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Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | by the federal court in the mode of the common " at 674 (citing United (CA2), cert. denied sub nom. City of ). n keeping with these well-established principles, we hold that the Oneidas can maintain this action for violation of their possessory rights based on federal common B Pre-emption Petitioners argue that the Nonintercourse Acts preempted whatever right of action the Oneidas may have had at common law, relying on our decisions in Milwaukee v. llinois, (Milwaukee ), and Middlesex County Sewerage We find this view to be unpersuasive. n determining whether a federal statute pre-empts common-law causes of action, the relevant inquiry is whether *237 the statute "[speaks] directly to [the] question" otherwise answered by federal common Milwaukee As we stated in Milwaukee federal common law is used as a "necessary expedient" when Congress has not "spoken to a particular issue." -314 The Nonintercourse Act of 93 does not speak directly to the question of remedies for unlawful conveyances of ndian land. A comparison of the 93 Act and the statute at issue in Milwaukee is instructive. Milwaukee raised the question whether a common-law action for the abatement of a nuisance caused by the pollution of interstate waterways survived the passage of the amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, Stat. 816 (FWPCA).[7] FWPCA established an elaborate system for dealing with the problem of interstate water pollution, providing for enforcement of its terms by agency action and citizens suits. See Milwaukee t also made available civil penalties for violations of the Act. 33 U.S. C. 13(d), 1365. The legislative history indicated that Congress intended FWPCA to provide a comprehensive solution to the problem of interstate water pollution, as we noted in Milwaukee at 3-3. n contrast, the Nonintercourse Act of 93 did not establish a comprehensive remedial plan for dealing with violations of ndian property rights. There is no indication in the legislative history that Congress intended to pre-empt commonlaw remedies.[8] Only two sections of the Act, 5 and 8, *238 involve ndian lands at all.[9] The relevant clause of 8 provides simply that "no purchase or grant of lands, or of any title or claim thereto, from any ndians or nation or tribe of ndians, within the bounds of the United States, shall be of any validity in law or equity, unless the same be made by a treaty or convention entered into pursuant to the constitution." t contains no remedial provision.[10] Section 5 subjects individuals who settle on ndian lands to a fine and imprisonment, and gives the President discretionary authority to remove illegal settlers |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | and gives the President discretionary authority to remove illegal settlers from the ndians' land.[11]*239 Thus, the Nonintercourse Act does not address directly the problem of restoring unlawfully conveyed land to the ndians, in contrast to the specific remedial provisions contained in FWPCA. See Milwaukee -315. Significantly, Congress' action subsequent to the enactment of the 93 statute and later versions of the Nonintercourse Act demonstrate that the Acts did not pre-empt common-law remedies. n 1822 Congress amended the 1802 version of the Act to provide that "in all trials about the right of property, in which ndians shall be party on one side and white persons on the other, the burden of proof shall rest upon the white person, in every case in which the ndian shall make out a presumption of title in himself from the fact of previous possession and ownership." 4, ; see 25 U.S. C. 4. Thus, Congress apparently contemplated suits by ndians asserting their property rights. Decisions of this Court also contradict petitioners' argument for pre-emption. Most recently, in Wilson v. Omaha ndian Tribe, the Omaha ndian Tribe sued to quiet title on land that had surfaced over the years as the Missouri River changed its course. The Omahas based their claim for possession on aboriginal title. The Court construed the 1822 amendment to apply to suits brought by ndian tribes as well as individual ndians. Citing the very sections of the Act that petitioners contend pre-empt a common-law action by the ndians, the Court interpreted the amendment to be part of the overall "design" of the Nonintercourse Acts "to protect the rights of ndians to their properties." See also[12] *240 We recognized in Oneida that the Nonintercourse Acts simply "put in statutory form what was or came to be the accepted rule that the extinguishment of ndian title required the consent of the United States." Nothing in the statutory formulation of this rule suggests that the ndians' right to pursue common-law remedies was thereby pre-empted. Accordingly, we hold that the Oneidas' right of action under federal common law was not pre-empted by the passage of the Nonintercourse Acts. V Having determined that the Oneidas have a cause of action under federal common law, we address the question whether there are defenses available to the counties. We conclude that none has merit. A Statute of Limitations There is no federal statute of limitations governing federal common-law actions by ndians to enforce property rights. n the absence of a controlling federal limitations period, the general rule is that a state limitations period for an analogous cause |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | is that a state limitations period for an analogous cause of action is borrowed and applied to the federal claim, provided that the application of the state statute would not be inconsistent with underlying federal policies.[13] See *241 Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, nc., See also Occidental Life ns. v. EEOC, We think the borrowing of a state limitations period in these cases would be inconsistent with federal policy. ndeed, on a number of occasions Congress has made this clear with respect to ndian land claims. n adopting the statute that gave jurisdiction over civil actions involving ndians to the New York courts, Congress included this proviso: "[N]othing herein contained shall be construed as conferring jurisdiction on the courts of the State of New York or making applicable the laws of the State of New York in civil actions involving ndian lands or claims with respect thereto which relate to transactions or events transpiring prior to September 13, 52." 25 U.S. C. 233. This proviso was added specifically to ensure that the New York statute of limitations would not apply to pre-52 land claims.[14] n Oneida we relied on the legislative history of 25 U.S. C. 233 in concluding that ndian land claims were exclusively a matter of federal -2. This history also reflects congressional policy against the application of state statutes of limitations in the context of ndian land claims. Congress recently reaffirmed this policy in addressing the question of the appropriate statute of limitations for certain claims brought by the United States on behalf of ndians. Originally enacted in 66, this statute provided a special limitations period of 6 years and 90 days for contract and tort suits for damages brought by the United States on *242 behalf of ndians. 28 U.S. C. 2415(a), (b). The statute stipulated that claims that accrued prior to its date of enactment, July 18, 66, were deemed to have accrued on that date. 2415(g). Section 2415(c) excluded from the limitations period all actions "to establish the title to, or right of possession of, real or personal property." n and again in 80, and 82, as the statute of limitations was about to expire for pre-66 claims, Congress extended the time within which the United States could bring suits on behalf of the ndians. The legislative history of the and 80 amendments demonstrates that Congress did not intend 2415 to apply to suits brought by the ndians themselves, and that it assumed that the ndians' right to sue was not otherwise subject to any statute of limitations. Both proponents and opponents of the |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | any statute of limitations. Both proponents and opponents of the amendments shared these views. See 123 Cong. Rec. 22167-221 (remarks of Rep. Dicks, arguing that extension is unnecessary because the ndians can bring suit even if the statute of limitations expires for the United States); at 22166 and 22499 (remarks of Rep. Cohen, arguing that the basic problem with the bill is its failure to limit suits brought by ndians); 126 Cong. Rec. 3289 (80) (remarks of Sen. Melcher, reiterating with respect to the 80 extension Rep. Dicks' argument against the extension); ; Statute of Limitations Extension: Hearing before the Senate Select Committee on ndian Affairs, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., 312-314 ; Statute of Limitations Extension for ndian Claims: Hearings on S. 1377 before the Senate Select Committee on ndian Affairs, 95th Cong., 1st Sess., 76-77 ; Time Extension for Commencing Actions on Behalf of ndians: Hearing on S. 3377 and H. R. 13825 before the Subcommittee on ndian Affairs of the Senate Committee on nterior and nsular Affairs, 92d Cong., 2d Sess., 23 With the enactment of the 82 amendments, Congress for the first time imposed a statute of limitations on certain tort *243 and contract claims for damages brought by individual ndians and ndian tribes. These amendments, enacted as the ndian Claims Limitation Act of 82, Stat. 76, note following 28 U.S. C. 2415, established a system for the final resolution of pre-66 claims cognizable under 2415(a) and (b). The Act directed the Secretary of the nterior to compile and publish in the Federal Register a list of all ndian claims to which the statute of limitations provided in 28 U.S. C. 2415 applied. The Act also directed that the Secretary notify those ndians who may have an interest in any such claims. The ndians were then given an opportunity to submit additional claims; these were to be compiled and published on a second list. Actions for claims subject to the limitations periods of 2415 that appeared on neither list were barred unless commenced within 60 days of the publication of the second list. f at any time the Secretary decides not to pursue a claim on one of the lists, "any right of action shall be barred unless the complaint is filed within one year after the date of publication [of the notice of the Secretary's decision] in the Federal Register." Stat. 78, 5(c) Thus, 5(c) implicitly imposed a 1-year statute of limitations within which the ndians must bring contract and tort claims that are covered by 2415(a) and (b) and not listed by the Secretary. So |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | 2415(a) and (b) and not listed by the Secretary. So long as a listed claim is neither acted upon nor formally rejected by the Secretary, it remains live.[15] *244 The legislative history of the successive amendments to 2415 is replete with evidence of Congress' concern that the United States had failed to live up to its responsibilities as trustee for the ndians, and that the Department of the nterior had not acted with appropriate dispatch in meeting the deadlines provided by 2415. E. g., Authorizing ndian Tribes to Bring Certain Actions on Behalf of their Members with Respect to Certain Legal Claims, and for Other Purposes, H. R. Rep. No. 97-954, p. 5 (82). By providing a 1-year limitations period for claims that the Secretary decides not to pursue, Congress intended to give the ndians one last opportunity to file suits covered by 2415(a) and (b) on their own behalf. Thus, we think the statutory framework adopted in 82 presumes the existence of an ndian right of action not otherwise subject to any statute of limitations. t would be a violation of Congress' will were we to hold that a state statute of limitations period should be borrowed in these circumstances. B Laches The dissent argues that we should apply the equitable doctrine of laches to hold that the Oneidas' claim is barred. Although it is far from clear that this defense is available in suits such as this one,[16] we do not reach this issue today. *245 While petitioners argued at trial that the Oneidas were guilty of laches, the District Court ruled against them and they did not reassert this defense on appeal. As a result, the Court of Appeals did not rule on this claim, and we likewise decline to do so. C Abatement Petitioners argue that any cause of action for violation of the Nonintercourse Act of 93 abated when the statute expired. They note that Congress specifically provided that the 93 Act would be in force "for the term of two years, and from thence to the end of the then next session of Congress, and no longer." 15. They contend that the 96 version of the Nonintercourse Act repealed the 93 version and enacted an entirely new statute, and that under the common-law abatement doctrine in effect at the time, any cause of action for violation of the statute finally abated on the expiration of the statute.[] We disagree. The pertinent provision of the 93 Act, 8, like its predecessor, 4 of the 90 Act, merely codified the principle that a sovereign act was |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | Act, merely codified the principle that a sovereign act was required to extinguish aboriginal title and thus that a conveyance without the sovereign's consent was void ab initio. See *246 and n. 3. All of the subsequent versions of the Nonintercourse Act, including that now in force, 25 U.S. C. 7, contain substantially the same restraint on the alienation of ndian lands. n these circumstances, the precedents of this Court compel the conclusion that the Oneidas' cause of action has not abated.[18] D Ratification We are similarly unpersuaded by petitioners' contention that the United States has ratified the unlawful 95 conveyances. Petitioners base this argument on federally approved treaties in 98 and 1802 in which the Oneidas ceded additional land to the State of New York.[] There is a question *247 whether the 1802 treaty ever became effective.[20] Assuming it did, neither the 98 nor the 1802 treaty qualifies as federal ratification of the 95 conveyance. The canons of construction applicable in ndian law are rooted in the unique trust relationship between the United States and the ndians. Thus, it is well established that treaties should be construed liberally in favor of the ndians, Choctaw ; with ambiguous provisions interpreted to their benefit, 4 ; ; "Absent explicit statutory language," this Court accordingly has refused to find that Congress has abrogated ndian treaty rights. Menominee See generally F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal ndian Law 221-225 (82 ed.) (hereinafter F. Cohen). The Court has applied similar canons of construction in nontreaty matters. Most importantly, the Court has held that congressional intent to extinguish ndian title must be *248 "plain and unambiguous," United and will not be "lightly implied," Relying on the strong policy of the United States "from the beginning to respect the ndian right of occupancy," at 345 ), the Court concluded that it "[c]ertainly" would require "plain and unambiguous action to deprive the [ndians] of the benefits of that policy," See F. Cohen. n view of these principles, the treaties relied upon by petitioners are not sufficient to show that the United States ratified New York's unlawful purchase of the Oneidas' land. The language cited by petitioners, a reference in the 98 treaty to "the last purchase" and one in the 1802 treaty to "land heretofore ceded," far from demonstrates a plain and unambiguous intent to extinguish ndian title. See n. There is no indication that either the Senate or the President intended by these references to ratify the 95 conveyance. See 1 Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate 273, 312, 408, 428 (1828).[21] E Nonjusticiability The |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | the Senate 273, 312, 408, 428 (1828).[21] E Nonjusticiability The claim also is made that the issue presented by the Oneidas' action is a nonjusticiable political question. The counties contend first that Art. 1, 8, cl. 3, of the Constitution explicitly commits responsibility for ndian affairs to Congress.[22] Moreover, they argue that Congress has given exclusive civil remedial authority to the Executive for cases *249 such as this one, citing the Nonintercourse Acts and the Treaty of Canandaigua.[23] Thus, they say this case falls within the political question doctrine because of "a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department." 2 (62). Additionally, the counties argue that the question is nonjusticiable because there is "an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made." None of these claims is meritorious. This Court has held specifically that Congress' plenary power in ndian affairs under Art. 1, 8, cl. 3, does not mean that litigation involving such matters necessarily entails nonjusticiable political questions. Delaware Tribal Business Accord, United (80). See also at 215-2. f Congress' constitutional authority over ndian affairs does not render the Oneidas' claim nonjusticiable, a fortiori, Congress' delegation of authority to the President does not do so either.[24] We are also unpersuaded that petitioners have shown "an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made." at 2. *250 The basis for their argument is the fact that in the Commissioner of ndian Affairs declined to bring an action on behalf of the Oneidas with respect to the claims asserted in these cases. The counties cite no cases in which analogous decisions provided the basis for nonjusticiability. Cf. NS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 9 ; United ; (69). Our cases suggest that such "unusual need" arises most of the time, if not always, in the area of foreign affairs. ; see also U.S. 1 Nor do the counties offer convincing reasons for thinking that there is a need for "unquestioning adherence" to the Commissioner's decision. ndeed, the fact that the Secretary of the nterior has listed the Oneidas' claims under the 2415 procedure suggests that the Commissioner's decision was not a decision on the merits of the Oneidas' claims. See n. 15, [25] We conclude, therefore, that the Oneidas' claim is not barred by the political question doctrine. V Finally, we face the question whether the Court of Appeals correctly held that the federal courts could exercise ancillary jurisdiction over the counties' cross-claim against the State of New York for indemnification. The counties assert that this claim arises under both state |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | The counties assert that this claim arises under both state and federal The Court of Appeals did not decide whether it was based on state or federal See 7 F.2d, -544. t held, however, that the 90 and 93 Nonintercourse Acts "placed New York on notice that Congress had exercised its power to regulate commerce with the ndians. Thus, anything New York *251 thereafter did with respect to ndian lands carried with it a waiver of the State's eleventh amendment immunity." at 543 and ). n essence, the Court of Appeals held that by violating a federal statute, the State consented to suit in federal court by any party on any claim, state or federal, growing out of the same nucleus of operative facts as the statutory violation. This proposition has no basis in The counties' cross-claim for indemnification raises a classic example of ancillary jurisdiction. See Owen Equipment & Erection v. Kroger, (78). The Eleventh Amendment forecloses, however, the application of normal principles of ancillary and pendent jurisdiction where claims are pressed against the State. State School and U.S. 89 As we held in : "[N]either pendent jurisdiction nor any other basis of jurisdiction may override the Eleventh Amendment. A federal court must examine each claim in a case to see if the court's jurisdiction over that claim is barred by the Eleventh Amendment." The indemnification claim here, whether cast as a question of New York law or federal common law, is a claim against the State for retroactive monetary relief. n the absence of the State's consent, at 99 ), the suit is barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Thus, as the Court of Appeals recognized, whether the State has consented to waive its constitutional immunity is the critical factor in whether the federal courts properly exercised ancillary jurisdiction over the counties' claim for indemnification. The only ground the Court of Appeals and the counties offer for believing that the State has consented to suit in federal court on this claim is the fact that it violated the 93 Nonintercourse Act by purchasing the Oneidas' land. *252 The counties assert that because the Constitution specifically authorizes Congress "[t]o regulate Commerce with the ndian Tribes," the States necessarily consented to suit in federal court with respect to enactments under this Clause. See County of (CA2 82) cert. denied, ; Mills Music, nc. v. Arizona, Thus, they contend, Congress can abrogate the States' Eleventh Amendment immunity and has done so by enacting the Nonintercourse Acts. By violating the 93 Act, the State thus waived its immunity to suit in federal court |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | State thus waived its immunity to suit in federal court with respect to such violations. Assuming, without deciding, that this reasoning is correct, it does not address the Eleventh Amendment problem here, for the counties' indemnification claim against the State does not arise under the 93 Act. The counties cite no authority for their contrary view. They urge simply that the State would be unjustly enriched if the counties were forced to pay the Oneidas without indemnity from the State, and thus that the Court should "fashion a remedy" for the counties under the 93 Act. This is an argument on the merits; it is not an argument that the indemnification claim arises under the Act. As we said in "[a] State's constitutional interest in immunity encompasses not merely whether it may be sued, but where it may be sued." U.S., at 99 The Eleventh Amendment bar does not vary with the merits of the claims pressed against the State. We conclude, therefore, that the counties' cross-claim for indemnity by the State raises a question of state We are referred to no evidence that the State has waived its constitutional immunity to suit in federal court on this question.[26]*253 Thus, under we hold that the federal courts erred in exercising ancillary jurisdiction over this claim. V The decisions of this Court emphasize "Congress' unique obligation toward the ndians." 4 U.S. 535, The Government, in an amicus curiae brief, urged the Court to affirm the Court of Appeals. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 28. The Government recognized, as we do, the potential consequences of affirmance. t was observed, however, that "Congress has enacted legislation to extinguish ndian title and claims related thereto in other eastern States, and it could be expected to do the same in New York should the occasion arise." See Rhode sland ndian Claims Settlement Act, 25 U.S. C. 01 et seq.; Maine ndian Claims Settlement Act, 25 U.S. C. 21 et seq. We agree that this litigation makes abundantly clear the necessity for congressional One would have thought that claims dating back for more than a century and a half would have been barred long ago. As our opinion indicates, however, neither petitioners nor we have found any applicable statute of limitations or other relevant legal basis for holding that the Oneidas' claims are barred or otherwise have been satisfied. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed with respect to the finding of liability under federal common law,[27] and reversed with respect to the exercise of ancillary jurisdiction over the *254A counties' cross-claim |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | the exercise of ancillary jurisdiction over the *254A counties' cross-claim for indemnification. The cases are remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with our decision. t is so ordered. JUSTCE STEVENS concurs in the judgment with respect to No. 83-1240. *254B JUSTCE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTCE MARSHALL joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part. join the Court's opinion except for Part V. dissent from Part V because adhere to my view that the Eleventh Amendment "bars federal court suits against States only by citizens of other States," Thus, would hold that the State of New York is not entitled to invoke the protections of that Amendment in this federal-court suit by counties of New York. See ; n my view, erects a limited constitutional barrier prohibiting suits against States by citizens of another State; the decision, however, "accords to nonconsenting States only a nonconstitutional immunity from suit by its own citizens." For scholarly discussion supporting this view, see Shapiro, Wrong Turns: The Eleventh Amendment and the Case, ; Gibbons, The Eleventh Amendment and State Sovereign mmunity: A Reinterpretation, ; Field, The Eleventh Amendment and Other Sovereign mmunity Doctrines: Part One, and n. 88 (78). *255 JUSTCE STEVENS, with whom THE CHEF JUSTCE, JUSTCE WHTE, and JUSTCE REHNQUST join, dissenting in No. 83-1065. n 90, the President of the United States notified Cornplanter, the Chief of the Senecas, that federal law would securely protect Seneca lands from acquisition by any State or person: "f you have any just cause of complaint against [a purchaser] and can make satisfactory proof thereof, the federal courts will be open to you for redress, as to all other persons." 4 American State Papers, ndian Affairs, Vol. 1, p. 142[1] The elders of the Oneida ndian Nation received comparable notice of their capacity to maintain the federal claim that is at issue in this litigation.[2] They made no attempt to assert the claim, and their successors in interest waited 5 years before bringing suit to avoid a 95 conveyance that the Tribe freely made, for a valuable consideration. The absence of any evidence of deception, concealment, or interference with the Tribe's right to assert a claim, together with the societal interests that always underlie statutes of repose particularly *256 when title to real property is at stake convince me that this claim is barred by the extraordinary passage of time. t is worthy of emphasis that this claim arose when George Washington was the President of the United States. The Court refuses to apply any time bar to this claim, |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | Court refuses to apply any time bar to this claim, believing that to do so would be inconsistent with federal ndian policy. This Court, however, has always applied the equitable doctrine of laches when ndians or others have sought, in equity, to set aside conveyances made under a statutory or common-law incapacity to convey. Although this action is brought at law, in ejectment, there are sound reasons for recognizing that it is barred by similar principles. n reaching a contrary conclusion, the Court relies on the legislative histories of a series of recent enactments. n my view, however, the Oneida were barred from avoiding their 95 conveyance long before 52, when Congress enacted the first statute that the Court relies on today. Neither that statute, nor any subsequent federal legislation, revived the Oneida's dormant claim. Today's decision is an unprecedented departure from the wisdom of the common law: "The best interests of society require that causes of action should not be deferred an unreasonable time. This remark is peculiarly applicable to land titles. Nothing so much retards the growth and prosperity of a country as insecurity of titles to real estate. Labor is paralysed where the enjoyment of its fruits is uncertain; and litigation without limit produces ruinous consequences to individuals." Of course, as the Court notes, there "is no federal statute of limitations governing federal common-law actions by ndians to enforce property rights." Ante, at 240. However, "where Congress has not spoken but left matters for judicial determination within the general framework of familiar legal *257 principles," (46), the settled practice has been to adopt the state law of limitations as federal The Court has recognized that "State legislatures do not devise their limitations periods with national interests in mind, and it is the duty of the federal courts to assure that the importation of state law will not frustrate or interfere with the implementation of national policies." Occidental Life ns. v. EEOC, The Court, for example, has refused to apply state laws of limitations when a more analogous federal statute of limitations better reflects the appropriate balance between the enforcement of federal substantive policies and the historic principles of repose,[3] or when a unique federal interest in the subject matter or a paramount interest in national uniformity require the fashioning of a federal time bar in order to avoid serious conflict with federal policies or functions.[4] n applying these principles, however, the Court has always presumed that some principle of limitation applies to federal causes of [5] Thus, in Occidental Life ns. the Court concluded that Congress had |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | in Occidental Life ns. the Court concluded that Congress had intended no rigid time *258 limit for EEOC enforcement actions, but the Court also recognized that federal courts have adequate power to bar an action if the defendant was "significantly handicapped in making his defense because of an inordinate EEOC delay." Before 66 there was no federal statute of limitations that even arguably could have supplanted a state limitation. Even the longest possibly applicable state statute of limitations would surely have barred this cause of action which arose in 95 many years before 66.[6] Moreover, "[a] state statute cannot be considered `inconsistent' with federal law merely because the statute causes the plaintiff to lose the litigation." (78). Nor is the rejection of a generally applicable state law inappropriate merely because one party is an ndian tribe and the subject matter of the litigation involves tribal property. Wilson v. Omaha ndian Tribe, Thus, a routine application of our practice in dealing with limitations questions would lead to the conclusion that this claim is barred by the lapse of time. Nevertheless, there are unique considerations in cases involving ndian claims that warrant a departure from the ordinary practice. ndians have long occupied a protected status in our law, and in the th century they were often characterized as wards of the State.[7] At common law, conveyances of *259 persons subject to similar disabilities were void. n practice, however, the common-law courts modified the wooden rules ordinarily applied to real property claims in actions at law in order to protect the ward, as far as possible, from manipulation, while at the same time avoiding the obvious inequity involved in the setting aside, at a distant date, of conveyances that had been freely made, for valuable consideration. For example, the statute of limitations applicable to actions seeking to gain recovery of the real estate conveyed under such disabilities did not begin to run against a ward until his unique disabilities had been overcome.[8] Thus, to be faithful to these common-law principles, the application of a state statute of limitations in the context of ancient ndian claims would require flexible consideration of the development of the particular tribe's capacity to govern its own affairs. *260 Moreover, the common law developed prescription doctrines that terminated the vendor's power to avoid a void conveyance in an action in ejectment. These doctrines could deny the ward, or those claiming under him, a cause of action in ejectment even before the running of the applicable statute of limitations. Although these doctrines were often based on theories of |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | limitations. Although these doctrines were often based on theories of implied ratification, they were most often enforced in circumstances indicating undue or prejudicial delay.[9] *261 believe that the equitable doctrine of laches,[10] with its focus on legitimate reliance and inexcusable delay, best reflects the limitation principles that would have governed this ancient claim at common law without requiring a historian's inquiry into the archaic limitation doctrines that would have governed the claims at any specific time in the preceding two centuries. Of course, the application of a traditional equitable *262 defense in an action at law is something of a novelty. But this novel development in litigation involving ndian claims arose in order to benefit a special class of litigants, and it remains true that an equitable defense to the instant claim is less harsh than a straightforward application of the limitations rule dictated by our usual practice. At least equal to the maxim that equity follows the law is the truth that common-law real property principles were often tempered by equitable considerations as the rules limiting a ward's power to avoid an unlawful conveyance demonstrate.[11] As the Court recognizes, the instant action arises under the federal common law, not under any congressional enactment, and in this context the Court would not risk frustrating the will of the Legislature[12] by applying this familiar doctrine of equity. The merger of law and equity in one federal court[13] is, of course, primarily procedural. Considering the hybrid nature of these claims and the evolving character of the common law, however, believe that the application of laches as a limitation principle governing ancient ndian claims will promote uniformity of result in law and at equity, maintain the proper measure of flexibility to protect the legitimate interests of the tribes, while at the same time honoring the historic wisdom in the value of repose. *263 Three decisions of this Court illustrate the application of the doctrine of laches to actions seeking to set aside conveyances made in violation of federal n (22), the Court stated that "the equitable doctrine of laches cannot properly have application to give vitality to a void deed and to bar the rights of ndian wards in lands subject to statutory restrictions." A close examination of the Ewert case, however, indicates that the Court applied the doctrine of laches, but rejected relief for the defendant in the circumstances of the case. n 09, Ewert, a federal ndian agent, obtained a conveyance of allotted lands from the heirs of an ndian in violation of a statutory prohibition against federal officers |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | ndian in violation of a statutory prohibition against federal officers engaging in trade with ndians. n 16, the heirs brought an action, in equity, seeking to set aside the conveyance. The Court of Appeals held that the heirs had the burden of disproving laches because they had brought their action outside the applicable state statute of limitations, and concluded that they had not satisfied this burden. "The adult plaintiffs were free to make conveyance of this land, even though they were ndians, and [since] their tribal relations had been severed, [they] were chargeable with the same diligence as white people in discovering and pursuing their legal remedies. 145 U.S. 3 ]; (02)]." (CA8 20). On appeal, this Court held that the plaintiffs' action was not barred by the doctrine of laches, noting that "[Ewert] still holds the legal title to the land." 259 U.S., The Court principally relied on the doctrine that "an [unlawful] act is void and confers no right upon the wrongdoer." On the facts of Ewert, the Court found that the *264 plaintiffs' burden of disproving laches was easily met, but the Court might well have reached a different conclusion in Ewert if the conveyance had not been so recent, if the defendant had not been as blameworthy, or if the character of the property had changed dramatically in the interim. My interpretation of Ewert is illustrated by this Court's prior decision in 145 U.S. 3 n that case, the Court applied the doctrine of laches to bar an action by the heirs of an ndian to establish a constructive trust over lands that had been conveyed by her in violation of a federal statutory restriction. The action to set aside the unlawful transfer was brought 28 years after the transaction, and in the intervening time, "[t]hat which was wild land thirty years ago is now intersected by streets, subdivided into blocks and lots, and largely occupied by persons who have bought upon the strength of 's title, and have erected buildings of a permanent character upon their purchases." The Court recognized that the long passage of time, the change in the character of the property, the transfer of some of the property to third parties, the absence of any obvious inadequacy in the consideration received in the original transaction, and 's lack of direct participation in the original transfer all supported a charge of laches against the plaintiffs. n addition, the Court noted that "[t]he decree prayed for in this case, if granted, would offer a distinct encouragement to the purchase of similar claims, which doubtless |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | distinct encouragement to the purchase of similar claims, which doubtless exist in abundance through the Western Territories,. and would result in the unsettlement of large numbers of titles upon which the owners have rested in assured security for nearly a generation." Nor is Felix the only application of these principles in a similar context. n Wetzel v. Minnesota Railway Transfer the children of a deceased Mexican War veteran received a warrant for 160 acres of land under a federal statute that prohibited any alienation of the property without the approval of the proper state probate court. The *265 children's guardian sold their share in the warrant without seeking the approval of the proper court. Forty-four years after the conveyance, the children brought an action, in equity, seeking to establish a constructive trust over the 160 acres now located in a well-developed area of St. Paul, Minnesota. The Court held that the action was barred by laches relying on and noting that the property had been completely developed and had greatly increased in value. The Court also observed that title had passed to persons who were no doubt ignorant of the defect in title. The Court also noted the relevance of the length of the delay: "While the fact that the complainants were ignorant of the defect in the title and were without means to prosecute an investigation into the facts may properly be considered by the court, it does not mitigate the hardship to the defendants of unsettling these titles. f the complainant may put forward these excuses for delay after thirty years, there is no reason why they may not allege the same as an excuse after a lapse of sixty. The truth is, there must be some limit of time within which these excuses shall be available, or titles might forever be insecure. The interests of public order and tranquillity demand that parties shall acquaint themselves with their rights within a reasonable time, and although this time may be extended by their actual ignorance, or want of means, it is by no means illimitable." Ewert, Felix, and Wetzel establish beyond doubt that it is quite consistent with federal policy to apply the doctrine of laches to limit a vendor's power to avoid a conveyance violating a federal restriction on alienation. As in Felix and Wetzel, the land conveyed by the Oneida in 95 has been converted from wilderness to cities, towns, *266 villages, and farms. The 872 acres of land involved in the instant action include the principal transportation arteries in the region, and other vital public |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | principal transportation arteries in the region, and other vital public facilities owned by the Counties of Oneida and Madison.[14] The counties and the private property owners affected by the litigation, without proven notice of the defect in title caused by the State of New York's failure to comply with the federal statute, have erected costly improvements on the property in reliance on the validity of their title. Even if the counties are considered for some purposes to be the alter ego of the State, it is surely a fiction to argue that they are in any way responsible for their predicament,[15] or that their taxpayers, who will ultimately bear the burden of the judgment in this case, are in any way culpable for New York's violation of federal law in 95. As the Court holds, ante, at 233-236, there was no legal impediment to the maintenance of this cause of action at any time after 95. Although the mere passage of time, without other inequity in the prosecution of the claim, does not support a finding of laches in the ordinary case, e. g., in cases of gross laches the passage of a great length of time creates a nearly insurmountable burden on the plaintiffs to disprove the obvious defense of laches.[16] As Justice Story noted for the Court in : *267 "[G]eneral presumptions are raised by the law upon subjects of which there is no record or written instrument, not because there are the means of belief or disbelief, but because mankind, judging of matters of antiquity from the infirmity and necessity of their situation must, for the preservation of their property and rights, have recourse to some general principle, to take the place of individual and specific belief, which can hold only as to matters within our own time, upon which a conclusion can be formed from particular and individual knowledge." at Given their burden of explaining nearly two centuries of delay in the prosecution of this claim, and considering the *2 legitimate reliance interests of the counties and the other property owners whose title is derived from the 95 conveyance, the Oneida have not adequately justified their delay. Of course, the traditional rule was "that `the conduct of ndians is not to be measured by the same standard which we apply to the conduct of other people.' But their very analogy to persons under guardianship suggests a limitation to their pupilage, since the utmost term of disability of an infant is but 21 years, and it is very rare that the relations of guardian and ward under |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | very rare that the relations of guardian and ward under any circumstances, even those of lunacy, are maintained for a longer period than this." -331 ). n this case, the testimony at trial indicates that the Oneida people have independently held land derived from tribal allotments at least since the Dawes Act of 1887,[] and probably earlier in the State of New York.[18] They have received formal schooling at least since 96 in New York, and have gradually become literate in the English language.[] They have developed a sophisticated system of tribal government,[20] and at various times in the past 5 years, have petitioned the Government for the redress of grievances, or sent commissions to confer with their brethren.[21] *269 n all the years after the 95 conveyance until the years leading up to this litigation the Oneida made few efforts to raise this specific grievance against the State of New York and the landowners holding under the State's title.[22] Claims to lands in New York most often were only made in connection with generalized grievances concerning the Tribe's treatment at the hands of the United States Government.[23] Although the Oneida plainly knew or should have known that they had conveyed their lands to the State of New York in violation of federal law, and that they might have some cause for redress, they inexplicably delayed filing a lawsuit on their claim until 5 years after the conveyance was made. Finally, "[t]here is no evidence that any of the plaintiffs or their predecessors ever refused or returned any of the payments received for the purported sale of land pursuant to the Treaty of 95."[24] *270 The Oneida have not met their formidable burden of disproving unjustifiable delay to the prejudice of others. n my opinion their cause of action is barred by the doctrine of laches. The remedy for the ancient wrong established at trial should be provided by Congress, not by judges seeking to rewrite history at this late date. V The Oneida argue that the legislative histories of a series of congressional enactments, beginning in 52, persuasively establish that their claims have never been barred. This argument has serious flaws, not the least being that whatever Congress said in 52 or 66 is extremely weak authority for the status of the common law in 95, or for a considerable period thereafter. Believing, as do, that the Oneida's claim was barred by the doctrine of laches or by a related common-law doctrine[25] long before 52, it is quite clear that the statutes discussed by the Court did |
Justice Powell | 1,985 | 17 | majority | Countyof Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of NY | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111362/countyof-oneida-v-oneida-indian-nation-of-ny/ | quite clear that the statutes discussed by the Court did not revive it. First, and most obviously, the principal statute relied on by the Court, by its very terms, only applies to claims brought by the United States on behalf of ndians or ndian tribes.[26] This *271 action, of course, is brought by an ndian Tribe on its own behalf. Secondly, neither the statutes themselves,[27] nor the legislative discussions that preceded their enactment,[28] provide *272 any indication of an intent to revive already barred claims.[29] Quite the contrary, they merely indicate a congressional intent to preserve the status quo with respect to ancient claims that might already be barred, and to establish a procedure for making sure that the claims would not survive eternally. Congress, for the most part, has been quite clear when it decides to revive causes of action that might be barred or to deny any time limitation for a private cause of [30] When the will of Congress is as lacking in clarity as it is in this case, we should be wary of attributing to it the intention of reviving ancient claims that will upset long-settled expectations. n divining the intent of Congress concerning the applicable limitation on a cause of action, Chief Justice Marshall once noted that "it deserves some consideration," that in the absence of an applicable limitation, "those actions might, in many cases, be brought at any distance of time. This would be utterly repugnant to the genius of our laws." The Court *273 today prefers to impute to Congress the intent of rewarding those whom "Abraham Lincoln once described with scorn [as sitting] in the basements of courthouses combing property records to upset established titles." The more appropriate presumption in this case is that Congress intended to honor legitimate expectations in the ownership of real property and not to disturb them. V The Framers recognized that no one ought be condemned for his forefathers' misdeeds even when the crime is a most grave offense against the Republic.[31] The Court today ignores that principle in fashioning a common-law remedy for the Oneida Nation that allows the Tribe to avoid its 95 conveyance 5 years after it was made. This decision upsets long-settled expectations in the ownership of real property in the Counties of Oneida and Madison, New York, and the disruption it is sure to cause will confirm the common-law wisdom that ancient claims are best left in repose. The Court, no doubt, believes that it is undoing a grave historical injustice, but in doing so it has caused another, which |
Justice Marshall | 1,973 | 15 | second_dissenting | Ricci v. Chicago Mercantile Exchange | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108649/ricci-v-chicago-mercantile-exchange/ | The majority accurately describes the provisions of the Commodity Act and the facts of this case. But my Brethren nowhere explain why the lower court should stay its hand pending action by an agency which in all likelihood lacks the statutory power to *310 resolve an issue in the lawsuit. Instead of carefully balancing the advantages and disadvantages of deferral to the agency, the Court seems to apply a mechanical test which requires judicial deference despite the substantial probability that the agency will have nothing of relevance to contribute. The principle that should govern this case can be stated quite adequately in a single sentence: An agency cannot have primary jurisdiction over a dispute when it probably lacks jurisdiction in the first place. The majority seemingly departs from this principle[1] and, hence, needlessly bifurcates and complicates a suit that could readily be resolved by the District Court. I must therefore respectfully dissent. I At the outset, it should be noted that the Commodity Act fails to provide petitioner with a means by which he can require the Commodity Commission or the Secretary of Agriculture to consider his case. The Act provides that "[t]he Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to disapprove any bylaw, rule, regulation, or resolution made, issued or proposed by a contract market." 7 U.S. C. 12a (7) (emphasis added). Similarly, "[i]f any contract market is not enforcing *311 or has not enforced its rules of government made a condition of its designation the commission may make and enter an order directing that such contract market shall cease and desist from such violation." 7 U.S. C. 13a (emphasis added). But although the relevant regulations provide a means by which a private party may report apparent violations see 17 CFR 0.3 0.53 the Act nowhere requires the Secretary or the Commission to act on these reports. Cf. On the contrary, the Act expressly provides that "[n]othing in this chapter shall be construed as requiring the Secretary of Agriculture or the commission to report minor violations of this chapter for prosecution, whenever it appears that the public interest does not require such action." 7 U.S. C. 13c Moreover, even if the Secretary or the Commission does institute proceedings at petitioner's behest, it is by no means certain that petitioner will be permitted to participate in those proceedings. The Commission's rules state that "[t]he person filing an application [to institute proceedings] shall have no legal status in the proceeding which may be instituted as a result of the application, except where the applicant may be permitted to intervene therein or may be |
Justice Marshall | 1,973 | 15 | second_dissenting | Ricci v. Chicago Mercantile Exchange | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108649/ricci-v-chicago-mercantile-exchange/ | applicant may be permitted to intervene therein or may be called as a witness." 17 CFR 0.53 (emphasis added). See also 17 CFR 0.3 Although Commission rules provide for the intervention of private parties, the Commission apparently has unfettered discretion in deciding whether to allow intervention. See 17 CFR 0.58. See also 17 CFR 0.8.[2] *312 Should the Commission or the Secretary not allow intervention in this case, this Court's decision will leave the District Judge on the horns of a serious dilemma. Normally, when a court stays its hand to allow agency proceedings, the result of those proceedings may not be collaterally attacked when the case returns to the court. See, e. g., Port of Boston Marine Terminal But if the Commission decides a major issue in this lawsuit without allowing petitioner to intervene, failure to permit collateral attack would result in petitioner's antitrust case being resolved against him without his participation. On the other hand, if the District Court undertakes a de novo reconsideration of the issues submitted to the Commission, the Commission's decision, together with the concomitant delay, will be for naught. II The Court, then, remands petitioner to a procedure which he has no power to invoke, in which he has no right to participate if it is invoked, and which cannot provide the remedy he seeks even if he is allowed to participate.[3] Yet all this might be justifiable if either the Commission or the Secretary were likely to make a meaningful contribution to the resolution of this lawsuit. We have held that "[w]hen there is a basis for judicial action, independent of agency proceedings, courts *313 may route the threshold decision as to certain issues to the agency charged with primary responsibility for governmental supervision or control of the particular industry or activity involved." The reason for this policy is self-evident: "in cases raising issues of fact not within the conventional experience of judges or cases requiring the exercise of administrative discretion, agencies created by Congress for regulating the subject matter should not be passed over." Far East Thus, if the Commodity Commission had jurisdiction over some aspect of this suit and special expertise in the area of its jurisdiction, a case could, perhaps, be made for awaiting its decision. For example, if the Commission had been given the power to grant general immunity to antitrust violators, sound judicial administration would require consultation with it before proceeding with the antitrust suit. But, as the majority itself recognizes, there is no indication that Congress intended to grant the Commission any such power. As this Court |
Justice Marshall | 1,973 | 15 | second_dissenting | Ricci v. Chicago Mercantile Exchange | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108649/ricci-v-chicago-mercantile-exchange/ | to grant the Commission any such power. As this Court held in Carnation "[w]e have long recognized that the antitrust laws represent a fundamental national economic policy and have therefore concluded that we cannot lightly assume that the enactment of a special regulatory scheme for particular aspects of an industry was intended to render the more general provisions of the antitrust laws wholly inapplicable to that industry." In practice, this principle has meant that "[r]epeals of the antitrust laws by implication from a regulatory statute are strongly disfavored, and have only been found in cases of plain repugnancy between the antitrust and regulatory provisions." United Such repugnancy *314 has been found to exist only in those rare cases where regulation of the industry is pervasive and Congress plainly intended to substitute Government supervision for competition. See, e. g., Pan American World Cf. United Obviously, Congress has not granted the Commission the sort of pervasive power over commodity exchanges that would give rise to antitrust exemption. On the contrary, although the Commission and the Secretary have some general policing duties, day-to-day regulation has been largely left to the industry itself. Where, as here, the industry is given the power to control its own affairs, it is particularly important to make certain that this power is not abused for the purpose of eliminating competition. Cf. The majority cannot rely, then, on the Commission's general power to immunize antitrust violations. Its argument, as I understand it, is more subtle and, at the same time, more attenuated. As we recognized in the very purpose of an exchange is to exclude nonmembers from participation in trading. Were it not for the legislative authorization of such exchanges, they would constitute group boycotts that are per se violations of the Sherman Act. See, e. g., Klor's, Thus, although Congress cannot be taken to have granted total antitrust immunity to trading exchanges, some accommodation must be reached between usual antitrust principles and the self-regulatory and exclusionary powers that the exchanges were obviously intended to exercise. In Silver, the Court reached such an accommodation by holding that "exchange self-regulation is to be regarded *315 as justified in response to antitrust charges only to the extent necessary to protect the achievement of the aims of the Securities Act." Thus, if an exchange rule serves a valid self-regulatory purpose, the mere fact that it excludes some individuals from competition does not mean that an antitrust violation has been made out. But where, as in Silver itself, the rule fails to serve any legitimate self-regulatory goal, its exclusionary effect can lay the |
Justice Marshall | 1,973 | 15 | second_dissenting | Ricci v. Chicago Mercantile Exchange | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108649/ricci-v-chicago-mercantile-exchange/ | any legitimate self-regulatory goal, its exclusionary effect can lay the predicate for a Sherman Act violation. Applying Silver to the facts of this case, the majority argues that the Commission has primary jurisdiction to determine facts relevant to the question whether the Chicago Mercantile 's rules and its application of those rules are in conformity with the self-regulatory purposes of the Commodity Act. Superficially, at least, that argument has considerable force. It is marred, however, by two flaws which, in my view, make it ultimately fallacious. First, it is important to note that petitioner's complaint does not merely allege that he has been excluded from trading or that an rule has been broken. Rather, he maintains that the and certain of its members entered a deliberate conspiracy against him and that this was done "maliciously, wilfully, knowingly, unlawfully and without just cause or provocation, with the unlawful and illegal intent, purpose and object of restraining and preventing plaintiff from exercising an essential and necessary part of his lawful trade or business in interstate commerce." Whatever the legitimate self-regulatory goals of the Chicago Mercantile I cannot believe that they include the deliberate and malicious suppression of competition. Surely, the courts do not need the Commodity Commission to tell them that such conduct is antithetical to the purposes of the Commodity Act. We have held that principles *316 of administrative comity preclude courts from finding antitrust violations "only when the defendants' conduct is arguably lawful" under the administrative scheme. Carnation I would apply that principle here and hold that deliberate conspiracies with the sole purpose of suppressing competition are not "arguably lawful" under the Commodity Act.[4] To be sure, it may ultimately develop that petitioner is unable to substantiate all of his allegations and that the actions of the are less sinister than he has made out. Petitioner might be required to submit affidavits before trial demonstrating that his allegations of a deliberate conspiracy are factually supported in order to forestall a remand to the Commission. And if it becomes clear at any time during trial that the conspiracy allegations are insubstantial, there will then be time enough to reconsider the propriety of a delay pending Commission action. But I would not deprive petitioner of immediate access to the courts until he has had an opportunity to prove that the case is as clear as he says it is. Moreover, even if petitioner's allegations are for some reason insufficient to forestall a remand to the Commission, I still doubt that the Court of Appeals acted properly in ordering a stay of the |
Justice Marshall | 1,973 | 15 | second_dissenting | Ricci v. Chicago Mercantile Exchange | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108649/ricci-v-chicago-mercantile-exchange/ | of Appeals acted properly in ordering a stay of the litigation. The majority's position is premised on the assumption that the Commission *317 has jurisdiction to determine facts relevant to whether rules, or the application of those rules, is consistent with legitimate self-regulatory ends.[5] But a careful examination of the Act makes plain that this assumption is simply incorrect.[6] Neither the agency nor the Secretary has been granted a roving commission to oversee the proper functioning of the various exchanges. Rather, the powers conferred in the Act are limited and discrete, and none of them grants to the Commission the tools necessary for resolving any issue in this dispute. The Commission does have authority to oversee the exchanges' administration of their own rules. 7 U.S. C. 7a (8) requires exchanges to "[e]nforce all bylaws, rules, regulations, and resolutions, made or issued by it or by the governing board thereof or any committee, which relate to trading requirements," and 7 U.S. C. 13a permits the Commission to issue a cease-and-desist order "[i]f any contract market is not enforcing or has not enforced its rules of government made a condition of its designation as set forth in section 7 of this title." But it should be obvious that these provisions do not *318 authorize the Commission to resolve the Silver issue. The quoted sections permit the Commission to determine whether the rules made by an exchange are being enforced. But they do not permit the Commission to decide whether either the rules, or their application, serves a legitimate self-regulatory goal, which is the only relevant issue in the antitrust suit. Thus, it is entirely possible that although the Chicago Mercantile has respected its own rules to the letter, those rules themselves are impermissible under the Sherman Act. Similarly, even if the rules are facially permissible, it is possible that, as applied in this case, they restrain competition without any offsetting self-regulatory gain. The mere fact that an exchange is obeying its own rules the only question that 7 U.S. C. 7a (8) and 13a permit the Commission to answerdoes not tell us whether either the rules or their application meets the Silver test. The Secretary is given supplementary power to invalidate certain exchange rules. But this power, too, is extremely limited. Title 7 U.S. C. 12a (7) empowers the Secretary to "disapprove any bylaw, rule, regulation, or resolution made, issued or proposed by a contract market which relates to trading requirements, when he finds that such bylaw, rule, regulation, or resolution violates or will violate any of the provisions of this chapter, |
Justice Marshall | 1,973 | 15 | second_dissenting | Ricci v. Chicago Mercantile Exchange | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108649/ricci-v-chicago-mercantile-exchange/ | or will violate any of the provisions of this chapter, or any of the rules, regulations, or orders of the Secretary of Agriculture or the commission thereunder." (Emphasis added.) The "chapter" referred to is, of course, the Commodity Act, not the Sherman Act, and no provision of the Commodity Act incorporates Sherman Act principles. It follows that 12a (7) does not empower the Secretary to invalidate exchange rules because they conflict with antitrust policy. *319 Moreover, as noted above, the restrictions placed on the exchanges by the Act are far from pervasive, and the Secretary's power to invalidate rules is therefore similarly restricted. Surely, this power does not include the ability to invalidate any rule that fails to serve a self-regulatory end. Such a reading of the Act would mean that Congress thought it had prohibited everything an exchange might do that would not serve self-regulatory purposesa reading that defies common sense. Thus, if the Secretary were to refuse to invalidate the rules involved in this action, his decision would only mean that those rules were not prohibited by any specific provision of the Commodity Act. The decision could in no way be taken to mean that the rule serves any useful purpose or that it meets the Silver requirement.[7] III I do not mean to suggest that the Commission's consideration of this case is certain to prove totally useless when the District Court ultimately resumes its deliberations. Should the Secretary invalidate the rules that the Commission relies on, for example, his action would materially aid petitioner, although his claim would still *320 not be conclusively established since the 's actions might be justified by a legitimate regulatory purpose, even though the rule relied upon violated a provision of the Act. Similarly, the Commission may make findings of fact or statements as to the law within areas of its expertise which the court might find helpful. But I had not thought that petitioner need meet the burden of showing that resort to administrative remedies would be totally useless before securing adjudication from a court. Indeed, in virtually every suit involving a regulated industry, there is something of value that an administrative agency might contribute if given the opportunity. But we have never suggested that such suits must therefore invariably be postponed while the agency is consulted. It has been argued that the doctrine of primary jurisdiction involves a mere postponement, rather than relinquishment of judicial jurisdiction. See, e. g., 3 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise 3-4 (1958). However, that observation should not be taken to mean that invocation of the |
Justice Marshall | 1,973 | 15 | second_dissenting | Ricci v. Chicago Mercantile Exchange | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108649/ricci-v-chicago-mercantile-exchange/ | should not be taken to mean that invocation of the doctrine therefore imposes no costs. On the contrary, in these days of crowded dockets and long court delays, the doctrine frequently prolongs and complicates litigation. More fundamentally, invocation of the doctrine derogates from the principle that except in extraordinary situations, every citizen is entitled to call upon the judiciary for expeditious vindication of his legal claims of right. As we have said in a somewhat different context "due process requires, at a minimum, that absent a countervailing state interest of overriding significance, persons forced to settle their claims of right and duty through the judicial process must be given a meaningful opportunity to be heard." And surely the right to a "meaningful opportunity to be heard" comprehends within it the right to be heard without unreasonable delay. This *321 principle is especially worthy of protection in the antitrust field where it is unmistakably clear that Congress has given courts, rather than agencies, the primary duty to act. Cf. To be sure, judicial deference to agency jurisdiction remains important, particularly in those areas where the responsibilities of judges and administrators meet and overlap. But the primary jurisdiction doctrine, like the related exhaustion requirement, must not be "applied blindly in every case" without "an understanding of its purposes and of the particular administrative scheme involved." Wise use of the doctrine necessitates a careful balance of the benefits to be derived from utilization of agency processes as against the costs in complication and delay. Where the plaintiff has no means of invoking agency jurisdiction, where the agency rules do not guarantee the plaintiff a means of participation in the administrative proceedings, and where the likelihood of a meaningful agency input into the judicial process is remote, I would strike a balance in favor of immediate court action. Since the majority's scale is apparently differently calibrated, I must respectfully dissent. |
per_curiam | 1,988 | 200 | per_curiam | Rhodes v. Stewart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112151/rhodes-v-stewart/ | After entry a judgment for the plaintiffs in a suit by two prisoners under 42 U.S. C. the District Court for the Southern District Ohio, Eastern Division, ordered the defendants to pay the plaintiffs' attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S. C. There is no entitlement to attorney's fees, however, unless the requesting party prevails; and by the time the District Court entered its judgment in the underlying suit one the plaintiffs had died and the other was no longer in custody. In this posture, the plaintiffs were not prevailing parties under the rule we set forth in and the Court Appeals for the Sixth Circuit erred in affirming the award fees by the District Court. I On January 17, 1978, while in the custody the Ohio Department Rehabilitation and Correction, Albert Reese and Larry Stewart filed a complaint alleging violations their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by ficials who refused them permission to subscribe to a magazine. On April 2, 1981, the District Court issued an opinion and an order, later amended in respects no longer pertinent to the case. The court ruled that correctional ficials had not applied the proper procedural and substantive standards in denying the inmates their request, and ordered compliance with those standards. Two months later, the District Court entered an award fees in favor the attorneys for Reese and Stewart in the amount $5,306.25. The Court Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. We granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to the Court Appeals for further consideration in light On remand from the Court Appeals, the District Court confirmed its earlier award. None the opinions or orders cited thus far made reference to, or showed awareness two salient facts: Reese died on February 18, 1979; and Stewart, the sole respondent now before us, was paroled on March 15, 1978, and given a final release from parole on January 17, 1980. In consequence, when the District Court issued its original order on April 2, 1981, neither plaintiff was in the State's custody. For reasons that remain unexplained, petitioners here did not raise this matter until their appeal the District Court's order after remand. A divided Court Appeals upheld the award fees, concluding that the mootness the claim when the judgment was issued did not undermine respondent's status as a prevailing party eligible for attorney's fees. Affirmance order, In an unpublished opinion, the majority characterized the relief plaintiffs had received as declaratory relief. The panel majority noted our recent holding in that a plaintiff must receive some relief on the merits his claim before he |
per_curiam | 1,988 | 200 | per_curiam | Rhodes v. Stewart | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112151/rhodes-v-stewart/ | receive some relief on the merits his claim before he can be said to have prevailed within the meaning It observed, however, that the plaintiff in Hewitt, unlike Stewart, had not won a declaratory judgment, and concluded that the declaratory judgment issued in this case justified the granting attorney's fees. II The Court Appeals misapprehended our holding in Hewitt. Although the plaintiff in Hewitt had not won a declaratory judgment, nothing in our opinion suggested that the entry such a judgment in a party's favor automatically renders that party prevailing under Indeed, we confirmed the contrary proposition: "In all civil litigation, the judicial decree is not the end but the means. At the end the rainbow lies not a judgment, but some action (or cessation action) by the *4 defendant that the judgment produces the payment damages, or some specific specific performance, or the termination some conduct. Redress is sought through the court, but from the defendant. This is no less true a declaratory judgment suit than any other action. The real value the judicial pronouncement what makes it a proper judicial resolution a `case or controversy' rather than an advisory opinion is in the settling some dispute which affects the behavior the defendant towards the plaintiff." A declaratory judgment, in this respect, is no different from any other judgment. It will constitute relief, for purposes if, and only if, it affects the behavior the defendant toward the plaintiff. In this case, there was no such result. The lawsuit was not brought as a class action, but by two plaintiffs. A modification prison policies on magazine subscriptions could not in any way have benefited either plaintiff, one whom was dead and the other released before the District Court entered its order. This case is thus controlled by our holding in Hewitt, where the fact that the respondent had "long since been released from prison" and "could not get redress" from any changes in prison policy caused by his lawsuit compelled the conclusion that he was ineligible for an award fees. The case was moot before judgment issued, and the judgment therefore afforded the plaintiffs no relief whatsoever. In the absence relief, a party cannot meet the threshold requirement that he prevail, and in consequence he is not entitled to an award attorney's fees. Certiorari is granted, and the decision the Court Appeals is reversed. It is so ordered. |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | concurring | Graham v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146790/graham-v-florida/ | In his dissenting opinion, JUSTICE THOMAS argues that today’s holding is not entirely consistent with the control ling opinions in v. Michigan, and Post, at 7–9. Given that “evolving standards of decency” have played a central role in our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence for at least a century, see this argument suggests the dissenting opinions in those cases more accurately describe the law today than does JUSTICE THOMAS’ rigid interpretation of the Amendment. Society changes. Knowledge accumulates. We learn, sometimes, from our mistakes. Punishments that did not seem cruel and unusual at one time may, in the light of reason and experience, be found cruel and unusual at a later time; unless we are to abandon the moral commit ment embodied in the Eighth Amendment, proportionality review must never become effectively obsolete, post, at 8–9, and n. 2. While JUSTICE THOMAS would apparently not rule out a death sentence for a $50 theft by a 7-year-old, see post, at 4, 10, n. 3, the Court wisely rejects his static approach to 2 GRAHAM v. FLORIDA STEVENS, J., concurring the law. Standards of decency have evolved since 1980. They will never stop doing so. Cite as: 560 U. S. (2010) 1 ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 08–7412 TERRANCE JAMAR GRAHAM, PETITIONER v. FLORIDA ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA, FIRST DISTRICT [May 17, 2010] CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, concurring in the judgment. I agree with the Court that Terrance Graham’s sentence of life without parole violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments.” Unlike the majority, however, I see no need to invent a new con stitutional rule of dubious provenance in reaching that conclusion. Instead, my analysis is based on an applica tion of this Court’s precedents, in particular (1) our cases requiring “narrow proportionality” review of noncapital sentences and (2) our conclusion in v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), that juvenile offenders are generally less culpable than who commit the same crimes. These cases expressly allow courts addressing allega tions that a noncapital sentence violates the Eighth Amendment to consider the particular defendant and particular crime at issue. The standards for relief under these precedents are rigorous, and should be. But here Graham’s juvenile status—together with the nature of his criminal conduct and the extraordinarily severe punish ment imposed—lead me to conclude that his sentence of life without parole is unconstitutional. I Our Court has struggled with whether and how to apply the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause to sentences 2 GRAHAM v. FLORIDA ROBERTS, |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | concurring | Graham v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146790/graham-v-florida/ | Unusual Punishments Clause to sentences 2 GRAHAM v. FLORIDA ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment for noncapital crimes. Some of my colleagues have raised serious and thoughtful questions about whether, as an original matter, the Constitution was understood to re quire any degree of proportionality between noncapital offenses and their corresponding punishments. See, e.g., (principal opinion of SCALIA, J.); post, at 3–5, and n. 1 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). Neither party here asks us to reexamine our precedents requiring such proportionality, however, and so I approach this case by trying to apply our past decisions to the facts at hand. A Graham’s case arises at the intersection of two lines of Eighth Amendment precedent. The first consists of deci sions holding that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause embraces a “narrow proportionality principle” that we apply, on a case-by-case basis, when asked to review noncapital sentences. 72 (internal quotation marks omitted); ; 538 U.S. 11, 20 (plurality opinion); at 996– 997 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). This “narrow proportionality principle” does not grant judges blanket authority to second-guess deci sions made by legislatures or sentencing courts. On the contrary, a reviewing court will only “rarely” need “to engage in extended analysis to determine that a sentence is not constitutionally disproportionate,” at n. 16 and “successful challenges” to noncapital sentences will be all the more “exceedingly rare,” We have “not established a clear or consistent path for courts to follow” in applying the highly deferential “narrow proportionality” analysis. We have, however, emphasized the primacy of the legislature in Cite as: 560 U. S. (2010) 3 ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment setting sentences, the variety of legitimate penological schemes, the state-by-state diversity protected by our federal system, and the requirement that review be guided by objective, rather than subjective, factors. at 23 (plurality opinion); at 998–1001 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.). Most importantly, however, we have explained that the Eighth Amendment “ ‘does not require strict proportionality between crime and sen tence’ ”; rather, “ ‘it forbids only extreme sentences that are “grossly disproportionate” to the crime.’ ” at 23 (plurality opinion) (quoting at 1001 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.)). Our cases indicate that courts conducting “narrow pro portionality” review should begin with a threshold inquiry that compares “the gravity of the offense and the harsh ness of the penalty.” 463 U.S., at –291. This analysis can consider a particular offender’s mental state and motive in committing the crime, the actual harm caused to his victim or to society by his conduct, and any prior criminal history. –294, 296–297, and |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | concurring | Graham v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146790/graham-v-florida/ | his conduct, and any prior criminal history. –294, 296–297, and n. 22 (considering motive, past criminal conduct, alcoholism, and propensity for violence of the particular defendant); see also at 28–30 (plurality opinion) (exam ining defendant’s criminal history); 501 U.S., at 1001–1004 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.) (noting specific details of the particular crime of conviction). Only in “the rare case in which a threshold comparison of the crime committed and the sentence imposed leads to an inference of gross disproportionality,” should courts proceed to an “intrajurisdictional” compari son of the sentence at issue with those imposed on other criminals in the same jurisdiction, and an “interjurisdic tional” comparison with sentences imposed for the same crime in other jurisdictions. at 291–292. If these subsequent comparisons confirm the inference of gross disproportionality, courts should invalidate the 4 GRAHAM v. FLORIDA ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment sentence as a violation of the Eighth Amendment. B The second line of precedent relevant to assessing Gra ham’s sentence consists of our cases acknowledging that juvenile offenders are generally—though not necessarily in every case—less morally culpable than who commit the same crimes. This insight animated our decision in in which we invalidated a capital sentence imposed on a juvenile who had committed his crime under the age of 16. More re cently, in we extended the prohibi tion on executions to those who committed their crimes before the age of 18. Both Thompson and arose in the unique context of the death penalty, a punishment that our Court has recognized “must be limited to those offenders who commit ‘a narrow category of the most serious crimes’ and whose extreme culpability makes them ‘the most deserving of execution.’ ” ). ’s prohibition on the juvenile death penalty followed from our conclusion that “[t]hree general differences between juveniles under 18 and demonstrate that juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders.” These differences are a lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility, a height ened susceptibility to negative influences and outside pressures, and the fact that the character of a juvenile is “more transitory” and “less fixed” than that of an adult. –570. Together, these factors establish the “diminished culpability of juveniles,” and “ren der suspect any conclusion” that juveniles are among “the worst offenders” for whom the death penalty is reserved, Today, the Court views as providing the basis for Cite as: 560 U. S. (2010) 5 ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment a new categorical rule that juveniles may never receive a sentence of life without parole for nonhomicide crimes. I |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | concurring | Graham v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146790/graham-v-florida/ | a sentence of life without parole for nonhomicide crimes. I disagree. In the Court tailored its analysis of juvenile characteristics to the specific question whether juvenile offenders could constitutionally be subject to capital punishment. Our answer that they could not be sentenced to death was based on the explicit conclusion that they “cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders.” This conclusion does not establish that juveniles can never be eligible for life without parole. A life sentence is of course far less severe than a death sentence, and we have never required that it be imposed only on the very worst offenders, as we have with capital punishment. Treating juvenile life sentences as analogous to capital punishment is at odds with our longstanding view that “the death penalty is different from other punishments in kind rather than degree.” It is also at odds with itself, which drew the line at capital punishment by blessing juvenile sentences that are “less severe than death” despite involving “forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties.” –574. Indeed, explicitly relied on the possible imposition of life without parole on some juvenile offenders. But the fact that does not support a categorical rule barring life sentences for all juveniles does not mean that a criminal defendant’s age is irrelevant to those sentences. On the contrary, our cases establish that the “narrow proportionality” review applicable to noncapital cases itself takes the personal “culpability of the offender” into account in examining whether a given punishment is proportionate to the crime. There is no reason why an offender’s juvenile status should be excluded from the analysis. Indeed, given ’s conclu sion that juveniles are typically less blameworthy than 543 U.S., an offender’s juvenile status can 6 GRAHAM v. FLORIDA ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment play a central role in the inquiry. JUSTICE THOMAS disagrees with even our limited reli ance on on the ground that the present case does not involve capital punishment. Post, at 26 (dissenting opinion). That distinction is important—indeed, it under lies our rejection of the categorical rule declared by the Court. But ’s conclusion that juveniles are typically less culpable than has pertinence beyond capital cases, and rightly informs the case-specific inquiry I be lieve to be appropriate here. In short, our existing precedent already provides a sufficient framework for assessing the concerns outlined by the majority. Not every juvenile receiving a life sen tence will prevail under this approach. Not every juvenile should. But all will receive the protection that the Eighth Amendment requires. II Applying the “narrow proportionality” framework |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | concurring | Graham v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146790/graham-v-florida/ | the Eighth Amendment requires. II Applying the “narrow proportionality” framework to the particular facts of this case, I conclude that Graham’s sentence of life without parole violates the Eighth Amendment.* —————— * JUSTICE ALITO suggests that Graham has failed to preserve any challenge to his sentence based on the “narrow, as-applied proportional ity principle.” Post, at 1 (dissenting opinion). I disagree. It is true that Graham asks us to declare, categorically, that no juvenile convicted of a nonhomicide offense may ever be subject to a sentence of life without parole. But he claims that this rule is warranted under the narrow proportionality principle we set forth in v. Helm, and v. California, Brief for Petitioner 30, 31, 54–64. Insofar as he relies on that framework, I believe we may do so as well, even if our analysis results in a narrower holding than the categori- cal rule Graham seeks. See also Reply Brief for Petitioner 15, n. 8 (“[T]he Court could rule narrowly in this case and hold only that petitioner’s sentence of life without parole was unconstitutionally disproportionate”). Cite as: 560 U. S. (2010) 7 ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment A I begin with the threshold inquiry comparing the gravity of Graham’s conduct to the harshness of his penalty. There is no question that the crime for which Graham received his life sentence—armed burglary of a nondomicil with an assault or battery—is “a serious crime deserving serious punishment.” 797 (1982). So too is the home invasion robbery that was the basis of Graham’s probation violation. But these crimes are certainly less serious than other crimes, such as murder or rape. As for Graham’s degree of personal culpability, he com mitted the relevant offenses when he was a juvenile—a stage at which, emphasized, one’s “culpability or blameworthiness is diminished, to a substantial degree, by reason of youth and immaturity.” 543 U.S., Gra ham’s age places him in a significantly different category from the defendants in Rummel, and all of whom committed their crimes as Graham’s youth made him relatively more likely to engage in reck less and dangerous criminal activity than an adult; it also likely enhanced his susceptibility to peer pressure. See, e.g., ; 367 (1993); 115–117 (1982). There is no reason to believe that Graham should be denied the general presumption of diminished culpabil ity that indicates should apply to juvenile offenders. If anything, Graham’s in-court statements—including his request for a second chance so that he could “do whatever it takes to get to the NFL”—underscore his immaturity. App. 380. The fact that Graham committed the crimes |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | concurring | Graham v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146790/graham-v-florida/ | immaturity. App. 380. The fact that Graham committed the crimes that he did proves that he was dangerous and deserved to be pun ished. But it does not establish that he was particularly dangerous—at least relative to the murderers and rapists for whom the sentence of life without parole is typically 8 GRAHAM v. FLORIDA ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment reserved. On the contrary, his lack of prior criminal con victions, his youth and immaturity, and the difficult cir cumstances of his upbringing noted by the majority, ante, at 1, all suggest that he was markedly less culpable than a typical adult who commits the same offenses. Despite these considerations, the trial court sentenced Graham to life in prison without the possibility of parole. This is the second-harshest sentence available under our precedents for any crime, and the most severe sanction available for a nonhomicide offense. See Kennedy v. Lou isiana, 554 U. S. (2008). Indeed, as the majority notes, Graham’s sentence far exceeded the punishment proposed by the Florida Department of Corrections (which sug gested a sentence of four years, Brief for Petitioner 20), and the state prosecutors (who asked that he be sentenced to 30 years in prison for the armed burglary, App. 388). No one in Graham’s case other than the sentencing judge appears to have believed that Graham deserved to go to prison for life. Based on the foregoing circumstances, I conclude that there is a strong inference that Graham’s sentence of life imprisonment without parole was grossly disproportionate in violation of the Eighth Amendment. I therefore proceed to the next steps of the proportionality analysis. B Both intrajurisdictional and interjurisdictional compari sons of Graham’s sentence confirm the threshold inference of disproportionality. Graham’s sentence was far more severe than that im posed for similar violations of Florida law, even without taking juvenile status into account. For example, indi viduals who commit burglary or robbery offenses in Flor ida receive average sentences of less than 5 years and less than 10 years, respectively. Florida Dept. of Corrections, Annual Report FY 2007–2008: The Guidebook to Correc Cite as: 560 U. S. (2010) 9 ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment tions in Florida 35. Unsurprisingly, Florida’s juvenile criminals receive similarly low sentences—typically less than five years for burglary and less than seven years for robbery. Graham’s life without parole sentence was far more severe than the average sentence imposed on those convicted of murder or manslaughter, who typically receive under 25 years in prison. As the Court explained in “[i]f more serious crimes are subject to the same |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | concurring | Graham v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146790/graham-v-florida/ | in “[i]f more serious crimes are subject to the same penalty, or to less serious penalties, that is some indication that the punishment at issue may be excessive.” Finally, the inference that Graham’s sentence is dispro portionate is further validated by comparison to the sen tences imposed in other domestic jurisdictions. As the majority opinion explains, Florida is an outlier in its will ingness to impose sentences of life without parole on juve niles convicted of nonhomicide crimes. See ante, at 11–13. III So much for Graham. But what about Milagro Cun ningham, a 17-year-old who beat and raped an 8-year-old girl before leaving her to die under 197 pounds of rock in a recycling bin in a remote landfill? See Musgrave, Cruel or Necessary? Life Terms for Youths Spur National Debate, Palm Beach Post, Oct. 15, 2009, p. 1A. Or Nathan Walker and Jakaris Taylor, the Florida juveniles who together with their friends gang-raped a woman and forced her to perform oral sex on her 12-year-old son? See 3 Sentenced to Life for Gang Rape of Mother, Associated Press, Oct. 14, 2009. The fact that Graham cannot be sentenced to life without parole for his conduct says nothing whatever about these offenders, or others like them who commit nonhomicide crimes far more reprehensible than the conduct at issue here. The Court uses Graham’s case as a vehicle to proclaim a new constitutional rule—applicable well beyond the particular facts of Graham’s case—that a 10 GRAHAM v. FLORIDA ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment sentence of life without parole imposed on any juvenile for any nonhomicide offense is unconstitutional. This cate gorical conclusion is as unnecessary as it is unwise. A holding this broad is unnecessary because the particu lar conduct and circumstances at issue in the case before us are not serious enough to justify Graham’s sentence. In reaching this conclusion, there is no need for the Court to decide whether that same sentence would be constitu tional if imposed for other more heinous nonhomicide crimes. A more restrained approach is especially appropriate in light of the Court’s apparent recognition that it is perfectly legitimate for a juvenile to receive a sentence of life with out parole for committing murder. This means that there is nothing inherently unconstitutional about imposing sentences of life without parole on juvenile offenders; rather, the constitutionality of such sentences depends on the particular crimes for which they are imposed. But if the constitutionality of the sentence turns on the particu lar crime being punished, then the Court should limit its holding to the particular offenses |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | concurring | Graham v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146790/graham-v-florida/ | the Court should limit its holding to the particular offenses that Graham committed here, and should decline to consider other hypothetical crimes not presented by this case. In any event, the Court’s categorical conclusion is also unwise. Most importantly, it ignores the fact that some nonhomicide crimes—like the ones committed by Milagro Cunningham, Nathan Walker, and Jakaris Taylor—are especially heinous or grotesque, and thus may be deserv ing of more severe punishment. Those under 18 years old may as a general matter have “diminished” culpability relative to who commit the same crimes, 543 U.S., but that does not mean that their culpability is always insufficient to justify a life sentence. See generally U.S., at 853 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment). It does not take a moral sense that is fully developed in every respect to Cite as: 560 U. S. (2010) 11 ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment know that beating and raping an 8-year-old girl and leav ing her to die under 197 pounds of rocks is horribly wrong. The single fact of being 17 years old would not afford Cunningham protection against life without parole if the young girl had died—as Cunningham surely expected she would—so why should it do so when she miraculously survived his barbaric brutality? The Court defends its categorical approach on the grounds that a “clear line is necessary to prevent the possibility that life without parole sentences will be im posed on juvenile nonhomicide offenders who are not sufficiently culpable to merit that punishment.” Ante, at 24. It argues that a case-by-case approach to proportional ity review is constitutionally insufficient because courts might not be able “with sufficient accuracy [to] distinguish the few incorrigible juvenile offenders from the many that have the capacity for change.” Ante, at 27. The Court is of course correct that judges will never have perfect foresight—or perfect wisdom—in making sentencing decisions. But this is true when they sentence no less than when they sentence juveniles. It is also true when they sentence juveniles who commit mur der no less than when they sentence juveniles who commit other crimes. Our system depends upon sentencing judges applying their reasoned judgment to each case that comes before them. As we explained in the whole enterprise of proportionality review is premised on the “justified” as sumption that “courts are competent to judge the gravity of an offense, at least on a relative scale.” 463 U.S., at 292. Indeed, “courts traditionally have made these judg ments” by applying “generally accepted criteria” to analyze “the harm caused or threatened to the victim or society, |
Justice Stevens | 2,010 | 16 | concurring | Graham v. Florida | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/146790/graham-v-florida/ | “the harm caused or threatened to the victim or society, and the culpability of the offender.” 294. 12 GRAHAM v. FLORIDA ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment * * * Terrance Graham committed serious offenses, for which he deserves serious punishment. But he was only 16 years old, and under our Court’s precedents, his youth is one factor, among others, that should be considered in decid ing whether his punishment was unconstitutionally exces sive. In my view, Graham’s age—together with the nature of his criminal activity and the unusual severity of his sentence—tips the constitutional balance. I thus concur in the Court’s judgment that Graham’s sentence of life with out parole violated the Eighth Amendment. I would not, however, reach the same conclusion in every case involving a juvenile offender. Some crimes are so heinous, and some juvenile offenders so highly culpable, that a sentence of life without parole may be entirely justified under the Constitution. As we have said, “suc cessful challenges” to noncapital sentences under the Eighth Amendment have been—and, in my view, should continue to be—“exceedingly rare.” Rummel, 445 U.S., at But Graham’s sentence presents the exceptional case that our precedents have recognized will come along. We should grant Graham the relief to which he is entitled under the Eighth Amendment. The Court errs, however, in using this case as a vehicle for unsettling our estab lished jurisprudence and fashioning a categorical rule applicable to far different cases. Cite as: 560 U. S. (2010) 1 THOMAS, J., dissenting SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 08–7412 TERRANCE JAMAR GRAHAM, PETITIONER v. |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | This case requires us to explore the scope of the inherent power of a federal court to sanction a litigant for bad-faith conduct. Specifically, we are asked to determine whether the District Court, sitting in diversity, properly invoked its inherent power in assessing as a sanction for a party's bad-faith conduct attorney's fees and related expenses paid by the party's opponent to its attorneys. We hold that the District Court acted within its discretion, and we therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. I This case began as a simple action for specific performance of a contract, but it did not remain so.[1] Petitioner G. Russell Chambers was the sole shareholder and director of Calcasieu Television and Radio, (CTR), which operated television station KPLC-TV in Lake Charles, Louisiana. On August 9, 1983, Chambers, acting both in his individual capacity and on behalf of CTR, entered into a purchase agreement *36 to sell the station's facilities and broadcast license to respondent NASCO, for a purchase price of $18 million. The agreement was not recorded in the parishes in which the two properties housing the station's facilities were located. Consummation of the agreement was subject to the approval of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC); both parties were obligated to file the necessary documents with the FCC no later than September 23, 1983. By late August, however, Chambers had changed his mind and tried to talk NASCO out of consummating the sale. NASCO refused. On September 23, Chambers, through counsel, informed NASCO that he would not file the necessary papers with the FCC. NASCO decided to take legal action. On Friday, October 14, 1983, NASCO's counsel informed counsel for Chambers and CTR that NASCO would file suit the following Monday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, seeking specific performance of the agreement, as well as a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prevent the alienation or encumbrance of the properties at issue. NASCO provided this notice in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6 and Rule 11 of the District Court's Local Rules (now Rule 10), both of which are designed to give a defendant in a TRO application notice of the hearing and an opportunity to be heard. The reaction of Chambers and his attorney, A. J. Gray III, was later described by the District Court as having "emasculated and frustrated the purposes of these rules and the powers of [the District] Court by utilizing this notice to prevent NASCO's access to the remedy of specific performance." NASCO, On Sunday, October 16, 1983, the |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | of specific performance." NASCO, On Sunday, October 16, 1983, the pair acted to place the properties at issue beyond the reach of the District Court by means of the Louisiana Public Records Doctrine. Because the purchase agreement had never been recorded, they determined that if the properties *37 were sold to a third party, and if the deeds were recorded before the issuance of a TRO, the District Court would lack jurisdiction over the properties. To this end, Chambers and Gray created a trust, with Chambers' sister as trustee and Chambers' three adult children as beneficiaries. The pair then directed the president of CTR, who later became Chambers' wife, to execute warranty deeds conveying the two tracts at issue to the trust for a recited consideration of $1.4 million dollars. Early Monday morning, the deeds were recorded. The trustee, as purchaser, had not signed the deeds; none of the consideration had been paid; and CTR remained in possession of the properties. Later that morning, NASCO's counsel appeared in the District Court to file the complaint and seek the TRO. With NASCO's counsel present, the District Judge telephoned Gray. Despite the judge's queries concerning the possibility that CTR was negotiating to sell the properties to a third person, Gray made no mention of the recordation of the deeds earlier that morning. NASCO, 124 F. R. D. 120, n. 8 That afternoon, Chambers met with his sister and had her sign the trust documents and a $1.4 million note to CTR. The next morning, Gray informed the District Court by letter of the recordation of the deeds the day before and admitted that he had intentionally withheld the information from the court. Within the next few days, Chambers' attorneys prepared a leaseback agreement from the trustee to CTR, so that CTR could remain in possession of the properties and continue to operate the station. The following week, the District Court granted a preliminary injunction against Chambers and CTR and entered a second TRO to prevent the trustee from alienating or encumbering the properties. At that hearing, the District Judge warned that Gray's and Chambers' conduct had been unethical. *38 Despite this early warning, Chambers, often acting through his attorneys, continued to abuse the judicial process. In November 1983, in defiance of the preliminary injunction, he refused to allow NASCO to inspect CTR's corporate records. The ensuing civil contempt proceedings resulted in the assessment of a $2,000 fine against Chambers personally. NASCO, Two subsequent appeals from the contempt order were dismissed for lack of a final judgment. See NASCO, No. 84-9037 ; NASCO, |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | of a final judgment. See NASCO, No. 84-9037 ; NASCO, Undeterred, Chambers proceeded with "a series of meritless motions and pleadings and delaying actions." 124 F. R. D., at 127. These actions triggered further warnings from the court. At one point, acting sua sponte, the District Judge called a status conference to find out why bankers were being deposed. When informed by Chambers' counsel that the purpose was to learn whether NASCO could afford to pay for the station, the court canceled the depositions consistent with its authority under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(g). At the status conference nine days before the April trial date,[2] the District Judge again warned counsel that further misconduct would not be tolerated.[3] Finally, on the eve of trial, Chambers and CTR stipulated that the purchase agreement was enforceable and that Chambers had breached the agreement on September 23, 1983, by failing to file the *39 necessary papers with the FCC. At trial, the only defense presented by Chambers was the Public Records Doctrine. In the interlude between the trial and the entry of judgment during which the District Court prepared its opinion, Chambers sought to render the purchase agreement meaningless by seeking permission from the FCC to build a new transmission tower for the station and to relocate the transmission facilities to that site, which was not covered by the agreement. Only after NASCO sought contempt sanctions did Chambers withdraw the application. The District Court entered judgment on the merits in NASCO's favor, finding that the transfer of the properties to the trust was a simulated sale and that the deeds purporting to convey the property were "null, void, and of no effect." Chambers' motions, filed in the District Court, the Court of Appeals, and this Court, to stay the judgment pending appeal were denied. Undeterred, Chambers convinced CTR officials to file formal oppositions to NASCO's pending application for FCC approval of the transfer of the station's license, in contravention of both the District Court's injunctive orders and its judgment on the merits. NASCO then sought contempt sanctions for a third time, and the oppositions were withdrawn. When Chambers refused to prepare to close the sale, NASCO again sought the court's help. A hearing was set for July 16, to determine whether certain equipment was to be included in the sale. At the beginning of the hearing, the court informed Chambers' new attorney, Edwin A. McCabe,[4] that further sanctionable conduct would not be tolerated. When the hearing was recessed for several days, Chambers, without notice to the court or NASCO, removed from service |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | without notice to the court or NASCO, removed from service at the station all of the equipment at issue, forcing the District Court to order that the equipment be returned to service. *40 Immediately following oral argument on Chambers' appeal from the District Court's judgment on the merits, the Court of Appeals, ruling from the bench, found the appeal frivolous. The court imposed appellate sanctions in the form of attorney's fees and double costs, pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38, and remanded the case to the District Court with orders to fix the amount of appellate sanctions and to determine whether further sanctions should be imposed for the manner in which the litigation had been conducted. NASCO, (unpublished order). On remand, NASCO moved for sanctions, invoking the District Court's inherent power, Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 11, and 28 U.S. C. 1927. After full briefing and a hearing, see 124 F. R. D., at 141, n. 11, the District Court determined that sanctions were appropriate "for the manner in which this proceeding was conducted in the district court from October 14, 1983, the time that plaintiff gave notice of its intention to file suit to this date." At the end of an extensive opinion recounting what it deemed to have been sanctionable conduct during this period, the court imposed sanctions against Chambers in the form of attorney's fees and expenses totaling $996,644.6, which represented the entire amount of NASCO's litigation costs paid to its attorneys.[]*41 In so doing, the court rejected Chambers' argument that he had merely followed the advice of counsel, labeling him "the strategist," behind a scheme devised "first, to deprive this Court of jurisdiction and, second, to devise a plan of obstruction, delay, harassment, and expense sufficient to reduce NASCO to a condition of exhausted compliance," In imposing the sanctions, the District Court first considered Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. It noted that the alleged sanctionable conduct was that Chambers and the other defendants had "(1) attempted to deprive this Court of jurisdiction by acts of fraud, nearly all of which were performed outside the confines of this Court, (2) filed false and frivolous pleadings, and (3) attempted, by other tactics of delay, oppression, harassment and massive expense to reduce plaintiff to exhausted compliance." 124 F. R. D., at 138. The court that the conduct in the first and third categories could not be reached by Rule 11, which governs only papers filed with a court. As for the second category, the court explained that the falsity of the pleadings at issue did not become |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | the falsity of the pleadings at issue did not become apparent until after the trial on the merits, so that it would have been impossible to assess sanctions at the time the papers were filed. Consequently, the District Court deemed Rule 11 "insufficient" for its purposes. The court likewise declined to impose sanctions under 1927,[6] both because the statute applies only to attorneys, and therefore would not reach Chambers, and because the statute was not broad enough to reach "acts *42 which degrade the judicial system," including "attempts to deprive the Court of jurisdiction, fraud, misleading and lying to the Court." The court therefore relied on its inherent power in imposing sanctions, stressing that "[t]he wielding of that inherent power is particularly appropriate when the offending parties have practiced a fraud upon the court." The Court of Appeals affirmed. NASCO, The court rejected Chambers' argument that a federal court sitting in diversity must look to state law, not the court's inherent power, to assess attorney's fees as a sanction for bad-faith conduct in litigation. The court further found that neither 28 U.S. C. 1927 nor Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 limits a court's inherent authority to sanction bad-faith conduct "when the party's conduct is not within the reach of the rule or the statute."[7] 894 F. 2d, -703. Although observing that the inherent power "is not a broad reservoir of power, ready at an imperial hand, but a limited source; an implied power squeezed from the need to make the court function," the court also concluded that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in awarding to NASCO the fees and litigation costs paid to its attorneys. Because of the importance of these issues, we granted certiorari, II Chambers maintains that 28 U.S. C. 1927 and the various sanctioning provisions in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure[8] reflect a legislative intent to displace the inherent *43 power. At least, he argues that they obviate or foreclose resort to the inherent power in this case. We agree with the Court of Appeals that neither proposition is persuasive. A It has long been understood that "[c]ertain implied powers must necessarily result to our Courts of justice from the nature of their institution," powers "which cannot be dispensed with in a Court, because they are necessary to the exercise of all others." United ; see also Roadway For this reason, "Courts of justice are universally acknowledged to be vested, by their very creation, with power to impose silence, respect, and decorum, in their presence, and submission to their lawful mandates." ; |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | in their presence, and submission to their lawful mandates." ; see also Ex parte These powers are "governed not by rule or statute but by the control necessarily vested in courts to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases." Prior cases have outlined the scope of the inherent power of the federal For example, the Court has held that a federal court has the power to control admission to its bar and to discipline attorneys who appear before it. See Ex parte Burr, While this power "ought to be exercised with great caution," it is nevertheless "incidental to all Courts." *44 In addition, it is firmly established that "[t]he power to punish for contempts is inherent in all " at This power reaches both conduct before the court and that beyond the court's confines, for "[t]he underlying concern that gave rise to the contempt power was not merely the disruption of court proceedings. Rather, it was disobedience to the orders of the Judiciary, regardless of whether such disobedience interfered with the conduct of trial." Of particular relevance here, the inherent power also allows a federal court to vacate its own judgment upon proof that a fraud has been perpetrated upon the court. See Glass ; Universal Products This "historic power of equity to set aside fraudulently begotten judgments," is necessary to the integrity of the courts, for "tampering with the administration of justice in [this] manner. involves far more than an injury to a single litigant. It is a wrong against the institutions set up to protect and safeguard the public." Moreover, a court has the power to conduct an independent investigation in order to determine whether it has been the victim of fraud. Universal at There are other facets to a federal court's inherent power. The court may bar from the courtroom a criminal defendant who disrupts a trial. It may dismiss an action on grounds of forum non conveniens, Gulf ; and it may act sua sponte to dismiss a suit for failure to prosecute, at Because of their very potency, inherent powers must be exercised with restraint and See Roadway at A primary aspect of that discretion is the ability to fashion an appropriate sanction for conduct *4 which abuses the judicial process. As we in Roadway outright dismissal of a lawsuit, which we had upheld in is a particularly severe sanction, yet is within the court's Consequently, the "less severe sanction" of an assessment of attorney's fees is undoubtedly within a court's inherent power as well. See also |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | undoubtedly within a court's inherent power as well. See also Indeed, "[t]here are ample grounds for recognizing that in narrowly defined circumstances federal courts have inherent power to assess attorney's fees against counsel," Roadway even though the so-called "American Rule" prohibits fee shifting in most cases. See Pipeline Service As we explained in these exceptions fall into three categories.[9] The first, known as the "common fund exception," derives not from a court's power to control litigants, but from its historic equity jurisdiction, see and allows a court to award attorney's fees to a party whose litigation efforts directly benefit others. -28. Second, a court may assess attorney's fees as a sanction for the "`willful disobedience of a court order.'" ). Thus, a court's discretion to determine "[t]he degree of punishment for contempt" permits the court to impose as part of the fine attorney's fees representing the entire cost of the litigation. Toledo Third, and most relevant here, a court may assess attorney's fees when a party has "`acted in bad faith, vexatiously, *46 wantonly, or for oppressive reasons.'" - ). See also ; In this regard, if a court finds "that fraud has been practiced upon it, or that the very temple of justice has been defiled," it may assess attorney's fees against the responsible party, Universal at as it may when a party "shows bad faith by delaying or disrupting the litigation or by hampering enforcement of a court order,"[10], 437 U. S., at The imposition of sanctions in this instance transcends a court's equitable power concerning relations between the parties and reaches a court's inherent power to police itself, thus serving the dual purpose of "vindicat[ing] judicial authority without resort to the more drastic sanctions available for contempt of court and mak[ing] the prevailing party whole for expenses caused by his opponent's obstinacy." B We discern no basis for holding that the sanctioning scheme of the statute and the rules displaces the inherent power to impose sanctions for the bad-faith conduct described above. These other mechanisms, taken alone or together, are not substitutes for the inherent power, for that power is both broader and narrower than other means of imposing sanctions. First, whereas each of the other mechanisms reaches only certain individuals or conduct, the inherent power extends to a full range of litigation abuses. At the very least, the inherent power must continue to exist to fill in the interstices. Even JUSTICE KENNEDY'S dissent so *47 concedes. See post, at 64. Second, while the narrow exceptions to the American Rule effectively limit a court's inherent power to |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | the American Rule effectively limit a court's inherent power to impose attorney's fees as a sanction to cases in which a litigant has engaged in bad-faith conduct or willful disobedience of a court's orders, many of the other mechanisms permit a court to impose attorney's fees as a sanction for conduct which merely fails to meet a reasonableness standard. Rule 11, for example, imposes an objective standard of reasonable inquiry which does not mandate a finding of bad faith.[11] See Business Guides, 498 U.S. 33, 48-49 It is true that the exercise of the inherent power of lower federal courts can be limited by statute and rule, for "[t]hese courts were created by act of Congress." 19 Wall., at 11. Nevertheless, "we do not lightly assume that Congress has intended to depart from established principles" such as the scope of a court's inherent power. 46 U.S. 30, ; see also -632. In we determined that "Congress ha[d] not repudiated the judicially fashioned exceptions" to the American Rule, which were founded in the inherent power of the Nothing since then has changed that assessment,[12] and we have thus *48 reaffirmed the scope and the existence of the exceptions since the most recent amendments to 1927 and Rule 11, the other sanctioning mechanisms invoked by NASCO here. See 478 U.S. 46, 61-62, As the Court of Appeals 894 F.2d, the amendment to 1927 allowing an assessment of fees against an attorney says nothing about a court's power to assess fees against a party. Likewise, the Advisory Committee's Notes on the 1983 Amendment to Rule 11, 28 U.S. C. App., p. 7, declare that the Rule "build[s] upon and expand[s] the equitable doctrine permitting the court to award expenses, including attorney's fees, to a litigant whose opponent acts in bad faith in instituting or conducting litigation," citing as support this Court's decisions in Roadway and[13] Thus, as the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has Rule 11 "does not repeal or modify existing authority of federal courts to deal with abuses under the court's *49 inherent power." The Court's prior cases have indicated that the inherent power of a court can be invoked even if procedural rules exist which sanction the same conduct. In it was that a federal district court has the inherent power to dismiss a case sua sponte for failure to prosecute, even though the language of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) appeared to require a motion from a party: "The authority of a court to dismiss sua sponte for lack of prosecution has generally been considered an |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | sponte for lack of prosecution has generally been considered an `inherent power,' governed not by rule or statute but by the control necessarily vested in courts to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases. That it has long gone unquestioned is apparent not only from the many state court decisions sustaining such dismissals, but even from language in this Court's opinion in It also has the sanction of wide usage among the District Courts. It would require a much clearer expression of purpose than Rule 41(b) provides for us to assume that it was intended to abrogate so well-acknowledged a proposition." -632 In Roadway a party failed to comply with discovery orders and a court order concerning the schedule for filing 447 U.S., at 7. After determining that 1927, as it then existed, would not allow for the assessment of attorney's fees, we remanded the case for a consideration of sanctions under both Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 and the court's inherent power, while recognizing that invocation of the inherent power would require a finding of bad faith.[14] *0 There is, therefore, nothing in the other sanctioning mechanisms or prior cases interpreting them that warrants a conclusion that a federal court may not, as a matter of law, resort to its inherent power to impose attorney's fees as a sanction for bad-faith conduct. This is plainly the case where the conduct at issue is not covered by one of the other sanctioning provisions. But neither is a federal court forbidden to sanction bad-faith conduct by means of the inherent power simply because that conduct could also be sanctioned under the statute or the Rules. A court must, of course, exercise caution in invoking its inherent power, and it must comply with the mandates of due process, both in determining that the requisite bad faith exists and in assessing fees, see Roadway Furthermore, when there is bad-faith conduct in the course of litigation that could be adequately sanctioned under the Rules, the court ordinarily should rely on the Rules rather than the inherent power. But if in the informed discretion of the court, neither the statute nor the Rules are up to the task, the court may safely rely on its inherent power. Like the Court of Appeals, we find no abuse of discretion in resorting to the inherent power in the circumstances of this case. It is true that the District Court could have employed Rule 11 to sanction Chambers for filing "false and frivolous pleadings," 124 F. R. D., at |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | filing "false and frivolous pleadings," 124 F. R. D., at 138, and that some of the other conduct might have been reached through other Rules. Much of the bad-faith conduct by Chambers, however, was *1 beyond the reach of the Rules; his entire course of conduct throughout the lawsuit evidenced bad faith and an attempt to perpetrate a fraud on the court, and the conduct sanctionable under the Rules was intertwined within conduct that only the inherent power could address. In circumstances such as these in which all of a litigant's conduct is deemed sanctionable, requiring a court first to apply Rules and statutes containing sanctioning provisions to discrete occurrences before invoking inherent power to address remaining instances of sanctionable conduct would serve only to foster extensive and needless satellite litigation, which is contrary to the aim of the Rules themselves. See, e. g., Advisory Committee's Notes on 1983 Amendment to Rule 11, 28 U.S. C. App., pp. 7-76. We likewise do not find that the District Court's reliance on the inherent power thwarted the purposes of the other sanctioning mechanisms. Although JUSTICE KENNEDY'S dissent makes much of the fact that Rule 11 and Rule 26(g) "are cast in mandatory terms," post, at 66, the mandate of these provisions extends only to whether a court must impose sanctions, not to which sanction it must impose. Indeed, the language of both Rules requires only that a court impose "an appropriate sanction." Thus, this case is distinguishable from Bank of Nova 487 U.S. 20 in which this Court held that a district court could not rely on its supervisory power as a means of circumventing the clear mandate of a procedural rule. at 24-2. III Chambers asserts that even if federal courts can use their inherent power to assess attorney's fees as a sanction in some cases, they are not free to do so when they sit in diversity, unless the applicable state law recognizes the "bad-faith" exception to the general rule against fee shifting. He relies on footnote 31 in in which we stated with regard to the exceptions to the American Rule that "[a] very different situation *2 is presented when a federal court sits in a diversity case. `[I]n an ordinary diversity case where the state law does not run counter to a valid federal statute or rule of court, and usually it will not, state law denying the right to attorney's fees or giving a right thereto, which reflects a substantial policy of the state, should be followed.' 6 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 4.77[2], pp. 1712-1713" 421 |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | 6 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 4.77[2], pp. 1712-1713" 421 U.S., at n. 31. We agree with NASCO that Chambers has misinterpreted footnote 31. The limitation on a court's inherent power described there applies only to fee-shifting rules that embody a substantive policy, such as a statute which permits a prevailing party in certain classes of litigation to recover fees. That was precisely the issue in Sioux the only case cited in footnote 31. There, a state statute mandated that in actions to enforce an insurance policy, the court was to award the plaintiff a reasonable attorney's fee. See and n. 2. In enforcing the statute, the Court treated the provision as part of a statutory liability which created a substantive right. Indeed, itself concerned the substantive nature of the public policy choices involved in deciding whether vindication of the rights afforded by a particular statute is important enough to warrant the award of fees. See -263. Only when there is a conflict between state and federal substantive law are the concerns of Erie R. at issue. As we explained in (196), the "outcome determinative" test of Erie and Guaranty Trust (194), "cannot be read without reference to the twin aims of the Erie rule: discouragement of forum-shopping and avoidance of inequitable administration of the laws." Despite Chambers' protestations to the contrary, neither of these twin aims is implicated by the assessment of attorney's fees as a sanction for bad-faith conduct before the *3 court which involved disobedience of the court's orders and the attempt to defraud the court itself. In our recent decision in Business Guides, 498 U. S., at 3, we stated, "Rule 11 sanctions do not constitute the kind of fee shifting at issue in [because they] are not tied to the outcome of litigation; the relevant inquiry is whether a specific filing was, if not successful, at least well founded." Likewise, the imposition of sanctions under the bad-faith exception depends not on which party wins the lawsuit, but on how the parties conduct themselves during the litigation. Consequently, there is no risk that the exception will lead to forum-shopping. Nor is it inequitable to apply the exception to citizens and noncitizens alike, when the party, by controlling his or her conduct in litigation, has the power to determine whether sanctions will be assessed. As the Court of Appeals expressed it: "Erie guarantees a litigant that if he takes his state law cause of action to federal court, and abides by the rules of that court, the result in his case will be the same as if |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | result in his case will be the same as if he had brought it in state court. It does not allow him to waste the court's time and resources with cantankerous conduct, even in the unlikely event a state court would allow him to do so." As Chambers has see Brief for Petitioner 1, in the case of the bad-faith exception to the American Rule, "the underlying rationale of `fee shifting' is, of course, punitive." -. Cf. Pavelic & "[T]he award of attorney's fees for bad faith serve[s] the same purpose as a remedial fine imposed for civil contempt," because "[i]t vindicate[s] the District Court's authority over a recalcitrant litigant." "That the award ha[s] a compensatory effect does not in any event distinguish it from a fine for civil contempt, which also compensates *4 a private party for the consequences of a contemnor's disobedience."[1] at 691, n. 17. Chambers argues that because the primary purpose of the sanction is punitive, assessing attorney's fees violates the State's prohibition on punitive damages. Under Louisiana law, there can be no punitive damages for breach of contract, even when a party has acted in bad faith in breaching the agreement. Cf. La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 199 Indeed, "as a general rule attorney's fees are not allowed a successful litigant in Louisiana except where authorized by statute or by contract." It is clear, though, that this general rule focuses on the award of attorney's fees because of a party's success on the underlying claim. Thus, in Frank L. Beier Radio, v. Black Gold Marine, the state court considered the scope of a statute which permitted an award of attorney's fees in a suit seeking to collect on an open account. at 101. This substantive state policy is not implicated here, where sanctions were imposed for conduct during the litigation. Here, the District Court did not attempt to sanction petitioner for breach of contract,[16] but rather imposed sanctions for the fraud he perpetrated on the court and the bad faith he displayed toward both his adversary and the court throughout the course of the litigation.[17] See 124 F. R. D., * 143. We agree with the Court of Appeals that "[w]e do not see how the district court's inherent power to tax fees for that conduct can be made subservient to any state policy without transgressing the boundaries set out in Erie, Guaranty Trust Co., and Hanna," for "[f]ee-shifting here is not a matter of substantive remedy, but of vindicating judicial authority." 894 F.2d, at 70. IV We review a court's imposition of sanctions under |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | 70. IV We review a court's imposition of sanctions under its inherent power for abuse of ; see also Cooter & 399-40 Based on the circumstances of this case, we find that the District Court acted within its discretion in assessing as a sanction for Chambers' bad-faith conduct the entire amount of NASCO's attorney's fees. Relying on cases imposing sanctions under Rule 11,[18] Chambers proffers five criteria for imposing attorney's fees as a sanction under a court's inherent power, and argues that the District Court acted improperly with regard to each of *6 them. First, he asserts that sanctions must be timely in order to have the desired deterrent effect, and that the post-judgment sanction imposed here fails to achieve that aim. As NASCO points out, however, we have made clear that, even under Rule 11, sanctions may be imposed years after a judgment on the merits.[19] at 39-396. Interrupting the proceedings on the merits to conduct sanctions hearings may serve only to reward a party seeking delay. More importantly, while the sanction was not assessed until the conclusion of the litigation, Chambers received repeated timely warnings both from NASCO and the court that his conduct was sanctionable. Cf. Thomas v. Capital Security Services, Consequently, the District Court's reliance on the inherent power did not represent an end run around the notice requirements of Rule 11. The fact that Chambers obstinately refused to be deterred does not render the District Court's action an abuse of Second, Chambers claims that the fact that the entire amount of fees was awarded means that the District Court failed to tailor the sanction to the particular wrong. As NASCO points out, however, the District Court concluded that full attorney's fees were warranted due to the frequency and severity of Chambers' abuses of the judicial system and the resulting need to ensure that such abuses were not repeated.[20] Indeed, the court found Chambers' actions were *7 "part of [a] sordid scheme of deliberate misuse of the judicial process" designed "to defeat NASCO's claim by harassment, repeated and endless delay, mountainous expense and waste of financial resources." 124 F. R. D., at 128. It was within the court's discretion to vindicate itself and compensate NASCO by requiring Chambers to pay for all attorney's fees. Cf. Toledo 261 U. S., at Third, Chambers maintains that the District Court abused its discretion by failing to require NASCO to mitigate its expenses. He asserts that had NASCO sought summary disposition of the case, the litigation could have been concluded much sooner. But, as NASCO notes, Chambers himself made a |
Justice White | 1,991 | 6 | majority | Chambers v. Nasco, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112616/chambers-v-nasco-inc/ | much sooner. But, as NASCO notes, Chambers himself made a swift conclusion to the litigation by means of summary judgment impossible by continuing to assert that material factual disputes existed. Fourth, Chambers challenges the District Court's imposition of sanctions for conduct before other tribunals, including the FCC, the Court of Appeals, and this Court, asserting that a court may sanction only conduct occurring in its presence. Our cases are to the contrary, however. As long as a party receives an appropriate hearing, as did Chambers, see 124 F. R. D., at 141, n. 11, the party may be sanctioned for abuses of process occurring beyond the courtroom, such as disobeying the court's orders. See 481 U. S., at ; Toledo at 426-. Here, for example, Chambers' attempt to gain the FCC's permission to build a new transmission tower was in direct contravention of the District Court's orders to maintain the status quo pending the outcome of the litigation and was therefore within the scope of the District Court's sanctioning power. Finally, Chambers claims the award is not "personalized," because the District Court failed to conduct any inquiry into whether he was personally responsible for the challenged conduct. This assertion is flatly contradicted by the District *8 Court's detailed factual findings concerning Chambers' involvement in the sequence of events at issue. Indeed, the court specifically held that "the extraordinary amount of costs and expenses expended in this proceeding were caused not by lack of diligence or any delays in the trial of this matter by NASCO, NASCO's counsel or the Court, but solely by the relentless, repeated fraudulent and brazenly unethical efforts of Chambers" and the others. 124 F. R. D., The Court of Appeals saw no reason to disturb this Neither do we. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is Affirmed. |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | The Court today declares that the Due Process Clause of the Constitution forbids a State to tax a proportionate share of the investment income of a nondomiciliary corporation doing business within its borders. In so doing, the Court groundlessly strikes down the eminently reasonable assertion of Idaho's taxing power at issue in this case. Far more dismaying, however, is that the Court's reliance on the Due Process Clause may deprive Congress of the authority necessary to rationalize the joint taxation of interstate commerce by the 50 States. Today, the taxpayer wins. Yet in the end, today's decision may prove to be a loss for all concernedinterstate businesses themselves, which the Commerce Clause guarantees the opportunity to serve the country's needs unimpeded by a parochial hodgepodge of overlapping and conflicting tax levies; the Nation, which demands a prosperous interstate market; and the States, which deserve fair return for the advantages they afford interstate enterprise. For while this Court has the authority to invalidate a specific state tax, only Congress has both the ability to canvass the myriad facts and factors relevant to interstate taxation and the power to shape a nationwide system that would guarantee the States fair revenues and offer interstate businesses freedom from strangulation by multiple paperwork and tax burdens. Unfortunately, by apparently stripping Congress of the authority to do the job, the Court delays the day when a uniform system responsive to the needs of all can be fashioned. *332 The Court has strayed "beyond the extremely limited restrictions that the Constitution places" on the taxing power of the States, "inject[ed ] in a merely negative way into the delicate processes of fiscal policy-making," and regrettably "imprison[ed] the taxing power of the states within formulas that are not compelled by the Constitution." I respectfully dissent. I "Taxes," as Justice Holmes once observed, "are what we pay for civilized society." Compania General de Tabacos de A natural corollary of this proposition is that the Due Process Clause permits state taxation if "the state has given anything for which it can ask return." A State thus "is free to pursue its own fiscal policies, unembarrassed by the Constitution," if it "exert[s] its power in relation to opportunities which it has given, to protection which it has afforded, [or] to benefits which it has conferred by the fact of being an orderly, civilized society." In applying this fundamental principle to businesses that derive income from more than one State, we repeatedly have declared that a state tax passes constitutional muster unless the taxpayer can show that there is not even "a |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | the taxpayer can show that there is not even "a `minimal connection' between [its] interstate activities and the taxing State," or a merely "rational relationship between the income attributed to the State and the intrastate values of [its] enterprise." Mobil Oil U.S. 425, ). As the present case demonstrates, however, this oft-repeated formula is more easily stated than applied when a State attempts to tax the net income of an enterprise doing business in many jurisdictions. The principal difficulty arises because a multijurisdictional business is "an organic system," Wallace v. Hines, 253 U. S. *333 66, 69 (1920) (Holmes, J.), whose income cannot sensibly be reduced to the sum of the hypothetical incomes of distinct component parts, each wrenched from the unitary whole and conceptually confined to operations within a single State.[1] With this understanding in mind, for more than half a century we have held that a State is not constitutionally required to tax only that slice of an interstate enterprise operating physically within the State. See, e. g., Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton, ; Exxon Instead, as we stated only two Terms ago, "[i]t has long been settled that `the entire net income of a corporation, generated by interstate as well as intrastate activities, may be fairly apportioned among the States for tax purposes by formulas utilizing in-state aspects of interstate affairs,'" ), provided only that in each case the resulting tax liability is not "`out of all appropriate proportion to the business transacted'" in the taxing *334 State ). In short, the "linchpin" of apportioned state taxation is the concept of an organic, unitary business. Mobil Oil The constitutionality of a state tax levied on extraterritorial business operations thus turns on whether the out-of-state business activity can be characterized as a separate business with no in-state contacts or whether instead it is a part of a unitary enterprise doing business in the State. In the case before us, the Court first errs when it attempts to determine whether or not ASARCO's investments were part of ASARCO's unitary nonferrous metals business. II ASARCO realized capital gains, dividends, and interest income from its ownership of securities issued by five foreign subsidiaries. The issue for the Court is whether that income was earned by ASARCO's unitary nonferrous metals business, and therefore was subject to Idaho's taxes, or instead was earned by a separate investment business unrelated to ASARCO's operations in Idaho, and therefore was constitutionally exempt from taxation by that State. As always, of course, the State's taxation of the company's income is presumptively constitutional. To overcome that presumption, ASARCO has |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | income is presumptively constitutional. To overcome that presumption, ASARCO has the "`distinct burden of showing by "clear and cogent evidence"'" that Idaho's scheme "`results in extraterritorial values being taxed.'" Exxon in turn quoting Norfolk & Western R. v. North Carolina ex rel. Maxwell, ). According to the Court, ASARCO has met this burden by showing that during the relevant tax years its holdings in the five subsidiaries were passive investments not functionally *335 integrated with ASARCO's nonferrous metals business. On this basis, the Court concludes that ASARCO's holdings were, in effect, part of a separate investment business having too little to do with ASARCO's unitary nonferrous metals business to support apportioned taxation. Both common sense and business reality dictate a different result. ASARCO, far from showing that its investment holdings were part of an "unrelated,"[2] "discrete business enterprise,"[3] "hav[ing] nothing to do with the activities"[4] of its unitary nonferrous metals business, has failed in at least three ways to bear its "distinct burden" of demonstrating that Idaho's tax was unconstitutionally levied. A First, even accepting, arguendo, the Court's conclusion that the contested income was derived from passive investments, ASARCO has failed to show that its investment decisionmaking was segregated from its nonferrous metals business. ASARCO cannot deny that the subsidiary companies in which it invested were participants in the nonferrous metals industry, the very industry in which ASARCO played a major operational role. As the Court acknowledges, ASARCO "mine[d], smelt[ed], and refine[d] nonferrous metals such as copper, gold, silver, lead, and zinc," ante, at 309, while one of its subsidiaries "engaged in the mining, milling, smelting, and refining of nonferrous metals," ante, at 309, n. 2, another engaged "in the same general line of business" as did "ASARCO in the United States," ib a third "mine[d] and smelt[ed] copper," ante, at 309-310, n. 2, and the last two were important "ASARCO customers," ante, at 323, fabricating, respectively, cables and copper wares, ante, at 309, n. 2. In short, ASARCO invested not in "unrelated business[es]," such as hotel chains and breweries, but in *336 companies participating in the nonferrous metals markets. Exxon (quoting Mobil Oil U. S., at 442). ASARCO invested in these nonferrous metals companies with a well-founded confidence that few other investors could muster, since much of what it had learned in operating its own nonferrous metals business must have been invaluable in evaluating the prospects for other companies engaged in similar businesses and markets worldwide. Put another way, it would have been a perverse act of self-denial for ASARCO to ignore its intimate knowledge of world markets, refining |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | ASARCO to ignore its intimate knowledge of world markets, refining and smelting technology, mining operations, and geological reserves when it decided whether and how to invest in the five companies of concern here. Thus, the investment decisions ASARCO made regarding the securities of these five participants in the nonferrous metals markets undoubtedly depended heavily on ASARCO's knowledge of its own business. In fact, during the course of this litigation, ASARCO has admitted as much. In the trial court, ASARCO's vice president and comptroller answered questions put to him by ASARCO's counsel as follows: "Q. Now, ASARCO has investments in a lot of mining companies, does it not? "A. Yes. "Q. Can you tell the court why ASARCO makes investments of this nature? "A. The ASARCO management utilizes its expertizes [sic] in channeling funds into these areas where they are knowledgeable andmost knowledgeableand hopefully accrue [sic] to the benefit of ASARCO stockholders. "Q. So that essentially ASARCO feels that it can use its expertizes [sic] to produce the maximum returns for its shareholders? "A. That is correct. *337 "Q. And whereas with other purchases I suppose ASARCO feels that the shareholders can make the investments themselves as well as ASARCO can? "A. Right." Record 81-82. Moreover, in its brief to the Supreme Court of Idaho ASARCO flatly stated that "[i]t invests its shareholders' money in businesses in which it has expertise and distributes the investment return in the form of dividends to its shareholders." In sum, far from showing by "clear and cogent evidence" that its investment decisions regarding other nonferrous metal suppliers and users were segregated from the resources of information and expertise developed in its own nonferrous metals business, ASARCO provided evidence that its investment decisionmaking was part of an indivisible, unitary nonferrous metals business. This alone warrants affirming the Idaho Supreme Court's due process ruling. B Second, again assuming, arguendo, that the contested investments were in fact passive, ASARCO has failed to show that its holdings were divorced from its management of the financial requirements of its nonferrous metals business. For all we know, ASARCO's investments were triggered by its need to obtain a return on idle financial resources accumulated for the future operation of its own primary business. ASARCO does not, and could not, contend that all its investment income is per se beyond the taxing power of the nondomiciliary States in which it operates. Rather, it concedes that the Due Process Clause permits Idaho to tax, on an apportioned basis, the income ASARCO earned on short-term investments of its working capital.[5] After all, an appropriate *338 |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | investments of its working capital.[5] After all, an appropriate *338 amount of liquid working capital is necessary to the day-to-day operation of a business, and any return earned from its temporary investment is a byproduct of the operation of the business. ASARCO thus admits that Idaho could tax a portion of the income realized from an investment in, say, short-term commercial paper, even though the underlying operations of the issuing companies were far less related to ASARCO's nonferrous metals business than the operations of the five subsidiaries at issue here. The interim investment of retained earnings prior to their commitment to a major corporate project, however, merely recapitulates on a grander scale the short-term investment of working capital prior to its commitment to the daily financial needs of the company. Just as companies prefer to maintain a cushion of working capital rather than resort to the short-term capital markets on an hourly basis for the money necessary to operate their businesses, many enterprises prefer to acquire the capital necessary for the expansion and replacement of plants and equipment by creating long-term funds, rather than resort to the vagaries of the capital markets. In order to prevent the accumulating capital from sitting idle, such funds are usually invested in financial assets with a degree of liquidity appropriate to the money's intended ultimate use.[6] Any return ASARCO earned on such investments *339 plainly would be functionally related to the conduct of its nonferrous metals business and, therefore, taxable by Idaho on an apportioned basis as unitary business income. Such investment of idle funds, after all, mirrors the borrowing of funds a company lacks. Undoubtedly, ASARCO would be quick to assert that any long-term borrowing recorded on the liability side of its balance sheet is an integral part of its unitary business justifying the deduction of interest expense in the computation of apportionable net income. If so, ASARCO cannot contend that the long-term investments recorded on the asset side of its balance sheet are automatically separate from its unitary business, thereby justifying the exclusion of the revenues received from apportionable net income. The same principles apply whether the money is going in or coming out. Thus, because investments of ASARCO's working capital are functionally integrated with its unitary nonferrous metals business, and because ASARCO failed to show by "clear and cogent evidence" the facts necessary to distinguish, on a principled basis, its investments in the securities of the five subsidiaries at issue here,[7] the Idaho Supreme Court correctly concluded that apportioned taxation of ASARCO's contested investment income does not violate the Due Process |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | ASARCO's contested investment income does not violate the Due Process Clause. *340 C Finally, the Court errs even in its fundamental determination that ASARCO's holdings were passive investments unrelated to ASARCO's operational business. In fact, the disputed investments actively contributed to ASARCO's nonferrous metals business. To begin with, ASARCO had effective operational control of at least three of the five subsidiaries. ASARCO's commanding 52.7% interest in M. I. M. Holdings, Ltd., uncontestably gave it full control of that company. Although ASARCO did not wield quite the same power over Southern Peru Copper, its 51.5% interest nonetheless gave it unilateral veto power over all corporate decisions, including those supported unanimously by all other shareholders.[8] Finally, in the case of ASARCO Mexicana, the record discloses only that ASARCO had been forced to sell 51% of its initial % interest to Mexican nationals, retaining a 49% interest for ASARCO has made no showing that it is not the principal investor in Mexicana and thus able to control the company. In sum, ASARCO undoubtedly was the dominant factor in at least three of the five subsidiaries under consideration here, with the power to use them to advantage in its nonferrous metals business.[9] The Court, however, minimizes the significance *341 of this control, emphasizing that ASARCO did not openly and aggressively assert its control during the tax years in question and concluding that ASARCO's subsidiaries did not contribute to its nonferrous metals business. The Court's result is hard to understand in view of our decision just two years ago in Exxon In summarizing our result in Exxon, we asserted that the "important link" establishing the unity of *342 Exxon's business "most clearly" was based on two First, we noted that "`placing individual segments under one corporate entity provide[s] greater profits stability'" because "`nonparallel and nonmutual economic factors which may affect one department may be offset by the factors existing in another department.'" ASARCO's ownership of subsidiaries doing business in precisely ASARCO's line of work in two different geographical markets, M. I. M. Holdings in Australia and ASARCO Mexicana in Mexico, undoubtedly provided exactly that sort of advantage; economic conditions in Australia and Mexico do not track those in the United States, so that when the nonferrous metals business is in the doldrums in one country, it may be prospering in another. But, unlike the Exxon Court, today's Court is blind to the significance to the "profits stability" of ASARCO's nonferrous metals business of its subsidiaries in unrelated geographical markets. Second, in Exxon we noted that the vertical relationship between the various departments in Exxon's business |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | the vertical relationship between the various departments in Exxon's business provided both "an assured supply of raw materials" and an "assured and stable outlet for products" so that Exxon could "minimiz[e]" the "risk of disruptions" "due to [the] supply and demand imbalances that may occur from time to time." The Exxon Court's recognition of the business importance of captive suppliers and customers merely confirmed our earlier decision in Mobil Oil, in which we affirmed 's apportioned taxation of the more than $115 million in dividend income Mobil had received from its 10% interest in the Arabian American Oil U.S., at 457, n. 10 Mobil's 10% investment, apart from providing handsome dividends, apparently had helped to assure Mobil of supplies of crude oil for its petroleum business. By contrast, the Court today inexplicably invalidates Idaho's taxation of ASARCO's dividend income from its fivefold *343 greater 51.5% interest in Southern Peru Copper Corp., an investment that evidently helped to assure ASARCO of supplies of unrefined copper, since 35% of the entire copper output of Southern Peru was sold to ASARCO.[10] Apparently, the Court no longer believes it significant that the subsidiaries in which a parent has major holdings "minimiz[e]" the "risk of disruptions" "due to [the] supply and demand imbalances that may occur from time to time," Exxon 447 U. S., by providing "assured suppl[ies]" and "stable outlet[s]," ib unless the subsidiaries are actively managed on a day-to-day basis. The Court evidently would find that ASARCO's subsidiaries were part of ASARCO's unitary business only if ASARCO experienced a "supply and demand imbalanc[e]" sufficiently severe to force it to exercise day-to-day control of its captive subsidiaries. In this regard, the Court's position is akin to the view that a paid-up fire insurance policy is a worthless asset unless smoke is in the air. In sum, despite ASARCO's failure on each of the three counts just discussed to bear its "distinct burden" of showing that its investments are unrelated to its nonferrous metals business, the Court rules that Idaho cannot tax the investment income at issue here. In so doing, the Court unwisely substitutes for the multifaceted analysis used to determine whether the businesses in Mobil Oil and Exxon were unitary the oversimplified test of active operational control. The result is that the Court has ignored business advantages to ASARCO more than sufficient to establish that its holdings in its subsidiaries were part of its unitary business. In consequence, the Court wrongly concludes that ASARCO has borne the "distinct burden" of showing that its holdings in the *344 five affected subsidiaries are not functionally |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | holdings in the *344 five affected subsidiaries are not functionally related to the income of its operational nonferrous metals business.[11] Trying to justify that result, the Court suggests that for it to hold otherwise "would destroy the concept" of a unitary business by expanding the idea until it "becomes no limitation at all" on the power of the States to tax. Ante, at 326. In actuality, the Court's decision today shrinks the concept beyond all recognition. Thus it is the Court's holding, not Idaho's tax, that menaces the unitary-business principle. The "linchpin" is loose from the axle. III As a natural consequence of its decision that Idaho cannot tax ASARCO's investment income, the Court simultaneously, if implicitly, rules out taxation of the disputed income by any other nondomiciliary State in which ASARCO conducts its nonferrous metals business, absent a special connection between the would-be taxing State and ASARCO's investments.[12] By the process of elimination, then, the Court's holding provides a partial answer to the question of *345 which State or States the Constitution permits to tax this income. The answer the Court gives, however, demonstrates how ill-advised is the course on which it embarks. By its analysis, the Court leaves open three possible choices regarding which States, if any, may tax ASARCO's contested income. Each of these possibilities suffers from crippling defects, pointing to the conclusion that the Court errs in prohibiting apportioned taxation of investment income by nondomiciliary States. A First, there is the disturbing possibility that no State could satisfy the requirements of the Due Process Clause as interpreted today by the Court, so that the contested income would be, in the words of state tax administrators, "nowhere income."[13] If so, today's holding casts a deep shadow on the ability of the States to tax their fair share of the corporate income they help to produce by providing an "orderly, civilized society." Even more disturbing, given such an interpretation, the Court's decision endangers even federal taxation of passive investment income, since the Federal Government's contacts with the income at issue here obviously cannot exceed the sum of the contacts of the various States. Presumably, the Court's opinion should not be read as erecting so high a hurdle to state and federal taxation. B Second, there is the possibility that only a domiciliary State or States could tax the disputed income. In Mobil Oil, the Court stated that "[t]axation by apportionment and taxation by allocation to a single situs are theoretically incommensurate, and if the latter method is constitutionally preferred, a tax based on the former cannot be sustained." |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | preferred, a tax based on the former cannot be sustained." * U. S., at 444- If so, the converse may also be true: if taxation by apportionment is constitutionally condemned, taxation by allocation to a single situs may be constitutionally preferred. The Court's decision today thus could be read as broadly hinting that a domiciliary State enjoys a preference of constitutional dimension justifying itsand only itstaxation of income such as that derived from ASARCO's investments. Perhaps such a preference could find some blessing in tradition, but certainly not in logic or in the recent opinions of this Court. In Mobil Oil the Court declared: "We find no adequate justification for such a preference. Although a fictionalized situs for intangible property sometimes has been invoked to avoid multiple taxation of ownership, there is nothing talismanic about the concepts of `business situs' or `commercial domicile' that automatically renders those concepts applicable when taxation of income from intangibles is at issue. The Court has observed that the maxim mobilia sequuntur personam, upon which these fictions of situs are based, `states a rule without disclosing the reasons for it.' The Court also has recognized that `the reason for a single place of taxation no longer obtains' when the taxpayer's activities with respect to the intangible property involve relations with more than one jurisdiction. Moreover, cases upholding allocation to a single situs for property tax purposes have distinguished income tax situations where the apportionment principle prevails." at The Court thus made clear only two years ago that a State of domicile cannot expect automatically to meet the due process requirements for the taxation of investment income. As with a nondomiciliary State, a domiciliary State may tax investment income only if it confers benefits on or affords protection to the investment activity. Mere assertion of the arbitrary *347 legal fiction that intangible property is located at its owner's domicile no longer suffices to repel a reluctant taxpayer's due process attack. The principal functional basis on which this Court has justified taxation by the commercial domicile, moreover, actually supports the fully apportioned taxation of investment income that today's decision rules out, rather than taxation by allocation to a single situs. In Wheeling Steel for example, we sustained an ad valorem tax on accounts receivable and bank deposits levied by the State in which the taxpayer maintained "the actual seat of its corporate government," for the reason that the intangibles at issue had become "`integral parts of some local business,'" ). Thus, other than the arbitrary fiction that intangible property is "located" at the domicile of its owner, |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | intangible property is "located" at the domicile of its owner, the underlying jurisdictional basis for taxation at the commercial domicile is grounded in the fact that intangibles are an "integral part" of the business. This justification supports the principle of apportionment rather than allocation solely to the single domiciliary State. After all, if intangibles are an "integral part" of the unitary business in the domiciliary State, they also are related to the business of the corporation elsewhere. It hardly makes sense to allocate income to the commercial domicile on the theory that business activity at the commercial domicile promotes the unitary business everywhere, and then to ignore those connections and to disregard the claims of the other States in which the unitary business operates. See Dexter, Taxation of Income from Intangibles of Multistate-Multinational Corporations, In short, unless the Court is prepared to abandon the unitary-business principle as applied to investment income and to read into the Constitution the arbitrary legal fiction that intangibles are situated at the domicile of their owner, the *348 Court will be unable to sustain a domiciliary State's allocation of all passive investment income to against due process attack. C We thus arrive at the only remaining possibility. The Court's holding today, taken with past decisions, may imply that ASARCO's investments must be treated as though ASARCO were not only running its nonferrous metals business but also running as another, separate business a sort of mutual fund or holding company specializing in the worldwide nonferrous metals industry. The income from this fictitious separate business would then be taxable on an apportioned basis by those States in which the business was carried out, just as ASARCO's unitary nonferrous metals business could be taxed on an apportioned basis by those States in which that business is conducted. If so, the Constitution apparently requires that a very small tail be permitted to wag a very big dog. For in the case of companies like ASARCO with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of dividend income generated by a handful of long-term investments, vast differences in state revenues may turn on whether the quarterly dividend checks sent from "passive" subsidiaries are sent to a clerk in a company office in one State rather than another. Surely it is highly anomalous that the Due Process Clause should require the dividend income of a farflung interstate business selectively to be attributed solely to the State or two in which a few minimal securities management functions are carried out, rather than apportioned among all the States whose "civilized society" has made the |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | among all the States whose "civilized society" has made the income-generating wealth of the larger enterprise possible. Moreover, if such a requirement were judicially imposed it would create potentially staggering practical difficulties for taxpayers, state tax administrators, and, ultimately, the courts. For despite the Court's easy conclusion today that ASARCO's supposedly discrete investment business is distinct *349 from ASARCO's operational nonferrous metals business, it is unlikely in practice that the two could be so readily disentangled. Imagine, for example, that the dividend checks were received and the management decisions regarding ASARCO's investments were made at ASARCO's corporate headquarters in one State, while the expertise and information relied on to make those decisions were drawn from corporate sources in many States. In apportioning the income of this purportedly separate investment business among the States, the question inescapably would arise as to what limits the Constitution places on how little of the taxable values at ASARCO's headquarters the expertise- and information-producing States could allocate to ASARCO's investment business as opposed to the theoretically distinct operational nonferrous metals business. Stating the question suffices to show that it reintroduces just the sort of insoluble problem of dividing businesses that the unitary-business principle was designed to avoid. Thus, if the Court does not abandon the separate-business theory that it endorses today, it merely will have substituted the vexing constitutional problem of how to apportion businesses for today's problem of how to apportion taxes. In sum, the Court has erred. Without a well-founded constitutional mandate, it has straitjacketed the States' ability to develop fair systems of apportionment, prematurely ending the evolutionary process begun by the Uniform Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act and the Multistate Tax Commission. By limiting the apportionment concept by restrictions not found anywhere in the Constitution, moreover, the Court has committed to a path leading to more constitutional problems and greater involvement by this Court in the intricacies of interstate taxation. IV The Court's error, moreover, is compounded by its decision to invoke the Due Process Clause as the source of its authority, *350 despite the ready availability of the Commerce Clause.[14] For unlike a Commerce Clause ruling which is susceptible to repair by Congress, today's due process decision may be beyond Congress' power to correct. This constitutional shortsightedness overlooks the fact that Congress, not this Court, holds the ultimate responsibility for maintaining a healthy system of interstate commerce. Moreover, it is Congress, not this Court, which has the institutional tools to deal with these complex problems. Congress *351 is only too aware of the limitations under which the judiciary operates |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | too aware of the limitations under which the judiciary operates when it attempts to deal with the knotty problems of state taxation of multistate enterprises within a federal system. As the Special Subcommittee on State Taxation of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives bluntly put it: "[T]he courts have over the years attempted to resolve the numerous and complex problems [of state taxation of interstate commerce] brought before them. [T]heir decisions on State taxation leave much to be desired both in individual cases and as a body of law. The reason for this inadequacy is completely unrelated to the ability or diligence of a particular court or of any particular judge. The inadequacy is entirely institutional. "The problem arises from the fact that a court deals in absolutes, and in this area an absolute decision in either direction is not likely to be satisfactory. [T]he court is substantially handicapped by its inability to explore fully the nature, the extent, and the impact of the burdens created [by state taxes]. "The inherent inadequacy of the judicial process to achieve a full accommodation of the competing demands of the States for taxes and of the national interest in unhindered commerce, is perhaps nowhere more clear than in the apportionment of income for tax purposes. In the typical case of this kind, the tax of only one of the States would be before the court. The court has only the records of the cases before it with only such information as may be necessary to state the facts and consequences in those cases. On this basis, is the court in a position to choose between [competing approaches], striking down all formulas containing one or the other? If so, what standard should it use in deciding which one? Given the adversary system of litigation, how does the court obtain the necessary data on economic burdens and revenue consequences? *352 "Difficulties also arise from the limitations of the judicial process in prescribing what constitutes adequate jurisdiction to tax. As a question of due process the court can do no more than decide on conceptual grounds whether the quality of the relationship in the case before it is sufficient to sustain the imposition of the tax. ". It is no better suited to devise and prescribe general rules setting the optimum level of jurisdiction than it is to impose a uniform apportionment formula. For example, the judicial process does not lend to a determination of what level of nexus would strike the most equitable balance between the demands of the States for |
Justice O'Connor | 1,982 | 14 | dissenting | Asarco Inc. v. Idaho Tax Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110780/asarco-inc-v-idaho-tax-commn/ | most equitable balance between the demands of the States for revenue and the probable burdens of compliance." H. R. Rep. No. 1480, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 11-12 (1964). Nor is Congress alone in recognizing the limitations of the judiciary in this field. Many Justices of this Court have acknowledged "the weakness of the judicial process in these tax questions where the total problem reaches us only in installments." Northwest Airlines, The Court has said: "To introduce a new doctrine of tax apportionment. is not merely to indulge in constitutional innovation. It is to introduce practical dislocation into the established taxing systems of the States. [C]ertainly we ought not to embarrass the future by judicial answers which at best can deal only in a truncated way with problems sufficiently difficult even for legislative statesmanship." Surely in a case such as the one before us, Congress, unconfined by "the narrow scope of judicial proceedings," Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge is in a better position "in the exercise of its plenary constitutional control over interstate commerce, not only [to] consider whether such a tax as now under scrutiny is consistent with the best interests of our national economy, but *353 also on the basis of full exploration of the many aspects of a complicated problem [to] devise a national policy fair alike to the States and our Union." But it is just this sort of congressional action which today's due process decision appears to preclude. This Court should not so confidently pre-empt the Congress. V In sum, the Court has focused its attention solely on the question whether ASARCO's interests in its subsidiaries represented active investments and concludes they did not. The Court then permits this initial erroneous result to derail its analysis. Instead of continuing, the Court fails to consider the possibility that ASARCO's investment decisionmaking was not segregated from its operational nonferrous metals business; fails to consider the possibility that ASARCO's investments were simply an interim use of long-term funds accumulated for ultimate use elsewhere in the business; fails to consider the possibility that ruling out apportioned taxation of income earned from intangibles may imply that such income is "nowhere income"; fails to consider the possibility that its ruling may be inconsistent with the unitary-business principle because it suggests that income from intangibles may be taxed only by a domiciliary State; and fails to consider the possibility that it may be as difficult to apportion a business as to apportion income for constitutional purposes. Finally, and most distressingly, the Court fails to consider its own limitations and Congress' constitutional prerogatives. |
Justice Blackmun | 1,992 | 11 | dissenting | Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112747/lujan-v-defenders-of-wildlife/ | I part company with the Court in this case in two respects. First, I believe that respondents have raised genuine issues of factsufficient to survive summary judgmentboth as to injury and as to redressability. Second, I question the Court's breadth of language in rejecting standing for "procedural" injuries. I fear the Court seeks to impose fresh limitations on the constitutional authority of Congress to allow *590 citizen suits in the federal courts for injuries deemed "procedural" in nature. I dissent. I Article III of the Constitution confines the federal courts to adjudication of actual "Cases" and "Controversies." To ensure the presence of a "case" or "controversy," this Court has held that Article III requires, as an irreducible minimum, that a plaintiff allege (1) an injury that is (2) "fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct" and that is (3) "likely to be redressed by the requested relief." A To survive petitioner's motion for summary judgment on standing, respondents need not prove that they are actually or imminently harmed. They need show only a "genuine issue" of material fact as to standing. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(c). This is not a heavy burden. A "genuine issue" exists so long as "the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party [respondents]." This Court's "function is not [it]self to weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the matter but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial." The Court never mentions the "genuine issue" standard. Rather, the Court refers to the type of evidence it feels respondents failed to produce, namely, "affidavits or other evidence showing, through specific facts" the existence of injury. Ante, at 563. The Court thereby confuses respondents' evidentiary burden (i. e., affidavits asserting "specific facts") in withstanding a summary judgment motion under Rule 56(e) with the standard of proof (i. e., the existence of a "genuine issue" of "material fact") under Rule 56(c). *591 1 Were the Court to apply the proper standard for summary judgment, I believe it would conclude that the sworn affidavits and deposition testimony of Joyce Kelly and Amy Skilbred advance sufficient facts to create a genuine issue for trial concerning whether one or both would be imminently harmed by the Aswan and Mahaweli projects. In the first instance, as the Court itself concedes, the affidavits contained facts making it at least "questionable" (and therefore within the province of the factfinder) that certain agencyfunded projects threaten listed species.[1]Ante, at 564. The only remaining issue, then, is whether Kelly and Skilbred have shown that they |
Justice Blackmun | 1,992 | 11 | dissenting | Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112747/lujan-v-defenders-of-wildlife/ | then, is whether Kelly and Skilbred have shown that they personally would suffer imminent harm. I think a reasonable finder of fact could conclude from the information in the affidavits and deposition testimony that either Kelly or Skilbred will soon return to the project sites, thereby satisfying the "actual or imminent" injury standard. The Court dismisses Kelly's and Skilbred's general statements *592 that they intended to revisit the project sites as "simply not enough." But those statements did not stand alone. A reasonable finder of fact could conclude, based not only upon their statements of intent to return, but upon their past visits to the project sites, as well as their professional backgrounds, that it was likely that Kelly and Skilbred would make a return trip to the project areas. Contrary to the Court's contention that Kelly's and Skilbred's past visits "prov[e] nothing," ib the fact of their past visits could demonstrate to a reasonable factfinder that Kelly and Skilbred have the requisite resources and personal interest in the preservation of the species endangered by the Aswan and Mahaweli projects to make good on their intention to return again. Cf. Los (internal quotation marks omitted). Similarly, Kelly's and Skilbred's professional backgrounds in wildlife preservation, see App. 100, 144, 309-310, also make it likelyat least far more likely than for the average citizenthat they would choose to visit these areas of the world where species are vanishing. By requiring a "description of concrete plans" or "specification of when the some day [for a return visit] will be," ante, at 564, the Court, in my view, demands what is likely an empty formality. No substantial barriers prevent Kelly or Skilbred from simply purchasing plane tickets to return to the Aswan and Mahaweli projects. This case differs from other cases in which the imminence of harm turned largely on the affirmative actions of third parties beyond a plaintiff's control. See ; Los ; ; ; To be sure, a plaintiff's unilateral control over his or her exposure to harm does not necessarily render the harm nonspeculative. Nevertheless, it suggests that a finder of fact would be far more likely to conclude the harm is actual or imminent, especially if given an opportunity to hear testimony and determine credibility. I fear the Court's demand for detailed descriptions of future conduct will do little to weed out those who are genuinely harmed from those who are not. More likely, it will resurrect a code-pleading formalism in federal court summary judgment practice, as federal courts, newly doubting their jurisdiction, will demand more and more particularized showings |
Justice Blackmun | 1,992 | 11 | dissenting | Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112747/lujan-v-defenders-of-wildlife/ | doubting their jurisdiction, will demand more and more particularized showings of future harm. Just to survive summary judgment, for example, a property owner claiming a decline in the value of his property from governmental action might have to specify the exact date he intends to sell his property and show that there is a market for the property, lest it be surmised he might not sell again. A nurse turned down for a job on grounds of her race had better be prepared to show on what date she was prepared to start work, that she had arranged daycare for her child, and that she would not have accepted work at another hospital instead. And a Federal Tort Claims Act plaintiff alleging loss of consortium should make sure to furnish this Court with a "description of concrete plans" for her nightly schedule of attempted activities. *594 2 The Court also concludes that injury is lacking, because respondents' allegations of "ecosystem nexus" failed to demonstrate sufficient proximity to the site of the environmental harm. Ante, at 565-566. To support that conclusion, the Court mischaracterizes our decision in as establishing a general rule that "a plaintiff claiming injury from environmental damage must use the area affected by the challenged activity." Ante, at 565-566. In National Wildlife Federation, the Court required specific geographical proximity because of the particular type of harm alleged in that case: harm to the plaintiff's visual enjoyment of nature from mining activities. One cannot suffer from the sight of a ruined landscape without being close enough to see the sites actually being mined. Many environmental injuries, however, cause harm distant from the area immediately affected by the challenged action. Environmental destruction may affect animals traveling over vast geographical ranges, see, e. g., Japan Whaling or rivers running long geographical courses, see, e. g., It cannot seriously be contended that a litigant's failure to use the precise or exact site where animals are slaughtered or where toxic waste is dumped into a river means he or she cannot show injury. The Court also rejects respondents' claim of vocational or professional injury. The Court says that it is "beyond all reason" that a zoo "keeper" of Asian elephants would have standing to contest his Government's participation in the eradication of all the Asian elephants in another part of the world. Ante, at 566. I am unable to see how the distant location of the destruction necessarily (for purposes of ruling *595 at summary judgment) mitigates the harm to the elephant keeper. If there is no more access to a future supply |
Justice Blackmun | 1,992 | 11 | dissenting | Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112747/lujan-v-defenders-of-wildlife/ | If there is no more access to a future supply of the animal that sustains a keeper's livelihood, surely there is harm. I have difficulty imagining this Court applying its rigid principles of geographic formalism anywhere outside the context of environmental claims. As I understand it, environmental plaintiffs are under no special constitutional standing disabilities. Like other plaintiffs, they need show only that the action they challenge has injured them, without necessarily showing they happened to be physically near the location of the alleged wrong. The Court's decision today should not be interpreted "to foreclose the possibility that in different circumstances a nexus theory similar to those proffered here might support a claim to standing." Ante, at 579 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). B A plurality of the Court suggests that respondents have not demonstrated redressability: a likelihood that a court ruling in their favor would remedy their injury. Duke Power The plurality identifies two obstacles. The first is that the "action agencies" (e. g., AID) cannot be required to undertake consultation with petitioner Secretary, because they are not directly bound as parties to the suit and are otherwise not indirectly bound by being subject to petitioner Secretary's regulation. Petitioner, however, officially and publicly has taken the position that his regulations regarding consultation under 7 of the Act are binding on action agencies. 50 CFR 402.14(a)[2] And he has previously *596 taken the same position in this very litigation, having stated in his answer to the complaint that petitioner "admits the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) was designated the lead agency for the formulation of regulations concerning section 7 of the [Endangered Species Act]." App. 246. I cannot agree with the plurality that the Secretary (or the Solicitor General) is now free, for the convenience of this appeal, to disavow his prior public and litigation positions. More generally, I cannot agree that the Government is free to play "Three-Card Monte" with its description of agencies' authority to defeat standing against the agency given the lead in administering a statutory scheme. Emphasizing that none of the action agencies are parties to this suit (and having rejected the possibility of their being indirectly bound by petitioner's regulation), the plurality concludes that "there is no reason they should be obliged to honor an incidental legal determination the suit produced." Ante, at 569. I am not as willing as the plurality is to assume that agencies at least will not try to follow the law. Moreover, I wonder if the plurality has not overlooked the extensive involvement from the inception |
Justice Blackmun | 1,992 | 11 | dissenting | Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112747/lujan-v-defenders-of-wildlife/ | plurality has not overlooked the extensive involvement from the inception of this litigation by the Department of State and AID.[3] Under *597 principles of collateral estoppel, these agencies are precluded from subsequently relitigating the issues decided in this suit. "[O]ne who prosecutes or defends a suit in the name of another to establish and protect his own right, or who assists in the prosecution or defense of an action in aid of some interest of his own, and who does this openly to the knowledge of the opposing party, is as much bound by the judgment and as fully entitled to avail himself of it as an estoppel against an adverse party, as he would be if he had been a party to the record." This principle applies even to the Federal Government. In this Court held that the Government was estopped from relitigating in federal court the constitutionality of Montana's gross receipts tax, because that issue previously had been litigated in state court by an individual contractor whose litigation had been financed and controlled by the Federal Government. "Thus, although not a party, the United States plainly had a sufficient `laboring oar' in the conduct of the state-court litigation to actuate principles of estoppel." See also United In my view, the action agencies have had sufficient "laboring oars" in this litigation since its inception to be bound from subsequent *598 relitigation of the extraterritorial scope of the 7 consultation requirement.[4] As a result, I believe respondents' injury would likely be redressed by a favorable decision. *599 The second redressability obstacle relied on by the plurality is that "the [action] agencies generally supply only a fraction of the funding for a foreign project." Ante, at 571. What this Court might "generally" take to be true does not eliminate the existence of a genuine issue of fact to withstand summary judgment. Even if the action agencies supply only a fraction of the funding for a particular foreign project, it remains at least a question for the finder of fact whether threatened withdrawal of that fraction would affect foreign government conduct sufficiently to avoid harm to listed species. The plurality states that "AID, for example, has provided less than 10% of the funding for the Mahaweli project." The plurality neglects to mention that this "fraction" amounts to $170 million, see App. 159, not so paltry a sum for a country of only 16 million people with a gross national product of less than $6 billion in 1986 when respondents filed *600 the complaint in this action. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, |
Justice Blackmun | 1,992 | 11 | dissenting | Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112747/lujan-v-defenders-of-wildlife/ | complaint in this action. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Sri Lanka: A Country Study (Area Handbook Series) xvi-xvii The plurality flatly states: "Respondents have produced nothing to indicate that the projects they have named will. doless harm to listed species, if that fraction is eliminated." Ante, at 571. As an initial matter, the relevant inquiry is not, as the plurality suggests, what will happen if AID or other agencies stop funding projects, but what will happen if AID or other agencies comply with the consultation requirement for projects abroad. Respondents filed suit to require consultation, not a termination of funding. Respondents have raised at least a genuine issue of fact that the projects harm endangered species and that the actions of AID and other United States agencies can mitigate that harm. The plurality overlooks an Interior Department memorandum listing eight endangered or threatened species in the Mahaweli project area and recounting that "[t]he Sri Lankan government has requested the assistance of AID in mitigating the negative impacts to the wildlife involved." App. 78. Further, a letter from the Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service to AID states: "The Sri Lankan government lacks the necessary finances to undertake any long-term management programs to avoid the negative impacts to the wildlife. The donor nations and agencies that are financing the [Mahaweli project] will be the key as to how successfully the wildlife is preserved. If wildlife problems receive the same level of attention as the engineering project, then the negative impacts to the environment can be alleviated. This means that there has to be long-term funding in sufficient amounts to stem the negative impacts of this project." *601 I do not share the plurality's astonishing confidence that, on the record here, a factfinder could only conclude that AID was powerless to ensure the protection of listed species at the Mahaweli project. As for the Aswan project, the record again rebuts the plurality's assumption that donor agencies are without any authority to protect listed species. Kelly asserted in her affidavitand it has not been disputedthat the Bureau of Reclamation was "overseeing" the rehabilitation of the Aswan project. See also I find myself unable to agree with the plurality's analysis of redressability, based as it is on its invitation of executive lawlessness, ignorance of principles of collateral estoppel, unfounded assumptions about causation, and erroneous conclusions about what the record does not say. In my view, respondents have satisfactorily shown a genuine issue of fact as to whether their injury would likely be redressed by a decision in their favor. II The Court |
Justice Blackmun | 1,992 | 11 | dissenting | Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112747/lujan-v-defenders-of-wildlife/ | redressed by a decision in their favor. II The Court concludes that any "procedural injury" suffered by respondents is insufficient to confer standing. It rejects the view that the "injury-in-fact requirement [is] satisfied by congressional conferral upon all persons of an abstract, selfcontained, noninstrumental `right' to have the Executive observe the procedures required by law." Ante, at 573. Whatever the Court might mean with that very broad language, it cannot be saying that "procedural injuries" as a class are necessarily insufficient for purposes of Article III standing. Most governmental conduct can be classified as "procedural." Many injuries caused by governmental conduct, therefore, are categorizable at some level of generality as *602 "procedural" injuries. Yet, these injuries are not categorically beyond the pale of redress by the federal courts. When the Government, for example, "procedurally" issues a pollution permit, those affected by the permittee's pollutants are not without standing to sue. Only later cases will tell just what the Court means by its intimation that "procedural" injuries are not constitutionally cognizable injuries. In the meantime, I have the greatest of sympathy for the courts across the country that will struggle to understand the Court's standardless exposition of this concept today. The Court expresses concern that allowing judicial enforcement of "agencies' observance of a particular, statutorily prescribed procedure" would "transfer from the President to the courts the Chief Executive's most important constitutional duty, to `take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,' Art. II, 3." Ante, at 576, 577. In fact, the principal effect of foreclosing judicial enforcement of such procedures is to transfer power into the hands of the Executive at the expensenot of the courtsbut of Congress, from which that power originates and emanates. Under the Court's anachronistically formal view of the separation of powers, Congress legislates pure, substantive mandates and has no business structuring the procedural manner in which the Executive implements these mandates. To be sure, in the ordinary course, Congress does legislate in black-and-white terms of affirmative commands or negative prohibitions on the conduct of officers of the Executive Branch. In complex regulatory areas, however, Congress often legislates, as it were, in procedural shades of gray. That is, itsets forth substantive policy goals and provides for their attainment by requiring Executive Branch officials to follow certain procedures, for example, in the form of reporting, consultation, and certification requirements. The Court recently has considered two such procedurally oriented statutes. In Japan Whaling the Court examined a *603 statute requiring the Secretary of Commerce to certify to the President that foreign nations were not conducting fishing operations or trading |
Justice Blackmun | 1,992 | 11 | dissenting | Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112747/lujan-v-defenders-of-wildlife/ | that foreign nations were not conducting fishing operations or trading which "diminis[h] the effectiveness" of an international whaling convention. The Court expressly found standing to sue. In this Court considered injury from violation of the "action-forcing" procedures of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), in particular the requirements for issuance of environmental impact statements. The consultation requirement of 7 of the Endangered Species Act is a similar, action-forcing statute. Consultation is designed as an integral check on federal agency action, ensuring that such action does not go forward without full consideration of its effects on listed species. Once consultation is initiated, the Secretary is under a duty to provide to the action agency "a written statement setting forth the Secretary's opinion, and a summary of the information on which the opinion is based, detailing how the agency action affects the species or its critical habitat." 16 U.S. C. 1536(b)(3)(A). The Secretary is also obligated to suggest "reasonable and prudent alternatives" to prevent jeopardy to listed species. The action agency must undertake as well its own "biological assessment for the purpose of identifying any endangered species or threatened species" likely to be affected by agency action. 1536(c)(1). After the initiation of consultation, the action agency "shall not make any irreversible or irretrievable commitment of resources" which would foreclose the "formulation or implementation of any reasonable and prudent alternative measures" to avoid jeopardizing listed species. 1536(d). These action-forcing procedures are "designed to protect some threatened concrete interest," ante, at 573, n. 8, of persons who observe and work with endangered or threatened species. That is why I am mystified by the Court's unsupported conclusion that "[t]his is not a case where plaintiffs *604 are seeking to enforce a procedural requirement the disregard of which could impair a separate concrete interest of theirs." Ante, at 572. Congress legislates in procedural shades of gray not to aggrandize its own power but to allow maximum Executive discretion in the attainment of Congress' legislative goals. Congress could simply impose a substantive prohibition on Executive conduct; it could say that no agency action shall result in the loss of more than 5% of any listed species. Instead, Congress sets forth substantive guidelines and allows the Executive, within certain procedural constraints, to decide how best to effectuate the ultimate goal. See American Power & Light The Court never has questioned Congress' authority to impose such procedural constraints on Executive power. Just as Congress does not violate separation of powers by structuring the procedural manner in which the Executive shall carry out the laws, surely the federal courts do |
Justice Blackmun | 1,992 | 11 | dissenting | Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112747/lujan-v-defenders-of-wildlife/ | shall carry out the laws, surely the federal courts do not violate separation of powers when, at the very instruction and command of Congress, they enforce these procedures. To prevent Congress from conferring standing for "procedural injuries" is another way of saying that Congress may not delegate to the courts authority deemed "executive" in nature. Ante, at 577 (Congress may not "transfer from the President to the courts the Chief Executive's most important constitutional duty, to `take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,' Art. II, 3"). Here Congress seeks not to delegate "executive" power but only to strengthen the procedures it has legislatively mandated. "We have long recognized that the nondelegation doctrine does not prevent Congress from seeking assistance, within proper limits, from its coordinate Branches." "Congress does not violate the Constitution merely because it legislates in broad terms, leaving a certain degree of discretion to executive or judicial actors. " *605 Ironically, this Court has previously justified a relaxed review of congressional delegation to the Executive on grounds that Congress, in turn, has subjected the exercise of that power to judicial review. ; American Power & Light 329 U. S., at -106. The Court's intimation today that procedural injuries are not constitutionally cognizable threatens this understanding upon which Congress has undoubtedly relied. In no sense is the Court's suggestion compelled by our "common understanding of what activities are appropriate to legislatures, to executives, and to courts." Ante, at 560. In my view, it reflects an unseemly solicitude for an expansion of power of the Executive Branch. It is to be hoped that over time the Court will acknowledge that some classes of procedural duties are so enmeshed with the prevention of a substantive, concrete harm that an individual plaintiff may be able to demonstrate a sufficient likelihood of injury just through the breach of that procedural duty. For example, in the context of the NEPA requirement of environmental-impact statements, this Court has acknowledged "it is now well settled that NEPA itself does not mandate particular results [and] simply prescribes the necessary process," but "these procedures are almost certain to affect the agency's substantive decision. " See also This acknowledgment of an inextricable link between procedural and substantive harm does not reflect improper appellate factfinding. It reflects nothing more than the proper deference owed to the judgment of a coordinate branchCongressthat certain procedures are directly tied to protection against a substantive harm. *606 In short, determining "injury" for Article III standing purposes is a fact-specific inquiry. "Typically the standing inquiry requires careful judicial examination of a complaint's allegations to |
Justice Blackmun | 1,992 | 11 | dissenting | Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112747/lujan-v-defenders-of-wildlife/ | inquiry requires careful judicial examination of a complaint's allegations to ascertain whether the particular plaintiff is entitled to an adjudication of the particular claims asserted." There may be factual circumstances in which a congressionally imposed procedural requirement is so insubstantially connected to the prevention of a substantive harm that it cannot be said to work any conceivable injury to an individual litigant. But, as a general matter, the courts owe substantial deference to Congress' substantive purpose in imposing a certain procedural requirement. In all events, "[o]ur separation-ofpowers analysis does not turn on the labeling of an activity as `substantive' as opposed to `procedural.' " There is no room for a per se rule or presumption excluding injuries labeled "procedural" in nature. III In conclusion, I cannot join the Court on what amounts to a slash-and-burn expedition through the law of environmental standing. In my view, "[t]he very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury." I dissent. |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | This case arises from serious constitutional violations in California’s prison system. The violations have persisted for years. They remain uncorrected. The appeal comes to this Court from a three-judge District Court order direct ing California to remedy two ongoing violations of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, a guarantee binding on the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The violations are the subject of two class actions in two Federal District Courts. The first involves the class of prisoners with serious mental disor ders. That case is Coleman v. Brown. The second involves prisoners with serious medical conditions. That case is Plata v. Brown. The order of the three-judge District Court is applicable to both cases. After years of litigation, it became apparent that a remedy for the constitutional violations would not be ef fective absent a reduction in the prison system popula The authority to order release of prisoners as a remedy to cure a systemic violation of the Eighth Amend 2 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court ment is a power reserved to a three-judge district court, not a single-judge district court. U.S. C. In accordance with that rule, the Coleman and Plata District Judges independently requested that a three-judge court be convened. The Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit convened a three-judge court composed of the Coleman and Plata District Judges and a third, Ninth Circuit Judge. Because the two cases are interre lated, their limited consolidation for this purpose has a certain utility in avoiding conflicting decrees and aiding judicial consideration and enforcement. The State in this Court has not objected to consolidation, although the State does argue that the three-judge court was prematurely convened. The State objects to the substance of the three-judge court order, which requires the State to reduce overcrowding in its prisons. The appeal presents the question whether the remedial order issued by the three-judge court is consistent with requirements and procedures set forth in a congressional statute, the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA). U.S. C. see Appendix A, infra. The order leaves the choice of means to reduce overcrowding to the discre tion of state officials. But absent compliance through new construction, out-of-state transfers, or other means—or modification of the order upon a further showing by the State—the State will be required to release some number of prisoners before their full sentences have been served. High recidivism rates must serve as a warning that mis taken or premature release of even one prisoner can cause injury and harm. The |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | of even one prisoner can cause injury and harm. The release of prisoners in large num bers—assuming the State finds no other way to comply with the order—is a matter of undoubted, grave concern. At the time of trial, California’s correctional facilities held some 6,000 persons. This is nearly double the number that California’s prisons were designed to hold, and California has been ordered to reduce its prison popu Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 3 Opinion of the Court lation to 137.5% of design capacity. By the three-judge court’s own estimate, the required population reduction could be as high as 46,000 persons. Although the State has reduced the population by at least 9,000 persons dur ing the pendency of this appeal, this means a further reduction of 37,000 persons could be required. As will be noted, the reduction need not be accomplished in an indis criminate manner or in these substantial numbers if sat isfactory, alternate remedies or means for compliance are devised. The State may employ measures, including good-time credits and diversion of low-risk offenders and technical parole violators to community-based programs, that will mitigate the order’s impact. The population reduction potentially required is nevertheless of unprece dented sweep and extent. Yet so too is the continuing injury and harm resulting from these serious constitutional violations. For years the medical and mental health care provided by California’s prisons has fallen short of minimum constitutional re quirements and has failed to meet prisoners’ basic health needs. Needless suffering and death have been the well documented result. Over the whole course of years during which this litigation has been pending, no other remedies have been found to be sufficient. Efforts to remedy the violation have been frustrated by severe overcrowding in California’s prison system. Short term gains in the provi sion of care have been eroded by the long-term effects of severe and pervasive overcrowding. Overcrowding has overtaken the limited resources of prison staff; imposed demands well beyond the capacity of medical and mental health facilities; and created unsan itary and unsafe conditions that make progress in the provision of care difficult or impossible to achieve. The overcrowding is the “primary cause of the violation of a Federal right,” U.S. C. specifically the severe and unlawful mistreatment of prisoners 4 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court through grossly inadequate provision of medical and mental health care. This Court now holds that the PLRA does authorize the relief afforded in this case and that the court-mandated population limit is necessary to remedy the violation of prisoners’ constitutional rights. The order |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | to remedy the violation of prisoners’ constitutional rights. The order of the three judge court, subject to the right of the State to seek its modification in appropriate circumstances, must be affirmed. I A The degree of overcrowding in California’s prisons is exceptional. California’s prisons are designed to house a population just under 80,000, but at the time of the three judge court’s decision the population was almost double that. The State’s prisons had operated at around 200% of design capacity for at least 11 years. Prisoners are crammed into spaces neither designed nor intended to house inmates. As many as 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium, monitored by as few as two or three correc tional officers. App. 1337–1338, 1350; see Appendix B, infra. As many as 54 prisoners may share a single toilet. App. 1337. The Corrections Independent Review Panel, a body appointed by the Governor and composed of correctional consultants and representatives from state agencies, concluded that California’s prisons are “ ‘severely over crowded, imperiling the safety of both correctional em ployees and inmates.’ ”1 Juris. Statement App., O. T. 2009, —————— 1 A similar conclusion was reached by the Little Hoover Commission, a bipartisan and independent state body, which stated that “[o]vercrowded conditions inside the prison walls are unsafe for inmates and staff,” Solving California’s Corrections Crisis: Time is Running Out 17 (Jan. 2007), and that “California’s correctional system is in a tail spin,” at i. Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 5 Opinion of the Court No. 09–416, p. 56a (hereinafter Juris. App.). In 2006, then-Governor Schwarzenegger declared a state of emer gency in the prisons, as “ ‘immediate action is necessary to prevent death and harm caused by California’s severe prison overcrowding.’ ” at 61a. The consequences of overcrowding identified by the Governor include “ ‘in creased, substantial risk for transmission of infectious illness’ ” and a suicide rate “ ‘approaching an average of one per week.’ ” Prisoners in California with serious mental illness do not receive minimal, adequate care. Because of a shortage of treatment beds, suicidal inmates may be held for pro longed periods in telephone-booth sized cages without toilets. See Appendix C, infra. A psychiatric expert re ported observing an inmate who had been held in such a cage for nearly 24 hours, standing in a pool of his own urine, unresponsive and nearly catatonic. Prison officials explained they had “ ‘no place to put him.’ ” App. 593. —————— At trial, current and former California prison officials testified to the degree of overcrowding. Jeanne Woodford, who recently adminis |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | to the degree of overcrowding. Jeanne Woodford, who recently adminis tered California’s prison system, stated that “ ‘[o]vercrowding in the [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)] is extreme, its effects are pervasive and it is preventing the Department from providing adequate mental and medical health care to prisoners.’ ” Juris. App. 84a. Matthew Cate, the head of the California prison system, stated that “ ‘overpopulation makes everything we do more difficult.’ ” And Robin Dezember, chief deputy secretary of Cor rectional Healthcare Services, stated that “we are terribly overcrowded in our prison system” and “overcrowding has negative effects on every body in the prison system.” Tr. 853, 856. Experts from outside California offered similar assessments. Doyle Wayne Scott, the former head of corrections in Texas, described con ditions in California’s prisons as “appalling,” “inhumane,” and “unac ceptable” and stated that “[i]n more than 35 years of prison work experience, I have never seen anything like it.” App. 1337. Joseph Lehman, the former head of correctional systems in Washington, Maine, and Pennsylvania, concluded that “[t]here is no question that California’s prisons are overcrowded” and that “this is an emergency situation; it calls for drastic and immediate ac” 6 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court Other inmates awaiting care may be held for months in administrative segregation, where they endure harsh and isolated conditions and receive only limited mental health services. Wait times for mental health care range as high as 12 months. In 2006, the suicide rate in California’s prisons was nearly 80% higher than the national average for prison populations; and a court appointed Special Master found that 72.1% of suicides involved “some measure of inadequate assessment, treat ment, or intervention, and were therefore most probably foreseeable and/or preventable.”2 Prisoners suffering from physical illness receive severely deficient care. California’s prisons were designed to meet the medical needs of a population at % of design capacity and so have only half the clinical space needed to treat the current popula A correctional officer testified that, in one prison, up to 50 sick inmates may be held together in a 12- by 20-foot cage for up to five hours awaiting treatment. Tr. 597–599. The number of staff is inadequate, and prisoners face signifi cant delays in access to care. A prisoner with severe abdominal pain died after a 5-week delay in referral to a specialist; a prisoner with “constant and extreme” chest —————— 2 At the time of the three-judge court’s decision, 2006 was the most recent year for which the Special Master had conducted a detailed study of suicides |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | the Special Master had conducted a detailed study of suicides in the California prisons. The Special Master later issued an analysis for the year 2007. This report concluded that the 2007 suicide rate was “a continuation of the CDCR’s pattern of exceed ing the national prison suicide rate.” Record in No. 2:90–CV–00520– LKK–JFM (ED/ND Cal.), Doc. 3677, p. 1. The report found that the rate of suicides involving inadequate assessment, treatment, or inter vention had risen to 82% and concluded that “[t]hese numbers clearly indicate no improvement in this area during the past several years, and possibly signal a trend of ongoing deteriora” No de tailed study has been filed since then, but in September 2010 the Special Master filed a report stating that “the data for 2010 so far is not showing improvement in suicide preven” App. 868. Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 7 Opinion of the Court pain died after an 8-hour delay in evaluation by a doctor; and a prisoner died of testicular cancer after a “failure of MDs to work up for cancer in a young man with 17 months of testicular pain.”3 California Prison Health Care Receiv ership Corp., K. Imai, Analysis of CDCR Death Reviews 2006, pp. 6–7 (Aug. 2007). Doctor Ronald Shansky, former medical director of the Illinois state prison system, sur veyed death reviews for California prisoners. He con cluded that extreme departures from the standard of care were “widespread,” Tr. 430, and that the proportion of “possibly preventable or preventable” deaths was “ex tremely high.”4 Many more prisoners, suffer —————— 3 Because plaintiffs do not base their case on deficiencies in care provided on any one occasion, this Court has no occasion to consider whether these instances of delay—or any other particular deficiency in medical care complained of by the plaintiffs—would violate the Consti tution under if consid ered in isola Plaintiffs rely on systemwide deficiencies in the provision of medical and mental health care that, taken as a whole, subject sick and mentally ill prisoners in California to “substantial risk of serious harm” and cause the delivery of care in the prisons to fall below the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society. 4 In 2007, the last year for which the three-judge court had available statistics, an analysis of deaths in California’s prisons found 68 pre ventable or possibly preventable deaths. California Prison Health Care Receivership Corp., K. Imai, Analysis of Year 2007 Death Reviews (Nov. 2008). This was essentially unchanged from 2006, when an analysis found 66 preventable or possibly preventable deaths. |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | when an analysis found 66 preventable or possibly preventable deaths. These statistics mean that, during 2006 and 2007, a preventable or possibly preventable death occurred once every five to six days. Both preventable and possibly preventable deaths involve major lapses in medical care and are a serious cause for concern. In one typical case classified as a possibly preventable death, an analysis revealed the following lapses: “16 month delay in evaluating abnormal liver mass; 8 month delay in receiving regular chemotherapy ; multiple providers fail to respond to jaundice and abnormal liver function tests causing 17 month delay in diagnosis.” California Prison Health Care Receivership Corp., K. Imai, Analysis of Year 2009 Inmate Death Reviews—California Prison Health Care System 12 (Sept. 2010) 8 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court ing from severe but not life-threatening conditions, experi ence prolonged illness and unnecessary pain. B These conditions are the subject of two federal cases. The first to commence, Coleman v. Brown, was filed in 1990. Coleman involves the class of seriously mentally ill persons in California prisons. Over years ago, in 1995, after a 39-day trial, the Coleman District Court found “overwhelming evidence of the systematic failure to de liver necessary care to mentally ill inmates” in California prisons. (ED Cal.). The prisons were “seriously and chronically under staffed,” and had “no effective method for ensuring the competence of their staff,” The prisons had failed to implement necessary suicide prevention procedures, “due in large measure to the severe understaffing.” Mentally ill inmates “lan guished for months, or even years, without access to nec essary care.” at “They suffer from severe hallu cinations, [and] they decompensate into catatonic states.” The court appointed a Special Master to oversee development and implementation of a remedial plan of ac In 2007, 12 years after his appointment, the Special —————— (hereinafter 2009 Death Reviews). The three-judge court did not have access to statistics for 2008, but in that year the number of preventable or possibly preventable deaths held steady at 66. California Prison Health Care Receivership Corp., K. Imai, Analysis of Year 2008 Death Reviews 9 (Dec. 2009). In 2009, the number of preventable or possibly preventable deaths dropped to 46. 2009 Death Reviews 11, 13. The three-judge court could not have anticipated this development, and it would be inappropriate for this Court to evaluate its significance for the first time on appeal. The three-judge court should, of course, consider this and any other evi dence of improved conditions when considering future requests by the State for modification of its order. See infra, at 45–48. |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | State for modification of its order. See infra, at 45–48. Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 9 Opinion of the Court Master in Coleman filed a report stating that, after years of slow improvement, the state of mental health care in California’s prisons was deteriorating. App. 489. The Special Master ascribed this change to increased over crowding. The rise in population had led to greater demand for care, and existing programming space and staffing levels were inadequate to keep pace. Prisons had retained more mental health staff, but the “growth of the resource [had] not matched the rise in demand.” at 482. At the very time the need for space was rising, the need to house the expanding population had caused a “reduction of programming space now occupied by inmate bunks.” The State was “facing a four to five year gap in the availability of sufficient beds to meet the treatment needs of many inmates/patients.” “[I]ncreasing numbers of truly psychotic inmate/patients are trapped in [lower levels of treatment] that cannot meet their needs.” The Special Master concluded that many early “achievements have succumbed to the inexo rably rising tide of population, leaving behind growing frustration and despair.” C The second action, Plata v. Brown, involves the class of state prisoners with serious medical conditions. After this action commenced in 2001, the State conceded that defi ciencies in prison medical care violated prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights. The State stipulated to a remedial injunc The State failed to comply with that injunc tion, and in 2005 the court appointed a Receiver to oversee remedial efforts. The court found that “the California prison medical care system is broken beyond repair,” resulting in an “unconscionable degree of suffering and death.” App. 917. The court found: “[I]t is an uncontested fact that, on average, an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six to seven days due to 10 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court constitutional deficiencies in the [California prisons’] medical delivery system.” And the court made findings regarding specific instances of neglect, including the following: “[A] San Quentin prisoner with hypertension, diabetes and renal failure was prescribed two different medica tions that actually served to exacerbate his renal fail ure. An optometrist noted the patient’s retinal bleed ing due to very high blood pressure and referred him for immediate evaluation, but this evaluation never took place. It was not until a year later that the pa tient’s renal failure was recognized, at which point he was referred to a nephrologist on an urgent basis; he should have been seen by |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | on an urgent basis; he should have been seen by the specialist within 14 days but the consultation never happened and the pa tient died three months later.” (citations omitted). Prisons were unable to retain sufficient numbers of com petent medical staff, and would “hire any doctor who had ‘a license, a pulse and a pair of shoes,’ ” at 926. Medical facilities lacked “necessary medical equip ment” and did “not meet basic sanitation standards.” at 944. “Exam tables and counter tops, where prisoners with communicable diseases are treated, [were] not routinely disinfected.” In 2008, three years after the District Court’s decision, the Receiver described continuing deficiencies in the health care provided by California prisons: “Timely access is not assured. The number of medical personnel has been inadequate, and competence has not been assured. Adequate housing for the dis abled and aged does not exist. The medical facilities, when they exist at all, are in an abysmal state of dis repair. Basic medical equipment is often not available or used. Medications and other treatment options are Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 11 Opinion of the Court too often not available when needed. Indeed, it is a misnomer to call the existing chaos a ‘medical deliv ery system’—it is more an act of desperation than a system.” Record in No. 3:01–CV–01351–TEH (ND Cal.), Doc. 1136, p. 5. A report by the Receiver detailed the impact of overcrowd ing on efforts to remedy the viola The Receiver ex plained that “overcrowding, combined with staffing short ages, has created a culture of cynicism, fear, and despair which makes hiring and retaining competent clinicians extremely difficult.” App. 1. “[O]vercrowding, and the resulting day to day operational chaos of the [prison sys tem], creates regular ‘crisis’ situations which take time [and] energy away from important remedial pro grams.” Overcrowding had increased the incidence of infectious disease, –8, and had led to rising prison violence and greater reliance by custo dial staff on lockdowns, which “inhibit the delivery of medical care and increase the staffing necessary for such care.” “Every day,” the Receiver reported, “California prison wardens and health care managers make the difficult decision as to which of the class actions, Coleman or Plata they will fail to comply with because of staff shortages and patient loads.” D The Coleman and Plata plaintiffs, believing that a rem edy for unconstitutional medical and mental health care could not be achieved without reducing overcrowding, moved their respective District Courts to convene a three judge court empowered under the PLRA to order reduc tions in the prison |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | under the PLRA to order reduc tions in the prison popula The judges in both actions granted the request, and the cases were consolidated before a single three-judge court. The State has not chal lenged the validity of the consolidation in proceedings before this Court, so its propriety is not presented by this 12 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court appeal. The three-judge court heard 14 days of testimony and issued a 4-page opinion, making extensive findings of fact. The court ordered California to reduce its prison population to 137.5% of the prisons’ design capacity within two years. Assuming the State does not increase capacity through new construction, the order requires a population reduction of 38,000 to 46,000 persons. Because it appears all but certain that the State cannot complete sufficient construction to comply fully with the order, the prison population will have to be reduced to at least some extent. The court did not order the State to achieve this reduction in any particular manner. Instead, the court ordered the State to formulate a plan for compliance and submit its plan for approval by the court. The State appealed to this Court pursuant to 28 U.S. C. and the Court postponed consideration of the ques tion of jurisdiction to the hearing on the merits. Schwar zenegger v. Plata, 560 U. S. (2010). II As a consequence of their own actions, prisoners may be deprived of rights that are fundamental to liberty. Yet the law and the Constitution demand recognition of certain other rights. Prisoners retain the essence of human dig nity inherent in all persons. Respect for that dignity animates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. “ ‘The basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of man.’ ” (plurality opinion)). To incarcerate, society takes from prisoners the means to provide for their own needs. Prisoners are dependent on the State for food, clothing, and necessary medical care. A prison’s failure to provide sustenance for inmates “may Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 13 Opinion of the Court actually produce physical ‘torture or a lingering death.’ ” ); see generally A. Elsner, Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America’s Prisons (2004). Just as a prisoner may starve if not fed, he or she may suffer or die if not provided adequate medical care. A prison that deprives prisoners of basic sustenance, includ ing adequate medical care, is incompatible with the con cept of human dignity and has no place in civilized society. If government fails to fulfill this obligation, the courts |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | society. If government fails to fulfill this obligation, the courts have a responsibility to remedy the resulting Eighth Amendment viola See 687, n. 9 (1978). Courts must be sensitive to the State’s interest in punishment, deterrence, and rehabilitation, as well as the need for deference to experienced and expert prison administrators faced with the difficult and danger ous task of housing large numbers of convicted criminals. See Courts nevertheless must not shrink from their obligation to “en force the constitutional rights of all ‘persons,’ including prisoners.” (per curiam). Courts may not allow constitutional violations to continue simply because a remedy would involve intrusion into the realm of prison administra Courts faced with the sensitive task of remedying un constitutional prison conditions must consider a range of available options, including appointment of special mas ters or receivers and the possibility of consent decrees. When necessary to ensure compliance with a constitu tional mandate, courts may enter orders placing limits on a prison’s popula By its terms, the PLRA restricts the circumstances in which a court may enter an order “that has the purpose or effect of reducing or limiting the prison popula” U.S. C. The order in this case does not necessarily require the State to release any prisoners. The State may comply by raising the design 14 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court capacity of its prisons or by transferring prisoners to county facilities or facilities in other States. Because the order limits the prison population as a percentage of de sign capacity, it nonetheless has the “effect of reducing or limiting the prison popula” Under the PLRA, only a three-judge court may enter an order limiting a prison popula Before a three-judge court may be convened, a district court first must have entered an order for less intrusive relief that failed to remedy the constitutional violation and must have given the defendant a reasonable time to comply with its prior orders. The party request ing a three-judge court must then submit “materials suffi cient to demonstrate that [these requirements] have been met.” If the district court concludes that the materials are, in fact, sufficient, a three-judge court may be convened. ; see 28 U.S. C. (stating that a three-judge court may not be convened if the district court “determines that three judges are not required”); 17A C. Wright, A. Miller, E. Cooper, & V. Amar, Federal Practice and Procedure (3d ed. 2007). The three-judge court must then find by clear and con vincing evidence that “crowding is the primary cause of the violation of a Federal right” and |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | primary cause of the violation of a Federal right” and that “no other relief will remedy the violation of the Federal right.” U.S. C. As with any award of prospective relief under the PLRA, the relief “shall extend no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right of a particular plaintiff or plaintiffs.” The three-judge court must therefore find that the relief is “narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right.” In making this de termination, the three-judge court must give “substantial weight to any adverse impact on public safety or the op eration of a criminal justice system caused by the relief.” Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) Opinion of the Court Applying these standards, the three-judge court found a population limit appropriate, necessary, and authorized in this case. This Court’s review of the three-judge court’s legal determinations is de novo, but factual findings are re viewed for clear error. See v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573–574 (1985). Deference to trial court fact finding reflects an understanding that “[t]he trial judge’s major role is the determination of fact, and with experi ence in fulfilling that role comes expertise.” The three-judge court oversaw two weeks of trial and heard at considerable length from California prison offi cials, as well as experts in the field of correctional admini stra The judges had the opportunity to ask relevant questions of those witnesses. Two of the judges had over seen the ongoing remedial efforts of the Receiver and Special Master. The three-judge court was well situated to make the difficult factual judgments necessary to fash ion a remedy for this complex and intractable constitu tional viola The three-judge court’s findings of fact may be reversed only if this Court is left with a “ ‘definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.’ ” ). A The State contends that it was error to convene the three-judge court without affording it more time to comply with the prior orders in Coleman and Plata. 1 The parties dispute this Court’s jurisdiction to review the determinations of the Coleman and Plata District Courts that a three-judge court should be convened. Plaintiffs claim the State was required to raise this issue first in the Court of Appeals by appealing the orders of the 16 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court District Courts. When exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S. C. however, this Court “has not hesitated to exercise jurisdiction ‘to determine the authority of the court below,’ |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | exercise jurisdiction ‘to determine the authority of the court below,’ ” including whether the three-judge court was properly constituted. ); see (19) (“The case is analogous to those in which this Court, finding that the court below has acted without jurisdiction, exercises its appellate jurisdiction to correct the improper action”). The merits of the decision to con vene the three-judge court, therefore, are properly before this Court. 2 Before a three-judge court may be convened to consider whether to enter a population limit, the PLRA requires that the court have “previously entered an order for less intrusive relief that has failed to remedy the deprivation of the Federal right sought to be remedied.” U.S. C. This provision refers to “an order.” It is satisfied if the court has entered one order, and this sin gle order has “failed to remedy” the constitutional viola The defendant must have had “a reasonable amount of time to comply with the previous court orders.” This provision refers to the court’s “orders.” It requires that the defendant have been given a reasonable time to comply with all of the court’s orders. Together, these requirements ensure that the “ ‘last resort remedy’ ” of a population limit is not imposed “ ‘as a first step.’ ” Inmates of (CADC 1988). The first of these conditions, the previous order re quirement of was satisfied in Coleman by appointment of a Special Master in 1995, and it was Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 17 Opinion of the Court satisfied in Plata by approval of a consent decree and stipulated injunction in 2002. Both orders were intended to remedy the constitutional violations. Both were given ample time to succeed. When the three-judge court was convened, 12 years had passed since the appointment of the Coleman Special Master, and 5 years had passed since the approval of the Plata consent decree. The State does not claim that either order achieved a remedy. Although the PLRA entitles a State to terminate remedial orders such as these after two years unless the district court finds that the relief “remains necessary to correct a current and ongoing violation of the Federal right,” California has not attempted to obtain relief on this basis. The State claims instead that the second condition, the reasonable time requirement of was not met because other, later remedial efforts should have been given more time to succeed. In 2006, the Coleman District Judge approved a revised plan of action calling for con struction of new facilities, hiring of new staff, and im plementation of new procedures. That same |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | new staff, and im plementation of new procedures. That same year, the Plata District Judge selected and appointed a Receiver to oversee the State’s ongoing remedial efforts. When the three-judge court was convened, the Receiver had filed a preliminary plan of action calling for new construction, hiring of additional staff, and other procedural reforms. Although both the revised plan of action in Coleman and the appointment of the Receiver in Plata were new devel opments in the courts’ remedial efforts, the basic plan to solve the crisis through construction, hiring, and proce dural reforms remained unchanged. These efforts had been ongoing for years; the failed consent decree in Plata had called for implementation of new procedures and hiring of additional staff; and the Coleman Special Master had issued over 70 orders directed at achieving a remedy through construction, hiring, and procedural reforms. The BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court Coleman Special Master and Plata Receiver were unable to provide assurance that further, substantially similar efforts would yield success absent a population reduc Instead, the Coleman Special Master explained that “many of the clinical advances painfully accomplished over the past decade are slip-sliding away” as a result of overcrowding. App. 481–482. And the Plata Receiver indicated that, absent a reduction in overcrowding, a successful remedial effort could “all but bankrupt” the State of California. App. 1053. Having engaged in remedial efforts for 5 years in Plata and 12 in Coleman, the District Courts were not required to wait to see whether their more recent efforts would yield equal disappointment. When a court attempts to remedy an entrenched constitutional violation through reform of a complex institution, such as this statewide prison system, it may be necessary in the ordinary course to issue multiple orders directing and adjusting ongoing remedial efforts. Each new order must be given a reason able time to succeed, but reasonableness must be assessed in light of the entire history of the court’s remedial efforts. A contrary reading of the reasonable time requirement would in effect require district courts to impose a morato rium on new remedial orders before issuing a population limit. This unnecessary period of inaction would delay an eventual remedy and would prolong the courts’ involve ment, serving neither the State nor the prisoners. Con gress did not require this unreasonable result when it used the term “reasonable.” The Coleman and Plata courts had a solid basis to doubt that additional efforts to build new facilities and hire new staff would achieve a remedy. Indeed, although 5 years have now passed since the appointment of |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | although 5 years have now passed since the appointment of the Plata Receiver and approval of the revised plan of action in Coleman, there is no indication that the constitutional violations have been cured. A report filed by the Coleman Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 19 Opinion of the Court Special Master in July 2009 describes ongoing violations, including an “absence of timely access to appropriate levels of care at every point in the system.” App. 807. A report filed by the Plata Receiver in October 2010 likewise describes ongoing deficiencies in the provision of medical care and concludes that there are simply “too many pris oners for the healthcare infrastructure.” The Coleman and Plata courts acted reasonably when they convened a three-judge court without further delay. B Once a three-judge court has been convened, the court must find additional requirements satisfied before it may impose a population limit. The first of these requirements is that “crowding is the primary cause of the violation of a Federal right.” U.S. C. 1 The three-judge court found the primary cause require ment satisfied by the evidence at trial. The court found that overcrowding strains inadequate medical and mental health facilities; overburdens limited clinical and custodial staff; and creates violent, unsanitary, and chaotic condi tions that contribute to the constitutional violations and frustrate efforts to fashion a remedy. The three-judge court found that “until the problem of overcrowding is overcome it will be impossible to provide constitutionally compliant care to California’s prison popula” Juris. App. 141a. The parties dispute the standard of review applicable to this determina With respect to the three-judge court’s factual findings, this Court’s review is necessarily deferen tial. It is not this Court’s place to “duplicate the role” of the trial court. 470 U.S., The ultimate issue of primary cause presents a mixed question of law and fact; but there, too, “the mix weighs heavily on the 20 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court ‘fact’ side.” (Rehnquist, C. J., concurring in judgment). Because the “district court is ‘better positioned’ to decide the issue,” our review of the three-judge court’s primary cause deter mination is deferential. Salve Regina The record documents the severe impact of burgeoning demand on the provision of care. At the time of trial, vacancy rates for medical and mental health staff ranged as high as 20% for surgeons, 25% for physicians, 39% for nurse practitioners, and 54.1% for psychiatrists. Juris. App. 105a, 108a. These percentages are based on the number of positions budgeted by the State. Dr. Ronald Shansky, former medical director of the |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | the State. Dr. Ronald Shansky, former medical director of the Illinois prison system, concluded that these numbers understate the se verity of the crisis because the State has not budgeted sufficient staff to meet demand.5 According to Dr. Shansky, “even if the prisons were able to fill all of their vacant health care positions, which they have not been able to do to date, the prisons would still be unable to handle the level of need given the current overcrowding.” Record in No. 2:90–CV–00520–LKK–JFM (ED Cal.), Doc. 3231–13, p. 16 (hereinafter Doc. 3231–13). Dr. Craig Haney, a professor of psychology, reported that mental health staff are “managing far larger caseloads than is appropriate or effective.” App. 596. A prison psychiatrist told Dr. Haney that “ ‘we are doing about 50% of what we should be doing.’ ” In the context of physical care Dr. Shansky agreed that “demand for care, particularly for the high priority cases, continues to overwhelm the resources —————— 5 Dr. Craig Haney likewise testified that the State had “significantly underestimated the staffing needed to implement critical portions of the Coleman Program Guide requirements,” that “key tasks were omitted when determining staffing workloads,” and that estimates were based on “key assumptions” that caused the State to underestimate demand for mental health care. App. 596–597. Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 21 Opinion of the Court available.” Even on the assumption that vacant positions could be filled, the evidence suggested there would be insufficient space for the necessary additional staff to perform their jobs. The Plata Receiver, in his report on overcrowding, concluded that even the “newest and most modern pris ons” had been “designed with clinic space which is only one-half that necessary for the real-life capacity of the prisons.” App. 1023 (emphasis deleted). Dr. Haney re ported that “[e]ach one of the facilities I toured was short of significant amounts of space needed to perform other wise critical tasks and responsibilities.” at 597–598. In one facility, staff cared for 7,525 prisoners in space designed for one-third as many. Juris. App. 93a. Staff operate out of converted storage rooms, closets, bath rooms, shower rooms, and visiting centers. These make shift facilities impede the effective delivery of care and place the safety of medical professionals in jeopardy, compounding the difficulty of hiring additional staff. This shortfall of resources relative to demand contrib utes to significant delays in treatment. Mentally ill pris oners are housed in administrative segregation while awaiting transfer to scarce mental health treatment beds for appropriate care. One correctional officer indicated that he had kept mentally |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | care. One correctional officer indicated that he had kept mentally ill prisoners in segregation for “ ‘6 months or more.’ ” App. 594. Other prisoners awaiting care are held in tiny, phone-booth sized cages. The record documents instances of prisoners committing suicide while awaiting treatment.6 Delays are no less severe in the context of physical care. —————— 6 For instance, Dr. Pablo Stewart reported that one prisoner was referred to a crisis bed but, “[a]fter learning that the restraint room was not available and that there were no crisis beds open, staff moved [the prisoner] back to his administrative segregation cell without any prescribed observa” App. 736. The prisoner “hanged himself that night in his cell.” ; see Juris. App. 99a. 22 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court Prisons have backlogs of up to 700 prisoners waiting to see a doctor. Doc. 3231–13, at A review of referrals for urgent specialty care at one prison revealed that only 105 of 316 pending referrals had a scheduled appointment, and only 2 had an appointment scheduled to occur within 14 days. at 22–23. Urgent specialty referrals at one prison had been pending for six months to a year. at 27. Crowding creates unsafe and unsanitary living conditions that hamper effective delivery of medical and mental health care. A medical expert described living quarters in converted gymnasiums or dayrooms, where large numbers of prisoners may share just a few toilets and showers, as “ ‘breeding grounds for disease.’ ”7 Juris. App. 102a. Cramped conditions promote unrest and vio lence, making it difficult for prison officials to monitor and control the prison popula On any given day, prisoners in the general prison population may become ill, thus entering the plaintiff class; and overcrowding may prevent immediate medical attention necessary to avoid suffering, death, or spread of disease. After one prisoner was as saulted in a crowded gymnasium, prison staff did not even learn of the injury until the prisoner had been dead for several hours. Tr. 382. Living in crowded, unsafe, and unsanitary conditions can cause prisoners with latent mental illnesses to worsen and develop overt symptoms. Crowding may impede efforts to improve delivery of —————— 7 Correctional officials at trial described several outbreaks of disease. One officer testified that antibiotic-resistant staph infections spread widely among the prison population and described prisoners “bleeding, oozing with pus that is soaking through their clothes when they come in to get the wound covered and treated.” Tr. 601, 604–605. Another witness testified that inmates with influenza were sent back from the infirmary due to a lack |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | were sent back from the infirmary due to a lack of beds and that the disease quickly spread to “more than half ” the 0 prisoners in the housing unit, with the result that the unit was placed on lockdown for a week. at 720–721. Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 23 Opinion of the Court care. Two prisoners committed suicide by hanging after being placed in cells that had been identified as requiring a simple fix to remove attachment points that could sup port a noose. The repair was not made because doing so would involve removing prisoners from the cells, and there was no place to put them. at 769–777. More gen erally, Jeanne Woodford, the former acting secretary of California’s prisons, testified that there “ ‘are simply too many issues that arise from such a large number of pris oners,’ ” and that, as a result, “ ‘management spends virtu ally all of its time fighting fires instead of engaging in thoughtful decision-making and planning’ ” of the sort needed to fashion an effective remedy for these constitu tional violations. Juris. App. 82a. Increased violence requires increased reliance on lockdowns to keep order, and lockdowns further impede the effective delivery of care. In 2006, prison officials instituted 449 lockdowns. at 116a. The average lock down lasted 12 days, and 20 lockdowns lasted 60 days or longer. During lockdowns, staff must either escort prisoners to medical facilities or bring medical staff to the prisoners. Either procedure puts additional strain on already overburdened medical and custodial staff. Some programming for the mentally ill even may be canceled altogether during lockdowns, and staff may be unable to supervise the delivery of psychotropic medications. The effects of overcrowding are particularly acute in the prisons’ reception centers, intake areas that process 140,000 new or returning prisoners every year. at 85a. Crowding in these areas runs as high as 300% of design capacity. at 86a. Living conditions are “ ‘toxic,’ ” and a lack of treatment space impedes efforts to identify inmate medical or mental health needs and pro vide even rudimentary care. at 92a. The former warden of San Quentin reported that doctors in that prison’s reception center “ ‘were unable to keep up with 24 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court physicals or provid[e] any kind of chronic care follow-up.’ ” at 90a. Inmates spend long periods of time in these areas awaiting transfer to the general popula Some prisoners are held in the reception centers for their entire period of incarcera Numerous experts testified that crowding is the primary |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | of incarcera Numerous experts testified that crowding is the primary cause of the constitutional violations. The former warden of San Quentin and former acting secretary of the Califor nia prisons concluded that crowding “makes it ‘virtually impossible for the organization to develop, much less implement, a plan to provide prisoners with adequate care.’ ” at 83a. The former executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice testified that “ ‘[e]verything revolves around overcrowding” and that “ ‘overcrowding is the primary cause of the medical and mental health care violations.’ ” 7a. The former head of corrections in Pennsylvania, Washington, and Maine testified that overcrowding is “ ‘overwhelming the system both in terms of sheer numbers, in terms of the space available, in terms of providing healthcare.’ ” And the current secretary of the Pennsylvania Depart ment of Corrections testified that “ ‘‘the biggest inhibiting factor right now in California being able to deliver appro priate mental health and medical care is the severe over crowding.’ ” at 82a. 2 The State attempts to undermine the substantial evi dence presented at trial, and the three-judge court’s find ings of fact, by complaining that the three-judge court did not allow it to present evidence of current prison condi tions. This suggestion lacks a factual basis. The three-judge court properly admitted evidence of current conditions as relevant to the issues before it. The three-judge court allowed discovery until a few months before trial; expert witnesses based their conclusions on Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 25 Opinion of the Court recent observations of prison conditions; the court ad mitted recent reports on prison conditions by the Plata Receiver and Coleman Special Master; and both parties presented testimony related to current conditions, includ ing understaffing, inadequate facilities, and unsanitary and unsafe living conditions. See at 4–8, 19–24. Dr. Craig Haney, for example, based his expert report on tours of eight California prisons. App. 539. These tours occurred as late as August 2008, two weeks before Dr. Haney submitted his report and less than four months before the first day of trial. ; see 565, 580 (July tours). Other experts submitted reports based on similar observations. See, e.g., Doc. 3231–13, at 6 (Dr. Shansky); App. 646 (Dr. Stewart); 45 (Austin); The three-judge court’s opinion cited and relied on this evidence of current conditions. The court relied exten sively on the expert witness reports. See generally Juris. App. 85a–143a. The court cited the most current data available on suicides and preventable deaths in the Cali fornia prisons. 3a, 125a. The court relied on statistics on |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | fornia prisons. 3a, 125a. The court relied on statistics on staff vacancies that dated to three months before trial, at 105a, 108a, and statistics on shortages of treatment beds for the same period, at 97a. These are just examples of the extensive evidence of current conditions that informed every aspect of the judgment of the three-judge court. The three-judge court did not abuse its discretion when it cited findings made in earlier decisions of the Plata and Coleman District Courts. Those findings remained relevant to establish the nature of these longstanding, continuing constitutional violations. It is true that the three-judge court established a cutoff date for discovery a few months before trial. The order stated that site inspections of prisons would be allowed until that date, and that evidence of “changed prison conditions” after that date would not be admitted. App. 26 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court 1190. The court excluded evidence not pertinent to the issue whether a population limit is appropriate under the PLRA, including evidence relevant solely to the exis tence of an ongoing constitutional viola The court reasoned that its decision was limited to the issue of rem edy and that the merits of the constitutional violation had already been determined. The three-judge court made clear that all such evidence would be considered “[t]o the extent that it illuminates questions that are properly before the court.” App. 9. Both rulings were within the sound discretion of the three-judge court. Orderly trial management may require discovery deadlines and a clean distinction between litiga tion of the merits and the remedy. The State in fact represented to the three-judge court that it would be “ap propriate” to cut off discovery before trial because “like plaintiffs, we, too, are really gearing up and going into a pretrial mode.” And if the State truly be lieved there was no longer a violation, it could have argued to the Coleman and Plata District Courts that a three judge court should not be convened because the District Courts’ prior orders had not “failed to remedy the dep rivation” of prisoners’ constitutional rights. U.S. C. see at 16–17. Once the three judge court was convened, that court was not required to reconsider the merits. Its role was solely to consider the propriety and necessity of a population limit. The State does not point to any significant evidence that it was unable to present and that would have changed the outcome of the proceedings. To the contrary, the record and opinion make clear that the decision of the three judge court was |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | clear that the decision of the three judge court was based on current evidence pertaining to ongoing constitutional violations. 3 The three-judge court acknowledged that the violations Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 27 Opinion of the Court were caused by factors in addition to overcrowding and that reducing crowding in the prisons would not entirely cure the violations. This is consistent with the reports of the Coleman Special Master and Plata Receiver, both of whom concluded that even a significant reduction in the prison population would not remedy the violations absent continued efforts to train staff, improve facilities, and reform procedures. App. 487, 1054.8 The three-judge court nevertheless found that overcrowding was the pri mary cause in the sense of being the foremost cause of the viola This understanding of the primary cause requirement is consistent with the text of the PLRA. The State in fact concedes that it proposed this very definition of primary cause to the three-judge court. “Primary” is defined as “[f]irst or highest in rank, quality, or importance; princi pal.” American Heritage Dictionary 1393 (4th ed. 2000); see Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 00 (defining “primary” as “first in rank or impor tance”); 12 Oxford English Dictionary 472 (2d ed. 1989) (defining “primary” as “[o]f the first or highest rank or importance; that claims the first consideration; principal, chief ”). Overcrowding need only be the foremost, chief, or principal cause of the viola If Congress had intended —————— 8 The Plata Receiver concluded that those who believed a population reduction would be a panacea were “simply wrong.” App. 1054–1055. The Receiver nevertheless made clear that “the time this process will take, and the cost and the scope of intrusion by the Federal Court cannot help but increase, and increase in a very significant manner, if the scope and characteristics of [California prison] overcrowding continue.” The Coleman Special Master likewise found that a large release of prisoners, without other relief, would leave the violation “largely unmitigated” even though deficiencies in care “are unquestionably exacerbated by overcrowding” and “defendants’ ability to provide required mental health services would be enhanced consid erably by a reduction in the overall census” of the prisons. App. 486– 487. 28 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court to require that crowding be the only cause, it would have said so, assuming in its judgment that definition would be consistent with constitutional limitations. As this case illustrates, constitutional violations in conditions of confinement are rarely susceptible of simple or straightforward solutions. In addition to overcrowding the failure of California’s prisons to provide adequate |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | to overcrowding the failure of California’s prisons to provide adequate medical and mental health care may be ascribed to chronic and worsening budget shortfalls, a lack of political will in favor of reform, inadequate facilities, and systemic admin istrative failures. The Plata District Judge, in his order appointing the Receiver, compared the problem to “ ‘a spider web, in which the tension of the various strands is determined by the relationship among all the parts of the web, so that if one pulls on a single strand, the tension of the entire web is redistributed in a new and complex pattern.’ ” App. 966–967 (quoting Fletcher, The Discre tionary Constitution: Institutional Remedies and Judicial Legitimacy, 91 Yale L. J. 635, 645 (1982)); see (noting “the interdependence of the con ditions producing the violation,” including overcrowd ing). Only a multifaceted approach aimed at many causes, including overcrowding, will yield a solu The PLRA should not be interpreted to place undue restrictions on the authority of federal courts to fashion practical remedies when confronted with complex and intractable constitutional violations. Congress limited the availability of limits on prison populations, but it did not forbid these measures altogether. See U.S. C. The House Report accompanying the PLRA explained: “While prison caps must be the remedy of last re sort, a court still retains the power to order this remedy despite its intrusive nature and harmful con sequences to the public if, but only if, it is truly necessary to prevent an actual violation of a prisoner’s Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 29 Opinion of the Court federal rights.” H. R. Rep. No. 104–21, p. 25 (1995). Courts should presume that Congress was sensitive to the real-world problems faced by those who would remedy constitutional violations in the prisons and that Congress did not leave prisoners without a remedy for violations of their constitutional rights. A reading of the PLRA that would render population limits unavailable in practice would raise serious constitutional concerns. See, e.g., Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, 476 U.S. 667, 681, n. 12 (1986). A finding that overcrowding is the “primary cause” of a violation is therefore permissi ble, despite the fact that additional steps will be required to remedy the viola C The three-judge court was required to find by clear and convincing evidence that “no other relief will remedy the violation of the Federal right.” The State argues that the violation could have been remedied through a combination of new construction, transfers of prisoners out of State, hiring of medical per sonnel, and continued efforts by |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | State, hiring of medical per sonnel, and continued efforts by the Plata Receiver and Coleman Special Master. The order in fact permits the State to comply with the population limit by transferring prisoners to county facilities or facilities in other States, or by constructing new facilities to raise the prisons’ design capacity. And the three-judge court’s order does not bar the State from undertaking any other remedial efforts. If the State does find an adequate remedy other than a population limit, it may seek modification or termination of the three-judge court’s order on that basis. The evi dence at trial, however, supports the three-judge court’s conclusion that an order limited to other remedies would not provide effective relief. The State’s argument that out-of-state transfers provide a less restrictive alternative to a population limit must fail 30 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court because requiring out-of-state transfers itself qualifies as a population limit under the PLRA.9 Such an order “has the purpose or effect of reducing or limiting the prison population, or directs the release from or nonadmission of prisoners to a prison.” The same is true of transfers to county facilities. Transfers provide a means to reduce the prison population in compliance with the three-judge court’s order. They are not a less restrictive alternative to that order. Even if out-of-state transfers could be regarded as a less restrictive alternative, the three-judge court found no evidence of plans for transfers in numbers sufficient to relieve overcrowding. The State complains that the Cole man District Court slowed the rate of transfer by requir ing inspections to assure that the receiving institutions were in compliance with the Eighth Amendment, but the State has made no effort to show that it has the resources and the capacity to transfer significantly larger numbers of prisoners absent that condi Construction of new facilities, in theory, could alleviate overcrowding, but the three-judge court found no realistic possibility that California would be able to build itself out of this crisis. At the time of the court’s decision the State had plans to build new medical and housing facilities, but funding for some plans had not been secured and funding for other plans had been delayed by the legislature for years. Particularly in light of California’s ongoing fiscal crisis, the three-judge court deemed “chimerical” any “remedy that requires significant additional spending by the state.” Juris. App. 1a. Events subsequent to the —————— 9 A program of voluntary transfers by the State would, of course, be less restrictive than an order mandating a reduction in the prison popula In |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | an order mandating a reduction in the prison popula In light of the State’s longstanding failure to remedy these serious constitutional violations, the three-judge court was under no obligation to consider voluntary population-reduction measures by the State as a workable alternative to injunctive relief. Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 31 Opinion of the Court three-judge court’s decision have confirmed this conclu sion. In October 2010, the State notified the Coleman District Court that a substantial component of its con struction plans had been delayed indefinitely by the legis lature. And even if planned construction were to be completed, the Plata Receiver found that many so-called “expansion” plans called for cramming more prisoners into existing prisons without expanding administrative and support facilities. Juris. App. 1a–2a. The former acting secretary of the California prisons explained that these plans would “ ‘compound the burdens imposed on prison administrators and line staff’’ ” by adding to the already overwhelming prison population, creating new barriers to achievement of a remedy. at 2a. The three-judge court rejected additional hiring as a realistic means to achieve a remedy. The State for years had been unable to fill positions necessary for the ade quate provision of medical and mental health care, and the three-judge court found no reason to expect a change. Although the State points to limited gains in staffing between 2007 and 2008, the record shows that the prison system remained chronically understaffed through trial in 2008. See The three-judge court found that violence and other negative conditions caused by crowding made it difficult to hire and retain needed staff. The court concluded that there would be insufficient space for additional staff to work even if adequate personnel could somehow be retained. Additional staff cannot help to remedy the violation if they have no space in which to see and treat patients. The three-judge court did not err, much less commit clear error, when it concluded that, absent a population reduction, continued efforts by the Receiver and Special Master would not achieve a remedy. Both the Receiver and the Special Master filed reports stating that over crowding posed a significant barrier to their efforts. The 32 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court Plata Receiver stated that he was determined to achieve a remedy even without a population reduction, but he warned that such an effort would “all but bankrupt” the State. App. 1053. The Coleman Special Master noted even more serious concerns, stating that previous reme dial efforts had “succumbed to the inexorably rising tide of popula” App. 489. Both reports are persuasive evi |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | tide of popula” App. 489. Both reports are persuasive evi dence that, absent a reduction in overcrowding, any rem edy might prove unattainable and would at the very least require vast expenditures of resources by the State. Noth ing in the long history of the Coleman and Plata actions demonstrates any real possibility that the necessary re sources would be made available. The State claims that, even if each of these measures were unlikely to remedy the violation, they would succeed in doing so if combined together. Aside from asserting this proposition, the State offers no reason to believe it is so. Attempts to remedy the violations in Plata have been ongoing for 9 years. In Coleman, remedial efforts have been ongoing for 16. At one time, it may have been possi ble to hope that these violations would be cured without a reduction in overcrowding. A long history of failed reme dial orders, together with substantial evidence of over crowding’s deleterious effects on the provision of care, compels a different conclusion today. The common thread connecting the State’s proposed remedial efforts is that they would require the State to expend large amounts of money absent a reduction in overcrowding. The Court cannot ignore the political and fiscal reality behind this case. California’s Legislature has not been willing or able to allocate the resources necessary to meet this crisis absent a reduction in overcrowding. There is no reason to believe it will begin to do so now, when the State of California is facing an unprecedented budgetary shortfall. As noted above, the legislature re cently failed to allocate funds for planned new construc Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 33 Opinion of the Court at 30–31. Without a reduction in overcrowd ing, there will be no efficacious remedy for the unconsti tutional care of the sick and mentally ill in California’s prisons. D The PLRA states that no prospective relief shall issue with respect to prison conditions unless it is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of a federal right, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the viola U.S. C. When determining whether these requirements are met, courts must “give substantial weight to any ad verse impact on public safety or the operation of a criminal justice system.” 1 The three-judge court acknowledged that its order “is likely to affect inmates without medical conditions or serious mental illness.” Juris. App. 172a. This is because reducing California’s prison population will require reduc ing the number of prisoners outside the class through steps such |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | the number of prisoners outside the class through steps such as parole reform, sentencing reform, use of good-time credits, or other means to be determined by the State. Reducing overcrowding will have positive effects beyond facilitating timely and adequate access to medical care, including reducing the incidence of prison violence and ameliorating unsafe living conditions. Ac cording to the State, these collateral consequences are evidence that the order sweeps more broadly than necessary. The population limit imposed by the three-judge court does not fail narrow tailoring simply because it will have positive effects beyond the plaintiff class. Narrow tailor ing requires a “ ‘ “fit” between the [remedy’s] ends and the means chosen to accomplish those ends.’ ” Board of Trus BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court tees of State Univ. of N. (1989). The scope of the remedy must be proportional to the scope of the violation, and the order must extend no further than necessary to remedy the viola This Court has rejected remedial orders that unnecessarily reach out to improve prison conditions other than those that violate the Constitu Lewis v. Casey, 5 U.S. 3, 357 (1996). But the precedents do not suggest that a narrow and otherwise proper remedy for a constitutional violation is invalid simply because it will have collateral effects. Nor does anything in the text of the PLRA require that result. The PLRA states that a remedy shall extend no further than necessary to remedy the violation of the rights of a “particular plaintiff or plaintiffs.” U.S. C. This means only that the scope of the order must be determined with reference to the consti tutional violations established by the specific plaintiffs before the court. This case is unlike cases where courts have impermis sibly reached out to control the treatment of persons or institutions beyond the scope of the viola See Dayton Bd. of Even prisoners with no present physical or mental illness may become afflicted, and all prisoners in California are at risk so long as the State continues to provide inadequate care. Prisoners in the general population will become sick, and will become members of the plaintiff classes, with rou- tine frequency; and overcrowding may prevent the timely diagnosis and care necessary to provide effective treat ment and to prevent further spread of disease. Relief targeted only at present members of the plaintiff classes may therefore fail to adequately protect future class mem bers who will develop serious physical or mental illness. Prisoners who are not sick or mentally ill do not yet have a claim that they have |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | ill do not yet have a claim that they have been subjected to care that violates Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 35 Opinion of the Court the Eighth Amendment, but in no sense are they remote bystanders in California’s medical care system. They are that system’s next potential victims. A release order limited to prisoners within the plaintiff classes would, if anything, unduly limit the ability of State officials to determine which prisoners should be released. As the State acknowledges in its brief, “release of seriously mentally ill inmates [would be] likely to create special dangers because of their recidivism rates.” Consolidated Reply Brief for Appellants The order of the three judge court gives the State substantial flexibility to determine who should be released. If the State truly be lieves that a release order limited to sick and mentally ill inmates would be preferable to the order entered by the three-judge court, the State can move the three-judge court for modification of the order on that basis. The State has not requested this relief from this Court. The order is not overbroad because it encompasses the entire prison system, rather than separately assessing the need for a population limit at every institu The Coleman court found a systemwide violation when it first afforded relief, and in Plata the State stipulated to sys temwide relief when it conceded the existence of a viola Both the Coleman Special Master and the Plata Receiver have filed numerous reports detailing system wide deficiencies in medical and mental health care. California’s medical care program is run at a systemwide level, and resources are shared among the correctional facilities. Although the three-judge court’s order addresses the entire California prison system, it affords the State flexi bility to accommodate differences between institutions. There is no requirement that every facility comply with the 137.5% limit. Assuming no constitutional violation results, some facilities may retain populations in excess of the limit provided other facilities fall sufficiently below it 36 BROWN v. PLATA Opinion of the Court so the system as a whole remains in compliance with the order. This will allow prison officials to shift prisoners to facilities that are better able to accommodate over crowding, or out of facilities where retaining sufficient medical staff has been difficult. The alternative—a series of institution-specific population limits—would require federal judges to make these choices. Leaving this discre tion to state officials does not make the order overbroad. Nor is the order overbroad because it limits the State’s authority to run its prisons, as the State urges in its brief. While |
Justice Kennedy | 2,011 | 4 | majority | Brown v. Plata | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/217161/brown-v-plata/ | its prisons, as the State urges in its brief. While the order does in some respects shape or control the State’s authority in the realm of prison administration, it does so in a manner that leaves much to the State’s discre The State may choose how to allocate prisoners between institutions; it may choose whether to increase the prisons’ capacity through construction or reduce the population; and, if it does reduce the population, it may decide what steps to take to achieve the necessary reduc The order’s limited scope is necessary to remedy a constitutional viola As the State implements the order of the three-judge court, time and experience may reveal targeted and effec tive remedies that will end the constitutional violations even without a significant decrease in the general prison popula The State will be free to move the three-judge court for modification of its order on that basis, and these motions would be entitled to serious considera See infra, at 45–48. At this time, the State has not proposed any realistic alternative to the order. The State’s desire to avoid a population limit, justified as according respect to state authority, creates a certain and unacceptable risk of continuing violations of the rights of sick and mentally ill prisoners, with the result that many more will die or needlessly suffer. The Constitution does not permit this wrong. Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 37 Opinion of the Court 2 In reaching its decision, the three-judge court gave “substantial weight” to any potential adverse impact on public safety from its order. The court devoted nearly 10 days of trial to the issue of public safety, and it gave the question extensive attention in its opinion. Ultimately, the court concluded that it would be possible to reduce the prison population “in a manner that preserves public safety and the operation of the criminal justice system.” Juris. App. 247a–248a. The PLRA’s requirement that a court give “substantial weight” to public safety does not require the court to cer tify that its order has no possible adverse impact on the public. A contrary reading would depart from the statute’s text by replacing the word “substantial” with “conclusive.” Whenever a court issues an order requiring the State to adjust its incarceration and criminal justice policy, there is a risk that the order will have some adverse impact on public safety in some sectors. This is particularly true when the order requires release of prisoners before their sentence has been served. Persons incarcerated for even one offense may have committed many other crimes prior to |
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