author_name
stringclasses 26
values | year
int64 1.97k
2.02k
| label
int64 0
200
| category
stringclasses 5
values | case_name
stringlengths 9
127
| url
stringlengths 55
120
| text
stringlengths 1k
3.91k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Justice Brennan | 1,975 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109194/nlrb-v-j-weingarten-inc/ | reported the details of the interview fully to her shop steward and other union representatives, and this unfair labor practice proceeding resulted.[4] II The Board's construction that 7 creates a statutory right in an employee to refuse to submit without union representation to an interview which he reasonably fears may result in his discipline was announced in its decision and order of January 28, 1972, in Quality Mfg. Co., 195 N. L. R. B. 197, considered in Garment In its opinions in that case and in Mobil Oil Corp., 1 N. L. R. B. 1052, decided May 12, 1972, three months later, the Board shaped the contours and limits of the statutory right. First, the right inheres in 7's guarantee of the right of employees to act in concert for mutual aid and protection. In Mobil Oil, the Board stated: "An employee's right to union representation upon request is based on Section 7 of the Act which guarantees the right of employees to act in concert for *257 `mutual aid and protection.' The denial of this right has a reasonable tendency to interfere with, restrain, and coerce employees in violation of Section 8 (a) (1) of the Act. Thus, it is a serious violation of the employee's individual right to engage in concerted activity by seeking the assistance of his statutory representative if the employer denies the employee's request and compels the employee to appear unassisted at an interview which may put his job security in jeopardy. Such a dilution of the employee's right to act collectively to protect his job interests is, in our view, unwarranted interference with his right to insist on concerted protection, rather than individual self-protection, against possible adverse employer action." Second, the right arises only in situations where the employee requests representation. In other words, the employee may forgo his guaranteed right and, if he prefers, participate in an interview unaccompanied by his union representative. Third, the employee's right to request representation as a condition of participation in an interview is limited to situations where the employee reasonably believes the investigation will result in disciplinary action.[5] Thus the Board stated in Quality: "We would not apply the rule to such run-of-the-mill *258 shop-floor conversations as, for example, the giving of instructions or training or needed corrections of work techniques. In such cases there cannot normally be any reasonable basis for an employee to fear that any adverse impact may result from the interview, and thus we would then see no reasonable basis for him to seek the assistance of his representative." 195 N. L. R. |
Justice Brennan | 1,975 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109194/nlrb-v-j-weingarten-inc/ | seek the assistance of his representative." 195 N. L. R. B., at 199. Fourth, exercise of the right may not interfere with legitimate employer prerogatives. The employer has no obligation to justify his refusal to allow union representation, and despite refusal, the employer is free to carry on his inquiry without interviewing the employee, and thus leave to the employee the choice between having an interview unaccompanied by his representative, or having no interview and forgoing any benefits that might be derived from one. As stated in Mobil Oil: "The employer may, if it wishes, advise the employee that it will not proceed with the interview unless the employee is willing to enter the interview *259 unaccompanied by his representative. The employee may then refrain from participating in the interview, thereby protecting his right to representation, but at the same time relinquishing any benefit which might be derived from the The employer would then be free to act on the basis of information obtained from other sources." 1 N. L. R. B., at 1052. The Board explained in Quality: "This seems to us to be the only course consistent with all of the provisions of our Act. It permits the employer to reject a collective course in situations such as investigative interviews where a collective course is not required but protects the employee's right to protection by his chosen agents. Participation in the interview is then voluntary, and, if the employee has reasonable ground to fear that the interview will adversely affect his continued employment, or even his working conditions, he may choose to forego it unless he is afforded the safeguard of his representative's presence. He would then also forego whatever benefit might come from the And, in that event, the employer would, of course, be free to act on the basis of whatever information he had and without such additional facts as might have been gleaned through the " 195 N. L. R. B., at 198-199. Fifth, the employer has no duty to bargain with any union representative who may be permitted to attend the investigatory The Board said in Mobil, "we are not giving the Union any particular rights with respect to predisciplinary discussions which it otherwise was not able to secure during collective-bargaining negotiations." 1 N. L. R. B., at 1052 n. 3. The Board thus adhered to its decisions distinguishing between disciplinary *260 and investigatory interviews, imposing a mandatory affirmative obligation to meet with the union representative only in the case of the disciplinary Texaco, Inc., Houston Producing Division, 168 N. L. R. B. 361 |
Justice Brennan | 1,975 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109194/nlrb-v-j-weingarten-inc/ | Inc., Houston Producing Division, 168 N. L. R. B. 361 ; Chevron Oil Co., 168 N. L. R. B. 574 ; Jacobe-Pearson Ford, Inc., 172 N. L. R. B. 594 (18). The employer has no duty to bargain with the union representative at an investigatory "The representative is present to assist the employee, and may attempt to clarify the facts or suggest other employees who may have knowledge of them. The employer, however, is free to insist that he is only interested, at that time, in hearing the employee's own account of the matter under investigation." Brief for Petitioner 22. III The Board's holding is a permissible construction of "concerted activities for mutual aid or protection" by the agency charged by Congress with enforcement of the Act, and should have been sustained. The action of an employee in seeking to have the assistance of his union representative at a confrontation with his employer clearly falls within the literal wording of 7 that "[e]mployees shall have the right to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of mutual aid or protection." Mobil Oil This is true even though the employee alone may have an immediate stake in the outcome; he seeks "aid or protection" against a perceived threat to his employment security. The union representative whose participation he seeks is, however, safeguarding not only the particular employee's interest, but also the interests of the entire bargaining unit by exercising vigilance to make certain that the employer does not initiate or continue a practice of imposing punishment *261 unjustly.[6] The representative's presence is an assurance to other employees in the bargaining unit that they, too, can obtain his aid and protection if called upon to attend a like Concerted activity for mutual aid or protection is therefore as present here as it was held to be in cited with approval by this Court in Houston Contractors : " `When all the other workmen in a shop make common cause with a fellow workman over his separate grievance, and go out on strike in his support, they engage in a "concerted activity" for "mutual aid or protection," although the aggrieved workman is the only one of them who has any immediate stake in the outcome. The rest know that by their action each of them assures himself, in case his turn ever comes, of the support of the one whom they are all then helping; and the solidarity so established is "mutual aid" in the most literal sense, as nobody doubts.' " The Board's construction plainly effectuates the most fundamental purposes of the |
Justice Brennan | 1,975 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109194/nlrb-v-j-weingarten-inc/ | Board's construction plainly effectuates the most fundamental purposes of the Act. In 1, 29 U.S. C. 151, the Act declares that it is a goal of national labor policy to protect "the exercise by workers of full freedom *262 of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of mutual aid or protection." To that end the Act is designed to eliminate the "inequality of bargaining power between employees and employers." Requiring a lone employee to attend an investigatory interview which he reasonably believes may result in the imposition of discipline perpetuates the inequality the Act was designed to eliminate, and bars recourse to the safeguards the Act provided "to redress the perceived imbalance of economic power between labor and management." American Ship Building Viewed in this light, the Board's recognition that 7 guarantees an employee's right to the presence of a union representative at an investigatory interview in which the risk of discipline reasonably inheres is within the protective ambit of the section " `read in the light of the mischief to be corrected and the end to be attained.' " The Board's construction also gives recognition to the right when it is most useful to both employee and employer.[7] A single employee confronted by an employer *263 investigating whether certain conduct deserves discipline may be too fearful or inarticulate to relate accurately the incident being investigated, or too ignorant to raise extenuating factors. A knowledgeable union representative could assist the employer by eliciting favorable facts, and save the employer production time by getting to the bottom of the incident occasioning the Certainly his presence need not transform the interview into an adversary contest. Respondent suggests nonetheless that union representation at this stage is unnecessary because a decision as to employee culpability or disciplinary action can be corrected after the decision to impose discipline has become final. In other words, respondent would defer representation until the filing of a formal grievance challenging the employer's determination of guilt after the employee has been discharged or otherwise disciplined.[8] At that point, however, it becomes increasingly difficult for the employee to vindicate himself, and the *264 value of representation is correspondingly diminished. The employer may then be more concerned with justifying his actions than re-examining them. IV The Court of Appeals rejected the Board's construction as foreclosed by that court's decision four years earlier in Texaco, Inc., Houston Producing and by "a long line of Board decisions, each of which indicateseither directly or indirectly that no union representative need be present" at an investigatory The Board distinguishes |
Justice Brennan | 1,975 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109194/nlrb-v-j-weingarten-inc/ | representative need be present" at an investigatory The Board distinguishes Texaco as presenting not the question whether the refusal to allow the employee to have his union representative present constituted a violation of 8 (a) (1) but rather the question whether 8 (a) (5) precluded the employer from refusing to deal with the union. We need not determine whether Texaco is distinguishable. Insofar as the Court of Appeals there held that an employer does not violate 8 (a) (1) if he denies an employee's request for union representation at an investigatory interview, and requires him to attend the interview alone, our decision today reversing the Court of Appeals' judgment based upon Texaco supersedes that holding. In respect of its own precedents, the Board asserts that even though some "may be read as reaching a contrary conclusion," they should not be treated as impairing the validity of the Board's construction, because "[t]hese decisions do not reflect a considered analysis of the issue." Brief for Petitioner 25.[9] In that circumstance, and in the *265 light of significant developments in industrial life believed by the Board to have warranted a reappraisal of the question,[10] the Board argues that the case is one where "[t]he nature of the problem, as revealed by unfolding variant situations, inevitably involves an evolutionary process for its rational response, not a quick, definitive formula as a comprehensive answer. And so, it is not surprising that the Board has more or less felt its way and has modified and reformed its standards on the basis of accumulating experience." Electrical We agree that its earlier precedents do not impair the validity of the Board's construction. That construction in no wise exceeds the reach of 7, but falls well within the scope of the rights created by that section. The use by an administrative agency of the evolutional approach is particularly fitting. To hold that the Board's earlier decisions froze the development of this important aspect *266 of the national labor law would misconceive the nature of administrative decisionmaking. " `Cumulative experience' begets understanding and insight by which judgments. are validated or qualified or invalidated. The constant process of trial and error, on a wider and fuller scale than a single adversary litigation permits, differentiates perhaps more than anything else the administrative from the judicial process." The responsibility to adapt the Act to changing patterns of industrial life is entrusted to the Board. The Court of Appeals impermissibly encroached upon the Board's function in determining for itself that an employee has no "need" for union assistance at an investigatory "While a basic |
Justice Brennan | 1,975 | 13 | majority | NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109194/nlrb-v-j-weingarten-inc/ | "need" for union assistance at an investigatory "While a basic purpose of section 7 is to allow employees to engage in concerted activities for their mutual aid and protection, such a need does not arise at an investigatory " It is the province of the Board, not the courts, to determine whether or not the "need" exists in light of changing industrial practices and the Board's cumulative experience in dealing with labor-management relations. For the Board has the "special function of applying the general provisions of the Act to the complexities of industrial life," ; see Republic Aviation ; Phelps Dodge and its special competence in this field is the justification for the deference accorded its determination. American Ship Building 380 U. S., at Reviewing courts are of course not "to stand aside and rubber stamp" Board determinations that run contrary to the language or tenor of the Act, v. But the Board's construction here, while it may not be required by the Act, is at least permissible *267 under it, and insofar as the Board's application of that meaning engages in the "difficult and delicate responsibility" of reconciling conflicting interests of labor and management, the balance stuck by the Board is "subject to limited judicial review." v. Truck Drivers, See also v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., ; v. Republic Aviation In sum, the Board has reached a fair and reasoned balance upon a question within its special competence, its newly arrived at construction of 7 does not exceed the reach of that section, and the Board has adequately explicated the basis of its interpretation. The statutory right confirmed today is in full harmony with actual industrial practice. Many important collective-bargaining agreements have provisions that accord employees rights of union representation at investigatory interviews.[11] Even where such a right is not explicitly provided in the agreement a "well-established current of arbitral authority" sustains the right of union representation at investigatory interviews which the employee reasonably believes may result in disciplinary action against him. Chevron Chemical Co., 60 Lab. Arb. 1066, 1071[12] *268 The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded with direction to enter a judgment enforcing the Board's order. It is so ordered. MR. |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | second_dissenting | United States v. Paradise | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111827/united-states-v-paradise/ | In we concluded that the level of Fourteenth Amendment "scrutiny does not change merely because the challenged classification operates against a group that historically has not been subject to governmental discrimination." Thus, in evaluating the constitutionality of the District Court order in this case under the Fourteenth Amendment, we must undertake a two-part inquiry. First, we must decide whether the order is "supported by a compelling [governmental] purpose." Second, we must scrutinize the order to ensure that "the means chosen to accomplish that purpose are narrowly tailored." One cannot read the record in this case without concluding that the Alabama Department of Public Safety had undertaken a course of action that amounted to "pervasive, systematic, and obstinate discriminatory conduct." Ante, at 167. Because the Federal Government has a compelling interest in remedying past and present discrimination by the Department, the District Court unquestionably had the authority to fashion a remedy designed to end the Department's egregious history of discrimination. In doing so, however, the District Court was obligated to fashion a remedy that was narrowly tailored to accomplish this purpose. The plurality *197 today purports to apply strict scrutiny, and concludes that the order in this case was narrowly tailored for its remedial purpose. Because the Court adopts a standardless view of "narrowly tailored" far less stringent than that required by strict scrutiny, I dissent. As JUSTICE POWELL notes, this case is similar to Sheet Metal In Sheet Metal I observed that "it is completely unrealistic to assume that individuals of each race will gravitate with mathematical exactitude to each employer or union absent unlawful discrimination." Thus, a rigid quota is impermissible because it adopts "an unjustified conclusion about the precise extent to which past discrimination has lingering effects, or an unjustified prediction about what would happen in the future in the absence of continuing discrimination." -495. Even more flexible "goals," however, also may trammel unnecessarily the rights of nonminorities. Racially preferential treatment of nonvictims, therefore, should only be ordered "where such remedies are truly necessary." Thus, "the creation of racial preferences by courts, even in the more limited form of goals rather than quotas, must be done sparingly and only where manifestly necessary." -497. In my view, whether characterized as a goal or a quota, the District Court's order was not "manifestly necessary" to achieve compliance with that court's previous orders. The order at issue in this case clearly had one purpose, and one purpose only to compel the Department to develop a promotion procedure that would not have an adverse impact on blacks. Although the plurality and |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | second_dissenting | United States v. Paradise | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111827/united-states-v-paradise/ | have an adverse impact on blacks. Although the plurality and the courts below suggest that the order also had the purpose of "eradicat[ing] the ill effects of the Department's delay in producing" such a promotion procedure, ante, at 171, the District Court's subsequent implementation of the order makes clear that the order cannot be defended on the basis of such a purpose. *198 The order imposed the promotion quota only until the Department developed a promotion procedure that complied with the consent decrees. If the order were truly designed to eradicate the effects of the Department's delay, the District Court would certainly have continued the use of the one-for-one quota even after the Department had complied with the consent decrees. Consistent with the terms of the order, once the Department developed a promotion procedure that did not have an adverse impact on blacks, the District Court suspended application of the quota. Under the approved promotion procedure, 13 troopers were promoted to corporal, of whom 3 (23.1%) were black. App. 160. The result of this new procedure was the promotion of a lower percentage of blacks than the purported goal of 25% black representation in the upper ranks, and the promotion of fewer blacks than even the Department's promotion proposal rejected by the District Court. To say the least, it strains credibility to view the one-for-one promotion quota as designed to eradicate the past effects of the Department's delay when the quota was suspended once the Department developed a promotion procedure that promoted a lower percentage of blacks than the 25% black representation goal. Moreover, even if the one-for-one quota had the purpose of eradicating the effects of the Department's delay, this purpose would not justify the quota imposed in this case. "[T]he relationship between the percentage of minority workers to be [promoted] and the percentage of minority group members in the relevant population or work force" is of vital importance in considering the validity of a racial goal. Sheet Metal The one-for-one promotion quota used in this case far exceeded the percentage of blacks in the trooper force, and there is no evidence in the record that such an extreme quota was necessary to eradicate the effects of the Department's delay. The plurality attempts to defend this one-for-one promotion quota as *199 merely affecting the speed by which the Department attains the goal of 25% black representation in the upper ranks. Ante, at 179-180. Such a justification, however, necessarily eviscerates any notion of "narrowly tailored" because it has no stopping point; even a 100% quota could be defended on the |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | second_dissenting | United States v. Paradise | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111827/united-states-v-paradise/ | point; even a 100% quota could be defended on the ground that it merely "determined how quickly the Department progressed toward" some ultimate goal. Ante, at 180. If strict scrutiny is to have any meaning, therefore, a promotion goal must have a closer relationship to the percentage of blacks eligible for promotions. This is not to say that the percentage of minority individuals benefited by a racial goal may never exceed the percentage of minority group members in the relevant work force. But protection of the rights of nonminority workers demands that a racial goal not substantially exceed the percentage of minority group members in the relevant population or work force absent compelling justification. In this case the District Court and indeed this Court provide no such compelling justification for the choice of a one-for-one promotion quota rather than a lower quota. In my view, therefore, the order in this case must stand or fall on its stated purpose of coercing the Department to develop a promotion procedure without an adverse impact on black troopers. Given the singular in terrorem purpose of the District Court order, it cannot survive strict scrutiny. There is simply no justification for the use of racial preferences if the purpose of the order could be achieved without their use because "[r]acial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification." Thus, to survive strict scrutiny, the District Court order must fit with greater precision than any alternative remedy. See Ely, The Constitutionality of Reverse Racial Discrimination, The District Court had available several alternatives that would have achieved full compliance *200 with the consent decrees without trammeling on the rights of nonminority troopers. The court, for example, could have appointed a trustee to develop a promotion procedure that would satisfy the terms of the consent decrees. By imposing the trustee's promotion procedure on the Department until the Department developed an alternative promotion procedure that complied with the consent decrees, the District Court could have enforced the decrees without the use of racial preferences. Alternatively, the District Court could have found the recalcitrant Department in contempt of court, and imposed stiff fines or other penalties for the contempt. Surely, some combination of penalties could have been designed that would have compelled compliance with the consent decrees. The District Court, however, did not discuss these options or any other alternatives to the use of a racial quota. Not a single alternative method of achieving compliance with the consent decrees is even mentioned in the District Court's opinion |
Justice O'Connor | 1,987 | 14 | second_dissenting | United States v. Paradise | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111827/united-states-v-paradise/ | decrees is even mentioned in the District Court's opinion with the exception of an even more objectionable 100% racial quota. See What is most disturbing about the District Court's order, therefore, is not merely that it implicitly or explicitly rejected two particular options, but that the District Court imposed the promotion quota without consideration of any of the available alternatives. Even in Sheet Metal the District Court had "considered the efficacy of alternative remedies" before imposing a racial quota. ; see also -487 Thus, the Court was able to evaluate the claim that the racial quota was "necessary." Without any exploration of the available alternatives in the instant case, no such evaluation is possible. Remarkably, however, the plurality purporting to apply "strict scrutiny" concludes that the order in this case was narrowly tailored for a remedial purpose. *201 Although the plurality states that it is merely "respect[ing]" the "balancing process" of the District Court, ante, at 184, it wholly ignores the fact that no such "balancing process" took place in this case. For even if, as the plurality insists, the District Court " `was in the best position to judge whether an alternative remedy, such as a simple injunction, would have been effective in ending [the] discriminatory practices,' " (quoting Sheet Metal ), the least that strict scrutiny requires is that the District Court expressly evaluate the available alternative remedies. If a District Court order that is imposed after no evident consideration of the available alternatives can survive strict scrutiny as narrowly tailored, the requirement that a racial classification be "narrowly tailored" for a compelling governmental purpose has lost most of its meaning. I have no quarrel with the plurality's conclusion that the recalcitrance of the Department of Public Safety in complying with the consent decrees was reprehensible. In its understandable frustration over the Department's conduct, however, the District Court imposed a racial quota without first considering the effectiveness of alternatives that would have a lesser effect on the rights of nonminority troopers. Because the District Court did not even consider the available alternatives to a one-for-one promotion quota, and because these alternatives would have successfully compelled the Department to comply with the consent decrees, I must respectfully dissent. |
Justice Breyer | 1,998 | 2 | majority | Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118217/federal-election-commn-v-akins/ | The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has determined that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is not a "political committee" as defined by the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA or Act), as amended, 2 US C 431(4), and, for that reason, the FEC has refused to require AIPAC to make disclosures regarding its membership, contributions, and expenditures that FECA would otherwise require We hold that respondents, a group of voters, have standing to challenge the *14 Commission's determination in court, and we remand this case for further proceedings I In light of our disposition of this case, we believe it necessary to describe its procedural background in some detail As commonly understood, the FECA seeks to remedy any actual or perceived corruption of the political process in several important ways The Act imposes limits upon the amounts that individuals, corporations, "political committees" (including political action committees), and political parties can contribute to a candidate for federal political office 441a(a), 441a(b), 441b The Act also imposes limits on the amount these individuals or entities can spend in coordination with a candidate (It treats these expenditures as "contributions to" a candidate for purposes of the Act) 441a(a)(7)(B)(i) As originally written, the Act set limits upon the total amount that a candidate could spend of his own money, and upon the amounts that other individuals, corporations, and "political committees" could spend independent of a candidatethough the Court found that certain of these last-mentioned limitations violated the First Amendment ; Federal Election ; cf Colorado Republican Federal Campaign This case requirements in the Act that extend beyond these better-known contribution and expenditure limitations In particular, the Act imposes extensive recordkeeping and disclosure requirements upon groups that fall within the Act's definition of a "political committee" Those groups must register with the FEC, appoint a treasurer, keep names and addresses of contributors, track the amount and purpose of disbursements, and file complex FEC *15 reports that include lists of donors giving in excess of $200 per year (often, these donors may be the group's members), contributions, expenditures, and any other disbursements irrespective of their purposes 432-434 The Act's use of the word "political committee" calls to mind the term "political action committee," or "PAC," a term that normally refers to organizations that corporations or trade unions might establish for the purpose of making contributions or expenditures that the Act would otherwise prohibit See 431(4)(B), 441b But, in fact, the Act's term "political committee" has a much broader scope The Act states that a "political committee" includes "any committee, club, association or other group |
Justice Breyer | 1,998 | 2 | majority | Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118217/federal-election-commn-v-akins/ | "political committee" includes "any committee, club, association or other group of persons which receives" more than $1,000 in "contributions" or "which makes" more than $1,000 in "expenditures" in any given year 431(4)(A) This broad definition, however, is less universally encompassing than at first it may seem, for later definitional subsections limit its scope The Act defines the key terms "contribution" and "expenditure" as covering only those contributions and expenditures that are made "for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office" 431(8)(A)(i), (9)(A)(i) Moreover, the Act sets forth detailed categories of disbursements, loans, and assistancein-kind that do not count as a "contribution" or an "expenditure," even when made for election-related purposes 431(8)(B), (9)(B) In particular, assistance given to help a candidate will not count toward the $1,000 "expenditure" ceiling that qualifies an organization as a "political committee" if it takes the form of a "communication" by an organization "to its members"as long as the organization at issue is a "membership organization or corporation" and it is not "organized primarily for the purpose of influencing the nomination or electio[n] of any individual" 431(9)(B)(iii) This case arises of an effort by respondents, a group of voters with views often opposed to those of AIPAC, to *16 persuade the FEC to treat AIPAC as a "political committee" Respondents filed a complaint with the FEC, stating that AIPAC had made more than $1,000 in qualifying "expenditures" per year, and thereby became a "political committee" 1 Record, Exh B, p 4 They added that AIPAC had violated the FEC provisions requiring "political committee[s]" to register and to make public the information ab members, contributions, and expenditures to which we have just referred Respondents also claimed that AIPAC had violated 441b of FECA, which prohibits corporate campaign "contribution[s]" and "expenditure[s]" They asked the FEC to find that AIPAC had violated the Act, and, among other things, to order AIPAC to make public the information that FECA demands of a "political committee" AIPAC asked the FEC to dismiss the complaint AIPAC described itself as an issue-oriented organization that seeks to maintain friendship and promote goodwill between the United States and Israel App 120; see also Brief for AIPAC as Amicus Curiae (AIPAC Brief) 1, 3 AIPAC conceded that it lobbies elected officials and disseminates information ab candidates for public office App 43, 120; see also AIPAC Brief 6 But in responding to the 441b charge, AIPAC denied that it had made the kinds of "expenditures" that matter for FECA purposes (i e, the kinds of electionrelated expenditures that corporations cannot make, and which count as the |
Justice Breyer | 1,998 | 2 | majority | Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118217/federal-election-commn-v-akins/ | expenditures that corporations cannot make, and which count as the kind of expenditures that, when they exceed $1,000, qualify a group as a "political committee") To put the matter more specifically: AIPAC focused on certain "expenditures" that respondents had claimed were election related, such as the costs of meetings with candidates, the introduction of AIPAC members to candidates, and the distribution of candidate position papers AIPAC said that its spending on such activities, even if election related, fell within a relevant exception They amounted, said AIPAC, *17 to communications by a membership organization with its members, App 164-166, which the Act exempts from its definition of "expenditures," 431(9)(B)(iii) In AIPAC's view, these communications therefore did not violate 441b's corporate expenditure prohibition 2 Record, Doc No 19, pp 2-6 (And, if AIPAC was right, those expenditures would not count toward the $1,000 ceiling on "expenditures" that might transform an ordinary issue-related group into a "political committee" 431(4)) The FEC's General Counsel concluded that, between 1983 and 1988, AIPAC had indeed funded communications of the sort described The General Counsel said that those expenditures were campaign related, in that they amounted to advocating the election or defeat of particular candidates App 106-108 He added that these expenditures were "likely to have crossed the $1,000 threshold" At the same time, the FEC closed the door to AIPAC's invocation of the "communications" exception The FEC said that, although it was a "close question," these expenditures were not membership communications, because that exception applies to a membership organization's communications with its members, and most of the persons who belonged to AIPAC did not qualify as "members" for purposes of the Act App to Pet for Cert 97a98a; see also App 170-173 Still, given the closeness of the issue, the FEC exercised its discretion and decided not to proceed further with respect to the claimed "corporate contribution" violation App to Pet for Cert 98a The FEC's determination that many of the persons who belonged to AIPAC were not "members" effectively foreclosed any claim that AIPAC's communications did not count as "expenditures" for purposes of determining whether it was a "political committee" Since AIPAC's activities fell side the "membership communications" exception, AIPAC could not invoke that exception as a way of escaping *18 the scope of the Act's term "political committee" and the Act's disclosure provisions, which that definition triggers The FEC nonetheless held that AIPAC was not subject to the disclosure requirements, but for a different reason In the FEC's view, the Act's definition of "political committee" includes only those organizations that have as a "major |
Justice Breyer | 1,998 | 2 | majority | Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118217/federal-election-commn-v-akins/ | committee" includes only those organizations that have as a "major purpose" the nomination or election of candidates Cf AIPAC, it added, was fundamentally an issue-oriented lobbying organization, not a campaign-related organization, and hence AIPAC fell side the definition of a "political committee" regardless App 146 The FEC consequently dismissed respondents' complaint Respondents filed a petition in Federal District Court seeking review of the FEC's determination dismissing their complaint See 437g(a)(8)(A), 437g(a)(8)(C) The District Court granted summary judgment for the FEC, and a divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed The en banc Court of Appeals reversed, however, on the ground that the FEC's "major purpose" test improperly interpreted the Act's definition of a "political committee" We granted the FEC's petition for certiorari, which contained the following two questions: "1 Whether respondents had standing to challenge the Federal Election Commission's decision not to bring an enforcement action in this case "2 Whether an organization that spends more than $1,000 on contributions or coordinated expenditures in a calendar year, but is neither controlled by a candidate nor has its major purpose the nomination or election of candidates, is a `political committee' within the meaning of the [Act]" Brief for Petitioner I We shall answer the first of these questions, but not the second *19 II The Solicitor General argues that respondents lack standing to challenge the FEC's decision not to proceed against AIPAC He claims that they have failed to satisfy the "prudential" standing requirements upon which this Court has insisted See, e g, National Credit Union ; Association of Data Service Organizations, He adds that respondents have not shown that they "suffe[r] injury in fact," that their injury is "fairly traceable" to the FEC's decision, or that a judicial decision in their favor would "redres[s]" the injury E g, ; In his view, respondents' District Court petition consequently failed to meet Article III's demand for a "case" or "controversy" We do not agree with the FEC's "prudential standing" claim Congress has specifically provided in FECA that "[a]ny person who believes a violation of this Act has occurred, may file a complaint with the Commission" 437g(a)(1) It has added that "[a]ny party aggrieved by an order of the Commission dismissing a complaint filed by such party may file a petition" in district court seeking review of that dismissal 437g(a)(8)(A) History associates the word "aggrieved" with a congressional intent to cast the standing net broadlybeyond the common-law interests and substantive statutory rights upon which "prudential" standing traditionally rested Scripps-Howard Radio, ; ; Office of Communication of the United Church of ; Associated |
Justice Breyer | 1,998 | 2 | majority | Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118217/federal-election-commn-v-akins/ | Office of Communication of the United Church of ; Associated Industries of New York Cf Administrative Procedure Act, 5 US C 702 (stating that those "suffering *20 legal wrong" or "adversely affected or aggrieved within the meaning of a relevant statute" may seek judicial review of agency action) Moreover, prudential standing is satisfied when the injury asserted by a plaintiff "`arguably [falls] within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the statute in question' " at (quoting Data at ) The injury of which respondents complain their failure to obtain relevant informationis injury of a kind that FECA seeks to address at 66 67 ("political committees" must disclose contributors and disbursements to help voters understand who provides which candidates with financial support) We have found nothing in the Act that suggests Congress intended to exclude voters from the benefits of these provisions, or otherwise to restrict standing, say, to political parties, candidates, or their committees Given the language of the statute and the nature of the injury, we conclude that Congress, intending to protect voters such as respondents from suffering the kind of injury here at issue, intended to authorize this kind of suit Consequently, respondents satisfy "prudential" standing requirements Cf Nor do we agree with the FEC or the dissent that Congress lacks the constitutional power to authorize federal courts to adjudicate this lawsuit Article III, of course, limits Congress' grant of judicial power to "cases" or "controversies" That limitation means that respondents must show, among other things, an "injury in fact"a requirement that helps assure that courts will not "pass upon abstract, intellectual problems," but adjudicate "concrete, living contest[s] between adversaries" ; see also Bennett, *21 ; at In our view, respondents here have suffered a genuine "injury in fact" The "injury in fact" that respondents have suffered consists of their inability to obtain informationlists of AIPAC donors (who are, according to AIPAC, its members), and campaign-related contributions and expendituresthat, on respondents' view of the law, the statute requires that AIPAC make public There is no reason to doubt their claim that the information would help them (and others to whom they would communicate it) to evaluate candidates for public office, especially candidates who received assistance from AIPAC, and to evaluate the role that AIPAC's financial assistance might play in a specific election Respondents' injury consequently seems concrete and particular Indeed, this Court has previously held that a plaintiff suffers an "injury in fact" when the plaintiff fails to obtain information which must be publicly disclosed pursuant to a statute Public See also Havens Realty |
Justice Breyer | 1,998 | 2 | majority | Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118217/federal-election-commn-v-akins/ | disclosed pursuant to a statute Public See also Havens Realty The dissent refers to United a case in which a plaintiff sought information (details of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) expenditures) to which, he said, the Constitution's Accounts Clause, Art I, 9, cl 7, entitled him The Court held that the plaintiff there lacked Article III -180 The dissent says that and this case are "indistinguishable" Post, at 34 But as the parties' briefs suggestfor they do not mention that case does not control the come here `s plaintiff claimed that a statute permitting the CIA to keep its expenditures nonpublic violated the Accounts *22 Clause, which requires that "a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time" 418 US, -169 The Court held that the plaintiff lacked standing because there was "no `logical nexus' between the [plaintiff's] asserted status of taxpayer and the claimed failure of the Congress to require the Executive to supply a more detailed report of the [CIA's] expenditures" ; see also for the proposition that in "taxpayer standing" cases, there must be "`a logical nexus between the status asserted and the claim sought to be adjudicated' ") In this case, however, the "logical nexus" inquiry is not relevant Here, there is no constitutional provision requiring the demonstration of the "nexus" the Court believed must be shown in and Rather, there is a statute which, as we previously pointed does seek to protect individuals such as respondents from the kind of harm they say they have suffered, i e, failing to receive particular information ab campaign-related activities Cf n 11 The fact that the Court in focused upon taxpayer standing, not voter standing, places that case at still a greater distance from the case before us We are not suggesting, as the dissent implies, post, at 32-34, that would have come differently if only the plaintiff had asserted his standing to sue as a voter, rather than as a taxpayer Faced with such an assertion, the Court would simply have had to consider whether "the Framers ever imagined that general directives [of the Constitution] would be subject to enforcement by an individual citizen" n 11 But since that answer (like the answer to whether there was taxpayer standing in ) would have rested in significant part upon the Court's view of the Accounts Clause, it still would not control our answer in this case All this is *23 to say that the legal logic which critically determined `s come is beside the point here The |
Justice Breyer | 1,998 | 2 | majority | Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118217/federal-election-commn-v-akins/ | critically determined `s come is beside the point here The FEC's strongest argument is its contention that this lawsuit involves only a "generalized grievance" (Indeed, if is relevant at all, it is because of its broad discussion of this matter, see not its basic rationale) The FEC points that respondents' asserted harm (their failure to obtain information) is one which is "`shared in substantially equal measure by all or a large class of citizens' " Brief for Petitioner 28 ) This Court, the FEC adds, has often said that "generalized grievance[s]" are not the kinds of harms that confer Brief for Petitioner 28; see also -574; ; Valley Forge Christian ; ; v Mellon, decided with ; Ex parte Levitt, Whether styled as a constitutional or prudential limit on standing, the Court has sometimes determined that where large numbers of Americans suffer alike, the political process, rather than the judicial process, may provide the more appropriate remedy for a widely shared grievance ; ; ; ; see also The kind of judicial language to which the FEC points, however, invariably appears in cases where the harm at issue is not only widely shared, but is also of an abstract and indefinite naturefor example, harm to the "common concern for obedience to law" L Singer & ; see also ; Cf ; at ; The abstract nature of the harmfor example, injury to the interest in seeing that the law is obeyeddeprives the case of the concrete specificity that characterized those controversies which were "the traditional concern of the courts at Westminster," Coleman, 307 U S, at ; and which today prevents a plaintiff from obtaining what would, in effect, amount to an advisory opinion Cf Aetna Life Ins Often the fact that an interest is abstract and the fact that it is widely shared go hand in hand But their association is not invariable, and where a harm is concrete, though widely shared, the Court has found "injury in fact" See Public 491 U S, at -450 Thus the fact that a political forum may be more readily available where an injury is widely shared (while counseling against, say, interpreting a statute as conferring standing) does not, by itself, automatically disqualify an interest for Article III purposes Such an interest, where sufficiently concrete, may count as an "injury in fact" This conclusion seems particularly obvious where (to use a hypothetical example) large numbers of individuals suffer the same common-law injury (say, a widespread mass tort), or where large numbers of voters suffer interference with voting rights conferred by law Cf |
Justice Breyer | 1,998 | 2 | majority | Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118217/federal-election-commn-v-akins/ | voters suffer interference with voting rights conferred by law Cf ; We conclude that, similarly, the informational injury at issue here, directly *25 related to voting, the most basic of political rights, is sufficiently concrete and specific such that the fact that it is widely shared does not deprive Congress of constitutional power to authorize its vindication in the federal courts Respondents have also satisfied the remaining two constitutional standing requirements The harm asserted is "fairly traceable" to the FEC's decision ab which respondents complain Of course, as the FEC points Brief for Petitioner 29-31, it is possible that even had the FEC agreed with respondents' view of the law, it would still have decided in the exercise of its discretion not to require AIPAC to produce the information Cf App to Pet for Cert 98a and "take no further action" on 441b allegation against AIPAC) But that fact does not destroy Article III "causation," for we cannot know that the FEC would have exercised its prosecutorial discretion in this way Agencies often have discretion ab whether or not to take a particular action Yet those adversely affected by a discretionary agency decision generally have standing to complain that the agency based its decision upon an improper legal ground See, e g, Abbott ; s to Preserve Overton Park, If a reviewing court agrees that the agency misinterpreted the law, it will set aside the agency's action and remand the caseeven though the agency (like a new jury after a mistrial) might later, in the exercise of its lawful discretion, reach the same result for a different reason Thus respondents' "injury in fact" is "fairly traceable" to the FEC's decision not to issue its complaint, even though the FEC might reach the same result exercising its discretionary powers lawfully For similar reasons, the courts in this case can "redress" respondents' "injury in fact" *26 Finally, the FEC argues that we should deny respondents standing because this case involves an agency's decision not to undertake an enforcement actionan area generally not subject to judicial review Brief for Petitioner 23, 29 In Heckler, this Court noted that agency enforcement decisions "ha[ve] traditionally been `committed to agency discretion,' " and concluded that Congress did not intend to alter that tradition in enacting the ; cf 5 US C 701(a) (courts will not review agency actions where "statutes preclude judicial review," or where the "agency action is committed to agency discretion by law") We deal here with a statute that explicitly indicates the contrary In sum, respondents, as voters, have satisfied both prudential and |
Justice Breyer | 1,998 | 2 | majority | Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118217/federal-election-commn-v-akins/ | In sum, respondents, as voters, have satisfied both prudential and constitutional standing requirements They may bring this petition for a declaration that the FEC's dismissal of their complaint was unlawful See 2 US C 437g(a)(8)(A) III The second question presented in the FEC's petition for certiorari is whether an organization that otherwise satisfies the Act's definition of a "political committee," and thus is subject to its disclosure requirements, nonetheless falls side that definition because "its major purpose" is not "the nomination or election of candidates" The question arises because this Court, in said: "To fulfill the purposes of the Act [the term `political committee'] need only encompass organizations that are under the control of a candidate or the major purpose of which is the nomination or election of a candidate" The Court reiterated in Federal Election Comm'n v Massachusetts s for Life, Inc, : "[A]n entity subject to regulation as a `political committee' under the Act is one that is either `under the control *27 of a candidate or the major purpose of which is the nomination or election of a candidate' " The FEC here interpreted this language as narrowing the scope of the statutory term "political committee," wherever applied And, as we have said, the FEC's General Counsel found that AIPAC fell side that definition because the nomination or election of a candidate was not AIPAC's "major purpose" App 146 The en banc Court of Appeals disagreed with the FEC It read this Court's narrowing construction of the term "political committee" as turning on the First Amendment problems presented by regulation of "independent expenditures" (i e, "an expenditure by a person expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate which is made with cooperation or consultation with any candidate," 431(17)) The Court of Appeals concluded that the language in this Court's prior decisions narrowing the definition of "political committee" did not apply where the special First Amendment "independent expenditure" problem did not exist The Solicitor General argues that this Court's narrowing definition of "political committee" applies not simply in the context of independent expenditures, but across the board We cannot squarely address that matter, however, because of the unusual and complex circumstances in which this case arises As we previously mentioned, the FEC considered a related question, namely, whether AIPAC was exempt from 441b's prohibition of corporate campaign expenditures, on the grounds that the so-called "expenditures" involved only AIPAC's communications with its members The FEC held that the statute's exception to the "expenditure" definition for communications by a "membership organization" did not apply because many |
Justice Breyer | 1,998 | 2 | majority | Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118217/federal-election-commn-v-akins/ | communications by a "membership organization" did not apply because many of the persons who belonged to AIPAC were not "members" as defined by FEC regulation The FEC acknowledged, however, that this was a "close question" App to Pet for Cert 98a; see also App *28 144-146, 170-171 In particular, the FEC thought that many of the persons who belonged to AIPAC lacked sufficient control of the organization's policies to qualify as "members" for purposes of the Act A few months later, however, the Court of Appeals overturned the FEC's regulations defining "members," in part because that court thought the regulations defined membership organizations too narrowly in light of an organization's "First Amendment right to communicate with its `members' " Chamber of Commerce v Federal Election Comm'n, 69 F3d 600, The FEC has subsequently issued proposed rules redefining "members" Under these rules, it is quite possible that many of the persons who belong to AIPAC would be considered "members" If so, the communications here at issue apparently would not count as the kind of "expenditures" that can turn an organization into a "political committee," and AIPAC would fall side the definition for that reason, rather than because of the "major purpose" test 62 Fed Reg 66832 (proposed 11 CFR pts 100 and 114) The consequence for our consideration of Question Two now is that the FEC's new rules defining "membership organization" could significantly affect the interpretive issue presented by this question If the Court of Appeals is right in saying that this Court's narrowing interpretation of "political committee" in reflected First Amendment then whether the "membership communications" exception is interpreted broadly or narrowly could affect our evaluation of the Court of Appeals' claim that there is no constitutionally driven need to apply `s narrowing interpretation in this context The scope of the "membership communications" exception could also affect our evaluation of the Solicitor General's related argument that First Amendment (reflected in `s narrowing interpretation) are present whenever the Act requires disclosure In any event, it is difficult to decide the *29 basic issue that Question Two presents with considering the special communicative nature of the "expenditures" here at issue,cf United States v CIO, 335 US 106, And, a considered determination of the scope of the statutory exemption that Congress enacted to address membership communications would helpfully inform our consideration of the "major purpose" test The upshot, in our view, is that we should permit the FEC to address, in the first instance, the issue presented by Question Two We can thereby take advantage of the relevant agency's expertise, by allowing it |
Justice Stevens | 1,978 | 16 | dissenting | New Motor Vehicle Bd. of Cal. v. Orrin W. Fox Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109952/new-motor-vehicle-bd-of-cal-v-orrin-w-fox-co/ | This case does not involve the constitutionality of any of the substantive rules adopted by California to govern the operation of motor vehicle dealerships and the conditions that *115 must be satisfied to engage in that business. The case involves the validity of a procedure that grants private parties an exclusive right to cause harm to other private parties without even alleging that any general rule has been violated or is about to be violated. In order to demonstrate that this is a fair characterization of this procedure, it is necessary to review the statutory scheme as a whole, to identify the purpose of the specific provision challenged in this case, and to explain the actual operation of that provision. It will then be apparent that there is no precedent for the Court's approval of this unique and arbitrary process and that the three-judge District Court was correct in concluding that it deprived appellees of their liberty and property without the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. I As the Court recognizes, California's Automobile Franchise Act is a member of the family of state statutes that were enacted to protect retailers from some of the risks associated with unrestrained competition. Like the retail grocers and retail druggists who convinced so many legislatures to authorize resale price maintenance,[1] and the retail gasoline dealers who convinced the Maryland Legislature to prohibit oil company ownership of service stations,[2] the retail automobile dealers have been successful in persuading Congress and various state legislatures that unrestrained competition in the car business is not an unmixed blessing.[3] Many States have *116 enacted automobile dealer franchise statutes that regulate and limit competition in this business. Unquestionably, as the Court holds, the mere fact that statutory rules inhibit competition is not a reason for invalidating them.[4] The general rules contained in the California Automobile Franchise Act are of two kinds. First, they establish standards that a dealer must satisfy in order to engage in the business in California. These standards are enforced through licensing regulations.[5] Because the dealer appellees in this case are properly licensed, and because they do not question the validity of any of these rules, these standards are not relevant here. Second, there are rules regulating the contractual relationships between manufacturers and their dealers, covering such matters as franchise terminations.[6] Again, these rules are not relevant because this case involves neither a termination nor any question concerning the contract between a manufacturer and an existing dealer. In sum, the substantive rules in the California statute have nothing to do with this case. |
Justice Stevens | 1,978 | 16 | dissenting | New Motor Vehicle Bd. of Cal. v. Orrin W. Fox Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109952/new-motor-vehicle-bd-of-cal-v-orrin-w-fox-co/ | the California statute have nothing to do with this case. *117 This case concerns only the procedure that must be followed after a licensed manufacturer and a licensed dealer have decided either to establish a new dealership or to relocate an existing dealership. The statute contains no substantive rules pertaining to the location of dealerships or the number of dealers that may operate in any given area. It includes no limitations on the manufacturer's use of the new franchise as a means of increasing its power to bargain with existing franchisees.[7] Nor does it impose any burden on the manufacturer or the new dealer to obtain a license or an approval from a public agency before the new operation may commence business.[8] It does not even authorize a public agency, *118 acting on its own motion, to conduct a hearing to determine whether the new operation is desirable or undesirable.[9] In short, although I assume that California is entirely free to adopt a state policy against the establishment or relocation of motor vehicle franchises, no such policy is reflected in this statute.[10] On the contrary, the statute actually embodies a presumption in favor of new locations. That presumption, while consistent with the fact that knowledgeable businessmen do not normally make the large capital commitments associated with a new dealership unless the market will welcome the change,[11] does not rest on that economic predicate. It rests on the language of the statute and its interpretation by the New Motor Vehicle Board. The statute grants a curiously defined group of potential protestantscompetitors within the 314-square-mile area surrounding the new location who handle the same line and make of carsthe right to demand a hearing to determine whether *119 "there is good cause for not permitting such dealership."[12] This language is repeated in two separate sections of the California statute.[13] Notably, the statute does not place the burden of establishing that there is good cause to permit the dealership to go forward on the new dealer or the manufacturer;[14] it places the burden of demonstrating that there is good cause not to permit the new opening to take place on the *120 objecting dealer.[15] If the scales are evenly balanced, the presumption will prevail. The California Board's actual administration of the statute confirms this analysis. Of the first 117 protests filed under the law, only 1 was sustained by the Board.[16] In other words, over 99% of the contested new dealerships or relocations were found to be consistent with the policy of the statute. The conclusion that there is no state policy against |
Justice Stevens | 1,978 | 16 | dissenting | New Motor Vehicle Bd. of Cal. v. Orrin W. Fox Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109952/new-motor-vehicle-bd-of-cal-v-orrin-w-fox-co/ | statute. The conclusion that there is no state policy against new dealerships is further confirmed by the statutory limitation on the persons who have standing to object to a proposed new opening. Most significantly, no public agency has any independent right to initiate an objection, to schedule a hearing, or to prohibit such a change.[17] Nor does any member of the consuming public have standing to complain.[18] Indeed, even neighboring dealers who might be severely affected by new competition are without standing unless they handle the same line of cars as the new dealer. Finally, if a manufacturer is ableby whatever meansto persuade its dealers in the relevant area not to protest, the statutory policy will have been wholly vindicated without any action on the part of responsible state officials. Properly analyzed, the statute merely confers a special benefit on a limited group of private persons who are likely to oppose the establishment or relocation of a new car dealership. Because those persons may suffer economic injury as a consequence of new competition, they are given two quite different rights. One is relatively meaningless, the other is *121 significant. The first is an administrative right of action to try to persuade the Board that there is good cause for not permitting the new competitor to enter the market. It is obvious that this right is of little value, since less than 1% of the protests are successful. Indeed, since about two-thirds of the protests were abandoned in advance of any hearing,[19] it is fair to infer that an opportunity to prevail at the hearing itself is not the primary object of the protest. The second right that the statute gives to a complaining dealer is the unqualified entitlement to an order that is tantamount to a preliminary injunction absolutely prohibiting the opening of the new dealership until after the relatively meaningless hearing has been completed.[20] The "injunction" issues without any showing of probable success on the merits, without any proof of irreparable harm, and without provision for a bond or other compensation to indemnify the new dealer against loss caused by the delay. The entirely uninformative words "I protest" are enough to entitle one private party to obtain an order restraining the activities of a potential competitor.[21] Violation of that order subjects the manufacturer *122 and franchisee to criminal penalties and revocation of their licenses.[22] In sum, new franchisees and their franchisors are not merely identified by the statute as in essence a new class of parties defendant in a new class of lawsuits designed in extremely rare instances to |
Justice Stevens | 1,978 | 16 | dissenting | New Motor Vehicle Bd. of Cal. v. Orrin W. Fox Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109952/new-motor-vehicle-bd-of-cal-v-orrin-w-fox-co/ | new class of lawsuits designed in extremely rare instances to block the franchise; rather, without assuring these "defendants" that they will receive notice of the claims against them, a probable-cause finding, or a hearing of any kind,[23] the statute subjects them to an immediate injunction against the pursuit of their right to establish or relocate a car dealership upon the filing of a protest by a competitor-"plaintiff."[24] The duration of the injunctive relief is not precisely defined by the statute,[25] but the facts of these cases demonstrate that *123 the relief may last for many months.[26] In a dynamic, competitive business such delays may entirely frustrate the plans for the new dealershipas happened in one of these cases *124 or at least cause the new dealer to lose the opportunity to participate in a favorable market for new models. That the statutory deprivation is a temporary delay rather than a permanent denial does not avoid the serious character of the harm suffered by the new dealer while the status quo is being preserved.[27] II Apart from some substantive due process cases which have nothing to do with the procedural question presented by this *125 case[28] the Court cites no authority for its novel interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. This is hardly surprising because this summary procedure for resolving conflicts between private parties flagrantly violates the precepts embodied in the Court's prior cases. Whenever one private party seeks relief against another, it is fundamental that some attention to the merits of the request must precede the granting of relief. The challenged statute provides for no such consideration of the merits nor even any notice to the losing party of what the merits of the claim against him involve.[29] It is equally fundamental that the State's power to deprive any person of liberty or property may not be exercised except at the behest of an official decisionmaker. In a somewhat different context, the Court correctly observed: "[I]n the very nature of things, one [private] person may not be entrusted with the power to regulate the business of another, and especially of a competitor. And a statute *126 which attempts to confer such power undertakes an intolerable and unconstitutional interference with personal liberty and private property." More recently, the Court has applied these principles in procedural due process contexts similar to the one at issue here. For example, in the Court had this to say in invalidating a statute that enabled private parties unconditionally to exercise the State's power: "The statutes, moreover, abdicate effective state control over state power. Private parties, serving their |
Justice Stevens | 1,978 | 16 | dissenting | New Motor Vehicle Bd. of Cal. v. Orrin W. Fox Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109952/new-motor-vehicle-bd-of-cal-v-orrin-w-fox-co/ | effective state control over state power. Private parties, serving their own private advantage, may unilaterally invoke state power to replevy goods from another. No state official participates in the decision to seek a writ; no state official reviews the basis for the claim to repossession; and no state official evaluates the need for immediate seizure. There is not even a requirement that the plaintiff provide any information to the court on these matters. The State acts largely in the dark."[30] Because the New Motor Vehicle Board is given no control over a competitor's power temporarily to enjoin the establishment or relocation of a dealership, that body's authority in this respect is also wielded in the dark. The result is the unconstitutional exercise of uncontrolled government power. *127 There is no blinking the fact that the California statute gives private parties, serving their own private advantage, the unfettered ability to invoke the power of the State to restrain the liberty and impair the contractual arrangements of their new competitors. Such a statute blatantly offends the principles of fair notice, attention to the merits, and neutral dispute resolution that inform the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This statute simply cannot bear the Court's creative recharacterization as a generaland substantively constitutionalrule governing when and how dealerships may be established and relocated.[31] Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Toll v. Moreno | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110770/toll-v-moreno/ | The state-operated Uiversity of Marylad grats preferetial treatmet for purposes of tuitio ad fees to studets with "i-state" status. Although citizes ad immigrat alies may obtai i-state status upo a showig of domicile withi the State, oimmigrat alies, eve if domiciled, are ot eligible for such status. The questio i this case is whether the Uiversity's i-state policy is ivalid uder the Supremacy Clause of the Costitutio, isofar as the policy categorically deies i-state status to domiciled oimmigrat alies who hold G-4 visas. I The factual ad procedural backgroud of this case, which has prompted two prior decisios of this Court, requires some elaboratio. The focus of the cotroversy has bee a policy adopted by the Uiversity i 1973 goverig the eligibility of studets for i-state status with respect to admissio ad fees. The policy provides i relevat part: "1. It is the policy of the Uiversity of Marylad to grat i-state status for admissio, tuitio ad charge-differetial purposes to Uited States citizes, ad to immigrat alies lawfully admitted for permaet residece i accordace with the laws of the Uited States, i the followig cases: *4 "a. Where a studet is fiacially depedet upo a paret, parets, or spouse domiciled i Marylad for at least six cosecutive moths prior to the last day available for registratio for the forthcomig semester. "b. Where a studet is fiacially idepedet for at least the precedig twelve moths, ad provided the studet has maitaied his domicile i Marylad for at least six cosecutive moths immediately prior to the last day available for registratio for the forthcomig semester." App. to Pet. for Cert. 167a-168a. I 1975, whe this actio was filed, respodets Jua Carlos Jua Pablo Otero, ad Clare B. Hogg were studets at the Uiversity of Each resided with, ad was fiacially depedet o, a paret who was a oimmigrat alie holdig a "G-4" visa. Such visas are issued to oimmigrat alies who are officers or employees of certai iteratioal orgaizatios, ad to members of their immediate families. 8 U.S. C. 1101(a)(15)(G)(iv).[1] Despite respodets' residece i the State, the Uiversity deied them i-state status pursuat to its policy of excludig all oimmigrat alies. Seekig declaratory ad ijuctive relief, the three respodets filed a class actio agaist the Uiversity of Marylad ad its Presidet.[2] They coteded that the Uiversity's policy violated various federal laws, the Due Process ad Equal Protectio Clauses of the Fourteeth Amedmet, ad the Supremacy Clause. *5 The District Court grated partial summary judgmet i favor of the three amed plaitiffs ad the class of G-4 visaholders represeted by them.[3] I the |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Toll v. Moreno | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110770/toll-v-moreno/ | the class of G-4 visaholders represeted by them.[3] I the view of the District Court, the Uiversity's deial of i-state status to these plaitiffs rested upo a irrebuttable presumptio that a G-4 alie caot establish Marylad domicile. Cocludig that the presumptio was "ot uiversally true" as a matter of either federal or Marylad law, the District Court held that uder the i-state policy violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteeth Amedmet. Accordigly, i a order dated July 13, 1976, the District Court ejoied the Presidet of the Uiversity[4] from deyig respodets the opportuity to establish i-state status solely o the basis of a "irrebuttable presumptio of o-domicile."[5] The court stayed its order pedig appeal i reliace o the Uiversity's represetatio that it would make appropriate refuds "i the evet the Court's Order of July 13, 1976, were fially affirmed o appeal." App. to Pet. for Cert. 100a. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed, adoptig *6 the reasoig of the District Court. at 102a.[6] Affirmace order reported at We reviewed the case o writ of certiorari. We held that "[b]ecause petitioer makes domicile the `paramout' policy cosideratio ad because respodets' cotetio is that they ca be domiciled i Marylad but are coclusively presumed to be uable to do so, this case is squarely withi Vladis as limited by [Weiberger v.] Salfi, [ ]."[7] It was therefore ecessary to decide whether the presumptio was uiversally true. With respect to federal law, we cocluded that G-4 visaholders could "adopt the Uited States as their domicile."[8] We were thus left with the "potetially dispositive" questio whether G-4 alies are as a matter of state law icapable of becomig domiciliaries of We certified this questio to the Marylad Court of Appeals.[9] The state court aswered the *7 certified questio i the egative, advisig us that "othig i the geeral Marylad law of domicile reders G-4 visa holders, or their depedets, icapable of becomig domiciled i this " After our certificatio, but before the state court's respose, the Uiversity adopted a "clarifyig resolutio" cocerig its i-state policy.[10] By its terms the resolutio did ot offer a ew defiitio of "i-state" studets; rather, it purported to "reaffirm" the existig policy.[11] The resolutio idicated, however, that the Uiversity's policy, "isofar as it deies i-state status to oimmigrat alies, serves a umber of substatial purposes ad iterests, whether or ot it coforms to the geerally or otherwise applicable defiitio of domicile uder the Marylad commo law." App. to Pet. for Cert. 173a. The iterests assertedly served by the policy were described i the followig terms: |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Toll v. Moreno | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110770/toll-v-moreno/ | served by the policy were described i the followig terms: "(a) limitig the Uiversity's expeditures by gratig a higher subsidy toward the expeses of providig educatioal services to that class of persos who, as a class, are more likely to have a close affiity to the State ad to cotribute more to its ecoomic well-beig; "(b) achievig equalizatio betwee the affected classes of the expeses of providig educatioal services; "(c) efficietly admiisterig the Uiversity's i-state determiatio ad appeals process; ad *8 "(d) prevetig disparate treatmet amog categories of oimmigrats with respect to admissios, tuitio, ad charge-differetials." at 173a-174a. Followig the Marylad Court of Appeals' decisio, the case retured to this Court. But we declied to restore the case to the active docket for full briefig ad argumet, cocludig that the Uiversity's clarifyig resolutio had "fudametally altered the posture of the case." We oted that "if domicile [was] ot the `paramout' policy cosideratio of the Uiversity, this case [was] o loger `squarely withi Vladis as limited by Salfi,'" ad thus raised "ew issues of costitutioal law which should be addressed i the first istace by the District Court." at -462, quotig[12] Accordigly, we vacated the judgmet of the Court of Appeals ad remaded the case "to the District Court for further cosideratio i light of our opiio ad judgmet i Elkis, the opiio ad judgmet of the Marylad Court of Appeals i Toll, ad the Board of Regets' clarifyig resolutio of Jue 23, 1978." O remad, the District Court determied that the clarifyig resolutio costituted a chage i the Uiversity's positio. Before that resolutio, the Uiversity's primary cocer had i fact bee domicile; after the resolutio, domicile was o loger "the paramout cosideratio i the Uiversity's policy." Thus, *9 with respect to the period precedig the issuace of the resolutio, the District Court reaffirmed its earlier determiatio that isofar as the policy precluded G-4 alies (or their depedets) from acquirig i-state status, it deied due process uder -1125. With respect to the period followig the promulgatio of the resolutio, however, the court held that Vladis did ot cotrol: The Uiversity had abadoed its positio that G-4 alies could ot establish domicile i Nevertheless, the District Court cocluded that the revised i-state policy was costitutioally ivalid, basig its coclusio o two alterative grouds. First, the court held that the policy ra afoul of the Equal Protectio Clause of the Fourteeth Amedmet. Accordig to the court, the challeged portio of the Uiversity's policy cotaied a classificatio based o alieage, requirig strict scrutiy, a aalysis which the policy did ot survive, sice the policy |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Toll v. Moreno | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110770/toll-v-moreno/ | aalysis which the policy did ot survive, sice the policy did ot further ay compellig iterest. Alteratively, the court held that the i-state policy violated the Supremacy Clause by ecroachig upo Cogress' prerogatives with respect to the regulatio of immigratio.[13] The Court of Appeals affirmed for "reasos sufficietly stated" by the District Court. We grated certiorari. For the reasos that follow, we hold that the Uiversity of Marylad's i-state policy, as applied to G-4 alies ad their depedets, violates the Supremacy Clause of the Costitutio,[14] ad o *10 that groud affirm the judgmet of the Court of Appeals. We therefore have o occasio to cosider whether the policy violates the Due Process or Equal Protectio Clauses. II Our cases have log recogized the preemiet role of the Federal Govermet with respect to the regulatio of alies withi our borders. See, e. g., ; ; ; ; Federal authority to regulate the status of alies derives from various sources, icludig the Federal Govermet's power "[t]o establish [a] uiform Rule of Naturalizatio," U. S. Cost., Art. I, 8, cl. 4, its power "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreig Natios", cl. 3, ad its broad authority over foreig affairs, see Uited ; ; 3 U.S. 580, Not surprisigly, therefore, our cases have also bee at pais to ote the substatial limitatios upo the authority of the States i makig classificatios based upo alieage. I we cosidered a Califoria statute that precluded alies who were "ieligible for citizeship uder federal law" from obtaiig commercial fishig liceses, eve though they "met all other state requiremets" ad were lawful ihabitats of the[15] I seekig to defed the statute, the State *11 argued that it had "simply followed the Federal Govermet's lead" i classifyig certai persos as "ieligible for citizeship." We rejected the argumet, stressig the delicate ature of the federal-state relatioship i regulatig alies: "The Federal Govermet has broad costitutioal powers i determiig what alies shall be admitted to the Uited States, the period they may remai, regulatio of their coduct before aturalizatio, ad the terms ad coditios of their aturalizatio. Uder the Costitutio the states are grated o such powers; they ca either add to or take from the coditios lawfully imposed by Cogress upo admissio, aturalizatio ad residece of alies i the Uited States or the several states. State laws which impose discrimiatory burdes upo the etrace or residece of alies lawfully withi the Uited States coflict with this costitutioally derived federal power to regulate immigratio, ad have accordigly bee held ivalid." (citatio ad footote omitted).[16] *12 The decisio i followed directly from Takahashi. I |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Toll v. Moreno | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110770/toll-v-moreno/ | omitted).[16] *12 The decisio i followed directly from Takahashi. I Graham we held that a State may ot withhold welfare beefits from residet alies "merely because of their alieage." Such discrimiatio, the Court cocluded, would ot oly violate the Equal Protectio Clause, but would also ecroach upo federal authority over lawfully admitted alies. I support of the latter coclusio, the Court oted that Cogress had "ot see fit to impose ay burde or restrictio o alies who become idiget after their etry ito the Uited States," but rather had chose to afford "lawfully admitted residet alies the full ad equal beefit of all state laws for the security of persos ad property," The States had thus imposed a "auxiliary burde[] upo the etrace or residece of alies" that was ever cotemplated by Cogress. Read together, Takahashi ad Graham stad for the broad priciple[17] that "state regulatio ot cogressioally sactioed *13 that discrimiates agaist alies lawfully admitted to the coutry is impermissible if it imposes additioal burdes ot cotemplated by Cogress." De Caas v. Bica, 4 U.S. 351, 358, 6[18] To be sure, whe Cogress has doe othig more tha permit a class of alies to eter the coutry temporarily, the proper applicatio of the priciple is likely to be a matter of some dispute. But the istat case does ot preset such a situatio, ad there ca be little doubt regardig the ivalidity of the challeged portio of the Uiversity's i-state policy. The Immigratio ad Natioality Act of 1952, as ameded, 8 U.S. C. 1101 et seq. (1976 ed. ad Supp. IV), represets "a comprehesive ad complete code coverig all aspects of admissio of alies to this coutry, whether for busiess or pleasure, or as immigrats seekig to become permaet residets." The Act recogizes two basic classes of alies, immigrat ad oimmigrat.[19] With respect to the oimmigrat class, *14 the Act establishes various categories, the G-4 category amog them. For may of these oimmigrat categories, Cogress has precluded the covered alie from establishig domicile i the Uited States.[20] But sigificatly, Cogress has allowed G-4 aliesemployees of various iteratioal orgaizatios, ad their immediate familiesto eter the coutry o terms permittig the establishmet of domicile i the Uited States. I light of Cogress' explicit decisio ot to bar G-4 alies from acquirig domicile, the State's decisio to dey "i-state" status to G-4 alies, solely o accout of the G-4 alie's federal immigratio status, surely amouts to a acillary "burde ot cotemplated by Cogress" i admittig these alies to the Uited States. We eed ot rely, however, simply o Cogress' decisio to permit |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Toll v. Moreno | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110770/toll-v-moreno/ | eed ot rely, however, simply o Cogress' decisio to permit the G-4 alie to establish domicile i this coutry; the Federal Govermet has also take the additioal affirmative step of coferrig special tax privileges o G-4 alies. As a result of a array of treaties, iteratioal agreemets, ad federal statutes, G-4 visaholders employed by the iteratioal orgaizatios described i 8 U.S. C. 1101(a)(15)(G)(iv) are relieved of federal ad, i may istaces, state ad local taxes o the salaries paid by the orgaizatios. For example, the iteratioal agreemets goverig the iteratioal baks for which the parets of the amed respodets are employed specifically exempt the parets from all taxes o their orgaizatioal salaries. See Articles of Agreemet of the Iteratioal Bak for Recostructio ad Developmet, Art. VII, 9(b), T. I. A. S. No. 1502 (1945) ("No tax shall be levied o or i respect of salaries ad emolumets paid by the Bak to executive *15 directors, alterates, officials or employees of the Bak who are ot local citizes, local subjects, or other local atioals"); Agreemet Establishig the Iter-America Developmet Bak, Art. XI, 9(b), [1959] 10 U. S. T. 3029, 3096, T. I. A. S. No. 4397 (1959) ("No tax shall be levied o or i respect of salaries ad emolumets paid by the Bak to. employees of the Bak who are ot local citizes or other local atioals").[21] Not oly have some of the specific tax exemptios cotaied i iteratioal agreemets bee icorporated ito a federal statute, see 22 U.S. C. 286h, but also the Iteratioal Orgaizatios Immuities Act has explicitly afforded a federal tax exemptio for those G-4 visaholders employed by iteratioal orgaizatios for which o treaty or iteratioal agreemet has provided a tax exemptio for foreig employees.[22] 4(b), reeacted, 68A Stat. 284, as 893 of the Iteral Reveue *16 Code of 1954, 26 U.S. C. 893 ("Wages, fees, or salary of ay employee [except citizes of the Uited States ad of the Republic of the Philippies] of a iteratioal orgaizatio., received as compesatio for official services to such iteratioal orgaizatio shall ot be icluded i gross icome ad shall be exempt from [federal] taxatio"). I affordig G-4 visaholders such tax exemptio, the Federal Govermet has udoubtedly sought to beefit the employig iteratioal orgaizatios by eablig them to pay salaries ot ecumbered by the full paoply of taxes, thereby lowerig the orgaizatios' costs. See 41 Op. Atty. Ge. 170, 172-173 (1954). The tax beefits serve as a iducemet for these orgaizatios to locate sigificat operatios i the Uited States. See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 1203, 79th Cog., 1st |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Toll v. Moreno | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110770/toll-v-moreno/ | e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 1203, 79th Cog., 1st Sess., 2-3 (1945); S. Rep. No. 861, 79th Cog., 1st Sess., 2-3 (1945). By imposig o those G-4 alies who are domiciled i Marylad higher tuitio ad fees tha are imposed o other domiciliaries of the State, the Uiversity's policy frustrates these federal policies. Petitioers' very argumet i this Court oly buttresses this coclusio. Oe of the grouds o which petitioers have sought to justify the discrimiatory burde imposed o the amed respodets is that the salaries their parets receive from the iteratioal baks for which they work are exempt from Marylad icome tax. Ideed, petitioers suggest that the "dollar differetial. at stake here [is] a amout roughly equivalet to the amout of state icome tax a iteratioal bak paret is spared by treaty each year." Brief for Petitioers 23 (footote omitted). But to the extet this is ideed a justificatio for the Uiversity's policy with respect to the amed respodets, it is a impermissible oe: The State may ot recoup idirectly from respodets' parets the taxes that the Federal Govermet has expressly barred the State from collectig.[23] *17 I sum, the Federal Govermet has ot merely admitted G-4 alies ito the coutry; it has also permitted them to establish domicile ad afforded sigificat tax exemptios o orgaizatioal salaries. I such circumstaces, we caot coclude that Cogress ever cotemplated that a State, i the operatio of a uiversity, might impose discrimiatory tuitio charges ad fees solely o accout of the federal immigratio classificatio.[24] We therefore coclude that isofar as it bars domiciled G-4 alies (ad their depedets) from acquirig i-state status, the Uiversity's policy violates the Supremacy Clause.[25] III Fially, we must address petitioers' cotetio that the Eleveth Amedmet precluded the District Court from orderig the Uiversity to pay refuds to various class members who would have obtaied i-state status but for the stay of the District Court's origial order of July 13, 1976. As petitioers cocede, i seekig a stay of that order the Uiversity *18 made the represetatio to the District Court that i the evet the 1976 order was "fially affirmed o appeal," it would make appropriate refuds. This represetatio was icorporated i the stay orders of both the District Court ad Court of Appeals. It is petitioers' cotetio, however, that the 1976 order was "effectively" vacated whe this Court, i vacated the judgmet of the Court of Appeals ad remaded the case to the District Court for recosideratio. Petitioers therefore coclude that the terms of the Uiversity's waiver of sovereig immuity ca o loger be satisfied. |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | majority | Toll v. Moreno | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110770/toll-v-moreno/ | Uiversity's waiver of sovereig immuity ca o loger be satisfied. Petitioers' argumet is ot persuasive. We do ot iterpret Toll as havig vacated the judgmet of the District Court. I Toll the Court recogized that the Uiversity had altered its positio through the promulgatio of the clarifyig resolutio, raisig "ew issues of costitutioal law which should be addressed i the first istace by the District Court." The Court declied, however, to decide whether the District Court, i issuig its 1976 order, had improperly relied o due process grouds, ad whether cotiuatio of the order was justified o equal protectio or pre-emptio grouds. Thus, while we vacated "the judgmet of the Court of Appeals," ib we left the judgmet of the District Court udisturbed.[26] Ad cotrary to petitioers' suggestio, a vacatur of the District Court's judgmet was ot ecessary to give the District Court jurisdictio to recosider the case. See Goldberg v. Uited States, 5 *, ; Campbell v. Uited States, ; 28 U.S. C. 2106 ("The Supreme Court may affirm, modify, vacate, set aside or reverse ay judgmet ad may require such further proceedigs to be had as may be just uder the circumstaces").[27] IV For the foregoig reasos, the judgmet of the Court of Appeals is Affirmed. |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | concurring | Grable & Sons Metal Products, Inc. v. Darue Engineering & Mfg. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799977/grable-sons-metal-products-inc-v-darue-engineering-mfg/ | The Court faithfully applies our precedents interpreting 28 U.S. C. 1331 to authorize federal-court jurisdiction over some cases in which state law creates the cause of action but requires determination of an issue of federal law, e. g., ; Merrell Pharmaceuticals In this case, no one has asked us to overrule those precedents and adopt the rule Justice Holmes set forth in American Well Works limiting 1331 jurisdiction to cases in which federal law creates the cause of action pleaded on the face of the plaintiff's complaint. In an appropriate case, and perhaps with the benefit of better evidence as to the original meaning of 1331's text, I would be willing to consider that course.[*] *321 Jurisdictional rules should be clear. Whatever the virtues of the Smith standard, it is anything but clear. Ante, at 313 )); ante, at 314 ("[T]he question is, does a state-law claim necessarily raise a stated federal issue, actually disputed and substantial, which a federal forum may entertain without disturbing any congressionally approved balance of federal and state judicial responsibilities"); ante, at 317, 318 ("`[D]eterminations about federal jurisdiction require sensitive judgments about congressional intent, judicial power, and the federal system'"; "the absence of a federal private right of action [is] evidence relevant to, but not dispositive of, the `sensitive judgments about congressional intent' that 1331 requires" (quoting Merrell )). Whatever the vices of the American Well Works rule, it is clear. Moreover, it accounts for the "`vast majority'" of cases that come within 1331 under our current case law, Merrell ) further indication that trying to sort out which cases fall within the smaller Smith category may not be worth the effort it entails. See R. Fallon, D. Meltzer, & D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler's The Federal *322 Courts and the Federal System 885-886 (5th ed. 2003). Accordingly, I would be willing in appropriate circumstances to reconsider our interpretation of 1331. |
Justice Roberts | 2,018 | 0 | dissenting | South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4509418/south-dakota-v-wayfair-inc/ | In National Bellas Hess, this Court held that, under the dormant Commerce Clause, a State could not require retailers without a physical presence in that State to collect taxes on the sale of goods to its residents. A quar- ter century later, in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992), this Court was invited to overrule Bellas Hess but declined to do so. Another quarter century has passed, and another State now asks us to abandon the physical- presence rule. I would decline that invitation as well. I agree that Bellas Hess was wrongly decided, for many of the reasons given by the Court. The Court argues in favor of overturning that decision because the “Internet’s prevalence and power have changed the dynamics of the national economy.” Ante, at 18. But that is the very reason I oppose discarding the physical-presence rule. E- commerce has grown into a significant and vibrant part of our national economy against the backdrop of established rules, including the physical-presence rule. Any alteration to those rules with the potential to disrupt the develop- ment of such a critical segment of the economy should be undertaken by Congress. The Court should not act on this important question of current economic policy, solely to 2 SOUTH DAKOTA v. WAYFAIR, INC. ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting expiate a mistake it made over 50 years ago. I This Court “does not overturn its precedents lightly.” Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, 572 U. S. (2014) (slip op., at 15). Departing from the doctrine of stare decisis is an “exceptional action” demanding “special justification.” (1984). The bar is even higher in fields in which Congress “exercises primary authority” and can, if it wishes, over- ride this Court’s decisions with contrary legislation. Bay Mills, 572 U. S., at (slip op., at 16) (tribal sovereign immunity); see, e.g., Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U. S. (2015) (slip op., ) (statutory interpretation); Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., 573 U. S. (2014) (slip op., at 12) (judicially created doctrine implementing a judicially created cause of action). In such cases, we have said that “the burden borne by the party advocating the abandonment of an established precedent” is “greater” than usual. Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, That is so “even where the error is a matter of serious concern, provided correction can be had by legislation.” Square D 424 (1986) (quoting Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393, 406 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)). We have applied this heightened form of stare decisis in the dormant Commerce Clause |
Justice Roberts | 2,018 | 0 | dissenting | South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4509418/south-dakota-v-wayfair-inc/ | heightened form of stare decisis in the dormant Commerce Clause context. Under our dormant Commerce Clause precedents, when Congress has not yet legislated on a matter of interstate commerce, it is the province of “the courts to formulate the rules.” Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U.S. 761, 770 (1945). But because Congress “has plenary power to regulate commerce among the States,” Quill, 504 U.S., at 305, it may at any time replace such judicial rules with legislation of its own, see Prudential Ins. Co. v. Ben- Cite as: 585 U. S. (2018) 3 ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting jamin, In Quill, this Court emphasized that the decision to hew to the physical-presence rule on stare decisis grounds was “made easier by the fact that the underlying issue is not only one that Congress may be better qualified to resolve, but also one that Congress has the ultimate power to resolve.” Even as- suming we had gone astray in Bellas Hess, the “very fact” of Congress’s superior authority in this realm “g[a]ve us pause and counsel[ed] withholding our hand.” Quill, 504 U.S., (alterations omitted). We postulated that “the better part of both wisdom and valor [may be] to respect the judgment of the other branches of the Gov- ernment.” ; see (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (recognizing that stare decisis has “special force” in the dormant Commerce Clause context due to Congress’s “final say over regulation of interstate commerce”). The Court thus left it to Con- gress “to decide whether, when, and to what extent the States may burden interstate mail-order concerns with a duty to collect use taxes.” II This is neither the first, nor the second, but the third time this Court has been asked whether a State may obligate sellers with no physical presence within its bor- ders to collect tax on sales to residents. Whatever salience the adage “third time’s a charm” has in daily life, it is a poor guide to Supreme Court decisionmaking. If stare decisis applied with special force in Quill, it should be an even greater impediment to overruling precedent now, particularly since this Court in Quill “tossed [the ball] into Congress’s court, for acceptance or not as that branch elects.” Kimble, 576 U. S., at (slip op., ); see Quill, (“Congress is now free to decide” the circumstances in which “the States may burden interstate 4 SOUTH DAKOTA v. WAYFAIR, INC. ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting concerns with a duty to collect use taxes”). Congress has in fact been considering whether to alter the rule established |
Justice Roberts | 2,018 | 0 | dissenting | South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4509418/south-dakota-v-wayfair-inc/ | in fact been considering whether to alter the rule established in Bellas Hess for some time. See Addendum to Brief for Four United States Senators as Amici Curiae 1–4 (compiling efforts by Congress between 2001 and 2017 to pass legislation respecting interstate sales tax collection); Brief for Rep. Bob Goodlatte et al. as Amici Curiae 20–23 (Goodlatte Brief) (same). Three bills addressing the issue are currently pending. See Market- place Fairness Act of 2017, S. 976, 115th Cong., 1st Sess. (2017); Remote Transactions Parity Act of 2017, H. R. 2193, 115th Cong., 1st Sess. (2017); No Regulation With- out Representation Act, H. R. 2887, 115th Cong., 1st Sess. (2017). Nothing in today’s decision precludes Congress from continuing to seek a legislative solution. But by suddenly changing the ground rules, the Court may have waylaid Congress’s consideration of the issue. Armed with today’s decision, state officials can be expected to redirect their attention from working with Congress on a national solution, to securing new tax revenue from remote retail- ers. See, e.g., Brief for Sen. Ted Cruz et al. as Amici Curiae 10–11 (“Overturning Quill would undo much of Con- gress’ work to find a workable national compromise under the Commerce Clause.”). The Court proceeds with an inexplicable sense of urgency. It asserts that the passage of time is only increasing the need to take the extraordinary step of overruling Bellas Hess and Quill: “Each year, the physical presence rule becomes further removed from economic reality and results in significant revenue losses to the States.” Ante, at 10. The factual predicates for that assertion include a Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimate that, under the physical-presence rule, States lose billions of dollars annually in sales tax revenue. See ante, at 2, 19 (citing GAO, Report to Congressional Requesters: Sales Taxes, States Could Gain Revenue from Expanded Au- Cite as: 585 U. S. (2018) 5 ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting thority, but Businesses Are Likely to Experience Compli- ance Costs 5 (GAO–18–114, Nov. 2017) (Sales Taxes Re- port)). But evidence in the same GAO report indicates that the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction, and has been for some time. States and local governments are already able to collect approximately 80 percent of the tax revenue that would be available if there were no phys- ical-presence rule. See Sales Taxes Report 8. Among the top 100 Internet retailers that rate is between 87 and 96 percent. See Some companies, including the online behemoth Amazon,* now voluntarily collect and remit sales tax in every State that assesses one—even those in which they have no |
Justice Roberts | 2,018 | 0 | dissenting | South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4509418/south-dakota-v-wayfair-inc/ | State that assesses one—even those in which they have no physical presence. See at 10. To the extent the physical-presence rule is harming States, the harm is apparently receding with time. The Court rests its decision to overrule Bellas Hess on the “present realities of the interstate marketplace.” Ante, at 18. As the Court puts it, allowing remote sellers to escape remitting a lawful tax is “unfair and unjust.” Ante, at 16. “[U]nfair and unjust to competitors who must remit the tax; to the consumers who pay the tax; and to the States that seek fair enforcement of the sales tax.” Ante, at 16. But “the present realities of the interstate marketplace” include the possibility that the marketplace itself could be affected by abandoning the physical- presence rule. The Court’s focus on unfairness and injus- tice does not appear to embrace consideration of that current public policy concern. The Court, for example, breezily disregards the costs that its decision will impose on retailers. Correctly calcu- lating and remitting sales taxes on all e-commerce sales —————— * C. Isidore, Amazon To Start Collecting State Sales Taxes Every- where (Mar. 29, 2017), CNN Tech, http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/29/ technology/amazon-sales-tax/index.html (all Internet materials as last visited June 19, 2018). 6 SOUTH DAKOTA v. WAYFAIR, INC. ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting will likely prove baffling for many retailers. Over 10,000 jurisdictions levy sales taxes, each with “different tax rates, different rules governing tax-exempt goods and services, different product category definitions, and differ- ent standards for determining whether an out-of-state seller has a substantial presence” in the jurisdiction. Sales Taxes Report 3. A few examples: New Jersey knit- ters pay sales tax on yarn purchased for art projects, but not on yarn earmarked for sweaters. See Brief for eBay, Inc., et al. as Amici Curiae 8, n. 3 (eBay Brief ). Texas taxes sales of plain deodorant at 6.25 percent but imposes no tax on deodorant with antiperspirant. See Illinois categorizes Twix and Snickers bars—chocolate- and-caramel confections usually displayed side-by-side in the candy aisle—as food and candy, respectively (Twix have flour; Snickers don’t), and taxes them differently. See ; Brief for Etsy, Inc., as Amicus Curiae 14–17 (Etsy Brief ) (providing additional illustrations). The burden will fall disproportionately on small busi- nesses. One vitalizing effect of the Internet has been connecting small, even “micro” businesses to potential buyers across the Nation. People starting a business selling their embroidered pillowcases or carved decoys can offer their wares throughout the country—but probably not if they have to figure out the tax due on every sale. See Sales Taxes Report 22 (indicating |
Justice Roberts | 2,018 | 0 | dissenting | South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4509418/south-dakota-v-wayfair-inc/ | due on every sale. See Sales Taxes Report 22 (indicating that “costs will likely increase the most for businesses that do not have established legal teams, software systems, or outside counsel to assist with compliance related questions”). And the software said to facilitate compliance is still in its infancy, and its capabilities and expense are subject to debate. See Etsy Brief 17–19 (describing the inadequacies of such software); eBay Brief 8–12 (same); Sales Taxes Report 16–20 (concluding that businesses will incur “high” compliance costs). The Court’s decision today will surely have the effect of dampening opportunities for commerce Cite as: 585 U. S. (2018) 7 ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting in a broad range of new markets. A good reason to leave these matters to Congress is that legislators may more directly consider the competing interests at stake. Unlike this Court, Congress has the flexibility to address these questions in a wide variety of ways. As we have said in other dormant Commerce Clause cases, Congress “has the capacity to investigate and analyze facts beyond anything the Judiciary could match.” General Motors (1997); see Department of Revenue of Ky. v. Davis, 553 U.S. 328, 356 (2008). Here, after investigation, Congress could reasonably decide that current trends might sufficiently expand tax revenues, obviating the need for an abrupt policy shift with potentially adverse consequences for e-commerce. Or Congress might decide that the benefits of allowing States to secure additional tax revenue outweigh any foreseeable harm to e-commerce. Or Congress might elect to accom- modate these competing interests, by, for example, allow- ing States to tax Internet sales by remote retailers only if revenue from such sales exceeds some set amount per year. See Goodlatte Brief 12–14 (providing varied exam- ples of how Congress could address sales tax collection). In any event, Congress can focus directly on current policy concerns rather than past legal mistakes. Congress can also provide a nuanced answer to the troubling question whether any change will have retroactive effect. An erroneous decision from this Court may well have been an unintended factor contributing to the growth of e-commerce. See, e.g., W. Taylor, Who’s Writing the Book on Web Business? Fast Company (Oct. 31, 1996), https: // www.fastcompany.com / 27 / whos-writing-book- web-business. The Court is of course correct that the Nation’s economy has changed dramatically since the time that Bellas Hess and Quill roamed the earth. I fear the Court today is compounding its past error by trying to fix 8 SOUTH DAKOTA v. WAYFAIR, INC. ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting it in a totally different era. The Constitution gives |
per_curiam | 1,991 | 200 | per_curiam | Temple v. Synthes Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112500/temple-v-synthes-corp/ | Petitioner Temple, a Mississippi resident, underwent surgery in October 1986 in which a "plate and screw device" was implanted in his lower spine. The device was manufactured by respondent Synthes Corp., Ltd. (U. S. A.) (Synthes), a Pennsylvania corporation. Dr. S. Henry LaRocca performed the surgery at St. Charles General Hospital in New Orleans, *6 Louisiana. Following surgery, the device's screws broke off inside Temple's back. Temple filed suit against Synthes in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The suit, which rested on diversity jurisdiction, alleged defective design and manufacture of the device. At the same time, Temple filed a state administrative proceeding against Dr. LaRocca and the hospital for malpractice and negligence. At the conclusion of the administrative proceeding, Temple filed suit against the doctor and the hospital in Louisiana state court. Synthes did not attempt to bring the doctor and the hospital into the federal action by means of a third-party complaint, as provided in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 14(a). Instead, Synthes filed a motion to dismiss Temple's federal suit for failure to join necessary parties pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19. Following a hearing, the District Court ordered Temple to join the doctor and the hospital as defendants within 20 days or risk dismissal of the lawsuit. According to the court, the most significant reason for requiring joinder was the interest of judicial economy. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-12. The court relied on this Court's decision in Provident Tradesmens & Trust wherein we recognized that one focus of Rule 19 is "the interest of the courts and the public in complete, consistent, and efficient settlement of controversies." When Temple failed to join the doctor and the hospital, the court dismissed the suit with prejudice. Temple appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court deemed it "obviously prejudicial to the defendants to have the separate litigations being carried on," because Synthes' defense might be that the plate was not defective but that the doctor and the hospital were negligent, while the doctor and the hospital, on the other hand, might claim that they were not negligent but that the plate was defective. *7 App. to Pet. for Cert. A-3. The Court of Appeals found that the claims overlapped and that the District Court therefore had not abused its discretion in ordering joinder under Rule 19. A petition for rehearing was denied. In his petition for certiorari to this Court, Temple contends that it was error to label joint tortfeasors as indispensable parties |
per_curiam | 1,991 | 200 | per_curiam | Temple v. Synthes Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112500/temple-v-synthes-corp/ | it was error to label joint tortfeasors as indispensable parties under Rule 19(b) and to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice for failure to join those parties. We agree. Synthes does not deny that it, the doctor, and the hospital are potential joint tortfeasors. It has long been the rule that it is not necessary for all joint tortfeasors to be named as defendants in a single lawsuit. See ; See also (CA5) (per curiam), cert. denied, Nothing in the 1966 revision of Rule 19 changed that principle. See Provident The Advisory Committee Notes to Rule 19(a) explicitly state that "a tortfeasor with the usual `joint-and-several' liability is merely a permissive party to an action against another with like liability." 28 U.S. C. App., p. 595. There is nothing in Louisiana tort law to the contrary. See ; La. Civ. Code Ann., Arts. 1794, 1795 The opinion in Provident does speak of the public interest in limiting multiple litigation, but that case is not controlling here. There, the estate of a tort victim brought a declaratory judgment action against an insurance company. We assumed that the policyholder was a person "who, under (a), should be `joined if feasible.'" and went on to discuss the appropriate analysis under Rule 19(b), because the policyholder could not be joined without destroying diversity. After examining the factors set forth in Rule 19(b), we determined that the *8 action could proceed without the policyholder; he therefore was not an indispensable party whose absence required dismissal of the suit. Here, no inquiry under Rule 19(b) is necessary, because the threshold requirements of Rule 19(a) have not been satisfied. As potential joint tortfeasors with Synthes, Dr. LaRocca and the hospital were merely permissive parties. The Court of Appeals erred by failing to hold that the District Court abused its discretion in ordering them joined as defendants and in dismissing the action when Temple failed to comply with the court's order. For these reasons, we grant the petition for certiorari, reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered |
Justice White | 1,988 | 6 | dissenting | Department of Navy v. Egan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111990/department-of-navy-v-egan/ | It cannot be denied that the Government has a "compelling interest" in safeguarding the Nation's secrets. See ante, at 527. I see no necessity for this Court to rewrite the civil service statutes in the name of national security, however, since those statutes already provide a procedure that protects sensitive information without depriving federal employees such as respondent of a hearing into the underlying reasons for their discharge. The parties do not dispute that respondent was discharged from his civilian "laborer leader" position with the U. S. Navy pursuant to subchapter II of the Civil Service Reform Act, 5 U.S. C. 7511-7514. A federal agency may discharge an employee under those statutory provisions "only for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service." 7513(a). The employee is entitled to appeal the agency's action to the Merit Systems Protection Board. 7513(d). The Board must afford the employee "a hearing for which a transcript will be kept." 7701(a)(1). The employee's discharge is to be sustained by the Board only if "supported by a preponderance of the evidence." 7701(c)(1)(B). There is nothing in these statutory provisions to suggest that the Board is to scrutinize discharges on national security grounds any less comprehensively than other discharges for "cause." Nor does the legislative history of these provisions suggest that the Board is foreclosed from examining the reasons underlying the discharges of employees who are alleged to be security risks. *535 If Congress had remained silent on the subject of national security discharges throughout the Civil Service Reform Act, I might feel compelled to read into the foregoing provisions some restrictions on the scope of Board review of such discharges. It might be appropriate in such circumstances to assume that Congress intended that such restrictions be inferred by the Board and the courts. Congress did not remain silent, however, with regard to national security discharges. Rather, Congress carefully provided an alternative procedure to be used when the Government determines that an employee's removal is "necessary or advisable in the interests of national security." 5 U.S. C. 7532(b). The employee is entitled under this procedure to "a written statement of the charges against him," "an opportunity. to answer the charges and submit affidavits," "a hearing by an agency authority duly constituted for this purpose," "a review of his case by the head of the agency or his designee," and "a written statement of the decision of the head of the agency." 7532(c). The decision of the agency head is "final." 7532(b). It is not disputed that the Navy could have proceeded against respondent under 7532. |
Justice White | 1,988 | 6 | dissenting | Department of Navy v. Egan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111990/department-of-navy-v-egan/ | that the Navy could have proceeded against respondent under 7532. The sensible inference to be drawn from Congress' enactment of the procedural protections of 7532 for employees discharged "in the interests of national security" and its silence with regard to the procedures applicable to similarly motivated discharges under other sections of the civil service statutes is that Congress intended to guarantee every discharged employee a hearing into the "cause" for his removal. If the employee is discharged under 7532, he is entitled to a hearing before his own agency; if the employee is discharged under other provisions of Title 5, he is entitled to a hearing before the Board. Yet, the majority's decision frustrates this congressional intent by denying any meaningful hearing to employees such as respondent who are discharged on national security grounds under provisions other than 7532. In such cases, *536 the employing agency has no statutory obligation to afford the employee a hearing, and the Board now need determine only "whether in fact [a security] clearance was denied, and whether transfer to a nonsensitive position was feasible." Ante, at 530. Hence, the employee cannot demand a hearing into claims that he was branded a security risk based on false allegations or on reasons that lack any rational nexus to national security concerns. It is difficult to reconcile today's decision with the Court's discussion in of the procedural protections available to an employee of a Government contractor who had been denied a security clearance based on his alleged Communist associations and sympathies: "Before we are asked to judge whether, in the context of security clearance cases, a person may be deprived of the right to follow his chosen profession without full hearings where accusers may be confronted, it must be made clear that the President or Congress, within their respective constitutional powers, specifically has decided that the imposed procedures are necessary and warranted and has authorized their use. Such decisions cannot be assumed by acquiescence or non-action. They must be made explicitly not only to assure that individuals are not deprived of cherished rights under procedures not actually authorized, but also because explicit action, especially in areas of doubtful constitutionality, requires careful and purposeful consideration by those responsible for enacting and implementing our laws." It is far from clear in the instant circumstances that Congress or the President has decided that discharging alleged security risks without any sort of hearing is "necessary or warranted" or has explicitly authorized such a procedure. Instead, the majority assumes such a result from congressional "nonaction." For example, the majority emphasizes that "[n]othing |
Justice White | 1,988 | 6 | dissenting | Department of Navy v. Egan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111990/department-of-navy-v-egan/ | from congressional "nonaction." For example, the majority emphasizes that "[n]othing in the [Civil Service Reform] Act directs or *537 empowers the Board to go further" than to determine whether a security clearance was indeed denied and whether transfer to a nonsensitive position was possible. Ante, at 530. There is likewise nothing in the Act, however, that directs the Board not to "go further." Today's result is not necessary to protect the Nation's secrets. If an agency fears that the Board will not be sufficiently sensitive to the national security implications of a discharge decision,[1] the agency may foreclose external review of that decision by proceeding against the employee under 7532. The agency would be required in such circumstances, however, to afford the employee an internal hearing into the reasons for his termination. The agency could not discharge the employee, as the Navy did here, without affording him any hearing into the merits of his discharge. *538 The majority suggests that respondent would have received no more procedural protection under 7532 than under 7513 notwithstanding that he was guaranteed a hearing on the merits under the former provision but not under the latter. Ante, at 533. This conclusion does not show sufficient regard for our many decisions recognizing the particularly important role of the hearing in assuring that individuals are not wrongfully deprived of their livelihoods or other significant interests. See, e. g., ; ; ; I cannot assume that the proceedings required under 7532 would not provide an employee with a meaningful opportunity to be heard simply because they are conducted by an agency authority rather than by the Board.[2] In sum, absent any indication that Congress or the President intended to deny federal employees discharged on national security grounds a full hearing before either the Board or their employing agency into the merits of their removal, I respectfully dissent. |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | dissenting | Kaiser Aetna v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110161/kaiser-aetna-v-united-states/ | The Court holds today that, absent compensation, the public may be denied a right of access to "navigable waters of the *181 United " that have been created or enhanced by private means. I find that conclusion neither supported in precedent nor wise in judicial policy, and I dissent. My disagreement with the Court lies in four areas. First, I believe the Court errs by implicitly rejecting the old and long-established "ebb and flow" test of navigability as a source for the navigational servitude the Government claims. Second, I cannot accept the notion, which I believe to be without foundation in precedent, that the federal "navigational servitude" does not extend to all "navigable waters of the United" Third, I reach a different balance of interests on the question whether the exercise of the servitude in favor of public access requires compensation to private interests where private efforts are responsible for creating "navigability in fact." And finally, I differ on the bearing that state property law has on the questions before us today. I The first issue, in my view, is whether Kuapa Pond is "navigable water of the United" and, if so, why. The Court begins by asking "whether petitioners' improvements to Kuapa Pond caused its original character to be so altered that it became subject to an overriding federal navigational servitude." Ante, at 169. It thus assumes that the only basis for extension of federal authority must have arisen after the pond was "developed" and transformed into a marina. This choice of starting point overlooks the Government's contention, advanced throughout this litigation, that Kuapa Pond was navigable water in its natural state, long prior to petitioners' improvements, by virtue of its susceptibility to the ebb and flow of the tide.[1] *182 The Court concedes that precedent does not disclose a single criterion for identifying "navigable waters." I read our prior cases to establish three distinct tests: "navigability in fact," "navigable capacity," and "ebb and flow" of the tide. Navigability in fact has been used as a test for the scope of the dominant federal interest in navigation since The Propeller Genesee and The Daniel The test of navigable capacity is of more recent origin; it hails from United where it was used to support assertion of the federal navigational interest over a river nonnavigable in its natural state but capable of being rendered fit for navigation by "reasonable improvements." Ebb and flow is the oldest test of the three. It was inherited from England, where under common law it was used to define ownership of navigable waters by the |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | dissenting | Kaiser Aetna v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110161/kaiser-aetna-v-united-states/ | was used to define ownership of navigable waters by the Crown. In the early days of the Republic, it was regarded as the exclusive test of federal jurisdiction over the waterways of this country. See The Thomas Jefferson, ; Petitioners say that the ebb-and-flow test was abandoned in The Propeller Genesee Chief and The Daniel in favor of navigability in fact. I do not agree with that interpretation. It is based upon language in those opinions suggesting that the test is "arbitrary," that it bears no relation to what is "suitable" for federal control, that it "has no application in this country," and indeed that it is not "any test at all." See The Propeller Genesee ; The Daniel 10 Wall., at One may acknowledge the language without accepting petitioners' inference. The Propeller Genesee Chief and The Daniel were concerned with extending federal power to accommodate the stark realities of *183 fresh-water commerce. In the former the question was whether admiralty jurisdiction included the Great Lakes. In the latter the question was the scope of federal regulatory power over navigation on a river. In either case it is not surprising that the Court, contemplating the substantial interstate fresh-water commerce on our lakes and rivers, found a test developed in England, an island nation with no analogue to our rivers and lakes, unacceptable as a test for the extent of federal power over these inland waterways. Cf. The Propeller Genesee -. But the inadequacy of the test for defining the interior reach of federal power over navigation does not mean that the test must be, or must have been, abandoned for determining the breadth of federal power on our coasts. The ebb-and-flow test is neither arbitrary nor unsuitable when applied in a coastwise setting. The ebb and flow of the tide define the geographical, chemical, and environmental limits of the three oceans and the Gulf that wash our shores. Since those bodies of water in the main are navigable, they should be treated as navigable to the inner reach of their natural limits. Those natural limits encompass a water body such as Kuapa Pond, which is contiguous to Maunalua Bay, and which in its natural state must be regarded as an arm of the sea, subject to its tides and currents as much as the Bay itself. I take it the Court must concede that, at least for regulatory purposes, the pond in its current condition is "navigable water" because it is now "navigable in fact." See ante, at 172. I would add that the pond was "navigable water" prior to |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | dissenting | Kaiser Aetna v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110161/kaiser-aetna-v-united-states/ | would add that the pond was "navigable water" prior to development of the present marina because it was subject to the ebb and flow of the tide. In view of the importance the Court attaches to the fact of private development.[2]*184 this alternative basis for navigability carries significant implications.[3] II A more serious parting of ways attends the question whether the navigational servitude extends to all "navigable waters of the United" however the latter may be established.[4] The Court holds that it does not, at least where navigability is in whole or in part the work of private hands. I disagree. The Court notes that the tests of navigability I have set forth originated in cases involving questions of federal regulation rather than application of the navigational servitude. Ante, at 171-173. It also notes that Congress has authority to regulate in aid of navigation far beyond the limitations of "navigability." Ante, at 173-174. From these indisputable propositions the Court concludes that "navigable waters" for these other purposes need not be the same as the "navigable waters" to which the navigational servitude applies. Preliminary, it must be recognized that the issue is not whether the navigational servitude runs to every watercourse over which the Federal Government may exercise its regulatory *185 power to promote navigation. Regulatory jurisdiction "in aid of" navigation extends beyond the navigational servitude, and indeed beyond navigable water itself. In United for example, the Court confirmed the Federal Government's power to enjoin an irrigation project above the limits of navigable water on the Rio Grande River because that project threatened to destroy navigability below. But this is not such a case. Federal authority over Kuapa Pond does not stem solely from an effect on navigable water elsewhere, although this might be a sound alternative basis for regulatory jurisdiction. Instead, the authority arises because the pond itself is navigable water. Nor does it advance analysis to suggest that we might decide to call certain waters "navigable" for some purposes, but "nonnavigable" for purposes of the navigational servitude. See ante, at 170-171. To my knowledge, no case has ever so held. Although tests of navigability have originated in other contexts, prior cases have never attempted to limit any test of navigability to a single species of federal power. Indeed. often they have referred to "navigable" water as "public" water. See, e. g., The Propeller Genesee ; The Daniel 10 Wall., at In any event, to say that Kuapa Pond is somehow "nonnavigable" for present purposes, and that it is not subject to the navigational servitude for this reason, is merely |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | dissenting | Kaiser Aetna v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110161/kaiser-aetna-v-united-states/ | subject to the navigational servitude for this reason, is merely to substitute one conclusion for another. To sustain its holding today. I believe that the Court must prove the more difficult contention that the navigational servitude does not extend to waters that are clearly navigable and fully subject to use as a highway for interstate commerce. The Court holds, in essence, that the extent of the servitude does not depend on whether a waterway is navigable under any of the tests, but on whether the navigable waterway is "natural" or privately developed. In view of the fact that *186 Kuapa Pond originally was created by natural forces, and that its separation from the Bay has been maintained by the interaction of natural forces and human effort, neither characterization seems particularly apt in this case.[5] One could accept the Court's approach, however, and still find that the servitude extends to Kuapa Pond, by virtue of its status prior to development under the ebb-and-flow test. Nevertheless, I think the Court's reasoning on this point is flawed. In my view, the power we describe by the term "navigational servitude" extends to the limits of interstate commerce by water; accordingly, I would hold that it is coextensive with the "navigable waters of the United" As the Court recognizes, ante, at 174-175, the navigational servitude symbolizes the dominant federal interest in navigation implanted in the Commerce Clause. See ; cf. To preserve this interest, the National Government has been given the power not only to regulate interstate commerce by water, but also to control the waters themselves, and to maintain them as "common highways,. forever free." See the Act of Aug. 7, 1789, 52, n. (a) (navigable waters in Northwest Territory). See United ; The National Government is guardian of a public right of access to navigable waters of the United The navigational servitude is the legal formula by which we recognize the paramount nature of this governmental responsibility. The Court often has observed the breadth of federal power in this context. In United for example, it stated: "The interest of the United in the flow of a navigable stream originates in the Commerce Clause. *187 That Clause speaks in terms of power, not of property. But the power is a dominant one which can be asserted to the exclusion of any competing or conflicting one. The power is a privilege which we have called `a dominant servitude' or `a superior navigation easement.'" (Citations omitted.) Perhaps with somewhat different emphasis, the Court also has stated, in cases involving navigable waters, that "the flow of the |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | dissenting | Kaiser Aetna v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110161/kaiser-aetna-v-united-states/ | in cases involving navigable waters, that "the flow of the stream [is] in no sense private property," United and that the waters themselves "are the public property of the nation." The Court in Twin City Power recognized that what is at issue is a matter of power, not of property. The servitude, in order to safeguard the Federal Government's paramount control over waters used in interstate commerce, limits the power of the to create conflicting interests based on local law. That control does not depend on the form of the water body or the manner in which it was created, but on the fact of navigability and the corresponding commercial significance the waterway attains. Wherever that commerce can occur, be it Kuapa Pond or Honolulu Harbor, the navigational servitude must extend. III The conclusion that the navigational servitude extends to privately created or enhanced waters does not entirely dispose of this case. There remains the question whether the Government's resort to the servitude requires compensation for private investment instrumental in affecting or improving navigability. The Court, of course, concludes that there is no navigational servitude and, accordingly, that assertion of public access constitutes a compensable taking. Because I do not agree with the premise, I cannot conclude that the right to *188 compensation for opening the pond to the public is a necessary result. Nevertheless, I think this question requires a balancing of private and public interests. Ordinarily, "[w]hen the Government exercises [the navigational] servitude, it is exercising its paramount power in the interest of navigation, rather than taking the private property of anyone." United v. Kansas City Ins. See also United v. Willow River ; Lewis Blue Point Oyster v. Briggs, ; The Court's prior cases usually have involved riparian owners along navigable rivers who claim losses resulting from the raising or lowering of water levels in the navigable stream, or from the construction of artificial aids to navigation, such as dams or locks. In these cases the Court has held that no compensation is required for loss in water power due to impairment of the navigable water's flow, e. g., United -227; United -66; for loss in "head" resulting from raising the stream, United v. Willow River -511; for damage to structures erected between low- and high-water marks, United v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. ; for loss of access to navigable water caused by necessary improvements, United ; ; or for loss of value to adjoining land based on potential use in navigational commerce, United The Court also has held that no compensation is required |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | dissenting | Kaiser Aetna v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110161/kaiser-aetna-v-united-states/ | The Court also has held that no compensation is required when "obstructions," such as bridges or wharves, are removed or altered to improve navigation, despite their obvious commercial value to those who erected them, and despite the Federal Government's original willingness to have them built. See. e. g., Greenleaf Lumber v. Garrison, ; Union Bridge v. United[6] These cases establish a key principle that points the way for decision in the present context. In most of them, the noncompensable loss was related, either directly or indirectly, to the riparian owner's "access to, and use of, navigable waters." United 389 U. S., at However that access or use may have been turned to account for personal gain, and no matter how much the riparian owner had invested to enhance the value, the Court held that these rights were *190 shared with the public at large. Actions taken to improve their value for the many caused no reimbursable damage to the few who, by the accident of owning contiguous "fast land," previously enjoyed the blessings of the common right in greater measure. See, e. g., United 324 U. S., at The Court recognized that encroachment on rights inhering separately in the adjoining "fast land," United v. Virginia Electric or resulting from access to nonnavigable tributaries, see United might form the basis for a valid compensation claim. But the principal distinction was that these compensable values had nothing to do with use of the navigable water. Application of this principle to the present case should lead to the conclusion that the developers of Kuapa Pond have acted at their own risk and are not entitled to compensation for the public access the Government now asserts. See Union Bridge v. United 204 U. S., at The chief value of the pond in its present state obviously is a value of access to navigable water. Development was undertaken to improve and enhance this value, not to improve the value of the pond as some aquatic species of "fast land."[7] Petitioners do not question the Federal Government's plenary control over the waters of the Bay, and they have no vested right in access to its open water. Since the value of the pond and the motive for improving it lie in access to a highway of commerce, I am drawn to the conclusion that the petitioners' interest in the improved waters of the pond is not subject to compensation. Whatever expectancy petitioners may have had in control over the pond for use as a fishery was surrendered in exchange for *191 the advantages of access when |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | dissenting | Kaiser Aetna v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110161/kaiser-aetna-v-united-states/ | surrendered in exchange for *191 the advantages of access when they cut a channel into the Bay. In contrast, the Government's interest in vindicating a public right of access to the pond is substantial. It is the very interest in maintaining "common highways, forever free." After today's decision, it is open to any developer to claim that private improvements to a waterway navigable in interstate commerce have transformed "navigable water of the United " into private property, at least to the extent that he may charge for access to the portion improved. Such appropriation of navigable waters for private use directly injures the freedom of commerce that the navigational servitude is intended to safeguard. In future cases, of course, the Army Corps of Engineers may alleviate this danger by conditioning permission for connection with other waterways on a right of free public access. But it seems to me that the inevitable result of today's decision is the introduction of new legal uncertainty in a field where I had thought the "battles long ago," ante, at 177, had achieved some settled doctrine. IV I come, finally, to the question whether Kuapa Pond's status under state law ought to alter this conclusion drawn from federal law. The Court assumes, without much discussion, that Kuapa Pond is the equivalent of "fast land" for purposes of Hawaii property law. There is, to be sure, support for this assumption, and for present purposes I am prepared to follow the Court in making it. See, e. g., In re Application of Kamakana, Nonetheless, I think it clear that local law concerns rights of title and use between citizen and citizen, or between citizen and state, but does not affect the scope or effect of the federal navigational servitude. The rights in Kuapa fisheries that have been part of Hawaii law since the Great Mahele are not unlike the right to the use of the floor of a bay that was at issue in Lewis Blue Point *192 Oyster v. Briggs, There the Court found no entitlement to compensation for destruction of an oysterbed in the course of dredging a channel. The Court reasoned: "If the public right of navigation is the dominant right and if, as must be the case, the title of the owner of the bed of navigable waters holds subject absolutely to the public right of navigation, this dominant right must include the right to use the bed of the water for every purpose which is in aid of navigation." By similar logic, I do not think Hawaii or any other State is |
Justice Kagan | 2,013 | 3 | majority | American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Los Angeles | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/902267/american-trucking-assns-inc-v-los-angeles/ | In this case, we consider whether federal law preempts certain provisions of an agreement that trucking compa- nies must sign before they can transport cargo at the Port of Los Angeles. We hold that the Federal Aviation Admin- istration Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAAA) expressly preempts two of the contract’s provisions, which require such a company to develop an off-street parking plan and display designated placards on its vehicles. We decline to decide in the case’s present, pre-enforcement posture whether, under Castle v. Hayes Freight Lines, Inc., 348 U.S. 61 federal law governing licenses for inter- state motor carriers prevents the Port from using the agreement’s penalty clause to punish violations of other, non-preempted provisions. I A The Port of Los Angeles, a division of the City of Los Angeles, is the largest port in the country. The Port owns marine terminal facilities, which it leases to “terminal 2 AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSNS., INC. v. LOS ANGELES Opinion of the Court operators” (such as shipping lines and stevedoring compa- nies) that load cargo onto and unload it from docking ships. Short-haul trucks, called “drayage trucks,” move the cargo into and out of the Port. The trucking compa- nies providing those drayage services are all federally licensed motor carriers. Before the events giving rise to this case, they contracted with terminal operators to transport cargo, but did not enter into agreements with the Port itself. The City’s Board of Harbor Commissioners runs the Port pursuant to a municipal ordinance known as a tariff, which sets out various regulations and charges. In the late 1990’s, the Board decided to enlarge the Port’s facili- ties to accommodate more ships. Neighborhood and envi- ronmental groups objected to the proposed expansion, arguing that it would increase congestion and air pollution and decrease safety in the surrounding area. A lawsuit they brought, and another they threatened, stymied the Board’s development project for almost 10 years. To address the community’s concerns, the Board imple- mented a Clean Truck Program beginning in 2007. Among other actions, the Board devised a standard-form “concession agreement” to govern the relationship between the Port and any trucking company seeking to operate on the premises. Under that contract, a company may transport cargo at the Port in exchange for complying with various requirements. The two directly at issue here compel the company to (1) affix a placard on each truck with a phone number for reporting environmental or safety concerns (You’ve seen the type: “How am I driving? 213–867–5309”) and (2) submit a plan listing off-street parking locations for each truck when not in |
Justice Kagan | 2,013 | 3 | majority | American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Los Angeles | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/902267/american-trucking-assns-inc-v-los-angeles/ | listing off-street parking locations for each truck when not in service. Three other provisions in the agreement, formerly dis- puted in this litigation, relate to the company’s financial capacity, its maintenance of trucks, and its employment of drivers. Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 3 Opinion of the Court The Board then amended the Port’s tariff to ensure that every company providing drayage services at the facility would enter into the concession agreement. The mecha- nism the Board employed is a criminal prohibition on terminal operators. The amended tariff provides that “no Terminal Operator shall permit access into any Terminal in the Port of Los Angeles to any Drayage Truck unless such Drayage Truck is registered under a Concession [Agreement].” App. 105. A violation of that provision— which occurs “each and every day” a terminal operator provides access to an unregistered truck—is a misde- meanor. It is punishable by a fine of up to $500 or a prison sentence of up to six months. at 85–86. The concession agreement itself spells out penalties for any signatory trucking company that violates its require- ments. When a company commits a “Minor Default,” the Port may issue a warning letter or order the company to undertake “corrective action,” complete a “course of training,” or pay the costs of the Port’s investigation. at 81–82. When a company commits a “Major Default,” the Port may also suspend or revoke the company’s right to provide drayage services at the Port. The agreement, however, does not specify which breaches of the contract qualify as “Major,” rather than “Minor.” And the parties agree that the Port has never suspended or revoked a trucking company’s license to operate at the Port for a prior violation of one of the contract provisions involved in this case. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 42–43, 49–51. B Petitioner American Trucking Associations, Inc. (ATA), is a national trade association representing the trucking industry, including drayage companies that operate at the Port. ATA filed suit against the Port and City, seeking an injunction against the five provisions of the concession agreement discussed above. The complaint principally 4 AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSNS., INC. v. LOS ANGELES Opinion of the Court contended that of the FAAAA expressly preempts those requirements. That statutory section states: “[A] State [or local government] may not enact or en- force a law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or ser- vice of any motor carrier with respect to the trans- portation of property.” 49 U.S. C.1 ATA also offered a back-up argument: Even |
Justice Kagan | 2,013 | 3 | majority | American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Los Angeles | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/902267/american-trucking-assns-inc-v-los-angeles/ | 49 U.S. C.1 ATA also offered a back-up argument: Even if the re- quirements are valid, ATA claimed, the Port may not enforce them by withdrawing a defaulting company’s right to operate at the Port. That argument rested on Castle v. Hayes Freight Lines, Inc., which held that Illinois could not bar a federally licensed motor car- rier from its highways for prior violations of state safety regulations. We reasoned in Castle that the State’s action conflicted with federal law providing for certification of motor carriers; and ATA argued here that a similar con- flict would inhere in applying the concession agreement to suspend or revoke a trucking company’s privileges. Fol- lowing a bench trial, the District Court held that neither nor Castle prevents the Port from proceeding with any part of its Clean Truck Program. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit mainly af- firmed. Most important for our purposes, the court held that does not preempt the agreement’s plac- —————— 1 ATA also contended that a separate provision, 49 U.S. C. preempts the agreement’s placard requirement. That section bars state and local governments from enacting or enforcing “any law, rule, regulation[,] standard, or other provision having the force and effect of law” that obligates a motor carrier to display any form of identification other than those the Secretary of Transportation has required. The just-quoted language is the only part of disputed here, and it is materially identical to language in We focus on for ease of reference, but everything we say about that provision also applies to Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 5 Opinion of the Court ard and parking requirements because they do not “ ‘ ha[ve] the force and effect of law.’ ” (2011) (quoting ). The court reasoned that those requirements, rather than regulating the drayage market, advance the Port’s own “business interest” in “managing its facilities.” Both provisions were “designed to address [a] specific proprietary problem[ ]”— the need to “increase the community good-will necessary to facilitate Port expansion.” at 406–407; see at 409. The Ninth Circuit also held the agreement’s financial-capacity and truck-maintenance provisions not preempted, for reasons not relevant here.2 Section 14501(c)(1), the court decided, preempts only the contract’s employment provision. Finally, the Ninth Circuit rejected ATA’s claim that Castle bars the Port from applying the agreement’s penalty clause to withdraw a trucking com- pany’s right to operate at the facility. The court thought Castle inapplicable because of the narrower exclusion in this case: “Unlike a ban on using all of a State’s freeways,” the court reasoned, “a limitation on |
Justice Kagan | 2,013 | 3 | majority | American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Los Angeles | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/902267/american-trucking-assns-inc-v-los-angeles/ | of a State’s freeways,” the court reasoned, “a limitation on access to a single Port does not prohibit motor carriers” from generally partici- pating in interstate We granted certiorari to resolve two questions: first, whether of the FAAAA preempts the conces- sion agreement’s placard and parking provisions; and second, whether Castle precludes reliance on the agree- ment’s penalty clause to suspend or revoke a trucking company’s privileges. See 568 U. S. (2013). Contrary to the Ninth Circuit, we hold that the placard and parking requirements are preempted as “provision[s] having the force and effect of law.” That determination does not —————— 2 For those curious, the court held that the financial-capacity re- quirement is not “ ‘related to a [motor carrier’s] price, route, or service,’ ” and that the truck-maintenance requirement falls within a statutory exception for safety 660 F.3d, at 403–406 (quoting ); see (safety exception). 6 AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSNS., INC. v. LOS ANGELES Opinion of the Court obviate the enforcement issue arising from Castle because the Ninth Circuit’s rulings upholding the agreement’s financial-capacity and truck-maintenance provisions have now become final;3 accordingly, the Port could try to apply its penalty provision to trucking companies that have violated those surviving requirements. But we nonethe- less decline to address the Castle question because the case’s pre-enforcement posture obscures the nature of the agreement’s remedial scheme, rendering any decision at this point a shot in the dark. II Section 14501(c)(1), once again, preempts a state “law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor car- rier with respect to the transportation of property.” All parties agree that the Port’s placard and parking require- ments relate to a motor carrier’s price, route, or service with respect to transporting property. The only disputed question is whether those requirements “hav[e] the force and effect of law.” The Port claims that they do not, be- cause the “concession contract is just [like] a private agreement,” made to advance the Port’s commercial and “proprietary interests.” Brief for Respondent City of Los Angeles et al. 19 (Brief for City of Los Angeles) (internal quotation marks omitted).4 —————— 3 ATA’spetition for certiorari did not seek review of the Ninth Cir- cuit’s determination that the truck-maintenance provision is valid. The petition did ask us to consider the court’s ruling on the financial- capacity provision, but we declined to do so. 4 The Port’s brief occasionally frames the issue differently—as whether a freestanding “market-participant exception” limits ’s express terms. See Brief for City of Los Angeles 24. But |
Justice Kagan | 2,013 | 3 | majority | American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Los Angeles | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/902267/american-trucking-assns-inc-v-los-angeles/ | terms. See Brief for City of Los Angeles 24. But at oral argu- ment, the Port emphasized that the supposed exception it invoked in fact derives from ’s “force and effect of law” language. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 31 (“[W]hat we are calling the market participant exception is generally congruent with[ ] what is meant by Congress Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 7 Opinion of the Court We can agree with the Port on this premise: Section 14501(c)(1) draws a rough line between a government’s exercise of regulatory authority and its own contract-based participation in a market. We recognized that distinction in American Airlines, when we construed another statute’s near-identical “force and effect of law” language. That phrase, we stated, “con- notes official, government-imposed policies” prescribing “binding standards of conduct.” (internal quotation marks omitted). And we contrasted that quin- tessential regulatory action to “contractual commitment[s] voluntarily undertaken.” (internal quotation marks omitted). In Wolens, we addressed a State’s en- forcement of an agreement between two private parties. But the same reasoning holds if the government enters into a contract just as a private party would—for example, if a State (or City or Port) signs an agreement with a trucking company to transport goods at a specified price. See, e.g., Building & Constr. Trades 233 (1993) (When a State acts as a purchaser of services, “it does not ‘regulate’ the workings of the market ; it exemplifies them” (some internal quotation marks omitted)). The “force and effect of law” language in excludes such everyday contractual arrange- ments from the clause’s scope. That phrasing targets the State acting as a State, not as any market actor—or other- wise said, the State acting in a regulatory rather than proprietary mode. But that statutory reading gets the Port nothing, be- cause it exercised classic regulatory authority—complete —————— by the term ‘force and effect of law’ ”); 9–40 (“I’m relying on the language force and effect of law,” which “invites a market participant analysis”). We therefore have no occasion to consider whether or when a preemption clause lacking such language would except a state or local government’s proprietary actions. 8 AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSNS., INC. v. LOS ANGELES Opinion of the Court with the use of criminal penalties—in imposing the plac- ard and parking requirements at issue here. Consider again how those requirements work. They are, to be sure, contained in contracts between the Port and trucking companies. But those contracts do not stand alone, as the result merely of the parties’ voluntary commitments. The Board of Harbor Commissioners aimed to “require parties who access |
Justice Kagan | 2,013 | 3 | majority | American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Los Angeles | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/902267/american-trucking-assns-inc-v-los-angeles/ | Board of Harbor Commissioners aimed to “require parties who access Port land and terminals for purposes of pro- viding drayage services” to enter into concession agree- ments with the Port. App. 108 (Board’s “Findings”). And it accomplished that objective by amending the Port’s tariff—a form of municipal ordinance—to provide that “no Terminal Operator shall permit” a drayage truck to gain “access into any Terminal in the Port” unless the truck is “registered under” such a concession agreement. at 105. A violation of that tariff provision is a violation of criminal law. And it is punishable by a fine or a prison sentence of up to six months. at 85–86. So the con- tract here functions as part and parcel of a governmental program wielding coercive power over private parties, backed by the threat of criminal punishment. That counts as action “having the force and effect of law” if anything does. The Port here has not acted as a private party, contracting in a way that the owner of an ordinary commercial enterprise could mimic. Rather, it has forced terminal operators—and through them, truck- ing companies—to alter their conduct by implementing a criminal prohibition punishable by time in prison. In some cases, the question whether governmental action has the force of law may pose difficulties; the line between regulatory and proprietary conduct has soft edges. But this case takes us nowhere near those uncertain bounda- ries. Contractual commitments resulting not from ordi- nary bargaining (as in Wolens), but instead from the threat of criminal sanctions manifest the government qua government, performing its prototypical regulatory role. Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 9 Opinion of the Court The Port’s primary argument to the contrary, like the Ninth Circuit’s, focuses on motive rather than means. The Court of Appeals related how community opposition had frustrated the Port’s expansion, and concluded that the Clean Truck Program “respon[ded] to perceived business necessity.” The Port tells the identical story, emphasizing that private companies have similar business incentives to “adopt[ ] ‘green growth’ plans like the Port’s.” Brief for City of Los Angeles 30. We have no reason to doubt that account of events; we can assume the Port acted to enhance goodwill and improve the odds of achieving its business plan—just as a private company might. But the Port’s intentions are not what matters. That is because, as we just described, the Port chose a tool to fulfill those goals which only a government can wield: the hammer of the criminal law. See United Haulers Assn., aff ’d, And when the government employs such a coercive |
Justice Kagan | 2,013 | 3 | majority | American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Los Angeles | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/902267/american-trucking-assns-inc-v-los-angeles/ | aff ’d, And when the government employs such a coercive mech- anism, available to no private party, it acts with the force and effect of law, whether or not it does so to turn a profit. Only if it forgoes the (distinctively governmental) exercise of legal authority may it escape ’s preemptive scope. The Port also tries another tack, reminding us that the criminal sanctions here fall on terminal operators alone, not on the trucking companies subject to the agreement’s requirements; hence, the Port maintains, the matter of “criminal penalties is a red herring.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 31; see Brief for City of Los Angeles 39–40. But we fail to see why the target of the sanctions makes any difference. The Port selected an indirect but wholly effective means of “requir[ing] parties providing drayage services” to display placards and submit parking plans: To wit, the Port required terminal operators, on pain of criminal penalties, to insist that the truckers make those commit- 10 AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSNS., INC. v. LOS ANGELES Opinion of the Court ments. App. 108; see We have often rejected efforts by States to avoid preemption by shifting their regulatory focus from one company to another in the same supply chain. See, e.g., (finding preemption under the FAAAA although the State’s re- quirements directly targeted retailers rather than motor carriers); Engine Mfrs. (finding preemption under the Clean Air Act although the re- quirements directly targeted car buyers rather than sellers). The same goes here. The Port made its regula- tion of drayage trucks mandatory by imposing criminal penalties on the entities hiring all such trucks at the facility. Slice it or dice it any which way, the Port thus acted with the “force of law.” III Our rejection of the concession agreement’s placard and parking requirements does not conclude this case. Two other provisions of the agreement are now in effect: As noted earlier, the Ninth Circuit upheld the financial- capacity and truck-maintenance requirements, and that part of its decision has become final. See and n. 2. ATA argues that our holding in Castle limits the way the Port can enforce those remaining requirements. Ac- cording to ATA, the Port may not rely on the agreement’s penalty provision to suspend or revoke the right of non- complying trucking companies to operate on the premises. As we have described, Castle rebuffed a State’s attempt to bar a federally licensed motor carrier from its highways for past infringements of state safety regulations. A fed- eral statute, we explained, gave a federal agency the authority to license interstate motor carriers, |
Justice Kagan | 2,013 | 3 | majority | American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Los Angeles | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/902267/american-trucking-assns-inc-v-los-angeles/ | a federal agency the authority to license interstate motor carriers, as well as a carefully circumscribed power to suspend or terminate those licenses for violations of law. That statute, we held, Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 11 Opinion of the Court implicitly prohibited a State from “tak[ing] action”—like a ban on the use of its highways—“amounting to a suspen- sion or revocation of an interstate carrier’s [federally] granted right to operate.” –64. The parties here dispute whether Castle restricts the Port’s remedial authority. The Port echoes the Ninth Circuit’s view that banning a truck from “all of a State’s freeways” is meaningfully different from denying it “access to a single Port.” ; see Brief for City of Los Angeles 49. ATA responds that because the Port is a “crucial channel of interstate commerce,” Castle applies to it just as much as to roads. Brief for Petitioner 18. But we see another question here: Does the Port’s en- forcement scheme involve curtailing drayage trucks’ oper- ations in the way Castle prohibits, even assuming that decision applies to facilities like this one? As just indicat- ed, Castle puts limits on how a State or locality can punish an interstate motor carrier for prior violations of truck- ing regulations (like the concession agreement’s require- ments). Nothing we said there, however, prevents a State from taking off the road a vehicle that is contemporane- ously out of compliance with such regulations. Indeed, ATA filed an amicus brief in Castle explaining that a vehicle “that fails to comply with the state’s regulations may be barred from the state’s highways.” Brief for ATA, O. T 1954, No. 44, p. 12; see Brief for Respondent, p. 23 (A State may “stop and prevent from continuing on the highway any motor vehicle which it finds not to be in compliance”). And ATA reiterates that view here, as does the United States as amicus curiae. See Reply Brief 22; Brief for United States 29–30. So the Port would not violate Castle if it barred a truck from operating at its facilities to prevent an ongoing violation of the agree- ment’s requirements. And at this juncture, we have no basis for finding that the Port will ever use the agreement’s penalty provision 12 AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSNS., INC. v. LOS ANGELES Opinion of the Court for anything more than that. That provision, to be sure, might be read to give the Port broader authority: As noted earlier, the relevant text enables the Port to suspend or revoke a trucking company’s right to provide dray- age services at the facility as |
Justice Kagan | 2,013 | 3 | majority | American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Los Angeles | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/902267/american-trucking-assns-inc-v-los-angeles/ | right to provide dray- age services at the facility as a “[r]emedy” for a “Major Default.” App. 82; see But the agreement nowhere states what counts as a “Major Default”—and specifically, whether a company’s breach of the financial- capacity or truck-maintenance requirements would qual- ify. And the Port has in fact never used its suspension or revocation power to penalize a past violation of those requirements. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 43, 50–51. Indeed, the Port’s brief states that “it does not claim[ ] the authority to punish past, cured violations of the requirements chal- lenged here through suspension or revocation.” Brief for City of Los Angeles 62 (internal quotation marks omitted). So the kind of enforcement ATA fears, and believes incon- sistent with Castle, might never come to pass at all. In these circumstances, we decide not to decide ATA’s Castle-based challenge. That claim, by its nature, attacks the Port’s enforcement scheme. But given the pre- enforcement posture of this case, we cannot tell what that scheme entails. It might look like the one forbidden in Castle (as ATA anticipates), or else it might not (as the Port assures us). We see no reason to take a guess now about what the Port will do later. There will be time enough to address the Castle question when, if ever, the Port enforces its agreement in a way arguably violating that decision. IV Section 14501(c)(1) of the FAAAA preempts the placard and parking provisions of the Port’s concession agreement. We decline to decide on the present record ATA’s separate challenge, based on Castle, to that agreement’s penalty provision. Accordingly, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 13 Opinion of the Court is reversed in part, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 1 THOMAS, J., concurring SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 11–798 AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS, INC., PETITIONER v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, ET AL. |
Justice Stevens | 1,976 | 16 | concurring | Oil Workers v. Mobil Oil Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109480/oil-workers-v-mobil-oil-corp/ | As I read 14 (b), the prepositional phrase "in any State or Territory" modifies the immediately preceding noun "employment." This reading is consistent with the analysis in the Court's opinion, which I join except for its suggestion that federal policy favors permitting union-shop and agency-shop agreements. MR. JUSTICE POWELL, concurring in the judgment. Although I concur in the judgment of the Court, I do not think it necessary to determine in this case whether a "job situs" test is appropriate or required generally. The only issue before the Court is whether federal or state law should apply to the employment contracts of maritime workers whose job situs is the high seas and who thereby enjoy a special status. As noted by Judge Ainsworth, writing for the six dissenting members of the Court of Appeals: "[S]eamen have traditionally maintained an exceptional status in regard to the regulation and control of their employment, and section 14 (b) cannot reasonably be construed to remove them from that category. Seamen, particularly the type of blue-water seamen involved here, as wards of admiralty have been accorded a special status and protection under federal maritime law unknown to state law in the domain of the master-servant relationship. Unlike the land-based worker, the seaman's employment *422 and all of the rights and restrictions flowing therefrom, are determined by federal statutory and admiralty law, not state law. ". The consistent and traditional control by federal law of every phase of maritime employment relationships and contracts refutes the proposition that [respondent's] contacts with Texas justify injecting state law into federal maritime affairs." I join in reversing the judgment of the Court of Appeals, as I do not believe 14 (b) can be construed reasonably to apply to these seamen. MR. JUSTICE STEWART, with whom MR. |
Justice Stewart | 1,975 | 18 | majority | Lefkowitz v. Newsome | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109196/lefkowitz-v-newsome/ | The respondent Leon Newsome was arrested pursuant to N. Y. Penal Law 240.35 (6) for loitering in the lobby of a New York City Housing Authority apartment building. A search of Newsome conducted at the time of his arrest produced a small quantity of heroin and related narcotics paraphernalia. Consequently, in addition to the offense of loitering, he was also charged with possession of a dangerous drug, fourth degree, N. Y. Penal Law 220.05 (now codified, as modified, as N. Y. Penal Law 220.03), and criminally possessing a hypodermic instrument. N. Y. Penal Law 220.45. The New York City Criminal Court conducted a non-jury trial on the loitering charge and a hearing on Newsome's motion to suppress the evidence seized at the time of his arrest. Newsome argued that the arresting officer did not have probable cause for the loitering arrest, that there was insufficient evidence to support a loitering conviction, and that the loitering statute was unconstitutional and therefore could not serve as the basis for either a loitering conviction or a lawful search incident to arrest. The court rejected these arguments, found Newsome guilty of loitering, and denied the motion to suppress. One month later, on the date scheduled for trial on the drug charges, Newsome withdrew his prior pleas of not guilty and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of attempted possession of dangerous drugs. N. Y. Penal Law 110. He was immediately sentenced to 90 days' imprisonment on the attempted-possession conviction and received an unconditional release on the loitering conviction. *285 At the sentencing proceeding Newsome indicated his intention to appeal both the loitering conviction and the denial of his motion to suppress the drugs and related paraphernalia seized at the time of his arrest. Appeal of the adverse decision on the motion to suppress was authorized by N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. 813-c (now recodified as N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law 710.20 (1), 710.70 (2)), which provided that an order denying a motion to suppress evidence alleged to have been obtained as a result of unlawful search and seizure "may be reviewed on appeal from a judgment of conviction notwithstanding the fact that such judgment of conviction is predicated upon a plea of guilty."[1] On direct appeal to the Appellate Term of the New York Supreme Court, the loitering conviction was reversed for insufficient evidence and a defective information. Because the court held that there was probable cause to arrest Newsome for loitering, however, the search incident to that arrest was upheld and the drug conviction affirmed. Newsome sought further review of the drug conviction, |
Justice Stewart | 1,975 | 18 | majority | Lefkowitz v. Newsome | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109196/lefkowitz-v-newsome/ | conviction affirmed. Newsome sought further review of the drug conviction, but leave to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals was denied. This Court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari. Newsome then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court for the Eastern District of *286 New York. The petition reiterated the claim that the loitering statute was unconstitutional, that Newsome's arrest was therefore invalid, and that as a result the evidence seized incident to that arrest should have been suppressed. Prior to the District Court's decision on the merits of Newsome's petition,[2] the New York Court of Appeals declared New York's loitering statute unconstitutional. In light of the Berck decision, the District Court granted Newsome's application for a writ of habeas corpus. The petitioner, the Attorney General of New York, who had been granted leave by the District Court to intervene as a respondent in the habeas corpus proceeding, appealed. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the judgment of the District Court, United States ex rel. adhering to its earlier rulings that a New York defendant who has utilized state procedures to appeal the denial of a motion to suppress may pursue his constitutional claim on a federal habeas corpus petition although the conviction was based on a plea of guilty. The court held that New York's loitering statute violated due process because it failed to specify adequately the conduct it proscribed and failed to provide sufficiently clear guidance for police, prosecutors, and the courts so that they could enforce the statute in a manner consistent with the constitutional requirement that arrests be based on probable cause. *287 Accordingly, the court held that because Newsome was searched incident to an arrest for the violation of a statute found to be unconstitutional on the ground that it substituted mere suspicion for probable cause as the basis for arrest, the search of Newsome was also constitutionally invalid. The court concluded that the evidence seized should have been suppressed, and affirmed the District Court's judgment granting the writ of habeas corpus. The Attorney General of New York sought review here of both the Court of Appeals' decision that Newsome had not waived his right to file a federal habeas corpus petition by pleading guilty and its decision as to the constitutionality of New York's loitering statute. Because of a conflict between the judgment in the present case and a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,[3] we granted certiorari limited to the question of a defendant's right to |
Justice Stewart | 1,975 | 18 | majority | Lefkowitz v. Newsome | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109196/lefkowitz-v-newsome/ | certiorari limited to the question of a defendant's right to file a federal habeas corpus petition challenging the lawfulness of a search or the voluntariness of a confession or presenting other constitutional claims when a State provides for appellate review of those issues after a guilty plea.[4] *288 I In contending that Newsome is precluded from raising his constitutional claims in this federal habeas corpus proceeding, the petitioner relies primarily on this Court's decisions in the guilty-plea trilogy of and and on our decision in The Brady trilogy announced the general rule that a guilty plea, intelligently and voluntarily made, bars the later assertion of constitutional challenges to the pretrial proceedings. This principle was reaffirmed in : "When a criminal defendant has solemnly admitted in open court that he is in fact guilty of the offense with which he is charged, he may not thereafter raise independent claims relating to the deprivation of constitutional rights that occurred prior to the entry of the guilty plea." But the Court also suggested in the Brady trilogy that an exception to this general rule might be proper when a State decides to permit a defendant to appeal from an adverse ruling in a pretrial hearing despite the fact that his conviction is based on a guilty plea. See and n. 11, 770 n. 13.[5] The justification for such an exception lies in the special *289 nature of the guilty plea of a New York defendant like Newsome. In most States a defendant must plead not guilty and go to trial to preserve the opportunity for state appellate review of his constitutional challenges to arrest, admissibility of various pieces of evidence, or the voluntariness of a confession. A defendant who chooses to plead guilty rather than go to trial in effect deliberately refuses to present his federal claims to the state court in the first instance. Once the defendant chooses to bypass the orderly procedure for litigating his constitutional claims in order to take the benefits, if any, of a plea of guilty, the State acquires a legitimate expectation of finality in the conviction thereby obtained. Cf. It is in this sense, therefore, that ordinarily "a guilty plea represents a break in the chain of events which has preceded it in the criminal process." New York, however, has chosen not to treat a guilty plea as such a "break in the chain of events" with regard to certain types of constitutional claims raised in pretrial proceedings. For a New York defendant whose basic defense consists of one of those constitutional claims and who has |
Justice Stewart | 1,975 | 18 | majority | Lefkowitz v. Newsome | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109196/lefkowitz-v-newsome/ | consists of one of those constitutional claims and who has already lost a pretrial motion to suppress based on that claim, there is no practical difference in terms of appellate review between going to trial and pleading guilty. In neither event does the State assert any claim of finality because of the judgment of conviction. In either event under New York procedure the defendant has available the full range of state appellate review of his constitutional claims. As to those claims, therefore, there is no "break" at all in the usual state procedure for adjudicating constitutional issues. The guilty plea operates simply as a procedure by which the constitutional issues can be litigated without the necessity of *290 going through the time and effort of conducting a trial, the result of which is foreordained if the constitutional claim is invalid. The plea is entered with the clear understanding and expectation by the State, the defendant, and the courts that it will not foreclose judicial review of the merits of the alleged constitutional violations.[6] In sum, although termed by the New York Criminal Procedure Law a "guilty plea," the same label given to the pleas entered by the defendants in the Brady trilogy of cases and Newsome's plea had legal consequences quite different from the consequences of the pleas entered in traditional guilty-plea cases. Far from precluding review of independent claims relating to the deprivation of constitutional rights that occurred prior to the entry of his "guilty plea," Newsome's plea carried with it the guarantee that judicial review of his constitutional claims would continue to be available to him. In this respect there is no meaningful difference between Newsome's conviction and a New York conviction entered after a trial.[7] *291 Because of the entirely different expectations surrounding Newsome's plea and the completely different legal consequences flowing from it, earlier guilty-plea cases holding that "[t]he focus of federal habeas inquiry is the nature of the advice [of counsel] and the voluntariness of the plea, not the existence as such of an antecedent constitutional infirmity," are simply inapposite. Newsome has satisfied all the prerequisites for invoking the habeas corpus jurisdiction of the federal courts.[8] He is no less entitled to federal review of his constitutional claim than is any other defendant who raises his claim in a timely fashion, in accordance with state procedure, and who pursues his *292 claim through all available levels of state appellate review.[9] II Denying Newsome the right to file a federal habeas corpus petition raising his claim of an unconstitutional seizure would not only deprive him of |
Justice Stewart | 1,975 | 18 | majority | Lefkowitz v. Newsome | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109196/lefkowitz-v-newsome/ | of an unconstitutional seizure would not only deprive him of a federal forum despite the fact that he has satisfied all the requirements for invoking federal habeas corpus jurisdiction, it would also frustrate the State's policy in providing for post-guilty plea appellate review of pretrial motions to suppress. Many defendants recognize that they cannot prevail at trial unless they succeed in suppressing either evidence seized by the police or an allegedly involuntary confession. Such defendants in States with the generally prevailing rule of finality of guilty pleas will often insist on proceeding to trial for the sole purpose of preserving their claims of illegal seizures or involuntary confessions for potential vindication on direct appellate review or in collateral proceedings. Recognizing the completely unnecessary waste of time and energy consumed in such trials, New York has chosen to discourage them by creating a procedure which permits a defendant to *293 obtain appellate review of certain pretrial constitutional claims without imposing on the State the burden of going to trial. To deny federal habeas corpus relief to those in Newsome's position would make New York's law a trap for the unwary.[10] On the other hand, it is safe to predict that those New York defendants who knew that federal habeas corpus would be foreclosed would again be dissuaded from pleading guilty and instead would insist on a trial solely to preserve the right to an ultimate federal forum in which to litigate their constitutional claims. Such a result would eviscerate New York's commendable efforts to relieve the problem of congested criminal trial calendars in a manner that does not diminish the opportunity for the assertion of rights guaranteed by the Constitution.[11] Accordingly, we hold that when state law permits a defendant to plead guilty without forfeiting his right to judicial review of specified constitutional issues, the defendant is not foreclosed from pursuing those constitutional claims in a federal habeas corpus proceeding. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is affirmed. It is so ordered. *294 MR. JUSTICE WHITE, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | Appellants, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, its Secretary, the Social Security Administration and various of its officials, appeal from a decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California invalidating duration-of-relationship *73 Social Security eligibility requirements for surviving wives and stepchildren of deceased wage earners. That court concluded that it had jurisdiction of the action by virtue of 28 U.S. C. 1331, and eventually certified the case as a class action. On the merits, it concluded that the nine-month requirements of 216 (c) () and (e) (2) of the Social Security Act, as added, and as amended, 42 U.S. C. 416 (c) () and (e) (2) (1970 ed. and Supp. III), constituted "irrebuttable presumptions" which were constitutionally invalid under the authority of Cleveland Board of ; ; and We hold that the District Court did not have jurisdiction of this action under 28 U.S. C. 1331, and that while it had jurisdiction of the claims of the named appellees under the provisions of 42 U.S. C. 40 (g), it had no jurisdiction over the claims asserted on behalf of unnamed class members. We further decide that the District Court was wrong on the merits of the constitutional question tendered by the named appellees. I Appellee Salfi married the deceased wage earner, Londo L. Salfi, on May 27, 1972. Despite his alleged apparent good health at the time of the marriage, he suffered a heart attack less than a month later, and died on November 21, 1972, less than six months after the marriage. Appellee Salfi filed applications for mother's insurance benefits for herself and child's insurance benefits for her daughter by a previous marriage, appellee Doreen Kalnins.[1] These applications were denied by the Social *74 Security Administration, both initially and on reconsideration at the regional level, solely on the basis of the duration-of-relationship requirements of 416 (c) () and (e) (2), which define "widow" and "child." The definitions exclude surviving wives and stepchildren who had their respective relationships to a deceased wage earner for less than nine months prior to his death.[2] *7 The named appellees then filed this action, principally relying on 28 U.S. C. 1331 for They sought to represent the class of "all widows and step-children of deceased wage earners who are denied widow's [sic] or children's insurance benefits because the wage earner died within nine months of his marriage to the applicant or (in case of a stepchild) the applicant's mother." App. 8. They alleged at least partial exhaustion of remedies with regard to their personal claims, but made no |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | remedies with regard to their personal claims, but made no similar allegations with regard to other class members. They sought declaratory relief against the challenged statute, and injunctive relief restraining appellants from denying mother's and child's benefits on the basis of the statute. In addition to attorneys' fees and costs, they also sought "damages or sums due and owing equivalent to the amount of benefits to which plaintiffs became entitled as of the date of said entitlement." A three-judge District Court heard the case on cross-motions for summary judgment, and granted substantially all of the relief prayed for by appellees. The District Court rendered a declaratory judgment holding the challenged statute to be unconstitutional, certified a class consisting of "all otherwise eligible surviving spouses and stepchildren heretofore disqualified from receipt of benefits by operation" of the duration-of-relationship requirements, enjoined appellants from denying benefits on the basis of those requirements, and ordered them to provide such benefits "from the time of *76 original entitlement." We noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal from that judgment. In addition to their basic contention that the duration-of-relationship requirements pass constitutional muster, appellants present several contentions bearing on the scope of the monetary relief awarded by the District Court. They contend that the award is barred by sovereign immunity insofar as it consists of retroactive benefits, that regardless of sovereign immunity invalidation of the duration-of-relationship requirements should be given prospective effect only, and that the District Court did not properly handle certain class-action issues. Because we conclude that the duration-of-relationship requirements are constitutional, we have no occasion to reach the retroactivity and class-action issues. We are confronted, however, by a serious question as to whether the District Court had jurisdiction over this suit. II The third sentence of 42 U.S. C. 40 (h) provides in part: "No action against the United States, the Secretary, or any officer or employee thereof shall be brought under [ 1331 et seq.] of Title 28 to recover on any claim arising under [Title II of the Social Security Act]."[3] On its face, this provision bars district court federal-question jurisdiction over suits, such as this one, which *77 seek to recover Social Security benefits. Yet it was 1331 jurisdiction which appellees successfully invoked in the District Court. That court considered this provision, but concluded that it was inapplicable because it amounted to no more than a codification of the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies. The District Court's reading of 40 (h) was, we think, entirely too narrow. That the third sentence of 40 (h) is more than a codified requirement |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | sentence of 40 (h) is more than a codified requirement of administrative exhaustion is plain from its own language, which is sweeping and direct and which states that no action shall be brought under 1331, not merely that only those actions shall be brought in which administrative remedies have been exhausted. Moreover, if the third sentence is construed to be nothing more than a requirement of administrative exhaustion, it would be superfluous. This is because the first two sentences of 40 (h), which appear in the margin,[4] assure that administrative exhaustion will be required. Specifically, they prevent review of decisions of the Secretary save as provided in the Act, which provision is made in 40 (g).[] The latter section prescribes * typical requirements for review of matters before an administrative agency, including administrative exhaustion.[6] Thus the District Court's treatment of the *79 third sentence of 40 (h) not only ignored that sentence's plain language, but also relegated it to a function which is already performed by other statutory provisions. *760 A somewhat more substantial argument that the third sentence of 40 (h) does not deprive the District Court of federal-question jurisdiction relies on the fact that it only affects actions to recover on "any claim arising under [Title II]" of the Social Security Act.[7] The argument is that the present action arises under the Constitution and not under Title II. It would, of course, be fruitless to contend that appellees' claim is one which does not arise under the Constitution, since their constitutional arguments are critical to their complaint. But it is just as fruitless to argue that this action does not also arise under the Social Security Act. For not only is it Social Security benefits which appellees seek to recover, but it is the Social Security Act which provides *761 both the standing and the substantive basis for the presentation of their constitutional contentions. Appellees sought, and the District Court granted, a judgment directing the Secretary to pay Social Security benefits. To contend that such an action does not arise under the Act whose benefits are sought is to ignore both the language and the substance of the complaint and judgment. This being so, the third sentence of 40 (h) precludes resort to federal-question jurisdiction for the adjudication of appellees' constitutional contentions. It has also been argued that supports that proposition that appellees are not seeking to recover on a claim arising under Title II. In that case we considered 38 U.S. C. 211 (a), which provides: "[T]he decisions of the [Veterans'] Administrator on any question of law |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | decisions of the [Veterans'] Administrator on any question of law or fact under any law administered by the Veterans' Administration providing benefits for veterans shall be final and conclusive and no other official or any court of the United States shall have power or jurisdiction to review any such decision by an action in the nature of mandamus or otherwise." We were required to resolve whether this language precluded an attack on the constitutionality of a statutory limitation. We concluded that it did not, basically because such a limitation was not a "decision" of the Administrator "on any question of law or fact"; indeed, the "decision" had been made by Congress, not the Administrator, and the issue was one which the Administrator considered to be beyond his -368. Thus the question sought to be litigated was simply not within 211 (a)'s express language, and there was accordingly no basis for concluding *762 that Congress sought to preclude review of the constitutionality of veterans' legislation. The language of 40 (h) is quite different. Its reach is not limited to decisions of the Secretary on issues of law or fact. Rather, it extends to any "action" seeking "to recover on any [Social Security] claim"irrespective of whether resort to judicial processes is necessitated by discretionary decisions of the Secretary or by his non-discretionary application of allegedly unconstitutional statutory restrictions. There is another reason why is inapposite. It was expressly based, at least in part, on the fact that if 211 (a) reached constitutional challenges to statutory limitations, then absolutely no judicial consideration of the issue would be available. Not only would such a restriction have been extraordinary, such that "clear and convincing" evidence would be required before we would ascribe such intent to Congress, but it would have raised a serious constitutional question of the validity of the statute as so construed. In the present case, as will be discussed below, the Social Security Act itself provides jurisdiction for constitutional challenges to its provisions. Thus the plain words of the third sentence of 40 (h) do not preclude constitutional challenges. They simply require that they be brought under jurisdictional grants contained in the Act, and thus in conformity with the same standards which are applicable to nonconstitutional claims arising under the Act. The result is not only of unquestionable constitutionality, but it is also manifestly reasonable, since it assures the Secretary the opportunity prior to constitutional litigation to ascertain, for example, that the particular claims involved are neither invalid for other reasons nor allowable under other provisions of the Social Security Act. *763 |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | allowable under other provisions of the Social Security Act. *763 As has been stated, the Social Security Act itself provides for district court review of the Secretary's determinations. Title 42 U.S. C. 40 (g) provides that "[a]ny individual, after any final decision of the Secretary made after a hearing to which he was a party, irrespective of the amount in controversy, may obtain a review of such decision by a civil action commenced within sixty days after the mailing to him of notice of such decision" See n. The question with which we must now deal is whether this provision could serve as a jurisdictional basis for the District Court's consideration of the present case. We conclude that it provided jurisdiction only as to the named appellees and not as to the unnamed members of the class.[8] Section 40 (g) specifies the following requirements for judicial review: (1) a final decision of the Secretary made after a hearing; (2) commencement of a civil action within 60 days after the mailing of notice of such decision (or within such further time as the Secretary *764 may allow); and (3) filing of the action in an appropriate district court, in general that of the plaintiff's residence or principal place of business. The second and third of these requirements specify, respectively, a statute of limitations and appropriate venue. As such, they are waivable by the parties, and not having been timely raised below, see Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 8 (c), 12 (h) (1), need not be considered here. We interpret the first requirement, however, to be central to the requisite grant of subject-matter jurisdictionthe statute empowers district courts to review a particular type of decision by the Secretary, that type being those which are "final" and "made after a hearing." In the present case, the complaint seeks review of the denial of benefits based on the plain wording of a statute which is alleged to be unconstitutional. That a denial on such grounds, which are beyond the power of the Secretary to affect, is nonetheless a decision of the Secretary for these purposes has been heretofore established. As to class members, however, the complaint is deficient in that it contains no allegations that they have even filed an application with the Secretary, much less that he has rendered any decision, final or otherwise, review of which is sought. The class thus cannot satisfy the requirements for jurisdiction under 42 U.S. C. 40 (g). Other sources of jurisdiction being foreclosed by 40 (h), the District Court was without jurisdiction over so much of the |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | District Court was without jurisdiction over so much of the complaint as concerns the class, and it should have entered an appropriate order of dismissal. The jurisdictional issue with respect to the named appellees is somewhat more difficult. In a paragraph entitled "Exhaustion of Remedies," the complaint alleges that they fully presented their claims for benefits "to their district Social Security Office and, upon denial, to *76 the Regional Office for reconsideration." It further alleges that they have no dispute with the Regional Office's findings of fact or applications of statutory law, and that the only issue is a matter of constitutional law which is beyond the Secretary's competence. On their face these allegations with regard to exhaustion fall short of meeting the literal requirement of 40 (g) that there shall have been a "final decision of the Secretary made after a hearing." They also fall short of satisfying the Secretary's regulations, which specify that the finality required for judicial review is achieved only after the further steps of a hearing before an administrative law judge and, possibly, consideration by the Appeals Council. See 20 CFR 404.916, 404.940, 404.91 We have previously recognized that the doctrine of administrative exhaustion should be applied with a regard for the particular administrative scheme at issue. 40 U.S. 34 ; 39 U.S. 18 Exhaustion is generally required as a matter of preventing premature interference with agency processes, so that the agency may function efficiently and so that it may have an opportunity to correct its own errors, to afford the parties and the courts the benefit of its experience and expertise, and to compile a record which is adequate for judicial review. See, e. g., Plainly these purposes have been served once the Secretary has satisfied himself that the only issue is the constitutionality of a statutory requirement, a matter which is beyond his jurisdiction to determine, and that the claim is neither otherwise invalid nor cognizable under a different section of the Act. Once a benefit applicant has presented his or her claim at a sufficiently high level of review to satisfy the Secretary's administrative needs, further exhaustion would not merely be futile for the applicant. *766 but would also be a commitment of administrative resources unsupported by any administrative or judicial interest. The present case, of course, is significantly different from McKart in that a "final decision" is a statutorily specified jurisdictional prerequisite. The requirement is, therefore, as we have previously noted, something more than simply a codification of the judicially developed doctrine of exhaustion, and may not be dispensed with merely |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | doctrine of exhaustion, and may not be dispensed with merely by a judicial conclusion of futility such as that made by the District Court here. But it is equally true that the requirement of a "final decision" contained in 40 (g) is not precisely analogous to the more classical jurisdictional requirements contained in such sections of Title 28 as 1331 and 1332. The term "final decision" is not only left undefined by the Act, but its meaning is left to the Secretary to flesh out by regulation.[9] Section 40 (l) accords the Secretary complete authority to delegate his statutory duties to officers and employees of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The statutory scheme is thus one in which the Secretary may specify such requirements for exhaustion as he deems serve his own interests in effective and efficient administration. While a court may not substitute its conclusion as to futility for the contrary conclusion of the Secretary, we believe it would be inconsistent with the congressional scheme to bar the Secretary from determining *767 in particular cases that full exhaustion of internal review procedures is not necessary for a decision to be "final" within the language of 40 (g). Much the same may be said about the statutory requirement that the Secretary's decision be made "after a hearing." Not only would a hearing be futile and wasteful, once the Secretary has determined that the only issue to be resolved is a matter of constitutional law concededly beyond his competence to decide, but the Secretary may, of course, award benefits without requiring a hearing. We do not understand the statute to prevent him from similarly determining in favor of the applicant, without a hearing, all issues with regard to eligibility save for one as to which he considers a hearing to be useless. In the present case the Secretary does not raise any challenge to the sufficiency of the allegations of exhaustion in appellees' complaint. We interpret this to be a determination by him that for the purposes of this litigation the reconsideration determination is "final." The named appellees thus satisfy the requirements for 40 (g) judicial review, and we proceed to the merits of their claim.[10] III The District Court relied on congressional history for the proposition that the duration-of-relationship requirement was intended to prevent the use of sham marriages to secure Social Security payments. As such, concluded the court, "the requirement constitutes a presumption that marriages like Mrs. Salfi's, which did not precede *768 the wage earner's death by at least nine months, were entered into for the |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | by at least nine months, were entered into for the purpose of securing Social Security benefits." 373 F. Supp., at 96. The presumption was, moreover, conclusive, because applicants were not afforded an opportunity to disprove the presence of the illicit purpose. The court held that under our decisions in Cleveland Board of ; ; and the requirement was unconstitutional, because it presumed a fact which was not necessarily or universally true. Our ultimate conclusion is that the District Court was wrong in holding the duration-of-relationship requirement unconstitutional. Because we are aware that our various holdings in related cases do not all sound precisely the same note, we will explain ourselves at some length. The standard for testing the validity of Congress' Social Security classification was clearly stated in : "Particularly when we deal with a withholding of a noncontractual benefit under a social welfare program such as [Social Security], we must recognize that the Due Process Clause can be thought to interpose a bar only if the statute manifests a patently arbitrary classification, utterly lacking in rational justification." In a portion of the Social Security Act which required an otherwise entitled disability claimant to be subjected to an "offset" by reason of his simultaneous receipt of state workmen's compensation benefits was attacked as being violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The claimant in that case asserted that the provision was arbitrary in that it required offsetting of a *769 state workmen's compensation payment, but not of a similar payment made by a private disability insurer. The Court said: "If the goals sought are legitimate, and the classification adopted is rationally related to the achievement of those goals, then the action of Congress is not so arbitrary as to violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment." Two Terms earlier the Court had decided the case of in which it rejected a claim that Maryland welfare legislation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court had said: "In the area of economics and social welfare, a State does not violate the Equal Protection Clause merely because the classifications made by its laws are imperfect. If the classification has some `reasonable basis,' it does not offend the Constitution simply because the classification `is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality.' `The problems of government are practical ones and may justify, if they do not require, rough accommodationsillogical, it may be, and unscientific.' Metropolis Theatre "To be sure, the cases cited, and many others enunciating this fundamental standard |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | the cases cited, and many others enunciating this fundamental standard under the Equal Protection Clause, have in the main involved state regulation of business or industry. The administration of public welfare assistance, by contrast, involves the most basic economic needs of impoverished human beings. We recognize the dramatically real factual difference between the cited cases and this one, but we can find no basis for applying a *770 different constitutional standard. It is a standard that has consistently been applied to state legislation restricting the availability of employment opportunities. 33 U.S. 464; 330 U.S. 2. See also And it is a standard that is true to the principle that the Fourteenth Amendment gives the federal courts no power to impose upon the States their views of what constitutes wise economic or social policy." at 48-486. The relation between the equal protection analysis of Dandridge and the Fifth Amendment due process analysis of and was described in the latter case in this language: "A statutory classification in the area of social welfare is consistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if it is `rationally based and free from invidious discrimination.' While the present case, involving as it does a federal statute, does not directly implicate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, a classification that meets the test articulated in Dandridge is perforce consistent with the due process requirement of the Fifth Amendment. Cf." These cases quite plainly lay down the governing principle for disposing of constitutional challenges to classifications in this type of social welfare legislation. The District Court, however, chose to rely on Cleveland Board of and It characterized this recent group of cases as dealing with "the appropriateness *771 of conclusive evidentiary presumptions." 373 F. Supp., at 96. held that it was a denial of the equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment for a State to deny a hearing on parental fitness to an unwed father when such a hearing was granted to all other parents whose custody of their children was challenged. This Court referred to the fact that the "rights to conceive and to raise one's children have been deemed `essential,' `basic civil rights of man,' 316 U.S. 3, 41 and `[r]ights far more precious than property rights,' 34 U.S. 28, 33 (193)." 40 U.S., at 61. In a statutory definition of "residents" for purposes of fixing tuition to be paid by students in a state university system was held invalid. The Court held that where Connecticut purported to be concerned with residency, it might not at the same time deny to one |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | it might not at the same time deny to one seeking to meet its test of residency the opportunity to show factors clearly bearing on that issue. 412 U.S., at 42. In the Court held invalid, on the authority of Stanley and school board regulations requiring pregnant school teachers to take unpaid maternity leave commencing four to five months before the expected birth. The Court stated its longstanding recognition "that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," -640, and that "overly restrictive maternity leave regulations can constitute a heavy burden on the exercise of these protected freedoms." We hold that these cases are not controlling on the issue before us now. Unlike the claims involved in *772 Stanley and a noncontractual claim to receive funds from the public treasury enjoys no constitutionally protected status, though of course Congress may not invidiously discriminate among such claimants on the basis of a "bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group," U. S. Dept. of 413 U.S. 28, 34 or on the basis of criteria which bear no rational relation to a legitimate legislative goal. ; U. S. Dept. of 413 U.S. 08, 13-14 Unlike the statutory scheme in the Social Security Act does not purport to speak in terms of the bona fides of the parties to a marriage, but then make plainly relevant evidence of such bona fides inadmissible. As in summarily aff'd, 401 U.S. 98 the benefits here are available upon compliance with an objective criterion, one which the Legislature considered to bear a sufficiently close nexus with underlying policy objectives to be used as the test for eligibility. Like the plaintiffs in Starns, appellees are completely free to present evidence that they meet the specified requirements; failing in this effort, their only constitutional claim is that the test they cannot meet is not so rationally related to a legitimate legislative objective that it can be used to deprive them of benefits available to those who do satisfy that test. We think that the District Court's extension of the holdings of Stanley, and to the eligibility requirement in issue here would turn the doctrine of those cases into a virtual engine of destruction for countless legislative judgments which have heretofore been thought wholly consistent with the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. For example, the very *773 section of Title 42 which authorizes an action such as this, 40 (g), requires that a claim be filed within 60 days |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | (g), requires that a claim be filed within 60 days after administrative remedies are exhausted. It is indisputable that this requirement places people who file their claims more than 60 days after exhaustion in a different "class" from people who file their claims within the time limit. If we were to follow the District Court's analysis, we would first try to ascertain the congressional "purpose" behind the provision, and probably would conclude that it was to prevent stale claims from being asserted in court. We would then turn to the questions of whether such a flat cutoff provision was necessary to protect the Secretary from stale claims, whether it would be possible to make individualized determinations as to any prejudice suffered by the Secretary as the result of an untimely filing, and whether or not an individualized hearing on that issue should be required in each case. This would represent a degree of judicial involvement in the legislative function which we have eschewed except in the most unusual circumstances, and which is quite unlike the judicial role mandated by Dandridge, Belcher, and as well as by a host of cases arising from legislative efforts to regulate private business enterprises. In on v. Lee Optical Co., (19), the Court dealt with a claim that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was violated by an Oklahoma statute which subjected opticians to a system of detailed regulation, but which exempted sellers of ready-to-wear glasses. In sustaining the statute the Court said: "The problem of legislative classification is a perennial one, admitting of no doctrinaire definition. Evils in the same field may be of different dimensions and proportions, requiring different remedies. Or so the legislature may think." *774 More recently, in 411 U.S. 36 the Court sustained the constitutionality of a regulation promulgated under the Truth in Lending Act which made the Act's disclosure provisions applicable whenever credit is offered to a consumer " `for which either a finance charge is or may be imposed or which pursuant to an agreement, is or may be payable in more than four installments.' " The regulation was challenged because it was said to conclusively presume that payments made under an agreement providing for more than four instalments necessarily included a finance charge, when in fact that might not be the case. The Court rejected the constitutional challenge in this language: "The rule was intended as a prophylactic measure; it does not presume that all creditors who are within its ambit assess finance charges, but, rather, imposes a disclosure requirement on all members of a |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | rather, imposes a disclosure requirement on all members of a defined class in order to discourage evasion by a substantial portion of that class." If the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments permit this latitude to legislative decisions regulating the private sector of the economy, they surely allow no less latitude in prescribing the conditions upon which funds shall be dispensed from the public treasury. With these principles in mind, we turn to consider the statutory provisions which the District Court held invalid. Title 42 U.S. C. 402 (1970 ed. and Supp. III) is the basic congressional enactment defining eligibility for oldage and survivors insurance benefit payments, and is divided into 23 lettered subsections. Subsection (g) is entitled "Mother's insurance benefits," and primarily governs the claim of appellee Salfi. Subsection (d) governs eligibility for child's insurance benefits, and is the provision *77 under which appellee Kalnins makes her claim. These subsections, along with others in 402, specify the types of social risks for which protection is provided by what is basically a statutory insurance policy. A different insurance system, but similarly defined by statute and operated by a governmental entity, was the subject of our consideration in and our disposition of that case is instructive. We reversed the judgment of a District Court which had held that a California state disability insurance program was invalid insofar as it failed to provide benefits for disabilities associated with normal pregnancy. In our opinion we said: "The District Court suggested that moderate alterations in what it regarded as `variables' of the disability insurance program could be made to accommodate the substantial expense required to include normal pregnancy within the program's protection. The same can be said, however, with respect to the other expensive class of disabilities that are excluded from coverageshort-term disabilities. If the Equal Protection Clause were thought to compel disability payments for normal pregnancy, it is hard to perceive why it would not also compel payments for short-term disabilities suffered by participating employees. "It is evident that a totally comprehensive program would be substantially more costly than the present program and would inevitably require state subsidy, a higher rate of employee contribution, a lower scale of benefits for those suffering insured disabilities, or some combination of these measures. There is nothing in the Constitution, however, that requires the State to subordinate or compromise its legitimate interests solely to create *776 a more comprehensive social insurance program than it already has." at 49-496. The present case is somewhat different, since the Secretary principally defends the duration-of-relationship requirement, not as a reasonable legislative decision to |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | the duration-of-relationship requirement, not as a reasonable legislative decision to exclude a particular type of risk from coverage, but instead as a method of assuring that payments are made only upon the occurrence of events the risk of which is covered by the insurance program.[11] Commercial insurance policies have traditionally relied upon fixed, prophylactic rules to protect against abuses which could expand liability beyond the risks which are within the general concept of its coverage. For example, life insurance policies often cover deaths by suicide, but not those suicides which were contemplated when the policy was purchased. Frequently the method chosen to contain liability within these conceptual bounds is a strict rule that deaths by suicide are covered if, and only if, they occur some fixed period of time after the policy is issued. See, e. g., 9 G. Couch, Cyclopedia of Insurance Law 40.0 (2d ed. 1962). While such a limitation doubtless proves in particular cases to be "under-inclusive" or "over-inclusive," in light of its presumed purpose, it is nonetheless a widely accepted response to legitimate interests in administrative economy and certainty of coverage for those who meet its terms. When the Government chooses to follow this tradition in its own social insurance programs, it does not come up against a constitutional stone wall. Rather, it may rely on such rules so long as *777 they comport with the standards of legislative reasonableness enunciated in cases like and Under those standards, the question raised is not whether a statutory provision precisely filters out those, and only those, who are in the factual position which generated the congressional concern reflected in the statute. Such a rule would ban all prophylactic provisions, and would be directly contrary to our holding in Nor is the question whether the provision filters out a substantial part of the class which caused congressional concern, or whether it filters out more members of the class than nonmembers. The question is whether Congress, its concern having been reasonably aroused by the possibility of an abuse which it legitimately desired to avoid, could rationally have concluded both that a particular limitation or qualification would protect against its occurrence, and that the expense and other difficulties of individual determinations justified the inherent imprecision of a prophylactic rule. We conclude that the duration-of-relationship test meets this constitutional standard. The danger of persons entering a marriage relationship not to enjoy its traditional benefits, but instead to enable one spouse to claim benefits upon the anticipated early death of the wage earner, has been recognized from the very beginning of the Social |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | has been recognized from the very beginning of the Social Security program. While no early legislative history addresses itself specifically to the duration-of-relationship requirement for mother's and child's benefits, there were discussions of the analogous requirement for receipt of wife's benefits under 402 (b). See 42 U.S. C. 416 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), defining "wife." Dr. A. J. Altmeyer, Chairman of the Social Security Board, noted that a five-year requirement "should be strict enough to prevent marriage in anticipation *7 of the larger benefit payments." Hearings on Social Security before the House Committee on Ways and Means, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. 3, p. 2297 (1939). Similarly, the Advisory Council on Social Security stated: "The requirement that the wives' allowance be payable only where marital status existed prior to the husband's attainment of age 60 is intended to serve as protection against abuse of the plan through the contracting of marriages solely for the purpose of acquiring enhanced benefits. If the marriage takes place at least years before any old-age benefits can be paid, a reasonable assumption exists that it was contracted in good faith." vol. 1. p. 31. The Advisory Council also stated, with regard to 402 (e) widow's benefits which, like mother's benefits, depend on the 416 (c) definition of "widow": "As in the case of wives' allowances, it is believed desirable to protect the provisions for widows' benefits against abuse by the requirement of a minimum period of marital status." Similar concerns were reflected in the House and Senate Reports on the 1946 amendment which reduced to three years the required duration of a marriage for the purposes of an eligible "wife." It was stated: "The original provision was intended to prevent exploitation of the fund by claims for benefits from persons who married beneficiaries solely to get wife's benefits. Experience has shown that the requirement is unnecessarily restrictive for this purpose and that, in a number of cases, a wife is permanently barred from benefits even though the marriage was entered into many years before the wage earner became a beneficiary. The amendment, taken with the provision in section 202 (b) that the wife be *779 living with her husband in order to be eligible for benefits, should be sufficient protection for the trust fund and will remedy situations which now seem inequitable. Few persons are likely to marry because of the prospect of receiving a modest insurance benefit which will not be payable until after 3 years." H. R. Rep. No. 226, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 2; S. Rep. No. 1862, 79th Cong., 2d |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | 2d Sess., 2; S. Rep. No. 1862, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 33. Later amendments to the Act have been accompanied by discussions of the duration-of-relationship requirements contained in the definitions of "widow" and "child." Like the early history of analogous requirements, they reflect congressional concern with the possibility of relationships entered for the purpose of obtaining benefits. In 1967, when the durational period was reduced from one year to nine months, the House Report stated: "Your committee's bill would reduce the duration-of-relationship requirements for widows, widowers, and stepchildren of deceased workers from 1 year to 9 months. The present law contains a 1-year duration-of-relationship requirement which was adopted as a safeguard against the payment of benefits where a relationship was entered into in order to secure benefit rights. While the present requirements have generally worked out satisfactorily, situations have been called to the committee's attention in which benefits were not payable because the required relationship had existed for somewhat less than 1 year. Although some duration-of-relationship requirement is appropriate, a less stringent requirement would be adequate." H. R. Rep. No. 44. 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 6. When in 1972 Congress added the provisions of 42 U.S. C. 416 (k) (2) (1970 ed., Supp. III) (eliminating *0 the nine-month requirement with respect to remarriages of persons who had previously been married for more than nine months), the House Report observed: "This duration-of-relationship requirement is included in the law as a general precaution against the payment of benefits where the marriage was undertaken to secure benefit rights." H. R. Rep. No. 92-231, p. Undoubtedly the concerns reflected in this congressional material are legitimate, involving as they do the integrity of both the Social Security Trust Fund and the marriage relationship. It is also undoubtedly true that the duration-of-relationship requirement operates to lessen the likelihood of abuse through sham relationships entered in contemplation of imminent death. We also think that Congress could rationally have concluded that any imprecision from which it might suffer was justified by its ease and certainty of operation. We note initially that the requirement is effective only within a somewhat narrow range of situations lacking certain characteristics which might reasonably be thought to establish the genuineness of a marital relationship which involves children (and thus the potential for mother's and child's benefits). Even though a surviving wife has not been married for a period of nine months immediately prior to her husband's death, she is nonetheless within the definition of "widow" if she meets one of the other disjunctive requirements of 416 (c). If she is the mother of |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | requirements of 416 (c). If she is the mother of her late husband's son or daughter; if she legally adopted his son or daughter while she was married to him and while such son or daughter was under the age of 18; if he legally adopted her son or daughter under the same circumstances; or if during their marriage, however short, they legally adopted a child under the age of 18in any of these circumstances the surviving wife may claim widow's or mother's benefits *1 even though she has not been married to her husband for a full nine months.[12] The common denominator of these disjunctive requirements appears to us to be the assumption of responsibilities normally associated with marriage, and we think that Congress has treated them as alternative indicia of the fact that the marriage was entered into for a reason other than the desire to shortly acquire benefits. The marriages in which the widow must depend on qualifying under the nine-month requirement are those in which none of these other objective evidences of the assumption of marital responsibilities are present. Even so, 416 (c) () undoubtedly excludes some surviving wives who married with no anticipation of shortly becoming widows, and it may be that appellee Salfi is among them. It likewise may be true that the requirement does not filter out every such claimant, if a wage earner lingers longer than anticipated, or in the case of illnesses which can be recognized as terminal more than nine months prior to death. But neither of these facts necessarily renders the statutory scheme unconstitutional. While it is possible to debate the wisdom of excluding legitimate claimants in order to discourage sham relationships, and of relying on a rule which may not exclude some obviously sham arrangements, we think it clear that Congress could rationally choose to adopt such a course. Large numbers of people are eligible for these programs and are potentially subject to inquiry as to the validity of their relationships to wage earners. These people include not only the classes which appellees represent,[13] but also claimants in other programs for which *2 the Social Security Act imposes duration-of-relationship requirements.[14] Not only does the prophylactic approach thus obviate the necessity for large numbers of individualized determinations, but it also protects large numbers of claimants who satisfy the rule from the uncertainties and delays of administrative inquiry into the circumstances of their marriages. Nor is it at all clear that individual determinations could effectively filter out sham arrangements, since neither marital intent, life expectancy, nor knowledge of terminal illness |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,975 | 19 | majority | Weinberger v. Salfi | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109308/weinberger-v-salfi/ | neither marital intent, life expectancy, nor knowledge of terminal illness has been shown by *3 appellees to be reliably determinable.[1] Finally, the very possibility of prevailing at a hearing could reasonably be expected to encourage sham relationships. *4 The administrative difficulties of individual eligibility determinations are without doubt matters which Congress may consider when determining whether to rely on rules which sweep more broadly than the evils with which they seek to deal. In this sense, the duration-of-relationship requirement represents not merely a substantive policy determination that benefits should be awarded only on the basis of genuine marital relationships, but also a substantive policy determination that limited resources would not be well spent in making individual determinations. It is an expression of Congress' policy choice that the Social Security system, and its millions of beneficiaries, would be best served by a prophylactic rule which bars claims arising from the bulk of sham marriages which are actually entered, which discourages such marriages * from ever taking place, and which is also objective and easily administered. The Constitution does not preclude such policy choices as a price for conducting programs for the distribution of social insurance benefits. Cf. Unlike criminal prosecutions, or the custody proceedings at issue in such programs do not involve affirmative Government action which seriously curtails important liberties cognizable under the Constitution. There is thus no basis for our requiring individualized determinations when Congress can rationally conclude not only that generalized rules are appropriate to its purposes and concerns, but also that the difficulties of individual determinations outweigh the marginal increments in the precise effectuation of congressional concern which they might be expected to produce. The judgment of the District Court is Reversed. MR. |
Justice Souter | 2,002 | 20 | dissenting | Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118501/los-angeles-v-alameda-books-inc/ | In 1977, the city of Los Angeles studied sections of the city with high and low concentrations of adult business establishments catering to the market for the erotic. The city found no certain correlation between the location of those establishments and depressed property values, but it did find some correlation between areas of higher concentrations of such business and higher crime rates. On that basis, Los Angeles followed the examples of other cities in adopting a zoning ordinance requiring dispersion of adult *454 establishments. I assume that the ordinance was constitutional when adopted, see, e. g., and assume for purposes of this case that the original ordinance remains valid today.[1] The city subsequently amended its ordinance to forbid clusters of such businesses at one address, as in a mall. The city has, in turn, taken a third step to apply this amendment to prohibit even a single proprietor from doing business in a traditional way that combines an adult bookstore, selling books, magazines, and videos, with an adult arcade, consisting of open viewing booths, where potential purchasers of videos can view them for a fee. From a policy of dispersing adult establishments, the city has thus moved to a policy of dividing them in two. The justification claimed for this application of the new policy remains, however, the 1977 survey, as supplemented by the authority of one decided case on regulating adult arcades in another State. The case authority is not on point, see infra, 1-462, n. 4, and the 1977 survey provides no support for the breakup policy. Its evidentiary insufficiency bears emphasis and is the principal reason that I respectfully dissent from the Court's judgment today. I This ordinance stands or falls on the results of what our cases speak of as intermediate scrutiny, generally contrasted with the demanding standard applied under the First Amendment to a content-based regulation of expression. The variants of middle-tier tests cover a grab bag of restrictive statutes, with a corresponding variety of justifications. *455 While spoken of as content neutral, these regulations are not uniformly distinct from the content-based regulations calling for scrutiny that is strict, and zoning of businesses based on their sales of expressive adult material receives mid-level scrutiny, even though it raises a risk of content-based restriction. It is worth being clear, then, on how close to a content basis adult business zoning can get, and why the application of a middle-tier standard to zoning regulation of adult bookstores calls for particular care. Because content-based regulation applies to expression by very reason of what is said, it carries a |
Justice Souter | 2,002 | 20 | dissenting | Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118501/los-angeles-v-alameda-books-inc/ | by very reason of what is said, it carries a high risk that expressive limits are imposed for the sake of suppressing a message that is disagreeable to listeners or readers, or the government. See Consolidated Edison Co. of N. A restriction based on content survives only on a showing of necessity to serve a legitimate and compelling governmental interest, combined with least restrictive narrow tailoring to serve it, see United ; since merely protecting listeners from offense at the message is not a legitimate interest of the government, see strict scrutiny leaves few survivors. The comparatively softer intermediate scrutiny is reserved for regulations justified by something other than content of the message, such as a straightforward restriction going only to the time, place, or manner of speech or other expression. It is easy to see why review of such a regulation may be relatively relaxed. No one has to disagree with any message to find something wrong with a loudspeaker at three in the morning, see ; the sentiment may not provoke, but being blasted out of a sound sleep does. In such a case, we ask simply whether the regulation is "narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, and leave[s] open ample alternative channels for communication of the information." A middle-tier standard is also applied to limits on expression through action that is otherwise subject to regulation for nonexpressive purposes, the best known example being the prohibition on destroying draft cards as an act of protest, United ; here a regulation passes muster "if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest unrelated to the suppression of free expression" by a restriction "no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest," As mentioned already, yet another middle-tier variety is zoning restriction as a means of responding to the "secondary effects" of adult businesses, principally crime and declining property values in the neighborhood.[2] Although this type of land-use restriction has even been called a variety of time, place, or manner regulation, equating a secondary-effects zoning regulation with a mere regulation of time, place, or manner jumps over an important difference between them. A restriction on loudspeakers has no obvious relationship to the substance of *457 what is broadcast, while a zoning regulation of businesses in adult expression just as obviously does. And while it may be true that an adult business is burdened only because of its secondary effects, it is clearly burdened only if its expressive products have adult content. Thus, the Court has recognized that this kind of regulation, though called content neutral, occupies |
Justice Souter | 2,002 | 20 | dissenting | Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118501/los-angeles-v-alameda-books-inc/ | that this kind of regulation, though called content neutral, occupies a kind of limbo between full-blown, contentbased restrictions and regulations that apply without any reference to the substance of what is said. It would in fact make sense to give this kind of zoning regulation a First Amendment label of its own, and if we called it content correlated, we would not only describe it for what it is, but keep alert to a risk of content-based regulation that it poses. The risk lies in the fact that when a law applies selectively only to speech of particular content, the more precisely the content is identified, the greater is the opportunity for government censorship. Adult speech refers not merely to sexually explicit content, but to speech reflecting a favorable view of being explicit about sex and a favorable view of the practices it depicts; a restriction on adult content is thus also a restriction turning on a particular viewpoint, of which the government may disapprove. This risk of viewpoint discrimination is subject to a relatively simple safeguard, however. If combating secondary effects of property devaluation and crime is truly the reason for the regulation, it is possible to show by empirical evidence that the effects exist, that they are caused by the expressive activity subject to the zoning, and that the zoning can be expected either to ameliorate them or to enhance the capacity of the government to combat them (say, by concentrating them in one area), without suppressing the expressive activity itself. This capacity of zoning regulation to address the practical problems without eliminating the speech is, after all, the only possible excuse for speaking of secondary-effects zoning as akin to time, place, or manner regulations. *458 In examining claims that there are causal relationships between adult businesses and an increase in secondary effects (distinct from disagreement), and between zoning and the mitigation of the effects, stress needs to be placed on the empirical character of the demonstration available. See Metromedia, 453 U.S. 0, ; ("[C]ourts must be alert to the possibility of using the power to zone as a pretext for suppressing expression"). The weaker the demonstration of facts distinct from disapproval of the "adult" viewpoint, the greater the likelihood that nothing more than condemnation of the viewpoint drives the regulation.[3] Equal stress should be placed on the point that requiring empirical justification of claims about property value or crime is not demanding anything Herculean. Increased crime, like prostitution and muggings, and declining property values in areas surrounding adult businesses, are all readily observable, often to the untrained |
Justice Souter | 2,002 | 20 | dissenting | Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118501/los-angeles-v-alameda-books-inc/ | adult businesses, are all readily observable, often to the untrained eye and certainly to the police officer and urban planner. These harms can be shown by police reports, crime statistics, and studies of market *459 value, all of which are within a municipality's capacity or available from the distilled experiences of comparable communities. See, e. g., ; And precisely because this sort of evidence is readily available, reviewing courts need to be wary when the government appeals, not to evidence, but to an uncritical common sense in an effort to justify such a zoning restriction. It is not that common sense is always illegitimate in First Amendment demonstration. The need for independent proof varies with the point that has to be established, and zoning can be supported by common experience when there is no reason to question it. We have appealed to common sense in analogous cases, even if we have disagreed about how far it took us. See ; and n. 2 (Souter, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). But we must be careful about substituting common assumptions for evidence, when the evidence is as readily available as public statistics and municipal property valuations, lest we find out when the evidence is gathered that the assumptions are highly debatable. The record in this very case makes the point. It has become a commonplace, based on our own cases, that concentrating adult establishments drives down the value of neighboring property used for other purposes. See 475 U. S., ; In fact, however, the city found that general assumption unjustified by its 1977 study. App. 39, 45. The lesson is that the lesser scrutiny applied to contentcorrelated zoning restrictions is no excuse for a government's failure to provide a factual demonstration for claims it makes about secondary effects; on the contrary, this is what demands the demonstration. See, e. g., In this case, however, the government has not shown that bookstores containing viewing booths, isolated from other adult establishments, increase *460 crime or produce other negative secondary effects in surrounding neighborhoods, and we are thus left without substantial justification for viewing the city's First Amendment restriction as content correlated but not simply content based. By the same token, the city has failed to show any causal relationship between the breakup policy and elimination or regulation of secondary effects. II Our cases on the subject have referred to studies, undertaken with varying degrees of formality, showing the geographical correlations between the presence or concentration of adult business establishments and enhanced crime rates or depressed property values. See, e. g., ; |
Justice Souter | 2,002 | 20 | dissenting | Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118501/los-angeles-v-alameda-books-inc/ | crime rates or depressed property values. See, e. g., ; 427 U. S., Although we have held that intermediate scrutiny of secondary-effects legislation does not demand a fresh evidentiary study of its factual basis if the published results of investigations elsewhere are "reasonably" thought to be applicable in a different municipal setting, -52, the city here took responsibility to make its own enquiry, App. 35-162. As already mentioned, the study was inconclusive as to any correlation between adult business and lower property values, and it reported no association between higher crime rates and any isolated adult establishments. But it did find a geographical correlation of higher concentrations of adult establishments with higher crime rates, and with this study in hand, Los Angeles enacted its 1978 ordinance requiring dispersion of adult stores and theaters. This original position of the ordinance is not challenged today, and I will assume its justification on the theory accepted in that eliminating concentrations of adult establishments will spread out the documented secondary effects and render them more manageable that way. The application of the 1983 amendment now before us is, however, a different matter. My concern is not with the *461 assumption behind the amendment itself, that a conglomeration of adult businesses under one roof, as in a minimall or adult department store, will produce undesirable secondary effects comparable to what a cluster of separate adult establishments brings about, ante, 6. That may or may not be so. The assumption that is clearly unsupported, however, goes to the city's supposed interest in applying the amendment to the book and video stores in question, and in applying it to break them up. The city, of course, claims no interest in the proliferation of adult establishments, the ostensible consequence of splitting the sales and viewing activities so as to produce two stores where once there was one. Nor does the city assert any interest in limiting the sale of adult expressive material as such, or reducing the number of adult video booths in the city, for that would be clear content-based regulation, and the city was careful in its 1977 report to disclaim any such intent. App. 54.[4] *462 Rather, the city apparently assumes that a bookstore selling videos and providing viewing booths produces secondary effects of crime, and more crime than would result from having a single store without booths in one part of town and a video arcade in another.[5] But the city neither says this in so many words nor proffers any evidence to support even the simple proposition that an otherwise lawfully located adult |
Justice Souter | 2,002 | 20 | dissenting | Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118501/los-angeles-v-alameda-books-inc/ | even the simple proposition that an otherwise lawfully located adult bookstore combined with video booths will produce any criminal effects. The Los Angeles study treats such combined stores as one, see and draws no general conclusion that individual stores spread apart from other adult establishments (as under the basic Los Angeles ordinance) are associated with any degree of criminal activity above the general norm; nor has the city called the Court's attention to any other empirical study, or even anecdotal police evidence, that supports the city's assumption. In fact, if the Los Angeles study sheds any light whatever on the city's position, it is the light of skepticism, for we may fairly suspect that the study said nothing about the secondary effects of freestanding stores because no effects were observed. The reasonable supposition, then, is that splitting some of them up will have no consequence for secondary effects whatever.[6] *463 The inescapable point is that the city does not even claim that the 1977 study provides any support for its assumption. We have previously accepted studies, like the city's own study here, as showing a causal connection between concentrations of adult business and identified secondary effects.[7] Since that is an acceptable basis for requiring adult businesses to disperse when they are housed in separate premises, there is certainly a relevant argument to be made that restricting their concentration at one spacious address should have some effect on sales and traffic, and effects in the neighborhood. But even if that argument may justify a ban on adult "minimalls," ante, 6, it provides no support for what the city proposes to do here. The bookstores involved here are not concentrations of traditionally separate adult businesses that have been studied and shown to have an association with secondary effects, and they exemplify no new form of concentration like a mall under one roof. They are combinations of selling and viewing activities that have commonly been combined, and the plurality itself recognizes, ante, 8, that no study conducted by the city has reported that this type of traditional business, any more than any other adult business, has a correlation with secondary effects *464 in the absence of concentration with other adult establishments in the neighborhood. And even if splitting viewing booths from the bookstores that continue to sell videos were to turn some customers away (or send them in search of video arcades in other neighborhoods), it is nothing but speculation to think that marginally lower traffic to one store would have any measurable effect on the neighborhood, let alone an effect on associated |
Justice Souter | 2,002 | 20 | dissenting | Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118501/los-angeles-v-alameda-books-inc/ | effect on the neighborhood, let alone an effect on associated crime that has never been shown to exist in the first place.[8] Nor is the plurality's position bolstered, as it seems to think, ante, 9, by relying on the statement in that courts should allow cities a "`reasonable opportunity to experiment with solutions to admittedly serious problems,' " The plurality overlooks a key distinction between the zoning regulations at issue in and *465 (and in Los Angeles as of 1978), and this new Los Angeles breakup requirement. In those two cases, the municipalities' substantial interest for purposes of intermediate scrutiny was an interest in choosing between two strategies to deal with crime or property value, each strategy tied to the businesses' location, which had been shown to have a causal connection with the secondary effects: the municipality could either concentrate businesses for a concentrated regulatory strategy, or disperse them in order to spread out its regulatory efforts. The limitations on location required no further support than the factual basis tying location to secondary effects; the zoning approved in those two cases had no effect on the way the owners of the stores carried on their adult businesses beyond controlling location, and no heavier burden than the location limit was approved by this Court. The Los Angeles ordinance, however, does impose a heavier burden, and one lacking any demonstrable connection to the interest in crime control. The city no longer accepts businesses as their owners choose to conduct them within their own four walls, but bars a video arcade in a bookstore, a combination shown by the record to be commercially natural, if not universal. App. 47-51, 229-230, 242. Whereas and gave cities the choice between two strategies when each was causally related to the city's interest, the plurality today gives Los Angeles a right to "experiment" with a First Amendment restriction in response to a problem of increased crime that the city has never even shown to be associated with combined bookstore-arcades standing alone. But the government's freedom of experimentation cannot displace its burden under the intermediate scrutiny standard to show that the restriction on speech is no greater than essential to realizing an important objective, in this case policing crime. Since we cannot make even a best guess that the city's breakup policy will have any effect on crime *466 or law enforcement, we are a very far cry from any assurance against covert content-based regulation.[9] And concern with content-based regulation targeting a viewpoint is right to the point here, as witness a fact that involves no guesswork. If |
Justice Scalia | 2,015 | 9 | majority | Kerry v. Din | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2808292/kerry-v-din/ | Fauzia Din is a citizen and resident of the United States. Her husband, Kanishka erashk, is an fghan citizen and former civil servant in the Taliban regime who resides in that country. When the Government declined to issue an immigrant visa to erashk, Din sued. The state action of which Din complains is the denial of erashk’s visa application. Naturally, one would expect him—not Din—to bring this suit. ut because erashk is an unadmitted and nonresident alien, he has no right of entry into the United States, and no cause of action to press in furtherance of his claim for admission. See So, Din attempts to bring suit on his behalf, alleging that the Government’s denial of her husband’s visa application violated her constitutional rights. See pp. 36–37, Com plaint ¶56. In particular, she claims that the Government denied her due process of law when, without adequate explanation of the reason for the visa denial, it deprived her of her constitutional right to live in the United States with her spouse. There is no such constitutional right. 2 What JUSTICE REYER’s dissent strangely describes as a “deprivation of her freedom to live together with her spouse in merica,” post, at 4–5, is, in any world other than the artificial world of ever-expanding constitutional rights, nothing more than a deprivation of her spouse’s freedom to immigrate into merica. For the reasons given in this opinion and in the opinion concurring in the judgment, we vacate and remand. I Under the Immigration and Nationality ct (IN), 66 Stat. 163, as amended, 8 U.S. C. et seq., an alien may not enter and permanently reside in the United States without a visa. The IN creates a spe cial visa-application process for aliens sponsored by “im mediate relatives” in the United States. 1153(a). Under this process, the citizen-relative first files a petition on behalf of the alien living abroad, asking to have the alien classified as an immediate relative. See 1154(a)(1). If and when a petition is approved, the alien may apply for a visa by submitting the required documents and appearing at a United States Embassy or consulate for an interview with a consular officer. See 1202. efore issuing a visa, the consular officer must ensure the alien is not inadmissible under any provision of the IN. One ground for inadmissibility, covers “[t]errorist activities.” In addition to the violent and de structive acts the term immediately brings to mind, the IN defines “terrorist activity” to include providing mate rial support to a terrorist organization and serving as a terrorist organization’s representative. (iii)–(vi). Fauzia |
Justice Scalia | 2,015 | 9 | majority | Kerry v. Din | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2808292/kerry-v-din/ | organization and serving as a terrorist organization’s representative. (iii)–(vi). Fauzia Din came to the United States as a refugee in Cite as: 576 U. S. (2015) 3 Opinion of SCLI, J. 2000, and became a naturalized citizen in 2007. She filed a petition to have Kanishka erashk, whom she married in 2006, classified as her immediate relative. The petition was granted, and erashk filed a visa application. The U. S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, interviewed erashk and denied his application. consular officer informed erashk that he was inadmissible under but provided no further explanation. Din then brought suit in Federal District Court seeking a writ of mandamus directing the United States to prop- erly adjudicate erashk’s visa application; a declaratory judgment that 8 U.S. C. which exempts the Government from providing notice to an alien found inadmissible under the terrorism bar, is unconstitutional as applied; and a declaratory judgment that the denial violated the dministrative Procedure ct. pp. 36–39, Complaint ¶¶55–68. The District Court granted the Gov ernment’s motion to dismiss, but the Ninth Circuit re versed. The Ninth Circuit concluded that Din “has a protected liberty interest in marriage that entitled [her] to review of the denial of [her] spouse’s visa,” 860 (2013), and that the Government’s citation of did not provide Din with the “limited judi cial review” to which she was entitled under the Due Process Clause, This Court granted certiorari. 573 U. S. (2014). II The Fifth mendment provides that “[n]o person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” lthough the amount and quality of process that our precedents have recognized as “due” under the Clause has changed considerably since the founding, see Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U.S. 1, 28–36 (1991) (SCLI, J., concurring in judgment), it remains the case that no process is due if one is not de prived of “life, liberty, or property,” Swarthout v. Cooke, 4 The first question that we must ask, then, is whether the denial of erashk’s visa application deprived Din of any of these interests. Only if we answer in the affirmative must we proceed to consider whether the Government’s explanation afforded sufficient process. The Due Process Clause has its origin in Magna Carta. s originally drafted, the Great Charter provided that “[n]o freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be dis seised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed; nor will we not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or |
Justice Scalia | 2,015 | 9 | majority | Kerry v. Din | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2808292/kerry-v-din/ | condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.” Magna Carta, ch. 29, in 1 E. The Second Part of the Insti tutes of the Laws of England 45 (1797) The Court has recognized that at the time of the Fifth mendment’s ratification, the words “due process of law” were understood “to convey the same meaning as the words ‘by the law of the land’ ” in Magna Carta. Murray’s 276 (1856). lthough the terminology associated with the guarantee of due process changed dramatically between 1215 and 1791, the general scope of the underlying rights protected stayed roughly constant. Edward whose Institutes “were read in the mer ican Colonies by virtually every student of law,” Klopfer v. North Carolina, thoroughly described the scope of the interests that could be deprived only pursuant to “the law of the land.” Magna Carta, he wrote, ensured that, without due process, “no man [may] be taken or imprisoned”; “disseised of his lands, or tene ments, or dispossessed of his goods, or chattels”; “put from his livelihood without answer”; “barred to have the benefit of the law”; denied “the franchises, and priviledges, which Cite as: 576 U. S. (2015) 5 Opinion of SCLI, J. the subjects have of the gift of the king”; “exiled”; or “fore judged of life, or limbe, disherited, or put to torture, or death.” 1 at 46–48. lackstone’s description of the rights protected by Magna Carta is similar, al though he discusses them in terms much closer to the “life, liberty, or property” terminology used in the Fifth mendment. He described first an interest in “personal security,” “consist[ing] in a person’s legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health, and his reputation.” 1 W. lackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 125 (1769). Second, the “personal liberty of individuals” “consist[ed] in the power of loco motion, of changing situation, or removing one’s person to whatsoever place one’s own inclination may direct; with out imprisonment or restraint.” nd finally, a person’s right to property included “the free use, enjoy ment, and disposal of all his acquisitions.” Din, of course, could not conceivably claim that the denial of erashk’s visa application deprived her—or for that matter even erashk—of life or property; and under the above described historical understanding, a claim that it deprived her of liberty is equally absurd. The Govern ment has not “taken or imprisoned” Din, nor has it “con fine[d]” her, either by “keeping [her] against h[er] will in a private house, putting h[er] in the stocks, arresting |
Justice Scalia | 2,015 | 9 | majority | Kerry v. Din | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2808292/kerry-v-din/ | in a private house, putting h[er] in the stocks, arresting or forcibly detaining h[er] in the street.” Indeed, not even erashk has suffered a deprivation of liberty so understood. Despite this historical evidence, this Court has seen fit on several occasions to expand the meaning of “liberty” under the Due Process Clause to include certain implied “fundamental rights.” (The reasoning presumably goes like this: If you have a right to do something, you are free to do it, and deprivation of freedom is a deprivation of 6 “liberty”—never mind the original meaning of that word in the Due Process Clause.) These implied rights have been given more protection than “life, liberty, or property” properly understood. While one may be dispossessed of property, thrown in jail, or even executed so long as proper procedures are followed, the enjoyment of implied consti tutional rights cannot be limited at all, except by provi sions that are “narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.” 301–302 (1993). Din does not explicitly argue that the Government has violated this absolute prohibition of the substantive component of the Due Process Clause, likely because it is obvious that a law barring aliens engaged in terrorist activities from entering this country is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. She nevertheless insists that, because enforcement of the law affects her enjoyment of an implied fundamental liberty, the Govern ment must first provide her a full battery of procedural due-process protections. I think it worth explaining why, even if one accepts the textually unsupportable doctrine of implied fundamental rights, Din’s arguments would fail. ecause “extending constitutional protection to an asserted right or liberty interest place[s] the matter outside the arena of public debate and legislative action,” and because the “guideposts for responsible decisionmaking in this unchartered area are scarce and open-ended,” v. Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125 (1992), “[t]he doctrine of judicial self- restraint requires us to exercise the utmost care whenever we are asked to break new ground in this field,” ccordingly, before conferring constitutional status upon a previously unrecognized “liberty,” we have required “a careful description of the asserted fundamental liberty interest,” as well as a demonstration that the interest is “objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and Cite as: 576 U. S. (2015) 7 Opinion of SCLI, J. tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, such that neither liberty nor justice would exist if [it was] sacrificed.” at –721 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Din describes the denial of erashk’s visa application as implicating, alternately, a “liberty interest in her |
Justice Scalia | 2,015 | 9 | majority | Kerry v. Din | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2808292/kerry-v-din/ | visa application as implicating, alternately, a “liberty interest in her mar riage,” rief for Respondent 28, a “right of association with one’s spouse,” “a liberty interest in being reunited with certain blood relatives,” and “the liberty interest of a U. S. citizen under the Due Process Clause to be free from arbitrary restrictions on his right to live with his spouse,” To be sure, this Court has at times indulged a propensity for grandiloquence when reviewing the sweep of implied rights, describing them so broadly that they would include not only the interests Din asserts but many others as well. For example: “Without doubt, [the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause] de notes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up chil dren, [and] to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience” (1923). ut this Court is not bound by dicta, especially dicta that have been repudiated by the holdings of our subsequent cases. nd the actual holdings of the cases Din relies upon hardly establish the capacious right she now asserts. Unlike the States in and the Federal Govern ment here has not attempted to forbid a marriage. l- though Din and the dissent borrow language from those cases invoking a fundamental right to marriage, they both implicitly concede that no such right has been infringed in this case. Din relies on the “associational interests in 8 marriage that necessarily are protected by the right to marry,” and that are “presuppose[d]” by later cases estab lishing a right to marital privacy. rief for Respondent 16, 18. The dissent supplements the fundamental right to marriage with a fundamental right to live in the United States in order to find an affected liberty interest. Post, at 2–3 (REYER, J., dissenting). ttempting to abstract from these cases some liberty interest that might be implicated by erashk’s visa denial, Din draws on even more inapposite cases. Meyer, for example, invalidated a state statute proscribing the teach ing of foreign language to children who had not yet passed the eighth grade, reasoning that it violated the teacher’s “right thus to teach and the right of parents to engage him so to instruct their children.” Pierce v. Society of Sisters, extended Meyer, finding that a law requiring children to attend public schools “interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of chil dren under their control.” |
Justice Scalia | 2,015 | 9 | majority | Kerry v. Din | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2808292/kerry-v-din/ | the upbringing and education of chil dren under their control.” Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 505–506 (1977), extended this interest in rais ing children to caretakers in a child’s extended family, striking down an ordinance that limited occupancy of a single-family house to members of a nuclear family on the ground that “[d]ecisions concerning child rearing long have been shared with grandparents or other relatives.” nd concluded that a law criminalizing the use of contracep tives by married couples violated “penumbral rights of ‘privacy and repose’ ” protecting “the sacred precincts of the marital bedroom”—rights which do not plausibly extend into the offices of our consulates abroad. Nothing in the cases Din cites establishes a free-floating and categorical liberty interest in marriage (or any other formulation Din offers) sufficient to trigger constitutional protection whenever a regulation in any way touches upon Cite as: 576 U. S. (2015) 9 Opinion of SCLI, J. an aspect of the marital relationship. Even if our cases could be construed so broadly, the relevant question is not whether the asserted interest “is consistent with this Court’s substantive-due-process line of cases,” but whether it is supported by “this Nation’s history and practice.” –724 (emphasis deleted). Even if we might “imply” a liberty interest in marriage generally speaking, that must give way when there is a tradition denying the specific application of that general interest. Thus, rejected a claimed liberty interest in “self-sovereignty” and “personal autonomy” that extended to assisted suicide when there was a longstanding tradition of outlawing the practice of suicide. 727–728 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, a long practice of regulating spousal immigration precludes Din’s claim that the denial of erashk’s visa application has deprived her of a fundamental liberty interest. lthough immigration was effectively unregu lated prior to 1875, as soon as Congress began legislating in this area it enacted a complicated web of regulations that erected serious impediments to a person’s ability to bring a spouse into the United States. See brams, What Makes the Family Special? 10–16 (2013). Most strikingly, perhaps, the Expatriation ct of 1907 provided that “any merican woman who marries a for eigner shall take the nationality of her husband.” Ch. 2534, Thus, a woman in Din’s position not only lacked a liberty interest that might be affected by the Government’s disposition of her husband’s visa applica tion, she lost her own rights as a citizen upon marriage. When Congress began to impose quotas on immigration by country of origin less than 15 years later, with the Immi gration ct of 1921, it omitted fiances and |
Justice Scalia | 2,015 | 9 | majority | Kerry v. Din | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2808292/kerry-v-din/ | the Immi gration ct of 1921, it omitted fiances and husbands from the family relations eligible for preferred status in the allocation of quota spots. Such relations 10 were similarly excluded from the relations eligible for nonquota status, when that status was expanded three years later. Immigration ct of 1924, To be sure, these early regulations were premised on the derivative citizenship of women, a legacy of the law of coverture that was already in decline at the time. C. redbenner, Nationality of Her Own 5 (1998). Modern equal-protection doctrine casts substantial doubt on the permissibility of such asymmetric treatment of women citizens in the immigration context, and modern moral judgment rejects the premises of such a legal order. Never- theless, this all-too-recent practice repudiates any con- tention that Din’s asserted liberty interest is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” at (citations and internal quotations marks omitted). Indeed, the law showed little more solicitude for the marital relationship when it was a male resident or citizen seeking admission for his fiancee or wife. The Immigra tion ct of 1921 granted nonquota status only to unmar ried, minor children of citizens, while granting fiancees and wives preferred status within the allocation of quota spots, In other words, a citizen could move his spouse forward in the line, but once all the quota spots were filled for the year, the spouse was barred without exception. This was not just a theoretical possibility: s one commentator has observed, “[f]or many immigrants, the family categories did little to help, because the quotas were so small that the number of family members seeking slots far outstripped the number available.” brams, lthough Congress has tended to show “a continuing and kindly concern for the unity and the happiness of the immigrant family,” E. Hutchinson, Legislative History of merican Immigration Policy 1–1965, p. 518 (1981), this has been a matter of legislative grace rather than Cite as: 576 U. S. (2015) 11 Opinion of SCLI, J. fundamental right. Even where Congress has provided special privileges to promote family immigration, it has also “written in careful checks and qualifications.” This Court has consistently recognized that these various distinctions are “policy questions entrusted exclusively to the political branches of our Government, and we have no judicial authority to substitute our political judgment for that of the Congress.” (1977). Only by diluting the meaning of a fundamental liberty interest and jettisoning our established jurispru dence could we conclude that the denial of erashk’s visa application implicates any of Din’s fundamental |
Justice Scalia | 2,015 | 9 | majority | Kerry v. Din | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2808292/kerry-v-din/ | denial of erashk’s visa application implicates any of Din’s fundamental liberty interests. C JUSTICE REYER suggests that procedural due process rights attach to liberty interests that either are (1) created by nonconstitutional law, such as a statute, or (2) “suffi ciently important” so as to “flow ‘implicit[ly]’ from the design, object, and nature of the Due Process Clause.” Post, at 2. The first point is unobjectionable, at least given this Court’s case law. See, e.g., Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 262, and n. 8 (1970); ut it is unhelpful to Din, who does not argue that a statute confers on her a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. JUSTICE REYER attempts to make this argument for Din, latching onto language in Wilkinson v. ustin, saying that a liberty interest “may arise from an expectation or interest created by state laws or policies.” Such an “expectation” has been created here, he asserts, because “the law surrounds marriage with a host of legal protections to the point that it creates a strong expectation that government will not deprive married individuals of their freedom to live to gether without strong reasons and (in individual cases) 12 without fair procedure,” post, at 3. ut what Wilkinson meant by an “expectation or interest” was not that sort of judicially unenforceable substantial hope, but a present and legally recognized substantive entitlement.* s sole support for its conclusion that nonconstitutional law can create constitutionally protected liberty interests, Wil- kinson cited 556–558 (1974), which held that a prisoner could not be deprived of statutory good-time credit without procedural due process. That was not because a prisoner might have “ ‘a strong expectation’ ” that the government would not deprive him of good-time credit “ ‘without strong reasons’ ” or “ ‘fair procedure,’ ” but because “the State itself has not only provided a statutory right to good time [credit] but also specifies that it is to be forfeited only for serious misbehav ior,” The legal benefits afforded to marriages and the preferential treatment accorded to visa applicants with citizen relatives are insuf ficient to confer on Din a right that can be deprived only pursuant to procedural due process. JUSTICE REYER’s second point—that procedural due process rights attach even to some nonfundamental liberty interests that have not been created by statute—is much more troubling. He relies on the implied-fundamental rights cases discussed above to divine a “right of spouses to live together and to raise a family,” along with “a citi zen’s right to live within this country.” Post, at 2–3. ut perhaps recognizing that |
Justice Scalia | 2,015 | 9 | majority | Kerry v. Din | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2808292/kerry-v-din/ | within this country.” Post, at 2–3. ut perhaps recognizing that our established methodology for identifying fundamental rights cuts against his conclusion, see Part II–, he argues that the term “liberty” in the Due Process Clause includes implied rights that, —————— * JUSTICE REYER characterizes this as a reintroduction of “the rights/privilege distinction that this Court rejected almost five decades ago.” Post, at 3. Not so. ll I insist upon (and all that our cases over the past five decades require) is that the privilege be one to which the claimant has been given an entitlement. Cite as: 576 U. S. (2015) 13 Opinion of SCLI, J. although not so fundamental as to deserve substantive due-process protection, are important enough to deserve procedural-due-process protection. Post, at 2. In other words, there are two categories of implied rights protected by the Due Process Clause: really fundamental rights, which cannot be taken away at all absent a compelling state interest; and not-so-fundamental rights, which can be taken away so long as procedural due process is observed. The dissent fails to cite a single case supporting its novel theory of implied nonfundamental rights. It is certainly true that and do not entail implied fundamental rights, but this is because they do not entail implied rights at all. concerned the involuntary commitment of a prisoner, deprivation of the expressly protected right of liberty under the original understanding of the term, see Part II–, “ ‘mong the historic liberties’ protected by the Due Process Clause is the ‘right to be free from, and to obtain judicial relief for, unjustified intrusions on personal security.’ ” at 492. The same is true of Harper, which concerned forced administration of psychotropic drugs to an inmate. rguably, (1976), also addressed an interest expressly contemplated within the meaning of “liberty.” See 1 W. lackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 125 (“The right of personal security consists in a person’s reputation”). ut that case is of no help to the dissent anyway, since it found no liberty interest entitled to the Due Process Clause’s protection. at 713–714. Finally, the dissent points to a case that “recognize[d] as a property interest” a student’s right to a public education conferred by Ohio’s express statutory creation of a public school system; and further concluded that the student’s 10-day suspension 14 implicated the constitutionally grounded liberty interest in “ ‘a person’s good name, reputation, honor, or integrity.’ ” Ultimately, the dissent identifies no case holding that there is an implied nonfundamental right protected by procedural due process, and only one case even suggesting that there |
Justice Scalia | 2,015 | 9 | majority | Kerry v. Din | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2808292/kerry-v-din/ | due process, and only one case even suggesting that there is. That suggestion, in (1977), is contained in dictum in a footnote, n. 48. The holding of the case was that “the procedures provided by New York State and by New York Cit[y] are adequate to protect whatever liberty interests appellees may have.” The footnoted dictum that JUSTICE REYER proposes to elevate to constitutional law is a dangerous doctrine. It vastly expands the scope of our implied-rights jurispru dence by setting it free from the requirement that the liberty interest be “objectively, deeply rooted in this Na tion’s history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” 521 U.S., at –721 (inter nal quotation marks omitted). Even shallow-rooted liber ties would, thanks to this new procedural-rights-only notion of quasi-fundamental rights, qualify for judicially imposed procedural requirements. Moreover, JUSTICE REYER gives no basis for distinguishing the fundamental rights recognized in the cases he depends on from the nonfundamental right he believes they give rise to in the present case. Neither Din’s right to live with her spouse nor her right to live within this country is implicated here. There is a “simple distinction between government action that di rectly affects a citizen’s legal rights, or imposes a direct re straint on his liberty, and action that is directed against a third party and affects the citizen only indirectly or inci dentally.” O’annon v. Town Court Nursing Center, 447 U.S. 773, 788 The Government has not refused to recognize Din’s marriage to erashk, and Din remains free Cite as: 576 U. S. (2015) 15 Opinion of SCLI, J. to live with her husband anywhere in the world that both individuals are permitted to reside. nd the Government has not expelled Din from the country. It has simply determined that Kanishka erashk engaged in terrorist activities within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality ct, and has therefore denied him admission into the country. This might, indeed, deprive Din of some thing “important,” post, at 2, but if that is the criterion for JUSTICE REYER’s new pairing of substantive and proce dural due process, we are in for quite a ride. * * * ecause Fauzia Din was not deprived of “life, liberty, or property” when the Government denied Kanishka erashk admission to the United States, there is no process due to her under the Constitution. To the extent that she re ceived any explanation for the Government’s decision, this was more than the Due Process Clause required. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.