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Justice Alito | 2,008 | 8 | majority | MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Department of Revenue | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145818/meadwestvaco-corp-v-illinois-department-of-revenue/ | Mead and Lexis formed a unitary business. The appellate court may take up that question on remand, and we express no opinion on it now. III The State and its amici argue that vacatur is not required because the judgment of the Appellate Court of Illinois may be affirmed on an alternative ground. They contend that the record amply demonstrates that Lexis did substantial business in Illinois and that Lexis' own contacts with the State suffice to justify the apportionment of Mead's capital gain. See Br. for Respondents 18-25, 46-49; Brief for Multistate Tax Commission as Amicus Curiae 19-29. The State and its amici invite us to recognize a new ground for the constitutional apportionment of intangibles based on the taxing State's contacts with the capital asset rather than the taxpayer. We decline this invitation because the question that the State and its amici call upon us to answer was neither raised nor passed upon in the state courts. It also was not addressed in the State's brief in opposition to the petition. We typically will not address a question under these circumstances even if the answer would *19 afford an alternative ground for affirmance. See ); Lorillard Tobacco v. Reilly, 1 L. Ed. 2d 532 The case for restraint is particularly compelling here, since the question may impact the law of other jurisdictions. The States of Ohio and New York, for example, have both adopted the rationale for apportionment that respondents urge us to recognize today. See Ohio Rev.Code Ann. 5733.051(E)-(F) (West Supp. Pamphlet); N.Y. Tax Law Ann. 210(3)(b) (West Supp.2008); see also (3d Dept.1996) (finding that a "sufficient nexus existed between New York and the dividend and capital gain income" of the nondomiciliary parent because "the corporations generating the income taxed each have their own connection with the taxing jurisdiction"); 1 Hellerstein & Hellerstein ¶ 9.11[2][a]. Neither Ohio nor New York has appeared as an amicus in this case, and neither was on notice that the constitutionality of its tax scheme was at issue, the question having been raised for the first time in the State's brief on the merits. So postured, the question is best left for another day.[4] IV The judgment of the Appellate Court of Illinois is vacated, and this case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. |
Justice O'Connor | 1,989 | 14 | majority | Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112197/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-bruch/ | This case presents two questions concerning the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. *105 829, as amended, 29 U.S. C. 1001 et seq. First, we address the appropriate standard of judicial review of benefit determinations by fiduciaries or plan administrators under ERISA. Second, we determine which persons are "participants" entitled to obtain information about benefit plans covered by ERISA. I Late in 1980, petitioner Firestone Tire and Rubber Company (Firestone) sold, as going concerns, the five plants composing its Plastics Division to Occidental Petroleum Company (Occidental). Most of the approximately 500 salaried employees at the five plants were rehired by Occidental and continued in their same positions without interruption and at the same rates of pay. At the time of the sale, Firestone maintained three pension and welfare benefit plans for its employees: a termination pay plan, a retirement plan, and a stock purchase plan. Firestone was the sole source of funding for the plans and had not established separate trust funds out of which to pay the benefits from the plans. All three of the plans were either "employee welfare benefit plans" or "employee pension benefit plans" governed (albeit in different ways) by ERISA. By operation of law, Firestone itself was the administrator, 29 U.S. C. 1002(16)(A)(ii), and fiduciary, 1002(21)(A), of each of these "unfunded" plans. At the time of the sale of its Plastics Division, Firestone was not aware that the termination pay plan was governed by ERISA, and therefore had not set up a claims procedure, 1133, nor complied with ERISA's reporting and disclosure obligations, 1021-1031, with respect to that plan. Respondents, six Firestone employees who were rehired by Occidental, sought severance benefits from Firestone under the termination pay plan. In relevant part, that plan provides as follows: "If your service is discontinued prior to the time you are eligible for pension benefits, you will be given termination pay if released because of a reduction in work *106 force or if you become physically or mentally unable to perform your job. "The amount of termination pay you will receive will depend on your period of credited company service." Several of the respondents also sought information from Firestone regarding their benefits under all three of the plans pursuant to certain ERISA disclosure provisions. See 1024(b)(4), 1025(a). Firestone denied respondents severance benefits on the ground that the sale of the Plastics Division to Occidental did not constitute a "reduction in work force" within the meaning of the termination pay plan. In addition, Firestone denied the requests for information concerning benefits under the three plans. Firestone |
Justice O'Connor | 1,989 | 14 | majority | Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112197/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-bruch/ | requests for information concerning benefits under the three plans. Firestone concluded that respondents were not entitled to the information because they were no longer "participants" in the plans. Respondents then filed a class action on behalf of "former, salaried, non-union employees who worked in the five plants that comprised the Plastics Division of " Complaint ¶ 9, App. 94. The action was based on 1132(a)(1), which provides that a "civil action may be brought by a participant or beneficiary [of a covered plan] (A) for the relief provided for in [ 1132(c)], [and] (B) to recover benefits due to him under the terms of his plan." In Count I of their complaint, respondents alleged that they were entitled to severance benefits because Firestone's sale of the Plastics Division to Occidental constituted a "reduction in work force" within the meaning of the termination pay plan. Complaint ¶¶ 23-44, App. 98-104. In Count VII, respondents alleged that they were entitled to damages under 1132 (c) because Firestone had breached its reporting obligations under 1025(a). Complaint ¶¶ 87-94, App. 104-106. The District Court granted Firestone's motion for summary judgment. With respect to Count I, the District Court held that Firestone had satisfied its fiduciary duty under ERISA because its decision not to pay severance benefits to respondents under the termination *107 pay plan was not arbitrary or capricious. With respect to Count VII, the District Court held that, although 1024(b)(4) imposes a duty on a plan administrator to respond to written requests for information about the plan, that duty extends only to requests by plan participants and beneficiaries. Under ERISA a plan participant is "any employee or former employee who is or may become eligible to receive a benefit of any type from an employee benefit plan." 1002(7). A beneficiary is "a person designated by a participant, or by the terms of an employee benefit plan, who is or may become entitled to a benefit thereunder." 1002(8). The District Court concluded that respondents were not entitled to damages under 1132(c) because they were not plan "participants" or "beneficiaries" at the time they requested information from The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's grant of summary judgment on Counts I and VII. With respect to Count I, the Court of Appeals acknowledged that most federal courts have reviewed the denial of benefits by ERISA fiduciaries and administrators under the arbitrary and capricious standard. at 138 (citing cases). It noted, however, that the arbitrary and capricious standard had been softened in cases where fiduciaries and administrators had some bias or adverse interest. See, e. |
Justice O'Connor | 1,989 | 14 | majority | Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112197/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-bruch/ | and administrators had some bias or adverse interest. See, e. g., The Court of Appeals held that where an employer is itself the fiduciary and administrator of an unfunded benefit plan, its decision to deny benefits should be subject to de novo judicial review. It reasoned that in such situations deference is unwarranted given the lack of assurance of impartiality on *108 the part of the employer. -145. With respect to Count VII, the Court of Appeals held that the right to request and receive information about an employee benefit plan "most sensibly extend[s] both to people who are in fact entitled to a benefit under the plan and to those who claim to be but in fact are not." Because the District Court had applied different legal standards in granting summary judgment in favor of Firestone on Counts I and VII, the Court of Appeals remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. We granted certiorari, to resolve the conflicts among the Courts of Appeals as to the appropriate standard of review in actions under 1132(a)(1)(B) and the interpretation of the term "participant" in 1002(7). We now affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand the case for further proceedings. II ERISA provides "a panoply of remedial devices" for participants and beneficiaries of benefit plans. Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Respondents' action asserting that they were entitled to benefits because the sale of Firestone's Plastics Division constituted a "reduction in work force" within the meaning of the termination pay plan was based on the authority of 1132(a) (1)(B). That provision allows a suit to recover benefits due under the plan, to enforce rights under the terms of the plan, and to obtain a declaratory judgment of future entitlement to benefits under the provisions of the plan contract. The discussion which follows is limited to the appropriate standard of review in 1132(a)(1)(B) actions challenging denials of benefits based on plan interpretations. We express no view as to the appropriate standard of review for actions under other remedial provisions of ERISA. A Although it is a "comprehensive and reticulated statute," Nachman ERISA does not set out the appropriate standard of review for actions under 1132(a)(1)(B) challenging benefit eligibility determinations. To fill this gap, federal courts have adopted the arbitrary and capricious standard developed under 29 U.S. C. 186(c), a provision of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA). See, e. g., ; In light of Congress' general intent to incorporate much of LMRA fiduciary law into ERISA, see and because ERISA, like the LMRA, imposes a duty of loyalty on |
Justice O'Connor | 1,989 | 14 | majority | Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112197/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-bruch/ | ERISA, like the LMRA, imposes a duty of loyalty on fiduciaries and plan administrators, Firestone argues that the LMRA arbitrary and capricious standard should apply to ERISA actions. See Brief for Petitioners 13-14. A comparison of the LMRA and ERISA, however, shows that the wholesale importation of the arbitrary and capricious standard into ERISA is unwarranted. In relevant part, 29 U.S. C. 186(c) authorizes unions and employers to set up pension plans jointly and provides that contributions to such plans be made "for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees and their families and dependents." The LMRA does not provide for judicial review of the decisions of LMRA trustees. Federal courts adopted the arbitrary and capricious standard both as a standard of review and, more importantly, as a means of asserting jurisdiction over suits under 186(c) by beneficiaries of LMRA plans who were denied benefits by trustees. See Van ("[W]hen a plan provision as interpreted had the effect of denying an application for benefits unreasonably, or as it came to be said, arbitrarily and capriciously, courts would hold that the plan as `structured' was not for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees, so that the denial of *110 benefits violated [ 186(c)])." See also Comment, The Arbitrary and Capricious Standard Under ERISA: Its Origins and Application, 23 Duquesne L. Rev. 1033, 1037-1039 Unlike the LMRA, ERISA explicitly authorizes suits against fiduciaries and plan administrators to remedy statutory violations, including breaches of fiduciary duty and lack of compliance with benefit plans. See 29 U.S. C. 1132(a), 1132(f). See generally Pilot Life Ins. (describing scope of 1132(a)). Thus, the raison d'etre for the LMRA arbitrary and capricious standard the need for a jurisdictional basis in suits against trustees is not present in ERISA. See Note, Judicial Review of Fiduciary Claim Denials Under ERISA: An Alternative to the Arbitrary and Capricious Test, Without this jurisdictional analogy, LMRA principles offer no support for the adoption of the arbitrary and capricious standard insofar as 1132(a)(1)(B) is concerned. B ERISA abounds with the language and terminology of trust law. See, e. g., 29 U.S. C. 1002(7) ("participant"), 1002(8) ("beneficiary"), 1002(21)(A) ("fiduciary"), 1103(a) ("trustee"), 1104 ("fiduciary duties"). ERISA's legislative history confirms that the Act's fiduciary responsibility provisions, 29 U.S. C. 1101-1114, "codif[y] and mak[e] applicable to [ERISA] fiduciaries certain principles developed in the evolution of the law of trusts." H. R. Rep. No. 93-533, p. 11 Given this language and history, we have held that courts are to develop a "federal common law of rights and obligations under ERISA-regulated plans." Pilot Life |
Justice O'Connor | 1,989 | 14 | majority | Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112197/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-bruch/ | law of rights and obligations under ERISA-regulated plans." Pilot Life Ins. See also Franchise Tax (quoting 129 Cong. Rec. 29942 (1974) (remarks of Sen. Javits)). *111 In determining the appropriate standard of review for actions under 1132(a)(1)(B), we are guided by principles of trust law. Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Trust principles make a deferential standard of review appropriate when a trustee exercises discretionary powers. See Restatement (Second) of Trusts 187 (1959) ("Where discretion is conferred upon the trustee with respect to the exercise of a power, its exercise is not subject to control by the court except to prevent an abuse by the trustee of his discretion"). See also G. & G. Law of Trusts and Trustees 560, pp. 193-208 A trustee may be given power to construe disputed or doubtful terms, and in such circumstances the trustee's interpretation will not be disturbed if reasonable. 559, at 169-171. Whether "the exercise of a power is permissive or mandatory depends upon the terms of the trust." 3 W. Fratcher, Scott on Trusts 187, p. 14 Hence, over a century ago we remarked that "[w]hen trustees are in existence, and capable of acting, a court of equity will not interfere to control them in the exercise of a discretion vested in them by the instrument under which they act." See also Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension 8 ("The trustees' determination that the trust documents authorize their access to records here in dispute has significant weight, for the trust agreement explicitly provides that `any construction [of the agreement's provisions] adopted by the Trustees in good faith shall be binding upon the Union, Employees, and Employers' "). Firestone can seek no shelter in these principles of trust law, however, for there is no evidence that under Firestone's termination pay plan the administrator has the power to construe uncertain terms or that eligibility determinations are to be given deference. See Brief for Respondents *112 24-25; Reply Brief for Petitioners 7, n. 2; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 14-15, n. 11. Finding no support in the language of its termination pay plan for the arbitrary and capricious standard, Firestone argues that as a matter of trust law the interpretation of the terms of a plan is an inherently discretionary function. But other settled principles of trust law, which point to de novo review of benefit eligibility determinations based on plan interpretations, belie this contention. As they do with contractual provisions, courts construe terms in trust agreements without deferring to either party's interpretation. "The extent of the duties and powers |
Justice O'Connor | 1,989 | 14 | majority | Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112197/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-bruch/ | either party's interpretation. "The extent of the duties and powers of a trustee is determined by the rules of law that are applicable to the situation, and not the rules that the trustee or his attorney believes to be applicable, and by the terms of the trust as the court may interpret them, and not as they may be interpreted by the trustee himself or by his attorney." 3 W. Fratcher, Scott on Trusts 201, at 221 A trustee who is in doubt as to the interpretation of the instrument can protect himself by obtaining instructions from the court. & 559, at 162-168; Restatement (Second) of Trusts 201, Comment b (1959). See also United The terms of trusts created by written instruments are "determined by the provisions of the instrument as interpreted in light of all the circumstances and such other evidence of the intention of the settlor with respect to the trust as is not inadmissible." Restatement (Second) of Trusts 4, Comment d (1959). The trust law de novo standard of review is consistent with the judicial interpretation of employee benefit plans prior to the enactment of ERISA. Actions challenging an employer's denial of benefits before the enactment of ERISA were governed by principles of contract law. If the plan did not give the employer or administrator discretionary or final authority to construe uncertain terms, the court reviewed the employee's claim as it would have any other contract claim *113 by looking to the terms of the plan and other manifestations of the parties' intent. See, e. g., ; Atlantic Steel ; Despite these principles of trust law pointing to a de novo standard of review for claims like respondents', Firestone would have us read ERISA to require the application of the arbitrary and capricious standard to such claims. ERISA defines a fiduciary as one who "exercises any discretionary authority or discretionary control respecting management of [a] plan or exercises any authority or control respecting management or disposition of its assets." 29 U.S. C. 1002(21) (A)(i). A fiduciary has "authority to control and manage the operation and administration of the plan," 1102(a)(1), and must provide a "full and fair review" of claim denials, 1133(2). From these provisions, Firestone concludes that an ERISA plan administrator, fiduciary, or trustee is empowered to exercise all his authority in a discretionary manner subject only to review for arbitrariness and capriciousness. But the provisions relied upon so heavily by Firestone do not characterize a fiduciary as one who exercises entirely discretionary authority or control. Rather, one is a fiduciary to the extent he |
Justice O'Connor | 1,989 | 14 | majority | Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112197/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-bruch/ | control. Rather, one is a fiduciary to the extent he exercises any discretionary authority or control. Cf. United Mine Workers of America Health and Retirement ERISA was enacted "to promote the interests of employees and their beneficiaries in employee benefit plans," Shaw v. Delta Airlines, and "to protect contractually defined benefits," Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. See generally 29 U.S. C. 1001 (setting forth congressional findings and declarations of policy regarding ERISA). Adopting Firestone's *114 reading of ERISA would require us to impose a standard of review that would afford less protection to employees and their beneficiaries than they enjoyed before ERISA was enacted. Nevertheless, Firestone maintains that congressional action after the passage of ERISA indicates that Congress intended ERISA claims to be reviewed under the arbitrary and capricious standard. At a time when most federal courts had adopted the arbitrary and capricious standard of review, a bill was introduced in Congress to amend 1132 by providing de novo review of decisions denying benefits. See H. R. 6226, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. reprinted in Pension Legislation: Hearings on H. R. 1614 et al. before the Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations of the House Committee on Education and Labor, 97th Cong., 2d Sess., 60 Because the bill was never enacted, Firestone asserts that we should conclude that Congress was satisfied with the arbitrary and capricious standard. See Brief for Petitioners 19-20. We do not think that this bit of legislative inaction carries the day for Though "instructive," failure to act on the proposed bill is not conclusive of Congress' views on the appropriate standard of review. The bill's demise may have been the result of events that had nothing to do with Congress' view on the propriety of de novo review. Without more, we cannot ascribe to Congress any acquiescence in the arbitrary and capricious standard. "[T]he views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one." United U.S. 304, Firestone and its amici also assert that a de novo standard would contravene the spirit of ERISA because it would impose much higher administrative and litigation costs and therefore discourage employers from creating benefit plans. See, e. g., Brief for American Council of Life Insurance et al. as Amici Curiae 10-11. Because even under the arbitrary and capricious standard an employer's denial of benefits could *115 be subject to judicial review, the assumption seems to be that a de novo standard would encourage more litigation by employees, participants, and beneficiaries who wish to assert their right to benefits. Neither general principles of trust law nor a |
Justice O'Connor | 1,989 | 14 | majority | Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112197/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-bruch/ | to benefits. Neither general principles of trust law nor a concern for impartial decisionmaking, however, forecloses parties from agreeing upon a narrower standard of review. Moreover, as to both funded and unfunded plans, the threat of increased litigation is not sufficient to outweigh the reasons for a de novo standard that we have already explained. As this case aptly demonstrates, the validity of a claim to benefits under an ERISA plan is likely to turn on the interpretation of terms in the plan at issue. Consistent with established principles of trust law, we hold that a denial of benefits challenged under 1132(a)(1)(B) is to be reviewed under a de novo standard unless the benefit plan gives the administrator or fiduciary discretionary authority to determine eligibility for benefits or to construe the terms of the plan. Because we do not rest our decision on the concern for impartiality that guided the Court of Appeals, see -, we need not distinguish between types of plans or focus on the motivations of plan administrators and fiduciaries. Thus, for purposes of actions under 1132(a)(1)(B), the de novo standard of review applies regardless of whether the plan at issue is funded or unfunded and regardless of whether the administrator or fiduciary is operating under a possible or actual conflict of interest. Of course, if a benefit plan gives discretion to an administrator or fiduciary who is operating under a conflict of interest, that conflict must be weighed as a "facto[r] in determining whether there is an abuse of discretion." Restatement (Second) of Trusts 187, Comment d (1959). III Respondents unsuccessfully sought plan information from Firestone pursuant to 29 U.S. C. 1024(b)(4), one of *116 ERISA's disclosure provisions. That provision reads as follows: "The administrator shall, upon written request of any participant or beneficiary, furnish a copy of the latest updated summary plan description, plan description, and the latest annual report, any terminal report, the bargaining agreement, trust agreement, contract, or other instruments under which the plan is established or operated. The administrator may make a reasonable charge to cover the cost of furnishing such complete copies. The Secretary [of Labor] may by regulation prescribe the maximum amount which will constitute a reasonable charge under the preceding sentence." When Firestone did not comply with their request for information, respondents sought damages under 29 U.S. C. 1132 (c)(1)(B) (1982 ed., Supp. IV), which provides that "[a]ny administrator. who fails or refuses to comply with a request for any information which such administrator is required by this subchapter to furnish to a participant or beneficiary may in the |
Justice O'Connor | 1,989 | 14 | majority | Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112197/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-bruch/ | to furnish to a participant or beneficiary may in the court's discretion be personally liable to such participant or beneficiary in the amount of up to $100 a day." Respondents have not alleged that they are "beneficiaries" as defined in 1002(8). See Complaint ¶¶ 87-95, App. 104-106. The dispute in this case therefore centers on the definition of the term "participant," which is found in 1002(7): "The term `participant' means any employee or former employee of an employer, or any member or former member of an employee organization, who is or may become eligible to receive a benefit of any type from an employee benefit plan which covers employees of such employer or members of such organization, or whose beneficiaries may be eligible to receive any such benefit." The Court of Appeals noted that 1132(a)(1) allows suits for benefits "by a participant or beneficiary." Finding that it would be illogical to say that a person could only bring a claim for benefits if he or she was entitled to benefits, the Court of *117 Appeals reasoned that 1132(a)(1) should be read to mean that " `a civil action may be brought by someone who claims to be a participant or beneficiary.' " It went on to conclude that the same interpretation should apply with respect to 1024(b)(4): "A provision such as that one, entitling people to information on the extent of their benefits, would most sensibly extend both to people who are in fact entitled to a benefit under the plan and to those who claim to be but in fact are not." The Court of Appeals "concede[d] that it is expensive and inefficient to provide people with information about benefits and to permit them to obtain damages if information is withheld if they are clearly not entitled to the benefits about which they are informed." It tried to solve this dilemma by suggesting that courts use discretion and not award damages if the employee's claim for benefits was not colorable or if the employer did not act in bad faith. There is, however, a more fundamental problem with the Court of Appeals' interpretation of the term "participant": it strays far from the statutory language. Congress did not say that all "claimants" could receive information about benefit plans. To say that a "participant" is any person who claims to be one begs the question of who is a "participant" and renders the definition set forth in 1002(7) superfluous. Indeed, respondents admitted at oral argument that "the words point against [them]." Tr. of Oral Arg. 40. In our view, |
Justice O'Connor | 1,989 | 14 | majority | Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112197/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-bruch/ | against [them]." Tr. of Oral Arg. 40. In our view, the term "participant" is naturally read to mean either "employees in, or reasonably expected to be in, currently covered employment," or former employees who "have a reasonable expectation of returning to covered employment" or who have "a colorable claim" to vested benefits, (CA9) (per curiam), cert. denied, In order to establish that he or she "may become eligible" for benefits, a claimant must have a colorable claim that (1) he or she will prevail in a suit for benefits, or that (2) eligibility requirements *118 will be fulfilled in the future. "This view attributes conventional meanings to the statutory language since all employees in covered employment and former employees with a colorable claim to vested benefits `may become eligible.' A former employee who has neither a reasonable expectation of returning to covered employment nor a colorable claim to vested benefits, however, simply does not fit within the [phrase] `may become eligible.' " at We do not think Congress' purpose in enacting the ERISA disclosure provisions ensuring that "the individual participant knows exactly where he stands with respect to the plan," H. R. Rep. No. 93-533, p. 11 will be thwarted by a natural reading of the term "participant." Faced with the possibility of $100 a day in penalties under 1132(c)(1)(B), a rational plan administrator or fiduciary would likely opt to provide a claimant with the information requested if there is any doubt as to whether the claimant is a "participant," especially when the reasonable costs of producing the information can be recovered. See 29 CFR 2520.104b-30(b) (the "charge assessed by the plan administrator to cover the costs of furnishing documents is reasonable if it is equal to the actual cost per page to the plan for the least expensive means of acceptable reproduction, but in no event may such charge exceed 25 cents per page"). The Court of Appeals did not attempt to determine whether respondents were "participants" under 1002(7). See -153. We likewise express no views as to whether respondents were "participants" with respect to the benefit plans about which they sought information. Those questions are best left to the Court of Appeals on remand. For the reasons set forth above, the decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion. So ordered. *119 JUSTICE SCALIA, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. |
Justice White | 1,989 | 6 | concurring | Teague v. Lane | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112206/teague-v-lane/ | I join Parts I, II, and III of JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S opinion. Otherwise, I concur only in the judgment. *317 Our opinion in authored by JUSTICE BRENNAN, articulated a three-factor formula for determining the retroactivity of decisions changing the constitutional rules of criminal procedure. The formula, which applied whether a case was on direct review or arose in collateral proceedings, involved consideration of the purpose of the new rule, the extent of reliance on the old rule, and the effect on the administration of justice of retroactive application of the new rule. In a series of cases, however, the Court has departed from Stovall and has held that decisions changing the governing rules in criminal cases will be applied retroactively to all cases then pending on direct review, e. g., United ; ; I dissented in those cases, believing that Stovall was the sounder approach. Other Justices, including the CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE O'CONNOR, joined my dissents in those cases. The CHIEF JUSTICE indicated in Shea and Griffith, and JUSTICE O'CONNOR has now concluded, that the Stovall formula should also be abandoned in cases where convictions have become final and the issue of retroactivity arises in collateral proceedings. I regret the course the Court has taken to this point, but cases like Johnson, Shea, and Griffith have been decided, and I have insufficient reason to continue to object to them. In light of those decisions, the result reached in Parts IV and V of JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S opinion is an acceptable application in collateral proceedings of the theories embraced by the Court in cases dealing with direct review, and I concur in that result. If we are wrong in construing the reach of the habeas corpus statutes, Congress can of course correct us; but because the Court's recent decisions dealing with direct review appear to have constitutional underpinnings, see e. g., correction of our error, if error there is, perhaps lies with us, not Congress. *318A JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. I join Part I of JUSTICE STEVENS' opinion, post this page and 319-323, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. So far as the petitioner's claim based upon is concerned, I concur in the judgment. *318B JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE BLACKMUN joins as to Part I, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. I For the reasons stated in Part III of JUSTICE BRENNAN'S dissent, post, at 342, I am persuaded this petitioner has alleged a violation of the Sixth Amendment.[1] I also believe the Court should decide that question in his favor. |
Justice White | 1,989 | 6 | concurring | Teague v. Lane | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112206/teague-v-lane/ | believe the Court should decide that question in his favor. I do not agree with JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S assumption that a ruling in petitioner's favor on the merits of the Sixth Amendment issue would require that his conviction be set aside. See ante, at 300, 315. When a criminal defendant claims that a procedural error tainted his conviction, an appellate court often decides whether error occurred before deciding whether that error requires reversal or should be classified as harmless. I would follow a parallel approach in cases raising novel questions of constitutional law on collateral review, first determining *319 whether the trial process violated any of the petitioner's constitutional rights and then deciding whether the petitioner is entitled to relief. If error occurred, factors relating to retroactivity most importantly, the magnitude of unfairness should be examined before granting the petitioner relief. Proceeding in reverse, a plurality of the Court today declares that a new rule should not apply retroactively without ever deciding whether there is such a rule.[2] In general, I share Justice Harlan's views about retroactivity. See ; Thus I joined the Court in holding that, as Justice Harlan had urged, new criminal procedural rules should be applied to all defendants whose convictions are not final when the rule is announced. I also agree with Justice Harlan that defendants seeking collateral review should not benefit from new rules unless those rules "fre[e] individuals from punishment for conduct that is constitutionally protected" or unless the original trial entailed elements of fundamental unfairness. Thus, although I question the propriety of making such an important change in the law without briefing or argument, cf. I am persuaded that the Court should adopt Justice Harlan's analysis of retroactivity for habeas corpus cases as well for cases still on direct review. See ante, at 305-310. I do not agree, however, with the plurality's dicta proposing a "modification" of Justice Harlan's fundamental fairness exception. See ante, at 311-. "[I]t has been the law, presumably for at least as long as anyone currently in jail has been incarcerated," Justice Harlan wrote, "that procedures utilized to convict them must have been fundamentally fair, that is, in accordance with the command of the Fourteenth Amendment that `[n]o State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' " He continued: "[T]he writ ought always to lie for claims of nonobservance of those procedures that, as so aptly described by Mr. Justice Cardozo in are `implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.' Typically, it should be the case that any conviction free from |
Justice White | 1,989 | 6 | concurring | Teague v. Lane | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112206/teague-v-lane/ | it should be the case that any conviction free from federal constitutional error at the time it became final, will be found, upon reflection, to have been fundamentally fair and conducted under those procedures essential to the substance of a full hearing. However, in some situations it might be that time and growth in social capacity, as well as judicial perceptions of what we can rightly demand of the adjudicatory process, will properly alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements that must be found to vitiate the fairness of a particular conviction." In embracing Justice Cardozo's notion that errors "violat[ing] those `fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions,' " must be rectified, Justice Harlan expressly rejected a previous statement linking the fundamental fairness exception to factual innocence. ; see The plurality wrongly resuscitates Justice Harlan's early view, indicating that the only procedural errors deserving correction on collateral review are those that undermine "an accurate determination of innocence or guilt" See ante, at 313. I cannot agree that it is "unnecessarily anachronistic," ante, at 312, to issue a writ of habeas corpus to a petitioner convicted in a manner that violates fundamental principles of liberty. Furthermore, a touchstone of factual innocence would provide little guidance in certain important types of cases, such as those challenging the constitutionality of capital sentencing hearings.[3] Even when assessing errors *322 at the guilt phase of a trial, factual innocence is too capricious a factor by which to determine if a procedural change is sufficiently "bedrock" or "watershed" to justify application of the fundamental fairness exception. See ante, at 311. In contrast, given our century-old proclamation that the Constitution does not allow exclusion of jurors because of race, a rule promoting selection of juries free from racial bias clearly implicates concerns of fundamental fairness. As a matter of first impression, therefore, I would conclude that a guilty verdict delivered by a jury whose impartiality might have been eroded by racial prejudice is fundamentally unfair. Constraining that conclusion is the Court's holding in an opinion I did not join that Batson v. cannot be applied retroactively to permit collateral review of convictions that became final before it was decided. It is true that the Batson decision rested on the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that this case raises a Sixth Amendment issue. In both cases, however, petitioners pressed their objections to the jury selection on both grounds. See ante, at 293; Batson v. Both cases concern the constitutionality of allowing |
Justice White | 1,989 | 6 | concurring | Teague v. Lane | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112206/teague-v-lane/ | 293; Batson v. Both cases concern the constitutionality of allowing the use of peremptories to yield a jury that may be biased against a defendant on account of race. Identical practical ramifications will ensue from our holdings in both cases. Thus if there is no fundamental unfairness in denying retroactive relief to a petitioner denied his Fourteenth Amendment right to a fairly chosen jury, as the Court *323 held in Allen,[4] there cannot be fundamental unfairness in denying this petitioner relief for the violation of his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. I therefore agree that the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be affirmed.[5] II I do not, however, agree with the Court's disposition of the contention that the prosecutor violated the Equal Protection Clause by using peremptory challenges to exclude black persons from petitioner's jury. Ante, at -299. The basis for this claim is which reaffirmed that equal protection requires that jurors " `be selected as individuals, on the basis of individual qualifications, and not as members of a race.' " ). Discussing how a defendant might prove purposeful racial discrimination in jury selection, the Court stated: "In the light of the purpose of the peremptory system and the function it serves in a pluralistic society in connection with the institution of jury trial, we cannot hold that the Constitution requires an examination of the prosecutor's reasons for the exercise of his challenges in any given case. The presumption in any particular case must be that the prosecutor is using the State's challenges to obtain a fair and impartial jury to try the case before the court. The presumption is not overcome and the prosecutor therefore subjected to examination by allegations that in the case at hand all Negroes were removed *324 from the jury or that they were removed because they were Negroes." The Court of Appeals rejected petitioner's claim because he "did not specifically raise [it] in the state court," and because he had not rebutted the presumption by "show[ing] the prosecutor's systematic use of peremptory challenges against Negroes over a period of time." It thus ignored the import of petitioner's claim; i. e., that a prosecutor who volunteers explanations for using peremptories erases the presumption, so that the trial judge should examine whether the race-neutral explanations are genuine or pretextual. Petitioner's trial counsel twice moved for a mistrial on the ground that the prosecutor impermissibly had exercised peremptory challenges to effect an all-white jury. The prosecutor responded that "numerous individuals that were excused were of very young years. There was an attempt, your |
Justice White | 1,989 | 6 | concurring | Teague v. Lane | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112206/teague-v-lane/ | were of very young years. There was an attempt, your Honor, to have a balance of an equal number of men and women" App. 3.[6] With little comment the trial court * denied the mistrial motions. There is substantial force to petitioner's argument that the volunteered explanations made this more than the "ordinary exercise of challenges" to which 's systematic proof requirement applies, and that the trial court erred by failing to scrutinize the prosecutor's excuses.[7] I note, however, that petitioner never presented his claim to the state courts before including it in the instant federal habeas petition. In the Court announced that a habeas petition containing exhausted and unexhausted claims must be dismissed. Literal adherence to that pronouncement would require that this case be remanded to the District Court with instructions to dismiss the petition without consideration of the exhausted Sixth Amendment claim. The Court avoids this result by *326 holding that "petitioner has forfeited review of the claim in the Illinois courts" and thus exhausted his state remedies. Ante, at It is true that "a federal habeas court need not require that a federal claim be presented to a state court if it is clear that the state court would hold the claim procedurally barred." Harris v. Reed, ante, at 263, n. 9 (citing Castille v. Peoples, post, at 351; ante, at 298). I am by no means convinced, however, that the Illinois courts would not conclude that petitioner's claim falls within their fundamental fairness exception to their ban on collateral review of claims that are otherwise waived. Thus, in the absence of any "plain statement" by the Illinois courts, cf. we should let the Illinois judiciary decide whether there is a procedural default that forecloses review of that claim. Until those courts have spoken, I would treat petitioner's claim as an unexhausted claim that is not ripe for review on federal habeas. Because "the exhaustion rule requiring dismissal of mixed petitions is not jurisdictional," and because petitioner's Sixth Amendment claim is foreclosed by the decision in Allen, I concur in the Court's judgment. |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | The question presented by this case is not whether the Second Amendment protects a "collective right" or an "individual right." Surely it protects a right that can be enforced by individuals. But a conclusion that the Second Amendment protects an individual right does not tell us anything about the scope of that right. Guns are used to hunt, for self-defense, to commit crimes, for sporting activities, and to perform military duties. The Second Amendment plainly does not protect the right to use a gun to rob a bank; it is equally clear that it does encompass the right to use weapons for certain military purposes. Whether it also protects the right to possess and use guns for nonmilitary purposes like hunting and personal self-defense is the question presented by this case. The text of the Amendment, its history, and our decision in United provide a clear answer to that question. The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia. It was a response to concerns raised during the ratification of the Constitution that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several States. Neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature's authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms. Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution. In 1934, Congress enacted the National Firearms Act, the first major federal firearms law.[1] Upholding a conviction under *2823 that Act, this Court held that, "[i]n the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a `shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument." The view of the Amendment we took in that it protects the right to keep and bear arms for certain military purposes, but that it does not curtail the Legislature's power to regulate the nonmilitary use and ownership of weaponsis both the most natural reading of the Amendment's text and the interpretation most faithful to the history of its adoption. Since our decision in hundreds of judges have relied on the view of the Amendment we endorsed there;[2] we ourselves affirmed |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | view of the Amendment we endorsed there;[2] we ourselves affirmed it in See[3] No new evidence has surfaced since supporting the view that the Amendment was intended to curtail the power of Congress to regulate civilian use or misuse of weapons. Indeed, a review of the drafting history of the Amendment demonstrates that its Framers rejected proposals that would have broadened its coverage to include such uses. The opinion the Court announces today fails to identify any new evidence supporting the view that the Amendment was intended to limit the power of Congress to regulate civilian uses of weapons. Unable to point to any such evidence, the Court stakes its holding on a strained and unpersuasive reading of the Amendment's text; significantly different provisions in the *28 1689 English Bill of Rights, and in various 19th-century State Constitutions; postenactment commentary that was available to the Court when it decided ; and, ultimately, a feeble attempt to distinguish that places more emphasis on the Court's decisional process than on the reasoning in the opinion itself. Even if the textual and historical arguments on both sides of the issue were evenly balanced, respect for the well-settled views of all of our predecessors on this Court, and for the rule of law itself, see would prevent most jurists from endorsing such a dramatic upheaval in the law.[4] As Justice Cardozo observed years ago, the "labor of judges would be increased almost to the breaking point if every past decision could be reopened in every case, and one could not lay one's own course of bricks on the secure foundation of the courses laid by others who had gone before him." The Nature of the Judicial Process 149 (1921). In this dissent I shall first explain why our decision in was faithful to the text of the Second Amendment and the purposes revealed in its drafting history. I shall then comment on the postratification history of the Amendment, which makes abundantly clear that the Amendment should not be interpreted as limiting the authority of Congress to regulate the use or possession of firearms for purely civilian purposes. I The text of the Second Amendment is brief. It provides: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Three portions of that text merit special focus: the introductory language defining the Amendment's purpose, the class of persons encompassed within its reach, and the unitary nature of the right that it protects. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | right that it protects. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" The preamble to the Second Amendment makes three important points. It identifies the preservation of the militia as the Amendment's purpose; it explains that the militia is necessary to the security of a free State; and it recognizes that the militia must be "well regulated." In all three respects it is comparable to provisions in several State Declarations of Rights that were adopted roughly contemporaneously *2825 with the Declaration of Independence.[5] Those state provisions highlight the importance members of the founding generation attached to the maintenance of state militias; they also underscore the profound fear shared by many in that era of the dangers posed by standing armies.[6] While the need for state militias has not been a matter of significant public interest for almost two centuries, that fact should not obscure the contemporary concerns that animated the Framers. The parallels between the Second Amendment and these state declarations, and the Second Amendment's omission of any statement of purpose related to the right to use firearms for hunting or personal self-defense, is especially striking in light of the fact that the Declarations of Rights of Pennsylvania and Vermont did expressly protect such civilian uses at the time. Article XIII of Pennsylvania's 1776 Declaration of Rights announced that "the people have a right to bear arms for the *2826 defence of themselves and the state," 1 Schwartz 266 ; 43 of the Declaration assured that "the inhabitants of this state shall have the liberty to fowl and hunt in seasonable times on the lands they hold, and on all other lands therein not inclosed," And Article XV of the 1777 Vermont Declaration of Rights guaranteed "[t]hat the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State." The contrast between those two declarations and the Second Amendment reinforces the clear statement of purpose announced in the Amendment's preamble. It confirms that the Framers' single-minded focus in crafting the constitutional guarantee "to keep and bear arms" was on military uses of firearms, which they viewed in the context of service in state militias. The preamble thus both sets forth the object of the Amendment and informs the meaning of the remainder of its text. Such text should not be treated as mere surplusage, for "[i]t cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect." The Court today tries to denigrate the importance of this clause of the Amendment by beginning its analysis with the |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | clause of the Amendment by beginning its analysis with the Amendment's operative provision and returning to the preamble merely "to ensure that our reading of the operative clause is consistent with the announced purpose." Ante, at 2790. That is not how this Court ordinarily reads such texts, and it is not how the preamble would have been viewed at the time the Amendment was adopted. While the Court makes the novel suggestion that it need only find some "logical connection" between the preamble and the operative provision, it does acknowledge that a prefatory clause may resolve an ambiguity in the text. Ante, at 2789.[7] Without identifying any language in the text that even mentions civilian uses of firearms, the Court proceeds to "find" its preferred reading in what is at best an ambiguous text, and then concludes that its reading is not foreclosed by the preamble. Perhaps the Court's approach to the text is acceptable advocacy, but it is surely an unusual approach for judges to follow. "The right of the people" The centerpiece of the Court's textual argument is its insistence that the words "the people" as used in the Second Amendment must have the same meaning, and protect the same class of individuals, as when they are used in the First and Fourth Amendments. According to the Court, in all three provisions as well as *2827 the Constitution's preamble, section 2 of Article I, and the Tenth Amendment"the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset." Ante, at 2790-2791. But the Court itself reads the Second Amendment to protect a "subset" significantly narrower than the class of persons protected by the First and Fourth Amendments; when it finally drills down on the substantive meaning of the Second Amendment, the Court limits the protected class to "law-abiding, responsible citizens," ante, at 2821. But the class of persons protected by the First and Fourth Amendments is not so limited; for even felons (and presumably irresponsible citizens as well) may invoke the protections of those constitutional provisions. The Court offers no way to harmonize its conflicting pronouncements. The Court also overlooks the significance of the way the Framers used the phrase "the people" in these constitutional provisions. In the First Amendment, no words define the class of individuals entitled to speak, to publish, or to worship; in that Amendment it is only the right peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, that is described as a right of "the people." These rights contemplate collective action. While the right |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | "the people." These rights contemplate collective action. While the right peaceably to assemble protects the individual rights of those persons participating in the assembly, its concern is with action engaged in by members of a group, rather than any single individual. Likewise, although the act of petitioning the Government is a right that can be exercised by individuals, it is primarily collective in nature. For if they are to be effective, petitions must involve groups of individuals acting in concert. Similarly, the words "the people" in the Second Amendment refer back to the object announced in the Amendment's preamble. They remind us that it is the collective action of individuals having a duty to serve in the militia that the text directly protects and, perhaps more importantly, that the ultimate purpose of the Amendment was to protect the States' share of the divided sovereignty created by the Constitution. As used in the Fourth Amendment, "the people" describes the class of persons protected from unreasonable searches and seizures by Government officials. It is true that the Fourth Amendment describes a right that need not be exercised in any collective sense. But that observation does not settle the meaning of the phrase "the people" when used in the Second Amendment. For, as we have seen, the phrase means something quite different in the Petition and Assembly Clauses of the First Amendment. Although the abstract definition of the phrase "the people" could carry the same meaning in the Second Amendment as in the Fourth Amendment, the preamble of the Second Amendment suggests that the uses of the phrase in the First and Second Amendments are the same in referring to a collective activity. By way of contrast, the Fourth Amendment describes a right against governmental interference rather than an affirmative right to engage in protected conduct, and so refers to a right to protect a purely individual interest. As used in the Second Amendment, the words "the people" do not enlarge the right to keep and bear arms to encompass use or ownership of weapons outside the context of service in a well-regulated militia. "To keep and bear Arms" Although the Court's discussion of these words treats them as two "phrases"as if they read "to keep" and "to bear"they describe a unitary right: to possess arms if needed for military purposes and to use them in conjunction with military activities. *2828 As a threshold matter, it is worth pausing to note an oddity in the Court's interpretation of "to keep and bear arms." Unlike the Court of Appeals, the Court does not read |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | Unlike the Court of Appeals, the Court does not read that phrase to create a right to possess arms for "lawful, private purposes." (C.A.D.C.2007). Instead, the Court limits the Amendment's protection to the right "to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation." Ante, at 2797. No party or amicus urged this interpretation; the Court appears to have fashioned it out of whole cloth. But although this novel limitation lacks support in the text of the Amendment, the Amendment's text does justify a different limitation: the "right to keep and bear arms" protects only a right to possess and use firearms in connection with service in a state-organized militia. The term "bear arms" is a familiar idiom; when used unadorned by any additional words, its meaning is "to serve as a soldier, do military service, fight." 1 Oxford English Dictionary 634 (2d ed.1989). It is derived from the Latin arma ferre, which, translated literally, means "to bear [ferre] war equipment [arma]." Brief for Professors of Linguistics and English as Amici Curiae 19. One 18th-century dictionary defined "arms" as "weapons of offence, or armour of defence," 1 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), and another contemporaneous source explained that "[b]y arms, we understand those instruments of offence generally made use of in war; such as firearms, swords, & c. By weapons, we more particularly mean instruments of other kinds (exclusive of fire-arms), made use of as offensive, on special occasions." 1 J. Trusler, The Distinction Between Words Esteemed Synonymous in the English Language 37 (1794).[8] Had the Framers wished to expand the meaning of the phrase "bear arms" to encompass civilian possession and use, they could have done so by the addition of phrases such as "for the defense of themselves," as was done in the Pennsylvania and Vermont Declarations of Rights. The unmodified use of "bear arms," by contrast, refers most naturally to a military purpose, as evidenced by its use in literally dozens of contemporary texts.[9] The absence of any reference *2829 to civilian uses of weapons tailors the text of the Amendment to the purpose identified in its preamble.[10] But when discussing these words, the Court simply ignores the preamble. The Court argues that a "qualifying phrase that contradicts the word or phrase it modifies is unknown this side of the looking glass." Ante, at 2795. But this fundamentally fails to grasp the point. The stand-alone phrase "bear arms" most naturally conveys a military meaning unless the addition of a qualifying phrase signals that a different meaning is intended. When, as in this case, there |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | different meaning is intended. When, as in this case, there is no such qualifier, the most natural meaning is the military one; and, in the absence of any qualifier, it is all the more appropriate to look to the preamble to confirm the natural meaning of the text.[11] The Court's *2830 objection is particularly puzzling in light of its own contention that the addition of the modifier "against" changes the meaning of "bear arms." Compare ante, at 2793 (defining "bear arms" to mean "carrying [a weapon] for a particular purposeconfrontation"), with ante, at 2794 ("The phrase `bear Arms' also had at the time of the founding an idiomatic meaning that was significantly different from its natural meaning: to serve as a soldier, do military service, fight or to wage war. But it unequivocally bore that idiomatic meaning only when followed by the preposition `against.'" (citations and some internal quotation marks omitted)). The Amendment's use of the term "keep" in no way contradicts the military meaning conveyed by the phrase "bear arms" and the Amendment's preamble. To the contrary, a number of state militia laws in effect at the time of the Second Amendment's drafting used the term "keep" to describe the requirement that militia members store their arms at their homes, ready to be used for service when necessary. The Virginia military law, for example, ordered that "every one of the said officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, shall constantly keep the aforesaid arms, accoutrements, and ammunition, ready to be produced whenever called for by his commanding officer." Act for Regulating and Disciplining the Militia, 1785 Va. Acts ch. 1, 3, p. 2[12] "[K]eep and bear arms" thus perfectly describes the responsibilities of a framing-era militia member. This reading is confirmed by the fact that the clause protects only one right, rather than two. It does not describe a right "to keep arms" and a separate right "to bear arms." Rather, the single right that it does describe is both a duty and a right to have arms available and ready for military service, and to use them for military purposes when necessary.[13] Different language surely would have been used to protect nonmilitary use and possession of weapons from regulation if such an intent had played any role in the drafting of the Amendment. *2831 * * * When each word in the text is given full effect, the Amendment is most naturally read to secure to the people a right to use and possess arms in conjunction with service in a well-regulated militia. So far as appears, no more than |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | a well-regulated militia. So far as appears, no more than that was contemplated by its drafters or is encompassed within its terms. Even if the meaning of the text were genuinely susceptible to more than one interpretation, the burden would remain on those advocating a departure from the purpose identified in the preamble and from settled law to come forward with persuasive new arguments or evidence. The textual analysis offered by respondent and embraced by the Court falls far short of sustaining that heavy burden.[14] And the Court's emphatic reliance on the claim "that the Second Amendment codified a pre-existing right," ante, at 2804, is of course beside the point because the right to keep and bear arms for service in a state militia was also a pre-existing right. Indeed, not a word in the constitutional text even arguably supports the Court's overwrought and novel description of the Second Amendment as "elevat[ing] above all other interests" "the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home." Ante, at 2821. II The proper allocation of military power in the new Nation was an issue of central concern for the Framers. The compromises they ultimately reached, reflected in Article I's Militia Clauses and the Second Amendment, represent quintessential examples of the Framers'"splitting the atom of sovereignty."[15] Two themes relevant to our current interpretive task ran through the debates on the original Constitution. "On the one hand, there was a widespread fear that a national standing Army posed an intolerable threat to individual liberty and to the sovereignty of the separate States."[16] Governor Edmund Randolph, reporting on the Constitutional Convention to the Virginia Ratification Convention, explained: "With respect to a standing army, I believe there was not a member in the federal Convention, who did not feel indignation at such an institution." 3 J. Elliot, *2832 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 401 (2d ed. 1863) (hereinafter Elliot). On the other hand, the Framers recognized the dangers inherent in relying on inadequately trained militia members "as the primary means of providing for the common defense," 496 U.S., at[17] In order to respond to those twin concerns, a compromise was reached: Congress would be authorized to raise and support a national Army[18] and Navy, and also to organize, arm, discipline, and provide for the calling forth of "the Militia." U.S. Const., Art. I, 8, cls. 12-16. The President, at the same time, was empowered as the "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." Art. II, 2. But, with respect to the militia, a significant reservation was made to the States: Although Congress would have the power to call forth,[19] organize, arm, and discipline the militia, as well as to govern "such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States," the States respectively would retain the right to appoint the officers and to train the militia in accordance with the discipline prescribed by Congress. Art. I, 8, cl. 16.[20] But the original Constitution's retention of the militia and its creation of divided authority over that body did not prove sufficient to allay fears about the dangers posed by a standing army. For it was perceived by some that Article I contained a significant gap: While it empowered *2833 Congress to organize, arm, and discipline the militia, it did not prevent Congress from providing for the militia's disarmament. As George Mason argued during the debates in Virginia on the ratification of the original Constitution: "The militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practiced in other parts of the world before; that is, by rendering them uselessby disarming them. Under various pretences, Congress may neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia; and the state governments cannot do it, for Congress has the exclusive right to arm them." Elliot 379. This sentiment was echoed at a number of state ratification conventions; indeed, it was one of the primary objections to the original Constitution voiced by its opponents. The Anti-Federalists were ultimately unsuccessful in persuading state ratification conventions to condition their approval of the Constitution upon the eventual inclusion of any particular amendment. But a number of States did propose to the first Federal Congress amendments reflecting a desire to ensure that the institution of the militia would remain protected under the new Government. The proposed amendments sent by the States of Virginia, North Carolina, and New York focused on the importance of preserving the state militias and reiterated the dangers posed by standing armies. New Hampshire sent a proposal that differed significantly from the others; while also invoking the dangers of a standing army, it suggested that the Constitution should more broadly protect the use and possession of weapons, without tying such a guarantee expressly to the maintenance of the militia. The States of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts sent no relevant proposed amendments to Congress, but in each of those States |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | proposed amendments to Congress, but in each of those States a minority of the delegates advocated related amendments. While the Maryland minority proposals were exclusively concerned with standing armies and conscientious objectors, the unsuccessful proposals in both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania would have protected a more broadly worded right, less clearly tied to service in a state militia. Faced with all of these options, it is telling that James Madison chose to craft the Second Amendment as he did. The relevant proposals sent by the Virginia Ratifying Convention read as follows: "17th, That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State. That standing armies are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the Community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil power." Elliot 659. "19th. That any person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms ought to be exempted, upon payment of an equivalent to employ another to bear arms in his stead." North Carolina adopted Virginia's proposals and sent them to Congress as its own, although it did not actually ratify the original Constitution until Congress had sent the proposed Bill of Rights to the States for ratification. 2 Schwartz 932-933; see The Complete Bill of Rights 182-183 (N. Cogan ed.1997) (hereinafter Cogan). New York produced a proposal with nearly identical language. It read: "That the people have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, including the body of the People capable of bearing Arms, is the proper, *2834 natural, and safe defence of a free State. That standing Armies, in time of Peace, are dangerous to Liberty, and ought not to be kept up, except in Cases of necessity; and that at all times, the Military should be kept under strict Subordination to the civil Power." 2 Schwartz 912. Notably, each of these proposals used the phrase "keep and bear arms," which was eventually adopted by Madison. And each proposal embedded the phrase within a group of principles that are distinctly military in meaning.[21] By contrast, New Hampshire's proposal, although it followed another proposed amendment that echoed the familiar concern about standing armies,[22] described the protection involved in more clearly personal terms. Its proposal read: "Twelfth, Congress shall never disarm any Citizen unless such as are or have been in Actual Rebellion." The proposals |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | as are or have been in Actual Rebellion." The proposals considered in the other three States, although ultimately rejected by their respective ratification conventions, are also relevant to our historical inquiry. First, the Maryland proposal, endorsed by a minority of the delegates and later circulated in pamphlet form, read: "4. That no standing army shall be kept up in time of peace, unless with the consent of two thirds of the members present of each branch of Congress. "10. That no person conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms in any case, shall be compelled personally to serve as a soldier." The rejected Pennsylvania proposal, which was later incorporated into a critique of the Constitution titled "The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Pennsylvania Minority of the Convention of the State of Pennsylvania to Their Constituents (1787)," signed by a minority of the State's delegates (those who had voted against ratification of the Constitution), read: 7. "That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own State, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to, and be governed by the civil powers." Finally, after the delegates at the Massachusetts Ratification Convention had compiled a list of proposed amendments and alterations, a motion was made to add to the list the following language: "[T]hat *2835 the said Constitution never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." Cogan 181. This motion, however, failed to achieve the necessary support, and the proposal was excluded from the list of amendments the State sent to Congress. 2 Schwartz 674-675. Madison, charged with the task of assembling the proposals for amendments sent by the ratifying States, was the principal draftsman of the Second Amendment.[23] He had before him, or at the very least would have been aware of, all of these proposed formulations. In addition, Madison had been a member, some years earlier, of the committee tasked with drafting the Virginia Declaration of Rights. That committee considered a proposal by Thomas Jefferson that would have included within the Virginia Declaration the following language: "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms [within his |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | shall ever be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]." 1 Papers of Thomas Jefferson 363 (J. Boyd ed.1950). But the committee rejected that language, adopting instead the provision drafted by George Mason.[] With all of these sources upon which to draw, it is strikingly significant that Madison's first draft omitted any mention of nonmilitary use or possession of weapons. Rather, his original draft repeated the essence of the two proposed amendments sent by Virginia, combining the substance of the two provisions succinctly into one, which read: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person." Cogan 169. Madison's decision to model the Second Amendment on the distinctly military Virginia proposal is therefore revealing, since it is clear that he considered and rejected formulations that would have unambiguously protected civilian uses of firearms. When Madison prepared his first draft, and when that draft was debated and modified, it is reasonable to assume that all participants in the drafting process were fully aware of the other formulations that would have protected civilian use and possession of weapons and that their choice to craft the Amendment as they did represented a rejection of those alternative formulations. Madison's initial inclusion of an exemption for conscientious objectors sheds revelatory light on the purpose of the Amendment. It confirms an intent to describe a duty as well as a right, and it unequivocally identifies the military character of both. The objections voiced to the conscientious-objector clause only confirm the central *2836 meaning of the text. Although records of the debate in the Senate, which is where the conscientious-objector clause was removed, do not survive, the arguments raised in the House illuminate the perceived problems with the clause: Specifically, there was concern that Congress "can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms."[25] The ultimate removal of the clause, therefore, only serves to confirm the purpose of the Amendmentto protect against congressional disarmament, by whatever means, of the States' militias. The Court also contends that because "Quakers opposed the use of arms not just for militia service, but for any violent purpose whatsoever," ante, at 2796, the inclusion of a conscientious-objector clause in the original draft of the Amendment does not support the conclusion that the phrase "bear arms" was military in meaning. But that claim cannot be squared with the |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | in meaning. But that claim cannot be squared with the record. In the proposals cited both Virginia and North Carolina included the following language: "That any person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms ought to be exempted, upon payment of an equivalent to employ another to bear arms in his stead"[26] There is no plausible argument that the use of "bear arms" in those provisions was not unequivocally and exclusively military: The State simply does not compel its citizens to carry arms for the purpose of private "confrontation," ante, at 2793, or for self-defense. The history of the adoption of the Amendment thus describes an overriding concern about the potential threat to state sovereignty that a federal standing army would pose, and a desire to protect the States' militias as the means by which to guard against that danger. But state militias could not effectively check the prospect of a federal standing army so long as Congress retained the power to disarm them, and so a guarantee against such disarmament was needed.[27] As we explained in : "With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view." The evidence plainly refutes the claim that the Amendment was motivated by the Framers' fears that Congress might act to regulate any civilian uses of weapons. And even if the historical record were genuinely ambiguous, the burden would remain on the parties advocating a change in the law to introduce facts or arguments "`newly ascertained,'" Vasquez, ; the Court is unable to identify any such facts or arguments. III Although it gives short shrift to the drafting history of the Second Amendment, *2837 the Court dwells at length on four other sources: the 17th-century English Bill of Rights; Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England; postenactment commentary on the Second Amendment; and post-Civil War legislative history.[28] All of these sources shed only indirect light on the question before us, and in any event offer little support for the Court's conclusion.[29] The English Bill of Rights The Court's reliance on Article VII of the 1689 English Bill of Rightswhich, like most of the evidence offered by the Court today, was considered in [30] *2838 is misguided both because Article VII was enacted in response to different concerns from those that motivated the Framers of the Second Amendment, and because the guarantees of the two provisions were by no means coextensive. Moreover, the English text contained no preamble or other |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | coextensive. Moreover, the English text contained no preamble or other provision identifying a narrow, militia-related purpose. The English Bill of Rights responded to abuses by the Stuart monarchs; among the grievances set forth in the Bill of Rights was that the King had violated the law "[b]y causing several good Subjects being Protestants to be disarmed at the same time when Papists were both armed and Employed contrary to Law." Article VII of the Bill of Rights was a response to that selective disarmament; it guaranteed that "the Subjects which are Protestants may have Armes for their defence, Suitable to their condition and as allowed by Law." L. Schwoerer, The Declaration of Rights, 1689 (App. 1, pp. 295, 297) (1981). This grant did not establish a general right of all persons, or even of all Protestants, to possess weapons. Rather, the right was qualified in two distinct ways: First, it was restricted to those of adequate social and economic status ("suitable to their Condition"); second, it was only available subject to regulation by Parliament ("as allowed by Law").[31] The Court may well be correct that the English Bill of Rights protected the right of some English subjects to use some arms for personal self-defense free from restrictions by the Crown (but not Parliament). But that rightadopted in a different historical and political context and framed in markedly different languagetells us little about the meaning of the Second Amendment. Blackstone's Commentaries The Court's reliance on Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England is unpersuasive for the same reason as its reliance on the English Bill of Rights. Blackstone's invocation of "`the natural right of resistance and self-preservation,'" ante, at 2798, and "`the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence'" ib referred specifically to Article VII in the English Bill of Rights. The excerpt from Blackstone offered by the Court, therefore, is, like Article VII itself, of limited use in interpreting the very differently worded, and differently historically situated, Second Amendment. What is important about Blackstone is the instruction he provided on reading the sort of text before us today. Blackstone described an interpretive approach that gave far more weight to preambles than the Court allows. Counseling that "[t]he fairest and most rational method to interpret the will of the legislator, is by exploring his intentions at the time when the law was made, by signs the most natural and probable," Blackstone explained that "[i]f words happen to be still dubious, we may establish their meaning from the context; with which it may be of singular use to compare |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | with which it may be of singular use to compare a word, or a sentence, whenever they are ambiguous, equivocal, or intricate. Thus, the proeme, or preamble, is often called in to help the construction of an act of parliament." 1 Commentaries on the Laws of England 59-60 (1765) (hereinafter Blackstone). In light of the Court's invocation of Blackstone as "`the preeminent authority on English law for the founding *2839 generation,'" ante, at 2798 ), its disregard for his guidance on matters of interpretation is striking. Postenactment Commentary The Court also excerpts, without any real analysis, commentary by a number of additional scholars, some near in time to the framing and others post-dating it by close to a century. Those scholars are for the most part of limited relevance in construing the guarantee of the Second Amendment: Their views are not altogether clear,[32] they tended to collapse the Second Amendment with Article VII of the English Bill of Rights, and they appear to have been unfamiliar with the drafting history of the Second Amendment.[33] The most significant of these commentators was Joseph Story. Contrary to the Court's assertions, however, Story actually supports the view that the Amendment was designed to protect the right of each of the States to maintain a well-regulated militia. When Story used the term "palladium" in discussions of the Second Amendment, he merely echoed the concerns that animated the Framers of the Amendment and led to its adoption. An excerpt from his 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United Statesthe same passage cited by the Court in [34]merits reproducing at some length: "The importance of [the Second Amendment] will scarcely be doubted by any persons who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural *2840 defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses with which they are attended and the facile means which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic, since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers, and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well-regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised that, among the American people, there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by the clause of our national bill of rights." 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 1897, pp. 620-621 (4th ed. 1873) (footnote omitted). Story thus began by tying the significance of the Amendment directly to the paramount importance of the militia. He then invoked the fear that drove the Framers of the Second Amendmentspecifically, the threat to liberty posed by a standing army. An important check on that danger, he suggested, was a "well-regulated militia," for which he assumed that arms would have to be kept and, when necessary, borne. There is not so much as a whisper in the passage above that Story believed that the right secured by the Amendment bore any relation to private use or possession of weapons for activities like hunting or personal self-defense. After extolling the virtues of the militia as a bulwark against tyranny, Story went on to decry the "growing indifference to any system of militia discipline." When he wrote, "[h]ow it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization it is difficult to see," ib he underscored the degree to which he viewed the arming of the people and the militia as indissolubly linked. Story warned that the "growing indifference" he perceived would "gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights," In his view, the importance of the Amendment was directly related to the continuing vitality of an institution in the process of apparently becoming obsolete. In an attempt to downplay the absence of any reference to nonmilitary uses of weapons in Story's commentary, the Court relies on the fact that Story characterized Article VII of the English Declaration of Rights as a "`similar provision,'" ante, at 2807. The two provisions were indeed similar, in that both protected some uses of firearms. But Story's characterization in no way suggests that he believed that the provisions had the same scope. To the contrary, |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | that the provisions had the same scope. To the contrary, Story's exclusive focus on the militia in his discussion of the Second Amendment confirms his understanding of the right protected by the Second Amendment as limited to military uses of arms. *2841 Story's writings as a Justice of this Court, to the extent that they shed light on this question, only confirm that Justice Story did not view the Amendment as conferring upon individuals any "self-defense" right disconnected from service in a state militia. Justice Story dissented from the Court's decision in which held that a state court "had a concurrent jurisdiction" with the federal courts "to try a militia man who had disobeyed the call of the President, and to enforce the laws of Congress against such delinquent." Justice Story believed that Congress' power to provide for the organizing, arming, and disciplining of the militia was, when Congress acted, plenary; but he explained that in the absence of congressional action, "I am certainly not prepared to deny the legitimacy of such an exercise of [state] authority." As to the Second Amendment, he wrote that it "may not, perhaps, be thought to have any important bearing on this point. If it have, it confirms and illustrates, rather than impugns the reasoning already suggested." -53. The Court contends that had Justice Story understood the Amendment to have a militia purpose, the Amendment would have had "enormous and obvious bearing on the point." Ante, at 2808. But the Court has it quite backwards: If Story had believed that the purpose of the Amendment was to permit civilians to keep firearms for activities like personal self-defense, what "confirm[ation] and illustrat[ion]," Houston, could the Amendment possibly have provided for the point that States retained the power to organize, arm, and discipline their own militias? Post-Civil War Legislative History The Court suggests that by the post-Civil War period, the Second Amendment was understood to secure a right to firearm use and ownership for purely private purposes like personal self-defense. While it is true that some of the legislative history on which the Court relies supports that contention, see ante, at 2809-2811, such sources are entitled to limited, if any, weight. All of the statements the Court cites were made long after the framing of the Amendment and cannot possibly supply any insight into the intent of the Framers; and all were made during pitched political debates, so that they are better characterized as advocacy than good-faith attempts at constitutional interpretation. What is more, much of the evidence the Court offers is decidedly less clear than |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | the evidence the Court offers is decidedly less clear than its discussion allows. The Court notes that "[b]lacks were routinely disarmed by Southern States after the Civil War. Those who opposed these injustices frequently stated that they infringed blacks' constitutional right to keep and bear arms." Ante, at 2810. The Court hastily concludes that "[n]eedless to say, the claim was not that blacks were being prohibited from carrying arms in an organized state militia," But some of the claims of the sort the Court cites may have been just that. In some Southern States, Reconstruction-era Republican governments created state militias in which both blacks and whites were permitted to serve. Because "[t]he decision to allow blacks to serve alongside whites meant that most southerners refused to join the new militia," the bodies were dubbed "Negro militia[s]." S. Cornell, A Well-Regulated Militia 176-177 (2006). The "arming of the Negro militias met with especially fierce resistance in South Carolina The sight of organized, armed freedmen incensed opponents of Reconstruction and led to an intensified campaign of Klan terror. Leading members of the Negro militia were beaten or lynched and their weapons stolen." *2842 One particularly chilling account of Reconstruction-era Klan violence directed at a black militia member is recounted in the memoir of Louis F. Post, A "Carpetbagger" in South Carolina, 10 Journal of Negro History 10 (1925). Post describes the murder by local Klan members of Jim Williams, the captain of a "Negro militia company," this way: "[A] cavalcade of sixty cowardly white men, completely disguised with face masks and body gowns, rode up one night in March, 1871, to the house of Captain Williams in the wood [they] hanged [and shot] him [and on his body they] then pinned a slip of paper inscribed, as I remember it, with these grim words: `Jim Williams gone to his last muster.'" In light of this evidence, it is quite possible that at least some of the statements on which the Court relies actually did mean to refer to the disarmament of black militia members. IV The brilliance of the debates that resulted in the Second Amendment faded into oblivion during the ensuing years, for the concerns about Article I's Militia Clauses that generated such pitched debate during the ratification process and led to the adoption of the Second Amendment were short lived. In 1792, the year after the Amendment was ratified, Congress passed a statute that purported to establish "an Uniform Militia throughout the United States." The statute commanded every able-bodied white male citizen between the ages of 18 and 45 to |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | male citizen between the ages of 18 and 45 to be enrolled therein and to "provide himself with a good musket or firelock" and other specified weaponry.[35] The statute is significant, for it confirmed the way those in the founding generation viewed firearm ownership: as a duty linked to military service. The statute they enacted, however, "was virtually ignored for more than a century," and was finally repealed in 1901. See The postratification history of the Second Amendment is strikingly similar. The Amendment played little role in any legislative debate about the civilian use of firearms for most of the 19th century, and it made few appearances in the decisions of this Court. Two 19th-century cases, however, bear mentioning. In United the Court sustained a challenge to respondents' convictions under the Enforcement Act of 1870 for conspiring to deprive any individual of "`any right or privilege granted or secured to him by the constitution or laws of the United States.'" The Court wrote, as to counts 2 and 10 of respondents' indictment: "The right there specified is that of `bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent on that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government." *2843 The majority's assertion that the Court in "described the right protected by the Second Amendment as `"bearing arms for a lawful purpose,"'" ante, at 2813 (quoting 92 U.S., ), is not accurate. The Court explained that the defective indictment contained such language, but the Court did not itself describe the right, or endorse the indictment's description of the right. Moreover, it is entirely possible that the basis for the indictment's counts 2 and 10, which charged respondents with depriving the victims of rights secured by the Second Amendment, was the prosecutor's belief that the victimsmembers of a group of citizens, mostly black but also white, who were rounded up by the Sheriff, sworn in as a posse to defend the local courthouse, and attacked by a white mobbore sufficient resemblance to members of a state militia that they were brought within the reach of the Second Amendment. See generally C. Lane, The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, The Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction (2008). Only one other 19th-century case in this |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | of Reconstruction (2008). Only one other 19th-century case in this Court, engaged in any significant discussion of the Second Amendment. The petitioner in Presser was convicted of violating a state statute that prohibited organizations other than the Illinois National Guard from associating together as military companies or parading with arms. Presser challenged his conviction, asserting, as relevant, that the statute violated both the Second and the Fourteenth Amendments. With respect to the Second Amendment, the Court wrote: "We think it clear that the sections under consideration, which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But a conclusive answer to the contention that this amendment prohibits the legislation in question lies in the fact that the amendment is a limitation only upon the power of Congress and the National government, and not upon that of the States." And in discussing the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court explained: "The plaintiff in error was not a member of the organized volunteer militia of the State of Illinois, nor did he belong to the troops of the United States or to any organization under the militia law of the United States. On the contrary, the fact that he did not belong to the organized militia or the troops of the United States was an ingredient in the offence for which he was convicted and sentenced. The question is, therefore, had he a right as a citizen of the United States, in disobedience of the State law, to associate with others as a military company, and to drill and parade with arms in the towns and cities of the State? If the plaintiff in error has any such privilege he must be able to point to the provision of the Constitution or statutes of the United States by which it is conferred." Presser, therefore, both affirmed 's holding that the Second Amendment posed no obstacle to regulation by state governments, and suggested that in any event nothing in the Constitution protected the use of arms outside the context of a militia "authorized by law" and organized by the State or Federal Government.[36] *2844 In 1901 the President revitalized the militia by creating "`the National Guard of the several States,'" and nn. 9-10, ; meanwhile, the dominant understanding of the Second Amendment's inapplicability to private gun ownership continued well into the 20th century. The first two federal laws directly restricting civilian use and possession of |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | two federal laws directly restricting civilian use and possession of firearmsthe 1927 Act prohibiting mail delivery of "pistols, revolvers, and other firearms capable of being concealed on the person," Ch. 75, and the 1934 Act prohibiting the possession of sawed-off shotguns and machine guns were enacted over minor Second Amendment objections dismissed by the vast majority of the legislators who participated in the debates.[37] Members of Congress clashed over the wisdom and efficacy of such laws as crime-control measures. But since the statutes did not infringe upon the military use or possession of weapons, for most legislators they did not even raise the specter of possible conflict with the Second Amendment. Thus, for most of our history, the invalidity of Second-Amendment-based objections to firearms regulations has been well settled and uncontroversial.[38] Indeed, the Second Amendment was not even mentioned *2845 in either full House of Congress during the legislative proceedings that led to the passage of the 1934 Act. Yet enforcement of that law produced the judicial decision that confirmed the status of the Amendment as limited in reach to military usage. After reviewing many of the same sources that are discussed at greater length by the Court today, the Court unanimously concluded that the Second Amendment did not apply to the possession of a firearm that did not have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia." The key to that decision did not, as the Court belatedly suggests, ante, at 2813-2815, turn on the difference between muskets and sawed-off shotguns; it turned, rather, on the basic difference between the military and nonmilitary use and possession of guns. Indeed, if the Second Amendment were not limited in its coverage to military uses of weapons, why should the Court in have suggested that some weapons but not others were eligible for Second Amendment protection? If use for self-defense were the relevant standard, why did the Court not inquire into the suitability of a particular weapon for self-defense purposes? Perhaps in recognition of the weakness of its attempt to distinguish the Court argues in the alternative that should be discounted because of its decisional history. It is true that the appellee in did not file a brief or make an appearance, although the court below had held that the relevant provision of the National Firearms Act violated the Second Amendment (albeit without any reasoned opinion). But, as our decision in in which only one side appeared and presented arguments, demonstrates, the absence of adversarial presentation alone is not a basis for refusing to accord stare decisis |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | is not a basis for refusing to accord stare decisis effect to a decision of this Court. See Bloch, Marbury Redux, in Arguing 59, 63 (M. Tushnet ed.2005). Of course, if it can be demonstrated that new evidence or arguments were genuinely not available to an earlier Court, that fact should be given special weight as we consider whether to overrule a prior case. But the Court does not make that claim, because it cannot. Although it is true that the drafting history of the Amendment was not discussed in the Government's brief, see ante, at 2814-2815, it is certainly not the drafting history that the Court's decision today turns on. And those sources upon which the Court today relies most heavily were available to the Court. The Government cited the English Bill of Rights and quoted a lengthy passage from Aymette detailing the history leading to the English guarantee, Brief for United States in United O.T.1938, No. 696, pp 12-13; it also cited Blackstone, Cooley, and Story, The Court is reduced to critiquing the number of pages the Government devoted to exploring the English legal sources. Only two (in a brief 21 pages in length)! Would the Court be satisfied with four? Ten? The Court is simply wrong when it intones that contained "not a word" about the Amendment's history. Ante, at 2815. The Court plainly looked to history to construe the term "Militia," and, on the best reading of the entire guarantee of the Second Amendment. After noting the original Constitution's grant of power to Congress and to the States over the militia, the Court explained: "With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment *2846 were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view. "The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militiacivilians primarily, soldiers on occasion. "The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators." -179, The majority cannot seriously believe that the Court did not consider any relevant evidence; the majority simply does not approve of the conclusion the Court reached on that evidence. Standing alone, that is insufficient reason to disregard a |
Justice Stevens | 2,008 | 16 | dissenting | District of Columbia v. Heller | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145777/district-of-columbia-v-heller/ | evidence. Standing alone, that is insufficient reason to disregard a unanimous opinion of this Court, upon which substantial reliance has been placed by legislators and citizens for nearly 70 years. V The Court concludes its opinion by declaring that it is not the proper role of this Court to change the meaning of rights "enshrine[d]" in the Constitution. Ante, at 2822. But the right the Court announces was not "enshrined" in the Second Amendment by the Framers; it is the product of today's law-changing decision. The majority's exegesis has utterly failed to establish that as a matter of text or history, "the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home" is "elevate[d] above all other interests" by the Second Amendment. Ante, at 2822. Until today, it has been understood that legislatures may regulate the civilian use and misuse of firearms so long as they do not interfere with the preservation of a well-regulated militia. The Court's announcement of a new constitutional right to own and use firearms for private purposes upsets that settled understanding, but leaves for future cases the formidable task of defining the scope of permissible regulations. Today judicial craftsmen have confidently asserted that a policy choice that denies a "law-abiding, responsible citize[n]" the right to keep and use weapons in the home for self-defense is "off the table." Ante, at 2822. Given the presumption that most citizens are law abiding, and the reality that the need to defend oneself may suddenly arise in a host of locations outside the home, I fear that the District's policy choice may well be just the first of an unknown number of dominoes to be knocked off the table.[39] I do not know whether today's decision will increase the labor of federal judges to *2847 the "breaking point" envisioned by Justice Cardozo, but it will surely give rise to a far more active judicial role in making vitally important national policy decisions than was envisioned at any time in the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries. The Court properly disclaims any interest in evaluating the wisdom of the specific policy choice challenged in this case, but it fails to pay heed to a far more important policy choicethe choice made by the Framers themselves. The Court would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons, and to authorize this Court to use the common-law process of case-by-case judicial lawmaking to define the contours of acceptable gun |
Justice Scalia | 1,997 | 9 | dissenting | Lawyer v. Department of Justice | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118141/lawyer-v-department-of-justice/ | The Court today affirms a Federal District Court's redrawing of Florida Senate District 21, despite the fact that the District Court never determined that District 21 was unconstitutional, and never gave the State an opportunity to do its own redrawing of the district to remedy whatever unconstitutional features it contained. In my view, the District Court's actions represent an unprecedented intrusion upon state sovereignty. I The District Court held that it could exercise its authority under the Fourteenth Amendment to "compel the nullification and re-establishment of state legislative boundaries" without finding a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, so long as "the case presents a sufficient evidentiary and legal basis to warrant the bona fide intervention of a federal court into matters typically reserved to a state." Although acknowledging that the "`[d]efendants and defendant-intervenors deny these assertions [of unconstitutionality],' " the District Court determined that the claim that District 21 was unconstitutional was "fairly litigable," and found this enough to justify its reapportionment order. The only authority cited by the District Court for the proposition that a court can mandate a remedy without finding liability is Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion in But that opinion has no bearing on the present case. It dealt with the question whether a school board could, consistent with the Constitution, implement an affirmative-action program *584 without first making contemporaneous findings that such a program is justified by specific instances of past discrimination. Quite obviously, whether a State may take voluntary action without first determining that it has violated the law has nothing to do with whether a federal court may impose a remedy without first determining that the State has violated the law. The Court evidently believes that an adjudication of unconstitutionality of District 21 was unnecessary here because the State entered into a consent agreement accepting judicial imposition of Plan 386. For this proposition it relies upon which said that "it is the parties' agreement that serves as the source of the [District Court's] authority to enter judgment" However, that passage from is of no help to the Courteven putting aside the fact that the "agreement" there at issue, unlike the one here, was an agreement to remedy unlawful conduct (a "pattern of racial discrimination") that had been adjudged, 511 512.[1] was a Title VII action by minority firefighters, alleging that the city discriminated against them in promotions. A union representing the majority of the city's firefighters intervened as a party-plaintiff and objected to the settlement, contending, among other things, that its consent was required in order for the District Court to enter a consent |
Justice Scalia | 1,997 | 9 | dissenting | Lawyer v. Department of Justice | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118141/lawyer-v-department-of-justice/ | in order for the District Court to enter a consent decree. We disagreed. The minority firefighters and the city, we said, could have reached an out-of-court agreement to resolve their dispute. See -523, and *585 n. 13. "[T]he choice of an enforcement schemewhether to rely on contractual remedies or to have an agreement entered as a consent decreeis itself made voluntarily by the parties." In today's case, by contrast, neither the appellant nor the other original plaintiffs (now appellees) could have concluded a binding out-of-court "redistricting agreement" with representatives of the Florida Legislature, or with the state attorney generaland the Court does not contend otherwise. The Florida Constitution, Art. III, 16, requires the legislature to draw districts "by joint resolution," and provides no authority for the attorney general to do so.[2] Any "redistricting * agreement" entered into by these officials with individual voters would obviously be null and void. And a court decree that does not purport to be in remediation of an adjudged violation of law cannot make it binding. See -523. See also, e. g., These principles would suffice to invalidate an unauthorized private agreement as the basis for a federal judicial decree in even the ordinary case, but they should apply even more rigorously to an agreement purportedly supporting a federal judicial decree of state reapportionment, which we have described as an "unwelcome obligation," that should be undertaken by a district court only as a last resort, see, e. g., Indeed, even if it were possible for the Florida Legislature to authorize two of its members to negotiate an apportionment agreement that could be the basis for a federal court decree, one would think that the special solicitude we have shown for preservation of the States' apportionment authority would cause the court to demand clearer credentials on the part of those who purport to speak for the legislature.[3] The District Court asserted that "Florida's House and Senate manifested the authority to consent," but it points to no resolution *587 conferring such authority upon the individual legislators before the court; and as to the Senate, at least, there is some evidence no such authority exists. The record contains a letter from State Senator Howard C. Forman to the District Court reading in part as follows: "This letter is intended to communicate to you in the strongest possible terms that the Florida Senate has not agreed to any proposed settlement. As a constitutionally established collegial body, the Florida Senate can agree to nothing without open debate and action by the entire body. As a duly elected Member of the |
Justice Scalia | 1,997 | 9 | dissenting | Lawyer v. Department of Justice | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118141/lawyer-v-department-of-justice/ | the entire body. As a duly elected Member of the Florida Senate, I have never waived my constitutional duty and responsibility to participate in all Senate matters. And, under no circumstances does any individual Senator, or group of individual Senators, have the right to agree to anything in my name. "Therefore, I challenge any representation that the Florida Senate has agreed to any proposed settlement in this case." Record 152. But in fact all these inquiries into authorization to enter private agreements are supererogatory. Even an authorized private agreement cannot serve as the basis for a federal apportionment decree. We have said explicitly, and in unmistakable terms, that "[f]ederal courts are barred from intervening in state apportionment in the absence of a violation of federal law." As Chief Judge Tjoflat's concurrence below correctly stated, "to enter the judgment in question, the court must find that District 21 is unconstitutional." -1257. I would adhere to that principle. Finally, I find no merit in the Court's apparent suggestion, ante, at 578-580, that appellant has no standing to complain of this defect. A judicial decree entered without jurisdiction has mooted his suit. Surely that is enough to sustain his appeal. *588 II The District Court's failure to find the pre-existing District 21 unconstitutional is alone enough to require reversal of the judgment. But the District Court committed a second error, in failing to give the Florida Legislature the opportunity to redraw the district before imposing a courtordered solution. We have repeatedly emphasized that federal interference with state districting "represents a serious intrusion on the most vital of local functions," and that "reapportionment[, which] is primarily the duty and responsibility of the State," "`is primarily a matter for legislative consideration and determination,' " ). "`[J]udicial relief becomes appropriate,' " we have said, "`only when a legislature fails to reapportion according to federal constitutional requisites in a timely fashion after having had an adequate opportunity to do so.' " (quoting at ). See also ; ; ; The District Court's failure to give Florida a reasonable opportunity to craft its own solution after a judicial finding that the current districting was unconstitutionalor even (since here such a finding was never made) after the judicial finding that a constitutional claim is "fairly litigable"was most assuredly error. The District Court repeatedly referred to Plan 386 as a "legislative solution," and the concurrence described it as a "plan that the Florida legislature has proposed," But judicial characterization does not overcome reality. The fact that the Speaker of Florida's House of Representatives and the President of Florida's Senate *589 |
Justice Scalia | 1,997 | 9 | dissenting | Lawyer v. Department of Justice | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118141/lawyer-v-department-of-justice/ | House of Representatives and the President of Florida's Senate *589 participated in the negotiations and consented to the settlement does not magically convert Plan 386 into a Florida law. The "opportunity to apportion" that our case law requires the state legislature to be afforded is an opportunity to apportion through normal legislative processes, not through courthouse negotiations attended by one member of each House, followed by a court decree. Appellees contend that the District Court actually offered the legislature the opportunity to redistrict, but that the legislature declined. This contention is based upon the fact that the representatives of the Florida Legislature informed the District Court, prior to any proceedings on the merits, that the legislature would likely not sua sponte redraw the districts in response to and on the status reports filed by the Florida Senate, see ante, at 578, n. 5. But the requisite opportunity that our cases describe is an opportunity to redraw districts after the extant districts have been ruled unconstitutionalnot after a Supreme Court case has been announced which may or may not ultimately lead to a ruling that the extant districts are unconstitutional. See, e. g., ; at ; at 585-. The State is under no obligation to redistrict unless and until a determination has been made that there has been a violation of federal law. * * * Because the District Court lacked the authority to mandate redistricting without first having found a constitutional violation; and because the District Court failed to give the State an opportunity to redistrict on its own after notice of the constitutional violation (or even after notice of the court's intention to proceed with its own plan), I would reverse the judgment of the District Court and remand for further proceedings. Given my conclusion on appellant's first two challenges to the District Court's judgment, I have no occasion *590 to consider the constitutionality of the court-drawn district, Plan 386. I respectfully dissent. |
Justice Stewart | 1,976 | 18 | dissenting | Barrett v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109341/barrett-v-united-states/ | The petitioner in this case, a former convict, was arrested for driving while intoxicated. A revolver, fully loaded, was found on the floorboard of his car. These circumstances are offensive to those who believe in law and order. They are particularly offensive to those concerned with the need to control handguns. While I understand these concerns, I cannot join the Court in its rush to judgment, because I believe that as a matter of law the petitioner was simply not guilty of the federal statutory offense of which he stands convicted. The petitioner bought a revolver from the Western Auto Store in Booneville, Ky., in an over-the-counter retail sale. Within an hour, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated and the revolver was found on the floorboard of his car. The revolver had been manufactured in Massachusetts and shipped to the Booneville retailer from a North Carolina distributor. The prosecution submitted no evidence of any kind that the petitioner had participated in any interstate activity involving the revolver, either before or after its purchase. On these facts, he was convicted of violating 18 U.S. C. 922 (h), which makes it unlawful for a former criminal offender like the petitioner, "to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce." This clause first appeared in the predecessor of 922 (h), 2 (f) of the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, 1251.[1] In the Court interpreted this statutory language to prohibit only receipt of firearms or ammunition as part of an interstate transaction: "Both courts below held that the offense created by the Act is confined to the receipt of firearms or ammunition as a part of interstate transportation and does not extend to the receipt, in an intrastate transaction, of such articles which, at some prior time, have been transported interstate. The Government agrees that this construction is correct." Although the Tot Court was principally concerned with the constitutionality of the presumption established by the last clause of 2 (f),[2] its interpretation of the first clause of the statute was essential to its holding.[3] The statutory presumption was that possession of a firearm or ammunition by any person in the class specified in 2 (f) established receipt in violation of the statute. The Court in Tot held the presumption unconstitutional for lack of a rational connection between the fact proved *230 and the facts -468. The Court could not have reached that decision without first determining what set of facts needed to exist in order to constitute a violation of the statute. The Tot case |
Justice Stewart | 1,976 | 18 | dissenting | Barrett v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109341/barrett-v-united-states/ | to constitute a violation of the statute. The Tot case did not go unnoticed when 18 U.S. C. 922 (h) was enacted in its present form in 1968, as the legislative history clearly reveals. Subcommittees of both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in 1967 conducted hearings on bills to amend the Federal Firearms Act. At both hearings, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue explained the decision in Tot: "The Supreme Court declared [the presumption in 2 (f)] unconstitutional in a 1943 case, Consequently, in order to establish a violation of this statute, it is necessary to prove that a convicted felon found in possession of a firearm actually received it in the course of an interstate shipment." Hearings on S. 1, Amendment 90 to S. 1, S. 1853, and S. before Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 46 (1967). "The Supreme Court has declared [the presumption in 2 (f)] unconstitutional. In order to establish the violation of the statute it is necessary to find that the felon found in possession of the firearm actually received it in the course of interstate commerce or transportation." Hearings on H. R. 5037, H. R. 5038, H. R. 5384, H. R. 5385, and H. R. before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 561 (1967).[4] In both hearings, the Commissioner was speaking in support of bills that omitted the presumption held unconstitutional *231 in Tot, but that otherwise retained the same language there construed. See Hearings on S. 1, Amendment 90 to S. 1, S. 1853, and S. ; Hearings on H. R. 5037, H. R. 5038, H. R. 5384, H. R. 5385, and H. R. That is precisely the form in which the statute now before us, 922 (h), was enacted in 1968. It is thus evident that Congress was aware of Tot and adopted its interpretation of the statutory language in enacting the present law. See ; Apex Hosiery ;[5] Just four years ago, in United the Court expressly stated that it found nothing to indicate "that the 1968 Act changed the prior approach to the `receipt' offense." at 343 n. 10. I would adhere to the Court's settled interpretation of the statutory language here involved and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | The Privacy Act of codified in part at 5 U.S. C. contains a comprehensive and detailed set of re quirements for the management of confidential records held by Executive Branch agencies. If an agency fails to comply with those requirements “in such a way as to have an adverse effect on an individual,” the Act authorizes the individual to bring a civil action against the agency. For violations found to be “intentional or willful,” the United States is liable for “actual damages.” In this case, we must decide whether the term “actual damages,” as used in the Privacy Act, in cludes damages for mental or emotional We hold that it does not. I The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires pilots to obtain a pilot certificate and medical certificate as a precondition for operating an aircraft. (a), (c) (2011). Pilots must periodically renew their medical certificates to ensure compliance with FAA medical stand 2 FAA v. COOPER Opinion of the Court ards. See When applying for renewal, pilots must disclose any illnesses, disabilities, or surgeries they have had, and they must identify any medications they are taking. See 14 CFR pt. 67. Respondent Stanmore Cooper has been a private pilot since 1964. In he was diagnosed with a human im- munodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and began taking antiretroviral medication. At that time, the FAA did not issue medical certificates to persons with respondent’s condition. Knowing that he would not qualify for renewal of his medical certificate, respondent initially grounded himself and chose not to apply. In 1994, however, he ap- plied for and received a medical certificate, but he did so without disclosing his HIV status or his medication. He renewed his certificate in 1998, 2000, and 2004, each time intentionally withholding information about his condition. When respondent’s health deteriorated in 1995, he applied for long-term disability benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S. C. et seq. To sub stantiate his claim, he disclosed his HIV status to the Social Security Administration (SSA), which awarded him benefits for the year from August 1995 to August 1996. In the Department of Transportation (DOT), the FAA’s parent agency, launched a joint criminal investiga tion with the SSA, known as “Operation Safe Pilot,” to identify medically unfit individuals who had obtained FAA certifications to fly. The DOT gave the SSA a list of names and other identifying information of 45,000 licensed pilots in northern California. The SSA then compared the list with its own records of benefit recipients and compiled a spreadsheet, which it gave to the DOT. The spreadsheet |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | a spreadsheet, which it gave to the DOT. The spreadsheet revealed that respondent had a current medical certificate but had received disability bene fits. After reviewing respondent’s FAA medical file and his SSA disability file, FAA flight surgeons determined in Cite as: 566 U. S. (2012) 3 Opinion of the Court 2005 that the FAA would not have issued a medical cer- tificate to respondent had it known his true medical condition. When investigators confronted respondent with what had been discovered, he admitted that he had intention- ally withheld from the FAA information about his HIV status and other relevant medical information. Because of these fraudulent omissions, the FAA revoked respondent’s pilot certificate, and he was indicted on three counts of making false statements to a Government agency, in violation of 18 U.S. C. Respondent ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of making and delivering a false official writing, in violation of He was sen tenced to two years of probation and fined $1,000.1 Claiming that the FAA, DOT, and SSA (hereinafter Government) violated the Privacy Act by sharing his records with one another, respondent filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He alleged that the unlawful disclosure to the DOT of his confidential medical information, including his HIV status, had caused him “humiliation, embarrassment, mental anguish, fear of social ostracism, and other severe emotional ” App. to Pet. for Cert. 120a. Notably, he did not allege any pecuniary or economic loss. The District Court granted summary judgment against respondent. The court concluded that the Government had violated the Privacy Act and that there was a triable issue of fact as to whether the violation was intentional or willful.2 But the court —————— 1 Respondent eventually applied for recertification as a pilot. After reviewing respondent’s medical records, including information about his HIV diagnosis and treatment, the FAA reissued his pilot certificate and medical certificate. Brief for Respondent 5, n. 1. 2 With certain exceptions, it is unlawful for an agency to disclose a record to another agency without the written consent of the person to whom the record pertains. 5 U.S. C. One exception to this 4 FAA v. COOPER Opinion of the Court held that respondent could not recover damages because he alleged only mental and emotional harm, not economic loss. Finding that the term “actual damages” is “facially ambiguous,” and relying on the sovereign immunity canon, which provides that waivers of sovereign immunity must be strictly construed in favor of the Gov ernment, the court concluded that the Act does not |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | Gov ernment, the court concluded that the Act does not author ize the recovery of damages from the Government for nonpecuniary mental or emotional harm. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Cir cuit reversed and remanded. The court acknowledged that the term “actual damages” is a “ ‘chameleon’ ” in that “its meaning changes with the specific statute in which it is found.” But the court nevertheless held that, as used in the Privacy Act, the term includes damages for mental and emotional Looking to what it described as “[i]ntrinsic” and “[e]xtrinsic” sources, the court concluded that the meaning of “actual damages” in the Privacy Act is not ambiguous and that “a construction that limits recovery to pecuniary loss” is not “plausible,” The Government petitioned for rehearing or rehearing en banc, but a divided court denied the petition. at 1019. The Government then petitioned for certiorari, and we granted review. 564 U. S. (2011). II Because respondent seeks to recover monetary compen sation from the Government for mental and emotional harm, we must decide whether the civil remedies provi —————— nondisclosure requirement applies when the head of an agency makes a written request for law enforcement purposes to the agency that maintains the record. See The agencies in this case could easily have shared respondent’s medical records pursuant to the procedures prescribed by the Privacy Act, but the District Court con cluded that they failed to do so. Cite as: 566 U. S. (2012) 5 Opinion of the Court sion of the Privacy Act waives the Government’s sovereign immunity with respect to such a recovery. A We have said on many occasions that a waiver of sover eign immunity must be “unequivocally expressed” in statutory text. See, e.g., 192 (1996); United 33 (1992); Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 95 (1990). Legislative history cannot supply a waiver that is not clearly evident from the language of the statute. Any ambiguities in the statutory language are to be construed in favor of immu- nity, United so that the Government’s consent to be sued is never en- larged beyond what a fair reading of the text requires, (citing Eastern Transp. 686 (1927)). Ambiguity exists if there is a plausible inter pretation of the statute that would not authorize money damages against the Government. Nordic at 34, 37. The question that confronts us here is not whether Congress has consented to be sued for damages under the Privacy That much is clear from the statute, which expressly authorizes recovery from the Government for “actual damages.” Rather, the |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | authorizes recovery from the Government for “actual damages.” Rather, the question at issue concerns the scope of that waiver. For the same reason that we refuse to enforce a waiver that is not unambiguously expressed in the statute, we construe any ambiguities in the scope of a waiver in favor of the sovereign. Although this canon of interpretation requires an un mistakable statutory expression of congressional intent to waive the Government’s immunity, Congress need not state its intent in any particular way. We have never 6 FAA v. COOPER Opinion of the Court required that Congress use magic words. To the contrary, we have observed that the sovereign immunity canon “is a tool for interpreting the law” and that it does not “dis plac[e] the other traditional tools of statutory construc tion.” Richlin Security Service Co. v. Chertoff, 553 U.S. 571, 589 What we thus require is that the scope of Congress’ waiver be clearly discernable from the statutory text in light of traditional interpretive tools. If it is not, then we take the interpretation most favorable to the Government. B The civil remedies provision of the Privacy Act provides that, for any “intentional or willful” refusal or failure to comply with the Act, the United States shall be liable for “actual damages sustained by the individual as a result of the refusal or failure, but in no case shall a person entitled to recovery receive less than the sum of $1,000.” 5 U.S. C. Because Congress did not define “actual damages,” respondent urges us to rely on the ordinary meaning of the word “actual” as it is defined in standard general-purpose dictionaries. But as the Court of Appeals explained, “actual damages” is a legal term of art, 622 F.3d, 28, and it is a “cardinal rule of statutory con struction” that, when Congress employs a term of art, “ ‘it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learn ing from which it was taken,’ ” Molzof v. United States, 502 U.S. 301, 307 (1992) ). Even as a legal term, however, the meaning of “actual damages” is far from clear. The latest edition of Black’s Law Dictionary available when Congress enacted the Privacy Act defined “actual damages” as “[r]eal, substan tial and just damages, or the amount awarded to a com plainant in compensation for his actual and real loss or Cite as: 566 U. S. (2012) 7 Opinion of the Court injury, as opposed on the one hand to ‘nominal’ damages, and on the other to |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | one hand to ‘nominal’ damages, and on the other to ‘exemplary’ or ‘punitive’ damages.” Black’s Law Dictionary 467 But this general (and notably circular) definition is of little value here because, as the Court of Appeals accurately observed, the precise meaning of the term “changes with the specific statute in which it is found.” 622 F.3d, The term is sometimes understood to include nonpecu niary harm. Take, for instance, some courts’ interpreta tions of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S. C. and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S. C. 1681o. A number of courts have construed “ac tual” damages in the remedial provisions of both statutes to include compensation for mental and emotional dis tress. See, e.g., 636–638 (authorizing compensatory damages under the FHA, 42 U.S. C. the predecessor to for humiliation); Steele v. Title Realty Co., 478 F.2d 380, 384 (CA10 1973) (stating that damages under the FHA “are not limited to out-of-pocket losses but may include an award for emotional distress and humiliation”); Thompson v. San Antonio Retail Merchants Assn., 682 F.2d 509, 513–514 (CA5 1982) (per curiam) (explaining that, “[e]ven when there are no out-of-pocket expenses, humiliation and mental distress do constitute recoverable elements of damage” under the FCRA); Millstone v. O’Hanlon Reports, Inc., (approving an award of damages under the FCRA for “loss of sleep, nervousness, frustration and mental anguish”). In other contexts, however, the term has been used or construed more narrowly to authorize damages for only pecuniary harm. In the wrongful-death provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), for example, Congress authorized “actual or compensatory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries resulting from such death.” 28 U.S. C. ¶2. At least one court has defined “actual 8 FAA v. COOPER Opinion of the Court damages” in the Copyright Act of 1909, 17 U.S. C. ( ed.), as “the extent to which the market value of a copyrighted work has been injured or destroyed by an infringement.” Frank Music ; see (holding that “ ‘hurt feelings’ over the nature of the infringement” have no place in the actual damages calculus). And some courts have construed “actual damages” in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S. C. to mean “some form of economic loss.” ; see (stating that the purpose of “is to compensate civil plaintiffs for economic loss suffered as a result of wrongs committed in violation of the 1934 Act”); (noting that the “gist” of an action for damages under the Act is “economic injury”).3 Because the term “actual damages” has this chameleon like quality, we cannot rely on |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | damages” has this chameleon like quality, we cannot rely on any all-purpose definition but must consider the particular context in which the term —————— 3 This narrow usage is reflected in contemporaneous state-court deci sions as well. See, e.g., n. 4, (explaining that recovery for intentional infliction of emotional distress is allowed “despite the total absence of physical injury and actual damages”); (noting that damages for “mental anguish” due to the wrongful execution of a judgment “are allowable only as an element of punitive but not of actual damages”). It is reflected in post-Privacy Act statutes and judicial decisions. See, e.g., 17 U.S. C. (defining “actual damages” in the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 as “the royalty payments that should have been paid”); 18 U.S. C. (2006 ed., Supp. IV) (calculating “actual damages” for purposes of a counterfeit labeling statute in terms of financial loss); (stating that compensatory damages in a civil rights suit “can be awarded for emotional and mental distress even though no actual damages are proven”). Cite as: 566 U. S. (2012) 9 Opinion of the Court appears.4 C The Privacy Act directs agencies to establish safeguards to protect individuals against the disclosure of confiden tial records “which could result in substantial harm, em barrassment, inconvenience, or unfairness to any indi- vidual on whom information is maintained.” 5 U.S. C. see (stating that the “purpose of this Act is to provide certain safeguards for an individual against an invasion of personal privacy”). Because the Act serves interests similar to those protected by defamation and privacy torts, there is good reason to infer that Congress relied upon those torts in drafting the In we held that the Privacy Act’s remedial provision authorizes plaintiffs to recover a guaranteed minimum award of $1,000 for viola —————— 4 The dissent criticizes us for noting that the dictionary definition contains an element of circularity. The dissent says that the defini tion—“ ‘[a]ctual damages’ compensate for actual injury”—is “plain enough.” Post, at 3 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). But defining “actual” damages by reference to “actual” injury is hardly helpful when our task is to determine what Congress meant by “actual.” The dissent’s refer ence to the current version of Black’s Law Dictionary, which provides that “actual damages” can mean “tangible damages,” only highlights the term’s ambiguity. See Black’s Law Dictionary 445 (9th ed. 2009). If “actual damages” can mean “tangible damages,” then it can be construed not to include intangible harm, like mental and emotional Similarly unhelpful is the dissent’s citation to a general purpose dictionary that defines “actual” as “existing in |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | a general purpose dictionary that defines “actual” as “existing in fact or reality” and “damages” as “compensation or satisfaction imposed by law for a wrong or injury.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 22, 571 (emphasis added). Combining these two lay definitions says nothing about whether compensation for mental and emotional distress is in fact imposed by law. The definitions merely beg the question we are trying to answer. It comes as little surprise, therefore, that “actual damages” has taken on different meanings in different statutes, as our examples amply illustrate. 10 FAA v. COOPER Opinion of the Court tions of the Act, but only if they prove at least some “actual damages.” ; see Although we did not address the meaning of “actual dam ages,” we observed that the provision “parallels” the remedial scheme for the common law torts of libel per quod and slander, under which plain tiffs can recover “general damages,” but only if they prove “special harm” ( known as “special damages”), at 625; see 3 Restatement of Torts Comments a and b (1938) (hereinafter Restatement); D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies pp. 511–513 (1973) (hereinafter Dobbs).5 “Special damages” are limited to actual pecuniary loss, which must be specially pleaded and proved. 1 D. Hag gard, Cooley on Torts p. 580 (4th ed. 1932) (hereinaf ter Cooley).6 “General damages,” on the other hand, cover “loss of reputation, shame, mortification, injury to the feelings and the like and need not be alleged in detail and require no proof.” at 579.7 —————— 5 Libel per quod and slander (as opposed to libel and slander per se) apply to a communication that is not defamatory on its face but that is defamatory when coupled with some other extrinsic fact. Dobbs at –513. 6 See 3 Restatement Comment b (“Special harm is harm of a material and generally of a pecuniary nature”); Dobbs at 520 (“Special damages in defamation cases mean pecuniary damages, or at least ‘material loss’ ” (footnote omitted)). Special damages do not include mental or emotional See 3 Restatement Com ment c (“The emotional distress caused to the person slandered by his knowledge that he has been defamed is not special harm and this is so although the distress results in a serious illness”); Dobbs at 520 (“Even under the more modern approach, special damages in defama tion cases must be economic in nature, and it is not enough that the plaintiff has suffered harm to reputation, mental anguish or other dignitary harm, unless he has suffered the loss of something having economic value”). 7 See at 139 (explaining |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | of something having economic value”). 7 See at 139 (explaining that noneconomic harms “are called general damages”); W. Prosser, Law of Torts p. 761 (4th ed. 1971) (noting that “ ‘general’ damages may be recovered for the injury to the plaintiff’s reputation, his wounded feelings and humiliation, and Cite as: 566 U. S. (2012) 11 Opinion of the Court This parallel between the Privacy Act and the common law torts of libel per quod and slander suggests the possi bility that Congress intended the term “actual damages” in the Act to mean special damages. The basic idea is that Privacy Act victims, like victims of libel per quod or slan der, are barred from any recovery unless they can first show actual—that is, pecuniary or material—harm. Upon showing some pecuniary harm, no matter how slight, they can recover the statutory minimum of $1,000, presumably for any unproven harm. That Congress would choose to use the term “actual damages” instead of “special damages” was not without precedent. The terms had occasionally been used interchangeably. See, e.g., (holding that plain tiff could not establish libel per quod because he “did not introduce any valid and sufficient evidence of actual dam age”); Electric Furnace (stating that “libel per quod standing alone without proof of actual damages will not support a verdict for the plaintiff ”); M & S Furniture Sales (“In the case of words or conduct actionable only per quod, the injurious effect must be established by allegations and proof of special damage and in such cases it is not only necessary to plead and show that the words or actions were defama tory, but it must appear that such words or conduct caused actual damage”); 47 N.W. (distinguishing “actual, or, as they are sometimes termed, ‘special,’ dam ages” from “general damages—that is, damages not pecu —————— resulting physical illness and pain, as well as estimated future dam ages of the same kind” (footnotes omitted)); 3 Restatement Com ment a (stating that, in actions for defamation, a plaintiff may recover general damages for “impairment of his reputation or, through loss of reputation, to his other interests”). 12 FAA v. COOPER Opinion of the Court niary in their nature”).8 Any doubt about the plausibility of construing “actual damages” in the Privacy Act synonymously with “special damages” is put to rest by Congress’ refusal to authorize “general damages.” In an uncodified section of the Act, Congress established the Privacy Protection Study Com mission to consider, among other things, “whether the Federal Government should be liable for general dam- ages.” note following 5 U.S. C. |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | liable for general dam- ages.” note following 5 U.S. C. p. 712. As we explained in “Congress left the question of general damages for another day.” 540 U.S., Although the Commission later recom- mended that general damages be allowed, ib n. 4, Congress never amended the Act to include them. For that reason, we held that it was “beyond serious doubt” that general damages are not available for violations of the Privacy By authorizing recovery for “actual” but not for “gen eral” damages, Congress made clear that it viewed those terms as mutually exclusive. In actions for defamation and related dignitary torts, two categories of compensa- tory damages are recoverable: general damages and special damages. Cooley at 579; see 4 Restatement Comment d (1939) (noting that damages for inter ference with privacy “can be awarded in the same way in which general damages are given for defamation”).9 Be —————— 8 The dissent disregards these precedents as the product of careless imprecision. Post, at 8, n. 6. But just as we assume that Congress did not act carelessly, we should not be so quick to assume that the courts did. The better explanation for these precedents is not that the courts were careless, but that the term “actual damages” has a varied mean ing that, depending on the context, can be limited to compensation for only pecuniary harm. 9 See 382–383, 332–333 (“Having admittedly alleged or proven no special damages, the plaintiff here is limited to a recovery of general damages”); 178 N. W. Cite as: 566 U. S. (2012) 13 Opinion of the Court cause Congress declined to authorize “general damages,” we think it likely that Congress intended “actual dam ages” in the Privacy Act to mean special damages for proven pecuniary loss. Not surprisingly, this interpretation was accepted by the Privacy Protection Study Commission, an expert body authorized by Congress and highly sensitive to the Act’s goals. The Commission understood “actual damages” in the Act to be “a synonym for special damages as that term is used in defamation cases.” Personal Privacy in an Information Society: The Report of the Privacy Protection Study Commission 530 ; see (“The legislative history and language of the Act suggest that Congress meant to restrict recovery to specific pecuniary losses until the Commission could weigh the propriety of extending the standard of recovery”). Although we are not bound in any way by the Commission’s report, we think it confirms the reasonableness of interpreting “actual dam ages” in the unique context of the Privacy Act as the equivalent of special damages. —————— 792, 794 |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | Act as the equivalent of special damages. —————— 792, 794 (1920) (per curiam) (“Generally speaking, there are recognized two classes of damages in libel cases, general damages and special damages”); 267 (1919) (“Actual damages include both general and special damages”); 288–289, (explaining that special damages, “as a branch of actual damages[,] may be recovered when actual pecuniary loss has been sustained” and that the “remaining branch of actual damages embraces recovery for loss of reputation, shame, mortification, injury to feelings, etc.”); see generally Dobbs at (“Though the dignitary torts often involve only general damages they sometimes produce actual pecuniary loss. When this happens, the plaintiff is usually entitled to recover any special damage he can prove ”); 1 F. Harper & F. James, Law of Torts p. 470 (1956) (“When liability for defamation is established, the defendant, in addition to such ‘gen eral’ damages as may be assessed by the jury, is liable for any special damage which he has sustained”). 14 FAA v. COOPER Opinion of the Court D We do not claim that the contrary reading of the statute accepted by the Court of Appeals and advanced now by respondent is inconceivable. But because the Privacy Act waives the Federal Government’s sovereign immunity, the question we must answer is whether it is plausible to read the statute, as the Government does, to authorize only damages for economic loss. Nordic 503 U.S., at 34, 37. When waiving the Government’s sovereign im munity, Congress must speak unequivocally. 518 U.S., Here, we conclude that it did not. As a consequence, we adopt an interpretation of “actual dam ages” limited to proven pecuniary or economic harm. To do otherwise would expand the scope of Congress’ sover eign immunity waiver beyond what the statutory text clearly requires. III None of respondent’s contrary arguments suffices to overcome the sovereign immunity canon. A Respondent notes that the term “actual damages” has often been defined broadly in common-law cases, and in our own, to include all compensatory damages. See Brief for Respondent 18–25. For example, in a patent infringement case, we observed that “[c]ompensatory damages and actual dam ages mean the same thing.” And in we wrote that actual injury in the defamation context “is not limited to out-of pocket loss” and that it customarily includes “impairment of reputation and standing in the community, personal humiliation, and mental anguish and suffering.” at 350. These cases and others cited by respondent stand for the Cite as: 566 U. S. (2012) 15 Opinion of the Court unremarkable point that the term “actual damages” can include nonpecuniary loss. But |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | that the term “actual damages” can include nonpecuniary loss. But this generic meaning does not establish with the requisite clarity that the Privacy Act, with its distinctive features, authorizes damages for mental and emotional As we already explained, the term “actual damages” takes on different meanings in different contexts. B Respondent’s stronger argument is that the exclusion of “general damages” from the statute simply means that there can be no recovery for presumed damages. Privacy Act victims can still recover for mental and emotional distress, says respondent, so long as it is proved. See Brief for Respondent 54–56.10 This argument is flawed because it suggests that proven mental and emotional distress does not count as general damages. The term “general damages” is not limited to compensation for unproven injuries; it includes compensa tion for proven injuries as well. See 3 Restatement Comment a (noting that general damages compensate for “harm which is proved, or, in the absence of proof, is assumed to have caused to [the plaintiff’s] reputation”). To be sure, specific proof of emotional harm is not required to recover general damages for dignitary torts. Dobbs at 529. But it does not follow that general damages cannot be recovered for emotional harm that is actually proved. Aside from the fact that general damages need not be proved, what distinguishes those damages, whether proved or not, from the only other category of compensa- tory damages available in the relevant common-law suits is the type of harm. In defamation and privacy cases, “the affront to the plaintiff’s dignity and the emotional harm —————— 10 The dissent advances the same argument. See post, at 9–11. 16 FAA v. COOPER Opinion of the Court done” are “called general damages, to distinguish them from proof of actual economic harm,” which is called “spe cial damages.” at 139; see 12– 13, and nn. 6, 7, 9. Therefore, the converse of general damages is special damages, not all proven damages, as respondent would have it. Because Congress removed “general damages” from the Act’s remedial provision, it is reasonable to infer that Congress foreclosed recovery for nonpecuniary harm, even if such harm can be proved, and instead waived the Government’s sovereign immunity only with respect to harm compensable as special damages. C Looking beyond the Privacy Act’s text, respondent points to the use of the term “actual” damages in the remedial provisions of the FHA, 42 U.S. C. and the FCRA, 15 U.S. C. 1681o. As previously mentioned, courts have held that “actual” damages within the meaning of these statutes include compensation for mental and emotional Citing |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | of these statutes include compensation for mental and emotional Citing the rule of construction that Congress intends the same lan guage in similar statutes to have the same meaning, see Northcross v. Board of Ed. of Memphis City Schools, 412 U.S. 427, 428 (1973) (per curiam), respondent argues that the Privacy Act should be interpreted as authorizing damages for mental and emotional See Brief for Respondent 25–32. Assuming for the sake of argument that these lower court decisions are correct, they provide only weak support for respondent’s argument here. Since the term “actual damages” can mean different things in different contexts, statutes other than the Privacy Act provide only limited interpretive aid, and that is especially true here. Neither the FHA nor the FCRA contains text that precisely mir Cite as: 566 U. S. (2012) 17 Opinion of the Court rors the Privacy 11 In neither of those statutes did Congress specifically decline to authorize recovery for general damages as it did in the Privacy at 12–13. And most importantly, none of the lower court cases interpreting the statutes, which respondent has cited, see Brief for Respondent 29–31, involves the sover eign immunity canon. Respondent points to the FTCA, but the FTCA’s general liability provision does not even use the term “actual damages.” It instead provides that the “United States shall be liable” for certain tort claims “in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual” under relevant state law. 28 U.S. C. ¶1. For that reason alone, the FTCA’s general liability provision is not a reliable source for interpreting the term “actual damages” in the Privacy Nor does the FTCA’s wrongful death provision—which authorizes “actual or compensa- tory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries resulting from such death,” ¶2—prove that Congress under stood the term “actual damages” in the Privacy Act to include nonpecuniary mental and emotional harm. To the contrary, it proves that actual damages can be understood to entail only pecuniary harm depending on the context. Because the FTCA, like the FHA and FCRA, does not share the same text or design as the Privacy Act, it is not a fitting analog for construing the —————— 11 Compare 42 U.S. C. (stating that “the court may award to the plaintiff actual and punitive damages”); 15 U.S. C. (authorizing “(A) any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or damages of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000; or (B) actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or $1,000, whichever is greater”); |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | a result of the failure or $1,000, whichever is greater”); (authoriz ing “any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure”) with 5 U.S. C. (authorizing “actual damages sustained by the individual as a result of the refusal or failure, but in no case shall a person entitled to recovery receive less than the sum of $1,000”). 18 FAA v. COOPER Opinion of the Court D Finally, respondent argues that excluding damages for mental and emotional harm would lead to absurd results. Persons suffering relatively minor pecuniary loss would be entitled to recover $1,000, while others suffering only severe and debilitating mental or emotional distress would get nothing. See Brief for Respondent 33–35. Contrary to respondent’s suggestion, however, there is nothing absurd about a scheme that limits the Govern ment’s Privacy Act liability to harm that can be substanti ated by proof of tangible economic loss. Respondent in sists that such a scheme would frustrate the Privacy Act’s remedial purpose, but that ignores the fact that, by delib erately refusing to authorize general damages, Congress intended to cabin relief, not to maximize it.12 —————— 12 Despite its rhetoric, the dissent does not dispute most of the steps in our analysis. For example, although the dissent belittles the sover eign immunity canon, the dissent does not call for its abandonment. See post, at 2–3. Nor does the dissent point out any error in our under standing of the canon’s meaning. See The dissent acknowledges that statutes and judicial opinions sometimes use the term “actual damages” to mean pecuniary harm, see post, at 5, and that determining its meaning in a particular statute requires consideration of context, see In addition, the dissent concedes—as it must in light of our reasoning in —that the common law of defamation has relevance in construing the term “actual damages” in the Privacy See post, –9. The dissent’s argument thus boils down to this: The text and purpose of the Privacy Act make it clear beyond any reasonable dispute that the term “actual damages,” as used in the Act, means compensatory dam ages for all proven harm and not just damages for pecuniary harm. The dissent reasons that, because the Act seeks to prevent pecuniary and nonpecuniary harm, Congress must have intended to authorize the recovery of money damages from the Federal Government for both types of harm. This inference is plausible, but it surely is not unavoid able. The Act deters violations of its substantive provisions in other ways—for instance, by permitting recovery for economic injury; by imposing criminal sanctions for some |
Justice Alito | 2,012 | 8 | majority | FAA v. Cooper | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/626208/faa-v-cooper/ | recovery for economic injury; by imposing criminal sanctions for some violations, see 5 U.S. C. and possibly by allowing for injunctive relief under the Administrative Cite as: 566 U. S. (2012) 19 Opinion of the Court * * * In sum, applying traditional rules of construction, we hold that the Privacy Act does not unequivocally authorize an award of damages for mental or emotional Accordingly, the Act does not waive the Federal Govern ment’s sovereign immunity from liability for such harms. We therefore reverse the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. JUSTICE KAGAN took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. —————— Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S. C. 706; see n. 1 (noting that the absence of equitable relief in suits under or (D) may be explained by the availability of such relief under the APA). Cite as: 566 U. S. (2012) 1 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 10– FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. |
Justice Stewart | 1,980 | 18 | dissenting | United States v. Raddatz | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110315/united-states-v-raddatz/ | A federal indictment was returned charging the respondent, who had previously been convicted of a felony, with unlawfully receiving a firearm in violation of 18 U.S. C. 922 (h) (1). Before the trial, the respondent filed in the District Court a motion to suppress various incriminating statements he had made to agents of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, *688 Tobacco, and Firearms.[1] Pursuant to the Federal Magistrates Act (Act), 28 U.S. C. 636 (b) (1),[2] the District Judge referred this motion to a Magistrate, who held an evidentiary hearing and then recommended that the respondent's motion be denied. Without taking further evidence the District Judge accepted the Magistrate's recommendation and denied *689 the motion to suppress. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the respondent was constitutionally entitled to a hearing by the judge before his suppression motion could be denied. Today this Court reverses that judgment. I dissent, because I believe that the statute itself required a hearing before the judge in this case. The statute provides that a district judge, in ruling on a motion to suppress, "shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the [magistrate's] report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made." 28 U.S. C. 636 (b) (1) (emphasis added). It is my view that the judge could not make the statutorily required "de novo determination" of the critically contested factual issues in this case without personally observing the demeanor of the witnesses. At the hearing before the Magistrate the respondent testified that he had made the incriminating statements to the federal agents only because they promised that he would not be prosecuted if he cooperated, and offered to employ him as an informer. The agents gave a different version of the relevant events. They expressly testified that at no time was the respondent ever told that he would not be prosecuted. Instead, according to the agents, he was simply told that any assistance he might provide would be mentioned to the United States Attorney. Their story also undermined the respondent's testimony that he had been offered employment as an informer before he made the incriminating statements. If the respondent's testimony was true, his motion to suppress evidence of his incriminating statements should have been granted. See ; The Magistrate, however, did not believe him, expressly finding that "the testimony of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent[s is] more credible" and that the "Federal agents never advised Raddatz that charges against him would be dismissed, if he cooperated." In concluding for this reason that the motion should be denied, |
Justice Stewart | 1,980 | 18 | dissenting | United States v. Raddatz | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110315/united-states-v-raddatz/ | concluding for this reason that the motion should be denied, *690 the Magistrate properly exercised the authority granted him by 28 U.S. C. 636 (b) (1) (B) "to submit proposed findings of fact and recommendations for the disposition" of the suppression motion. But the Act also empowered the respondent to object to these findings. He did so, and the responsibility then devolved on the District Judge to "make a de novo determination" of the contested issues of fact. The phrase "de novo determination" has an accepted meaning in the law. It means an independent determination of a controversy that accords no deference to any prior resolution of the same controversy. Thus, in Renegotiation the Court had occasion to define "de novo proceeding" as a review that was "unfettered by any prejudice from the [prior] agency proceeding and free from any claim that the [agency's] determination is supported by substantial evidence."[3] And, in United this Court observed that "review de novo" means "that the court should make an independent determination of the issues" and should "not give any special weight to the [prior] determination of" the administrative agency.[4] *691 Here, the District Judge was faced with a transcript that contained two irreconcilable accounts of the critical facts. Neither version was intrinsically incredible or, for that matter, less plausible on its face than the other. Moreover, there was in the record no evidence inherently more trustworthy than that supported by human recollection. In these circumstances, the District Judge could not make the statutorily mandated "de novo determination" without being exposed to the one kind of evidence that no written record can ever revealthe demeanor of the witnesses.[5] In declining to conduct a hearing in this case, the District Judge thus necessarily gave the Magistrate's prior assessment of credibility the kind of "special weight" that the "de novo determination" standard does not permit. Contrary to the Court's assertion, nothing in the legislative history of the 196 amendments to the Federal Magistrates Act compels a different conclusion. Congress, to be sure, explicitly rejected a version of the ultimately enacted bill that would have required a district judge always to "hear de novo" those aspects of the case whose proposed resolution by the magistrate dissatisfied one or more of the parties. Compare S. Rep. No. 94-625, p. 2 (196) (hereinafter S. Rep.) (bill as reported by Senate Committee on the Judiciary), with S. 1283, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. (195) (bill as originally introduced by Senator Burdick). Moreover, as the Court points out, the Report of the House Judiciary Committee says that "[t]he use of the |
Justice Stewart | 1,980 | 18 | dissenting | United States v. Raddatz | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110315/united-states-v-raddatz/ | the House Judiciary Committee says that "[t]he use of the words `de novo determination' is not intended to require the judge to actually conduct a new hearing on contested issues." H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, p. 3 (196) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.). *692 Other passages in the legislative history, however, make clear that these indications of legislative intent comport with the plain language of the statute. As the Senate and House Reports emphasize, "the ultimate adjudicatory power over" suppression and other dispositive motions is to be "exercised by [a district] judge after receiving assistance from and the recommendation of the magistrate." S. Rep., at 10; H. R. Rep., at 11. Thus, according to the House Report, a district judge, "in making the ultimate determination of the matter, would have to give fresh consideration to those issues to which specific objection has been made by a party." The Report describes this responsibility as follows: "Normally, the judge will consider the record which has been developed before the magistrate and make his own determination on the basis of that record. In some specific instances, however, it may be necessary for the judge to take additional evidence, recall witnesses." See also 122 Cong. Rec. 35182 (196) (Rep. Railsback). It is thus evident that Congress anticipated that occasions would arise when a district judge could not make the requisite "de novo determination" without hearing the evidence himself.[6] Congress' prime objective in 196 was to overrule this Court's decision in which had interpreted the then existing Federal Magistrates Act as *693 barring a magistrate from holding an evidentiary hearing on a petition for habeas corpus. See S. Rep., 9; H. R. Rep., at 5, 11. The 196 Act thus granted magistrates the power to take evidence on matters like habeas corpus petitions and motions to suppress. By enacting such legislation, Congress obviously anticipated that hearings conducted by magistrates would in many instances obviate the need for district judges to take evidence as well. It does not follow, however, that Congress told district judges that they need not conduct hearings in every case where an evidentiary hearing has been conducted by a magistrate, regardless of the circumstances. Instead, Congress expressly limited the "clearly erroneous" standard of review to pretrial motions that are termed non-"dispositive" in the Act's legislative history, see S. Rep., at 9-10; H. R. Rep., at 9, 10-11, and excluded habeas corpus petitions, motions to suppress, and other important motions from that category, see 28 U.S. C. 636 (b) (1). The Court suggests that a plain reading of the statutory language would, as a |
Justice Stewart | 1,980 | 18 | dissenting | United States v. Raddatz | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110315/united-states-v-raddatz/ | a plain reading of the statutory language would, as a practical matter, frustrate the Act's objective of alleviating the increasing congestion of litigation in the district courts. But, as I interpret the statutory language, district judges need not always hold evidentiary hearings in order properly to dispose of suppression motions. Although many motions to suppress turn on issues of credibility, many do not. A suppression motion predicated, for instance, on the claim that a search warrant was not supported by an adequate affidavit could normally be resolved without the taking of any testimony. More importantly, the "de novo determination" requirement of the Federal Magistrates Act applies to a much wider range of motions and applications than simply pretrial motions to suppress.[] Some of thesesuch as motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim, motions for judgment on the pleadings, *694 and motions for summary judgmentpresume as a legal matter the lack of any need for an evidentiary hearing, even at the magistrate's level. Otherssuch as motions for injunctive relief, motions to dismiss or quash an indictment, motions to dismiss or to permit maintenance of a class action, motions to dismiss an action involuntarily, applications for post-trial relief made by those convicted of criminal offenses, and petitions by prisoners challenging conditions of confinement could often, as a practical matter, be granted or denied by a district court on the strength alone of the transcript of the magistrate's hearing and his recommendation. Thus, contrary to the Court's suggestion, the plain reading I would give to the pertinent statutory language would not equate "de novo determination" with "de novo hearing." Since I believe that the plain language of the statute required the District Judge in this case to hear the conflicting factual testimony of the witnesses, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom MR. |
Justice Brennan | 1,985 | 13 | concurring | Tennessee v. Street | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111424/tennessee-v-street/ | I join the opinion of the Court today admitting Peele's out-of-court confession for nonhearsay rebuttal purposes. I do so on the understanding that the trial court's limiting instruction is not itself sufficient to justify admission of the confession. See The out-of-court confession is admissible for nonhearsay purposes in this case only because that confession was essential to the State's rebuttal of respondent Street's defense and because no alternative short of admitting the statement would have adequately served the State's interest. See ante, at 415-416. With respect to the State's need to admit the confession for rebuttal purposes, it is important to note that respondent created the need to admit the statement by pressing the defense that his confession was a coerced imitation of Peele's out-of-court confession.[*] Also, the record *418 contains no suggestion that the State was engaged in any improper effort to place prejudicial hearsay evidence before the jury. See Under the circumstances of the present case, admission of the out-of-court confession for nonhearsay rebuttal purposes raises no Confrontation Clause problems. |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | dissenting | United States v. Marcus | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146982/united-states-v-marcus/ | The Court’s opinion fairly summarizes our “plain error” cases and shows how the Court of Appeals applied a novel standard of review. Yet while it may have taken an un usual route to get there, I find nothing wrong with the Court of Appeals’ judgment. I am more concerned with this Court’s approach to, and policing of, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b). I On October 28, 2000, Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), Respon dent Glenn Marcus was convicted on two counts under the TVPA: one for sex trafficking, in violation of 18 U.S. C. and one for forced labor, in violation of The indictment charged conduct that spanned from Janu ary to October 2001. See (per curiam). The evidence introduced by the Gov ernment at trial spanned from 1998 to 2003. See 487 F. Supp. 2d 289, 292–297 (EDNY 2007). Most of the evi dence supporting the sex trafficking charge, and some of the evidence supporting the forced labor charge, related to discrete events that occurred before October 28, 2000. At trial, Marcus failed to ask the judge to inform the jury that his preenactment conduct was not unlawful, and the judge failed to give an instruction to that effect. If a 2 UNITED STATES v. MARCUS STEVENS, J., dissenting request had been made, it is clear that an appropriate instruction would have been given. Indeed, it is equally clear that the judge would have given such an instruction sua sponte if she had been aware of the effective date of the statute. No one disputes that error was committed in the way Marcus was charged and tried, and the error was sufficiently plain to be considered on appeal. The record demonstrates that Marcus’ sex trafficking conviction likely violated the ex post facto rule, as applied to trial proceedings through the Due Process Clause, see ante, at 6, because the postenactment evidence appears to have been insufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See –106 (Sotomayor, J., concur ring). Whether his forced labor conviction is invalid for the same reason is not clear. What is clear, however, is that neither the Second Circuit nor this Court has to determine that an error of constitutional magnitude oc curred for Marcus to be eligible for relief. The question under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) is whether the trial error was sufficiently weighty to affect “substantial rights,” and in my view this error surely was. The Court notes that the error “created a risk that the jury would convict respondent solely on the basis of con duct |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | dissenting | United States v. Marcus | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146982/united-states-v-marcus/ | would convict respondent solely on the basis of con duct that was not criminal when the defendant engaged in that conduct.” Ante, at 5. That is true, and it is of funda mental concern because imposing criminal sanctions for nonproscribed conduct has always been considered a hallmark of tyranny—no matter how morally reprehensi ble the prosecuted party. But in addition to the very real possibility that the jury convicted Marcus of sex trafficking solely on the basis of preenactment conduct, the error created another risk: namely, that both verdicts, returned after seven days of deliberation, rested in part on the jury’s incorrect belief that the conduct before October 28, 2000, was unlawful. The error committed at trial not only prevented the jury Cite as: 560 U. S. (2010) 3 STEVENS, J., dissenting from focusing on the relevant time period, but it also distorted the jury’s perception of Marcus’ actions. By arguing that its preenactment evidence showed a violation of the TVPA, the Government effectively mischaracterized all of that evidence as descriptions of illegal behavior. And by giving the jury the impression that Marcus committed a much larger amount of criminal conduct than he really did, the error may have tipped the scales in favor of the prosecution, when the actual evidence of guilt would not have persuaded the jury to convict. There is no need to decide whether the Government’s arguments or the trial court’s failure to give a curative instruction reached a level of unfairness sufficient to violate the Due Process Clause. For the foregoing reasons, I am convinced that the error prejudiced Marcus and seriously undermined the integrity of the proceedings. While I do not endorse the reasoning in the Court of Ap peals’ opinion,* I would therefore affirm its judgment. —————— * The per curiam opinion contained a curious wrinkle, apart from misclassifying the trial error. See ante, at 6. The per curiam applied a standard from earlier Second Circuit cases that asked whether there was any possibility the jury convicted the defendant exclusively on the basis of preenactment conduct. United States v. Monaco, and United States v. Harris, 79 F.3d 223, (1996)). As I read the Second Circuit precedents, how ever, they used that standard to determine whether an ex post facto violation occurred, not to determine whether that violation warranted vacatur of the conviction pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Proce dure 52(b). Torres is the only one of the cited cases that even consid ered Rule 52(b), and its holding rested on a combination of factors, including that “the defendants brought the general ex |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | dissenting | United States v. Marcus | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146982/united-states-v-marcus/ | of factors, including that “the defendants brought the general ex post facto ques tion to the attention of the district court,” albeit imprecisely, and that a mandatory life sentence was 901 F.2d, at It is thus unclear why the Court of Appeals believed itself foreclosed from con ducting a regular “plain error” review. 4 UNITED STATES v. MARCUS STEVENS, J., dissenting II The Court does not engage the merits of that judgment, but instead remands to the Court of Appeals to apply the test we have devised for evaluating claims of “plain error.” That test requires lower courts to conduct four separate inquiries, each of which requires a distinct form of judg ment and several of which have generated significant appellate-court dissensus; the test may also contain an exception for “structural errors,” a category we have never defined clearly. With great concision, the Court manages to summarize all of these moving parts in about five pages. Ante, at 3–8. Yet the language of Rule 52(b) is straightforward. It states simply: “A plain error that affects substantial rights may be considered even though it was not brought to the court’s attention.” This is the mirror image of Rule 52(a), which instructs courts to disregard any error “that does not affect substantial rights.” The Federal Rules thus set forth a unitary standard, which turns on whether the error in question affected substantial rights (either in a particular defendant’s case or in the mine run of compara ble cases), and they leave it to judges to figure out how best to apply that standard. In our attempt to clarify Rule 52(b), we have, I fear, both muddied the waters and lost sight of the wisdom embodied in the Rule’s spare text. Errors come in an endless variety of “shapes and sizes.” Ante, at 6. Because error-free trials are so rare, appellate courts must repeat edly confront the question whether a trial judge’s mistake was harmless or warrants reversal. They become familiar with particular judges and with the vast panoply of trial procedures, they acquire special expertise in dealing with recurring issues, and their doctrine evolves over time to help clarify and classify various types of mistakes. These are just a few of the reasons why federal appellate courts are “allowed a wide measure of discretion in the supervi Cite as: 560 U. S. (2010) 5 STEVENS, J., dissenting sion of litigation in their respective circuits.” United (STEVENS, J., dissenting). This Court’s ever more intensive efforts to rationalize plain-error review may have been born of a worthy instinct. But they have trapped the appellate |
Justice Thomas | 1,998 | 1 | dissenting | Caron v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118233/caron-v-united-states/ | The only limitation that Massachusetts law imposed on petitioner's possession of firearms was that he could not carry handguns outside his home or business. See ante, at 311. In my view, Massachusetts law did not "expressly provid[e]" that petitioner "may not possess firearms," 18 U.S. C. 91(a)(0), and thus petitioner cannot be sentenced as an armed career criminal under 94(e). Because the Court holds to the contrary, I respectfully dissent. Petitioner's prior Massachusetts convictions qualify as violent felonies for purposes of 94(e) only if the "restoration of [his] civil rights" by operation of Massachusetts law "expressly provide[d] that [petitioner] may not possess firearms." 91(a)(0). In 1994, Massachusetts law did not expressly provide that petitioner could not possess firearms. To the contrary: Petitioner was permitted by Massachusetts law to possess shotguns, rifles, and handguns. See ante, at 311; Mass. Gen. Laws 140:13, 140:19B, 140:19C Indeed, Massachusetts provided petitioner with a firearm identification card that enabled him to possess such firearms.[*] The only restriction Massachusetts law placed on petitioner's possession of firearms was that he could not carry handguns outside his home or business. See 69:10(A). By prohibiting petitioner from possessing *318 only certain firearms (handguns) in only certain places (outside his home or office), Massachusetts law did not expressly provide that petitioner could not possess firearms. The plain meaning of 91(a)(0) thus resolves this case. The Court, however, rejects this plain meaning on the basis of "a likely, and rational, congressional policy" of prohibiting firearms possession by all ex-felons whose ability to possess certain firearms is in any way restricted by state law. Ante, at 315. According to the Court, Congress could not have intended the "bizarre result" that a conviction would not count as a violent felony if a State only partially restricts the possession of firearms by the ex-felon. But this would not be a bizarre result at all. Under 91(a)(0), state-law limitations on firearms possession are only relevant once it has been established that an ex-felon's other civil rights, such as the right to vote, the right to seek and to hold public office, and the right to serve on a jury, have been restored. See In restoring those rights, the State has presumably deemed such ex-felons worthy of participating in civic life. Once a State makes such a decision, it is entirely rational (and certainly not bizarre) for Congress to authorize the increased sentences in 94(e) only when the State additionally prohibits those ex-felons from possessing firearms altogether. Moreover, as the Court concedes, its own interpretation creates "incongruities." Ante, at 315. Under the statute, whether a prior |
Justice Thomas | 1,998 | 1 | dissenting | Caron v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118233/caron-v-united-states/ | "incongruities." Ante, at 315. Under the statute, whether a prior state conviction qualifies as a violent felony conviction under 94(e) turns entirely on state law. Given the primacy of state law in the statutory scheme, it is bizarre to hold that the legal possession of firearms under state law subjects a person to a sentence enhancement under federal law. That, however, is precisely the conclusion the Court reaches in this case. It is simply not true, as the Court reasons, that federal law "must reach primary conduct not covered by state law." It is entirely plausible that Congress simply intended to create stiffer penalties for *319 weapons possessions that are already illegal under state law. And such a purpose is consistent with the statutory direction that state law controls what constitutes a conviction for a violent felony. I believe that the plain meaning of the statute is that Massachusetts did not "expressly provid[e]" that petitioner "may not possess firearms." At the very least, this interpretation is a plausible one. Indeed, both the Government and the Court concede as much. See Brief for United States 16 ("grammatically possible" to read statute to say that its condition is not satisfied if the State does permit its felons to possess some firearms); ante, at 316 (this "reading is not plausible enough"). Accordingly, it is far from clear under the statute that a prior state conviction counts as a violent felony conviction for purposes of 94(e) just because the State imposes some restriction, no matter how slight, on firearms possession by ex-felons. The rule of lenity must therefore apply: "[T]he Court will not interpret a federal criminal statute so as to increase the penalty that it places on an individual when such an interpretation can be based on no more than a guess as to what Congress intended." Ex-felons cannot be expected to realize that a federal statute that explicitly relies on state law prohibits behavior that state law allows. The Court rejects the rule of lenity in this case because it thinks the purported statutory ambiguity rests on a "grammatical possibility" and "an implausible reading of the congressional purpose." Ante, at 316. But the alleged ambiguity does not result from a mere grammatical possibility; it exists because of an interpretation that, for the reasons I have described, both accords with a natural reading of the statutory language and is consistent with the statutory purpose. The plain meaning of 91(a)(0) is that Massachusetts law did not "expressly provid[e] that [petitioner] may not *30 possess firearms." This interpretation is, at the very least, a plausible |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,983 | 19 | dissenting | Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Constr. Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110873/moses-h-cone-memorial-hospital-v-mercury-constr-corp/ | In its zeal to provide arbitration for a party it thinks deserving, the Court has made an exception to established rules of procedure. The Court's attempt to cast the District Court's decision as a final judgment fails to do justice to the meaning of the word "final," to the Act of Congress that limits the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals, or to the district judges who administer the laws in the first instance. If the District Court had not stayed the proceeding, but had set a trial date two months away, there would be no doubt that its order was interlocutory, subject to review only by mandamus or pursuant to 28 U.S. C. 1292(b). This would be true even though 4 of the Arbitration Act provides that "the court shall proceed summarily" to trial, because an order setting a trial date only guides the course of litigation, and does not, of its own force, dispose of it on the merits. Such an order is tentative; that is, it is subject to change at any time on the motion of a party or by the court, sua sponte. The order the District Court actually entered is no more final. It delayed further proceedings until the completion of pending litigation in the state courts. This order was also tentative; it was subject to change on a showing that the state proceedings were being delayed, either by the Hospital or by the court, or that the state courts were not applying the federal Act, or that some other reason for a change had arisen. This order did not dispose of the case on the merits. If the state court had found that there was no agreement to arbitrate within the meaning of the United States Arbitration Act, the District Court would have been bound by that finding. But res judicata or collateral estoppel would apply if the state court reached a decision before the District Court in the absence of a stay. The likelihood that a state court of competent jurisdiction may enter a judgment that may determine some issue in a case does not render final a federal district court's decision to take a two-day recess, or to order additional *31 briefing by the parties in five days or five months, or to take a case under advisement rather than render an immediate decision from the bench. Such a possibility did not magically change that character of the order the District Judge entered in this case. Section 1291 of the Judicial Code is a congressional command to the federal courts of |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,983 | 19 | dissenting | Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Constr. Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110873/moses-h-cone-memorial-hospital-v-mercury-constr-corp/ | Code is a congressional command to the federal courts of appeals not to interfere with the district courts' management of ongoing proceedings. Unless the high standards for a writ of mandamus can be met, or the district court certifies an interlocutory appeal pursuant to 1292(b), Congress has directed that the district courts be permitted to conduct their cases as they see fit. The reason for this rule is simple: "Since the right to a judgment from more than one court is a matter of grace and not a necessary ingredient of justice, Congress from the very beginning has, by forbidding piecemeal disposition on appeal of what for practical purposes is a single controversy, set itself against enfeebling judicial administration. Thereby is avoided the obstruction to just claims that would come from permitting the harassment and cost of a succession of separate appeals from the various rulings to which a litigation may give rise, from its initiation to entry of judgment. To be effective, judicial administration must not be leaden-footed. Its momentum would be arrested by permitting separate reviews of the component elements in a unified cause." The Court's decision places an unwarranted limitation upon the power of district courts to control their own cases. The Court's opinion does not establish a broad exception to 1291, see ante, at 10-11, n. 11, but it does create uncertainty about when a district court order in a pending case can be appealed. This uncertainty gives litigants opportunities to disrupt or delay proceedings by taking colorable appeals from interlocutory *32 orders, not only in cases nearly identical to this but also in cases which the ingenuity of counsel disappointed by a district court's ruling can analogize to this one. Section 1291 established a policy that district judges should conduct their own cases from beginning to end. The occasional injustice to a litigant that results from an erroneous district court decision is far outweighed by the far greater systemic disruption created by encouraging parties to attempt interlocutory appeals. The former attracts the Court's attention because the legal error it perceives is apparent on the surface of the case. The latter receives inadequate attention because it does not appear in published decisions or in petitions for certiorari. It is, rather, obscured by the "merits" of cases and hidden among statistics on the cost and seeming interminable nature of litigation. Both respect for district judges and concern for the course of litigation generally should make the Court hesitate before creating another exception, however narrow, to 1291. The Court has acknowledged the importance of the rule of finality |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,983 | 19 | dissenting | Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Constr. Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110873/moses-h-cone-memorial-hospital-v-mercury-constr-corp/ | Court has acknowledged the importance of the rule of finality as recently as & which rejected the so called "death knell" exception to 1291. In a putative representative plaintiff whose motion for class certification had been denied by the District Court sought to appeal under 1291. We accepted his argument that this order effectively put him out of court, but held that this circumstance did not justify an exception to the statute. "[A]llowing appeals of right from nonfinal orders that turn on the facts of a particular case thrusts appellate courts indiscriminately into the trial process and thus defeats one vital purpose of the final-judgment rule `that of maintaining the appropriate relationship between the respective courts. This goal, in the absence of most compelling reasons to the contrary, is very much worth preserving.' " ). *33 The Court has not given any sound, principled justification for permitting the Court of Appeals to thrust itself into the trial process in this case. It begins by citing Idlewild Liquor There the District Court had stayed an action challenging the constitutionality of a state statute "to give the state courts an opportunity to pass upon the constitutional issues presented, although there was no relevant litigation then pending in the state courts." This Court held that the order was appealable because the plaintiff "was effectively out of court." Idlewild does not control this case. First, Mercury is less "effectively out of court" than was Idlewild. There was no pending state proceeding that might have resolved the issues in the case, and Idlewild might well have been obliged to take the risk of violating the statute and challenging it in an enforcement proceeding in state court. More importantly, however, the decision in Idlewild cannot be good law after The Court describes as holding only that the collateral-order doctrine of does not apply to a class decertification order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(c)(1). Ante, at 12-13, n. 14. We did hold that "the collateral-order doctrine is not applicable to" a decertification -469. We then went on to reject the argument that the decertification order was final under the so-called "death knell" doctrine, holding that an order does not become final simply because the plaintiff will be unable to pursue his claim if the order stands. We declined to attach any importance to the fact that the plaintiff in was just as "effectively out of court" as Idlewild or Mercury. We noted that "if the `death knell' doctrine has merit, it would apply equally to the many interlocutory orders in ordinary litigation that may |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,983 | 19 | dissenting | Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Constr. Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110873/moses-h-cone-memorial-hospital-v-mercury-constr-corp/ | to the many interlocutory orders in ordinary litigation that may have such tactical economic significance that a defeat is tantamount to a `death knell' for the entire case." We also noted that 28 U.S. C. 1292(b) provides for review *34 of certain nonfinal orders, and that the "death knell" doctrine circumvents its -475. By ignoring this discussion and holding from the Court has created an unjustified exception to 1291. The Court also states that the stay order in this case is appealable under It quotes the formulation of the collateral-order doctrine from : "[T]he order must conclusively determine the disputed question, resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment." quoted, ante, at 11-12. The District Court's order did not "conclusively determine the disputed question" for the reasons stated above. The Court's assertion to the contrary, ante, at 12-13, is nothing short of sheer speculation about the state of mind of the District Judge. Such speculation is hardly the "practical rather than technical construction"[*] of 1291 contemplated by In itself, the District Court denied the defendant's motion to require the plaintiff to post a bond on the ground that the statute requiring the bond did not apply. That order "conclusively determined" the question whether a bond was required because no conceivable change of circumstances could affect the basis of the District Court's decision. In this case, any number of plausible events might have convinced the District Court that a necessary basis of its decision that the state court would proceed promptly and fairly to adjudicate the issue of the existence of an agreement to arbitrate no longer applied. *35 Furthermore, I am not as certain as is the Court that by staying this case the District Court resolved "an important issue." An issue should not be deemed "important" for these purposes simply because the court of appeals or this Court thinks the appellant should prevail. The issue here was whether the factual question whether there was an agreement to arbitrate should be adjudicated in a state or federal court. Unless there is some reason to believe that the state court will resolve this factual question wrongly, which the Court quite rightly disclaims, ante, at 26, I do not see how this issue is more important than any other interlocutory order that may place a litigant at a procedural disadvantage. For these reasons, I do not believe the District Court's order was appealable. Interlocutory orders are committed by statute to the judgment of the district courts, |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,983 | 19 | dissenting | Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Constr. Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110873/moses-h-cone-memorial-hospital-v-mercury-constr-corp/ | committed by statute to the judgment of the district courts, and this Court ill-serves the judges of those courts and the over-whelming majority of litigants by devising exceptions to the statute when it believes a particular litigant has been wronged. Given my view of appealability, I do not find it necessary to decide whether the District Court's order was proper in this case. I am disturbed, however, that the Court has sanctioned an extraordinary departure from the usual and accepted course of judicial proceedings by affirming the Court of Appeals decision on an issue that was not decided in the District Court. The Court of Appeals ordered the District Court to enter an order compelling arbitration, even though that issue was not considered by the District Court. This Court has maintained the difference between appellate jurisdiction and original jurisdiction at least since I do not understand how the Court can say that the Court of Appeals had discretion to perform a nonappellate act. *36 The Court relies on 28 U.S. C. 2106, which provides that a court of appeals "may affirm, modify, vacate, set aside or reverse any judgment, decree, or order of a court lawfully brought before it for review, and may remand the cause and direct the entry of such appropriate judgment, decree, or order, or require such further proceedings to be had as may be just under the circumstances." This statute does not grant the courts of appeals authority to constitute themselves as trial courts. Section 4 of the Arbitration Act gives the Hospital a right to a jury trial. See ante, at 23, n. 27. By deciding that there were no disputed issues of fact, the Court of Appeals seems to have decided a motion for summary judgment that was not before it. This is the kind of issue that district judges decide every day in the ordinary course of business. It is not the kind of issue that courts of appeals determine. The Court of Appeals did have before it the memoranda filed in the District Court but, contrary to the Court's intimation, ante, at 29, this issue was not argued in the Court of Appeals. See ("No one argued that this court should decide that issue"). There was no reason to believe that the District Court would not have acted promptly to resolve the dispute on the merits after being reversed on the stay. That judges of a court of appeals believe they know how a case should be decided is no reason for them to substitute their own judgment for that of a |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | These appeals challenge the constitutionality of New York statutes that authorize police officers to enter a private residence without a warrant and with force, if necessary, to make a routine felony arrest. The important constitutional question presented by this challenge has been expressly left open in a number of our prior opinions. In United we upheld a warrantless "midday public arrest," expressly noting that the case did not pose "the still unsettled question *575. `whether and under what circumstances an officer may enter a suspect's home to make a warrantless arrest.'"[] The question has been answered in different ways by other appellate courts. The Supreme Court of Florida rejected the constitutional attack,[2] as did the New York Court of Appeals in this case. The courts of last resort in 0 other States, however, have held that unless special circumstances are present, warrantless arrests in the home are unconstitutional.[] Of the seven United States Courts of Appeals that have considered the question, five have expressed the opinion that such arrests are unconstitutional.[] *576 Last Term we noted probable jurisdiction of these appeals in order to address that question. After hearing oral argument, we set the case for reargument this Term. We now reverse the New York Court of Appeals and hold that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, ; prohibits the police from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect's home in order to make a routine felony arrest. We first state the facts of both cases in some detail and put to one side certain related questions that are not presented by these records. We then explain why the New York statutes are not consistent with the Fourth Amendment and why the reasons for upholding warrantless arrests in a public place do not apply to warrantless invasions of the privacy of the home. I On January after two days of intensive investigation, New York detectives had assembled evidence sufficient to establish probable cause to believe that Theodore Payton had murdered the manager of a gas station two days earlier. At about 7:0 a. m. on January 5, six officers went to Payton's apartment in the Bronx, intending to arrest him. They had not obtained a warrant. Although light and music emanated from the apartment, there was no response to their knock on the metal door. They summoned emergency assistance and, about 0 minutes later, used crowbars to break open the door and enter the apartment. No one was there. In plain view, however, was a0-caliber shell casing |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | was there. In plain view, however, was a0-caliber shell casing that was *577 seized and later admitted into evidence at Payton's murder trial.[5] In due course Payton surrendered to the police, was indicted for murder, and moved to suppress the evidence taken from his apartment. The trial judge held that the warrantless and forcible entry was authorized by the New York Code of Criminal Procedure,[6] and that the evidence in plain view was properly seized. He found that exigent circumstances justified the officers' failure to announce their purpose before entering the apartment as required by the statute.[7] He had no *578 occasion, however, to decide whether those circumstances also would have justified the failure to obtain a warrant, because he concluded that the warrantless entry was adequately supported by the statute without regard to the circumstances. The Appellate Division, First Department, summarily affirmed.[8] On March 97, Obie Riddick was arrested for the commission of two armed robberies that had occurred in 97. He had been identified by the victims in June 97, and in January 97 the police had learned his address. They did not obtain a warrant for his arrest. At about noon on March a detective, accompanied by three other officers, knocked on the door of the Queens house where Riddick was living. When his young son opened the door, they could see Riddick sitting in bed covered by a sheet. They entered the house and placed him under arrest. Before permitting him to dress, they opened a chest of drawers two feet from the bed in search of weapons and found narcotics and related paraphernalia. Riddick was subsequently indicted on narcotics charges. At a suppression hearing, the trial judge held that the warrantless entry into his home was authorized by the revised New York statute,[9] and that the search of the immediate *579 area was reasonable under[0] The Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed the denial of the suppression motion.[] The New York Court of Appeals, in a single opinion, affirmed the convictions of both Payton and Riddick. The court recognized that the question whether and under what circumstances an officer may enter a suspect's home to make a warrantless arrest had not been settled either by that court or by this Court.[2] In answering that question, the majority of four judges relied primarily on its perception that there is a ". substantial difference between the intrusion which attends an entry for the purpose of searching the premises and that which results from an entry for the purpose of *580 making an arrest, and [a] significant difference in |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | of *580 making an arrest, and [a] significant difference in the governmental interest in achieving the objective of the intrusion in the two instances." -229.[] *58 The majority supported its holding by noting the "apparent historical acceptance" of warrantless entries to make felony arrests, both in the English common law and in the practice of many American States.[] Three members of the New York Court of Appeals dissented on this issue because they believed that the Constitution requires the police to obtain a "warrant to enter a home in order to arrest or seize a person, unless there are exigent circumstances."[5] Starting from the premise that, except in carefully circumscribed instances, "the Fourth Amendment forbids police entry into a private home to search for and seize an object without a warrant,"[6] the dissenters reasoned that an arrest of the person involves an even greater invasion of privacy and should therefore be attended with at least as *582 great a measure of constitutional protection.[7] The dissenters noted "the existence of statutes and the American Law Institute imprimatur codifying the common-law rule authorizing warrantless arrests in private homes" and acknowledged that "the statutory authority of a police officer to make a warrantless arrest in this State has been in effect for almost 00 years," but concluded that "neither antiquity nor legislative unanimity can be determinative of the grave constitutional question presented" and "can never be a substitute for reasoned analysis."[8] Before addressing the narrow question presented by these appeals,[9] we put to one side other related problems that are *58 not presented today. Although it is arguable that the warrantless entry to effect Payton's arrest might have been justified by exigent circumstances, none of the New York courts relied on any such justification. The Court of Appeals majority treated both Payton's and Riddick's cases as involving routine arrests in which there was ample time to obtain a warrant,[20] and we will do the same. Accordingly, we have no occasion to consider the sort of emergency or dangerous situation, described in our cases as "exigent circumstances," that would justify a warrantless entry into a home for the purpose of either arrest or search. Nor do these cases raise any question concerning the authority of the police, without either a search or arrest warrant, to enter a third party's home to arrest a suspect. The police broke into Payton's apartment intending to arrest Payton, and they arrested Riddick in his own dwelling. We also note that in neither case is it argued that the police lacked probable cause to believe that the suspect was |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | police lacked probable cause to believe that the suspect was at home when they entered. Finally, in both cases we are dealing with entries into homes made without the consent of any occupant. In Payton, the police used crowbars to break down the door and in Riddick, although his -year-old son answered the door; the police entered before Riddick had an opportunity either to object or to consent. II It is familiar history that indiscriminate searches and seizures conducted under the authority of "general warrants" were the immediate evils that motivated the framing and adoption of the Fourth Amendment.[2] Indeed, as originally *58 proposed in the House of Representatives, the draft contained only one clause, which directly imposed limitations on the issuance of warrants, but imposed no express restrictions on warrantless searches or seizures.[22] As it was ultimately adopted, however, the Amendment contained two separate clauses, the first protecting the basic right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and the second requiring that warrants be particular and supported by probable cause.[2] The Amendment provides: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches *5 and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." It is thus perfectly clear that the evil the Amendment was designed to prevent was broader than the abuse of a general warrant. Unreasonable searches or seizures conducted without any warrant at all are condemned by the plain language of the first clause of the Amendment. Almost a century ago the Court stated in resounding terms that the principles reflected in the Amendment "reached farther than the concrete form" of the specific cases that gave it birth, and "apply to all invasions on the part of the government and its employees of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life." Without pausing to consider whether that broad language may require some qualification, it is sufficient to note that the warrantless arrest of a person is a species of seizure required by the Amendment to be reasonable. Cf. Indeed, as MR. JUSTICE POWELL noted in his concurrence in United the arrest of a person is "quintessentially a seizure." The simple language of the Amendment applies equally to seizures of persons and to seizures of property. Our analysis in this case may therefore properly commence with rules that have been well established in Fourth Amendment litigation involving tangible |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | have been well established in Fourth Amendment litigation involving tangible items. As the Court reiterated just a few years ago, the "physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed." United And we have long adhered to the view that the warrant procedure minimizes the danger of needless intrusions of that sort.[2] It is a "basic principle of Fourth Amendment law" that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.[25] Yet it is also well settled that *587 objects such as weapons or contraband found in a public place may be seized by the police without a warrant. The seizure of property in plain view involves no invasion of privacy and is presumptively reasonable, assuming that there is probable cause to associate the property with criminal activity. The distinction between a warrantless seizure in an open area and such a seizure on private premises was plainly stated in G. M. Leasing 5: "It is one thing to seize without a warrant property resting in an open area or seizable by levy without an intrusion into privacy, and it is quite another thing to effect a warrantless seizure of property, even that owned by a corporation, situated on private premises to which access is not otherwise available for the seizing officer." As the late Judge Leventhal recognized, this distinction has equal force when the seizure of a person is involved. Writing on the constitutional issue now before us for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sitting en banc, Dorman v. United States, 0 U. S. App. D. C. Judge Leventhal first noted the settled rule that warrantless arrests in public places are valid. He immediately recognized, however, that "[a] greater burden is placed on officials who enter a home or dwelling without consent. Freedom from intrusion into the home or dwelling is the archetype of the privacy protection secured by the Fourth Amendment." (Footnote omitted.) His analysis of this question then focused on the long-settled premise that, absent exigent circumstances, a warrantless *588 entry to search for weapons or contraband is unconstitutional even when a felony has been committed and there is probable cause to believe that incriminating evidence will be found within.[26] He reasoned that the constitutional protection afforded to the individual's interest in the privacy of his own home is equally applicable to a warrantless entry for the purpose of arresting a resident of the house; for it is inherent in such an entry that a search for the |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | inherent in such an entry that a search for the suspect may be required before he can be apprehended.[27] Judge Leventhal concluded that an entry to arrest and an entry to search for and to seize property implicate the same interest in preserving the privacy and the sanctity of the home, and justify the same level of constitutional protection. This reasoning has been followed in other Circuits.[28] Thus, the Second Circuit recently summarized its position: "To be arrested in the home involves not only the invasion *589 attendant to all arrests but also an invasion of the sanctity of the home. This is simply too substantial an invasion to allow without a warrant, at least in the absence of exigent circumstances, even when it is accomplished under statutory authority and when probable cause is clearly present." United cert. denied sub nom. We find this reasoning to be persuasive and in accord with this Court's Fourth Amendment decisions. The majority of the New York Court of Appeals, however, suggested that there is a substantial difference in the relative intrusiveness of an entry to search for property and an entry to search for a person. See n. It is true that the area that may legally be searched is broader when executing a search warrant than when executing an arrest warrant in the home. See This difference may be more theoretical than real, however, because the police may need to check the entire premises for safety reasons, and sometimes they ignore the restrictions on searches incident to arrest.[29] But the critical point is that any differences in the intrusiveness of entries to search and entries to arrest are merely ones of degree rather than kind. The two intrusions share this fundamental characteristic: the breach of the entrance to an individual's home. The Fourth Amendment protects the individual's privacy in a variety of settings. In none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual's homeâ a zone that finds its roots in clear and specific constitutional terms: "The right of the people to be secure in their houses shall not be violated." That language unequivocally establishes the proposition that "[a]t the very *590 core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion." In terms that apply equally to seizures of property and to seizures of persons, the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant. III Without contending that United decided the question presented by these appeals, New York argues that the reasons that support the holding require a similar result here. In the Court relied on (a) the well-settled common-law rule that a warrantless arrest in a public place is valid if the arresting officer had probable cause to believe the suspect is a felon;[0] (b) the clear consensus among the States adhering to that well-settled common-law rule;[] and (c) the expression of the judgment of Congress that such an arrest is "reasonable."[2] We consider *59 each of these reasons as it applies to a warrantless entry into a home for the purpose of making a routine felony arrest. A An examination of the common-law understanding of an officer's authority to arrest sheds light on the obviously relevant, if not entirely dispositive,[] consideration of what the Framers of the Amendment might have thought to be reasonable. Initially, it should be noted that the common-law rules of arrest developed in legal contexts that substantially differ from the cases now before us. In these cases, which involve application of the exclusionary rule, the issue is whether certain *592 evidence is admissible at trial.[] See Additionally, if an officer was killed while attempting to effect an arrest, the question whether the person resisting the arrest was guilty of murder or manslaughter turned on whether the officer was acting within the bounds of his authority. See M. Foster, Crown Law 08, 2 (762). See also A study of the common law on the question whether a constable had the authority to make warrantless arrests in the home on mere suspicion of a felonyâ as distinguished from an officer's right to arrest for a crime committed in his presenceâ reveals a surprising lack of judicial decisions and a deep divergence among scholars. The most cited evidence of the common-law rule consists of an equivocal dictum in a case actually involving the sheriff's authority to enter a home to effect service of civil process. In Semayne's Case, 5 Co. Rep. 9a, 9b, 77 Eng. Rep. 9, 95-96 (K. B. 60), the Court stated: "In all cases when the King is party, the Sheriff (if the doors be not open) may break the party's house, either to arrest him, or to do other execution of the K.'s process, if otherwise he cannot enter. But before he breaks it, he ought to signify the cause of his coming, and to make request to open doors; |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | of his coming, and to make request to open doors; and that appears well by the stat. of Westm. c. 7. (which is but an affirmance of the common law) as hereafter appears, for the law without a default in the owner abhors the destruction *59 or breaking of any house (which is for the habitation and safety of man) by which great damage and inconvenience might ensue to the party, when no default is in him; for perhaps he did not know of the process, of which, if he had notice, it is to be presumed that he would obey it, and that appears by the book in 8 E. 2. Execut. 252. where it is said, that the K's officer who comes to do execution, &c. may open the doors which are shut, and break them, if he cannot have the keys; which proves, that he ought first to demand them, 7 E. 6." (Footnotes omitted.) This passage has been read by some as describing an entry without a warrant. The context strongly implies, however, that the court was describing the extent of authority in executing the King's writ. This reading is confirmed by the phrase "either to arrest him, or to do other execution of the K.'s process" and by the further point that notice was necessary because the owner may "not know of the process." In any event, the passage surely cannot be said unambiguously to endorse warrantless entries. The common-law commentators disagreed sharply on the subject.[5] Three distinct views were expressed. Lord Coke, *59 widely recognized by the American colonists "as the greatest authority of his time on the laws of England,"[6] clearly viewed a warrantless entry for the purpose of arrest to be illegal.[7]*595 Burn, Foster, and Hawkins agreed,[8] as did East and Russell, though the latter two qualified their opinions by stating that if an entry to arrest was made without a warrant, the officer was perhaps immune from liability for the trespass if the suspect was actually guilty.[9] Blackstone, Chitty, and Stephen took the opposite view, that entry to arrest without a warrant was legal,[0] though Stephen relied on Blackstone who, along with Chitty, in turn relied exclusively on Hale. But Hale's view was not quite so unequivocally expressed.[]*596 Further, Hale appears to rely solely on a statement in an early Yearbook, quoted in Burdett v. Abbot, East 55, 0 Eng. Rep. 50, 560 (K. B. 8):[2] "`that for felony, or suspicion of felony, a man may break open the house to take the felon; for it is for the commonweal to |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | take the felon; for it is for the commonweal to take them.'" Considering the diversity of views just described, however, it is clear that the statement was never deemed authoritative. Indeed, in Burdett, the statement was described as an "extra-judicial opinion." Ibid.[] It is obvious that the common-law rule on warrantless home arrests was not as clear as the rule on arrests in public places. Indeed, particularly considering the prominence of Lord Coke, the weight of authority as it appeared to the Framers was to the effect that a warrant was required, or at the minimum that there were substantial risks in proceeding without one. The common-law sources display a sensitivity to privacy interests that could not have been lost on the Framers. The zealous and frequent repetition of the adage that a "man's house is his castle," made it abundantly clear that both in England[]*597 and in the Colonies "the freedom of one's house" was one of the most vital elements of English liberty.[5] Thus, our study of the relevant common law does not provide the same guidance that was present in Whereas *598 the rule concerning the validity of an arrest in a public place was supported by cases directly in point and by the unanimous views of the commentators, we have found no direct authority supporting forcible entries into a home to make a routine arrest and the weight of the scholarly opinion is somewhat to the contrary. Indeed, the absence of any 7th- or 8th-century English cases directly in point, together with the unequivocal endorsement of the tenet that "a man's house is his castle," strongly suggests that the prevailing practice was not to make such arrests except in hot pursuit or when authorized by a warrant. Cf. In all events, the issue is not one that can be said to have been definitively settled by the common law at the time the Fourth Amendment was adopted. B A majority of the States that have taken a position on the question permit warrantless entry into the home to arrest even in the absence of exigent circumstances. At this time, 2 States permit such warrantless entries;[6] 5 States clearly *599 prohibit them, though States do so on federal constitutional grounds alone;[7] and States have apparently taken no position on the question.[8] But these current figures reflect a significant decline during the last decade in the number of States permitting warrantless entries for arrest. Recent dicta in this Court raising questions about the practice, see n. and Federal Courts of Appeals' decisions on point, see n. have led |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | Courts of Appeals' decisions on point, see n. have led state courts to focus on the issue. Virtually all of the state courts that have had to confront the constitutional issue directly have held warrantless entries into the home to arrest to be invalid in the absence of exigent circumstances. See nn. 2, Three state courts have relied on Fourth Amendment *600 grounds alone, while seven have squarely placed their decisions on both federal and state constitutional grounds.[9] A number of other state courts, though not having had to confront the issue directly, have recognized the serious nature of the constitutional question.[50] Apparently, only the Supreme Court of Florida and the New York Court of Appeals in this case have expressly upheld warrantless entries to arrest in the face of a constitutional challenge.[5] A longstanding, widespread practice is not immune from constitutional scrutiny. But neither is it to be lightly brushed aside. This is particularly so when the constitutional standard is as amorphous as the word "reasonable," and when custom and contemporary norms necessarily play such a large role in the constitutional analysis. In this case, although the weight of state-law authority is clear, there is by no means the kind of virtual unanimity on this question that was present in United with regard to warrantless arrests in public places. See U.S., at 22-. Only 2 of the 50 States currently sanction warrantless entries into the home to arrest, see nn. 6-8, and there is an obvious declining trend. Further, the strength of the trend is greater than the numbers alone indicate. Seven state courts have recently held that warrantless home arrests violate their respective State Constitutions. See n. That is significant because by invoking a state constitutional provision, a state court immunizes its decision from review by this Court.[52] This heightened degree of immutability underscores the depth of the principle underlying the result. *60 C No congressional determination that warrantless entries into the home are "reasonable" has been called to our attention. None of the federal statutes cited in the opinion reflects any such legislative judgment.[5] Thus, that support for the holding finds no counterpart in this case. MR. JUSTICE POWELL, concurring in United at 29, stated: "But logic sometimes must defer to history and experience. The Court's opinion emphasizes the historical sanction accorded warrantless felony arrests [in public places]." In this case, however, neither history nor this Nation's experience requires us to disregard the overriding respect for the sanctity of the home that has been embedded in our traditions since the origins of the Republic.[5] *602 IV The |
Justice Stevens | 1,980 | 16 | majority | Payton v. New York | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110235/payton-v-new-york/ | traditions since the origins of the Republic.[5] *602 IV The parties have argued at some length about the practical consequences of a warrant requirement as a precondition to a felony arrest in the home.[55] In the absence of any evidence that effective law enforcement has suffered in those States that already have such a requirement, see nn. 7, we are inclined to view such arguments with skepticism. More fundamentally, however, such arguments of policy must give way to a constitutional command that we consider to be unequivocal. Finally, we note the State's suggestion that only a search warrant based on probable cause to believe the suspect is at home at a given time can adequately protect the privacy interests at stake, and since such a warrant requirement is manifestly impractical, there need be no warrant of any kind. We find this ingenious argument unpersuasive. It is true that an arrest warrant requirement may afford less protection than a search warrant requirement, but it will suffice to interpose the magistrate's determination of probable cause between the zealous officer and the citizen. If there is sufficient evidence of a citizen's participation in a felony to persuade a judicial officer that his arrest is justified, it is constitutionally reasonable *60 to require him to open his doors to the officers of the law. Thus, for Fourth Amendment purposes, an arrest warrant founded on probable cause implicitly carries with it the limited authority to enter a dwelling in which the suspect lives when there is reason to believe the suspect is within. Because no arrest warrant was obtained in either of these cases, the judgments must be reversed and the cases remanded to the New York Court of Appeals for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. MR. |
Justice Brennan | 1,989 | 13 | majority | United States v. Stuart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112208/united-states-v-stuart/ | Articles XIX and XXI of the Convention between the United States and Canada Respecting Double Taxation, Mar. 4, 2, -1406, T. S. No. 983, oblige the United States, upon request and consistent with United States revenue laws, to obtain and convey information to Canadian authorities to assist them in determining a Canadian taxpayer's income tax liability. The question presented is whether the United States Internal Revenue Service may issue an administrative summons pursuant to a request by Canadian authorities *356 only if it first determines that the Canadian tax investigation has not reached a stage analogous to a domestic tax investigation's referral to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. We hold that neither the 2 Convention nor domestic legislation imposes this precondition to issuance of an administrative summons. So long as the summons meets statutory requirements and is issued in good faith, as we defined that term in United compliance is required, whether or not the Canadian tax investigation is directed toward criminal prosecution under Canadian law. I Respondents are Canadian citizens and residents who maintained bank accounts with the Northwestern Commercial Bank in Bellingham, Washington. In attempting to ascertain their Canadian income tax liability for 1980, 1981, and 1982, the Canadian Department of National Revenue (Revenue Canada) asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in January 1984 to secure and provide pertinent bank records. Revenue Canada made its requests pursuant to Articles XIX and XXI of the 2 Convention.[1] The IRS Director of Foreign *357 Operations the "competent authority" under Article XIX concluded that Revenue Canada's requests fell within the scope of the Convention and that it would be appropriate for the United States to honor them. App. 27-28. Specifically, he found that "the requested information is not within the possession of the Internal Revenue Service or the Canadian tax authorities; that the requested information may be relevant to a determination of the correct tax liability of [respondents] under Canadian law; and that the same type of information can be obtained by tax authorities under Canadian law." Thus, on April 2, 1984, the IRS served on Northwestern Commercial Bank administrative summonses for the requested information. At respondents' behest, the bank refused to comply. In accordance with 26 U.S. C. 7609(b)(2), respondents petitioned the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington to quash the summonses. Only one of their claims is before us. Respondents contended that because the IRS may not issue a summons to further its investigation of a United States taxpayer when a Justice Department referral is in effect, 26 U.S. C. 7602(c), and |
Justice Brennan | 1,989 | 13 | majority | United States v. Stuart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112208/united-states-v-stuart/ | Department referral is in effect, 26 U.S. C. 7602(c), and because Revenue Canada's investigation of each of them was, in the words of the IRS Director of Foreign Operations, "a criminal investigation, preliminary stage," App. 28, United States law proscribed the use of a summons to obtain information for Canadian authorities regarding respondents' American bank accounts. The Magistrate who held a consolidated hearing on respondents' claims rejected this argument. Without addressing their contention that the IRS may not issue a summons pursuant to a request by Revenue Canada once a Canadian tax investigation has reached a stage equivalent to a Justice Department referral for criminal prosecution, the *358 Magistrate found that, even if respondents' legal claims were assumed to have merit, they had failed to carry their burden of showing that the Canadian authorities' investigation had advanced that far. App. to Pet. for Cert. 31a. Upon considering the Magistrate's report and respondents' objections to it, the District Court ordered the bank to comply with the summonses. at 25a-26a, 34a-35a. After the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed the enforcement orders pending appeal, a divided panel of the court reversed. The Ninth Circuit held that a summons issued pursuant to a request under the 2 Convention, like one issued as part of a domestic tax investigation, will be enforced only if it was issued in good faith. The Court of Appeals further stated that the elements of good faith we described in United at are not exhaustive; rather, in light of our subsequent decision in United and Congress' enactment of what is now 26 U.S. C. 7602(c), good faith in domestic tax investigations also requires that the IRS not have referred the case to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. Finally, and most significantly for purposes of this litigation, the Ninth Circuit ruled that the IRS acts in good faith in complying with a request for information under the 2 Convention only when Canadian authorities act in good faith in seeking IRS assistance, and that the good faith of Canadian authorities should be judged by the same standard applicable to the IRS when it conducts a domestic investigation. Hence, the Court of Appeals concluded, before the IRS may honor a request for information it must determine that Revenue Canada's investigation has not reached a stage analogous to a Justice Department referral by the IRS. In addition, the Court of Appeals said, "in order to establish its prima facie case by affidavit, the IRS must make an affirmative statement" that Canadian authorities are acting in good *359 faith and |
Justice Brennan | 1,989 | 13 | majority | United States v. Stuart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112208/united-states-v-stuart/ | that Canadian authorities are acting in good *359 faith and that their investigation has not yet reached that stage; the burden of proof on this point rests initially with the IRS rather than the taxpayer attempting to quash a summons, the court held, because the IRS "can consult with Canada's competent authority and can be expected to have greater familiarity with Canadian administrative procedures." The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's decision because the affidavits submitted by the IRS failed to state that Revenue Canada's investigation of respondents had not yet reached a point analogous to an IRS referral to the Justice Department. We granted certiorari, to resolve a conflict between the Ninth Circuit's decision in this case and the Second Circuit's holding in United We now reverse. II A In United we rejected the claim that the IRS must show probable cause to obtain enforcement of an administrative summons issued in connection with a domestic tax investigation. See We held instead that the IRS need only demonstrate good faith in issuing the summons, which we defined as follows: "[The IRS Commissioner] must show that the investigation will be conducted pursuant to a legitimate purpose, that the inquiry may be relevant to the purpose, that the information sought is not already within the Commissioner's possession, and that the administrative steps required by the Code have been followed in particular, that the `Secretary or his delegate,' after investigation, has determined the further examination to be necessary and has notified the taxpayer in writing to that effect." at *360 Once the IRS has made such a showing, we stated, it is entitled to an enforcement order unless the taxpayer can show that the IRS is attempting to abuse the court's "Such an abuse would take place," we said, "if the summons had been issued for an improper purpose, such as to harass the taxpayer or to put pressure on him to settle a collateral dispute, or for any other purpose reflecting on the good faith of the particular investigation." See also United The taxpayer carries the burden of proving an abuse of the court's 379 U.S., Leaving aside the question whether the 2 Convention, in conjunction with 26 U.S. C. 7602(c), narrows the class of legitimate purposes for which the IRS may issue an administrative summons, the affidavits the IRS submitted in respondents' cases plainly satisfied the requirements of good faith we set forth in and have repeatedly reaffirmed. See, e. g., Tiffany Fine Arts, ; United The IRS Director of Foreign Operations stated under oath that the information sought |
Justice Brennan | 1,989 | 13 | majority | United States v. Stuart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112208/united-states-v-stuart/ | of Foreign Operations stated under oath that the information sought was not within the possession of American or Canadian tax authorities, that it might be relevant to the computation of respondents' Canadian tax liabilities, and that the same type of information could be obtained by Canadian authorities under Canadian law. App. 28. He further noted that the "[e]xchanged information may only be disclosed as required in the normal administrative or judicial process operative in the administration of the tax system of the requesting country," and that improper use of exchanged information would be protested. In addition, the IRS issued its summonses in conformity with applicable statutes and duly informed respondents of their issuance. In their petitions to quash, respondents nowhere alleged that the IRS was trying to use the District Court's process for some improper purpose, such as harassment or the acquisition of *361 bargaining power in connection with some collateral dispute. See Nor does it appear that they later sought to prove abuse of Unless 26 U.S. C. 7602(c) or the 2 Convention imposes more stringent requirements on the enforcement of the administrative summonses issued in this case, the IRS was entitled to enforcement orders under the rule laid down in B Section 7602(c) does impose an additional constraint on the issuance of summonses to further domestic tax investigations.[2] By its terms, however, it does not apply to the summonses *362 challenged by respondents, for it speaks only to investigations into possible violations of United States revenue laws. Section 7602(c) forbids the issuance of a summons "if a Justice Department referral is in effect" with respect to a person about whom information is sought by means of the summons. At the time of the District Court's decision, no Justice Department referral was in effect with regard to respondents; indeed, the IRS agent seeking the bank records to fulfill Revenue Canada's request said in her affidavit that no domestic tax investigation of any kind was pending. See App. 30. Section 7602(c) therefore does not itself appear to bar enforcement of the summonses at issue here.[3] The legislative history of 7602(c) supports this conclusion. Prior to its enactment, we held in United that the IRS may not issue a summons once it has recommended prosecution to the Justice Department, nor may it circumvent this requirement *363 by delaying such a recommendation in order to gather additional information. We based our holding in large part on our finding that "[n]othing in 7602 or its legislative history suggests that Congress intended the summons authority to broaden the Justice Department's right of criminal litigation |
Justice Brennan | 1,989 | 13 | majority | United States v. Stuart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112208/united-states-v-stuart/ | authority to broaden the Justice Department's right of criminal litigation discovery or to infringe on the role of the grand jury as a principal tool of criminal accusation." When Congress codified the essence of our holding in 7602(c), it apparently shared our concern about permitting the IRS to encroach upon the rights of potential criminal defendants. The Report of the Senate Finance Committee noted that "the provision is in no way intended to broaden the Justice Department's right of criminal discovery or to infringe on the role of the grand jury as a principal tool of criminal prosecution." S. Rep. No. 97-494, Vol. 1, p. 286 This explanation for the restriction embodied in 7602(c) suggests that Congress did not intend to make the enforcement of a treaty summons contingent upon the foreign tax investigation's not having reached a stage analogous to a Justice Department referral. None of the civil-law countries with whom the United States has tax treaties providing for exchanges of information employ grand juries, and Canada has ceased to use them.[4] Moreover, criminal discovery procedures differ considerably among countries with whom we have such treaties.[5] The concerns that prompted Congress *364 to pass 7602(c) are therefore not present when the IRS issues summonses at the request of most foreign governments conducting investigations into possible violations of their own tax laws. If Congress had intended 7602(c) to impose a restriction on the issuance of summonses pursuant to treaty requests parallel to the restriction it expressly imposes on summonses issued by the IRS in connection with domestic tax investigations, it would presumably have offered some reason for extending the sweep of the section beyond its plain language. In addition, Congress would likely have discussed the appropriateness of extending the protections afforded by United States law to citizens of other countries who are not subject to criminal prosecution here, and would doubtless have considered the problems posed by the application of 7602(c) to requests by treaty partners, in particular the difficulty of determining when a foreign investigation has progressed to a point analogous to a Justice Department referral.[6] Respondents have not directed us, however, to anything *365 in the legislative history of 7602(c) suggesting that Congress intended it to apply to summonses issued pursuant to treaty requests, or to any reference to the problems its application would have occasioned. We therefore see no reason to think that 7602(c) means more than it says. C The only conceivable foundation for the Ninth Circuit's rule that an IRS summons issued at the request of Canadian authorities may not be enforced unless the IRS |
Justice Brennan | 1,989 | 13 | majority | United States v. Stuart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112208/united-states-v-stuart/ | of Canadian authorities may not be enforced unless the IRS provides assurance that the Canadian investigation has not proceeded to a stage analogous to a Justice Department referral is therefore the language of the 2 Convention itself. Article XIX obliges the competent authority for the United States to furnish, upon request, relevant information that it is "in a position to obtain under its revenue laws." Article XXI repeats this clause almost verbatim, permitting the IRS Commissioner to supply Canadian authorities with relevant information he "is entitled to obtain under the revenue laws of the United States of America." Respondents contend that because the IRS would not be able, under American law, to issue an administrative summons to gather information for use by the Government once a Justice Department referral was in effect, the IRS is not in a position to obtain such information once Canadian authorities have reached a corresponding stage in their investigation. (1) We are not persuaded by this argument. "The clear import of treaty language controls unless `application of the words of the treaty according to their obvious meaning effects a result inconsistent with the intent or expectations *366 of its signatories.' " Shoji America, quoting Articles XIX and XXI both refer to information that the IRS may obtain under American law. American law, however, does not contain the restriction respondents claim to find there. Section 7602(c) only limits the issuance of summonses when a Justice Department referral is in effect; it says nothing about decisions by foreign tax officials to investigate possible violations of their countries' tax laws with a view to criminal prosecution outside the United States. The elements of good faith we outlined in United do not contain such a restriction. Nor does our reasoning in United favor the result respondents urge, because the provision of information to Canadian authorities could not curtail the rights of potential criminal defendants in this country by undermining American discovery rules or diminishing the role of the grand jury. And respondents have not suggested that some other segment of American law, such as the law of privilege, prevents the IRS from issuing an administrative summons pursuant to a treaty request once a treaty partner has embarked on a tax investigation leading to a foreign criminal prosecution. Articles XIX and XXI of the 2 Convention on their face therefore lend no support to respondents' position. (2) Nontextual sources that often assist us in "giving effect to the intent of the Treaty parties," such as a treaty's ratification history and its subsequent operation, further fail to sustain respondents' claim. The |
Justice Brennan | 1,989 | 13 | majority | United States v. Stuart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112208/united-states-v-stuart/ | its subsequent operation, further fail to sustain respondents' claim. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations did not hold hearings on the Convention prior to its ratification in 2, and the Committee Report did not even mention the provisions for exchange of information. See S. Exec. Rep. No. 3, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. (2), 1 Legislative History of United States Tax Conventions *367 (Committee Print compiled by the Staff of the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation) 455 (1962) (Leg. Hist.). The sole reference to these provisions during the brief floor debate in the Senate contained no hint that the 2 Convention was intended to incorporate domestic restrictions on the issuance of summonses by the IRS in connection with American tax investigations, such as the limitation later codified in 7602(c).[7] The President's message *368 accompanying transmittal of the proposed treaty to the Senate, see S. Exec. Doc. B, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. (2), reprinted in Leg. Hist. 445, and the President's Proclamation at the time the Convention was signed, see Leg. Hist. 475, similarly contain no language supporting respondents' argument. Indeed, given that a treaty should generally be "construe[d] liberally to give effect to the purpose which animates it" and that "[e]ven where a provision of a treaty fairly admits of two constructions, one restricting, the other enlarging, rights which may be claimed under it, the more liberal interpretation is to be preferred," Bacardi Corp. of the evident purpose behind Articles XIX and XXI the reduction of tax evasion by allowing signatories to demand information from each other counsels against interpreting those provisions to limit inquiry in the manner respondents desire. In any event, nothing in the history of the Convention's ratification buttresses respondents' claim.[8] *369 (3) Nor do other aids to interpretation strengthen their case. The practice of treaty signatories counts as evidence of the treaty's proper interpretation, since their conduct generally evinces their understanding of the agreement they signed. See Trans World Airlines, ; The Government's regular compliance with requests for information by Canadian authorities without inquiring whether they intend to use the information for criminal prosecution therefore weighs in favor of its reading of Articles XIX and XXI. Similarly, "[a]lthough not conclusive, the meaning attributed to treaty provisions by the Government agencies charged with their negotiation and enforcement is entitled to great weight." -185. See also The IRS' construction of the 2 Convention repudiates rather than confirms the interpretation respondents ask us to adopt. Finally, the result urged by respondents would contravene Congress' main reason for laying down an easily administrable test in 7602(c): "[S]ummons enforcement |
Justice Brennan | 1,989 | 13 | majority | United States v. Stuart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112208/united-states-v-stuart/ | laying down an easily administrable test in 7602(c): "[S]ummons enforcement proceedings should be summary in nature and discovery should be limited." S. Rep. No. 97-494, Vol. 1, p. 285 If respondents had their way, disputes would inevitably arise over whether a Canadian tax investigation had progressed to a point analogous to a Justice Department referral when Revenue Canada made its request for information, thereby "spawn[ing] protracted litigation without any meaningful results for the taxpayer." It seems unlikely that Congress would have welcomed this result *370 when it ratified the 2 Convention, or that Congress intended it when it approved the bill containing what is presently 7602(c). III We conclude that the IRS need not attest that a Canadian tax investigation has not yet reached a stage analogous to a Justice Department referral by the IRS in order to obtain enforcement of a summons issued pursuant to a request by Canadian authorities under the 2 Convention. So long as the IRS itself acts in good faith, as that term was explicated in United 379 U. S., at and complies with applicable statutes, it is entitled to enforcement of its summons. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom JUSTICE O'CONNOR joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. |
Justice Brennan | 1,981 | 13 | majority | Plumbers & Pipefitters v. Plumbers & Pipefitters | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110531/plumbers-pipefitters-v-plumbers-pipefitters/ | Section 301 (a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (the Taft-Hartley Act) provides jurisdiction in the federal district courts over "[s]uits for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization representing employees in an industry affecting commerce as defined in this chapter, or between any such labor organizations." 29 U.S. C. 185 (a) (emphasis added). The question presented in this case is whether a suit brought by a local union against its parent international union, alleging a violation of the international's constitution, falls within 301 (a) jurisdiction of the federal district courts. I Respondent Local 334, United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada (Local 334 or respondent), was a labor organization chartered by and affiliated with petitioner United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada (International or United Association), an international labor organization.[1] Composed of both plumbers and pipefitters in Morris County, N. J., Local 334 was one of 27 New *617 Jersey locals affiliated with the International prior to 1977. After failing in its attempt to urge the New Jersey locals to agree upon a voluntary consolidation plan, the International proposed its own plan that would consolidate nine northern New Jersey locals, including Local 334, into two locals, one representing plumbers, the other pipefitters.[2] Under the plan, the plumber members of Local 334 would be transferred into Plumbers Local 14, and the pipefitter members of Local 334 into Pipefitters Local 274. When the locals declined to agree to the International's plan,[3] the International issued an order of consolidation on August 4, 1977, based on the proposed plan, pursuant to 86 of the constitution of the United Association. That section, entitled "Consolidation of Locals," provides: "Whenever, in the judgment of the General President, it is apparent that there is a superfluous number of Local Unions in any locality, and that a consolidation would be for the best interest of the United Association, locally or at large, he shall have the power to order Local Unions to consolidate and to enforce the consolidation of said Local Unions, or said territory in one or more Local Unions, provided such course received the sanction of the General Executive Board." App. 25. After receiving no response to a letter sent to the General Executive Board requesting a stay of the order pending appeal, *618 Local 334 on August 22, 1977, filed suit against the International in the Superior Court of New Jersey seeking to enjoin enforcement of the order of |
Justice Brennan | 1,981 | 13 | majority | Plumbers & Pipefitters v. Plumbers & Pipefitters | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110531/plumbers-pipefitters-v-plumbers-pipefitters/ | New Jersey seeking to enjoin enforcement of the order of consolidation. Local 334 alleged in its complaint, inter alia, that 86 did not permit division of the membership of a local into separate work classifications, that the action of United Association did not constitute a consolidation of local unions, and that the general president had abused his discretion. Complaint ¶ 11, Claiming that it would suffer "substantial and irreparable injury to plaintiffs' [sic] property and property rights as members of Local 334" unless the consolidation was prevented, Complaint ¶ 13, the Local requested equitable relief enjoining United Association to return the Local's charter and seal, directing it to process the Local's internal appeal to the International's General Executive Board, and preventing it from threatening the Local's officers and members with expulsion and loss of membership.[4] The International removed the case to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, pursuant to 28 U.S. C. 1441.[5] Local 334 filed a motion to remand the case to the state court, which the District Court denied. App. 98-99. Following completion of discovery and cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court ruled in favor of the International. The court first concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case because the Local had failed *619 to exhaust internal union remedies. App. to Pet. for Cert. 22a-23a. In the alternative, the court ruled on the merits that there was "ample basis for the [International's] interpretation of the Constitution as well as the application of that interpretation in the Order of Consolidation of August 4, 1977." at 28a. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sua sponte, raised the question of federal-court jurisdiction under 301 (a) and requested supplemental briefing on that issue from the parties. After canvassing treatment of this issue by other Courts of Appeals, the court held that "[s]uits concerning intra-union matters that do not have a significant impact on labor-management relations or industrial peace are outside the scope of 301 (a)." Examining Local 334's allegations in its complaint, the court concluded that any alleged potential effect of the order of consolidation on labor-management relations or industrial peace would not pass the "significant impact" test and that the District Court therefore lacked jurisdiction under 301 (a). Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment of the District Court and remanded with instructions to remand the case to the state court. We granted the International's petition for certiorari, to resolve this important question of labor law. We reverse. II Section 301 (a) establishes federal district court jurisdiction for |
Justice Brennan | 1,981 | 13 | majority | Plumbers & Pipefitters v. Plumbers & Pipefitters | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110531/plumbers-pipefitters-v-plumbers-pipefitters/ | II Section 301 (a) establishes federal district court jurisdiction for "[s]uits for violation of contracts between any labor organizations [representing employees in an industry affecting commerce as defined in this chapter]." 29 U.S. C. 185 (a). On its face, the statute appears to comprehend the instant dispute. First, United Association's constitution may be fairly characterized as a contract between labor organizations. We have described a union constitution as a "fundamental agreement of association." Coronado Coal ;[6] see Carbon Fuel The Courts of Appeals are unanimous that a union constitution can be a "contract between labor organizations" within the meaning of 301 (a). See, e.g., ; Studio Electrical Technicians Local ; Local Union No. (CA7), cert. denied, ; ; National Assn. of Letter Carriers, ; (CA4), cert. denied,[7]*621 Indeed, even the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on review here recognized that a union constitution would be a "contract" within the meaning of 301 (a) as long as the plaintiff made "specific factual allegations of actions which have a significant impact on labor-management relations or industrial peace." 628 F.2d,[8] And respondent in its complaint alleged that "[t]he relationship (rights and duties) between Local 334 and the International is governed by the said Constitution." Amended Complaint, First Count ¶ 3, App. 55. We have also noted that the prevailing state-law view is that a union constitution is a contract. In particular, the view of a union constitution as a contract between parent and local unions was widely held in the States around the time 301 (a) was enacted. See, e. g., Locals 1140 and 232 Minn. ; International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink & Distillery Workers of America, C. I. ; Local *622 Union 13013, District 50, U. M. ; Bridgeport Brass Workers Union, Local 320 of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter aff'd, ; Textile Workers Local See also See generally 87 C. J. S., Trade Unions 42-43, pp. 836-842, 837, n. 39, 838, n. 53 (1954). Second, just as a union constitution is a "contract" within the plain meaning of 301 (a), so too is it clear that United Association and Local 334 are "labor organization[s] representing employees in an industry affecting commerce as defined in this chapter." As defined in the Act, 29 U.S. C. 152 (5), the term "labor organization" means "any organization of any kind, or any agency or employee representation committee or plan, in which employees participate and which exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, |
Justice Brennan | 1,981 | 13 | majority | Plumbers & Pipefitters v. Plumbers & Pipefitters | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110531/plumbers-pipefitters-v-plumbers-pipefitters/ | part, of dealing with employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions of work." We have entertained numerous cases brought under 301 (a) where one of the parties was an international union, see, e. g., Automobile or a local union, see, e. g., Drake Bakeries, Indeed, in Carbon Fuel we did not even pause to question the existence of 301 (a) jurisdiction in a suit brought by a coal company against an international union, an affiliated district union, and three affiliated local 444 U.S., 4. If the plain meaning of the "contracts between labor organizations" clause of 301 (a) supports jurisdiction in the instant case, its legislative history hardly upsets such an interpretation. *623 That is because there is no specific legislative history on that phrase to explain what Congress meant. The provision for suits between labor organizations was inserted late in the bill's history by the House-Senate Conference Committee. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 65-66 (1947), 1 NLRB, Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, pp. 569-570 (hereafter Leg. Hist.); 93 Cong. Rec. 6445 (1947); 2 Leg. Hist., 35, 1543; see Retail The Conference Report and postconference debates contain no explanatory remarks about this addition. The only reference to the clause was made in a summary of the Act prepared by Senator Taft and inserted in the Congressional Record, which merely recited: "Section 301 differs from the Senate bill in two respects. Subsection (a) provides that suits for violation of contracts between labor organizations, as well as between a labor organization and an employer, may be brought in the Federal courts." 93 Cong. Rec. 6445 (1947), 2 Leg. Hist., 43. Relying primarily on decisions from other Courts of Appeals, the Court of Appeals below was "persuaded by the view that disputes between local and parent unions must involve events which potentially have a significant impact on labor-management relations or industrial peace in order for there to be jurisdiction under 301 (a)." It is no doubt true that the primary purpose of the Taft-Hartley Act was "to promote the achievement of industrial peace through encouragement and refinement of the collective bargaining process." Charles Dowd Box ; see Textile As the Senate observed, "[s]tatutory recognition of the collective agreement as a valid, binding, and enforceable contract will promote a higher degree of responsibility upon the parties to such agreements, and will thereby promote industrial peace." S. Rep. No. 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 17 (1947), 1 Leg. Hist., at 423. *624 But apparently Congress was also concerned that unions |
Justice Brennan | 1,981 | 13 | majority | Plumbers & Pipefitters v. Plumbers & Pipefitters | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110531/plumbers-pipefitters-v-plumbers-pipefitters/ | 423. *624 But apparently Congress was also concerned that unions be made legally accountable for agreements into which they entered among themselves, an objective that itself would further stability among labor organizations. Therefore, 301 (a) provided federal jurisdiction for enforcement of contracts made by labor organizations to counteract jurisdictional defects in many state courts that made it difficult or impossible to bring suits against labor organizations by reason of their status as unincorporated associations. See Charles Dowd Box ; 93 Cong. Rec. 5014 (1947) (comments of Sen. Ball, a floor leader of the bill) ("because unions are voluntary associations, the common law in a great many States requires service on every member of the union, which is very difficult);[9] S. Rep. No. 1 Leg. Hist., at 421; Comment, Applying the "Contracts Between Labor Organizations" Clause of Taft-Hartley Section 301: A Plea for Restraint, 69 Yale L. J. 299, n. 2 (1959). Surely Congress could conclude that the enforcement of the terms of union constitutionsdocuments that prescribe the legal relationship and the rights and obligations between the parent and affiliated localswould contribute to the achievement of labor stability. Since union constitutions were probably the most commonplace form of contract between labor organizations when the Taft-Hartley Act was enacted (and probably still are today), and Congress was obviously familiar with their existence and importance, we cannot believe that Congress would have used the unqualified term "contract" without intending to encompass that category of contracts represented by union constitutions. Nothing in the language and legislative history of 301 (a) suggests any special qualification *625 or limitation on its reach, and we decline to interpose one ourselves.[10] Respondent goes even further than the Court of Appeals view that only disputes with a "significant impact" on labor-management relations should trigger 301 (a) jurisdiction, arguing that 301 (a) should never extend to disputes arising under union constitutions because "[t]he 80th Congress clearly did not intend to intervene in the internal affairs of labor " Brief for Respondent 16-17. In support of its position, respondent cites several provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act,[11] some general statements in the legislative history,[12] and our decision in where we observed in connection with 8 (b) (2) of the Act[13] that "Congress *6 expressly disclaimed any intention to interfere with union self-government or to regulate a union's internal affairs."[14] Respondent's argument falls wide of the mark. There is an obvious and important difference between substantive regulation by the National Labor Relations Board of internal union governance of its membership, and enforcement by the federal courts of freely entered into agreements |
Justice Brennan | 1,981 | 13 | majority | Plumbers & Pipefitters v. Plumbers & Pipefitters | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110531/plumbers-pipefitters-v-plumbers-pipefitters/ | enforcement by the federal courts of freely entered into agreements between separate labor organizations.[15] See 314 F. 2d, at 915-916. In discussing the section in the Taft-Hartley Act on unfair labor practices with respect to the employer-union relationship, the House-Senate Conference stated: "Once parties have made a collective bargaining contract the enforcement of that contract should be left to the usual processes of the law and not to the National Labor Relations Board." H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 42 (1947) (emphasis added), 1 Leg. Hist., at 546; see Similarly, Congress chose in 301 (a) to have contracts between labor organizations enforced by the federal courts. *627 We need not decide today what substantive law is to be applied in 301 (a) cases involving union constitutions. It is enough to observe that the substantive law to apply "is federal law, which the courts must fashion from the policy of our national labor laws." Textile Whether the source of that federal law will be state law, see Automobile -705, or other principles can be left to another case.[16] But it is far too late in the day to deny that Congress intended the federal courts to enjoy wideranging authority to enforce labor contracts under 301. We do not need to say that every contract imaginable between labor organizations is within 301 (a). It is enough to hold, as we do now, that union constitutions are. Reversed. |
Justice Stewart | 1,977 | 18 | majority | United Airlines, Inc. v. McDonald | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109705/united-airlines-inc-v-mcdonald/ | Federal Rule Civ. Proc. 24 requires that an application to intervene in federal litigation must be "timely." In this case a motion to intervene was filed promptly after the final judgment of a District Court, for the purpose of appealing the court's earlier denial of class action certification. The question presented is whether this motion was "timely" under Rule 24. Until November 7, 1968, United Airlines required its female stewardesses to remain unmarried as a condition of employment; no parallel restriction was imposed on any male employees, including male stewards and cabin flight attendants.[1] This "no-marriage rule" resulted in the termination of the employment of a large number of stewardesses, and in turn spawned a good deal of litigation. One of the first challenges to this rule was brought by Mary Sprogis, who filed timely charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August 1966, contending that her discharge constituted sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. as amended, 42 U.S. C. 2000e et seq. (1970 ed. and Supp. V). The EEOC found reasonable cause to believe that United's policy was illegal, and issued a "right to sue letter."[2] Sprogis then filed a timely individual action in a Federal District Court, and the court agreed that the no-marriage rule violated *388 Title VII. (ND Ill.). United took an interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S. C. 1292 (b) on the issue of liability, and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the finding of sex discrimination. While the appeal in the Sprogis case was pending, the present action was filed in the same District Court by Carole Romasanta, a United stewardess who had been discharged in 1967 because of her marriage. She, too, had filed charges with the EEOC, leading to a finding of cause to believe that the no-marriage rule violated Title VII and the issuance of a right-to-sue letter. Romasanta then promptly filed the present suit as a class action on behalf of herself and all other United stewardesses discharged because of the no-marriage rule. Another United stewardess was later permitted to intervene as a named plaintiff. Several months later, the District Court granted United's motion to strike the complaint's class allegations, ruling that the class could properly consist of only those stewardesses who, upon the loss of their employment because of marriage, had filed charges under either a fair employment statute or United's collective-bargaining agreement. As thus defined, the class numbered not more than 30 and in the court's view did not satisfy the numerosity requirement of Fed. Rule Civ. |
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