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Justice Powell | 1,977 | 17 | majority | Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109573/arlington-heights-v-metropolitan-housing-development-corp/ | The legislative or administrative history may be highly relevant, especially where there are contemporary statements by members of the decisionmaking body, minutes of its meetings, or reports. In some extraordinary instances the members might be called to the stand at trial to testify concerning the purpose of the official action, although even then such testimony frequently will be barred by privilege. See ; United ; 8 J. Wigmore, Evidence 1 (McNaughton rev. ed. 1961).[18] The foregoing summary identifies, without purporting to be exhaustive, subjects of proper inquiry in determining whether racially discriminatory intent existed. With these in mind, we now address the case before us. IV This case was tried in the District Court and reviewed in the Court of Appeals before our decision in The respondents proceeded on the erroneous theory that the Village's refusal to rezone carried a racially discriminatory effect and was, without more, unconstitutional. But both courts below understood that at least part of their function was to examine the purpose underlying the decision. *269 In making its findings on this issue, the District Court noted that some of the opponents of Lincoln Green who spoke at the various hearings might have been motivated by opposition to minority groups. The court held, however, that the evidence "does not warrant the conclusion that this motivated the defendants." On appeal the Court of Appeals focused primarily on respondents' claim that the Village's buffer policy had not been consistently applied and was being invoked with a strictness here that could only demonstrate some other underlying motive. The court concluded that the buffer policy, though not always applied with perfect consistency, had on several occasions formed the basis for the Board's decision to deny other rezoning proposals. "The evidence does not necessitate a finding that Arlington Heights administered this policy in a discriminatory manner." The Court of Appeals therefore approved the District Court's findings concerning the Village's purposes in denying rezoning to MHDC. We also have reviewed the evidence. The impact of the Village's decision does arguably bear more heavily on racial minorities. Minorities constitute 18% of the Chicago area population, and 40% of the income groups said to be eligible for Lincoln Green. But there is little about the sequence of events leading up to the decision that would spark suspicion. The area around the Viatorian property has been zoned R-3 since 1959, the year when Arlington Heights first adopted a zoning map. Single-family homes surround the 80-acre site, and the Village is undeniably committed to single-family homes as its dominant residential land use. The rezoning request progressed according |
Justice Powell | 1,977 | 17 | majority | Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109573/arlington-heights-v-metropolitan-housing-development-corp/ | its dominant residential land use. The rezoning request progressed according to the usual procedures.[19] The Plan Commission even scheduled two additional *270 hearings, at least in part to accommodate MHDC and permit it to supplement its presentation with answers to questions generated at the first hearing. The statements by the Plan Commission and Village Board members, as reflected in the official minutes, focused almost exclusively on the zoning aspects of the MHDC petition, and the zoning factors on which they relied are not novel criteria in the Village's rezoning decisions. There is no reason to doubt that there has been reliance by some neighboring property owners on the maintenance of single-family zoning in the vicinity. The Village originally adopted its buffer policy long before MHDC entered the picture and has applied the policy too consistently for us to infer discriminatory purpose from its application in this case. Finally, MHDC called one member of the Village Board to the stand at trial. Nothing in her testimony supports an inference of invidious purpose.[20] In sum, the evidence does not warrant overturning the concurrent findings of both courts below. Respondents simply failed to carry their burden of proving that discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor in the Village's decision.[21]*271 This conclusion ends the constitutional inquiry. The Court of Appeals' further finding that the Village's decision carried a discriminatory "ultimate effect" is without independent constitutional significance. V Respondents' complaint also alleged that the refusal to rezone violated the Fair Housing Act of 1968, 42 U.S. C. 3601 et seq. They continue to urge here that a zoning decision made by a public body may, and that petitioners' action did, violate 3604 or 3. The Court of Appeals, however, proceeding in a somewhat unorthodox fashion, did not decide the statutory question. We remand the case for further consideration of respondents' statutory claims. Reversed and remanded. MR. JUSTICE STEVENS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part. I concur in Parts I-III of the Court's opinion. However, I believe the proper result would be to remand this entire case to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with and today's opinion. The Court of Appeals is better situated *272 than this Court both to reassess the significance of the evidence developed below in light of the standards we have set forth and to determine whether the interests of justice require further District Court proceedings directed toward those standards. MR. |
Justice Breyer | 2,003 | 2 | dissenting | National Park Hospitality Association v. Department of the Interior | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127928/national-park-hospitality-association-v-department-of-the-interior/ | 35 Like the majority, I believe that petitioner National Park Hospitality Association has standing here to pursue its legal claim, namely, that the dispute resolution procedures set forth in the Contract Disputes Act of 1978 (CDA), 41 U.S. C. 601 et seq., apply to national park concession contracts. But, unlike the majority, I believe that the question is ripe for our consideration. 36 I cannot agree with JUSTICE STEVENS that petitioner lacks Article III standing to bring suit on behalf of its members. See ante, at 815-816 and this page (opinion concurring in judgment). In my view, the National Park Service's definition of "concession contract" to exclude the CDA's protections ) causes petitioner and its members "injury in fact." ; see also 37 For one thing, many of petitioner's members are parties to, as well as potential bidders for, park concession contracts. Lodging for Federal Respondents 6 (listing 590 concession contracts in 131 parks). Those members will likely find that disputes arise under the contracts. And in resolving such disputes, the Park Service, following its regulation, will reject the concessioners' entitlement to the significant protections or financial advantages that the CDA provides. See 41 U.S. C. 605-612; ante, at 813-814 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment). In the circumstances present here, that kind of injury, though a future one, is concrete and likely to occur. 38 For another thing, the challenged Park Service interpretation causes a present injury. If the CDA does not apply to concession contract disagreements, as the Park Service regulation declares, then some of petitioner's members must plan now for higher contract implementation costs. Given the agency's regulation, bidders will likely be forced to pay more to obtain, or to retain, a concession contract than they believe the contract is worth. That is what petitioner argues. Supplemental Brief for Petitioner 4-6. See also App. to Supplemental Brief for Petitioner 3a-4a. Certain general allegations in the underlying complaints support this claim. See, e.g., App. 20-22, ¶¶ 35, 61-67; Amfac Resorts, L. L. C. Complaint in No. 1:00CV02838 (DC), pp. 4-5, ¶ 8 (available in Clerk of Court's case file); Cf. Amfac Resorts, L. L. And several uncontested circumstances indicate that such allegations are likely to prove true. 39 First, as the record makes clear, petitioner has a widespread membership, and many of its members regularly bid on contracts that, through cross-references to the Park Service regulation, embody the Park Service's interpretation. See, e. g., App. 69, 80; Lodging for Federal Respondents 14, 25. See also Standard Concession Contract, 26063, 26065 (2000); Simplified Concession Contracts, Second, related contract solicitations are |
Justice Breyer | 2,003 | 2 | dissenting | National Park Hospitality Association v. Department of the Interior | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127928/national-park-hospitality-association-v-department-of-the-interior/ | 26065 (2000); Simplified Concession Contracts, Second, related contract solicitations are similarly widespread and recurring, involving numerous bidders. Third, after investigation, the relevant congressional committee found that the "way potential contractors view the disputes-resolving system influences how, whether, and at what prices they compete for government contract business." S. Rep. No. 95-1118, p. 4 (1978). Fourth, the CDA provides a prevailing contractor with prejudgment interest, and authorizes expedited procedures. 41 U.S. C. 607(f), 608, 611. These are factors that make the inapplicability of the CDA more costly to successful bidders. See S. Rep. No. 95-1118, at 2-4; ante, at 813-814 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment). 40 These circumstances make clear that petitioner's members will likely suffer a concrete monetary harm, either now or in the foreseeable future. Such a showing here is sufficient to satisfy the Constitution's standing requirements. And the threatened injuries, present and future — monetary harm, injuries to a potential or actual contractual relationship, and injuries that arguably fall within the CDA's protective scope—are sufficient to satisfy "prudential" standing requirements as well. Federal Election ; Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Cf. Columbia Broadcasting System, 41 Given this threat of immediate concrete harm (primarily in the form of increased bidding costs), this case is also ripe for judicial review. As JUSTICE STEVENS explains in Parts I and II of his opinion, the case now presents a legal issue — the applicability of the CDA to concession contracts — that is fit for judicial determination. That issue is a purely legal one, demanding for its resolution only use of ordinary judicial interpretive techniques. See ante, at 814-815 (opinion concurring in judgment). The relevant administrative action, i. e., the agency's definition of "concession contract" under the National Parks Omnibus Management Act of 1998, 16 U.S. C. 5951-5966, has been "formalized," Abbott It is embodied in an interpretive regulation issued after notice and public comment and pursuant to the Department of the Interior's formal delegation to the National Park Service of its own statutorily granted rulemaking authority, 5965; ante, at 806-807. (Unlike the majority, I would apply to the regulation the legal label "interpretive rule," not "general statement of policy," ante, at 809 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted), though I agree with the majority that, because the Park Service does not administer the CDA, see ib we owe its conclusion less deference.) The Park Service's interpretation is definite and conclusive, not tentative or likely to change; as the majority concedes, the Park Service's determination constitutes "final agency action" within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act. Ante, at 812 (internal |
Justice Breyer | 2,003 | 2 | dissenting | National Park Hospitality Association v. Department of the Interior | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127928/national-park-hospitality-association-v-department-of-the-interior/ | meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act. Ante, at 812 (internal quotation marks omitted). 42 The only open question concerns the nature of the harm that refusing judicial review at this time will cause petitioner's members. See Abbott The fact that concessioners can raise the legal question at a later time, after a specific contractual dispute arises, see ante, at 812, militates against finding this case ripe. So too does a precedential concern: Will present review set a precedent that leads to premature challenges in other cases where agency interpretations may be less formal, less final, or less well suited to immediate judicial determination? See ante, at 811-812. 43 But the fact of immediate and particularized (and not totally reparable) injury during the bidding process offsets the first of these considerations. And the second is more than offset by a related congressional statute that specifies that prospective bidders for Government contracts can obtain immediate judicial relief from agency determinations that unlawfully threaten precisely this kind of harm. See 28 U.S. C. 1491(b)(1) (allowing prospective bidder to object, for instance, to "solicitation by a Federal agency for bids for a proposed contract" and permitting review of related allegation of "any violation of statute or regulation in connection with a procurement or a proposed procurement"). See also R. Nash, S. Schooner, & K. O'Brien, The Government Contracts Reference Book 308, 423 This statute authorizes a potential bidder to complain of a proposed contractual term that, in the bidder's view, is unlawful, say, because it formally incorporates a regulation that embodies a specific, allegedly unlawful, remedial requirement. Cf. App. 25, ¶¶ 114-116 (excerpts from petitioner's complaint making just this claim); App. to Supplemental Brief for Petitioner 2a, ¶¶ 121-122 (same). That being so, i. e., the present injury in such a case being identical to the present injury at issue here, I can find no convincing prudential reason to withhold Administrative Procedure Act review. 44 In sum, given this congressional policy, the concrete nature of the injury asserted by petitioner, and the final nature of the agency action at issue, I see no good reason to postpone review. I would find the issue ripe for this Court's consideration. And I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals on the merits, primarily for the reasons set forth in its opinion as supplemented here by the Government |
Justice Scalia | 1,988 | 9 | dissenting | K Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112019/k-mart-corp-v-cartier-inc/ | In a Court that selects its docketed cases on the basis of the general importance of the issues they present, jurisdictional questions tend to get short shrift. The central issue in this suit, the so-called "gray-market" issue, which may have immediate and substantial effects on the national economy, has provoked no less than 15 amici briefs; while the jurisdictional question, which could have the undesirable consequence of preventing our immediate resolution of the merits, has been briefed in only 11 pages by petitioners and 6 pages by respondents. Understandably enough, no one, myself included, is eager to conclude that we are powerless to resolve the issue that is this suit's claim to national attention. Even so, we must carefully review any question that asks us to determine the limits of a federal court's power, particularly when, as in this suit, two different sets of courts have concluded that they have exclusive jurisdiction over the subject of the suit. Compare Vivitar cert. denied, ; with cases below, 252 U. S. App. D. C. 342, 344-346, ; and Olympus Moreover, while the gray-market question is of greater immediate *192 economic importance (though we would soon enough have another occasion to address it), the jurisdictional question, if decided incorrectly, may generate uncertainty and hence litigation into the indefinite future. In my view, the Court's resolution of this question strains the plain language of the statute, and blurs a clear jurisdictional line that Congress has established. The Court of International Trade's exclusive jurisdiction extends to any civil action against the United States, its agencies or officers, "that arises out of any law of the United States providing for embargoes or other quantitative restrictions on the importation of merchandise for reasons other than the protection of the public health or safety." 28 U.S. C. 1581(i)(3). The statute does not define "embargo," and there is no reason to give it anything other than its ordinary meaning. An embargo is "a prohibition imposed by law upon commerce either in general or in one or more of its branches," Webster's Third New International Dictionary 738 (1981), a "[g]overnment order prohibiting commercial trade with individuals or businesses of other nations," Black's Law Dictionary 468 (5th ed. 1979), an "[a]uthoritative stoppage of foreign commerce or of any special trade," Funk & Wagnalls New International Dictionary of the English Language 411 (1984). The present lawsuit challenges a Customs Service regulation, 19 CFR 133.21(c) (1987), that implements 526(a) of the Tariff Act of 1930, 19 U.S. C. 1526(a). That statutory provision, which begins with the caption "(a) Importation prohibited," excludes from the |
Justice Scalia | 1,988 | 9 | dissenting | K Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112019/k-mart-corp-v-cartier-inc/ | begins with the caption "(a) Importation prohibited," excludes from the United States foreign-made merchandise bearing a trademark owned and recorded by a United States citizen or corporation. Section 526(a) is, to borrow language from the Senate debate, "an embargo against any foreign country shipping goods here where an American claims he has a trade-mark upon them." 62 Cong. Rec. 11603 (1922) (remarks of Sen. Kellogg) (emphasis added). Because this suit against the United States arises out of a law providing *193 for an embargo, I would hold that it is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of International Trade. The Court acknowledges that the term "embargo" means a "governmentally imposed" import prohibition, ante, at 185, but it seems to me that its analysis departs from that truth. Surely 526(a) prohibits imports, and that prohibition, enacted by Congress and enforced by an executive agency, is surely governmentally imposed. One might argue that the privately invocable exception to 526(a) causes it not to be an absolute governmental prohibition, and that only absolute governmental prohibitions qualify as embargoes. The Court rightly avoids that line of analysis, however, since many of the provisions commonly regarded as embargoes contain privately invocable exceptions, such as exemptions for certain privately determined uses. See, e. g., 19 U.S. C. A. 1202, p. 265, Schedule 1, Part 4, Subpart E; 19 CFR 12.80(b)(v), (vi) (1987). But if, despite its privately invocable exception, 526(a) meets the requirement of being a prohibition, it unquestionably meets the requirement of being a governmentally imposed one. Here, as with other embargoes, the availability of a privately invocable exception affects the extent of the prohibition; but the residual prohibition, whatever its extent, is governmental. The Court seeks to set 526(a) apart from other embargoes with privately invocable exceptions by observing that "rather than reflecting a governmental restriction on the quantity of a particular product that will enter, it merely provides a mechanism by which a private party might, at its own option, enlist the Government's aid in restricting the quantity of imports in order to enforce a private right." Ante, at 185. Perhaps it is meant to provide such a mechanism, but that relates not to whether it is a governmental prohibition, but to what the purpose of the governmental prohibition happens to be. It is no more in accord with common usage to say that a provision cannot be an embargo if its purpose is to protect private rights than to say (as did the Court of Appeals in the *194 analysis that the Court readily rejects, ibid., that it cannot be an |
Justice Scalia | 1,988 | 9 | dissenting | K Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112019/k-mart-corp-v-cartier-inc/ | the Court readily rejects, ibid., that it cannot be an embargo if its purpose is something other than trade policy. Embargoes are imposed for many different purposes, including sometimes the protection of private rights. Assuredly those which have the latter purpose are different from those that do not, but it is beyond me why that purpose, any more than any other one, would cause them not to be governmentally imposed import prohibitions. In my view, for example, the prohibition on the importation of art stolen from a private nonprofit museum, see 19 CFR 12.104-12.104h (1987), is unquestionably an embargo. Moreover, since the lever that the Court is using for its analysis is the prohibition's asserted lack of "governmental" character, it should make no difference whether the objective of the prohibition is to protect a private "right," or to protect some other private interest, or the interest of some nonprivate entity other than the Government itself. Thus, on the Court's analysis there would be excluded from the term "embargo" the prohibition on importing pre-Columbian sculptures or murals, which does not apply if the importer produces a certificate issued by the country of origin stating that the goods were not unlawfully exported. 19 U.S. C. 2092; 19 CFR 12.107 (1987). This is simply not in accord with normal understanding. The Court seeks to establish the inherently "nonembargo" character of a prohibition protecting private property rights by noting that a court injunction enforcing a contractual import prohibition is not an embargo. Ante, at 185. I agree that an injunction is not an embargo, but that conclusion does not follow from the fact that the injunction issued at the instance of a private individual to protect property rights. A court injunction issued at the instance of a Government agency, to prevent importation that was part of a conspiracy in violation of the Sherman Act, would likewise not generally be thought of as an embargo because the word is normally applied only to prohibitions imposed by the Legislative or Executive Branches of Government. *195 The short of the matter is that an "embargo" is an import regulation that takes the form of a governmental prohibition on imports, regardless of any exceptions it may contain and regardless of its ultimate purpose just as quotas, tariffs, and conditions on importation are identifiable forms of import regulation regardless of their exceptions and purposes. The Court points out, ante, at 187, that it may sometimes be difficult to distinguish a condition on importation from a prohibition on importation containing exceptions. That may be true, but since we |
Justice Scalia | 1,988 | 9 | dissenting | K Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112019/k-mart-corp-v-cartier-inc/ | importation containing exceptions. That may be true, but since we are agreed that only prohibitions and not conditions come within the meaning of embargo, that ambiguity will have to be grappled with under the Court's view of things no less than under mine. It is irrelevant to the present issue, unless the existence of one ambiguity within a statute justifies the needless creation of another. Under my analysis, when a provision has been identified as an import prohibition (however difficult that may be and it is neither difficult nor contested here) that is an end of the matter. Under the Court's analysis, one must proceed further to examine the exceptions to the prohibition and its purpose. Today's decision leaves some doubt as to what prohibitions on importation other than 526(a) are not governmental, and hence not embargoes, because they benefit private parties and are avoidable by private consent. Even if the Court's holding can be limited to prohibitions that protect private "rights," then at least the status of the prohibitions on the importation of goods that infringe trademarks or copyrights is called into question. See 15 U.S. C. 1124; 17 U.S. C. 601-603. And since, as noted earlier, the purpose of protecting private "rights" (whatever that might mean) is logically no more invalidating than the purpose of protecting private "interests," or even, more broadly, nongovernmental interests, the status of other import prohibitions is cast in doubt as well. These uncertainties arise from today's particular departure from the meaning of "embargo" as "a governmental prohibition *196 on importation." Much greater, unfortunately, are the uncertainties that arise from today's acknowledgment of the principle that departure is permissible. Having cast 526(a) loose from the moorings of its language, we leave it to drift on the currents of lawyerly invention. It remains to be seen what other limitations on the ordinary meaning of "embargo," no more apparent to the naked mind than the present one, may exist. |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,984 | 19 | concurring | Heckler v. Community Health Services of Crawford Cty., Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111187/heckler-v-community-health-services-of-crawford-cty-inc/ | I entirely agree with the Court that there was no estoppel in favor of respondent by reason of the Government's conduct in this case, because even a private party under like circumstances would not have been estopped. I write separately because I think the Court's treatment of our decided cases in this area gives an inaccurate and misleading impression of what those cases have had to say as to the circumstances, if any, under which the Government may be estopped to enforce the laws. Sixty-seven years ago, in Utah Power & Light private parties argued that they had acquired rights in federal lands, contrary to the law, because Government employees had acquiesced in their exercise of those rights. In that case the Court laid down the general principle governing claims of estoppel on behalf of private individuals against the Government: *67 "As a general rule, laches or neglect of duty on the part of officers of the Government is no defense to a suit by it to enforce a public right or protect a public interest. [Citations omitted.] And, if it be assumed that the rule is subject to exceptions, we find nothing in the cases in hand which fairly can be said to take them out of it as heretofore understood and applied in this court. A suit by the United States to enforce and maintain its policy respecting lands which it holds in trust for all the people stands upon a different plane in this and some other respects from the ordinary private suit to regain the title to real property or to remove a cloud from it. [Citation omitted.]" Since then we have applied that principle in a case where a private party relied on the misrepresentation of a Government agency as to the coverage of a crop insurance policy, a misrepresentation which the Court agreed would have estopped a private insurance carrier. Federal Crop Insurance We have applied it in a case where a private party relied on a misrepresentation by a Government employee as to Social Security eligibility, a misrepresentation which resulted in the applicant's losing 12 months of Social Security benefits. And we have applied it on at least three occasions to claims of estoppel in connection with the enforcement of the immigration laws and the denial of citizenship because of the conduct of immigration officials. ; ; In none of these cases have we ever held the Government to be estopped by the representations or conduct of its agents. In we noted that it is still an open question whether, in some future |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,984 | 19 | concurring | Heckler v. Community Health Services of Crawford Cty., Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111187/heckler-v-community-health-services-of-crawford-cty-inc/ | it is still an open question whether, in some future case, "affirmative misconduct" on the part of the Government might be grounds for an estoppel. See at *68 I agree with the Court that there is no need to decide in this case whether there are circumstances under which the Government may be estopped, but I think that the Court's treatment of that question, ante, at 60-61, gives an impression of hospitality towards claims of estoppel against the Government which our decided cases simply do not warrant. In footnote 12, ante, at 60, the Court intimates that two of our decisions have allowed the Government to be estopped: United and But these cases are not traditional equitable estoppel cases. Pennsylvania Industrial Chemical Corp. was a criminal prosecution, and we held that "to the extent that [Government regulations] deprived [the defendant] of fair warning as to what conduct the Government intended to make criminal, we think there can be no doubt that traditional notions of fairness inherent in our system of criminal justice prevent the Government from proceeding with the prosecution." And the Court's rather cryptic opinion in Moser, holding that an alien who declined to serve in the Armed Forces was not barred from United States citizenship pursuant to a federal statute, expressly rejected any doctrine of estoppel, and rested on the absence of a knowing and intentional waiver of the right to citizenship. We do not write on a clean slate in this field, and our cases have left open the possibility of estoppel against the Government only in a rather narrow possible range of circumstances. Because I think the Court's opinion, in its efforts to phrase new statements of the circumstances under which the Government may be estopped, casts doubt on these decided cases, I concur only in the judgment. |
Justice Souter | 1,994 | 20 | concurring | Consolidated Rail Corporation v. Gottshall | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117866/consolidated-rail-corporation-v-gottshall/ | I join the Court's opinion holding that claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress are cognizable under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), and that the zone of danger test is the appropriate rule for determining liability for such claims. I write separately to make explicit what I believe the Court's duty to be in interpreting FELA. That duty is to develop a federal common law of negligence under FELA, informed by reference to the evolving common law. See Atchison, T. & S. F. R. As we have explained: *559 "[I]nstead of a detailed statute codifying common-law principles, Congress saw fit to enact a statute of the most general terms, thus leaving in large measure to the courts the duty of fashioning remedies for injured employees in a manner analogous to the development of tort remedies at common law. But it is clear that the general congressional intent was to provide liberal recovery for injured workers and itis also clear that Congress intended the creation of no static remedy, but one which would be developed and enlarged to meet changing conditions and changing concepts of industry's duty toward its workers." Because I believe the Court's decision today to be a faithful exercise of that duty, and because there can be no question that adoption of the zone of danger test is well within the discretion left to the federal courts under FELA, I join in its opinion. |
per_curiam | 1,971 | 200 | per_curiam | Hicks v. Pleasure House, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108389/hicks-v-pleasure-house-inc/ | The appellats seek review of a temporary restraiig order etered by a sigle district judge i a case certified for presetatio to a statutory three-judge court. The order, iter alia, stayed a pedig prosecutio of the appellees uder certai state obsceity laws ad temporarily restraied further eforcemet of the laws agaist the appellees. It was etered by the District Judge shortly after he had certified a request for desigatio of a three-judge court to hear the appellees' suit for permaet declaratory ad ijuctive relief. Uder *2 28 U.S. C. 2284 (3), a sigle district judge has power to eter such a order i a case to be heard by a three-judge court, but the order ca be etered oly "to prevet irreparable damage" ad ca "remai i force oly util the hearig ad determiatio by the full court." The appellats argue that the order i this case cotravees priciples set forth last Term i They ivoke this Court's jurisdictio o direct appeal from "a iterlocutory or permaet ijuctio" i ay actio "required to be heard ad determied by a district court of three judges," uder 28 U.S. C. 1253. Sice, however, 1253 does ot authorize a direct appeal to this Court from a 2284 (3) order by a sigle district judge, we dismiss this appeal for wat of jurisdictio. Log ago, this Court made clear that o direct appeal lies uder 1253 to the Supreme Court from a temporary restraiig order issued by a sigle judge, eve though the order may amout to a "iterlocutory ijuctio" ad may have bee issued i a actio required to be heard by a three-judge court.[1] See Ex parte Metropolita Water This is so because 1253 "plaily cotemplates such a direct appeal oly i the case of a order or decree etered by a court composed of three judges i accordace with the statutory requiremet." See ; ; ; More recetly, this Court has held that a appeal may lie to a court of appeals from certai actios of a sigle district judge i a case required to be heard by three judges. Wilso v. City of Port Idlewild Bo Voyage Liquor Corp. v. Epstei, A court of appeals is ot "powerless to give ay guidace whe a sigle judge has erroeously ivaded the provice of a three-judge court." Idlewild Bo Voyage Liquor Corp. v. Epstei, Thus, if a sigle judge oversteps his limited authority uder 2284 (3), a court of appeals may correct his error. I additio, a temporary restraiig order issued pursuat to 2284 (3) is reviewable i a court of appeals |
Justice Powell | 1,976 | 17 | concurring | Estelle v. Williams | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109438/estelle-v-williams/ | I concur in the opinion of the Court. As the Court's opinion and the dissenting opinion take such divergent views of the case, I write separately to identify specifically the considerations I deem controlling. Respondent, Harry Lee Williams, was tried while clad in prison issue. Despite differences over the relevance of "compulsion" in this case, the Court opinion and the dissenting opinion essentially agree that a defendant has a constitutional right not to be so tried. The disagreement is over the significance to be attributed to Williams' failure to object at trial. As relevant to this case, there are two situations in which a conviction should be left standing despite the claimed infringement of a constitutional right. The first situation arises when it can be shown that the substantive right in question was consensually relinquished. The other situation arises when a defendant has made an "inexcusable procedural default" in failing to object at a time when a substantive right could have been protected. *514 Hart, Foreword: The Time Chart of the Justices, ; see American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Post-Conviction Remedies 35-37 (App. Draft 1968). Williams was represented by retained, experienced counsel. It is conceded that his counsel was fully aware of the "prison garb" issue[1] and elected to raise no objection simply because he thought objection would be futile. The record also shows that the state judge who presided at Williams' trial "had a practice of allowing defendants to stand trial in civilian clothing, if requested" It thus is apparent that had an objection been interposed by Williams to trial in prison garb, the issue here presented would not have arisen. This case thus presents a situation that occurs frequently during a criminal trialnamely, a defendant's failing to object to an incident of trial that implicates a constitutional right. As is often the case in such situations, a timely objection would have allowed its cure. As is also frequently the case with such trial-type rights as that involved here, counsel's failure to object in itself is susceptible of interpretation as a tactical choice. Ante, at 507-508. It is my view that a tactical choice or procedural default of the nature of that involved here ordinarily should operate,[2] as a matter of federal law, to preclude *515 the later raising of the substantive right.[3] We generally disfavor inferred waivers of constitutional rights. See ; That policy, however, need not be carried to the length of allowing counsel for a defendant deliberately to forgo objection to a curable trial defect, even though he is aware of the |
per_curiam | 1,971 | 200 | per_curiam | Connell v. Higginbotham | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108367/connell-v-higginbotham/ | This is an appeal from an action commenced in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida challenging the constitutionality of 876.05-876.10 of Fla. Stat. (1965), and the various loyalty oaths upon which appellant's employment as a school teacher was conditioned. The three-judge U. S. District Court declared three of the five clauses contained in the oaths to be unconstitutional,[*] and enjoined the State from conditioning *208 employment on the taking of an oath including the language declared unconstitutional. The appeal is from that portion of the District Court decision which upheld the remaining two clauses in the oath: I do hereby solemnly swear or affirm (1) "that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Florida"; and (2) "that I do not believe in the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of Florida by force or violence." On January 16, appellant made application for a teaching position with the Orange County school system. She was interviewed by the principal of Callahan Elementary School, and on January 27, appellant was employed as a substitute classroom teacher in the fourth grade of that school. Appellant was dismissed from her teaching position on March 18, for refusing to sign the loyalty oath required of all Florida public employees, The first section of the oath upheld by the District Court, requiring all applicants to pledge to support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Florida, demands no more of Florida public employees than is required of all state and federal officers. U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 3. The validity of this section of the oath would appear settled. See aff'd per curiam, ; aff'd per curiam, ; aff'd per curiam, The second portion of the oath, approved by the District Court, falls within the ambit of decisions of this Court proscribing summary dismissal from public employment without hearing or inquiry required by due process. Cf. ; That portion of the oath, therefore, cannot stand. Affirmed in part, and reversed in part. MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN join, concurring in the result. I agree that Florida may require state employees to affirm that they "will support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Florida." Such a forward-looking, promissory oath of constitutional support does not in my view offend the First Amendment's command that the grant or denial of governmental benefits cannot be made to turn on the political viewpoints or affiliations of a |
per_curiam | 1,971 | 200 | per_curiam | Connell v. Higginbotham | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108367/connell-v-higginbotham/ | to turn on the political viewpoints or affiliations of a would-be beneficiary. I also agree that Florida may not base its employment decisions, as to state teachers or any other hiring category, on an applicant's willingness vel non to affirm "that I do not believe in the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of Florida by force or violence." However, in striking down the latter oath, the Court has left the clear implication that its objection runs, not against Florida's determination to exclude those who "believe in the overthrow," but only against the State's decision to regard unwillingness to take the oath as conclusive, irrebuttable proof of the proscribed belief. Due process may rightly be invoked to condemn Florida's mechanistic approach to the question of proof. But in my view it simply does not matter what kind of evidence a State can muster to show that a job applicant "believe[s] in the overthrow." For state action injurious to an individual cannot be justified on account of the nature of the individual's beliefs, whether he "believe[s] in the overthrow" or has any other sort of belief. "If *210 there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion" Board of I would strike down Florida's "overthrow" oath plainly and simply on the ground that belief as such cannot be the predicate of governmental action. MR. JUSTICE STEWART, concurring in part and dissenting in part. The Court upholds as clearly constitutional the first clause of the oath as it comes to us from the three-judge District Court: "I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Florida" With this ruling I fully agree. As to the second contested clause of the oath, "I do not believe in the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of Florida by force or violence," I would remand to the District Court to give the parties an opportunity to get from the state courts an authoritative construction of the meaning of the clause. If the clause embraces the teacher's philosophical or political beliefs, I think it is constitutionally infirm. (concurring opinion); Board of ; If, on the other hand, the clause does no more than test whether the first clause of the oath can be taken "without mental reservation or purpose of evasion," I think it is constitutionally valid. Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, 54, The Florida |
Justice Burger | 1,970 | 12 | dissenting | In Re WINSHIP | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108111/in-re-winship/ | The Court's opinion today rests entirely on the assumption that all juvenile proceedings are "criminal prosecutions," hence subject to constitutional limitations. This derives from earlier holdings, which, like today's *376 holding, were steps eroding the differences between juvenile courts and traditional criminal courts. The original concept of the juvenile court system was to provide a benevolent and less formal means than criminal courts could provide for dealing with the special and often sensitive problems of youthful offenders. Since I see no constitutional requirement of due process sufficient to overcome the legislative judgment of the States in this area, I dissent from further strait-jacketing of an already overly restricted system. What the juvenile court system needs is not more but less of the trappings of legal procedure and judicial formalism; the juvenile court system requires breathing room and flexibility in order to survive, if it can survive the repeated assaults from this Court. Much of the judicial attitude manifested by the Court's opinion today and earlier holdings in this field is really a protest against inadequate juvenile court staffs and facilities; we "burn down the stable to get rid of the mice." The lack of support and the distressing growth of juvenile crime have combined to make for a literal breakdown in many if not most juvenile courts. Constitutional problems were not seen while those courts functioned in an atmosphere where juvenile judges were not crushed with an avalanche of cases. My hope is that today's decision will not spell the end of a generously conceived program of compassionate treatment intended to mitigate the rigors and trauma of exposing youthful offenders to a traditional criminal court; each step we take turns the clock back to the pre-juvenile-court era. I cannot regard it as a manifestation of progress to transform juvenile courts into criminal courts, which is what we are well on the way to accomplishing. We can only hope the legislative response will not reflect our own by having these courts abolished. *377 MR. |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110654/havens-realty-corp-v-coleman/ | This case presents questions concerning the scope of standing to sue under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the proper construction of 812(a) of the Act, which requires that a civil suit be brought within 180 days after the alleged occurrence of a discriminatory practice. I The case began as a class action against Havens Realty (Havens) and one of its employees, Rose Jones. Defendants were alleged to have engaged in "racial steering"[1] violative of 804 of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, 42 U.S. C. *367 3604 (Act or Fair Housing Act).[2] The complaint, seeking declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief, was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in January 1979 by three individuals[3] Paul Coles, Sylvia Coleman, and R. Kent Willis and an organization Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME). *368 At the time suit was brought, defendant Havens owned and operated two apartment complexes, Camelot Townhouses and Colonial Court Apartments, in Henrico County, Va., a suburb of Richmond. The complaint identified Paul Coles as a black "renter plaintiff" who, attempting to rent an apartment from Havens, inquired on July 13, 1978, about the availability of an apartment at the Camelot complex, and was falsely told that no apartments were available. App. 13, ¶ 7;[4] The other two individual plaintiffs, Coleman and Willis, were described in the complaint as "tester plaintiffs" who were employed by HOME to determine whether Havens practiced racial steering. Coleman, who is black, and Willis, who is white, each assertedly made inquiries of Havens on March 14, March 21, and March 23, 1978, regarding the availability of apartments. On each occasion, Coleman was told that no apartments were available; Willis was told that there were vacancies. On July 6, 1978, Coleman made a further inquiry and was told that there were no vacancies in the Camelot Townhouses; a white tester for HOME, who was not a party to the complaint, was given contrary information that same day. The complaint identified HOME as "a nonprofit corporation organized under the laws of the State of Virginia" whose purpose was "to make equal opportunity in housing a reality in the Richmond Metropolitan Area." According to the complaint, HOME's membership was "multiracial and include[d] approximately 600 individuals." Its activities included the operation of a housing counseling service, and the investigation and referral of complaints concerning housing discrimination. ¶¶ 8a, 8b. *369 The three individual plaintiffs, who at the time the complaint was filed were all residents of the city of Richmond or the adjacent Henrico County, averred that they |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110654/havens-realty-corp-v-coleman/ | of Richmond or the adjacent Henrico County, averred that they had been injured by the discriminatory acts of petitioners. Coles, the black renter, claimed that he had been "denied the right to rent real property in Henrico County." Further, he and the two tester plaintiffs alleged that Havens' practices deprived them of the "important social, professional, business and political and aesthetic benefits of interracial associations that arise from living in integrated communities free from discriminatory housing practices." And Coleman, the black tester, alleged that the misinformation given her by Havens concerning the availability of apartments in the Colonial Court and Camelot Townhouse complexes had caused her "specific injury." HOME also alleged injury. It asserted that the steering practices of Havens had frustrated the organization's counseling and referral services, with a consequent drain on resources. Additionally, HOME asserted that its members had been deprived of the benefits of interracial association arising from living in an integrated community free of housing discrimination. Before discovery was begun, and without any evidence being presented, the District Court, on motion of petitioners, dismissed the claims of Coleman, Willis, and HOME. The District Court held that these plaintiffs lacked standing and that their claims were barred by the Act's 180-day statute of limitations, 42 U.S. C. 3612(a). App. 33-35.[5] Each of the dismissed plaintiffs respondents in this Court appealed, and the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings. The Court of Appeals held that the allegations of injury by Willis and Coleman, both as testers and as individuals who were deprived of the benefits of residing in an integrated community, sufficed to withstand a motion to dismiss.[6] With respect to HOME, the Court of Appeals held that the organization's allegations of injury to itself and its members were sufficient, at the pleading stage, to afford the organization standing both in its own capacity and as a representative of its members. The Court of Appeals further held that none of the allegations of racial steering was time-barred, because petitioners' conduct constituted a "continuing violation" lasting through July 13, 1978 less than 180 days before the complaint was filed. We granted certiorari. II At the outset, we must consider whether the claims of Coleman, Willis, and HOME have become moot as a result of certain developments occurring after the District Court's dismissal. The first was the District Court's entry of a consent order with respect to Coles' claims. Following the dismissal of respondents' claims, Coles' undismissed claims went to trial, and Havens was found to have engaged in unlawful |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110654/havens-realty-corp-v-coleman/ | trial, and Havens was found to have engaged in unlawful racial steering.[7] Shortly thereafter, at the request of the parties, the court entered a consent order granting Coles and the class he represented monetary and injunctive relief. App. to Brief for Respondents 10a. The second development concerns *371 an agreement reached between petitioners and respondents prior to this Court's grant of certiorari.[8] The letter agreement, which expressly provides that it is to become effective only after approval by the District Court, states that if the Court were to deny certiorari, or grant it and affirm, respondents would each be entitled to $400 in damages and no further relief. The agreement provides also that if the Court were to grant certiorari and reverse, respondents would be entitled to no relief whatsoever. Despite these two developments, this case is not moot. Irrespective of the issue of injunctive relief, respondents continue to seek damages to redress alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act.[9] The letter agreement, if approved by the District Court, would merely liquidate those damages. If respondents have suffered an injury that is compensable in money damages of some undetermined amount, the fact that they have settled on a measure of damages does not make their claims moot. Given respondents' continued active pursuit of monetary relief, this case remains "definite and concrete, touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests." Aetna Life Ins. See ;[10] *372 III Our inquiry with respect to the standing issues raised in this case is guided by our decision in Gladstone, There we considered whether six individuals and the village of Bellwood had standing to sue under 812 of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S. C. 3612,[11] to redress injuries allegedly caused by the racial steering practices of two real estate brokerage firms. Based on the complaints, "as illuminated by subsequent discovery," we concluded that the village and four of the individual plaintiffs did have standing to sue under the Fair Housing Act,[12] In reaching that conclusion, we held that "Congress intended standing under 812 to extend to the full limits of Art. III" and that the courts accordingly lack the authority to create prudential barriers to standing in suits brought under that section. Thus the sole requirement for standing to sue under 812 is the Art. III minima of injury in fact: that the plaintiff allege that as a result of the defendant's actions he has suffered "a distinct and palpable injury," With this understanding, *373 we proceed to determine whether each of the respondents in the present case has the requisite standing. |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110654/havens-realty-corp-v-coleman/ | the respondents in the present case has the requisite standing. A The Court of Appeals held that Coleman and Willis have standing to sue in two capacities: as "testers" and as individuals deprived of the benefits of interracial association. We first address the question of "tester" standing. In the present context, "testers" are individuals who, without an intent to rent or purchase a home or apartment, pose as renters or purchasers for the purpose of collecting evidence of unlawful steering practices. Section 804(d) states that it is unlawful for an individual or firm covered by the Act "[t]o represent to any person because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin that any dwelling is not available for inspection, sale, or rental when such dwelling is in fact so available," 42 U.S. C. 3604(d) (emphasis added), a prohibition made enforceable through the creation of an explicit cause of action in 812(a) of the Act, 42 U.S. C. 3612(a). Congress has thus conferred on all "persons" a legal right to truthful information about available housing. This congressional intention cannot be overlooked in determining whether testers have standing to sue. As we have previously recognized, "[t]he actual or threatened injury required by Art. III may exist solely by virtue of `statutes creating legal rights, the invasion of which creates standing.' " quoting Linda R. Accord, Sierra ; Section 804(d), which, in terms, establishes an enforceable right to truthful information concerning the availability of housing, is such an enactment. A tester who has been the object of a misrepresentation made unlawful under 804(d) has suffered injury in precisely the form the statute was intended to guard against, and therefore *374 has standing to maintain a claim for damages under the Act's provisions. That the tester may have approached the real estate agent fully expecting that he would receive false information, and without any intention of buying or renting a home, does not negate the simple fact of injury within the meaning of 804(d). See ; Whereas Congress, in prohibiting discriminatory refusals to sell or rent in 804(a) of the Act, 42 U.S. C. 3604(a),[13] required that there be a "bona fide offer" to rent or purchase, Congress plainly omitted any such requirement insofar as it banned discriminatory representations in 804(d).[14] In the instant case, respondent Coleman the black tester alleged injury to her statutorily created right to truthful housing information. As part of the complaint, she averred that petitioners told her on four different occasions that apartments were not available in the Henrico County complexes while informing white testers that apartments |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110654/havens-realty-corp-v-coleman/ | the Henrico County complexes while informing white testers that apartments were available. If the facts are as alleged, then respondent has suffered "specific injury" from the challenged acts of petitioners, see App. 16, ¶ 13, and the Art. III requirement of injury in fact is satisfied. Respondent Willis' situation is different. He made no allegation that petitioners misrepresented to him that apartments *375 were unavailable in the two apartment complexes. To the contrary, Willis alleged that on each occasion that he inquired he was informed that apartments were available. As such, Willis has alleged no injury to his statutory right to accurate information concerning the availability of housing. We thus discern no support for the Court of Appeals' holding that Willis has standing to sue in his capacity as a tester.[15] More to the point, because Willis does not allege that he was a victim of a discriminatory misrepresentation, he has not pleaded a cause of action under 804(d). We must therefore reverse the Court of Appeals' judgment insofar as it reversed the District Court's dismissal of Willis' "tester" claims. B Coleman and Willis argue in this Court, and the Court of Appeals held, that irrespective of their status as testers, they should have been allowed to proceed beyond the pleading stage inasmuch as they have alleged that petitioners' steering practices deprived them of the benefits that result from living in an integrated community. This concept of "neighborhood" standing differs from that of "tester" standing in that the injury asserted is an indirect one: an adverse impact on the neighborhood in which the plaintiff resides resulting from the steering of persons other than the plaintiff. By contrast, the injury underlying tester standing the denial of the tester's own statutory right to truthful housing information caused by misrepresentations to the tester is a direct one. See Duke Power The distinction is between "third-party" and "first-party" standing. This distinction is, however, of little significance in deciding whether a plaintiff has standing to sue under 812 of the Fair Housing Act. Bellwood, as we have already noted, held that the only requirement for standing to sue under *376 812 is the Art. III requirement of injury in fact. As long as respondents have alleged distinct and palpable injuries that are "fairly traceable" to petitioners' actions, the Art. III requirement of injury in fact is satisfied. Arlington The question before us, then, is whether injury in fact has been sufficiently alleged.[16] The two individual respondents, who according to the complaint were "residents of the City of Richmond or Henrico County," alleged that |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110654/havens-realty-corp-v-coleman/ | of the City of Richmond or Henrico County," alleged that the racial steering practices of petitioners have deprived them of "the right to the important social, professional, business and political and aesthetic benefits of interracial associations that arise from living in integrated communities free from discriminatory housing practices." App. 13, ¶ 7; The type of injury alleged thus clearly resembles that which we found palpable in Bellwood. In that case, plaintiffs alleged that the steering practices of the defendants, by transforming their neighborhood in Bellwood from an integrated into an almost entirely black environment, had deprived them of "the social and professional benefits of living in an integrated society" and had caused them " injury." 441 U.S., and n. 30.[17] *377 Petitioners do not dispute that the loss of social, professional, and benefits resulting from steering practices constitutes palpable injury. Instead, they contend that Coleman and Willis, by pleading simply that they were residents of the Richmond metropolitan area, have failed to demonstrate how the asserted steering practices of petitioners in Henrico County may have affected the particular neighborhoods in which the individual respondents resided. It is indeed implausible to argue that petitioners' alleged acts of discrimination could have palpable effects throughout the entire Richmond metropolitan area. At the time relevant to this action the city of Richmond contained a population of nearly 220,000 persons, dispersed over 37 square miles. Henrico County occupied more than 232 square miles, in which roughly 170,000 people made their homes.[18] Our cases have upheld standing based on the effects of discrimination only within a "relatively compact neighborhood," Bellwood, We have not suggested that discrimination within a single housing complex might give rise to "distinct and palpable injury," 422 U. S., at throughout a metropolitan area. Nonetheless, in the absence of further factual development, we cannot say as a matter of law that no injury could be proved. Respondents have not identified the particular neighborhoods in which they lived, nor established the proximity of their homes to the site of petitioners' alleged steering practices. Further pleading and proof might establish that they lived in areas where petitioners' practices had an appreciable effect. Under the liberal federal pleading standards, we therefore agree with the Court of Appeals that dismissal *378 on the pleadings is inappropriate at this stage of the litigation. At the same time, we note that the extreme generality of the complaint makes it impossible to say that respondents have made factual averments sufficient if true to demonstrate injury in fact. Accordingly, on remand, the District Court should afford the plaintiffs an opportunity to |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110654/havens-realty-corp-v-coleman/ | the District Court should afford the plaintiffs an opportunity to make more definite the allegations of the complaint. Cf. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(e). If after that opportunity the pleadings fail to make averments that meet the standing requirements established by the decisions of this Court, the claims should be dismissed. C HOME brought suit against petitioners both as a representative of its members and on its own behalf. In its representative capacity, HOME sought only injunctive relief. See App. 17, ¶ 16; Under the terms of the letter settlement reached between petitioners and respondents, however, HOME has agreed to abandon its request for injunctive relief in the event the District Court ultimately approves the and n. 10. Additionally, in its brief in this Court, HOME suggests that we need not decide whether the organization has standing in its representative capacity. Brief for Respondents 8, n. 8; In view of HOME's apparent willingness to abandon this claim, we think it inappropriate that the Court use its resources to resolve an issue for which "such small embers of controversy remain." While we therefore will not decide the question involving HOME's representative standing, we do proceed to decide the question whether HOME has standing in its own right; the organization continues to press a right to claim damages in that latter capacity. In determining whether HOME has standing under the Fair Housing Act, we conduct the same inquiry as in the case of an individual: Has the plaintiff " `alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy' as to warrant his invocation *379 of federal-court jurisdiction"? Arlington 429 U. S., at quoting[19] In the instant case, HOME's complaint contained the following claims of injury to the organization: "Plaintiff HOME has been frustrated by defendants' racial steering practices in its efforts to assist equal access to housing through counseling and other referral services. Plaintiff HOME has had to devote significant resources to identify and counteract the defendant's [sic] racially discriminatory steering practices." App. 17, ¶ 16. If, as broadly alleged, petitioners' steering practices have perceptibly impaired HOME's ability to provide counseling and referral services for low- and moderate-income homeseekers, there can be no question that the organization has suffered injury in fact. Such concrete and demonstrable injury to the organization's activities with the consequent drain on the organization's resources constitutes far more than simply a setback to the organization's abstract social interests, see Sierra[20] We therefore conclude, as did the Court of Appeals, that in view of HOME's allegations of injury it was improper for the District Court |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110654/havens-realty-corp-v-coleman/ | allegations of injury it was improper for the District Court to dismiss for lack of standing the claims of the organization in its own right.[21] *380 IV Petitioners argue that even if respondents do have standing to sue under the Fair Housing Act, their claims are time-barred under 812(a) of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S. C. 3612(a). That section requires that a civil suit be brought within 180 days after the alleged occurrence of a discriminatory housing practice.[22] As petitioners note, although five different specific incidents allegedly in violation of the Fair Housing Act are detailed in the complaint, the four involving Coleman occurred more than 180 days before the complaint was filed, and the fifth, which was within 180 days of filing, involved only Coles, whose claims are already the subject of a consent order entered by the District Court. The Court of Appeals, adopting a "continuing violation" theory, held that because the Coles incident fell within the limitations period, none of the claims was barred. We agree with the Court of Appeals that for purposes of 812(a), a "continuing violation" of the Fair Housing Act should be treated differently from one discrete act of discrimination. Statutes of limitations such as that contained in 812(a) are intended to keep stale claims out of the courts. See Chase Securities v. Donaldson, Where the challenged violation is a continuing one, the staleness concern disappears. Petitioners' wooden application of 812(a), which ignores the continuing nature of the alleged violation, only undermines the broad remedial intent of Congress embodied in the Act, see Cf. Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., post, at 398. Like the Court of Appeals, we therefore conclude that where a plaintiff, pursuant *381 to the Fair Housing Act, challenges not just one incident of conduct violative of the Act, but an unlawful practice[23] that continues into the limitations period, the complaint is timely when it is filed within 180 days of the last asserted occurrence of that practice. Applying this principle to the "neighborhood" claims of Coleman and Willis, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the 180-day statute of limitations is no bar. Willis and Coleman have alleged that petitioners' continuing pattern, practice, and policy of unlawful racial steering has deprived them of the benefits of interracial association arising from living in an integrated neighborhood. Plainly the claims, as currently alleged, are based not solely on isolated incidents involving the two respondents, but a continuing violation manifested in a number of incidents including at least one (involving Coles) that is asserted to have occurred within |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110654/havens-realty-corp-v-coleman/ | one (involving Coles) that is asserted to have occurred within the 180-day period. HOME, too, claims injury to its counseling and referral services not only from the incidents involving Coleman and Willis, but also from a continuing policy and practice of unlawful racial steering that extends through the last alleged incident. We do not agree with the Court of Appeals, however, that insofar as respondent Coleman has standing to assert a claim as a "tester," she may take advantage of the "continuing violation" theory. Her tester claim is, in essence, that on four isolated occasions she received false information from petitioners in violation of 804(d). It is not alleged, nor could it be, that the incident of steering involving Coles on July 13, 1978, deprived Coleman of her 804(d) right to truthful housing information. See App. 16, ¶ 13. *382 V In sum, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals insofar as the judgment reversed the District Court's dismissal of the claims of Coleman and Willis as individuals allegedly deprived of the benefits of interracial association, and the claims of HOME as an organization allegedly injured by the racial steering practices of petitioners; we reverse the judgment insofar as it directed that Coleman and Willis may proceed to trial on their tester claims. Further proceedings on the remand directed by the Court of Appeals shall be consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | This is a controversy between a publisher, Mills Music, Inc. (Mills), and the heirs of an author, Ted Snyder (Snyder), over the division of royalty income that the sound recordings *155 of the copyrighted song "Who's Sorry Now" (the Song) have generated. The controversy is a direct outgrowth of the general revision of copyright law that Congress enacted in 1976.[1] The 1976 Act gave Snyder's heirs a statutory right to reacquire the copyright[2] that Snyder had previously granted to Mills; however, it also provided that a "derivative work prepared under authority of the grant before its termination may continue to be utilized under the terms of the grant after its "[3] The sound recordings of the Song, which have generated the royalty income in dispute, are derivative works of that kind.[4] Thus, the dispute raises the question *156 whether an author's termination of a publisher's interest in a copyright also terminates the publisher's contractual right to share in the royalties on such derivative works. The key that will unlock this statutory puzzle is an understanding of the phrase "under the terms of the grant" as it is used in 304(c)(6)(A) the so-called "derivative works exception" (the Exception) to the "termination of transfer and licenses" provisions found in 304(c).[5] Before focusing on the meaning of the key phrase, we shall describe the chain of title to the copyright, the circumstances surrounding Congress' adoption of the 1976 Act, and how the pertinent provisions of the 1976 Act affected the relationship among the interested parties in 1978 when Snyder's heirs terminated the grant to Mills. We begin with the early factual history. I Snyder was one of three persons who collaborated in creating "Who's Sorry Now."[6] Although Snyder actually held only a one-third interest in the Song, the parties agree that we should treat the case as if Snyder were the sole author. The original copyright on the Song was registered in 1923 in the name of Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., a publishing company that Snyder partly owned.[7] That company *157 went into bankruptcy in 1929, and in 1932 the trustee in bankruptcy assigned the copyright to Mills.[8] Under the Copyright Act of 1909, the copyright in a musical composition lasted for 28 years from the date of its first publication, and the author could renew the copyright for an additional term of 28 years.[9] Although Mills had acquired ownership of the original copyright from the trustee in bankruptcy, it needed the cooperation of Snyder in order to acquire an interest in the 28-year renewal term. Accordingly, in 1940 Mills and |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | in the 28-year renewal term. Accordingly, in 1940 Mills and Snyder entered into a written agreement defining their respective rights in the renewal of the copyright. In essence, Snyder assigned his entire interest in all renewals of the copyright to Mills in exchange for an advance royalty and Mills' commitment to pay a cash royalty on sheet music and 50 percent of all net royalties that Mills received for mechanical reproductions.[10] *158 Mills obtained and registered the renewal copyright in 1951. After filing the required statutory notice,[11] Mills directly, or through the Harry Fox Agency, Inc., issued over 400 licenses to record companies authorizing the use of the Song in specific reproductions on phonograph records. Using a variety of different artists and different musical arrangements, these record companies prepared separate "derivative works," each of which was independently copyrightable.[12] Because each of these derivative works was a mechanical reproduction of the Song that was prepared pursuant to a license that Mills had issued, the record companies were contractually obligated to pay royalties to Mills, and Mills, in turn, was contractually obligated to pay 50 percent of those royalties to Snyder.[13] Fox acted as an agent for Mills, performing the service of collecting royalties from the licensed record companies and, after deducting its charges, remitting the net receipts to Mills, which in turn remitted 50 percent of that income to Snyder. After Snyder's death, his *159 widow and his son succeeded to his interest in the arrangement with Mills. II The massive work necessary for the general revision of the copyright law began in 1955, perhaps stimulated in part by this country's help in the development of, and subsequent membership in, the Universal Copyright Convention.[14] In that year, Congress approved several appropriations for the Copyright Office. The Copyright Office then began building the foundation for the general revision by authorizing a series of 34 studies on major issues of copyright law; these studies were published and included in the legislative history.[15] After issuing a report in 1961, the Copyright Office conducted numerous meetings with representatives of the many parties that the copyright law affected.[16] In 1963, the Copyright Office issued a preliminary draft revision bill, which contained the essence of the Exception before the Court today.[17] Additional discussions with interested parties *160 followed.[18] Two additional draft revision bills supervened, both containing the Exception.[19] Interested parties submitted commentary following the 1964 draft revision bill.[20] Congress began its lengthy hearings after the Copyright Office submitted the 1965 draft revision bill.[21] The hearings on the 1965 bill occupied over three weeks during a 3-month period |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | 1965 bill occupied over three weeks during a 3-month period and involved well over 100 witnesses. Moreover, the Copyright Office prepared a supplementary report to accompany the 1965 draft revision bill.[22] Although additional hearings were held in subsequent sessions,[23] and revision bills were submitted to Congress in each term for the next 10 years,[24] discussion over the termination provisions, and the Exception, was essentially completed at this time. Congress enacted the termination provisions and the Exception *161 in the 1976 Act in virtually the same form as they appeared in the 1965 draft revision bill.[25] III Section 304 of the 1976 Act significantly affected the rights of Mills and the Snyders in three ways. First, 304(b) provided an automatic extension of the life of the copyright; instead of expiring in 1980 at the end of the second renewal period, the copyright on the Song will endure until 1999.[26] Second, 304(c) gave the widow and surviving son of Snyder a right to terminate the grant to Mills of rights in the renewal copyright.[27] That termination could be effected at *162 any time during the 5-year period after January 1, 1978, by serving a written notice on Mills and recording a copy in the Copyright Office before it became effective. Third, 304(c)(6) provided that the termination would cause all rights "covered by the terminated grant" to revert to Snyder's widow and son. That reversion was, however, subject to an exception that permitted a previously prepared derivative work to continue to be utilized after the termination "under the terms of the grant."[28] IV On January 3, 1978, the Snyders delivered a written notice of termination to Mills. The notice complied with 304(c); it identified the Song and stated that the termination applied to the "[g]rant or transfer of copyright and the rights of copyright proprietor, including publication and recording rights." Additionally, the notice stated that it would become effective on January 3, 1980.[29] On August 11, 1980, the Snyders advised Fox that Mills' interest in the copyright had been terminated and demanded that the royalties on the derivative works be remitted to them. Fox placed the disputed funds in escrow and initiated an interpleader action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Mills and the Snyders appeared therein, agreed on the relevant facts, and filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The District Court entered judgment for Mills. Harry Fox Agency, In an exhaustive opinion, the District Court first held that the record companies' derivative works had been "prepared under authority of the grant" from Snyder to Mills. The |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | under authority of the grant" from Snyder to Mills. The *163 court then noted that the statute did not make "any distinction between grantees who themselves make or own derivative works and those who license others to do so." Accordingly, the court concluded that the terms of the various contracts that had been in effect prior to the termination governed the record companies' obligation to pay royalties and that under those arrangements Mills and the Snyders were each entitled to a 50 percent share in the net royalties. Relying on three "propositions," the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed. Harry Fox Agency, First, it reasoned that Mills was relying on two separate grants the 1940 grant from Snyder to Mills and the later grants by Mills to the record companies but that the Exception preserved only the second set of grants. Because the Snyders' termination caused the ownership of the underlying copyright to revert to them, the court viewed that reversion as carrying with it Mills' right to collect the royalties payable under the grants to the record companies. Second, the court determined that 304 was enacted for the benefit of authors and that the Exception was designed to protect "utilizers" of derivative works; because Mills as a publisher was neither an author nor a "utilizer," it was not a member of either class that 304 was intended to benefit. Third, the Court of Appeals read the legislative history as indicating that Congress had not contemplated a situation in which the authority to prepare derivative works was derived from two successive grants rather than a single grant directly from an author to a "utilizer." The court felt that if Congress had confronted this situation, it would not have wanted "publishers and other noncreative middlemen to share in original derivative works royalties after " Having granted Mills' petition for a writ of certiorari in order to resolve this important question of copyright law, we now reverse. We are not persuaded *164 that Congress intended to draw a distinction between authorizations to prepare derivative works that are based on a single direct grant and those that are based on successive grants. Rather, we believe the consequences of a termination that 304 authorizes simply do not apply to derivative works that are protected by the Exception defined in 304(c)(6)(A). The boundaries of that Exception are defined by reference to the scope of the privilege that had been authorized under the terminated grant and by reference to the time the derivative works were prepared. The derivative works involved in this |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | derivative works were prepared. The derivative works involved in this case are unquestionably within those boundaries. V In construing a federal statute it is appropriate to assume that the ordinary meaning of the language that Congress employed "accurately expresses the legislative purpose."[30] We therefore start with an examination of the statutory text. The critical subparagraph 304(c)(6)(A) carves out an exception from the reversion of rights that takes place when an author exercises his right to A single sentence that uses the word "grant" three times defines the scope of the Exception. It states: "A derivative work prepared under authority of the grant before its termination may continue to be utilized under the terms of the grant after its termination, but this privilege does not extend to the preparation after the termination of other derivative works based upon the copyrighted work covered by the terminated grant." 17 U.S. C. 304(c)(6)(A) (emphasis supplied). The third reference is to "the terminated grant" which, in this case, must refer to Snyder's grant to Mills in 1940. It is logical to assume that the same word has the same meaning *165 when it is twice used earlier in the same sentence.[31] The reference to a derivative work at the beginning of the Exception is to one that was prepared "under authority of the grant." Again, because Mills, or Fox as its agent, authorized the preparation of each of the 400-odd sound recordings while Mills was the owner of the copyright, each of those derivative works was unquestionably prepared "under authority of the grant." The 1940 grant from Snyder to Mills expressly gave Mills the authority to license others to make derivative works.[32] Thus, whether the phrase "under authority of the grant" is read to encompass both the original grant to Mills and the subsequent licenses that Mills issued, or only the original grant, it is inescapable that the word "grant" must refer to the 1940 grant from Snyder to Mills.[33] The second use of the word "grant" is in the critical phrase that allows the record companies to continue to utilize previously prepared derivative works "under the terms of the grant after its " To give the word a consistent meaning, we must again read it to encompass the original grant from Snyder to Mills, even though it is evident that the *166 relevant terms of the grant for a particular licensee must also include the specific terms of its license. Although a consistent reading of the word "grant" in the text of 304(c)(6)(A) encompasses the 1940 grant from Snyder to Mills, the |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | 304(c)(6)(A) encompasses the 1940 grant from Snyder to Mills, the Court of Appeals concluded that the Exception preserved nothing more than the grants from Mills to the record companies. As we have briefly noted earlier, the Court of Appeals rested its conclusion on three separate propositions, each of which merits discussion. The Two Separate Grants The Court of Appeals based its conclusion that Mills could not prevail largely on its view that the grant from Snyder to Mills was entirely separate from subsequent "grants" by Mills to the record companies. It reasoned: "Since the only grants which have terms that define the circumstances under which derivative works are to be prepared and utilized are the Mills-record company grants, it is the terms of those grants that the Exception preserves, not the grant from the Snyders giving Mills 50% of the mechanical royalties." It is undisputed that the 1940 grant did not itself specify the terms that would apply to the use of any particular derivative work. The licenses that Mills, or its agent Fox, executed contain those terms. But if the underlying grant from Snyder to Mills in 1940 had not authorized those separate licenses, they would have been nullities. Moreover, if the licenses are examined separately from that earlier grant, they merely require that royalty payments be made to Mills or to Fox as the collection agent for Mills.[34] In terms, they do not provide for any payments at all to the Snyders. The source of the Snyders' entitlement to a 50 percent share in the royalty income is the 1940 grant. Thus, a fair construction of *167 the phrase "under the terms of the grant" as applied to any particular licensee would necessarily encompass both the 1940 grant and the individual license executed pursuant thereto. If the scope of the entire set of documents that created and defined each licensee's right to prepare and distribute derivative works is used to define the relevant "terms of the grant" for purposes of the Exception, those terms include Mills' right to obtain 100 percent of the net royalty income in the first instance and Mills' obligation thereafter to remit 50 percent of those revenues to the Snyders. If, as the Court of Appeals held, the Exception limits the relevant "terms of the grant" to those appearing in the individual licenses, two rather glaring incongruities would result. First, the word "grant" would have inconsistent meanings in the same sentence, and in fact, within the entirety of both 304(c) and the remainder of 304. Second, and of greater importance, there would be neither |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | 304. Second, and of greater importance, there would be neither a contractual nor a statutory basis for paying any part of the derivative-works royalties to the Snyders.[35] The licenses issued to the record companies are the source of their contractual obligation to pay royalties; viewed apart from the 1940 grant, those licenses confer no rights on the Snyders. Moreover, although the termination has caused the ownership of the copyright to revert to the Snyders, nothing in the statute gives them any right to acquire any contractual rights that the Exception preserves. The Snyders' status as owner of the copyright gives them no right to collect royalties by virtue of the Exception from users of previously authorized derivative works. Stating the same point *168 from the perspective of the licensees, it is clear that they have no direct contractual obligation to the new owner of the copyright. The licensees are merely contractually obligated to make payments of royalties under terms upon which they have agreed. The statutory transfer of ownership of the copyright cannot fairly be regarded as a statutory assignment of contractual rights.[36] The "Utilizer" of a Derivative Work The second of the Court of Appeals' propositions stated that Mills is not the "utilizer" of a derivative work because "[a]ll that Mills did was to utilize the underlying copyright when it owned it by licensing others to create and utilize *169 derivative works." Building on its erroneous first proposition, the court determined: "The language of the Exception supports such a conclusion. The Exception provides that the derivative work must be prepared under the authority of the grant, excluding, therefore, unauthorized derivative works. It is only grants from Mills to the record companies which authorize the preparation and creation of the derivative works here involved. The Exception, then, protects creators who utilize derivative works prepared under the authority of the grant authorizing the creation of such derivative works." Although not expressly adopting the Court of Appeals' first proposition regarding "two grants," respondents expand on the court's second proposition, urging that the Exception protects only the utilization of derivative works after the underlying copyright has reverted to the author. Brief for Respondents 3-8. The protection provided to those who utilize previously prepared derivative works is not, however, unlimited. The word "utilized" as written in the Exception cannot be separated from its context and read in isolation. It is expressly confined by "the terms of the grant." The contractual obligation to pay royalties survives the termination and identifies the parties to whom the payment must be made. If the Exception is narrowly read |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | payment must be made. If the Exception is narrowly read to exclude Mills from its coverage, thus protecting only the class of "utilizers" as the Snyders wish, the crucial link between the record companies and the Snyders will be missing, and the record companies will have no contractual obligation to pay royalties to the Snyders. If the statute is read to preserve the total contractual relationship, which entitled Mills to make duly authorized derivative works, the record companies continue to be bound by the terms of their licenses, including any terms requiring them to continue to pay royalties to Mills. *170 Legislative History The Court of Appeals' third, and last, proposition stated that "Congress did not specifically address the situation where the grantee from the author has himself subleased or subgranted or licensed use of the copyright." It considered the statutory text ambiguous because the statute "speaks in terms of one grant, while we are dealing with two distinct grants." Because the Court of Appeals' review of the legislative history did not disclose any specific consideration of the problem that this case presents, it further concluded that Congress had simply overlooked the possibility that a licensee's authority to prepare derivative works might depend on two separate grants. The Court of Appeals, therefore, predicated its construction of the Exception largely on its evaluation of the legislative purpose: to "protect owners of derivative works like film producers who own derivative copyrights in books or plays." Unlike the Court of Appeals, we are persuaded that Congress was well aware of the prevalence of multiparty licensing arrangements in the music-publishing industry, as well as in other industries that the copyright law vitally affected, when it enacted the 1976 Act. There are many references in the legislative history to multiparty arrangements in the music industry, and to the importance of the role of music publishers in the marketing of copyrighted songs. These references dissipate the force of the argument that Congress did not expressly consider the precise multiparty dispute before the Court today.[37] Indeed, there is reason to believe *171 that the 50 percent arrangement between Snyder and Mills that was made in 1940 was a typical example of the form of copyright grant that had been prevalent in this industry for *172 many years.[38] Rather than assuming that Congress was unaware of a common practice in one of the industries that the general revision of the copyright law, and the termination provisions, most significantly affected, we think it more probable that Congress saw no reason to draw a distinction between a direct grant by |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | reason to draw a distinction between a direct grant by an author to a party that produces derivative works itself and a situation in which a middleman is given authority to make subsequent grants to such producers. For whether the problem is analyzed from the author's point of view or that of the producer of derivative works, the statutory purposes are equally well served in either case. The principal purpose of the amendments in 304 was to provide added benefits to authors. The extension of the duration of existing copyrights to 75 years, the provision of a longer term (the author's life plus 50 years) for new copyrights, and the concept of a termination right itself, were all obviously intended to make the rewards for the creativity of authors more substantial. More particularly, the termination right was expressly intended to relieve authors of the consequences of ill-advised and unremunerative grants that had been made before the author had a fair opportunity to *173 appreciate the true value of his work product.[39] That general purpose is plainly defined in the legislative history and, indeed, is fairly inferable from the text of 304 itself. The Exception in 304(c)(6)(A) was designed, however, to exclude a specific category of grants even if they were manifestly unfair to the author from that broad objective. The purpose of the Exception was to "preserve the right of the owner of a derivative work to exploit it, notwithstanding the reversion."[40] Therefore, even if a person acquired the right to exploit an already prepared derivative work by means of an unfavorable bargain with an author, that right was to be excluded from the bundle of rights that would revert to the author when he exercised his termination right. The critical point in determining whether the right to continue utilizing a derivative work survives the termination of a transfer of a copyright is whether it was "prepared" before the Pretermination derivative works those prepared under the authority of the terminated grant may continue to be utilized under the terms of the terminated grant. Derivative works prepared after the termination of the grant are not extended this exemption from the termination provisions. It is a matter of indifference as far as the reason for *174 giving protection to derivative works is concerned whether the authority to prepare the work had been received in a direct license from an author, or in a series of licenses and sublicenses. The scope of the duly authorized grant and the time the derivative work was prepared are what the |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | the time the derivative work was prepared are what the statute makes relevant because these are the factors that determine which of the statute's two countervailing purposes should control.[41] The obligation of an owner of a derivative work to pay royalties based on his use of the underlying copyright is not subject to renegotiation because the Exception protects it. The "terms of the grant" as existing at the time of termination govern the author's right to receive royalties; those terms are therefore excluded from the bundle of rights that the author may seek to resell unimpeded by any ill-advised prior commitment. The statutory distinction between the rights that revert to the author and those that do not revert is based on the character of the right not on the form or the number of written instruments that gave the owner of the derivative work the authority to prepare it. Nothing in the legislative history or the language of the statute indicates that Congress intended the Exception to distinguish between two-party transactions and those involving multiple parties. The example most frequently discussed in the legislative history concerning the Exception involved the sale of a copyrighted story to a motion picture producer.[42] The Court of *175 Appeals explained the need for the Exception as the interest in protecting the large investment that is required to produce a motion picture, and recognized that record companies similarly must also make a significant investment in compensating vocalists, musicians, arrangers, and recording engineers. Therefore, the court concluded that record companies are clearly within the class that the Exception protects. The court felt, however, that music publishers as middlemen were not similarly situated, but rather merely had an ownership interest in the copyright that reverted to the author upon -743. As a matter of fact or of judicial notice we are in no position to evaluate the function that each music publisher actually performs in the marketing of each copyrighted song. But based on our reading of the statute and its legislative history,[43] in interpreting *176 the Exception we find no reason to differentiate between a book publisher's license to a motion-picture producer and a music publisher's license to a record company. Neither publisher is the author of the underlying work. If, as the legislative history plainly discloses, the Exception limits the reversion right of an author who granted his copyright on an original story to a book publisher who in turn granted a license to a motion-picture producer, we can see no reason why the Exception should not also limit the |
Justice Stevens | 1,985 | 16 | majority | Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111292/mills-music-inc-v-snyder/ | no reason why the Exception should not also limit the right of a composer, like Snyder, who made such a grant to a music publisher, like Mills, that preceded a series of licenses to record companies.[44] VI Finally, respondents argue that the legislative history demonstrates that the Exception was designed to accomplish a well-identified purpose to enable derivative works to continue to be accessible to the public after the exercise of an author's termination rights.[45] Specifically, that history *177 discloses a concern about the status of a number of motion-picture films that had been prepared pursuant to grants by book publishers. Without the Exception, the reversion that an author's termination effected would have given the author the power to prevent further utilization of the motion-picture films, or possibly to demand royalties that the film producers were unwilling to pay. Because the specific problem that the Exception addressed involved a potential confrontation between derivative-works utilizers and authors who had recaptured their copyrights, respondents argue that Congress must have intended its response to the problem to affect only those two interests. The argument is unpersuasive. It explains why the Exception protects the utilizer of a derivative work from being required to pay an increased royalty to the author. It provides no support, however, for the proposition that Congress expected the author to be able to collect an increased royalty for the use of a derivative work. On the contrary, this history is entirely consistent with the view that the terms of the grant that were applicable to the use of derivative works at the time of termination should remain in effect. The public interest in preserving the status quo with respect to derivative works is equally well served by either petitioner's or respondents' reading of the Exception. Respondents' argument thus sheds no light on the meaning of the phrase *178 "the terms of the grant." Surely it does not justify the replacement of contractual terms that unambiguously require payment of royalties to a publisher with a new provision directing payment to an author instead. Under the terms of the grant in effect at the time of termination, Mills is entitled to a share of the royalty income in dispute. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. It is so ordered. |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | James Brown, a truckdriver employed by respondent, was discharged when he refused to drive a truck that he honestly and reasonably believed to be unsafe because of faulty brakes. Article XXI of the collective-bargaining agreement between respondent and Local 247 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, which covered Brown, provides: "The Employer shall not require employees to take out on the streets or highways any vehicle that is not in safe operating condition or equipped with the safety appliances *825 prescribed by law. It shall not be a violation of this Agreement where employees refuse to operate such equipment unless such refusal is unjustified."[1] The question to be decided is whether Brown's honest and reasonable assertion of his right to be free of the obligation to drive unsafe trucks constituted "concerted activit[y]" within the meaning of 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act), 29 U.S. C. 157.[2] The National Labor Relations Board ( or Board) held that Brown's refusal was concerted activity within 7, and that his discharge was, therefore, an unfair labor practice under 8(a)(1) of the Act, 29 U.S. C. 158(a).[3] 256 N. L. R. B. 451 The Court of Appeals disagreed and declined enforcement. At least three other Courts of Appeals, however, have accepted the Board's interpretation of "concerted activities" as including the assertion by an individual employee of a right grounded in a collective-bargaining agreement.[4] We granted certiorari *826 to resolve the conflict, and now reverse. I The facts are not in dispute in the current posture of this case.[5] Respondent, City Disposal Systems, Inc. (City Disposal), hauls garbage for the city of Detroit. Under the collective-bargaining agreement with Local Union No. 247, respondent's truckdrivers haul garbage from Detroit to a landfill about 37 miles away. Each driver is assigned to operate a particular truck, which he or she operates each day of work, unless that truck is in disrepair. James Brown was assigned to truck No. 245. On Saturday, May 12, Brown observed that a fellow driver had difficulty with the brakes of another truck, truck No. 244. As a result of the brake problem, truck No. 244 nearly collided with Brown's truck. After unloading their garbage at the landfill, Brown and the driver of truck No. 244 brought No. 244 to respondent's truck-repair facility, where they were told that the brakes would be repaired either over the weekend or in the morning of Monday, May 14. Early in the morning of Monday, May 14, while transporting a load of garbage to the landfill, Brown experienced |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | transporting a load of garbage to the landfill, Brown experienced difficulty with one of the wheels of his own truck No. 245 and brought that truck in for repair. At the repair facility, *827 Brown was told that, because of a backlog at the facility, No. 245 could not be repaired that day. Brown reported the situation to his supervisor, Otto Jasmund, who ordered Brown to punch out and go home. Before Brown could leave, however, Jasmund changed his mind and asked Brown to drive truck No. 244 instead. Brown refused, explaining that "there's something wrong with that truck. [S]omething was wrong with the brakes there was a grease seal or something leaking causing it to be affecting the brakes." Brown did not, however, explicitly refer to Article XXI of the collective-bargaining agreement or to the agreement in general. In response to Brown's refusal to drive truck No. 244, Jasmund angrily told Brown to go home. At that point, an argument ensued and Robert Madary, another supervisor, intervened, repeating Jasmund's request that Brown drive truck No. 244. Again, Brown refused, explaining that No. 244 "has got problems and I don't want to drive it." Madary replied that half the trucks had problems and that if respondent tried to fix all of them it would be unable to do business. He went on to tell Brown that "[w]e've got all this garbage out here to haul and you tell me about you don't want to drive." Brown responded, "Bob, what you going to do, put the garbage ahead of the safety of the men?" Finally, Madary went to his office and Brown went home. Later that day, Brown received word that he had been discharged. He immediately returned to work in an attempt to gain reinstatement but was unsuccessful. On May 15, the day after the discharge, Brown filed a written grievance, pursuant to the collective-bargaining agreement, asserting that truck No. 244 was defective, that it had been improper for him to have been ordered to drive the truck, and that his discharge was therefore also improper. The union, however, found no objective merit in the grievance and declined to process it. On September 7, Brown filed an unfair labor practice charge with the challenging his discharge. The Administrative *828 Law Judge (ALJ) found that Brown had been discharged for refusing to operate truck No. 244, that Brown's refusal was covered by 7 of the NLRA, and that respondent had therefore committed an unfair labor practice under 8(a)(1) of the Act. The ALJ held that an employee who acts |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | the Act. The ALJ held that an employee who acts alone in asserting a contractual right can nevertheless be engaged in concerted activity within the meaning of 7: " `[W]hen an employee makes complaints concerning safety matters which are embodied in a contract, he is acting not only in his own interest, but is attempting to enforce such contract provisions in the interest of all the employees covered under that contract. Such activity we have found to be concerted and protected under the Act, and the discharge of an individual for engaging in such activity to be in violation of Section 8(a)(1) [of the Act].' " 256 N. L. R. B., at 454 ). The adopted the findings and conclusions of the ALJ and ordered that Brown be reinstated with backpay. On a petition for enforcement of the Board's order, the Court of Appeals disagreed with the ALJ and the Board. Finding that Brown's refusal to drive truck No. 244 was an action taken solely on his own behalf, the Court of Appeals concluded that the refusal was not a concerted activity within the meaning of 7. This holding followed the court's prior decision in ARO, in which the Court of Appeals had held: "For an individual claim or complaint to amount to concerted action under the Act it must not have been made solely on behalf of an individual employee, but it must be made on behalf of other employees or at least be made with the object of inducing or preparing for group action and have some arguable basis in the collective bargaining agreement." *829 Section 7 of the NLRA provides that "[e]mployees shall have the right to join or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection." 29 U.S. C. 157. The 's decision in this case applied the Board's longstanding "Interboro doctrine," under which an individual's assertion of a right grounded in a collective-bargaining agreement is recognized as "concerted activit[y]" and therefore accorded the protection of 7.[6] See Interboro Inc., 157 N. L. R. B. 1295, 1298 (1966), enf'd, ; Bunney Bros. Construction Co., 139 N. L. R. B. 1516, 1519 (1962). The Board has relied on two justifications for the doctrine: First, the assertion of a right contained in a collective-bargaining agreement is an extension of the concerted action that produced the agreement, Bunney Bros. Construction, ; and second, the assertion of such a right affects the rights of all employees covered |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | such a right affects the rights of all employees covered by the collective-bargaining agreement. Interboro We have often reaffirmed that the task of defining the scope of 7 "is for the Board to perform in the first instance as it considers the wide variety of cases that come before it," Eastex, and, on an issue that implicates its expertise in labor relations, a reasonable construction by the Board is entitled to considerable deference, ; *830 The question for decision today is thus narrowed to whether the Board's application of 7 to Brown's refusal to drive truck No. 244 is reasonable.[7] Several reasons persuade us that it is. A Neither the Court of Appeals nor respondent appears to question that an employee's invocation of a right derived from a collective-bargaining agreement meets 7's requirement that an employee's action be taken "for purposes of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection." As the Board first explained in the Interboro case, a single employee's invocation of such rights affects all the employees that are covered by the collective-bargaining agreement. Interboro Inc., This type of generalized effect, as our cases have demonstrated, is sufficient to bring the actions of an individual employee within the "mutual aid or protection" standard, regardless of whether the employee has his own interests most immediately in mind. See, e. g., The term "concerted activit[y]" is not defined in the Act but it clearly enough embraces the activities of employees who have joined together in order to achieve common goals. See, e. g., Meyers Industries, Inc., 268 N. L. R. B. 493, 494-495 (1984). What is not self-evident from the language of *831 the Act, however, and what we must elucidate, is the precise manner in which particular actions of an individual employee must be linked to the actions of fellow employees in order to permit it to be said that the individual is engaged in concerted activity. We now turn to consider the Board's analysis of that question as expressed in the Interboro doctrine. Although one could interpret the phrase, "to engage in other concerted activities," to refer to a situation in which two or more employees are working together at the same time and the same place toward a common goal, the language of 7 does not confine itself to such a narrow meaning. In fact, 7 itself defines both joining and assisting labor organizations activities in which a single employee can engage as concerted activities.[8] Indeed, even the courts that have rejected the Interboro doctrine recognize the possibility that an individual employee may be |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | doctrine recognize the possibility that an individual employee may be engaged in concerted activity when he acts alone. They have limited their recognition of this type of concerted activity, however, to two situations: (1) that in which the lone employee intends to induce group activity, and (2) that in which the employee acts as a representative of at least one other employee. See, e. g., ARO, 596 F. 2d, at 717; The disagreement over the Interboro doctrine, therefore, merely reflects differing views regarding the nature of the relationship that must exist between the action of the individual employee and the actions of the group in order for 7 to apply. We cannot say that the Board's view of that relationship, as applied in the Interboro doctrine, is unreasonable. The invocation of a right rooted in a collective-bargaining agreement is unquestionably an integral part of the process that gave rise to the agreement. That process beginning with the organization of a union, continuing into the negotiation *832 of a collective-bargaining agreement, and extending through the enforcement of the agreement is a single, collective activity.[9] Obviously, an employee could not invoke a right grounded in a collective-bargaining agreement were it not for the prior negotiating activities of his fellow employees. Nor would it make sense for a union to negotiate a collective-bargaining agreement if individual employees could not invoke the rights thereby created against their employer. Moreover, when an employee invokes a right grounded in the collective-bargaining agreement, he does not stand alone. Instead, he brings to bear on his employer the power and resolve of all his fellow employees. When, for instance, James Brown refused to drive a truck he believed to be unsafe, he was in effect reminding his employer that he and his fellow employees, at the time their collective-bargaining agreement was signed, had extracted a promise from City Disposal that they would not be asked to drive unsafe trucks. He was also reminding his employer that if it persisted in ordering him to drive an unsafe truck, he could reharness the power of that group to ensure the enforcement of that promise. It was just as though James Brown was reassembling his fellow union members to reenact their decision not to drive unsafe trucks. A lone employee's invocation of a right grounded in his collective-bargaining agreement is, therefore, a concerted activity in a very real sense. Furthermore, the acts of joining and assisting a labor organization, which 7 explicitly recognizes as concerted, are related to collective action in essentially the same way that the invocation of |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | action in essentially the same way that the invocation of a collectively bargained right is related to collective action. When an employee joins or assists a labor *8 organization, his actions may be divorced in time, and in location as well, from the actions of fellow employees. Because of the integral relationship among the employees' actions, however, Congress viewed each employee as engaged in concerted activity. The lone employee could not join or assist a labor organization were it not for the related organizing activities of his fellow employees. Conversely, there would be limited utility in forming a labor organization if other employees could not join or assist the organization once it is formed. Thus, the formation of a labor organization is integrally related to the activity of joining or assisting such an organization in the same sense that the negotiation of a collective-bargaining agreement is integrally related to the invocation of a right provided for in the agreement. In each case, neither the individual activity nor the group activity would be complete without the other.[10] The Interboro doctrine is also entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act, which explicitly include the encouragement *834 of collective bargaining and other "practices fundamental to the friendly adjustment of industrial disputes arising out of differences as to wages, hours, or other working conditions." 29 U.S. C. 151. Although, as we have said, there is nothing in the legislative history of 7 that specifically expresses the understanding of Congress in enacting the "concerted activities" language, the general history of 7 reveals no inconsistency between the Interboro doctrine and congressional intent. That history begins in the early days of the labor movement, when employers invoked the common-law doctrines of criminal conspiracy and restraint of trade to thwart workers' attempts to unionize. See Automobile As this Court recognized in a single employee at that time "was helpless in dealing with an employer; he was dependent ordinarily on his daily wage for the maintenance of himself and family; if the employer refused to pay him the wages that he thought fair, he was nevertheless unable to leave the employ and resist arbitrary and unfair treatment; union was essential to give laborers opportunity to deal on an equality with their employer." Congress' first attempt to equalize the bargaining power of management and labor, and its first use of the term "concert" in this context, came in 1914 with the enactment of 6 and 20 of the Clayton Act, which exempted from the antitrust laws certain types of peaceful union activities. 15 U.S. C. 17; 29 U.S. C. |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | peaceful union activities. 15 U.S. C. 17; 29 U.S. C. 52.[11] There followed, in 1932, the Norris-La Guardia Act, which declared that "the individual worker shall be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion, of employers in self-organization or in other *835 concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection." 29 U.S. C. 102 (emphasis added). This was the source of the language enacted in 7. It was adopted first in 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act and then, in 1935, in 7 of the NLRA. See generally Gorman & Finkin, The Individual and the Requirement of "Concert" Under the National Labor Relations Act, 1-346 Against this background, it is evident that, in enacting 7 of the NLRA, Congress sought generally to equalize the bargaining power of the employee with that of his employer by allowing employees to band together in confronting an employer regarding the terms and conditions of their employment. There is no indication that Congress intended to limit this protection to situations in which an employee's activity and that of his fellow employees combine with one another in any particular way. Nor, more specifically, does it appear that Congress intended to have this general protection withdrawn in situations in which a single employee, acting alone, participates in an integral aspect of a collective process. Instead, what emerges from the general background of 7 and what is consistent with the Act's statement of purpose is a congressional intent to create an equality in bargaining power between the employee and the employer throughout the entire process of labor organizing, collective bargaining and enforcement of collective-bargaining agreements. The Board's Interboro doctrine, based on a recognition that the potential inequality in the relationship between the employee and the employer continues beyond the point at which a collective-bargaining agreement is signed, mitigates that inequality throughout the duration of the employment relationship, and is, therefore, fully consistent with congressional intent. Moreover, by applying 7 to the actions of individual employees invoking their rights under a collective-bargaining agreement, the Interboro doctrine preserves the integrity of the entire collective-bargaining process; for by invoking a *836 right grounded in a collective-bargaining agreement, the employee makes that right a reality, and breathes life, not only into the promises contained in the collective-bargaining agreement, but also into the entire process envisioned by Congress as the means by which to achieve industrial peace. To be sure, the principal tool by which an employee invokes the rights granted him in a collective-bargaining agreement is the processing of a grievance according to |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | collective-bargaining agreement is the processing of a grievance according to whatever procedures his collective-bargaining agreement establishes. No one doubts that the processing of a grievance in such a manner is concerted activity within the meaning of 7. See, e. g., ; Crown Central Petroleum Indeed, it would make little sense for 7 to cover an employee's conduct while negotiating a collective-bargaining agreement, including a grievance mechanism by which to protect the rights created by the agreement, but not to cover an employee's attempt to utilize that mechanism to enforce the agreement. In practice, however, there is unlikely to be a bright-line distinction between an incipient grievance, a complaint to an employer, and perhaps even an employee's initial refusal to perform a certain job that he believes he has no duty to perform. It is reasonable to expect that an employee's first response to a situation that he believes violates his collective-bargaining agreement will be a protest to his employer. Whether he files a grievance will depend in part on his employer's reaction and in part upon the nature of the right at issue. In addition, certain rights might not be susceptible of enforcement by the filing of a grievance. In such a case, the collective-bargaining agreement might provide for an alternative method of enforcement, as did the agreement involved in this case, see or the agreement might be silent on the matter. Thus, for a variety of reasons, an employee's initial statement to an employer to the effect that he believes a collectively bargained right is being violated, or the employee's *837 initial refusal to do that which he believes he is not obligated to do, might serve as both a natural prelude to, and an efficient substitute for, the filing of a formal grievance. As long as the employee's statement or action is based on a reasonable and honest belief that he is being, or has been, asked to perform a task that he is not required to perform under his collective-bargaining agreement, and the statement or action is reasonably directed toward the enforcement of a collectively bargained right, there is no justification for overturning the Board's judgment that the employee is engaged in concerted activity, just as he would have been had he filed a formal grievance. The fact that an activity is concerted, however, does not necessarily mean that an employee can engage in the activity with impunity. An employee may engage in concerted activity in such an abusive manner that he loses the protection of 7. See, e. g., Crown Central Petroleum at ; Yellow Freight |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | See, e. g., Crown Central Petroleum at ; Yellow Freight System, Inc., 247 N. L. R. B. 177, 181 (1980). Cf. Eastex, ; v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., Furthermore, if an employer does not wish to tolerate certain methods by which employees invoke their collectively bargained rights, he is free to negotiate a provision in his collective-bargaining agreement that limits the availability of such methods. No-strike provisions, for instance, are a common mechanism by which employers and employees agree that the latter will not invoke their rights by refusing to work. In general, if an employee violates such a provision, his activity is unprotected even though it may be concerted. Mastro Plastics U.S. 270 Whether Brown's action in this case was unprotected, however, is not before us. B Respondent argues that the Interboro doctrine undermines the arbitration process by providing employees with the possibility of provoking a discharge and then filing an unfair *838 labor practice claim. Brief for Respondent 34-42. This argument, however, misses the mark for several reasons. First, an employee who purposefully follows this route would run the risk that the Board would find his actions concerted but nonetheless unprotected, as discussed above. Second, the Interboro doctrine does not shift dispute resolution from the grievance and arbitration process to adjudication in any way that is different from the alternative position adopted by the Court of Appeals, and pressed upon us by respondent. As stated above, see the Court of Appeals would allow a finding of concerted activity if two employees together invoke a collectively bargained right, if a lone employee represents another employee in addition to himself when he invokes the right, or if the lone employee invokes the right in a manner that is intended to induce at least one other employee to join him. In each of these situations, however, the underlying substance of the dispute between the employees and the employer is the same as when a single employee invokes a collectively bargained right by himself. In each case the employees are claiming that their employer violated their collective-bargaining agreement, and if the complaining employee or employees in those situations are discharged, their unfair labor practice action would be identical to an action brought by an employee who has been discharged for invoking a collectively bargained right by himself. Because the employees in each of these situations are equally well positioned to go through the grievance and arbitration process, there is no basis for singling out the Interboro doctrine as undermining that process any more than would the approach of respondent and the Courts |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | more than would the approach of respondent and the Courts of Appeals that have rejected the doctrine. Finally, and most importantly, to the extent that the factual issues raised in an unfair labor practice action have been, or can be, addressed through the grievance process, the Board may defer to that process. See Collyer Insulated Wire, 192 N. L. R. B. 837 ; Spielberg Manufacturing *839 Co., 112 N. L. R. B. 1080 (1955). There is no reason, therefore, for the Board's interpretation of "concerted activit[y]" in 7 to be constrained by a concern for maintaining the integrity of the grievance and arbitration process. I In this case, the Board found that James Brown's refusal to drive truck No. 244 was based on an honest and reasonable belief that the brakes on the truck were faulty. Brown explained to each of his supervisors his reason for refusing to drive the truck. Although he did not refer to his collective-bargaining agreement in either of these confrontations, the agreement provided not only that "[t]he Employer shall not require employees to take out on the streets or highways any vehicle that is not in safe operating condition," but also that "[i]t shall not be a violation of this Agreement where employees refuse to operate such equipment, unless such refusal is unjustified." See There is no doubt, therefore, nor could there have been any doubt during Brown's confrontations with his supervisors, that by refusing to drive truck No. 244, Brown was invoking the right granted him in his collective-bargaining agreement to be free of the obligation to drive unsafe trucks. Moreover, there can be no question but that Brown's refusal to drive the truck was reasonably well directed toward the enforcement of that right. Indeed, it would appear that there were no other means available by which Brown could have enforced the right. If he had gone ahead and driven truck No. 244, the issue may have been moot. Respondent argues that Brown's action was not concerted because he did not explicitly refer to the collective-bargaining agreement as a basis for his refusal to drive the truck. Brief for Respondent 21-22. The Board, however, has never held that an employee must make such an explicit reference for his actions to be covered by the Interboro doctrine, and we find that position reasonable. We have often recognized the importance *840 of "the Board's special function of applying the general provisions of the Act to the complexities of industrial life." v. Erie Resistor Corp., As long as the nature of the employee's complaint is reasonably clear |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111120/nlrb-v-city-disposal-systems-inc/ | as the nature of the employee's complaint is reasonably clear to the person to whom it is communicated, and the complaint does, in fact, refer to a reasonably perceived violation of the collective-bargaining agreement, the complaining employee is engaged in the process of enforcing that agreement. In the context of a workplace dispute, where the participants are likely to be unsophisticated in collective-bargaining matters, a requirement that the employee explicitly refer to the collective-bargaining agreement is likely to serve as nothing more than a trap for the unwary. Respondent further argues that the Board erred in finding Brown's action concerted based only on Brown's reasonable and honest belief that truck No. 244 was unsafe. Brief for Respondent 38. Respondent bases its argument on the language of the collective-bargaining agreement, which provides that an employee may refuse to drive an unsafe truck "unless such refusal is unjustified." In the view of respondent, this language allows a driver to refuse to drive a truck only if the truck is objectively unsafe. Regardless of whether respondent's interpretation of the agreement is correct, a question as to which we express no view, this argument confuses the threshold question whether Brown's conduct was concerted with the ultimate question whether that conduct was protected. The rationale of the Interboro doctrine compels the conclusion that an honest and reasonable invocation of a collectively bargained right constitutes concerted activity, regardless of whether the employee turns out to have been correct in his belief that his right was violated. See Part No one would suggest, for instance, that the filing of a grievance is concerted only if the grievance turns out to be meritorious. As long as the grievance is based on an honest and reasonable belief that a right had been violated, its filing is a concerted activity because it is an integral part of the process by which the collective-bargaining agreement is enforced. *841 The same is true of other methods by which an employee enforces the agreement. On the other hand, if the collective-bargaining agreement imposes a limitation on the means by which a right may be invoked, the concerted activity would be unprotected if it went beyond that limitation. See In this case, because Brown reasonably and honestly invoked his right to avoid driving unsafe trucks, his action was concerted. It may be that the collective-bargaining agreement prohibits an employee from refusing to drive a truck that he reasonably believes to be unsafe, but that is, in fact, perfectly safe. If so, Brown's action was concerted but unprotected. As stated above, however, the only issue |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | This case is about powerthe power of the Congress of the United States to create a private federal cause of action against a State, or its Governor, for the violation of a federal right. In the entire Courtincluding Justice Iredell whose dissent provided the blueprint for the Eleventh Amendmentassumed that Congress had such power. In a case the Court purports to follow todaythe Court *77 again assumed that Congress had such power. In and the Court squarely held that Congress has such power. In a series of cases beginning with Atascadero State the Court formulated a special "clear statement rule" to determine whether specific Acts of Congress contained an effective exercise of that power. Nevertheless, in a sharp break with the past, today the Court holds that with the narrow and illogical exception of statutes enacted pursuant to the Enforcement Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress has no such power. The importance of the majority's decision to overrule the Court's holding in cannot be overstated. The majority's opinion does not simply preclude Congress from establishing the rather curious statutory scheme under which Indian tribes may seek the aid of a federal court to secure a State's good-faith negotiations over gaming regulations. Rather, it prevents Congress from providing a federal forum for a broad range of actions against States, from those sounding in copyright and patent law, to those concerning bankruptcy, environmental law, and the regulation of our vast national economy.[1] *78 There may be room for debate over whether, in light of the Eleventh Amendment, Congress has the power to ensure that such a cause of action may be enforced in federal court by a citizen of another State or a foreign citizen. There can be no serious debate, however, over whether Congress has the power to ensure that such a cause of action may be brought by a citizen of the State being sued. Congress' authority in that regard is clear. As Justice Souter has convincingly demonstrated, the Court's contrary conclusion is profoundly misguided. Despite the thoroughness of his analysis, supported by sound reason, history, precedent, and strikingly uniform scholarly commentary, the shocking character of the majority's affront to a coequal branch of our Government merits additional comment. I For the purpose of deciding this case, I can readily assume that Justice Iredell's dissent in -450, and the Court's opinion in correctly stated the law that should govern our decision today. As I shall explain, both of those opinions relied on an interpretation of an Act of Congress rather than a want of congressional power to authorize a suit |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | than a want of congressional power to authorize a suit against the State. In concluding that the federal courts could not entertain Chisholm's action against the State of Justice Iredell relied on the text of the Judiciary Act of 1789, not the State's assertion that Article III did not extend the judicial power to suits against unconsenting States. Justice Iredell argued that, under Article III, federal courts possessed only *79 such jurisdiction as Congress had provided, and that the Judiciary Act expressly limited federal-court jurisdiction to that which could be exercised in accordance with "`the principles and usages of law.' " (quoting 14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789). He reasoned that the inclusion of this phrase constituted a command to the federal courts to construe their jurisdiction in light of the prevailing common law, a background legal regime that he believed incorporated the doctrine of sovereign immunity. -436[2] Because Justice Iredell believed that the expansive text of Article III did not prevent Congress from imposing this common-law limitation on federal-court jurisdiction, he concluded that judges had no authority to entertain a suit against an unconsenting State.[3] At the same time, although he acknowledged that the Constitution might allow Congress to extend federal-court jurisdiction to such an action, he concluded that the terms of the Judiciary Act of 1789 plainly had not done so. "[Congress'] direction, I apprehend, we cannot supersede, because it may appear to us not sufficiently extensive. If it be not, we must wait till other remedies are provided by the same authority. From this it is plain that the Legislature did not chuse to leave to our own *80 discretion the path to justice, but has prescribed one of its own. In doing so, it has, I think, wisely, referred us to principles and usages of law already well known, and by their precision calculated to guard against that innovating spirit of Courts of Justice, which the AttorneyGeneral in another case reprobated with so much warmth, and with whose sentiments in that particular, I most cordially join." For Justice Iredell then, it was enough to assume that Article III permitted Congress to impose sovereign immunity as a jurisdictional limitation; he did not proceed to resolve the further question whether the Constitution went so far as to prevent Congress from withdrawing a State's immunity.[4] Thus, it would be ironic to construe the Chisholm dissent as precedent for the conclusion that Article III limits Congress' power to determine the scope of a State's sovereign immunity in federal court. The precise holding in Chisholm is difficult to state because |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | The precise holding in Chisholm is difficult to state because each of the Justices in the majority wrote his own opinion. They seem to have held, however, not that the Judiciary Act of 1789 precluded the defense of sovereign immunity, but that Article III of the Constitution itself required the Supreme Court to entertain original actions *81 against unconsenting States.[5] I agree with Justice Iredell that such a construction of Article III is incorrect; that Article should not then have been construed, and should not now be construed, to prevent Congress from granting States a sovereign immunity defense in such cases.[6] That reading of Article III, however, explains why the majority's holding in Chisholm could not have been reversed by a simple statutory amendment adopting Justice Iredell's interpretation of the Judiciary Act of 1789. There is a special irony in the fact that the error committed by the Chisholm majority was its decision that this Court, rather than Congress, should define the scope of the sovereign immunity defense. That, of course, is precisely the same error the Court commits today. In light of the nature of the disagreement between Justice Iredell and his colleagues, Chisholm `s holding could have been overturned by simply amending the Constitution to restore to Congress the authority to recognize the doctrine. As it was, the plain text of the Eleventh Amendment would seem to go further and to limit the judicial power itself in a certain class of cases. In doing so, however, the Amendment's *82 quite explicit text establishes only a partial bar to a federal court's power to entertain a suit against a State.[7] Justice Brennan has persuasively explained that the Eleventh Amendment's jurisdictional restriction is best understood to apply only to suits premised on diversity jurisdiction, see Atascadero State 473 U. S., at 7 and Justice Scalia has agreed that the plain text of the Amendment cannot be read to apply to federal-question cases. See Pennsylvania v. Union[8] Whatever the precise dimensions of the Amendment, its express terms plainly do not apply to all suits brought against unconsenting States.[9]*83 The question thus becomes whether the relatively modest jurisdictional bar that the Eleventh Amendment imposes should be understood to reveal that a more general jurisdictional bar implicitly inheres in Article III. The language of Article III certainly gives no indication that such an implicit bar exists. That provision's text specifically provides for federal-court jurisdiction over all cases arising under federal law. Moreover, as I have explained, Justice Iredell's dissent argued that it was the Judiciary Act of 1789, not Article III, that prevented |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | the Judiciary Act of 1789, not Article III, that prevented the federal courts from entertaining Chisholm's diversity action against Therefore, Justice Iredell's analysis at least suggests that it was by no means a fixed view at the time of the founding that Article III prevented Congress from rendering States suable in federal court by their own citizens. In sum, little more than speculation justifies the conclusion that the Eleventh Amendment's express but partial limitation on the scope of Article III reveals that an implicit but more general one was already in place. II The majority appears to acknowledge that one cannot deduce from either the text of Article III or the plain terms of *84 the Eleventh Amendment that the judicial power does not extend to a congressionally created cause of action against a State brought by one of that State's citizens. Nevertheless, the majority asserts that precedent compels that same conclusion. I disagree. The majority relies first on our decision in which involved a suit by a citizen of against that State for a claimed violation of the Contracts Clause. The majority suggests that by dismissing the suit, Hans effectively held that federal courts have no power to hear federal-question suits brought by same-state plaintiffs. Hans does not hold, however, that the Eleventh Amendment, or any other constitutional provision, precludes federal courts from entertaining actions brought by citizens against their own States in the face of contrary congressional direction. As I have explained before, see -26 and as Justice Souter effectively demonstrates, Hans instead reflects, at the most, this Court's conclusion that, as a matter of federal common law, federal courts should decline to entertain suits against unconsenting States. Because Hans did not announce a constitutionally mandated jurisdictional bar, one need not overrule Hans, or even question its reasoning, in order to conclude that Congress may direct the federal courts to reject sovereign immunity in those suits not mentioned by the Eleventh Amendment. Instead, one need only follow it. Justice Bradley's somewhat cryptic opinion for the Court in Hans relied expressly on the reasoning of Justice Iredell's dissent in Chisholm, which, of course, was premised on the view that the doctrine of state sovereign immunity was a common-law rule that Congress had directed federal courts to respect, not a constitutional immunity that Congress was powerless to displace. For that reason, Justice Bradley explained that the State's immunity from suit by one of its own *85 citizens was based not on a constitutional rule but rather on the fact that Congress had not, by legislation, attempted to overcome the common-law |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | Congress had not, by legislation, attempted to overcome the common-law presumption of sovereign immunity. His analysis so clearly supports the position rejected by the majority today that it is worth quoting at length. "But besides the presumption that no anomalous and unheard of proceedings or suits were intended to be raised up by the Constitutionanomalous and unheard of when the Constitution was adoptedan additional reason why the jurisdiction claimed for the Circuit Court does not exist, is the language of the act of Congress by which its jurisdiction is conferred. The words are these: `The circuit courts of the United States shall have original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States, of all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity, arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, or treaties,' etc.'Concurrent with the courts of the several States.' Does not this qualification show that Congress, in legislating to carry the Constitution into effect, did not intend to invest its courts with any new and strange jurisdictions? The state courts have no power to entertain suits by individuals against a State without its consent. Then how does the Circuit Court, having only concurrent jurisdiction, acquire any such power? It is true that the same qualification existed in the judiciary act of 1789, which was before the court in and the majority of the court did not think that it was sufficient to limit the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. Justice Iredell thought differently. In view of the manner in which that decision was received by the country, the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment, the light of history and the reason of the thing, we think we are at liberty to prefer Justice Iredell's views in this regard." -19. *86 As this passage demonstrates, Hans itself looked to see whether Congress had displaced the presumption that sovereign immunity obtains. Although the opinion did go to great lengths to establish the quite uncontroversial historical proposition that unconsenting States generally were not subject to suit, that entire discussion preceded the opinion's statutory analysis. See Thus, the opinion's thorough historical investigation served only to establish a presumption against jurisdiction that Congress must overcome, not an inviolable jurisdictional restriction that inheres in the Constitution itself. Indeed, the very fact that the Court characterized the doctrine of sovereign immunity as a "presumption" confirms its assumption that it could be displaced. The Hans Court's inquiry into congressional intent would have been wholly inappropriate if it had believed that the doctrine of sovereign immunity was a constitutionally inviolable jurisdictional limitation. Thus, |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | of sovereign immunity was a constitutionally inviolable jurisdictional limitation. Thus, Hans provides no basis for the majority's conclusion that Congress is powerless to make States suable in cases not mentioned by the text of the Eleventh Amendment. Instead, Hans provides affirmative support for the view that Congress may create federal-court jurisdiction over private causes of action against unconsenting States brought by their own citizens. It is true that the underlying jurisdictional statute involved in this case, 28 U.S. C. 1331, does not itself purport to direct federal courts to ignore a State's sovereign immunity any more than did the underlying jurisdictional statute discussed in Hans, the Judiciary Act of 1875. However, unlike in Hans, in this case Congress has, by virtue of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, affirmatively manifested its intention to "invest its courts with" jurisdiction beyond the limits set forth in the general jurisdictional By contrast, because Hans involved only an implied cause of action based directly on the Constitution, the Judiciary Act of 1875 constituted the sole indication as *87 to whether Congress intended federal-court jurisdiction to extend to a suit against an unconsenting State.[10] Given the nature of the cause of action involved in Hans, as well as the terms of the underlying jurisdictional statute, the Court's decision to apply the common-law doctrine of sovereign immunity in that case clearly should not control the outcome here. The reasons that may support a federal court's hesitancy to construe a judicially crafted constitutional remedy narrowly out of respect for a State's sovereignty do not bear on whether Congress may preclude a State's invocation of such a defense when it expressly establishes a federal remedy for the violation of a federal right. No one has ever suggested that Congress would be powerless to displace the other common-law immunity doctrines that this Court has recognized as appropriate defenses to certain federal claims such as the judicially fashioned remedy in See ; Similarly, our cases recognizing qualified officer immunity in 42 U.S. C. 1983 actions rest on the conclusion that, in passing that statute, Congress did not intend to displace the common-law immunity that officers would have retained under suits premised solely on the general jurisdictional See For that reason, the federal common law of officer immunity that Congress meant to incorporate, not a contrary state immunity, applies in 1983 cases. See There is no reason why Congress' undoubted power to displace those common-law immunities should be either greater or lesser than its power to displace the common-law sovereign immunity defense. Some of our precedents do state that the sovereign immunity |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | Some of our precedents do state that the sovereign immunity doctrine rests on fundamental constitutional "postulates" and partakes of jurisdictional aspects rooted in Article III. See ante, at 67-70. Most notably, that reasoning underlies this Court's holding in Principality of Monaco is a most inapt precedent for the majority's holding today. That case barred a foreign sovereign from suing a State in an equitable state-law action to recover payments due on state bonds. It did not, however, involve a claim based on federal law. Instead, the case concerned a purely state-law question to which the State had interposed a federal defense. Thus, Monaco reveals little about the power of Congress to create a private federal cause of action to remedy a State's violation of federal law. Moreover, although Monaco attributes a quasiconstitutional status to sovereign immunity, even in cases not covered by the Eleventh Amendment's plain text, that characterization does not constitute precedent for the proposition that Congress is powerless to displace a State's immunity. *89 Our abstention doctrines have roots in both the Tenth Amendment and Article III, and thus may be said to rest on constitutional "postulates" or to partake of jurisdictional aspects. Yet it has not been thought that the Constitution would prohibit Congress from barring federal courts from abstaining. The majority offers no reason for making the federal common-law rule of sovereign immunity less susceptible to congressional displacement than any other quasijurisdictional common-law rule. In this regard, I note that Monaco itself analogized sovereign immunity to the prudential doctrine that "controversies" identified in Article III must be "justiciable" in order to be heard by federal courts. The justiciability doctrine is a prudential rather than a jurisdictional one, and thus Congress' clearly expressed intention to create federal jurisdiction over a particular Article III controversy necessarily strips federal courts of the authority to decline jurisdiction on justiciability grounds. See ; Flast For that reason, Monaco, by its own terms, fails to resolve the question before us.[11] More generally, it is quite startling to learn that the reasoning of Hans and Monaco (even assuming that it did not undermine the majority's view) should have a stare decisis effect on the question whether Congress possesses the authority to provide a federal forum for the vindication of a federal right by a citizen against its own State. In light of the Court's development of a "clear-statement" line of jurisprudence, *90 see, e. g., Atascadero State 473 U. S., at ; I would have thought that Hans and Monaco had at least left open the question whether Congress could permit the suit |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | left open the question whether Congress could permit the suit we consider here. Our clear-statement cases would have been all but unintelligible if Hans and Monaco had already established that Congress lacked the constitutional power to make States suable in federal court by individuals no matter how clear its intention to do so.[12] Finally, the particular nature of the federal question involved in Hans renders the majority's reliance upon its rule even less defensible. Hans deduced its rebuttable presumption in favor of sovereign immunity largely on the basis of its extensive analysis of cases holding that the sovereign could not be forced to make good on its debts via a private suit. See v. Jumel, ; ; In re Because Hans, like these other cases, involved a suit that attempted to make a State honor its debt, its holding need not be read to stand even for the relatively limited proposition that there is a presumption in favor of sovereign immunity in all federal-question cases.[13] *91 In Hans, the plaintiff asserted a Contracts Clause claim against his State and thus asserted a federal right. To show that had impaired its federal obligation, however, Hans first had to demonstrate that the State had entered into an enforceable contract as a matter of state law. That Hans chose to bring his claim in federal court as a Contract Clause action could not change the fact that he was, at bottom, seeking to enforce a contract with the State. See Burnham, Taming the Eleventh Amendment Without Overruling Because Hans' claimed federal right did not arise independently of state law, sovereign immunity was relevant to the threshold state-law question of whether a valid contract existed.[14]Hans expressly pointed out, however, that an individual who could show that he had an enforceable contract under state law would not be barred from bringing suit in federal court to prevent the State from impairing it. "To avoid misapprehension it may be proper to add that, although the obligations of a State rest for their performance upon its honor and good faith, and cannot be made the subject of judicial cognizance unless the State consents to be sued, or comes itself into court; yet where property or rights are enjoyed under a grant or contract made by a State, they cannot wantonly be invaded. Whilst the State cannot be compelled by suit to perform its contracts, any attempt on its part to violate property or rights acquired under its contracts, may be *92 judicially resisted; and any law impairing the obligation of contracts under which such property or rights |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | the obligation of contracts under which such property or rights are held is void and powerless to affect their enjoyment." -21. That conclusion casts doubt on the absolutist view that Hans definitively establishes that Article III prohibits federal courts from entertaining federal-question suits brought against States by their own citizens. At the very least, Hans suggests that such suits may be brought to enjoin States from impairing existing contractual obligations. The view that the rule of Hans is more substantive than jurisdictional comports with Hamilton's famous discussion of sovereign immunity in The Federalist Papers. Hamilton offered his view that the federal judicial power would not extend to suits against unconsenting States only in the context of his contention that no contract with a State could be enforceable against the State's desire. He did not argue that a State's immunity from suit in federal court would be absolute. "[T]here is no color to pretend that the State governments would, by the adoption of [the plan of convention], be divested of the privilege of paying their own debts in their own way, free from every constraint but that which flows from the obligations of good faith. The contracts between a nation and individuals are only binding on the conscience of the sovereign, and have no pretensions to a compulsive force. They confer no right of action independent of the sovereign will." The Federalist No. 81, p. 8 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). Here, of course, no question of a State's contractual obligations is presented. The Seminole Tribe's only claim is that the State of Florida has failed to fulfill a duty to negotiate that federal statutory law alone imposes. Neither the Federalist *93 Papers, nor Hans, provides support for the view that such a claim may not be heard in federal court. III In reaching my conclusion that the Constitution does not prevent Congress from making the State of Florida suable in federal court for violating one of its statutes, I emphasize that I agree with the majority that in all cases to which the judicial power does not extendeither because they are not within any category defined in Article III or because they are within the category withdrawn from Article III by the Eleventh AmendmentCongress lacks the power to confer jurisdiction on the federal courts. As I have previously insisted: "A statute cannot amend the Constitution." 491 U. S., at It was, therefore, misleading for the Court in to imply that 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment authorized Congress to confer jurisdiction over cases that had been withdrawn from Article III by the |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | cases that had been withdrawn from Article III by the Eleventh Amendment. Because that action had been brought by Connecticut citizens against officials of the State of Connecticut, jurisdiction was not precluded by the Eleventh Amendment. As Justice Brennan pointed out in his concurrence, the congressional authority to enact the provisions at issue in the case was found in the Commerce Clause and provided a sufficient basis for refusing to allow the State to "avail itself of the nonconstitutional but ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity." In confronting the question whether a federal grant of jurisdiction is within the scope of Article III, as limited by the Eleventh Amendment, I see no reason to distinguish among statutes enacted pursuant to the power granted to Congress to regulate commerce among the several States, and with the Indian tribes, Art. I, 8, cl. 3, the power to establish *94 uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy, Art. I, 8, cl. 4, the power to promote the progress of science and the arts by granting exclusive rights to authors and inventors, Art. I, 8, cl. 8, the power to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, 5, or indeed any other provision of the Constitution. There is no language anywhere in the constitutional text that authorizes Congress to expand the borders of Article III jurisdiction or to limit the coverage of the Eleventh Amendment. The Court's holdings in and do unquestionably establish, however, that Congress has the power to deny the States and their officials the right to rely on the nonconstitutional defense of sovereign immunity in an action brought by one of their own citizens. As the opinions in the latter case demonstrate, there can be legitimate disagreement about whether Congress intended a particular statute to authorize litigation against a State. Nevertheless, the Court there squarely held that the Commerce Clause was an adequate source of authority for such a private remedy. In a rather novel rejection of the doctrine of stare decisis, the Court today demeans that holding by repeatedly describing it as a "plurality decision" because Justice White did not deem it necessary to set forth the reasons for his vote. As Justice Souter's opinion today demonstrates, the arguments in support of Justice White's position are so patent and so powerful that his actual vote should be accorded full respect. Indeed, far more significant than the "plurality" character of the three opinions supporting the holding in Union is the fact that the issue confronted today has been squarely addressed by a total of 13 Justices, 8 of whom cast their votes |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | total of 13 Justices, 8 of whom cast their votes with the so-called "plurality."[15] *95 The fundamental error that continues to lead the Court astray is its failure to acknowledge that its modern embodiment of the ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity "has absolutely nothing to do with the limit on judicial power contained in the Eleventh Amendment." It rests rather on concerns of federalism and comity that merit respect but are nevertheless, in cases such as the one before us, subordinate to the plenary power of Congress. IV As I noted above, for the purpose of deciding this case, it is not necessary to question the wisdom of the Court's decision in Given the absence of precedent for the Court's dramatic application of the sovereign immunity doctrine today, it is nevertheless appropriate to identify the questionable heritage of the doctrine and to suggest that there are valid reasons for limiting, or even rejecting that doctrine altogether, rather than expanding it. Except insofar as it has been incorporated into the text of the Eleventh Amendment, the doctrine is entirely the product of judge-made law. Three features of its English ancestry make it particularly unsuitable for incorporation into the law of this democratic Nation. First, the assumption that it could be supported by a belief that "the King can do no wrong" has always been absurd; the bloody path trod by English monarchs both before and after they reached the throne demonstrated the fictional character of any such assumption. Even if the fiction had been acceptable in Britain, the recitation in the Declaration of Independence of the wrongs committed by George III made that proposition unacceptable on this side of the Atlantic. *96 Second, centuries ago the belief that the monarch served by divine right made it appropriate to assume that redress for wrongs committed by the sovereign should be the exclusive province of still higher authority.[16] While such a justification for a rule that immunized the sovereign from suit in a secular tribunal might have been acceptable in a jurisdiction where a particular faith is endorsed by the government, it should give rise to skepticism concerning the legitimacy of comparable rules in a society where a constitutional wall separates the State from the Church. Third, in a society where noble birth can justify preferential treatment, it might have been unseemly to allow a commoner to hale the monarch into court. Justice Wilson explained how foreign such a justification is to this Nation's principles. See Moreover, Chief Justice Marshall early on laid to rest the view that the purpose of the Eleventh |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | to rest the view that the purpose of the Eleventh Amendment was to protect a State's dignity. Its purpose, he explained, was far more practical. "That its motive was not to maintain the sovereignty of a State from the degradation supposed to attend a compulsory appearance before the tribunal of the nation, may be inferred from the terms of the amendment. We must ascribe the amendment, then, to some other cause than the dignity of a State. There is no difficulty in finding this cause. Those who were inhibited from commencing a suit against a State, or from prosecuting one which might be commenced before the adoption of the amendment, were persons who might probably be its creditors. There was not much reason to fear that foreign or sister States would be creditors to any considerable amount, and there was reason to retain the jurisdiction *97 of the Court in those cases, because it might be essential to the preservation of peace." Ibid.[17] Nevertheless, this Court later put forth the interest in preventing "indignity" as the "very object and purpose of the [Eleventh] Amendment." In re That, of course, is an "embarrassingly insufficient" rationale for the rule. See Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Moreover, I find unsatisfying Justice Holmes' explanation that "[a] sovereign is exempt from suit, not because of any formal conception or obsolete theory, but on the logical and practical ground that there can be no legal right as against the authority that makes the law on which the right depends." As I have explained before, Justice Holmes' justification fails in at least two respects. "First, it is nothing more than a restatement of the obvious proposition that a citizen may not sue the sovereign unless the sovereign has violated the citizen's legal rights. It cannot explain application of the immunity defense in cases like Chisholm, in which it is assumed that the plaintiff's rights have in fact been violated and those cases are, of course, the only ones in which the immunity defense is needed. Second, Holmes's statement does not purport to explain why a general grant of jurisdiction to federal courts should not be treated as an adequate expression of the sovereign's consent to suits against itself as well as to suits against *98 ordinary litigants." Stevens, Is Justice Irrelevant?, In sum, as far as its common-law ancestry is concerned, there is no better reason for the rule of sovereign immunity "than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV." Holmes, The Path of the Law, That "reason" for the perpetuation of |
Justice Stevens | 1,996 | 16 | dissenting | Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118011/seminole-tribe-of-fla-v-florida/ | Path of the Law, That "reason" for the perpetuation of this ancient doctrine certainly cannot justify the majority's expansion of it. In this country the sovereignty of the individual States is subordinate both to the citizenry of each State and to the supreme law of the federal sovereign. For that reason, Justice Holmes' explanation for a rule that allows a State to avoid suit in its own courts does not even speak to the question whether Congress should be able to authorize a federal court to provide a private remedy for a State's violation of federal law. In my view, neither the majority's opinion today, nor any earlier opinion by any Member of the Court, has identified any acceptable reason for concluding that the absence of a State's consent to be sued in federal court should affect the power of Congress to authorize federal courts to remedy violations of federal law by States or their officials in actions not covered by the Eleventh Amendment's explicit text.[18] While I am persuaded that there is no justification for permanently enshrining the judge-made law of sovereign immunity, I recognize that federalism concernsand even the interest *99 in protecting the solvency of the States that was at work in Chisholm and Hans may well justify a grant of immunity from federal litigation in certain classes of cases. Such a grant, however, should be the product of a reasoned decision by the policymaking branch of our Government. For this Court to conclude that timeworn shibboleths iterated and reiterated by judges should take precedence over the deliberations of the Congress of the United States is simply irresponsible. V Fortunately, and somewhat fortuitously, a jurisdictional problem that is unmentioned by the Court may deprive its opinion of precedential significance. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act establishes a unique set of procedures for resolving the dispute between the Tribe and the State. If each adversary adamantly adheres to its understanding of the law, if the District Court determines that the State's inflexibility constitutes a failure to negotiate in good faith, and if the State thereafter continues to insist that it is acting within its rights, the maximum sanction that the Court can impose is an order that refers the controversy to a member of the Executive Branch of the Government for resolution. 25 U.S. C. 2710(d)(7)(B). As the Court of Appeals interpreted the Act, this final disposition is available even though the action against the State and its Governor may not be maintained. (The Court does not tell us whether it agrees or disagrees with that disposition.) In my |
Justice Scalia | 1,991 | 9 | concurring | Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112648/virginia-bankshares-inc-v-sandberg/ | I As I understand the Court's opinion, the statement "In the opinion of the Directors, this is a high value for the shares" *1109 would produce liability if in fact it was not a high value and the directors knew that. It would not produce liability if in fact it was not a high value but the directors honestly believed otherwise. The statement "The directors voted to accept the proposal because they believe it offers a high value" would not produce liability if in fact the directors' genuine motive was quite different except that it would produce liability if the proposal in fact did not offer a high value and the directors knew that. I agree with all of this. However, not every sentence that has the word "opinion" in it, or that refers to motivation for directors' actions, leads us into this psychic thicket. Sometimes such a sentence actually represents facts as facts rather than opinions and in that event no more need be done than apply the normal rules for 14(a) liability. I think that is the situation here. In my view, the statement at issue in this case is most fairly read as affirming separately both the fact of the directors' opinion and the accuracy of the facts upon which the opinion was assertedly based. It reads as follows: "The Plan of Merger has been approved by the Board of Directors because it provides an opportunity for the Bank's public shareholders to achieve a high value for their shares." App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a. Had it read "because in their estimation it provides an opportunity, etc.," it would have set forth nothing but an opinion. As written, however, it asserts both that the board of directors acted for a particular reason and that that reason is correct. This interpretation is made clear by what immediately follows: "The price to be paid is about 30% higher than the [last traded price immediately before announcement of the proposal] [T]he $42 per share that will be paid to public holders of the common stock represents a premium of approximately 26% over the book value. [T]he bank earned $24,767,000 in the year ended December 31, 1986." at 53a-54a. These are all facts that support *1110 and that are obviously introduced for the purpose of supporting the factual truth of the "because" clause, i. e., that the proposal gives shareholders a "high value." If the present case were to proceed, therefore, I think the normal 14(a) principles governing misrepresentation of fact would apply. II I recognize that |
Justice Scalia | 1,991 | 9 | concurring | Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112648/virginia-bankshares-inc-v-sandberg/ | governing misrepresentation of fact would apply. II I recognize that the Court's disallowance (in Part II-B-2) of an action for misrepresentation of belief is entirely contrary to the modern law of torts, as authorities cited by the Court make plain. See Vulcan Metals ; W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts 109 (5th ed. 1984), cited ante, 4. I have no problem with departing from modern tort law in this regard, because I think the federal cause of action at issue here was never enacted by Congress, see and hence the more narrow we make it (within the bounds of rationality) the more faithful we are to our task. * * * I concur in the judgment of the Court, and join all of its opinion except Part II. JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part. While I agree in substance with Parts I and II of the Court's opinion, I do not agree with the, reasoning in Part III. In the Court held that a finding that the terms of a merger were fair could not constitute a defense by the corporation to a shareholder action alleging that the merger had been accomplished by using a misleading proxy statement. The fairness of the transaction was, according to Mills, a matter to be considered at the remedy stage of the litigation. *1111 On the question of the causal connection between the proxy solicitation and the harm to the plaintiff shareholders, the Court had this to say: "There is no need to supplement this requirement, as did the Court of Appeals, with a requirement of proof of whether the defect actually had a decisive effect on the voting. Where there has been a finding of materiality, a shareholder has made a sufficient showing of causal relationship between the violation and the injury for which he seeks redress if, as here, he proves that the proxy solicitation itself, rather than the particular defect in the solicitation materials, was an essential link in the accomplishment of the transaction. This objective test will avoid the impracticalities of determining how many votes were affected, and, by resolving doubts in favor of those the statute is designed to protect, will effectuate the congressional policy of ensuring that the shareholders are able to make an informed choice when they are consulted on corporate transactions. Cf. Union Pac. R. ; 2 L. Loss, Securities Regulation 962 n. (2d ed. 1961); 5" Justice Harlan writing for the Court then appended this footnote: "We |
Justice Scalia | 1,991 | 9 | concurring | Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112648/virginia-bankshares-inc-v-sandberg/ | Harlan writing for the Court then appended this footnote: "We need not decide in this case whether causation could be shown where the management controls a sufficient number of shares to approve the transaction without any votes from the minority. Even in that situation, if the management finds it necessary for legal or practical reasons to solicit proxies from minority shareholders, at least one court has held that the proxy solicitation might be sufficiently related to the merger to satisfy the causation requirement, see *1112" The case before us today involves a merger that has been found by a jury to be unfair, not fair. The interest in providing a remedy to the injured minority shareholders therefore is stronger, not weaker, than in Mills. The interest in avoiding speculative controversy about the actual importance of the proxy solicitation is the same as in Mills. Moreover, as in Mills, these matters can be taken into account at the remedy stage in appropriate cases. Accordingly, I do not believe that it constitutes an unwarranted extension of the rationale of Mills to conclude that because management found it necessary whether for "legal or practical reasons" to solicit proxies from minority shareholders to obtain their approval of the merger, that solicitation "was an essential link in the accomplishment of the transaction." and n. 7. In my opinion, shareholders may bring an action for damages under 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S. C. 78n(a), whenever materially false or misleading statements are made in proxy statements. That the solicitation of proxies is not required by law or by the bylaws of a corporation does not authorize corporate officers, once they have decided for whatever reason to solicit proxies, to avoid the constraints of the statute. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL, JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and JUSTICE STEVENS join, concurring in part and dissenting in part. I am in general agreement with Parts I and II of the majority opinion, but do not agree with the views expressed in Part III regarding the proof of causation required to establish a violation of 14(a). With respect, I dissent from Part III of the Court's opinion. *1113 I Review of the jury's finding on causation is complicated because the distinction between reliance and causation was not addressed in explicit terms in the earlier stages of this litigation. Petitioners, in effect, though, recognized the distinction when they accepted the District Court's essential link instruction as to reliance but not as to causation. So I |
Justice Scalia | 1,991 | 9 | concurring | Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112648/virginia-bankshares-inc-v-sandberg/ | as to reliance but not as to causation. So I agree with the Court that the issue has been preserved for our review here.[*] *1114 The Court of Appeals considered the essential link presumption in rejecting petitioners' argument that Sandberg must show reliance by demonstrating that she read the proxy and then voted in favor of the proposal or took some other specific action in reliance upon it. In the Court of Appeals, the parties did not brief, nor did the panel address, the possibility that nonvoting causation theories would suffice to allow for recovery. Before this Court petitioners do not argue that Sandberg must demonstrate reliance on her part or on the part of other shareholders. The matter of causation, however, must be addressed. II A The severe limits the Court places upon possible proof of nonvoting causation in a 14(a) private action are justified neither by our precedents nor by any case in the courts of appeals. These limits are said to flow from a shift in our approach to implied causes of action that has occurred since we recognized the 14(a) implied private action in J. I. Case Ante, at 1102-1105. I acknowledge that we should exercise caution in creating implied private rights of action and that we must respect the primacy of congressional intent in that inquiry. See ante, at 1102. Where an implied cause of action is well accepted by our own cases and has become an established part of the securities laws, however, we should enforce it as a meaningful remedy unless we are to eliminate it altogether. As the *1115 Court phrases it, we must consider the causation question in light of the underlying "policy reasons for deciding where the outer limits of the right should lie." Ante, at 1104-1105; see Blue Chip According to the Court, acceptance of nonvoting causation theories would "extend the scope of actions beyond the ambit of Mills." Ante, at 1102. But did not purport to limit the scope of actions, and as footnote 7 of Mills indicates, some courts have applied nonvoting causation theories to actions for at least the past 25 years. See also L. Loss, Fundamentals of Securities Regulation 948, n. 81 To the extent the Court's analysis considers the purposes underlying 14(a), it does so with the avowed aim to limit the cause of action and with undue emphasis upon fears of "speculative claims and procedural intractability." Ante, at 1105. The result is a sort of guerrilla warfare to restrict a well-established implied right of action. If the analysis adopted by the Court today |
Justice Scalia | 1,991 | 9 | concurring | Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112648/virginia-bankshares-inc-v-sandberg/ | of action. If the analysis adopted by the Court today is any guide, Congress and those charged with enforcement of the securities laws stand forewarned that unresolved questions concerning the scope of those causes of action are likely to be answered by the Court in favor of defendants. B The Court seems to assume, based upon the footnote in Mills reserving the question, that Sandberg bears a special burden to demonstrate causation because the public shareholders held only 15 percent of the stock of First American Bank of Virginia (Bank). JUSTICE STEVENS is right to reject this theory. Here, First American Bankshares, Inc. (FABI), and Virginia Bankshares, Inc. (VBI), retained the option to back out of the transaction if dissatisfied with the reaction of the minority shareholders, or if concerned that the merger would result in liability for violation of duties to the minority shareholders. The merger agreement was conditioned *1116 upon approval by two-thirds of the shareholders, App. 463, and VBI could have voted its shares against the merger if it so decided. To this extent, the Court's distinction between cases where the "minority" shareholders could have voted down the transaction and those where causation must be proved by nonvoting theories is suspect. Minority shareholders are identified only by a post hoc inquiry. The real question ought to be whether an injury was shown by the effect the nondisclosure had on the entire merger process, including the period before votes are cast. The Court's distinction presumes that a majority shareholder will vote in favor of management's proposal even if proxy disclosure suggests that the transaction is unfair to minority shareholders or that the board of directors or majority shareholder is in breach of fiduciary duties to the minority. If the majority shareholder votes against the transaction in order to comply with its state-law duties, or out of fear of liability, or upon concluding that the transaction will injure the reputation of the business, this ought not to be characterized as nonvoting causation. Of course, when the majority shareholder dominates the voting process, as was the case here, it may prefer to avoid the embarrassment of voting against its own proposal and so may cancel the meeting of shareholders at which the vote was to have been taken. For practical purposes, the result is the same: Because of full disclosure the transaction does not go forward and the resulting injury to minority shareholders is avoided. The Court's distinction between voting and nonvoting causation does not create clear legal categories. III Our decision in rested upon the impracticality of attempting to |
Justice Scalia | 1,991 | 9 | concurring | Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112648/virginia-bankshares-inc-v-sandberg/ | Our decision in rested upon the impracticality of attempting to determine the extent of reliance by thousands of shareholders on alleged misrepresentations or omissions. A misstatement or an omission in a proxy statement does not violate 14(a) unless *1117 "there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable shareholder would consider it important in deciding how to vote." TSC Industries, If minority shareholders hold sufficient votes to defeat a management proposal and if the misstatement or omission is likely to be considered important in deciding how to vote, then there exists a likely causal link between the proxy violation and the enactment of the proposal; and one can justify recovery by minority shareholders for damages resulting from enactment of management's proposal. If, for sake of argument, we accept a distinction between voting and nonvoting causation, we must determine whether the Mills essential link theory applies where a majority shareholder holds sufficient votes to force adoption of a proposal. The merit of the essential link formulation is that it rests upon the likelihood of causation and eliminates the difficulty of proof. Even where a minority lacks votes to defeat a proposal, both these factors weigh in favor of finding causation so long as the solicitation of proxies is an essential link in the transaction. A The Court argues that a nonvoting causation theory would "turn on `hazy' issues inviting self-serving testimony, strike suits, and protracted discovery, with little chance of reasonable resolution by pretrial process." Ante, at 1105 (citing Blue Chip -743). The Court's description does not fit this case and is not a sound objection in any event. Any causation inquiry under 14(a) requires a court to consider a hypothetical universe in which adequate disclosure is made. Indeed, the analysis is inevitable in almost any suit when we are invited to compare what was with what ought to have been. The causation inquiry is not intractable. On balance, I am convinced that the likelihood that causation exists supports elimination of any requirement that the plaintiff prove the material misstatement or omission caused the transaction to go forward when it otherwise would *1118 have been halted or voted down. This is the usual rule under Mills, and the difficulties of proving or disproving causation are, if anything, greater where the minority lacks sufficient votes to defeat the proposal. A presumption will assist courts in managing a circumstance in which direct proof is rendered difficult. See Basic B There is no authority whatsoever for limiting 14(a) to protecting those minority shareholders whose numerical strength could permit them to vote down a proposal. One |
Justice Scalia | 1,991 | 9 | concurring | Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112648/virginia-bankshares-inc-v-sandberg/ | strength could permit them to vote down a proposal. One of 14(a)'s "chief purposes is `the protection of investors.'" J. I. Case Those who lack the strength to vote down a proposal have all the more need of disclosure. The voting process involves not only casting ballots but also the formulation and withdrawal of proposals, the minority's right to block a vote through court action or the threat of adverse consequences, or the negotiation of an increase in price. The proxy rules support this deliberative process. These practicalities can result in causation sufficient to support recovery. The facts in the case before us prove this point. Sandberg argues that had all the material facts been disclosed, FABI or the Bank likely would have withdrawn or revised the merger proposal. The evidence in the record, and more that might be available upon remand, see infra, at 1120, meets any reasonable requirement of specific and nonspeculative proof. FABI wanted a "friendly transaction" with a price viewed as "so high that any reasonable shareholder will accept it." App. 99. Management expressed concern that the transaction result in "no loss of support for the bank out in the community, which was important." Although FABI had the votes to push through any proposal, it wanted a favorable response from the minority shareholders. Because of the "human element involved in a transaction *1119 of this nature," FABI attempted to "show those minority shareholders that [it was] being fair." The theory that FABI would not have pursued the transaction if full disclosure had been provided and the shareholders had realized the inadequacy of the price is supported not only by the trial testimony but also by notes of the meeting of the Bank's board, which approved the merger. The inquiry into causation can proceed not by "opposing claims of hypothetical diffidence and hypothetical boldness," ante, at 1105, but through an examination of evidence of the same type the Court finds acceptable in its determination that directors' statements of reasons can lead to liability. Discussion at the board meeting focused upon matters such as "how to keep PR afloat" and "how to prevent adverse reac[tion]/perception," App. 454, demonstrating the directors' concern that an unpopular merger proposal could injure the Bank. Only a year or so before the Virginia merger, FABI had failed in an almost identical transaction, an attempt to freeze out the minority shareholders of its Maryland subsidiary. FABI retained Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) for that transaction as well, and KBW had given an opinion that FABI's price was fair. The subsidiary's board of directors then |
Justice Scalia | 1,991 | 9 | concurring | Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112648/virginia-bankshares-inc-v-sandberg/ | FABI's price was fair. The subsidiary's board of directors then retained its own adviser and concluded that the price offered by FABI was inadequate. The Maryland transaction failed when the directors of the Maryland bank refused to proceed; and this was despite the minority's inability to outvote FABI if it had pressed on with the deal. In the Virginia transaction, FABI again decided to retain KBW. Beddow, who sat on the boards of both FABI and the Bank, discouraged the Bank from hiring its own financial adviser, out of fear that the Maryland experience would be repeated if the Bank received independent advice. Directors of the Bank testified they would not have voted to approve the transaction if the price had been demonstrated unfair to the minority. Further, approval by the Bank's *1120 board of directors was facilitated by FABI's representation that the transaction also would be approved by the minority shareholders. These facts alone suffice to support a finding of causation, but here Sandberg might have had yet more evidence to link the nondisclosure with completion of the merger. FABI executive Robert Altman and Bank Chairman Drewer met on the day before the shareholders meeting when the vote was taken. Notes produced by petitioners suggested that Drewer, who had received some shareholder objections to the $42 price, considered postponing the meeting and obtaining independent advice on valuation. Altman persuaded him to go forward without any of these cautionary measures. This information, which was produced in the course of discovery, was kept from the jury on grounds of privilege. Sandberg attacked the privilege ruling on five grounds in the Court of Appeals. In light of its ruling in favor of Sandberg, however, the panel had no occasion to consider the admissibility of this evidence. Though I would not require a shareholder to present such evidence of causation, this case itself demonstrates that nonvoting causation theories are quite plausible where the misstatement or omission is material and the damages sustained by minority shareholders is serious. As Professor Loss summarized the holdings of a "substantial number of cases," even if the minority cannot alone vote down a transaction, "minority stockholders will be in a better position to protect their interests with full disclosure and an unfavorable minority vote might influence the majority to modify or reconsider the transaction in question. In] where the stockholders had no appraisal rights under state law because the stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the court advanced two additional considerations: (1) the market would be informed; and (2) even `a rapacious controlling management' *1121 |
Justice Scalia | 1,991 | 9 | concurring | Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112648/virginia-bankshares-inc-v-sandberg/ | be informed; and (2) even `a rapacious controlling management' *1121 might modify the terms of a merger because it would not want to `hang its dirty linen out on the line and thereby expose itself to suit or Securities Commission or other action in terms of reputation and future takeovers.'" Fundamentals of Securities Regulation, at 948 (footnote omitted). I conclude that causation is more than plausible; it is likely, even where the public shareholders cannot vote down management's proposal. Causation is established where the proxy statement is an essential link in completing the transaction, even if the minority lacks sufficient votes to defeat a proposal of management. IV The majority avoids the question whether a plaintiff may prove causation by demonstrating that the misrepresentation or omission deprived her of a state-law remedy. I do not think the question difficult, as the whole point of federal proxy rules is to support state-law principles of corporate governance. Nor do I think that the Court can avoid this issue if it orders judgment for petitioners. The majority asserts that respondents show no loss of a state-law remedy, because if "the material facts about the merger and Beddow's interests were not accurately disclosed, the minority votes were inadequate to ratify the merger under state law." Ante, at 1108. This theory requires us to conclude that the Virginia statute governing director conflicts of interest, Va. Code Ann. 13.1-691(A)(2) (1989), incorporates the same definition of materiality as the federal proxy rules. I find no support for that proposition. If the definitions are not the same, then Sandberg may have lost her state-law remedy. For all we know, disclosure to the minority shareholders that the price is $42 per share may satisfy Virginia's requirement. If that is the case, then approval by the minority without full disclosure may have deprived Sandberg of the ability to void the merger. *1122 In all events, the theory that the merger would have been voidable absent minority shareholder approval is far more speculative than the theory that FABI and the Bank would have called off the transaction. Even so, this possibility would support a remand, as the lower courts have yet to consider the question. We are not well positioned as an institution to provide a definitive resolution to state-law questions of this kind. Here again, the difficulty of knowing what would have happened in the hypothetical universe of full disclosure suggests that we should "resolv[e] doubts in favor of those the statute is designed to protect" in order to "effectuate the congressional policy of ensuring that the shareholders are |
Justice Powell | 1,974 | 17 | majority | Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109118/gulf-oil-corp-v-copp-paving-co/ | This case concerns the jurisdictional requirements of 2 (a) of the Clayton Act, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act,[1] 15 U.S. C. 13 (a), and of 3 and 7 of the Clayton Act, as amended, 15 U.S. C. 14 and 18. It presents the questions whether a firm engaged in entirely intrastate sales of asphaltic concrete, a product that can be marketed only locally, is a corporation "in commerce" within the meaning of each of these sections, and whether such sales are "in commerce" and "in the course of such commerce" within the meaning of 2 (a) and 3 respectively. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held these jurisdictional requirements satisfied, without more, by the fact that sales of asphaltic concrete are made for use in construction of interstate highways. We reverse. I Asphaltic concrete is a product used to surface roads and highways. It is manufactured at "hot plants" by combining, at temperatures of approximately 375° F, about 5% liquid petroleum asphalt with about 95% aggregates and fillers. The substance is delivered by truck to construction sites, where it is placed at temperatures of about 275° F. Because it must be hot when placed and because of its great weight and relatively low value, asphaltic concrete can be sold and delivered profitably only within a radius of 35 miles or so from the hot plant. Petitioners Union Oil Gulf Oil Corp., and Edgington Oil defendants below, produce liquid petroleum *189 asphalt from crude oil at their California refineries. The companies sell liquid asphalt to their subsidiaries and other firms throughout the Western States. The market in liquid asphalt is interstate, and each oil company concedes that it engages in interstate commerce. Petitioner Union Oil sells some of its liquid asphalt to its wholly owned subsidiary, Sully-Miller Contracting which uses it to manufacture asphaltic concrete at 11 hot plants in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, Cal. Gulf Oil sells all of its liquid asphalt to its wholly owned subsidiary, petitioner Industrial Asphalt. Inc. Industrial distributes the liquid asphalt to third parties and also uses it to produce asphaltic concrete at 55 hot plants in California, Arizona, and Nevada. Edgington Oil sells its liquid asphalt to, inter alia, Sully-Miller, Industrial, and respondents. Respondents, Copp Paving Inc., Copp Equipment Inc., and Ernest A. Copp,[1a] operate a hot plant in Artesia, Cal., where they produce asphaltic concrete both for Copp's own use as a paving contractor and for sale to other contractors. Copp's operations and asphaltic concrete sales are limited to the southern half of Los Angeles County, where it competes |
Justice Powell | 1,974 | 17 | majority | Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109118/gulf-oil-corp-v-copp-paving-co/ | the southern half of Los Angeles County, where it competes with Sully-Miller and Industrial in the asphaltic concrete market. All three firms sell a more than de minimis share of their asphaltic concrete for use in the construction of local segments of the interstate highway system. Neither Copp, Industrial, nor Sully-Miller makes any interstate sales of the product.[2] *190 Copp filed this complaint in the District Court for the Central District of California against the oil companies, Sully-Miller, and Industrial, seeking injunctive relief and treble damages.[3] The complaint, as amended, alleged that the various defendants had committed a catalog of antitrust violations with respect to both the asphalt oil and asphaltic concrete markets. Claiming harm to itself as a consumer of liquid asphalt, Copp alleged: that the defendants had fixed prices and allocated the asphalt oil market geographically, in violation of 1 of the Sherman Act, as amended, 15 U.S. C. 1; that they had sold liquid asphalt at discriminatory prices to Copp and other purchasers, in violation of 2 (a) of the Robinson-Patman Act; and that Gulf Oil had violated 7 of the Clayton Act by acquiring Industrial. Also claiming harm to itself as a competitor in the asphaltic concrete market, Copp further alleged: that the defendants had fixed prices, divided the market geographically, and employed various methods of monopolizing and attempting to gain a monopoly in the Los Angeles area market, in violation of 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act; that, in violation of 3 of the Clayton Act, Industrial and Sully-Miller had conditioned sales of asphaltic concrete in areas where Copp did not compete on customers' agreeing to buy only from the defendants in areas where Copp did compete, and had "tied" sales of asphaltic concrete to sales of other commodities and to favorable extensions of credit; that, in violation of 7 of the Clayton Act, Gulf Oil had acquired Industrial and Union Oil had acquired Sully-Miller, these acquisitions apparently having the effect of lessening competition in the Los Angeles asphaltic concrete market; and, finally, that Industrial and Sully-Miller had discriminated in the prices at which they sold asphaltic concrete, charging *191 higher prices in areas where Copp did not compete, this in violation of 2 (a). Because of the liquid asphalt claims, the case was one of the Western Liquid Asphalt cases transferred, pursuant to 28 U.S. C. 1407, to the District Court for the Northern District of California for coordinated pretrial proceedings.[4] The defendants thereafter moved for summary judgment in favor of Sully-Miller, against which Copp had alleged only violations arising from conduct in |
Justice Powell | 1,974 | 17 | majority | Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109118/gulf-oil-corp-v-copp-paving-co/ | which Copp had alleged only violations arising from conduct in the asphaltic concrete market. The motion also sought to limit the issues as to the other defendants to those involving liquid asphalt. The District Court ordered full discovery as to jurisdiction over Copp's asphaltic concrete claims. At the conclusion of discovery, Copp's jurisdictional showing rested solely on the fact that some of the streets and roads in the Los Angeles area are segments of the federal interstate highway system, and on a stipulation that a greater than de minimis amount of asphaltic concrete is used in their construction and repair. The District Court thereupon entered an order dismissing all claims against Sully-Miller and those claims against the other defendants involving the marketing of asphaltic concrete. In its opinion accompanying this order the court explicitly discussed only the jurisdictional requirements of the Sherman Act.[5] On the facts presented to it, the court found that asphaltic concrete is made wholly from components produced and purchased intrastate and that *192 the product's market is exclusively and necessarily local. Because of these factors, the court concluded that the alleged restraints of trade in asphaltic concrete could not be deemed within the flow of interstate commerce, despite use of the product in interstate highways. Moreover, Copp had failed to show, either by deduction from the evidence or by the evidence itself, that the alleged restraints as to asphaltic concrete would affect any interstate market. It had neither shown a necessary or probable adverse consequence to the construction of interstate highways and hence to the flow of commerce, nor had it suggested or supported a theory by which restraints on local trade in asphaltic concrete affect the interstate liquid asphalt market. The court held that it lacked jurisdiction of Copp's asphaltic concrete claims under the Sherman Act and therefore that Copp also had failed to support jurisdiction under the Robinson-Patman and Clayton Acts. On Copp's interlocutory appeal, 28 U.S. C. 1292 (b), the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding as to the Sherman Act claims "that the production of asphalt for use in interstate highways rendered the producers `instrumentalities' of interstate commerce and placed them `in' that commerce as a matter of law." Having so concluded, the court held that jurisdiction properly attached to Copp's Clayton and Robinson-Patman Act claims as well, since those Acts were intended to supplement the purpose and effect of the Sherman Act.[6] We granted certiorari, despite the interlocutory character of the Ninth Circuit's judgment, because of the importance of the issues both to this litigation and to *193 proper interpretation of the jurisdictional |
Justice Powell | 1,974 | 17 | majority | Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109118/gulf-oil-corp-v-copp-paving-co/ | this litigation and to *193 proper interpretation of the jurisdictional reach of the antitrust laws, and because of ostensible conflicts with decisions of other circuits.[7] We limited the grant, however, to the questions arising under the Clayton and Robinson-Patman Acts.[8] II The text of each of the statutory provisions involved here is set forth in the margin.[9] In brief, 2 (a) of the *194 Robinson-Patman Act forbids "any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce" to discriminate in price "where either or any of the purchases involved in such discrimination are in commerce" and where the discrimination has substantial anticompetitive effects "in any line of commerce." Section 3 of the Clayton Act makes it unlawful "for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce" to make tie-in sales or enter exclusive-dealing arrangements, where the effect "may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce." Section 7 of the Clayton Act forbids certain acquisitions by a corporation "engaged in commerce" of the assets or stock "of another corporation engaged also in commerce," where the effect may be substantially to lessen competition "in any line of commerce in any section of the country." The explicit reach of these provisions extends only to persons and activities that are themselves "in commerce," the term "commerce" being defined in 1 of the Clayton Act, insofar as relevant here, as "trade or commerce among the several States and with foreign nations" 15 U.S. C. 12. This "in commerce" language differs distinctly from that of 1 of the Sherman Act, which includes within its scope all prohibited conduct "in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations" The jurisdictional reach of 1 thus is keyed directly to effects on interstate markets and the interstate flow of goods. Moreover, our cases have recognized that in enacting 1 Congress "wanted to go to the utmost extent of its Constitutional power in restraining trust and monopoly agreements" *195 United Consistently with this purpose and with the plain thrust of the statutory language, the Court has held that, however local its immediate object, a "contract, combination or conspiracy" nonetheless may constitute a restraint within the meaning of 1 if it substantially and adversely affects interstate commerce. E. g., Mandeville Island "If it is interstate commerce that feels the pinch, it does not matter how local the operation which applies the squeeze." United In contrast to 1, the distinct "in commerce" language of the Clayton and Robinson-Patman Act provisions with which we are |
Justice Powell | 1,974 | 17 | majority | Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109118/gulf-oil-corp-v-copp-paving-co/ | the Clayton and Robinson-Patman Act provisions with which we are concerned here appears to denote only persons or activities within the flow of interstate commerce the practical, economic continuity in the generation of goods and services for interstate markets and their transport and distribution to the consumer. If this is so, the jurisdictional requirements of these provisions cannot be satisfied merely by showing that allegedly anticompetitive acquisitions and activities affect commerce. Unless it appears (i) that Sully-Miller engages in interstate commercial activities ( 7), (ii) that Industrial's alleged exclusive-dealing arrangements and discriminatory sales occur in the course of its interstate activities ( 2 (a) and 3), and (iii) that at least one of Industrial's allegedly discriminatory sales was made in interstate commerce ( 2 (a)), Copp's claims must fail. Copp argues, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed, that it had made exactly this sort of "in commerce" showing. Copp does not contend that Industrial and Sully-Miller in fact make interstate asphaltic concrete sales or are otherwise directly involved in national *196 markets. Cf. United Nor does it contend that the local market in asphaltic concrete is an integral part of the interstate market in other component commodities or products. Instead, Copp's "in commerce" argument turns entirely on the use of asphaltic concrete in the construction of interstate highways. In support of this argument, Copp relies primarily on cases decided under the Fair Labor Standards Act.[10] In the first of these, the Court held that because interstate roads and railroads are indispensable instrumentalities of interstate commerce, employees engaged in the construction or repair of such roads are employees "in commerce" to whom, by its terms, the Fair Labor Standards Act extends. Subsequently in Alstate Construction the Court held that since interstate highways are instrumentalities of commerce, employees engaged in the manufacture of materials used in their construction are properly deemed to be engaged "in the production of goods for commerce," within the meaning of that phrase in the Fair Labor Standards Act. Copp reasons that since the connection between manufacture of road materials and interstate commerce was enough for application of the Fair Labor Standards Act, it also should be sufficient to warrant invocation of the Clayton and Robinson-Patman Act provisions against sellers and sales of such materials. But we are concerned in this case with significantly different statutes. As in Overstreet and Alstate, there is no question of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause to include otherwise ostensibly local activities within the reach of federal economic regulation, when *197 such activities sufficiently implicate interstate commerce.[11] The |
Justice Powell | 1,974 | 17 | majority | Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109118/gulf-oil-corp-v-copp-paving-co/ | regulation, when *197 such activities sufficiently implicate interstate commerce.[11] The question, rather, is how far Congress intended to extend its mandate under the Clayton and Robinson-Patman Acts.[12] The answer depends on the statutory language, read in light of its purposes and legislative history. See Congress has deemed interstate highways critical to the national economy and has authorized extensive federal participation in their financing and regulation. Nothing, however, in the Federal-Aid Highway Act[13] or other legislation evinces an intention to apply the full range of antitrust laws to persons who, as part of their local business, supply materials used in construction of local segments of interstate roads. Nor does the fact that interstate highways are instrumentalities of commerce somehow render the suppliers of materials instrumentalities of commerce as well, in the sense used in Overstreet. No different conclusion can be drawn from Alstate. The statute involved there explicitly reached persons employed "in the production of goods for commerce." Congress could and, according to the Court in Alstate, did find that the federal concerns embodied in the Fair Labor Standards Act required its application to employees producing *198 materials for use in interstate highways. But neither this nor the Court's holding in Alstate places such employees, or the sellers and sales of such materials, "in commerce" as a matter of law for purposes of the Clayton and Robinson-Patman Acts. Copp's "in commerce" argument rests essentially on a purely formal "nexus" to commerce: the highways are instrumentalities of interstate commerce; therefore any conduct of petitioners with respect to an ingredient of a highway is per se "in commerce." Copp thus would have us expand the concept of the flow of commerce by incorporating categories of activities that are perceptibly connected to its instrumentalities. But whatever merit this categorical inclusion-and-exclusion approach may have when dealing with the language and purposes of other regulatory enactments, it does not carry over to the context of the Robinson-Patman and Clayton Acts. The chain of connection has no logical endpoint. The universe of arguably included activities would be broad and its limits nebulous in the extreme. See Alstate Construction More importantly, to the extent that those limits could be defined at all, the definition would in no way be anchored in the economic realities of interstate markets, the intensely practical concerns that underlie the purposes of the antitrust laws. See United In short, assuming, arguendo, that the facially narrow language of the Clayton and Robinson-Patman Acts was intended to denote something more than the relatively restrictive flow-of-commerce concept, we think the nexus approach would be an irrational way |
Justice Powell | 1,974 | 17 | majority | Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109118/gulf-oil-corp-v-copp-paving-co/ | we think the nexus approach would be an irrational way to proceed. The justification for an expansive interpretation of the "in commerce" language, if such an interpretation is viable at all, must rest on a congressional intent that the Acts *199 reach all practices, even those of local character, harmful to the national marketplace. This justification, however, would require courts to look to practical consequences, not to apparent and perhaps nominal connections between commerce and activities that may have no significant economic effect on interstate markets. We hold, therefore, that Sully-Miller's and Industrial's sales to interstate highway contractors are not sales "in commerce" as a matter of law within the jurisdictional ambit of Robinson-Patman Act 2 (a) and Clayton Act 3 and 7. III Our rejection of the "nexus to commerce" theory requires that the Ninth Circuit's judgment be reversed. Copp also advances, somewhat obliquely, a second theory to support that judgment. It contends that, despite the facially narrow "in commerce" language of the Robinson-Patman and Clayton Act provisions, Congress intended those provisions to manifest the full degree of its commerce power. Therefore, it is argued, the language should not be limited to the flow-of-commerce concept defined by this Court and other courts, but rather should be held to extend, as does 1 of the Sherman Act, to all persons and activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. We find this theory equally unavailing on the record here. A As to 2 (a) of the Robinson-Patman Act at least, the extraordinarily complex legislative history fails to support Copp's argument. When the Patman bill was passed by the House, it contained, in addition to the present narrow language of 2 (a), the following provision: "[I]t shall also be unlawful for any person, whether in commerce or not, either directly or indirectly, to *200 discriminate in price between different purchasers where such discrimination may substantially lessen competition"[14] The Conference Committee, however, deleted this "effects on commerce" provision, leaving only the "in commerce" language of 2 (a).[15] Whether Congress took this action because it wanted to reach only price discrimination in interstate markets or because of its then understanding of the reach of the commerce power,[16] its action strongly militates against a judgment that Congress intended a result that it expressly declined to enact. Moreover, even if the legislative history were ambiguous, the courts in nearly four decades of litigation have interpreted the statute in a manner directly contrary to an "effects on commerce" approach. With almost perfect consistency, the Courts of Appeals have read the language requiring that "either or |
Justice Powell | 1,974 | 17 | majority | Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109118/gulf-oil-corp-v-copp-paving-co/ | of Appeals have read the language requiring that "either or any of the purchases involved in such discrimination [be] in commerce" to mean that 2 (a) applies only where " `at least one of the two transactions which, when compared, generate a discrimination. cross[es] a state line.' "[17] In the face of this longstanding *201 interpretation and the continued congressional silence, the legislative history does not warrant our extending 2 (a) beyond its clear language to reach a multitude of local activities that hitherto have been left to state and local regulation. See B With respect to 3 and 7 of the Clayton Act, the situation is not so clear. Both provisions were intended to complement the Sherman Act and to facilitate achievement of its purposes by reaching, in their incipiency, acts and practices that promise, in their full growth, to impair competition in interstate commerce. E. g., United ; Standard Fashion The United States argues in its amicus brief that, given this purpose, the "in commerce" language of 3 and 7 should be seen as no more than a historical anomaly. When these sections were originally enacted, it was thought that Congress' Commerce Clause power reached only those subjects within the flow of commerce, then defined rather narrowly by the Court. Thus, it is argued, the "in commerce" language was thought to be coextensive with the reach of the Commerce Clause and to bring within the ambit of the Act all activities over which Congress could exercise its constitutional authority. Since passage of the Act, this Court's decisions *202 have read Congress' power under the Commerce Clause more expansively, extending it beyond the flow of commerce to all activities having a substantial effect on interstate commerce. See Mandeville Island -233. The United States concludes that the scope of the Clayton Act, like that of the Sherman Act, should be held to have expanded correspondingly, both because of Congress' clear intention to reach as far as it could and because Congress' purpose to foster competition in interstate commerce could not otherwise wholly be achieved. This argument from the history and practical purposes of the Clayton Act is neither without force nor without at least a measure of support.[18] But whether it would justify radical expansion of the Clayton Act's scope beyond that which the statutory language definesexpansion, moreover, by judicial decision rather than amendatory legislationis doubtful. In any event, this case does not present an occasion to decide the question. Even if the Clayton Act were held to extend to acquisitions and sales having substantial effects on commerce, a court |
Justice Powell | 1,974 | 17 | majority | Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109118/gulf-oil-corp-v-copp-paving-co/ | acquisitions and sales having substantial effects on commerce, a court cannot presume that such effects exist. The plaintiff must allege and prove that apparently local acts in fact have adverse consequences on interstate markets and the interstate flow of goods in order to invoke federal antitrust prohibitions. See United -. Copp was allowed full discovery as to all interstate commerce issues. It relied primarily on the nexus theory rejected above, and presented no evidence of effect on interstate commerce. Instead it argued merely that such effects could be presumed from the use of asphaltic concrete in interstate highways. The District Court concluded, *203 on the basis of the record before it, that petitioners' alleged antitrust violations had no "substantial impact on interstate commerce."[19] There may be circumstances in which activities, like those of Sully-Miller and Industrial, would have such effects on commerce. On the record in this case, however, the conclusion of the District Court that no such circumstances existed here cannot be considered erroneous. This being so, the "effects on commerce" theory, even if legally correct, must fail for want of proof. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is Reversed. MR. |
Justice Powell | 1,982 | 17 | dissenting | Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110701/merrill-lynch-pierce-fenner-smith-inc-v-curran/ | The Court today holds that Congress intended the federal courts to recognize implied causes of action under five separate provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), 7 U.S. C. 1 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp IV). The decision rests on two theories. First, the Court relies on fewer than a dozen cases in which the lower federal courts erroneously upheld private rights of action in the years prior to the 1974 amendments to the CEA. Reasoning that these mistaken decisions constituted "the law" in 1974, the Court holds that Congress must be assumed to have endorsed this path of error when it failed to amend certain sections of the CEA in that year. This theory is incompatible with our constitutional separation of powers, and in my view it is without support in logic or in law. Additionally whether alternatively or cumulatively is unclear the Court finds that Congress in 1974 "affirmatively" manifested its intent to "preserve" private *396 rights of action by adopting particular amendments to the CEA. This finding is reached without even token deference to established tests for discerning congressional intent. I In determining whether an "implied" cause of action exists under a federal statute, "what must ultimately be determined is whether Congress intended to create the private remedy asserted." Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. See Middlesex County Sewerage[1] In these cases private rights of action are asserted under five separate provisions of the CEA two of them passed initially in 1922, two in 1936, and one adopted for the first time in 1968.[2] The Court does *397 not argue that Congress in 1922, in 1936, or in 1968, intended to authorize private suits for damages in the federal courts. In 1936 the year in which the CEA was adopted as the successor statute to the Grain Futures Act[3] Congress did not even provide for federal-court jurisdiction to enforce the CEA.[4] And the Court adduces no evidence that congressional views had changed by 1968. *398 If the Court focused its implication inquiry on the intent of the several Congresses that enacted the statutory provisions involved in these cases, it thus is indisputable that the plaintiffs would have no claim. "The dispositive question" in implication cases is whether Congress intended to create the right to sue for damages in federal court. "Having answered that question in the negative, our inquiry [would be] at an end." See Sea at The Court today asserts its fidelity to these principles but shrinks from their application. It does so in the first instance by invoking a novel legal |
Justice Powell | 1,982 | 17 | dissenting | Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110701/merrill-lynch-pierce-fenner-smith-inc-v-curran/ | so in the first instance by invoking a novel legal theory one that relies on congressional inaction and on erroneous decisions by the lower federal courts. In a Federal District Court in the Northern District of Illinois upheld the existence of a private right of action under one section of the CEA. Relying on state common-law principles set forth in 286 of the Restatement of Torts Goodman ruled that the "complete absence of provision for private civil actions in the Commodity Exchange Act," was not decisive: " `Implied rights of action are not contingent upon statutory language which affirmatively indicates that they are intended. On the contrary, they are implied unless the legislation evidences a contrary intention. aff'd on other grounds, 2 Cir., ; cited in 662 (Brennan, J., dissenting).' "There is no indication in the Commodity Exchange Act that Congress intended not to allow private persons injured by violations access to the federal courts." The Court does not dispute that the Goodman court erred. The Goodman court placed primary emphasis on inquiring *399 whether Congress had created a regulatory system for the benefit of the plaintiffs' class. As the court's citation of the Restatement of Torts made apparent, this inquiry has been thought appropriate for common-law courts of general jurisdiction. But our cases establish that it is not appropriate for federal courts possessed only of limited jurisdiction. On the contrary, we have established that an "argument in favor of implication of a private right of action based on tort principles. is entirely misplaced." Touche Ross & "The dispositive question [is] whether Congress intended to create any such [private damages] remedy." 444 U. S., The Goodman court did not even ask this question.[5] *400 About 10 cases none decided by this Court[6] followed Goodman's mistake. Seven of these found Goodman dispositive without further comment.[7] Three remaining cases[8] added to Goodman's analysis only by quoting differing portions *401 of one sentence discussing the CEA's purpose.[9] This single sentence "leaves no doubt that Congress intended to [benefit the named classes of persons by enacting the CEA] But whether Congress intended additionally that [the CEA] provisions would be enforced through private litigation is a different question." Because these cases ignore this "different question," they fail to rectify Goodman's fundamental legal error that of basing a finding of an implied cause of action under a federal statute on common-law principles. "There is, of course, `no federal general common law.' " Texas Industries, quoting Erie R. To the Court, however, this all is irrelevant. The Goodman line may have been wrong. |
Justice Powell | 1,982 | 17 | dissenting | Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110701/merrill-lynch-pierce-fenner-smith-inc-v-curran/ | all is irrelevant. The Goodman line may have been wrong. The decisions all may have been rendered by lower federal courts. Goodman nevertheless was "the law" in 1974. Moreover, the Court reasons, Congress must be presumed to have known of Goodman and its progeny, see ante, at 3-382; and it could have changed the law if it did not like it, see ante, at 381-382. Yet Congress, the Court continues, "left intact the statutory provisions under which the federal courts had implied a cause of action." Ante, at 381. This legislative inaction, the Court concludes, signals a conscious intent to "preserve" the right of action that Goodman mistakenly had created. Ante, at 382. And this unexpressed "affirmative intent" of Congress now is binding on this Court, as well as all other federal courts.[10] *402 This line of reasoning is inconsistent with fundamental premises of our structure of government. Fewer than a dozen District Courts wrongly create a remedy in damages under the CEA; Congress fails to correct the error; and congressional silence binds this Court to follow the erroneous decisions of the District Courts and Courts of Appeals. The Court today does not say that Goodman was correctly decided. Congress itself surely would reject emphatically the Goodman view that federal courts are free to hold, as a general rule of statutory interpretation, that private rights of action are to be implied unless Congress "evidences a contrary intention." Yet today's decision is predicated in major part on this view. It is not surprising that the Court having propounded this novel theory that congressional intent can be inferred from its silence, and that legislative inaction should achieve the force of law would wish to advance an additional basis for its decision. II In 1974 Congress rewrote much of the CEA. It did not, however, re-enact or even amend most of the provisions under which the Court today finds implied rights of action. But the Court does not pause over the question how Congress *403 might legislate a right of action merely by remaining silent after the lower federal courts have misstated the law.[11] Instead it argues that at least some of the 1974 amendments evidenced an affirmative congressional intent to "preserve" implied rights of action under the CEA. Ante, at 381-382. Fairly read, the evidence fails to sustain this argument. A In support of its argument the Court advances no evidence of the kinds generally recognized as most probative of congressional intent. It cites no statutory language stating an intent to preserve judicially created rights. It offers no legislative materials |
Justice Powell | 1,982 | 17 | dissenting | Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110701/merrill-lynch-pierce-fenner-smith-inc-v-curran/ | to preserve judicially created rights. It offers no legislative materials citing Goodman or any of its progeny in approving tones. In the hundreds of pages of Committee hearings and Reports that preceded the 1974 amendments, the Court is unable to discover even a single clear remark to the effect that the 1974 amendments would create or preserve private rights of action. The Court relies instead on three unrelated additions to the CEA that were adopted by Congress in 1974. First, the Court places weight on the enactment of 8a(7), 7 U.S. C. 12a(7), which authorizes the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to supplement the trading regulations established by individual commodity exchanges. Ante, at 384. The accompanying House Report, H. R. Rep. No. 93-975, *404 p. 46 (1974), explained that the CFTC needed this power to ensure that the local exchanges would establish adequate safeguards. According to the Report, "attorneys to several boards of trade have been advising the boards to reduce not expand exchange regulations since there is a growing body of opinion that failure to enforce the exchange rules is a violation of the Act which will support suits by private litigants." From this observation the Court purports to infer that Congress must have approved of the Goodman line of cases. This single quotation, however, is entirely neutral as to approval or disapproval. Moreover, there is persuasive evidence on the face of the statute that Congress did not contemplate a judicial remedy for damages against the exchanges. The 1974 amendments explicitly subjected the exchanges to fines and other sanctions for nonenforcement of their own rules. See 6b, 7 U.S. C. a. But the statute specifies that fines may not exceed $100,000 per violation, ibid., and that the Commission must determine whether the amount of any fine will impair an exchange's ability to perform its functions. A private damages action would not be so limited and therefore would expose the exchanges to greater liability than Congress evidently intended. The second statutory change cited by the Court actually undercuts rather than supports its case. The Court notes that the 1974 Congress enacted two sections creating procedures for reimbursing victims of CEA violations.[12]Ante, at *405 384-385. In its view these sections evidence a further intent to enhance the availability of relief in damages. Yet the Court suggests no reason why the 1974 Congress would have enacted these duplicative channels for damages recovery if it intended at the same time to approve the implied private damages actions permitted by Goodman.[] Rather, the Court flatly contravenes settled rules for the identification of congressional intent. |
Justice Powell | 1,982 | 17 | dissenting | Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110701/merrill-lynch-pierce-fenner-smith-inc-v-curran/ | flatly contravenes settled rules for the identification of congressional intent. "[I]t is an elemental canon of statutory construction that where a statute expressly provides a particular remedy or remedies, a court must be chary of reading others into it."[14] "In the absence *406 of strong indicia of a contrary congressional intent, we are compelled to conclude that Congress provided precisely the remedies it considered appropriate." Sea The Court finally relies upon congressional enactment of a so-called jurisdictional saving clause as part of the 1974 amendments: "Nothing in this section shall supersede or limit the jurisdiction conferred on courts of the United States or any State." 201 (amending 2 of the Act), 88 Stat. 95, codified at 7 U.S. C. 2 Ante, at 386-387. By its terms the saving clause simply is irrelevant to the issue at hand: whether a cause of action should be implied under particular provisions of the CEA. Where judicially cognizable claims do exist, the saving clause makes clear that federal courts retain their jurisdiction. But it neither creates nor preserves any substantive right to sue for damages. And it is settled by our cases that "[t]he source of plaintiffs' rights must be found, if at all, in the substantive provisions of the Act which they seek to enforce, not in the jurisdictional provision." Touche Ross & Cf. Sea[15] *407 B Despite its imaginative use of other sources, the Court neglects the only unambiguous evidence of Congress' intent respecting private actions for civil damages under the CEA. That evidence is a chart that appears in the record of Senate Committee hearings.[16] This chart compares features of four proposed bills with the "Present Commodities Exchange Act." It evidently was prepared by the expert Committee staff advising the legislators who considered the 1974 amendments. The chart is detailed. It occupies five pages of the hearing record. Comparing the feature of "civil money penalties" between the different proposed bills, however, the chart does not list "implied damages actions" under the existing Act. Rather, it says there are "none." Neither does the chart make any reference to implied private damages actions under any of the four proposed amending bills. Under these circumstances, the most that the Court fairly can claim to have shown is that the 1974 Congress did not disapprove *408 Goodman and its progeny. There simply is no persuasive evidence of affirmative congressional intent to recognize rights through the enactment of statutory law, even under the Court's unprecedented theory of congressional ratification by silence of judicial error. III The Court's holding today may reflect its view of desirable policy. |
Justice Powell | 1,982 | 17 | dissenting | Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110701/merrill-lynch-pierce-fenner-smith-inc-v-curran/ | Court's holding today may reflect its view of desirable policy. If so, this view is doubly mistaken. First, modern federal regulatory statutes tend to be exceedingly complex. Especially in this context, courts should recognize that intricate policy calculations are necessary to decide when new enforcement measures are desirable additions to a particular regulatory structure. Judicial creation of private rights of action is as likely to disrupt as to assist the functioning of the regulatory schemes developed by Congress. See, e. g., Universities Research Assn., 2-4 Today's decision also is disquieting because of its implicit view of the judicial role in the creation of federal law. The Court propounds a test that taxes the legislative branch with a duty to respond to opinions of the lower federal courts. The penalty for silence is the risk of having those erroneous judicial opinions imputed to Congress itself on the basis of its presumptive knowledge of the "contemporary legal context." Ante, at 379. Despite the Court's allusion to the lawmaking powers of courts at common law, see ante, at 374-377, this view is inconsistent with the theory and structure of our constitutional government. For reasons that I have expressed before, I remain convinced that "we should not condone the implication of any private right of action from a federal statute absent the most compelling evidence that Congress in fact intended such an action to exist."[17] Here the *409 evidence falls far short of this constitutionally appropriate standard. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. APPENDIX TO OPINION OF POWELL, J., DISSENTING Commodity Futures Commission Act: Hearings on S. 2485, S. 25, S. 2837 and H. R. 1 before the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 93d Cong., 2d Sess., 194 (1974). |
Justice Roberts | 2,011 | 0 | dissenting | Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy v. Stewart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/214949/virginia-office-for-protection-and-advocacy-v-stewart/ | Today the Court holds that a state agecy may sue officials actig o behalf of the State i federal court. This has ever happeed before. I order to reach this uset tlig result, the Court exteds the fictio of Ex parte Youg—what we have called a “empty formalism”—well beyod the circumstaces of that case. Because I caot subscribe to such a substatial ad ovel expasio of what we have also called “a arrow exceptio” to a State’s sovereig immuity, I respectfully disset. I A “The federal system established by our Costitutio preserves the sovereig status of the States.” Alde v. Maie, As cofirmed by the Eleveth Amedmet, “[a] itegral compoet of that residuary ad iviolable sovereigty” is the States’ “im muity from private suits.” Federal Maritime Comm’ v. South Carolia Ports Authority, 751–753 (iteral quotatio marks omitted); Has v. Louisi 2 VIRGINIA OFFICE FOR PROTECTION AND ADVOCACY v. STEWART ROBERTS, C. J., dissetig aa, (“ ‘It is iheret i the ature of sovereigty ot to be ameable to the suit of a idividual without its coset’ ” (quotig The Federalist No. 81 (A. Hamilto))). “The preemiet purpose of state sovereig immuity is to accord States the digity that is cosistet with their status as sovereig etities.” Federal Maritime Comm’, Accordigly, ay time a State is haled ito federal court agaist its will, “the digity ad respect afforded [that] State, which [sovereig] immuity is desiged to protect, are placed i jeopardy.” Idaho v. Coeur d’Alee of Idaho, The immuity does ot tur o whether relief will be awarded; “[t]he Eleveth Amedmet is cocered ot oly with the States’ ability to withstad suit, but with their privilege ot to be sued.” Puerto Rico Aqueduct ad Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Ic., 506 U.S. 9, 147, 5 (1993). See Federal Maritime Comm’, at 9 (“the primary fuctio of sovereig immuity is ot to protect state treasuries, but to afford the States the dig ity ad respect due sovereig etities” (citatio omitted)). Because of the key role state sovereig immuity plays i our federal system, the Court has recogized oly a few exceptios to that immuity. The sole oe relevat here is the “arrow exceptio,” Semiole of established by our decisio i Ex parte Youg, I Ex parte Youg, the Court held that private litigats could seek a ijuctio i federal court agaist a state official, prohibitig him from eforcig a state law claimed to violate the Federal Costitutio. See at 159–168. As we have ofte ob served, Ex parte Youg rests o the “obvious fictio,” Couer d’Alee that such a suit is |
Justice Roberts | 2,011 | 0 | dissenting | Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy v. Stewart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/214949/virginia-office-for-protection-and-advocacy-v-stewart/ | the “obvious fictio,” Couer d’Alee that such a suit is ot really agaist the State, but rather agaist a idividual who has bee “stripped of his official or represetative character” because of his ulawful coduct, Ex parte Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 3 ROBERTS, C. J., dissetig Youg, at 159–160.1 While we have cosistetly ackowledged the importat role Ex parte Youg plays i “promot[ig] the vidicatio of federal rights,” we have bee cautious ot to give that decisio “a expasive iterpretatio.” Pehurst State School ad Hospital v. Halderma, Ideed, the history of our Ex parte Youg juris prudece has largely bee focused o esurig that this arrow exceptio is “arrowly costrued,” 465 U.S., at 114, 25. We have, for example, held that the fictio of Ex parte Youg does ot exted to suits where the plaitiff seeks retroactive relief, Edelma v. Jorda, 678 (1974); where the claimed violatios are based o state law, Pehurst, ; where the federal law violatio is o loger “ogoig,” Gree v. Masour, 474 U.S. 64, 71 (1985); “where Cogress has prescribed a detailed remedial scheme for the eforcemet agaist a State” of the claimed federal right, Semiole at 74; ad where “special sovereigty iterests” are impli cated, Couer d’Alee We recetly stated that whe “determiig whether the doctrie of Ex parte Youg avoids a Eleveth Amed met bar to suit, a court eed oly coduct a straightfor ward iquiry ito whether [the] complait alleges a ogoig violatio of federal law ad seeks relief properly characterized as prospective.” Verizo Md. Ic. v. Public Serv. Comm’ of Md., (iteral quotatio marks omitted). But ot every plaitiff who complies with these prerequisites will be able to brig suit uder Ex parte Youg. Ideed, i Verizo itself the Court wet beyod its so-called straightforward iquiry i co —————— 1 Ex parte Youg also rests o the “well-recogized iroy that a offi cial’s ucostitutioal coduct costitutes state actio uder the Fourteeth Amedmet but ot the Eleveth Amedmet.” Pehurst State School ad Hospital v. Halderma, (iteral quotatio marks omitted). 4 VIRGINIA OFFICE FOR PROTECTION AND ADVOCACY v. STEWART ROBERTS, C. J., dissetig siderig whether Ex parte Youg applied. After decidig the plaitiffs “clearly satisfie[d]” the “straightforward iquiry,” the Court wet o to examie whether Cogress had created a detailed remedial scheme like the oe i Semiole 535 U.S., at 647–648 (iteral quotatio marks omitted). Oly after determiig that Cogress had ot doe so did the Court coclude that the suit could go forward uder Ex parte Youg. If Verizo’s formulatio set forth the oly requiremets for brigig a actio uder |
Justice Roberts | 2,011 | 0 | dissenting | Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy v. Stewart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/214949/virginia-office-for-protection-and-advocacy-v-stewart/ | set forth the oly requiremets for brigig a actio uder Ex parte Youg, two of our recet precedets were wrogly decided. I Semiole the Court ackowledged that it had ofte “foud federal jurisdictio over a suit agaist a state official whe that suit seeks oly prospective ijuctive relief i order to ed a cotiuig violatio of federal law.” 517 U.S., at 73 (iteral quotatio marks omitted). The Court held, however, that the “situatio preseted” there was “suffi cietly differet from that givig rise to the traditioal Ex parte Youg actio so as to preclude the availability of that doctrie.” 2 I Couer d’Alee the Court recogized that a “allegatio of a ogoig violatio of federal law where the requested relief is prospective is ordiarily sufficiet to ivoke the Youg fictio.” 521 U.S., (emphasis added). The Court held, however, that the actio could ot proceed uder Ex parte Youg because it implicated “special sovereigty iterests”—i that case, the State’s —————— 2 While I agree that i Semiole “we refused to permit suit to proceed” uder Ex parte Youg because Cogress “had foreclosed recourse to the doctrie,” ate, at 7, 3, that simply cofirms my poit that the availability of Youg depeds o more tha just whether Verizo’s prescribed iquiry is satisfied. I short, Semiole makes clear that a plaitiff who files a “complait alleg[ig] a ogoig violatio of federal law ad seeks relief properly characterized as prospective,” Verizo, 535 U.S., at (iteral quotatio marks omitted), may oetheless be barred from pursuig a actio uder Youg. Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 5 ROBERTS, C. J., dissetig property rights i certai submerged lads. 521 U.S., at 281–283. As we explaied i Papasa v. Allai, (1986), there are “certai types of cases that formally meet the Youg requiremets of a state official actig icosis tetly with federal law but that stretch that case too far ad would upset the balace of federal ad state iterests that it embodies.” This is oe of those cases. I refusig to exted Ex parte Youg to claims that ivolve “special sovereigty iterests,” the Court i Coeur d’Alee wared agaist a rote applicatio of the Ex parte Youg fictio: “To iterpret Youg to permit a federal-court actio to proceed i every case where prospective declaratory ad ijuctive relief is sought agaist a officer, amed i his idividual capacity, would be to adhere to a empty formalism ad to udermie the priciple that Eleveth Amedmet immuity represets a real limitatio o a federal court’s federal-questio ju risdictio. The real iterests served by the Eleveth Amedmet are ot to be |
Justice Roberts | 2,011 | 0 | dissenting | Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy v. Stewart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/214949/virginia-office-for-protection-and-advocacy-v-stewart/ | iterests served by the Eleveth Amedmet are ot to be sacrificed to elemetary me chaics of captios ad pleadig. Applicatio of the Youg exceptio must reflect a proper uderstadig of its role i our federal system ad respect for state courts istead of a reflexive reliace o a obvious fic tio.” 521 U.S., B It is udisputed that petitioer’s complait alleges a ogoig violatio of federal law by a state official ad seeks oly prospective relief. If this were a “traditioal Ex parte Youg actio,” Semiole peti tioer might very well be able to pursue its claims uder that case. This, however, is aythig but a traditioal case—ad petitioer is aythig but a typical Ex parte Youg plaitiff. 6 VIRGINIA OFFICE FOR PROTECTION AND ADVOCACY v. STEWART ROBERTS, C. J., dissetig Ulike the plaitiffs i Ex parte Youg—ad, for that matter, ulike ay other plaitiff that has ever sought to ivoke Ex parte Youg before this Court—petitioer is a state agecy seekig to sue officials of the same State i federal court. The Court is troubled by this ovelty, ate at 12–, but ot eough. See Free Eterprise Fud v. Public Compay Accoutig Oversight Bd., 561 U. S. (2010) (slip op., at 25) (“Perhaps the most tellig idi catio of [a] severe costitutioal problem is the lack of historical precedet” (iteral quotatio marks omitted)); cf. Alde, –745; Pritz v. Uited States, This is especially true i light of the “presumptio” we articulated more tha 120 years ago i Has v. Louisiaa, that States are immue from suits that would have bee “aomalous ad uheard of whe the Costitutio was adopted.” Has, 4 U.S., at 18; see also Alde, (ivokig presumptio). Accordigly, whe determiig whether to lift the bar of sovereig immuity, we have “attribute[d] great sigifi cace” to the absece of aalogous suits “at the time of the foudig or for may years thereafter.” Federal Maritime Comm’, This sort of suit was ot oly aomalous ad uheard of at the time of the foudig; it was aomalous ad uheard of yesterday. The Has presumptio applies here with full force. The Court speculates that these suits have ot previ ously arise because the ecessary coditios—state agecies pursuig a federal right free of iteral state veto—are themselves ovel. See ate, at 12; see also ate, at 3–4 (KENNEDY, J., cocurrig). Eve if true, that sim ply highlights the fact that this case is ot suitable for mere rote applicatio of Ex parte Youg. I additio to its ovel character, petitioer’s complait “coflicts directly with the priciples of federalism that uderlie the Eleveth |
Justice Roberts | 2,011 | 0 | dissenting | Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy v. Stewart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/214949/virginia-office-for-protection-and-advocacy-v-stewart/ | directly with the priciples of federalism that uderlie the Eleveth Amedmet.” Pehurst, 465 U. S., Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 7 ROBERTS, C. J., dissetig I Alde, we held that state sovereig immu- ity prohibited Cogress from authorizig “private suits agaist ocosetig States i their ow courts.” 527 U.S., at 749. We explaied that such power would permit oe brach of state govermet, the “State’s ow courts,” “to coerce the other braches of the State” ad “to tur the State agaist itself.” Here the Court goes further: this suit features a state agecy o oe side, ad state executive officials o the other. The objectio i Alde was that the Federal Gov ermet could force the State to defed itself before itself. Here extedig Youg forces the State to defed itself agaist itself i federal court. Both sides i this case exercise the sovereig power of the Commowealth of Virgiia. Petitioer claims the title of “The Commowealth of Virgiia” i its complait, App. 10; respodets are state officials actig i a official capacity. Whatever the decisio i the litigatio, oe thig is clear: The Commowealth will wi. Ad the Commowealth will lose. Because of today’s holdig, a federal judge will resolve which part of the Commo wealth will prevail. Virgiia has ot coseted to such a suit i federal court; rather, petitioer has uilaterally determied that this itramural dispute should be resolved i that forum. This is precisely what sovereig immuity is supposed to guard agaist. See ate, at 10 (“The specific idigity agaist which sovereig immuity protects is the isult to a State of beig haled ito court without its coset”). That idigity is compouded whe the State is haled ito federal court so that a federal judge ca decide a iteral state dispute. The Court is wrog to suggest that Virgiia has o sovereig iterest i determiig where such disputes will be resolved. See ate, at 10–11, ad 6. It is oe thig for a State to decide that its compoets may sue oe 8 VIRGINIA OFFICE FOR PROTECTION AND ADVOCACY v. STEWART ROBERTS, C. J., dissetig aother i its ow courts (as Virgiia did here); it is quite aother thig for such a dispute to be resolved i federal court agaist the State’s wishes. For this reaso, the Court’s examples of other suits pittig state etities agaist oe aother are iapposite. I each of those hy potheticals, the State coseted to havig a particular forum resolve its iteral coflict. That is ot true here.3 I sum, the “special sovereigty iterests” implicated here make this case “sufficietly |
Justice Roberts | 2,011 | 0 | dissenting | Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy v. Stewart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/214949/virginia-office-for-protection-and-advocacy-v-stewart/ | the “special sovereigty iterests” implicated here make this case “sufficietly differet from that givig rise to the traditioal Ex parte Youg actio so as to pre clude the availability of that doctrie.” Semiole 517 U.S., I would clig to reality ad ot exted the fictio of Ex parte Youg to cover petitioer’s suit. II The Court offers several justificatios for its expasio of Ex parte Youg. Noe is persuasive. The Court first coteds that whether the Ex parte Youg fictio should be applied turs oly o the “relief sought” i a case. Ate, at 8–9 (iteral quotatio marks omitted). The Court is correct that several of our prior cases have focused o the ature of the relief requested. See, e.g., Edelma, –671. That may well be because “the differece betwee the type of relief barred by the Eleveth Amedmet ad that permitted —————— 3 Sovereig immuity priciples would of course ot prohibit this Court from reviewig the federal questios preseted by this suit if it had bee filed i state court. See ate, at 11. We have held that “it is iheret i the costitutioal pla that whe a state court takes cogizace of a case, the State assets to appellate review by this Court of the federal issues raised i the case whoever may be the parties to the origial suit, whether private persos, or the state itself.” McKes so Corp. v. Divisio of Alcoholic Beverages ad Tobacco, Fla. Dept. of Busiess Regulatio, (iteral quotatio marks ad citatio omitted). By cotrast, there is othig “iheret i the costitutioal pla” that warrats lower federal courts hadlig itrastate disputes abset a State’s coset. Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 9 ROBERTS, C. J., dissetig uder Ex parte Youg will ot i may istaces be that betwee day ad ight.” But the Court is wrog to draw a egative implicatio from those cases ad categorically coclude that there ca be o other basis for determiig whether to exted Ex parte Youg’s fictio. The thrust of the Court’s argumet appears to be that, because the relief sought here is o differet from that which could be sought i a suit by a private protectio ad advocacy system, the doctrie of Ex parte Youg should also apply to a suit brought by a state system. Ate, at 7– 9. But private etities are differet from public oes: They are private. Whe private litigats are ivolved, the State is ot tured agaist itself. Cotrary to the Court’s suggestio, see ate, at 9, there is ideed a real differece betwee a suit agaist the State brought |
Justice Roberts | 2,011 | 0 | dissenting | Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy v. Stewart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/214949/virginia-office-for-protection-and-advocacy-v-stewart/ | a real differece betwee a suit agaist the State brought by a private party ad oe brought by a state agecy. It is the differece betwee eatig ad caibal ism; betwee murder ad patricide. While the ultimate results may be the same—a full stomach ad a dead body—it is the meas of gettig there that attracts otice. I would thik it more a affrot to someoe’s digity to be sued by a brother tha to be sued by a strager. While either may be welcomed, that does ot mea they would be equally received. The Court also coteds that petitioer’s ability to sue state officials i federal court “is a cosequece of Vir giia’s ow decisio to establish a public [protectio ad advocacy] system.” This caot mea that Virgiia has coseted to a ifrigemet o its sovereigty. That argumet was rejected below, ad petitioer did ot seek certiorari o that issue. See Virgiia v. Reihard, 565 F.3d 110, 116–118 (CA4 2009); Pet. for Cert. i. Istead the Court claims that “Virgiia has oly itself to blame”—if it wated to avoid its curret predicamet, it could have chose to establish a private etity istead. Ate, at 9–10, ad 5; see also ate, at 3 (KENNEDY, J., 10 VIRGINIA OFFICE FOR PROTECTION AND ADVOCACY v. STEWART ROBERTS, C. J., dissetig cocurrig). But I am aware of o doctrie to the effect that a ucostitutioal establishmet is isulated from challege simply because a costitutioal alterative is available. Ad here the public ad private systems are ot iterchageable alteratives i ay evet. The Court’s aalysis is also circular; it wrogly assumes Virgiia kew i advace the aswer to the questio preseted i this case. Oly after cocludig that Ex parte Youg applies to this arragemet—that for the first time i history a state agecy may sue a uwillig State i federal court—ca the Court suggest that Virgiia kow igly exposed its officers to suit i federal court. I a similar vei, the Court asserts that because Vir giia law authorizes petitioer to exercise idepedet litigatig authority, petitioer should be treated the same “as ay other litigat.” Ate, at But petitioer is ot like ay other litigat. While it is true petitioer ejoys some idepedece from the State’s executive brach, that does ot mea petitioer is idepedet from the State. As oted, petitioer certaily views itself as “The Com mowealth of Virgiia,” App. 10, ad would presumably ivoke sovereig immuity itself if sued. As a matter of sovereig immuity law, it should make o differece how a State chooses to allocate its govermetal powers amog |
Justice Roberts | 2,011 | 0 | dissenting | Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy v. Stewart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/214949/virginia-office-for-protection-and-advocacy-v-stewart/ | how a State chooses to allocate its govermetal powers amog differet state agecies or officials. The Court is wrog to suggest that simply because petitioer possesses idepedet litigatig authority, it may sue state officials i federal court. See ate, at (“the Eleveth Amedmet presets o obstacle” sice it “was Virgiia law that created [petitioer] ad gave it the power to sue state officials”). There is more to this case tha merely whether petitioer eeds the approval of the Attorey Geeral to sue, ad the Virgiia Code provisios cited by the Court say othig about actios agaist the State i federal court. If idepedet litigatig authority is all that it takes, Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 11 ROBERTS, C. J., dissetig the scores of state etities ow “suddely possess the authority to pursue Ex parte Youg actios agaist other state officials” i federal court. Reihard, There would be o Eleveth Amedmet impedimet to such suits. Give the umber of state agecies across the coutry that ejoy idepedet litigatig authority, see, e.g., Brief for State of Idiaa et al. as Amici Curiae 11– the Court’s decisio today could potetially lead to all sorts of litigatio i federal courts addressig iteral state govermet disputes. Ad there is also o reaso to thik that the Court’s holdig is limited to state agecy plaitiffs. Accordig to the Court’s basic ratioale, state officials who ejoy some level of idepedece could as a matter of federal law brig suit agaist other state officials i federal court. Disputes that were formerly resolved i state cabiet rooms may ow appear o the dockets of federal courts. * * * No oe questios the cotiued vitality or importace of the doctrie aouced i Ex parte Youg. But Ex parte Youg was about affordig relief to a private party agaist ucostitutioal state actio. It was ot about resolvig a dispute betwee two differet state actors. That is a matter for the State to sort out, ot a federal judge. Our decisio i (1793)—permittig States to be sued by private parties i federal court—“created such a shock of surprise” through out the coutry “that the Eleveth Amedmet was at oce proposed ad adopted.” Pricipality of Moaco v. Mississippi, 292 U.S. 3, It is fair to say that today’s decisio will probably ot trigger a similar re spose. But however much their practical fuctios ad promiece may have chaged i the past 218 years, the States remai a vital elemet of our political structure. Sovereig immuity esures that States retai a stature 12 VIRGINIA OFFICE FOR PROTECTION AND ADVOCACY v. STEWART ROBERTS, |
Justice Powell | 1,976 | 17 | majority | Imbler v. Pachtman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109387/imbler-v-pachtman/ | The question presented in this case is whether a state prosecuting attorney who acted within the scope of his duties in initiating and pursuing a criminal prosecution is amenable to suit under 42 U.S. C. 1983 for alleged deprivations of the defendant's constitutional rights. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that he is not. We affirm. I The events which culminated in this suit span many years and several judicial proceedings. They began in *411 January 1961, when two men attempted to rob a Los Angeles market run by Morris Hasson. One shot and fatally wounded Hasson, and the two fled in different directions. Ten days later Leonard Lingo was killed while attempting a robbery in Pomona, Cal., but his two accomplices escaped. Paul Imbler, petitioner in this case, turned himself in the next day as one of those accomplices. Subsequent investigation led the Los Angeles District Attorney to believe that Imbler and Lingo had perpetrated the first crime as well, and that Imbler had killed Hasson. Imbler was charged with first-degree felony murder for Hasson's death. The State's case consisted of eyewitness testimony from Hasson's wife and identification testimony from three men who had seen Hasson's assailants fleeing after the shooting. Mrs. Hasson was unable to identify the gunman because a hat had obscured his face, but from police photographs she identified the killer's companion as Leonard Lingo. The primary identification witness was Alfred Costello, a passerby on the night of the crime, who testified that he had a clear view both as the gunman emerged from the market and again a few moments later when the fleeing gunmanafter losing his hat turned to fire a shot at Costello[1] and to shed his coat[2] before continuing on. Costello positively identified Imbler as the gunman. The second identification witness, an attendant at a parking lot through which the gunman ultimately escaped, testified that he had a side and front view as the man passed. Finally, a customer who was leaving Hasson's market as the robbers entered *412 testified that he had a good look then and as they exited moments later. All of these witnesses identified Imbler as the gunman, and the customer also identified the second man as Leonard Lingo. Rigorous cross-examination failed to shake any of these witnesses.[3] Imbler's defense was an alibi. He claimed to have spent the night of the Hasson killing bar-hopping with several persons, and to have met Lingo for the first time the morning before the attempted robbery in Pomona. This testimony was corroborated by Mayes, the other accomplice in |
Justice Powell | 1,976 | 17 | majority | Imbler v. Pachtman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109387/imbler-v-pachtman/ | This testimony was corroborated by Mayes, the other accomplice in the Pomona robbery, who also claimed to have accompanied Imbler on the earlier rounds of the bars. The jury found Imbler guilty and fixed punishment at death.[4] On appeal the Supreme Court of California affirmed unanimously over numerous contentions of error. Shortly thereafter Deputy District Attorney Richard Pachtman, who had been the prosecutor at Imbler's trial and who is the respondent before this Court, wrote to the Governor of California describing evidence turned up after trial by himself and an investigator for the state correctional authority. In substance, the evidence consisted of newly discovered corroborating witnesses for Imbler's alibi, as well as new revelations about prime witness Costello's background which indicated that he was less trustworthy than he had represented originally to Pachtman and in his testimony. Pachtman that leads to some of this information had been available to Imbler's counsel prior to trial but apparently *413 had not been developed, that Costello had testified convincingly and withstood intense cross-examination, and that none of the new evidence was conclusive of Imbler's innocence. He explained that he wrote from a belief that "a prosecuting attorney has a duty to be fair and see that all true facts, whether helpful to the case or not, should be presented."[5] Imbler filed a state habeas corpus petition shortly after Pachtman's letter. The Supreme Court of California appointed one of its retired justices as referee to hold a hearing, at which Costello was the main attraction. He recanted his trial identification of Imbler, and it also was established that on cross-examination and re-direct he had painted a picture of his own background that was more flattering than true. Imbler's corroborating witnesses, uncovered by prosecutor Pachtman's investigations, also testified. In his brief to the Supreme Court of California on this habeas petition, Imbler's counsel described Pachtman's post-trial detective work as "[i]n the highest tradition of law enforcement and justice," and as a premier example of "devotion to duty."[6] But he also charged that the prosecution had knowingly used false testimony and suppressed material evidence at Imbler's trial.[7] In a through opinion by then Justice Traynor, the Supreme Court of California unanimously rejected these contentions and denied the writ. In re Imbler, *414 The California court that the hearing record fully supported the referee's finding that Costello's recantation of his identification lacked credibility compared to the original identification itself, -11, and that the new corroborating witnesses who appeared on Imbler's behalf were unsure of their stories or were otherwise impeached, In the year after denial of his |
Justice Powell | 1,976 | 17 | majority | Imbler v. Pachtman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109387/imbler-v-pachtman/ | were otherwise impeached, In the year after denial of his state habeas petition, Imbler succeeded in having his death sentence overturned on grounds unrelated to this case. In re Imbler, Rather than resentence him, the State stipulated to life imprisonment. There the matter lay for several years, until in late 1967 or early Imbler filed a habeas corpus petition in Federal District Court based on the same contentions previously urged upon and rejected by the Supreme Court of California. The District Court held no hearing. Instead, it decided the petition upon the record, including Pachtman's letter to the Governor and the transcript of the referee's hearing ordered by the Supreme Court of California. Reading that record quite differently than had the seven justices of the State Supreme Court, the District Court found eight instances of state misconduct at Imbler's trial, the cumulative effect of which required issuance of the writ. Six occurred during Costello's testimony and amounted in the court's view to the culpable use by the prosecution of misleading or false testimony.[8] The other two instances were suppressions of *415 evidence favorable to Imbler by a police fingerprint expert who testified at trial and by the police who investigated Hasson's murder.[9] The District Court ordered that the writ of habeas corpus issue unless California retried Imbler within 60 days, and denied a petition for rehearing. The State appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, claiming that the District Court had failed to give appropriate deference to the factual determinations of the Supreme Court of California as required by 28 U.S. C. 2254 (d). The Court of Appeals affirmed, finding that the District Court had merely "reached different conclusions than the state court in applying federal constitutional standards to [the] facts," California chose not to retry Imbler, and he was released. At this point, after a decade of litigation and with Imbler now free, the stage was set for the present suit. In April 1972, Imbler filed a civil rights action, under 42 U.S. C. 1983 and related statutes, against respondent Pachtman, the police fingerprint expert, and various other officers of the Los Angeles police force. He alleged *416 that a conspiracy among them unlawfully to charge and convict him had caused him loss of liberty and other grievous injury. He demanded $2.7 million in actual and exemplary damages from each defendant, plus $15,000 attorney's fees. Imbler attempted to incorporate into his complaint the District Court's decision granting the writ of habeas corpus, and for the most part tracked that court's opinion in setting out the overt |
Justice Powell | 1,976 | 17 | majority | Imbler v. Pachtman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109387/imbler-v-pachtman/ | part tracked that court's opinion in setting out the overt acts in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy. The gravamen of his complaint against Pachtman was that he had "with intent, and on other occasions with negligence" allowed Costello to give false testimony as found by the District Court, and that the fingerprint expert's suppression of evidence was "chargeable under federal law" to Pachtman. In addition Imbler claimed that Pachtman had prosecuted him with knowledge of a lie detector test that had "cleared" Imbler, and that Pachtman had used at trial a police artist's sketch of Hasson's killer made shortly after the crime and allegedly altered to resemble Imbler more closely after the investigation had focused upon him. Pachtman moved under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12 (b) (6) to have the complaint dismissed as to him. The District Court, noting that public prosecutors repeatedly had been held immune from civil liability for "acts done as part of their traditional official functions," found that Pachtman's alleged acts fell into that category and granted his motion. Following the entry of final judgment as to Pachtman under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 54 (b), Imbler appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. That court, one judge dissenting, affirmed the District Court in an opinion finding Pachtman's alleged acts to have been committed "during prosecutorial activities which can only be characterized as an `integral part of the judicial process,' " quoting *417 We granted certiorari to consider the important and recurring issue of prosecutorial liability under the Civil Rights Act of 1871. II Title 42 U.S. C. 1983 provides that "[e]very person" who acts under color of state law to deprive another of a constitutional right shall be answerable to that person in a suit for damages.[10] The statute thus creates a species of tort liability that on its face admits of no immunities, and some have argued that it should be applied as stringently as it reads.[11] But that view has not prevailed. This Court first considered the implications of the statute's literal sweep in There it was claimed that members of a state legislative committee had called the plaintiff to appear before them, not for a proper legislative purpose, but to intimidate him into silence on certain matters of public concern, and thereby had deprived him of his constitutional rights. Because legislators in both England and this country had enjoyed absolute immunity for their official actions, Tenney squarely presented the issue of whether the Reconstruction Congress had intended to *418 restrict the availability in 1983 suits of those immunities which historically, |
Justice Powell | 1,976 | 17 | majority | Imbler v. Pachtman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109387/imbler-v-pachtman/ | the availability in 1983 suits of those immunities which historically, and for reasons of public policy, had been accorded to various categories of officials. The Court concluded that immunities "well grounded in history and reason" had not been abrogated "by covert inclusion in the general language" of Regardless of any unworthy purpose animating their actions, legislators were held to enjoy under this statute their usual immunity when acting "in a field where legislators traditionally have power to act." The decision in Tenney established that 1983 is to be read in harmony with general principles of tort immunities and defenses rather than in derogation of them. Before today the Court has had occasion to consider the liability of several types of government officials in addition to legislators. The common-law absolute immunity of judges for "acts committed within their judicial jurisdiction," see was found to be preserved under 1983 in[12] In the same case, local police officers sued for a deprivation of liberty resulting from unlawful arrest were held to enjoy under 1983 a "good faith and probable cause" defense co-extensive with their defense to false arrest actions at *419 common -557. We found qualified immunities appropriate in two recent cases.[13] In we concluded that the Governor and other executive officials of a State had a qualified immunity that varied with "the scope of discretion and responsibilities of the office and all the circumstances as they reasonably appeared at the time of the action."[14] Last Term in we held that school officials, in the context of imposing disciplinary penalties, were not liable so long as they could not reasonably have known that their action violated students' clearly established constitutional rights, and provided they did not act with malicious intention to cause constitutional or other injury. ; cf. In Scheuer and in Wood, as in the two earlier cases, the considerations underlying the nature of the immunity of the respective officials in suits at common law led to essentially the same immunity under [15] See -321; -247, and n. 4. *420 III This case marks our first opportunity to address the 1983 liability of a state prosecuting officer. The Courts of Appeals, however, have confronted the issue many times and under varying circumstances. Although the precise contours of their holdings have been unclear at times, at bottom they are virtually unanimous that a prosecutor enjoys absolute immunity from 1983 suits for damages when he acts within the scope of his prosecutorial duties.[16] These courts sometimes have described the prosecutor's immunity as a form of "quasi-judicial" immunity and referred to it as derivative of |
Justice Powell | 1,976 | 17 | majority | Imbler v. Pachtman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109387/imbler-v-pachtman/ | of "quasi-judicial" immunity and referred to it as derivative of the immunity of judges recognized in supra.[17] Petitioner focuses upon the "quasi-judicial" characterization, and contends that it illustrates a fundamental illogic in according absolute immunity to a prosecutor. He argues that the prosecutor, as a member of the executive branch, cannot claim the immunity reserved for the judiciary, but only a qualified immunity *421 akin to that accorded other executive officials in this Court's previous cases. Petitioner takes an overly simplistic approach to the issue of prosecutorial liability. As above, our earlier decisions on 1983 immunities were not products of judicial fiat that officials in different branches of government are differently amenable to suit under Rather, each was predicated upon a considered inquiry into the immunity historically accorded the relevant official at common law and the interests behind it. The liability of a state prosecutor under 1983 must be determined in the same manner. A The function of a prosecutor that most often invites a common-law tort action is his decision to initiate a prosecution, as this may lead to a suit for malicious prosecution if the State's case misfires. The first American case to address the question of a prosecutor's amenability to such an action was[18] The complaint charged that a local prosecutor without probable cause added the plaintiff's name to a grand jury true bill after the grand jurors had refused to indict him, with the result that the plaintiff was arrested and forced to appear in court repeatedly before the charge finally was nolle prossed. Despite allegations of malice, the Supreme Court of Indiana dismissed the action on the ground that the prosecutor was absolutely immune. *422 The Griffith view on prosecutorial immunity became the clear majority rule on the issue.[19] The question eventually came to this Court on writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In the claim was that the defendant, a Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, maliciously and without probable cause procured plaintiff's grand jury indictment by the willful introduction of false and misleading evidence Plaintiff sought some $300,000 in damages for having been subjected to the rigors of a trial in which the court ultimately directed a verdict against the Government. The District Court dismissed the complaint, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. After reviewing the development of the doctrine of prosecutorial immunity, that court stated: "In our opinion the law requires us to hold that a special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, in the performance of the duties |
Justice Powell | 1,976 | 17 | majority | Imbler v. Pachtman | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109387/imbler-v-pachtman/ | of the United States, in the performance of the duties imposed upon him by law, is immune from a civil action for malicious prosecution based on an indictment and prosecution, although it results in a verdict of not guilty rendered by a jury. The immunity is absolute, and is grounded on principles of public policy." After briefing and oral argument, this Court affirmed the Court of Appeals in a per curiam opinion. The common-law immunity of a prosecutor is based upon the same considerations that underlie the common-law *423 immunities of judges and grand jurors acting within the scope of their duties.[20] These include concern that harassment by unfounded litigation would cause a deflection of the prosecutor's energies from his public duties, and the possibility that he would shade his decisions instead of exercising the independence of judgment required by his public trust. One court expressed both considerations as follows: "The office of public prosecutor is one which must be administered with courage and independence. Yet how can this be if the prosecutor is made subject to suit by those whom he accuses and fails to convict? To allow this would open the way for unlimited harassment and embarrassment of the most conscientious officials by those who would profit thereby. There would be involved in every case the possible consequences of a failure to obtain a conviction. *424 There would always be a question of possible civil action in case the prosecutor saw fit to move dismissal of the case. The apprehension of such consequences would tend toward great uneasiness and toward weakening the fearless and impartial policy which should characterize the administration of this office. The work of the prosecutor would thus be impeded and we would have moved away from the desired objective of stricter and fairer law enforcement." See also 12 F. 2d, at 404-406. B The common-law rule of immunity is thus well settled.[21] We now must determine whether the same considerations of public policy that underlie the common-law rule likewise countenance absolute immunity under We think they do. If a prosecutor had only a qualified immunity, the threat of 1983 suits would undermine performance of his duties no less than would the threat of common-law suits for malicious prosecution. A prosecutor is duty bound to exercise his best judgment both in deciding which suits to bring and in conducting them in court. The public trust of the prosecutor's office would suffer if he were constrained in making every decision by the consequences in terms of his own potential liability in a *425 suit for damages. |
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