev. 697, 713–718 ; A. Campbell, Law of Sentenc ing pp. 555, 560 (3d ed. 2004); Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, 2 Compendium of Standards for ndigent Defense Systems, Standards for Attorney Performance, pp. D, H8–H9, J8 (providing survey of guidelines across multiple jurisdictions); ABA Stan dards for Criminal Justice, Prosecution Function and Defense Function 4–5.1(a), p. 197 (3d ed. 1993); ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Pleas of Guilty 14–3.2(f), p. 116 (3d ed. 1999). “[A]uthorities of every stripe— including the American Bar Association, criminal defense and public defender organizations, authoritative treatises, and state and city bar publications—universally require defense attorneys to advise as to the risk of deportation consequences for non-citizen clients” Brief for Legal Ethics, Criminal Procedure, and Criminal Law Professors as Amici Curiae 12–14 (footnotes omitted) (citing, inter alia, National Legal Aid and Defender Assn., Guidelines, §–6.4 (1997); S. Bratton & E. Kelley, Practice Points: Representing a Noncitizen in a Criminal Case, 31 The Champion 61 (Jan./Feb. 2007); N. Tooby, Criminal Defense of mmigrants (3d ed. 2003); 2 Criminal Practice Manual 45:15 (2009)). We too have previously recognized that “ ‘[p]reserving the client’s right to remain in the United States may be more important to the client than any potential jail sen tence.’ ” St. (quoting 3 Criminal Defense Techniques 60A.02[2] (1999)). Like wise, we have recognized that “preserving the possibility of” discretionary relief from deportation under of the 1952 NA, repealed by Congress in 1996, “would have been one of the principal benefits sought by defendants deciding whether to accept a plea offer or instead to proceed to trial.” St. We Cite as: 559 U. S. (20) 11 Opinion of the Court expected that counsel who were unaware of the discre tionary relief measures would “follo[w] the advice of nu merous practice guides” to advise themselves of the impor tance of this particular form of discretionary relief. n. 50. n the instant case, the |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | of discretionary relief. n. 50. n the instant case, the terms of the relevant immigra tion statute are succinct, clear, and explicit in defining the removal consequence for Padilla’s conviction. See 8 U.S. C. (a)(2)(B)(i) (“Any alien who at any time after admission has been convicted of a violation of (or a con spiracy or attempt to violate) any law or regulation of a State, the United States or a foreign country relating to a controlled substance other than a single offense in volving possession for one’s own use of 30 grams or less of marijuana, is deportable”). Padilla’s counsel could have easily determined that his plea would make him eligible for deportation simply from reading the text of the statute, which addresses not some broad classification of crimes but specifically commands removal for all controlled sub stances convictions except for the most trivial of mari juana possession offenses. nstead, Padilla’s counsel provided him false assurance that his conviction would not result in his removal from this country. This is not a hard case in which to find deficiency: The consequences of Padilla’s plea could easily be determined from reading the removal statute, his deportation was presumptively man datory, and his counsel’s advice was incorrect. mmigration law can be complex, and it is a legal spe cialty of its own. Some members of the bar who represent clients facing criminal charges, in either state or federal court or both, may not be well versed in it. There will, therefore, undoubtedly be numerous situations in which the deportation consequences of a particular plea are unclear or uncertain. The duty of the private practitioner in such cases is more limited. When the law is not suc cinct and straightforward (as it is in many of the scenarios 12 PADLLA v. KENTUCKY Opinion of the Court posited by JUSTCE ALTO), a criminal defense attorney need do no more than advise a noncitizen client that pend ing criminal charges may carry a risk of adverse immigra tion consequences. But when the deportation conse quence is truly clear, as it was in this case, the duty to give correct advice is equally clear. Accepting his allegations as true, Padilla has suffi ciently alleged constitutional deficiency to satisfy the first prong of Strick. Whether Padilla is entitled to relief on his claim will depend on whether he can satisfy Strick ’s second prong, prejudice, a matter we leave to the Kentucky courts to consider in the first instance. V The Solicitor General has urged us to conclude that Strick applies to Padilla’s claim only to the |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | conclude that Strick applies to Padilla’s claim only to the extent that he has alleged affirmative misadvice. n the United States’ view, “counsel is not constitutionally required to provide advice on matters that will not be decided in the criminal case” though counsel is required to provide accurate advice if she chooses to discusses these matters. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae Respondent and Padilla both find the Solicitor General’s proposed rule unpersuasive, although it has support among the lower courts. See, United ; United States v. Kwan, 407 F.3d 05 ; ; United ; UT 86, 935; n re Resendiz, Kentucky describes these decisions isolating an affirma tive misadvice claim as “result-driven, incestuous —————— AsJUSTCE ALTO explains at length, deportation consequences are often unclear. Lack of clarity in the law, however, does not obviate the need for counsel to say something about the possibility of deportation, even though it will affect the scope and nature of counsel’s advice. Cite as: 559 U. S. (20) 13 Opinion of the Court [,and] completely lacking in legal or rational bases.” Brief for Respondent 31. We do not share that view, but we agree that there is no relevant difference “between an act of commission and an act of omission” in this context. at 30; Strick, (“The court must then determine whether, in light of all the circumstances, the identified acts or omissions were outside the wide range of professionally competent assistance”); see also State v. Paredez, 2004–NMSC–036, 136 N. M. 533, 5–539. A holding limited to affirmative misadvice would invite two absurd results. First, it would give counsel an incen tive to remain silent on matters of great importance, even when answers are readily available. Silence under these circumstances would be fundamentally at odds with the critical obligation of counsel to advise the client of “the advantages and disadvantages of a plea agreement.” When attorneys know that their clients face possible exile from this country and separation from their families, they should not be encouraged to say nothing at all.11 Second, it would deny a class of clients least able to represent themselves the most rudimentary advice on deportation even when it is readily available. t is quintessentially the duty of counsel to provide her client with available advice about an issue like deportation and the failure to do so “clearly satisfies the first prong of the Strick analy sis.” 14 PADLLA v. KENTUCKY Opinion of the Court concurring in judgment). We have given serious consideration to the concerns that the Solicitor General, respondent, and amici have stressed regarding the importance |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | Solicitor General, respondent, and amici have stressed regarding the importance of protecting the final ity of convictions obtained through guilty pleas. We con fronted a similar “floodgates” concern in see at 58, but nevertheless applied Strick to a claim that counsel had failed to advise the client regarding his parole eligibility before he pleaded guilty.12 A flood did not follow in that decision’s wake. Sur mounting Strick’s high bar is never an easy task. See, (“Judicial scrutiny of counsel’s performance must be highly deferential”); (observing that “[a]ttorney errors are as likely to be utterly harmless in a particular case as they are to be prejudicial”). Moreover, to obtain relief on this type of claim, a petitioner must convince the court that a decision to reject the plea bargain would have been rational under the circumstances. See Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470, 480, 486 There is no reason to doubt that lower courts—now quite experienced with applying Strick —can effectively and efficiently use its framework to —————— 12 However, we concluded that, even though Strick applied to petitioner’s claim, he had not sufficiently alleged prejudice to satisfy Strick’s second prong. –60. This disposition further underscores the fact that it is often quite difficult for petitioners who have acknowledged their guilt to satisfy Strick’s prejudice prong. JUSTCE ALTO believes that the Court misreads post, at –11. n the Court recognized—for the first time—that Strick applies to advice respecting a guilty (“We hold, therefore, that the two-part Strick v. Washington test applies to challenges to guilty pleas based on ineffective assistance of counsel”). t is true that does not control the question before us. But its import is nevertheless clear. Whether Strick applies to Padilla’s claim follows from regardless of the fact that the Court did not resolve the particular question respecting misadvice that was before it. Cite as: 559 U. S. (20) 15 Opinion of the Court separate specious claims from those with substantial merit. t seems unlikely that our decision today will have a significant effect on those convictions already obtained as the result of plea bargains. For at least the past 15 years, professional norms have generally imposed an obligation on counsel to provide advice on the deportation conse quences of a client’s See, at 11–13. We should, therefore, presume that counsel satisfied their obligation to render competent advice at the time their clients considered pleading guilty. Strick, 466 U.S., at 689. Likewise, although we must be especially careful about recognizing new grounds for attacking the validity of guilty pleas, in the 25 years since we first applied Strick |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | pleas, in the 25 years since we first applied Strick to claims of ineffective assistance at the plea stage, practice has shown that pleas are less frequently the subject of collateral challenges than convictions obtained after a trial. Pleas account for nearly 95% of all criminal convictions.13 But they account for only approximately 30% of the habeas petitions filed.14 The nature of relief secured by a successful collateral challenge to a guilty plea—an opportunity to withdraw the plea and proceed to trial—imposes its own significant limiting principle: Those who collaterally attack their guilty pleas lose the benefit of the bargain obtained as a result of the Thus, a dif ferent calculus informs whether it is wise to challenge a —————— 13 See Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2003, p. 418 (Table 5.17) (only approximately 5%, or 8,612 out of 68,533, of federal criminal prosecutions go to trial); (only approximately 5% of all state felony criminal prosecutions go to trial). 14 See V. Flango, National Center for State Courts, Habeas Corpus in State and Federal Courts 36– (demonstrating that 5% of defendants whose conviction was the result of a trial account for ap proximately 70% of the habeas petitions filed). 16 PADLLA v. KENTUCKY Opinion of the Court guilty plea in a habeas proceeding because, ultimately, the challenge may result in a less favorable outcome for the defendant, whereas a collateral challenge to a convic tion obtained after a jury trial has no similar downside potential. Finally, informed consideration of possible deportation can only benefit both the State and noncitizen defendants during the plea-bargaining process. By bringing deporta tion consequences into this process, the defense and prose cution may well be able to reach agreements that better satisfy the interests of both parties. As in this case, a criminal episode may provide the basis for multiple charges, of which only a subset mandate deportation following conviction. Counsel who possess the most rudi mentary understanding of the deportation consequences of a particular criminal offense may be able to plea bargain creatively with the prosecutor in order to craft a conviction and sentence that reduce the likelihood of deportation, as by avoiding a conviction for an offense that automatically triggers the removal consequence. At the same time, the threat of deportation may provide the defendant with a powerful incentive to plead guilty to an offense that does not mandate that penalty in exchange for a dismissal of a charge that does. n sum, we have long recognized that the negotiation of a plea bargain is a |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | majority | Padilla v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1723/padilla-v-kentucky/ | recognized that the negotiation of a plea bargain is a critical phase of litigation for purposes of the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. ; see also Richardson, 397 U.S., at 770–. The severity of deportation—“the equivalent of banishment or exile,” 332 U.S. 8, —only underscores how critical it is for counsel to inform her noncitizen client that he faces a risk of deportation.15 —————— 15 To this end, we find it significant that the plea form currently used in Kentucky courts provides notice of possible immigration conse Cite as: 559 U. S. (20) 17 Opinion of the Court V t is our responsibility under the Constitution to ensure that no criminal defendant—whether a citizen or not—is left to the “mercies of incompetent counsel.” Richardson, 397 U.S., at To satisfy this responsibility, we now hold that counsel must inform her client whether his plea carries a risk of deportation. Our longstanding Sixth Amendment precedents, the seriousness of deportation as a consequence of a criminal plea, and the concomitant impact of deportation on families living lawfully in this country demand no less. Taking as true the basis for his motion for postconvic tion relief, we have little difficulty concluding that Padilla has sufficiently alleged that his counsel was constitution ally deficient. Whether Padilla is entitled to relief will depend on whether he can demonstrate prejudice as a result thereof, a question we do not reach because it was not passed on below. See Verizon Communications nc. v. FCC, —————— quences. Ky. Admin. Office of Courts, Motion to Enter Guilty Plea, Form AOC–491 (Rev. 2/2003), http://courts.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/ 55E1F54E-ED5C-4A30-B1D5-4C43C7ADD63C/0/491.pdf (as visited Mar. 29, 20, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). Further, many States require trial courts to advise defendants of possible immigration consequences. See, Alaska Rule Crim. Proc. 11(c)(3)(C) (2009–20); Cal. Penal Code Ann. §16.5 ; –1j (2009); D. C. Code ; Fla. Rule Crim. Proc. 3.172(c)(8) (Supp. 20); –7–93(c) (1997); Haw. Rev. Stat. Ann. (2007); owa Rule Crim. Proc. 2.8(2)(b)(3) (Supp. 2009); Md. Rule 4–242 (Lexis 2009); Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 278, (2009); Minn. Rule Crim. Proc. 15.01 (2009); Mont. Code Ann. §46–12–2 (2009); N. M. Rule Crim. Form 9–406 (2009); N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law Ann. (West Supp. 2009); N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. §15A–22 (Lexis 2007); (West 2006); Ore. Rev. Stat. §135.5 (2007); R. Gen. Laws ; Tex. Code. Ann. Crim. Proc., Art. 26.13(a)(4) (Vernon Supp. 2009); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 13, (Supp. 2009); Wash. Rev. Code §.40.200 ; (–2006). 18 PADLLA v. KENTUCKY Opinion of the Court The judgment of the Supreme Court of Kentucky is |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Ely v. Klahr | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108363/ely-v-klahr/ | This appeal is the latest step in the long and fitful attempt to devise a constitutionally valid reapportionment scheme for the State of Arizona. For the reasons given, we affirm the judgment of the District Court. In April 1964, shortly before this Court's decision in and in its companion cases, suit was filed in the District Court for the District of Arizona attacking the then-existing state districting laws as unconstitutional.[1] Following those decisions, the three-judge District Court ordered all proceedings stayed "until the expiration of a period of 30 days next following adjournment of the next session" of the Arizona Legislature. (App. 2-3, unreported.) Nearly a year later, on May 18, 1965, after the legislature had failed to act, the court again deferred trial pending a special legislative session called by the Governor to deal with the necessity of reapportionment. The special session enacted Senate Bill 11, which among other things provided one senator for a county of 7,700 and another for a county of 55,000. The session did not undertake to reapportion the House. Trial was had in November 1965 and on February 2, 1966, the court enjoined enforcement of Senate Bill 11, which, it held, "bears evidence of having been thrown together as a result of considerations wholly apart from those laid down as compulsory by the *110 decisions of the Supreme Court." The plan, said the court, was "shot through with invidious discrimination." The court also held that the existing House plan produced disparities of nearly four to one, which was clearly impermissible under our decisions. Noting that the legislature "has had ample opportunity" to produce a valid reapportionment plan, the court formulated its own plan as a "temporary and provisional reapportionment," designed to govern the impending preparation for the 1966 elections. The plan was to be in effect "for the 1966 primary and general elections and for such further elections as may follow until such time as the Legislature itself may adopt different and valid plans for districting and reapportionment."[2] at 543. It retained jurisdiction, as it has done since. Some 16 months later, in June 1967, the Arizona Legislature enacted "Chapter 1, 28th Legislature," which again attempted reapportionment of the State. Within the month, suit was filed charging that this Act also was unconstitutional, but the court deferred action pending the outcome of a referendum[3] scheduled with the November 1968 election for the legislature and Congress. It ordered those elections to be held in accordance with its own 1966 plan, as supplemented. The legislative plan was approved by the voters in the referendum and signed |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Ely v. Klahr | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108363/ely-v-klahr/ | was approved by the voters in the referendum and signed into law by the Governor on January 17, 1969. A hearing on the plan was commenced the same day. The court concluded on July 22, 1969, that the plan, which *111 set up "election districts" based on population and "legislative" subdistricts based on voter registration, would allow deviations among the legislative subdistricts of up to 40% from ideal until 1971, and up to 16% thereafter. The court properly concluded that this plan was invalid under and since the legislature had operated on the notion that a 16% deviation was de minimis and consequently made no effort to achieve greater equality. The court ordered its 1966 plan continued once again "until the Legislature shall have adopted different, valid, and effective plans for redistricting and reapportionment" (App. 85, unreported.) It refused to order the 1970 elections to be held at large, since there was "ample time" for the legislature "to meet its obligation" before the machinery for conducting the 1970 elections would be engaged. The legislature attempted a third time to enact a valid plan. It passed "Chapter 1, House Bill No. 1, 29th Legislature," which was signed into law by the Governor on January 22, 1970, and which is the plan involved in the decision from which this appeal is taken. Appellant challenged the bill, alleging that it "substantially disenfranchises, unreasonably and unnecessarily, a large number of the citizens of the state," App. 106, and "creates legislative districts that are grossly unequal." App. 108. Appellant at that time submitted his own plan for the court's consideration. Appellant's primary dispute with new plan was that it substantially misconceived the current population distribution in Arizona. The court agreed that appellant's plan, which utilized 1968 projections of 1960 and 1965 Arizona censuses, could "very likely [result in] a valid reapportionment plan" but it declined to implement the plan, since it was based on census tracts, rather than the existing precinct boundaries, and "the necessary reconstruction of the election *112 precincts could not be accomplished in time" to serve the 1970 election, whose preliminary preparations were to begin in a few weeks. At the same time, the court observed that its 1966 plan had fallen behind contemporary constitutional requirements, due to more recent voter registration data (which increased the deviation between high and low districts to 47.09%) and the intervening decisions of this Court in Krikpatrick and and Turning to the legislature's plan, the court found it wanting in several respects. First, though the result indicated population deviation between high and low districts of only |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Ely v. Klahr | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108363/ely-v-klahr/ | indicated population deviation between high and low districts of only 1.8%, the population formula used[4] did not "truly represent the population within [the] precincts in either 1960 or 1968," and thus "the figures produced. are not truly population figures." Second, the computer that devised the plan had been programmed to assure that the plan would not require any incumbent legislator to face any other incumbent for re-election. Third, the programming gave priority to one-party districts over districts drawn without regard to party strength. The court held that "the incumbency factor has no place in any reapportionment or redistricting"[5] and found "inapposite" the *113 "consideration of party strength as a factor" The court was thus faced with a situation where both its 1966 plan and the legislature's latest attempt fell short of the constitutional standard. At that time, however, the 1970 elections were "close at hand." The court concluded that another legislative effort was "out of the question" due to the time and felt that it could not itself devise a new plan without delaying primary elections, "a course which would involve serious risk of confusion and chaos." It considered at-large elections, but the prospect of electing 90 legislators at large was deemed so repugnant as to be justified only if the legislature's actions had been "deliberate and inexcusable"; the court instead believed that the large population increase in Arizona since the last reliable census in 1960 was more to blame. Concluding that the 1970 elections would be the last to be held before the 1970 census data became available for new plans, the court chose what it considered the lesser of two evils and ordered the elections to be conducted under the legislature's plan. In its order to this effect, the court noted that it "assumes that the Arizona Legislature will by November 1, 1971, enact a valid plan of reapportionment," but that "[u]pon failure of the Legislature so to do, any party to this action may apply to the court for appropriate relief." The state officials did not seek review of the District Court's judgment declaring Chapter 1 unconstitutional. Appellant, however appealed to this Court. His notice of appeal was filed on June 18, 1970, his jurisdictional statement on August 17, 1970. The latter presented the single question whether it was error for the United States *114 District Court to refuse to enjoin the enforcement of the Arizona Legislature's most recent effort to reapportion the State. Appellees' motion to dismiss or affirm was filed on November 24. We noted probable jurisdiction on December 21, Meanwhile, the 1970 elections were |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Ely v. Klahr | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108363/ely-v-klahr/ | probable jurisdiction on December 21, Meanwhile, the 1970 elections were held in accordance with the District Court's decree. Appellees suggest that the issue presented is moot and appellant concedes "the 1970 general election has already been held so that that aspect of the wrong cannot be remedied." Brief 8. But appellant now argues that however that may be, the District Court should now proceed to adopt a plan of reapportionment which would be displaced only upon the adoption of a valid plan by the legislature. Appellant doubts that postponing judicial action until after November 1 will give the District Court sufficient time, prior to June 1972, when the election process must begin in Arizona, to consider the legislative plan and to prepare its own plan if the legislative effort does not comply with the Constitution. The feared result is that another election under an unconstitutional plan would be held in Arizona. Reapportionment history in the State lends some substance to these fears, but as we have often noted, districting and apportionment are legislative tasks in the first instance,[6] and the court did not err in giving the legislature a reasonable time to act based on the 1970 census figures which the court thought would be available in the summer of 1971. We agree with appellant that the District Court should make very sure that the 1972 elections *115 are held under a constitutionally adequate apportionment plan. But the District Court knows better than we whether the November 1 deadline will afford it ample opportunity to assess the legality of a new apportionment statute if one is forthcoming and to prepare its own plan by June 1, 1972, if the official version proves insufficient. The 1970 census figures, if not now available, will be forthcoming soon; and appellant, if he is so inclined, can begin to assemble the necessary information and witnesses and himself prepare and have ready for submission what he deems to be an adequate apportionment plan. Surely, had a satisfactory substitute for Chapter 1, held unconstitutional by the District Court, been prepared and ready the court would have ordered the 1970 elections held under that plan rather than the invalid legislative scheme. And surely if appellant has ready for court use on November 1, 1971, a suitable alternative for an unacceptable legislative effort, or at least makes sure that the essential information is on hand, there is no justifiable ground for thinking the District Court could not, prior to June 1, 1972, complete its hearings and consideration of a new apportionment statute and, if that is rejected adopt |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Perez v. Campbell | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108350/perez-v-campbell/ | This raises an important issue concerning the construction of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution whether which is part of Arizona's Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act, is invalid under that clause as being in conflict with the mandate of 17 of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S. C. 35, providing that receipt of a discharge in bankruptcy fully discharges all but certain specified judgments. The courts below, concluding that this was controlled by and two earlier opinions of this Court dealing with alleged conflicts between the Bankruptcy Act and state financial responsibility laws, ruled against the claim of conflict and upheld the Arizona statute. On July 8, 1965, petitioner Adolfo Perez, driving a car registered in his name, was involved in an automobile accident in Tucson, Arizona. The Perez automobile was not covered by liability insurance at the time of the collision. The driver of the second car was the minor daughter of Leonard Pinkerton, and in September the Pinkertons sued Mr. and Mrs. Perez in state court for personal injuries and property damage sustained in the accident. On October 31, the petitioners confessed judgment in this suit, and a judgment order was entered against them on November 8, for $2,425.98 plus court costs. Mr. and Mrs. Perez each filed a voluntary petition in bankruptcy in Federal District Court on November 6, Each of them duly scheduled the judgment debt *639 to the Pinkertons. The District Court entered orders on July 8, discharging both Mr. and Mrs. Perez from all debts and claims provable against their estates, including the Pinkerton judgment. 11 U.S. C. 35; During the pendency of the bankruptcy proceedings, the provisions of the Arizona Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act came into play. Although only one provision of the Arizona Act is relevant to the issue presented by this it is appropriate to describe the statutory scheme in some detail. The Arizona statute is based on the Uniform Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act promulgated by the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety.[1] Articles 1 and 2 of the Act deal, respectively, with definitional matters and administration. The substantive provisions begin in Art. 3, which requires the posting of financial security by those involved in accidents. Section 28-1141 of that article requires suspension of licenses for unlawful failure to report accidents, and 28-1142 provides that within 60 days of the receipt of an accident report the Superintendent of the Motor Vehicle Division of the Highway Department shall suspend the driver's license of the operator and the registration of the owner of a car involved in an accident "unless such |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Perez v. Campbell | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108350/perez-v-campbell/ | owner of a car involved in an accident "unless such operator or owner or both shall deposit security in a sum which is sufficient in the judgment of the superintendent to satisfy any judgment or judgments for damages resulting from the accident as may be recovered against the operator or owner." Under the same section, notice of such suspension and the amount of security required must be sent to the owner and operator not less than 10 days prior to the effective date of the suspension. This section does not apply if the owner or the operator carried liability *640 insurance or some other covering bond at the time of the accident, or if such individual had previously qualified as a self-insurer under 28-1222. Other exceptions to the requirement that security be posted are stated in 28-1143.[2] If none of these exceptions applies, the suspension continues until: (1) the person whose privileges were suspended deposits the security required under 28-1142 ; (2) one year elapses from the date of the accident and the person whose privileges were suspended files proof with the Superintendent that no one has initiated an action for damages arising from the accident; (3) evidence is filed with the superintendent that a release from liability, an adjudication of nonliability, a confession of judgment, or some other written settlement agreement has been entered.[3] As far as the record in the instant shows, *641 the provisions of Art. 3 were not invoked against petitioners, and the constitutional validity of these provisions is, of course, not before us for decision. Article 4 of the Arizona Act, which includes the only provision at issue here, deals with suspension of licenses and registrations for nonpayment of judgments. Interestingly, it is only when the judgment debtor in an automobile accident lawsuitusually an owner-operator like Mr. Perezfails to respond to a judgment entered against him that he must overcome two hurdles in order to regain his driving privileges. Section 28-1161, the first section of Art. 4, requires the state court clerk or judge, when a judgment[4] has remained unsatisfied for 60 days after entry, to forward a certified copy of the judgment to the superintendent.[5] This was done in the present and on March 13, Mr. and Mrs. Perez were served with notice that their drivers' licenses and registration were suspended pursuant to 28-1162[6] Under other provisions of Art. 4, such suspension is to *642 continue until the judgment is paid,[7] and 28-1163 specifically provides that "[a] discharge in bankruptcy following the rendering of any such judgment shall not relieve the judgment debtor from |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Perez v. Campbell | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108350/perez-v-campbell/ | any such judgment shall not relieve the judgment debtor from any of the requirements of this article." In addition to requiring satisfaction of the judgment debt, 28-1163 provides that the license and registration "shall remain suspended and shall not be renewed, nor shall any license or registration be thereafter issued in the name of the person until the person gives proof of financial responsibility" for a future period.[8] Again, the validity of this limited requirement that some drivers post evidence of financial responsibility for the future in order to regain driving privileges is not questioned here. Nor is the broader issue of whether a *643 State may require proof of financial responsibility as a precondition for granting driving privileges to anyone before us for decision. What is at issue here is the power of a State to include as part of this comprehensive enactment designed to secure compensation for automobile accident victims a section providing that a discharge in bankruptcy of the automobile accident tort judgment shall have no effect on the judgment debtor's obligation to repay the judgment creditor, at least insofar as such repayment may be enforced by the withholding of driving privileges by the State. It was that question, among others, which petitioners raised after suspension of their licenses and registration by filing a complaint in Federal District Court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and requesting a three-judge court. They asserted several constitutional violations, and also alleged that 28-1163 was in direct conflict with the Bankruptcy Act and was thus violative of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.[9] In support of their complaint, Mr. and Mrs. Perez filed affidavits stating that the suspension of their licenses and registration worked both physical and financial hardship upon them and their children. The District Judge granted the petitioners leave to proceed in forma pauperis, but thereafter granted the respondents' motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, citing and Reitz.[10] The Court of Appeals affirmed, relying on *644 the same two decisions. We granted certiorari. I Deciding whether a state statute is in conflict with a federal statute and hence invalid under the Supremacy Clause is essentially a two-step process of first ascertaining the construction of the two statutes and then determining the constitutional question whether they are in conflict. In the present both statutes have been authoritatively construed. In the Supreme Court of Arizona held that "[t]he Financial Responsibility Act has for its principal purpose the protection of the public using the from financial hardship which may result from the |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Perez v. Campbell | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108350/perez-v-campbell/ | using the from financial hardship which may result from the use of automobiles by financially irresponsible persons." 380 P. 2d, at 140. The Arizona court has consistently adhered to this construction of its legislation, see ; New York Underwriters Ins. ; ; ; Ariz. 302, ; 1 and we are bound by its rulings. See, e. g., General Trading Although the dissent seems unwilling to accept the Arizona Supreme Court's construction of the statute as expressive of the Act's primary purpose[11]*645 and indeed characterizes that construction as unfortunate, post, at 6, a reading of the provisions outlined above leaves the impression that the Arizona Court's *646 description of the statutory purpose is not only logical but persuasive. The sole emphasis in the Act is one of providing leverage for the collection of damages from *6 drivers who either admit that they are at fault or are adjudged negligent. The victim of another driver's carelessness, if he so desires, can exclude the superintendent entirely from the process of "deterring" a repetition of that driver's negligence.[12] Further, if an *648 accident is litigated and a special verdict that the defendant was negligent and the plaintiff contributorily negligent is entered, the result in Arizona, as in many other States, is that there is no liability for damages arising from the accident. 0 P.2d 107 ; Under the Safety Responsibility Act, the apparent result of such a judgment is that no consequences are visited upon either driver although both have been found to have driven carelessly. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. 28-1143 (4), 28-1144 (3). Moreover, there are no provisions requiring drivers proved to be careless to stay off the roads for a period of time. Nor are there provisions requiring drivers who have caused accidents to attend some kind of driver improvement course, a technique that is not unfamiliar in sentencing for traffic offenses. Turning to the federal statute, the construction of the Bankruptcy Act is similarly clear. This Court on numerous occasions has stated that "[o]ne of the primary purposes of the bankruptcy act" is to give debtors "a new opportunity in life and a clear field for future effort, unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of pre&emul;xisting debt." Local Loan Accord, e. g., 317 U.S. 4, ; ; There can be no doubt, given that Congress intended this "new opportunity" to include freedom from most kinds of pre-existing tort judgments. *649 II With the construction of both statutes clearly established, we proceed immediately to the constitutional question whether a state statute that protects judgment creditors from "financially irresponsible persons" is in |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Perez v. Campbell | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108350/perez-v-campbell/ | that protects judgment creditors from "financially irresponsible persons" is in conflict with a federal statute that gives discharged debtors a new start "unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of pre&emul;xisting debt." As early as Chief Justice Marshall stated the governing principlethat "acts of the State Legislatures. [which] interfere with, or are contrary to the laws of Congress, made in pursuance of the constitution," are invalid under the Supremacy Three decades ago MR. JUSTICE BLACK, after reviewing the precedents, wrote in a similar vein that, while "[t]his Court, in considering the validity of state laws in the light of treaties or federal laws touching the same subject, ha[d] made use of the following expressions: conflicting; contrary to; occupying the field; repugnance; difference; irreconcilability; inconsistency; violation; curtailment; and interference[,] [i]n the final analysis," our function is to determine whether a challenged state statute "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress." Since Hines the Court has frequently adhered to this articulation of the meaning of the Supremacy See, e. g., ; Sears, Roebuck & ; Colorado Anti-Discrimination ; ; ; Sola Electric Indeed, in Florida Lime & *650 Avocado Growers, a recent in which the Court was closely divided, all nine Justices accepted the Hines test. 165 Both [13] and Reitz, however, ignored this controlling principle. The Court in conceded that Utah's financial responsibility law left "the bankrupt to some extent burdened by the discharged debt," made "it more probable that the debt will be paid despite the discharge," and thereby made "some inroad on the consequences of bankruptcy." Utah's statute, in short, frustrated Congress' policy of giving discharged debtors a new start. But the majority was not concerned by this frustration. In upholding the statute, the majority opinion did not look to the effect of the legislation but simply asserted that the statute was "not an Act for the Relief of Mulcted Creditors," and was "not designed to aid collection of debts but to enforce a policy against irresponsible driving" The majority, that is, looked to the purpose of the state legislation and upheld it because the purpose was not to circumvent the Bankruptcy Act but to promote highway safety; those in dissent, however, were concerned that, whatever the purpose of the Utah Act, its "plain and inevitable effect [was] to create a powerful weapon for collection of a debt from which [the] bankrupt [had] been released by federal law." Such a result, they argued, left "the States free to impair an important and historic policy *651 of this Nation embodied in |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Perez v. Campbell | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108350/perez-v-campbell/ | important and historic policy *651 of this Nation embodied in its bankruptcy laws." The opinion of the Court in Reitz was similarly concerned, not with the fact that New York's financial responsibility law frustrated the operation of the Bankruptcy Act, but with the purpose of the law, which was divined as the promotion of highway safety. As the Court said: "The penalty which 94-b imposes for injury due to careless driving is not for the protection of the creditor merely, but to enforce a public policy that irresponsible drivers shall not, with impunity, be allowed to injure their fellows. The scheme of the legislation would be frustrated if the reckless driver were permitted to escape its provisions by the simple expedient of voluntary bankruptcy, and, accordingly, the legislature declared that a discharge in bankruptcy should not interfere with the operation of the statute. Such legislation is not in derogation of the Bankruptcy Act. Rather it is an enforcement of permissible state policy touching highway safety." The dissenting opinion written by MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS for himself and three others noted that the New York legislation put "the bankrupt at the creditor's mercy," with the results that "[i]n practical effect the bankrupt may be in as bad, or even worse, a position than if the state had made it possible for a creditor to attach his future wages" and that "[b]ankruptcy [was not] the sanctuary for hapless debtors which Congress intended." We can no longer adhere to the aberrational doctrine of and Reitz that state law may frustrate the operation of federal law as long as the state legislature in passing its law had some purpose in mind other than *652 one of frustration. Apart from the fact that it is at odds with the approach taken in nearly all our Supremacy Clause s, such a doctrine would enable state legislatures to nullify nearly all unwanted federal legislation by simply publishing a legislative committee report articulating some state interest or policyother than frustration of the federal objectivethat would be tangentially furthered by the proposed state law. In view of the consequences, we certainly would not apply the doctrine in all Supremacy Clause s. Although it is possible to argue that and Reitz are somehow confined to s involving either bankruptcy or highway safety, analysis discloses no reason why the States should have broader power to nullify federal law in these fields than in others. Thus, we conclude that and Reitz can have no authoritative effect to the extent they are inconsistent with the controlling principle that any state legislation which frustrates the |
Justice White | 1,971 | 6 | majority | Perez v. Campbell | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108350/perez-v-campbell/ | the controlling principle that any state legislation which frustrates the full effectiveness of federal law is rendered invalid by the Supremacy Section 28-1163 thus may not stand. III Even accepting the Supremacy Clause analysis of and Reitzthat is, looking to the purpose rather than the effect of state lawsthose decisions are not dispositive of this Just as went a step beyond Reitz and broadened the holding of the earlier so in the present the respondents asked the courts below and this Court to expand the holdings of the two previous s. The distinction between and Reitz and this lies in the State's expressed legislative purpose. and Reitz were aberrational in their treatment of this question as well. The majority opinions in both s assumed, without citation of state court authority or any indication that such precedent was unavailable, *653 that the purpose of the state financial responsibility laws there under attack was not provision of relief to creditors but rather deterrence of irresponsible driving. The assumption was, in effect, that all state legislatures which had enacted provisions such as 28-1163 had concluded that an uninsured motorist about to embark in his car would be more careful on the road if he did not have available what the majority in cavalierly characterized as an "easy refuge in bankruptcy." 369 U.S.,[14] Passing the question of whether the Court gave sufficient attention to binding state interpretations of state legislative purpose and conceding that it employed proper technique in divining as obvious from their face the aim of the state enactments, the present raises doubts about whether the Court was correct even in its basic assumptions. The Arizona Supreme Court has declared that Arizona's Safety Responsibility Act "has for its principal purpose the protection *654 of the public from financial hardship" resulting from involvement in traffic accidents with uninsured motorists unable to respond to a judgment. The Court in was able to declare, although the source of support is unclear, that the Utah statute could be upheld because it was "not an Act for the Relief of Mulcted Creditors" or a statute "designed to aid collection of debts." 369 U.S., 169. But here the respondents urge us to uphold precisely the sort of statute that would have stricken downone with a declared purpose to protect judgment creditors "from financial hardship" by giving them a powerful weapon with which to force bankrupts to pay their debts despite their discharge. Whereas the Acts in and Reitz had the effect of frustrating federal law but had, the Court said, no such purpose, the Arizona Act has both |
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