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 Stevens
| 1,991 | 16 |
second_dissenting
|
Payne v. Tennessee
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112643/payne-v-tennessee/
|
sentencing hearing away from the defendant and the circumstances of the crime and creating a "`mini-trial' on the victim's character." found this risk insupportable not, as today's majority suggests, because it creates a "tactical" "dilemma" for the defendant, see ante, at 823, but because it allows the possibility that the jury will be so distracted by prejudicial and irrelevant considerations that it will base its life-or-death decision on whim or caprice. See -507. IV The majority thus does far more than validate a State's judgment that "the jury should see `a quick glimpse of the life petitioner chose to extinguish,'" Ante, at 830-831 Instead, it allows a jury to hold a defendant responsible for a whole array of harms that he could not foresee and for which he is therefore not blameworthy. JUSTICE SOUTER argues that these harms are sufficiently foreseeable to hold the defendant accountable because "[e]very defendant knows, if endowed with the mental competence for criminal responsibility, that *865 the life he will take by his homicidal behavior is that of a unique person, like himself, and that the person to be killed probably has close associates, `survivors,' who will suffer harms and deprivations from the victim's death." Ante, at 838 (SOUTER, J., concurring). But every juror and trial judge knows this much as well. Evidence about who those survivors are and what harms and deprivations they have suffered is therefore not necessary to apprise the sentencer of any information that was actually foreseeable to the defendant. Its only function can be to "divert the jury's attention away from the defendant's background and record, and the circumstances of the crime." See Arguing in the alternative, JUSTICE SOUTER correctly points out that victim impact evidence will sometimes come to the attention of the jury during the guilt phase of the trial. Ante, at 840. He reasons that the ideal of basing sentencing determinations entirely on the moral culpability of the defendant is therefore unattainable unless a different jury is empaneled for the sentencing hearing. Ante, at 841. Thus, to justify overruling he assumes that the decision must otherwise be extended far beyond its actual holding. JUSTICE SOUTER'S assumption is entirely unwarranted. For as long as the contours of relevance at sentencing hearings have been limited to evidence concerning the character of the offense and the character of the offender, the law has also recognized that evidence that is admissible for a proper purpose may not be excluded because it is inadmissible for other purposes and may indirectly prejudice the jury. See 1 J. Wigmore, Evidence 13 In the case
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,991 | 16 |
second_dissenting
|
Payne v. Tennessee
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112643/payne-v-tennessee/
|
jury. See 1 J. Wigmore, Evidence 13 In the case before us today, much of what might be characterized as victim impact evidence was properly admitted during the guilt phase of the trial and, given the horrible character of this crime, may have been sufficient to justify the Tennessee Supreme Court's conclusion that the error was harmless because the jury would necessarily have imposed the death sentence even absent the error. The fact that a good deal of *866 such evidence is routinely and properly brought to the attention of the jury merely indicates that the rule of may not affect the outcome of many cases. In reaching our decision today, however, we should not be concerned with the cases in which victim impact evidence will not make a difference. We should be concerned instead with the cases in which it will make a difference. In those cases, defendants will be sentenced arbitrarily to death on the basis of evidence that would not otherwise be admissible because it is irrelevant to the defendants' moral culpability. The Constitution's proscription against the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty must necessarily proscribe the admission of evidence that serves no purpose other than to result in such arbitrary sentences. V The notion that the inability to produce an ideal system of justice in which every punishment is precisely married to the defendant's blameworthiness somehow justifies a rule that completely divorces some capital sentencing determinations from moral culpability is incomprehensible to me. Also incomprehensible is the argument that such a rule is required for the jury to take into account that each murder victim is a "unique" human being. See ante, at 823; ante, at 830-831 ; ante, at 838 (SOUTER, J., concurring). The fact that each of us is unique is a proposition so obvious that it surely requires no evidentiary support. What is not obvious, however, is the way in which the character or reputation in one case may differ from that of other possible victims. Evidence offered to prove such differences can only be intended to identify some victims as more worthy of protection than others. Such proof risks decisions based on the same invidious motives as a prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty if a victim is white but to accept a plea bargain if the victim is black. See *867 Given the current popularity of capital punishment in a crime-ridden society, the political appeal of arguments that assume that increasing the severity of sentences is the best cure for the cancer of crime, and the political strength of the
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,989 | 14 |
majority
|
Texas Teachers Assn. v. Garland School Dist.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112225/texas-teachers-assn-v-garland-school-dist/
|
We must decide today the proper standard for determining whether a party has "prevailed" in an action brought under certain civil rights statutes such that the party is eligible for an award of attorney's fees under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U.S. C. This is an issue which has divided the Courts of Appeals both before and after our decision in The Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits require that a party succeed on the "central issue" in the litigation and achieve the "primary relief sought" to be eligible for an award of attorney's fees under See, e. g., ; Most of the other Federal Courts of Appeals have applied a less demanding standard, requiring only that a party succeed on a significant issue and receive some of the relief sought in the lawsuit to qualify for a fee award. See, e. g., ; ; ; Lummi Indian ; In this case, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit applied the "central issue" test and concluded that petitioners here were not prevailing parties under Because of the conflicting views in the Courts of Appeals, and because of the importance of the definition of the term "prevailing party" to the application of and other federal fee shifting statutes, we granted certiorari. *785 I On March 31, 1981, petitioners, the Texas State Teachers Association, its local affiliate the Garland Education Association, and several individual members and employees of both organizations brought suit under 42 U.S. C. against respondent Garland Independent School District and various school district officials. Petitioners' complaint alleged that the school district's policy of prohibiting communications by or with teachers during the schoolday concerning employee organizations violated petitioners' First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. In particular, petitioners focused their attack on the school district's Administrative Regulation 412, which prohibits employee organizations access to school facilities during school hours and proscribes the use of school mail and internal communications systems by employee organizations. The school district's regulations do permit employee organizations to meet with, or recruit, teachers on school premises before or after the schoolday "upon request and approval by the local school principal." Brief for Respondents 4-5. On cross motions for summary judgment, the District Court rejected petitioners' claims in almost all respects. The court found that under Perry Education the prohibitions on union access to teachers themselves and to internal communication media during school hours were constitutional. App. to Pet. for Cert. 55a-57a. The District Court also rejected petitioners' claim that the school district's policies were unconstitutional in that they prohibited
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,989 | 14 |
majority
|
Texas Teachers Assn. v. Garland School Dist.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112225/texas-teachers-assn-v-garland-school-dist/
|
the school district's policies were unconstitutional in that they prohibited teachers' discussion or promotion of employee organizations among themselves during school hours. at 46a, n. 13. As to teacher discussion of employee organizations, the court found that even if some school officials interpreted the regulations to prohibit such speech, there had been no attempt to enforce such an interpretation. As to teacher-to-teacher speech promoting employee organizations, the court found that the record indicated that the school district did prohibit such speech, but *786 concluded that this prohibition was constitutional. The District Court did find for petitioners on one issue: it held that the requirement of school principal approval of teacher meetings with union representatives after school hours was unconstitutionally vague in that no guidelines limited the discretion of the principal's decision to grant or deny access to the campus. at 58a. The District Court found that this issue was of "minor significance," since there was no evidence in the record to indicate that school officials had ever denied employee organizations the use of school premises during nonschool hours. at 58a, 60a, n. 26. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. Texas State Teachers The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that petitioners' claim that the First Amendment required the school district to allow union representatives access to school facilities during school hours was foreclosed by our decision in Perry. The Court of Appeals affirmed the entry of summary judgment for the school district on this claim. The Court of Appeals, however, disagreed with the District Court's analysis of petitioners' claims relating to teacher-to-teacher discussion of employee organizations during the schoolday. It found that the prohibition of teacher speech promoting union activity during school hours was unconstitutional. It also found that there was a distinct possibility that the school district would discipline teachers who engaged in any discussion of employee organizations during the schoolday, and that such a policy had a chilling effect on teachers' First Amendment rights. Finally, the Court of Appeals held that the prohibition on teacher use of internal mail and billboard facilities to discuss employee organizations was unconstitutional. The school district allowed teachers to use these facilities for personal messages of all kinds, and the school district had not shown that the discussion of union activity in these *787 media would be disruptive of its educative mission. As to these claims, the Court of Appeals granted petitioners' motion for summary judgment. Respondents filed an appeal in this Court, and we summarily affirmed the judgment
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,989 | 14 |
majority
|
Texas Teachers Assn. v. Garland School Dist.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112225/texas-teachers-assn-v-garland-school-dist/
|
appeal in this Court, and we summarily affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals. See Garland Independent School Petitioners then filed the instant application for an award of attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S. C. The District Court found that under Fifth Circuit precedent petitioners here were not "prevailing parties" within the meaning of and thus were ineligible for any fee award. App. to Pet. for Cert. 16a-20a. The court recognized that petitioners had achieved "partial success," but indicated that "[i]n this circuit the test for prevailing party status is whether the plaintiff prevailed on the central issue by acquiring the primary relief sought." at 17a, quoting 809 F. 2d, at Looking to "the background of the lawsuit" and the claims presented in petitioners' complaint, the District Court concluded that the central issue in this litigation was the constitutionality of the school district's policy of limiting employee organizations' access to teachers and school facilities during school hours. App. to Pet. for Cert. 19a. Because petitioners did not prevail on this issue, they had not carried the "central issue" in the lawsuit nor achieved "the primary relief sought" and were therefore precluded from recovering attorney's fees. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court's judgment denying petitioners prevailing party status under The majority noted that the Fifth Circuit's "definition of `prevailing party' is narrower than some of the other Federal appellate courts." Applying that definition here, the majority found that while petitioners "did succeed on significant secondary issues," the "main thrust" of their lawsuit was nonetheless the desire to gain access to *788 school campuses during school hours for outside representatives of employee organizations. -193. Thus, under the "central issue" test, the District Court had correctly concluded that petitioners were not prevailing parties eligible for a fee award under Judge Goldberg dissented. He argued that the "central issue" test for determining prevailing party status was inconsistent with the congressional purpose in enacting and contrary to the decisions of this Court. We now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. II As amended, 42 U.S. C. provides in pertinent part: "In any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of sections 1981, 1982, and 1986 of this title, title IX of or title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 14, the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs." In we dealt with the application of the attorney's fee provision of to a situation much like
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,989 | 14 |
majority
|
Texas Teachers Assn. v. Garland School Dist.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112225/texas-teachers-assn-v-garland-school-dist/
|
the attorney's fee provision of to a situation much like the one before us today. Respondents in were patients involuntarily confined in a state mental hospital who brought a broad based challenge to the constitutionality of a number of the institution's rules and practices. In five of the six general areas where respondents challenged the institution's practices, the District Court found that conditions fell below those required by the Constitution and granted respondents relief. Respondents then requested a fee award pursuant to and the District Court "determined that respondents were prevailing parties under 42 U.S. C. even though they had not succeeded on every claim." With one exception, the District Court awarded the respondents in the entire "lodestar" figure, that is, the hours expended in litigation *789 multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate. The Court of Appeals affirmed the fee award. In this Court sought to clarify "the proper standard for setting a fee award where the plaintiff has achieved only limited success." At the outset we noted that no fee award is permissible until the plaintiff has crossed the "statutory threshold" of prevailing party status. In this regard, the Court indicated that "[a] typical formulation is that `plaintiffs may be considered "prevailing parties" for attorney's fees purposes if they succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing the suit.' " quoting The Court then went on to establish certain principles to guide the discretion of the lower courts in setting fee awards in cases where plaintiffs have not achieved complete success. Where the plaintiff's claims are based on different facts and legal theories, and the plaintiff has prevailed on only some of those claims, we indicated that "[t]he congressional intent to limit [fee] awards to prevailing parties requires that these unrelated claims be treated as if they had been raised in separate lawsuits, and therefore no fee may be awarded for services on the unsuccessful claim." In the more typical situation, where the plaintiff's claims arise out of a common core of facts, and involve related legal theories, the inquiry is more complex. In such a case, we indicated that "the most critical factor is the degree of success obtained." We noted that in complex civil rights litigation, "the plaintiff often may succeed in identifying some unlawful practices or conditions," but that "the range of possible success is vast," and the achievement of prevailing party status alone "may say little about whether the expenditure of counsel's time was reasonable in relation to the success achieved." We indicated that the
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,989 | 14 |
majority
|
Texas Teachers Assn. v. Garland School Dist.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112225/texas-teachers-assn-v-garland-school-dist/
|
in relation to the success achieved." We indicated that the district courts should exercise their equitable discretion in such cases to arrive at a reasonable fee award, either by attempting *790 to identify specific hours that should be eliminated or by simply reducing the award to account for the limited success of the plaintiff. See also We think it clear that the "central issue" test applied by the lower courts here is directly contrary to the thrust of our decision in Although respondents are correct in pointing out that did not adopt one particular standard for determining prevailing party status, does indicate that the degree of the plaintiff's success in relation to the other goals of the lawsuit is a factor critical to the determination of the size of a reasonable fee, not to eligibility for a fee award at all. Our decision in is consistent with congressional intent in this regard. Congress clearly contemplated that interim fee awards would be available "where a party has prevailed on an important matter in the course of litigation, even when he ultimately does not prevail on all issues." S. Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 5 (1976); see also H. R. Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 8 (1976). In discussing the availability of fees pendente lite under we have indicated that such awards are proper where a party "has established his entitlement to some relief on the merits of his claims, either in the trial court or on appeal." The incongruence of the "central issue" test in light of the clear congressional intent that interim fee awards be available to partially prevailing civil rights plaintiffs is readily apparent. In this case, our summary affirmance of the Court of Appeals' judgment for respondents on the union access issues and for petitioners on the teacher-to-teacher communication issues effectively ended the litigation. Because the Court of Appeals found that petitioners had not succeeded on what it viewed as the central issue in the suit, no fees were awarded. Yet, if petitioners' victory on the teacher-to-teacher communication issue had been only an interim one, with other issues remanded for further proceedings *791 in the District Court, petitioners would have been entitled to some fee award for their successful claims under Congress cannot have meant "prevailing party" status to depend entirely on the timing of a request for fees: A prevailing party must be one who has succeeded on any significant claim affording it some of the relief sought, either pendente lite or at the conclusion of the litigation. Nor does the central issue test have much to recommend it
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,989 | 14 |
majority
|
Texas Teachers Assn. v. Garland School Dist.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112225/texas-teachers-assn-v-garland-school-dist/
|
does the central issue test have much to recommend it from the viewpoint of judicial administration of and other fee shifting provisions. By focusing on the subjective importance of an issue to the litigants, it asks a question which is almost impossible to answer. Is the "primary relief sought" in a disparate treatment action under Title VII reinstatement, backpay, or injunctive relief? This question, the answer to which appears to depend largely on the mental state of the parties, is wholly irrelevant to the purposes behind the fee shifting provisions, and promises to mire district courts entertaining fee applications in an inquiry which two commentators have described as "excruciating." See M. Schwartz & J. Kirklin, Section Litigation: Claims, Defenses, and Fees 15.11, p. 348 Creating such an unstable threshold to fee eligibility is sure to provoke prolonged litigation, thus deterring settlement of fee disputes and ensuring that the fee application will spawn a second litigation of significant dimension. In sum, the search for the "central" and "tangential" issues in the lawsuit, or for the "primary," as opposed to the "secondary," relief sought, much like the search for the golden fleece, distracts the district court from the primary purposes behind and is essentially unhelpful in defining the term "prevailing party." We think the language of quoted in our opinion in adequately captures the inquiry which should be made in determining whether a civil rights plaintiff is a prevailing party within the meaning of If the plaintiff has succeeded on "any significant issue in litigation which achieve[d] some of the benefit the parties *792 sought in bringing suit," the plaintiff has crossed the threshold to a fee award of some kind. Nadeau, 581 F. 2d, at The floor in this regard is provided by our decision in As we noted there, "[r]espect for ordinary language requires that a plaintiff receive at least some relief on the merits of his claim before he can be said to prevail." Thus, at a minimum, to be considered a prevailing party within the meaning of the plaintiff must be able to point to a resolution of the dispute which changes the legal relationship between itself and the defendant. -761; Beyond this absolute limitation, a technical victory may be so insignificant, and may be so near the situations addressed in Hewitt and Rhodes, as to be insufficient to support prevailing party status. For example, in the context of this litigation, the District Court found that the requirement that nonschool hour meetings be conducted only with prior approval from the local school principal was unconstitutionally vague. App. to
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,989 | 14 |
majority
|
Texas Teachers Assn. v. Garland School Dist.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112225/texas-teachers-assn-v-garland-school-dist/
|
from the local school principal was unconstitutionally vague. App. to Pet. for Cert. 58a. The District Court characterized this issue as "of minor significance" and noted that there was "no evidence that the plaintiffs were ever refused permission to use school premises during non-school hours." at 60a, n. 26. If this had been petitioners' only success in the litigation, we think it clear that this alone would not have rendered them "prevailing parties" within the meaning of Where the plaintiff's success on a legal claim can be characterized as purely technical or de minimis, a district court would be justified in concluding that even the "generous formulation" we adopt today has not been satisfied. See Nadeau, 581 F. 2d, at 279, n. 3; New York City Unemployed and Welfare ; Chicano Police Officer's The touchstone of the prevailing party inquiry must be the material alteration of the legal relationship *793 of the parties in a manner which Congress sought to promote in the fee statute. Where such a change has occurred, the degree of the plaintiff's overall success goes to the reasonableness of the award under not to the availability of a fee award vel non. III Application of the principles enunciated above to the case at hand is not difficult. Petitioners here obtained a judgment vindicating the First Amendment rights of public employees in the workplace. Their success has materially altered the school district's policy limiting the rights of teachers to communicate with each other concerning employee organizations and union activities. Petitioners have thus served the "private attorney general" role which Congress meant to promote in enacting They prevailed on a significant issue in the litigation and have obtained some of the relief they sought and are thus "prevailing parties" within the meaning of We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand this case for a determination of a reasonable attorney's fee consistent with the principles established by our decision in It is so ordered
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,994 | 14 |
concurring
|
City of Ladue v. Gilleo
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117847/city-of-ladue-v-gilleo/
|
It is unusual for us, when faced with a regulation that on its face draws content distinctions, to "assume, arguendo, the validity of the City's submission that the various exemptions are free of impermissible content or viewpoint discrimination." Ante, at 53. With rare exceptions, content discrimination in regulations of the speech of private citizens on private property or in a traditional public forum is presumptively impermissible, and this presumption is a very strong one. Simon & The normal inquiry that our doctrine dictates is, first, to determine whether a regulation is content based or content neutral, and then, based on the answer to that question, to apply the proper level of scrutiny. See, e. g., ; Forsyth ; Simon & at ; ; Arkansas Writers' Project, ; ; Police Dept. of Over the years, some cogent criticisms have been leveled at our approach. See, e. g., R. A. V. v. St. Paul, ; Consolidated Edison Co. of N. ; Farber, Content Regulation and the First Amendment: A Revisionist View, 68 Geo. L. J. 727 ; *60 Stephan, The First Amendment and Content Discrimination, And it is quite true that regulations are occasionally struck down because of their contentbased nature, even though common sense may suggest that they are entirely reasonable. The content distinctions present in this ordinance may, to some, be a good example of this. But though our rule has flaws, it has substantial merit as well. It is a rule, in an area where fairly precise rules are better than more discretionary and more subjective balancing tests. See Hustler Magazine, On a theoretical level, it reflects important insights into the meaning of the free speech principlefor instance, that content-based speech restrictions are especially likely to be improper attempts to value some forms of speech over others, or are particularly susceptible to being used by the government to distort public debate. See, e. g., ante, at 51-53; ; Stone, Content Regulation and the First Amendment, On a practical level, it has in application generally led to seemingly sensible results. And, perhaps most importantly, no better alternative has yet come to light. I would have preferred to apply our normal analytical structure in this case, which may well have required us to examine this law with the scrutiny appropriate to contentbased regulations. Perhaps this would have forced us to confront some of the difficulties with the existing doctrine; perhaps it would have shown weaknesses in the rule, and led us to modify it to take into account the special factors this case presents. But such reexamination is part of the
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,987 | 14 |
second_dissenting
|
Arizona v. Hicks
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111834/arizona-v-hicks/
|
The Court today gives the right answer to the wrong question. The Court asks whether the police must have probable cause before either seizing an object in plain view or conducting a full-blown search of that object, and concludes that they must. I agree. In my view, however, this case presents a different question: whether police must have probable cause before conducting a cursory inspection of an item in plain view. Because I conclude that such an inspection is reasonable if the police are aware of facts or circumstances that justify a reasonable suspicion that the item is evidence of a crime, I would reverse the judgment of the Arizona Court of Appeals, and therefore dissent. *334 In Justice Stewart summarized three requirements that the plurality thought must be satisfied for a plain-view search or seizure. First, the police must lawfully make an initial intrusion or otherwise be in a position from which they can view a particular area. Second, the officer must discover incriminating evidence "inadvertently." Third, it must be "immediately apparent" to the police that the items they observe may be evidence of a crime, contraband, or otherwise subject to seizure. As another plurality observed in these three requirements have never been expressly adopted by a majority of this Court, but "as the considered opinion of four Members of this Court [the Coolidge plurality] should obviously be the point of reference for further discussion of the issue." There is no dispute in this case that the first two requirements have been satisfied. The officers were lawfully in the apartment pursuant to exigent circumstances, and the discovery of the stereo was inadvertent the officers did not " `know in advance the location of [certain] evidence and intend to seize it,' relying on the plain-view doctrine only as a pretext." (quoting ). Instead, the dispute in this case focuses on the application of the "immediately apparent" requirement; at issue is whether a police officer's reasonable suspicion is adequate to justify a cursory examination of an item in plain view. The purpose of the "immediately apparent" requirement is to prevent "general, exploratory rummaging in a person's belongings." If an officer could indiscriminately search every item in plain view, a search justified by a limited purpose such as exigent circumstances could be used to eviscerate the protections of the Fourth Amendment. In order to prevent such a general search, therefore, we require that the relevance of the item be "immediately apparent." As Justice Stewart explained: *335 "Of course, the extension of the original justification [for being present] is legitimate
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,987 | 14 |
second_dissenting
|
Arizona v. Hicks
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111834/arizona-v-hicks/
|
extension of the original justification [for being present] is legitimate only where it is immediately apparent to the police that they have evidence before them; the `plain view' doctrine may not be used to extend a general exploratory search from one object to another until something incriminating at last emerges. Cf. ] (Stewart, J., concurring in result)." Thus, I agree with the Court that even under the plain-view doctrine, probable cause is required before the police seize an item, or conduct a full-blown search of evidence in plain view. Ante, at 326-328. Such a requirement of probable cause will prevent the plain-view doctrine from authorizing general searches. This is not to say, however, that even a mere inspection of a suspicious item must be supported by probable cause. When a police officer makes a cursory inspection of a suspicious item in plain view in order to determine whether it is indeed evidence of a crime, there is no "exploratory rummaging." Only those items that the police officer "reasonably suspects" as evidence of a crime may be inspected, and perhaps more importantly, the scope of such an inspection is quite limited. In short, if police officers have a reasonable, articulate suspicion that an object they come across during the course of a lawful search is evidence of crime, in my view they may make a cursory examination of the object to verify their suspicion. If the officers wish to go beyond such a cursory examination of the object, however, they must have probable cause. This distinction between a full-blown search and seizure of an item and a mere inspection of the item was first suggested by Justice Stewart. In his concurrence in which is cited in Coolidge, Justice Stewart observed that the federal agents there had acted within the scope of a lawful warrant in opening the drawers of the defendant's desk. When they found in one of the drawers not the gambling material described in the warrant *336 but movie films, they proceeded to exhibit the films on the defendant's projector, and thereafter arrested the defendant for possession of obscene matter. Justice Stewart agreed with the majority that the film had to be suppressed, but in doing so he suggested that a less intrusive inspection of evidence in plain view would present a different case: "This is not a case where agents in the course of a lawful search came upon contraband, criminal activity, or criminal evidence in plain view. For the record makes clear that the contents of the films could not be determined by mere inspection." (footnote omitted).
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,987 | 14 |
second_dissenting
|
Arizona v. Hicks
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111834/arizona-v-hicks/
|
films could not be determined by mere inspection." (footnote omitted). Following Justice Stewart's suggestion, the overwhelming majority of both state and federal courts have held that probable cause is not required for a minimal inspection of an item in plain view. As Professor LaFave summarizes the view of these courts, "the minimal additional intrusion which results from an inspection or examination of an object in plain view is reasonable if the officer was first aware of some facts and circumstances which justify a reasonable suspicion (not probable cause, in the traditional sense) that the object is or contains a fruit, instrumentality, or evidence of crime." 2 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure 6.7(b), p. 717 (2d ed. 1987); see also Thus, while courts require probable cause for more extensive examination, cursory inspections including picking up or moving objects for a better view require only a reasonable suspicion. See, e. g., United ; United ; United ; United ; United (same). Indeed, several state courts have applied a reasonable suspicion standard in factual circumstances almost identical to this case. See, e. g., ; ; ; ; rev'd on other grounds, This distinction between searches based on their relative intrusiveness and its subsequent adoption by a consensus of American courts is entirely consistent with our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. We have long recognized that searches can vary in intrusiveness, and that some brief searches "may be so minimally intrusive of Fourth Amendment interests that strong countervailing governmental interests will justify a [search] based only on specific articulate facts" that the item in question is contraband or evidence of a crime. United In we held that the permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice should be judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests. Thus, "[w]here a careful balancing of governmental and private interests suggests that the public interest is best served by a Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness that stops short of probable cause, we have not hesitated to adopt such a standard." New The governmental interests considered include crime prevention and detection. The test is whether these law enforcement interests are sufficiently "substantial," not, as the Court would have it, whether "operational necessities render [a standard less than probable cause] the only practicable means of detecting certain types of crimes." Ante, at 327. See United In my view, the balance of the governmental and privacy interests strongly supports a reasonable-suspicion standard for the cursory examination of items in plain view. The additional intrusion caused by an inspection of an
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,987 | 14 |
second_dissenting
|
Arizona v. Hicks
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111834/arizona-v-hicks/
|
view. The additional intrusion caused by an inspection of an item in plain view for its serial number is minuscule. Indeed, the intrusion in this case was even more transitory and less intrusive than the seizure of luggage from a suspected drug dealer in United and the "severe, though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security" in Weighed against this minimal additional invasion of privacy are rather major gains in law enforcement. The use of identification numbers in tracing stolen property is a powerful law enforcement tool. Serial numbers are far more helpful and accurate in detecting stolen property than simple police recollection of the evidence. Cf. New Given the prevalence of mass produced *339 goods in our national economy, a serial number is often the only sure method of detecting stolen property. The balance of governmental and private interests strongly supports the view accepted by a majority of courts that a standard of reasonable suspicion meets the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. Unfortunately, in its desire to establish a "bright-line" test, the Court has taken a step that ignores a substantial body of precedent and that places serious roadblocks to reasonable law enforcement practices. Indeed, in this case no warrant to search the stereo equipment for its serial number could have been obtained by the officers based on reasonable suspicion alone, and in the Court's view the officers may not even move the stereo turntable to examine its serial number. The theoretical advantages of the "search is a search" approach adopted by the Court today are simply too remote to justify the tangible and severe damage it inflicts on legitimate and effective law enforcement. Even if probable cause were the appropriate standard, I have little doubt that it was satisfied here. When police officers, during the course of a search inquiring into grievously unlawful activity, discover the tools of a thief (a sawed-off rifle and a stocking mask) and observe in a small apartment two sets of stereo equipment that are both inordinately expensive in relation to their surroundings and known to be favored targets of larcenous activity, the "flexible, commonsense standard" of probable cause has been satisfied. Because the Court today ignores the existence of probable cause, and in doing so upsets a widely accepted body of precedent on the standard of reasonableness for the cursory examination of evidence in plain view, I respectfully dissent.
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,984 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Florida v. Meyers
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111157/florida-v-meyers/
|
No judicial system is perfect. In this case the Florida District Court of Appeal for the Fourth District appears to have made an error. In the exercise of its discretion, the Florida Supreme Court elected not to correct that error. No reasons were given for its denial of review and since the record is not before us, we cannot know what discretionary factors may have prompted the Florida Supreme Court's decision. This Court, however, finds time to correct the apparent error committed by the intermediate appellate court, acting summarily without benefit of briefs on the merits or argument. "This Court can only deal with a certain number of cases on the merits in any given Term, and therefore some judgment must attend the process of selection." If the error corrected today had been committed by a federal court, the Court's action arguably would be a proper exercise of its supervisory powers over the federal judicial system. See this Court's Rule 17.1(a). Or if the case raised a novel question of federal law on which there was a divergence of opinion, arguably it would be proper for the Court to assume jurisdiction for the purpose of clarifying the law. See this Court's Rules 17.1(b) and (c). Or if there were reason to believe that the state court refused to apply federal precedent because of its hostility to this Court's interpretation of the Constitution, see generally we might have an obligation to act summarily to vindicate the supremacy of federal law. No such consideration is present in this case. In fact, the case on which the majority principally relies, Michigan v. Thomas, 458 U. S. *384 259 (1982) (per curiam), was itself a summary disposition. Clearly, the law in this area is well settled. That being the case, I see no reason why we cannot leave to the Florida Supreme Court the task of managing its own discretionary docket.[1] For three other reasons I believe the Court should deny certiorari in cases of this kind. First, our pronouncements *385 concerning our confidence in the ability of the state judges to decide Fourth Amendment questions, see ; are given a hollow ring when we are found peering over their shoulders after every misreading of the Fourth Amendment. Second, our ability to perform our primary responsibilities can only be undermined by enlarging our self-appointed role as supervisors of the administration of justice in the state judicial systems. Dispositions such as that today can only encourage prosecutors to file in increasing numbers petitions for certiorari in relatively routine cases, and if we take it upon
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,984 | 16 |
dissenting
|
Florida v. Meyers
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111157/florida-v-meyers/
|
in relatively routine cases, and if we take it upon ourselves to review and correct every incorrect disposition of a federal question by every intermediate state appellate court, we will soon become so busy that we will either be unable to discharge our primary responsibilities effectively, or else be forced to make still another adjustment in the size of our staff in order to process cases effectively. We should focus our attention on methods of using our scarce resources wisely rather than laying another course of bricks in the building of a federal judicial bureaucracy. Third, and perhaps most fundamental, this case and cases like it pose disturbing questions concerning the Court's conception of its role. Each such case, considered individually, may be regarded as a welcome step forward in the never-ending war against crime. Such decisions are certain to receive widespread approbation, particularly by members of society who have been victimized by lawless conduct. But we must not forget that a central purpose of our written Constitution, and more specifically of its unique creation of a life-tenured federal judiciary, was to ensure that certain rights are firmly secured against possible oppression by the Federal or State Governments. As I wrote last Term: "I believe that in reviewing the decisions of state courts, the primary role of this Court is to make sure that persons who seek to vindicate federal rights have been fairly heard." (dissenting opinion). Yet the Court's recent history indicates that, at *386 least with respect to its summary dispositions, it has been primarily concerned with vindicating the will of the majority and less interested in its role as a protector of the individual's constitutional rights.[2] Since the beginning of the October 1981 Term, the Court has decided in summary fashion 19 cases, including this one, concerning the constitutional rights of persons accused or convicted of crimes. All 19 were decided on the petition of the warden or prosecutor, and in all he was successful in obtaining reversal of a decision upholding a claim of constitutional right.[3] I am not saying that none of these cases should have been decided summarily. But I am saying that this pattern of results, and in particular the fact that in its last two and one-half Terms the Court has been unwilling in even a single criminal case to employ its discretionary power of summary disposition in order to uphold a claim of constitutional right, is quite striking. It may well be true that there have been times when the Court *387 overused its power of summary disposition to protect the
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
majority
|
Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Oradell
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109443/hynes-v-mayor-and-council-of-oradell/
|
The question presented in this case is whether a municipal ordinance requiring advance notice to be given to the local police department by "[a]ny person desiring to canvass, solicit or call from house to house for a recognized charitable cause or political campaign or cause in writing, for identification only" violates the guarantees of freedom of speech and due process of law embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment. () The Borough of Oradell, N. J., has enacted two ordinances that together regulate most forms of door-to-door canvassing and solicitation. A broad ordinance, No. 573, requires all solicitors to obtain a permit from the borough clerk, by making a formal application, accompanied by a description and photograph of the applicant, the description and license number of any automobile to be used in soliciting, a driver's license, and other data. The ordinance apparently requires that the chief of police approve issuance of the permit.[] *62 The ordinance at issue here, Ordinance No. 598A, is an amendment to this broader scheme, and imposes no permit requirement; it covers persons soliciting for "a recognized charitable cause, or any person desiring to *63 canvass, solicit or call from house to house for a Federal, State, County or Municipal political campaign or cause." Ordinance No. 598A also applies to "representatives of Borough Civic Groups and Organizations and any veterans honorably discharged or released under honorable circumstances" from the Armed Forces. Those covered by this ordinance are required only to "notify the Police Department, in writing, for identification only." Once given, the notice is "good for the duration of the campaign or cause."[2] *64 Appellants are Edward Hynes, a New Jersey state assemblyman whose district was redrawn in 973 to include the Borough of Oradell, and three Oradell registered voters. They brought suit in the Superior Court of Bergen County, N. J., seeking a declaration that Ordinance No. 598A was unconstitutional and an injunction against its enforcement. Appellant Hynes alleged that he wished to campaign for re-election in Oradell. The other *65 appellants alleged either that they wished to canvass door to door in the borough for political causes or that they wished to speak with candidates who campaigned in Oradell. Each appellant claimed that the ordinance would unconstitutionally restrict such activity. The Superior Court held the ordinance invalid for three reasons. First, the court noted that it contained no penalty clause, and hence was unenforceable under New Jersey law; second, the court held that the ordinance was not related to its announced purposethe prevention of crimesince it required only candidates and canvassers to register.[3] Finally, the court
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
majority
|
Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Oradell
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109443/hynes-v-mayor-and-council-of-oradell/
|
required only candidates and canvassers to register.[3] Finally, the court concluded that the ordinance was vague and overbroadunclear "as to what is, and what isn't required" of those who wished to canvass for political causes. The Appellate Division of the Superior Court affirmed, reaching and accepting only the first ground for the trial court's decision. The Supreme Court of New Jersey reversed. 66 N. J. 376, It noted that a penalty clause, enacted during the pendency of the appeal, cured the defect that had concerned the Appellate Division. Relying largely on a decision in a case dealing with a similar ordinance, appeal docketed, No. 74-335, the court held that Ordinance No. 598A was a legitimate exercise of the borough's police power, enacted to prevent crime and to reduce residents' fears about strangers wandering door to door. The ordinance regulated conduct door-to-door canvassingas well as speech, and in doing so "it could hardly be more clear." 66 N. J., at The ordinance, the court thought, imposed *66 minimal requirements which did not offend free speech interests: "It may be satisfied in writing, suggesting that resort may be had to the mails. It need be fulfilled only once for each campaign. There is no fee. The applicant does not have to obtain or carry a card or license. And perhaps most importantly, no discretion reposes in any municipal official to deny the privilege of calling door to door. The ordinance is plainly an identification device in its most basic form." Two of the court's seven members dissented. One justice thought the ordinance "plain silly" as a crime-prevention measure, for the reasons given by the trial court. ; another justice thought that the "ordinance has the potential to have a significant chilling effect on the exercise of first amendment rights and thus infringes on these rights." (2) We are not without guideposts in considering appellants' First Amendment challenge to Ordinance No. 598A. "Adjustment of the inevitable conflict between free speech and other interests is a problem as persistent as it is perplexing," and this Court has in several cases reviewed attempts by municipalities to regulate activities like canvassing and soliciting. Regulation in this area "must be done, and the restriction applied, in such a manner as not to intrude upon the rights of free speech and free assembly," But in these very cases the Court has consistently recognized a municipality's power to protect its citizens from crime and undue annoyance by regulating *67 soliciting and canvassing. A narrowly drawn ordinance, that does not vest in municipal officials the undefined power to determine what
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
majority
|
Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Oradell
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109443/hynes-v-mayor-and-council-of-oradell/
|
vest in municipal officials the undefined power to determine what messages residents will hear, may serve these important interests without running afoul of the First Amendment. In the Court held invalid an ordinance that prohibited the distribution of "literature of any kind without first obtaining written permission from the City Manager," The ordinance contained "no restriction in its application with respect to time or place," and was "not limited to ways which might be regarded as inconsistent with the maintenance of public order or as involving disorderly conduct, the molestation of the inhabitants, or the misuse or littering of the streets." A year later, in the Court held unconstitutional an Irvington, N. J., ordinance that dealt specifically with house-to-house canvassers and solicitors. The ordinance required them to obtain a permit, which would not issue if the chief of police decided that "the canvasser is not of good character or is canvassing for a project not free from fraud." Because the Court concluded that the canvasser's "liberty to communicate with the residents of the town at their homes depends upon the exercise of the officer's discretion," the Court held the ordinance invalid. In the Court held that a similar permit ordinance, as applied to prevent Jehovah's Witnesses from soliciting door to door, infringed upon the right to free exercise of religion, guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. And in the Court struck down a municipal ordinance that made it a crime for a solicitor or canvasser to knock on the front door *68 of a resident's home or ring the doorbell. See also In reaching these results, the Court acknowledged the valid and important interests these ordinances sought to serve. In Mr. Justice Black writing for the Court stated: "Ordinances of the sort now before us may be aimed at the protection of the householders from annoyance, including intrusion upon the hours of rest, and at the prevention of crime. Constant callers, whether selling pots or distributing leaflets, may lessen the peaceful enjoyment of a home as much as a neighborhood glue factory or railroad yard which zoning ordinances may prohibit. In addition, burglars frequently pose as canvassers, either in order that they may have a pretense to discover whether a house is empty and hence ripe for burglary, or for the purpose of spying out the premises in order that they may return later. Crime prevention may thus be the purpose of regulatory ordinances." As Mr. Justice Black suggested, the lone housewife has no way of knowing whether the purposes of the putative solicitor are benign or malignant, and
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
majority
|
Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Oradell
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109443/hynes-v-mayor-and-council-of-oradell/
|
purposes of the putative solicitor are benign or malignant, and even an innocuous caller "may lessen the peaceful enjoyment of a home." In his view a municipality "can by identification devices" regulate canvassers in order to deter criminal conduct by persons "posing as canvassers," relying on the Court's statement in at 306: "Without doubt a State may protect its citizens from fraudulent solicitation by requiring a stranger in the community, before permitting him publicly to solicit funds for any purpose, to establish his *69 identity and his authority to act for the cause which he purports to represent." These opinions of the Court and the dissenting opinions found common ground as to the important municipal interests at stake. See ; ; (Jackson, J., dissenting in ). Professor Zechariah Chafee articulated something of the householder's right to be let alone, saying: "Of all the methods of spreading unpopular ideas, [house-to-house canvassing] seems the least entitled to extensive protection. The possibilities of persuasion are slight compared with the certainties of annoyance. Great as is the value of exposing citizens to novel views, home is one place where a man ought to be able to shut himself up in his own ideas if he desires." Free Speech in the United States 406 (954). Professor Chafee went on to note: "[These cases] do not invalidate all ordinances that include within their scope doorway dissemination of thought. Several sentences in the opinions state that ordinances suitably designed to take care of legitimate social interests are not void." There is, of course, no absolute right under the Federal Constitution to enter on the private premises of another and knock on a door for any purpose, and the police power permits reasonable regulation for public safety. We cannot say, and indeed appellants do not argue, that door-to-door canvassing and solicitation are immune from regulation under the State's police power, whether the purpose of the regulation is to protect from danger or to protect the peaceful enjoyment of the home. See *620 (3) There remains the question whether the challenged ordinance meets the test that in the First Amendment area "government may regulate only with narrow specificity." As a matter of due process, "[n]o one may be required at peril of life, liberty or property to speculate as to the meaning of penal statutes. All are entitled to be informed as to what the State commands or forbids." The general test of vagueness applies with particular force in review of laws dealing with speech. "[S]tricter standards of permissible statutory vagueness may be applied to a statute having a
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
majority
|
Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Oradell
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109443/hynes-v-mayor-and-council-of-oradell/
|
statutory vagueness may be applied to a statute having a potentially inhibiting effect on speech; a man may the less be required to act at his peril here, because the free dissemination of ideas may be the loser." See also ; Notwithstanding the undoubted power of a municipality to enforce reasonable regulations to meet the needs recognized by the Court in the cases discussed, we conclude that Ordinance No. 598A must fall because in certain respects "men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning." Since we conclude that the ordinance is invalid because of vagueness, we need not reach the other arguments appellants advance.[4] *62 First, the coverage of the ordinance is unclear; it does not explain, for example, whether a "recognized charitable cause" means one recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as tax exempt, one recognized by some community agency, or one approved by some municipal official. While it is fairly clear what the phrase "political campaign" comprehends, it is not clear what is meant by a "Federal, State, County or Municipal cause." Finally, it is not clear what groups fall into the class of "Borough Civic Groups and Organizations" that the ordinance also covers.[5] Second, the ordinance does not sufficiently specify what those within its reach must do in order to comply. The citizen is informed that before soliciting he must "notify the Police Department, in writing, for identification only." But he is not told what must be set forth in the notice, or what the police will consider sufficient as "identification." This is in marked contrast to Ordinance No. 573 which sets out specifically what is required of commercial solicitors; it is not clear that the provisions of Ordinance 573 extend to Ordinance 598A. See n. Ordinance No. 598A does not have comparable precision. The New Jersey Supreme Court construed the ordinance to permit one to send the required identification by mail; a canvasser who used the mail might well findtoo latethat the identification *622 he provided by mail was inadequate. In this respect, as well as with respect to the coverage of the ordinance, this law "may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning." 408 U.S. 04, 08 (972). Nor does the ordinance "provide explicit standards for those who apply" it. To the extent that these ambiguities and the failure to explain what "identification" is required give police the effective power to grant or deny permission to canvass for political causes, the ordinance suffers in its practical effect from the vice condemned in Lovell, Schneider, and Staub. See also 405 U.S. 56, 62
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
majority
|
Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Oradell
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109443/hynes-v-mayor-and-council-of-oradell/
|
Lovell, Schneider, and Staub. See also 405 U.S. 56, 62 (972); 402 U.S. 6, 64 (97); Note, The Voidfor-Vagueness Doctrine in the Supreme Court, 09 U. Pa. L. Rev. 67, (960). The New Jersey Supreme Court undertook to give the ordinance a limiting construction by suggesting that since the identification requirement "may be satisfied in writing,. resort may be had to the mails," 66 N. J., at but this construction of the ordinance does not explain either what the law covers or what it requires; for example, it provides no clue as to what is a "recognized charity"; nor is political "cause" defined. Cf. 407 U.S. 04, 0- (972); 35 U.S. 568 (942); 32 U.S. 569 (94). Even assuming that a more explicit limiting interpretation of the ordinance could remedy the flaws we have pointed out a matter on which we intimate no viewwe are without power to remedy the defects by giving the ordinance constitutionally precise U.S. 566, (974). *623 Accordingly, the judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Supreme Court of New Jersey for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. MR. JUSTICE STEVENS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, concurring in part. I join Part 3 of the Court's opinion holding that Oradell Ordinance No. 598A must be invalidated as impermissibly vague. The Court reserves decision on other constitutional contentions alleged to invalidate the ordinance. Ante, at 620-62, n. 4. Despite this reservation, Part 2 of the Court's opinion may be read as suggesting that, vagueness defects aside, an ordinance of this kind would ordinarily withstand constitutional attack. Because I believe that such ordinances must encounter substantial First Amendment barriers besides vagueness, I cannot join Part 2 and briefly state my reasons. In considering the validity of laws regulating door-to-door solicitation and canvassing, Mr. Justice Black, speaking for the Court in 39 U. S. *624 4 properly recognized that municipalities have an important interest in keeping neighborhoods safe and peaceful. But unlike the Court today, he did not stop there. Rather, he emphasized the other side of the equationthat door-to-door solicitation and canvassing is a method of communication essential to the preservation of our free society. He said: "While door to door distributers of literature may be either a nuisance or a blind for criminal activities, they may also be useful members of society engaged in the dissemination of ideas in accordance with the best tradition of free discussion. The widespread use of this method of
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
majority
|
Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Oradell
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109443/hynes-v-mayor-and-council-of-oradell/
|
of free discussion. The widespread use of this method of communication by many groups espousing various causes attests its major importance. `Pamphlets have proved most effective instruments in the dissemination of opinion. And perhaps the most effective way of bringing them to the notice of individuals is their distribution at the homes of the people.' [, 64 ]. Many of our most widely established religious organizations have used this method of disseminating their doctrines, and laboring groups have used it in recruiting their members. The federal government, in its current war bond selling campaign, encourages groups of citizens to distribute advertisements and circulars from house to house. Of course, as every person acquainted with political life knows, door to door campaigning is one of the most accepted techniques of seeking popular support, while the circulation of nominating papers would be greatly handicapped if they could not be taken to the citizens in their homes. Door to door distribution of circulars is essential to the poorly financed causes of little people." at -46. It can hardly be denied that an ordinance requiring *625 the door-to-door campaigner to identify himself discourages free speech. (960), invalidated a Los Angeles ordinance requiring handbills to carry the name and address of persons writing, printing, or distributing them. Since the requirement destroyed anonymity, "[t]here [could] be no doubt that such an identification requirement would tend to restrict freedom to distribute information and thereby freedom of expression," for: "Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all. Even the Federalist Papers, written in favor of the adoption of our Constitution, were published under fictitious names. It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes." -65. No less may be said of anonymity sought to be preserved in the door-to-door exposition of ideas. That anonymity is destroyed by an identification requirement like the Oradell ordinance.[] "[I]dentification and fear of reprisal might deter perfectly peaceful discussions of public matters of importance," particularly where door-to-door solicitation seeks discussion of sensitive and controversial issues, such as civilian police *626 review boards, the decriminalization of specified types of conduct, or the recall of an elected police official. Deplorably, apprehension of reprisal by the average citizen is too often well founded. The national scene in recent times has regrettably provided many instances of penalties for controversial expression in the form of vindictive harassment, discriminatory law
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
majority
|
Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Oradell
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109443/hynes-v-mayor-and-council-of-oradell/
|
controversial expression in the form of vindictive harassment, discriminatory law enforcement, executive abuse of administrative powers, and intensive government surveillance.[2] Nor is the threat to free expression by ordinances of this type limited to their jeopardization of anonymity. Perhaps an even greater threat lies in the impermissible burden they impose upon political expression, the core conduct protected by the First Amendment.[3] Unquestionably, *627 the lifeblood of today's political campaigning must be the work of volunteers. The oppressive financial burden of campaigns makes reliance on volunteers *628 absolutely essential and, in light of the enormous significance of citizen participation to the preservation and strength of the democratic ideal, absolutely desirable, indeed indispensable. Offensive to the sensibilities of private citizens, identification requirements such as the Oradell ordinance, even in their least intrusive form, must discourage that participation. I recognize that there are governmental interests that may justify restraints on free speech. But in the area of First Amendment protections, "[t]he rational connection between the remedy provided and the evil to be curbed, which in other contexts might support legislation against attack on due process grounds, will not suffice. Accordingly, whatever occasion would restrain orderly discussion and persuasion, at appropriate time and place, must have clear support in public danger, actual or impending." Restraints implicit in identification requirements, however, extend beyond restrictions on time and placethey chill discussion itself. The Oradell type of ordinance therefore raises substantial First Amendment questions not presented by the usual time, place, and manner regulation.[4] See *629 408 U.S. 04, 5 (972). Under the ordinance, no authentication of identity need be submitted, and therefore the requirement can be easily evaded.[5] In that circumstance, the requirement can hardly be justified as protective of overriding governmental interests since evasion can easily thwart that objective. See But imposition of more burdensome identification requirements, such as authentication, would doubtless only serve further to discourage protected activity and, therefore, not eliminate the First Amendment difficulty. Moreover, the purported aid to crime prevention provided by identification of solicitors is not so self-evident as to relieve the State of the burden of proving that this asserted interest would be served. What Mr. Justice Harlan said of the handbill ordinance invalidated in Talley may equally be said of ordinances of the Oradell type: "Here the State says that this ordinance is aimed at the prevention of `fraud, deceit, false advertising, negligent use of words, obscenity, and libel,' in that *630 it will aid in the detection of those responsible for spreading material of that character. But the ordinance is not so limited, and I think it
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
majority
|
Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Oradell
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109443/hynes-v-mayor-and-council-of-oradell/
|
the ordinance is not so limited, and I think it will not do for the State simply to say that the circulation of all anonymous handbills must be suppressed in order to identify the distributors of those that may be of an obnoxious character. In the absence of a more substantial showing as to Los Angeles' actual experience with the distribution of obnoxious handbills, such a generality is for me too remote to furnish a constitutionally acceptable justification for the deterrent effect on free speech which this all-embracing ordinance is likely to have." -67[6] Contrary to the thrust of Part 2 of the Court's opinion, it seems inescapable that ordinances of the Oradell type, however precisely drafted to avoid the pitfalls of vagueness, must present substantial First Amendment questions. The imperiling of precious constitutional values, for reasons however justifiable, cannot be taken lightly. The prevention of crime is, of course, one of the most serious of modern-day problems. But our perception as individuals of the need to solve that particular problem should not color our judgment as to the constitutionality of measures aimed at that end. MR.
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
concurring
|
Rompilla v. Beard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/
|
I write separately to put to rest one concern. The dissent worries that the Court's opinion "imposes on defense counsel a rigid requirement to review all documents in what it calls the `case file' of any prior conviction that the prosecution might rely on at trial." Post, at 396 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.). But the Court's opinion imposes no such rule. See ante, at 389-390. Rather, today's decision simply applies *394 our longstanding case-by-case approach to determining whether an attorney's performance was unconstitutionally deficient under Trial counsel's performance in Rompilla's case falls short under that standard, because the attorneys' behavior was not "reasonable considering all the circumstances." In particular, there were three circumstances which made the attorneys' failure to examine Rompilla's prior conviction file unreasonable. First, Rompilla's attorneys knew that their client's prior conviction would be at the very heart of the prosecution's case. The prior conviction went not to a collateral matter, but rather to one of the aggravating circumstances making Rompilla eligible for the death penalty. The prosecutors intended not merely to mention the fact of prior conviction, but to read testimony about the details of the crime. That crime, besides being quite violent in its own right, was very similar to the murder for which Rompilla was on trial, and Rompilla had committed the murder at issue a mere three months after his release from prison on the earlier conviction. In other words, the prosecutor clearly planned to use details of the prior crime as powerful evidence that Rompilla was a dangerous man for whom the death penalty would be both appropriate punishment and a necessary means of incapacitation. Cf. App. 165-166 (prosecutor's penalty-phase argument). This was evidence the defense should have been prepared to meet: A reasonable defense lawyer would have attached a high importance to obtaining the record of the prior trial, in order to anticipate and find ways of deflecting the prosecutor's aggravation argument. Second, the prosecutor's planned use of the prior conviction threatened to eviscerate one of the defense's primary mitigation arguments. Rompilla was convicted on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence. His lawyers structured the entire mitigation argument around the hope of convincing the jury that residual doubt about Rompilla's guilt made *395 it inappropriate to impose the death penalty. In announcing an intention to introduce testimony about Rompilla's similar prior offense, the prosecutor put Rompilla's attorneys on notice that the prospective defense on mitigation likely would be ineffective and counterproductive. The similarities between the two crimes, combined with the timing and the already strong circumstantial evidence, raised a strong likelihood that
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
concurring
|
Rompilla v. Beard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/799980/rompilla-v-beard/
|
the already strong circumstantial evidence, raised a strong likelihood that the jury would reject Rompilla's residual doubt argument. Rompilla's attorneys' reliance on this transparently weak argument risked damaging their credibility. Such a scenario called for further investigation, to determine whether circumstances of the prior case gave any hope of saving the residual doubt argument, or whether the best strategy instead would be to jettison that argument so as to focus on other, more promising issues. Cf. ; 00 Third, the attorneys' decision not to obtain Rompilla's prior conviction file was not the result of an informed tactical decision about how the lawyers' time would best be spent. Although Rompilla's attorneys had ample warning that the details of Rompilla's prior conviction would be critical to their case, their failure to obtain that file would not necessarily have been deficient if it had resulted from the lawyers' careful exercise of judgment about how best to marshal their time and serve their client. But Rompilla's attorneys did not ignore the prior case file in order to spend their time on other crucial leads. They did not determine that the file was so inaccessible or so large that examining it would necessarily divert them from other trial-preparation tasks they thought more promising. They did not learn at the 11th hour about the prosecution's intent to use the prior conviction, when it was too late for them to change plans. Rather, their failure to obtain the crucial file "was the result of inattention, *396 not reasoned strategic judgment." As a result, their conduct fell below constitutionally required standards. See ("`[S]trategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable' only to the extent that `reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation'" (quoting -691)). In the particular circumstances of this case, the attorneys' failure to obtain and review the case file from their client's prior conviction did not meet standards of "reasonable professional judgmen[t]." Because the Court's opinion is consistent with the "`case-by-case examination of the evidence'" called for under our cases, I join the opinion.
|
Justice Douglas
| 1,970 | 10 |
dissenting
|
United States v. Armour & Co.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108156/united-states-v-armour-co/
|
I dissent from dismissal of the case as moot. In an historic consent decree the giant meatpackers were separated in a complete and continuing way from the general food business, the District Court retaining in the customary way the power to grant additional *269 relief, at the foot of the decree. Some years later motions to vacate the decree were made, and a judgment overruling them was affirmed by this Court. Swift & Later Armour and other meatpacker defendants, claiming that conditions in the food business had changed, sought modifications of the decree to relieve them from the structural bars against engaging in various aspects of the general food and retail meat business. That effort was also unsuccessful. United Later, another attempt was made to obtain similar relief and it too failed. United aff'd, Armour is now the second largest meatpacker in the Nation. General Host is engaged in the food products business; it operates some 380 grocery stores, and some lodges, restaurants, and coffee shops. It is, in other words, engaged in lines of business from which Armour, as a party to the decree, would be barred, whether it did so directly or through stock ownership. Against the resistance of Armour, General Host, which held about 16 1/2% of Armour's outstanding stock, undertook to acquire at least 51% of it. The United States asked the District Court having jurisdiction over the meatpackers consent decree to make General Host a party under 5 of the Sherman Act, as amended, 15 U.S. C. 5. The refusal of the District Court to do so was, I think, error. After the District Court's ruling. General Host acquired 57% of Armour's stock. As a result, a species of the monopoly at which the consent decree was aimed was achieved. General Host, it appears, has now transferred, pursuant to authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission, its Armour stock to Greyhound Corporation. It is alleged that Greyhound, like General Host, is engaged in food business prohibited to Armour under the *270 decree. The United States contends that Greyhound's control of Armour is as inconsistent with the decree as General Host's control. Greyhound, the United States states, owns other food interests that Armour could not own by virtue of the decree. Neither General Host nor Greyhound could, of course, be held in contempt under the decree as it is written, for they were not parties. But they presumably knew of the decree and seemingly fashioned a procedure to circumvent it. The District Court had ample power under 5 of the Sherman Act, to restrain General Host from
|
Justice Douglas
| 1,970 | 10 |
dissenting
|
United States v. Armour & Co.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108156/united-states-v-armour-co/
|
5 of the Sherman Act, to restrain General Host from frustrating the decree, for 5 provides: "Whenever it shall appear to the court before which any proceeding under section 4 of this title may be pending, that the ends of justice require that other parties should be brought before the court, the court may cause them to be summoned, whether they reside in the district in which the court is held or not; and subpoenas to that end may be served in any district by the marshal thereof." General Host and Greyhound would have, of course, the opportunity to litigate the question whether their acts do interfere with the decree before any citation for contempt. Moreover, Rule 25 (c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides: "In case of any transfer of interest, the action may be continued by or against the original party, unless the court upon motion directs the person to whom the interest is transferred to be substituted in the action or joined with the original party. Service of the motion shall be made as provided in subdivision (a) of this rule." Unless the District Court proceeds against General Host and Greyhound to supplement the decree, there *271 may be no remedy. Without the hearing I urge, they cannot be punished for contempt. Armour, though a party to the decree, was the victim of its violation, not a participant. Under the decree Armour could not acquire either General Host or Greyhound. Yet the combination of meat-packers with food products arguably is realized whether Armour acquired them, or they, Armour. The misconception of the thrust of the decree by the District Court is evident in its statement that "General Host is not a large meat packer extending its monopolistic grasp toward the rest of the food industry and through the use of its already established distributing facilities, superior financial resources and other means making a dominant position felt, resulting in a restraint of trade by squeezing out present or potential competitors. Rather, General Host, a wholly separate corporate entity, has acquired some shares of Armour stock and evinced an interest in acquiring additional shares." The evil is in an interference with the decree through the combination of Armour's meatpacking power with the food lines of General Hostthe precise type of evil at which the decree was aimed. And that evil is apparently present in Greyhound's acquisition. Mr. Justice Cardozo speaking for the Court in the second Swift case said: "Whether the defendants would resume [their predatory practices] if they were to deal in groceries again, we do
|
Justice Douglas
| 1,970 | 10 |
dissenting
|
United States v. Armour & Co.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108156/united-states-v-armour-co/
|
if they were to deal in groceries again, we do not know. They would certainly have the temptation to resume it. Their low overhead and their gigantic size, even when they are viewed as separate units, would still put them in a position to starve out weaker rivals. Mere size, according to the holding of this court, is not an offense against the Sherman Act unless magnified to the point at which it amounts to a monopoly but *272 size carries with it an opportunity for abuse that is not to be ignored when the opportunity is proved to have been utilized in the past. The original decree at all events was framed upon that theory. It was framed upon the theory that even after the combination among the packers had been broken up and the monopoly dissolved, the individual units would be so huge that the capacity to engage in other forms of business as adjuncts to the sale of meats should be taken from them altogether. It did not say that the privilege to deal in groceries should be withdrawn for a limited time, or until the combination in respect of meats had been effectually broken up. It said that the privilege should be renounced forever, and this whether the units within the combination were acting collectively or singly. The combination was to be disintegrated, but relief was not to stop with that. To curb the aggressions of the huge units that would remain, there was to be a check upon their power, even though acting independently, to wage a war of extermination against dealers weaker than themselves. Groceries and other enumerated articles they were not to sell at all, either by wholesale or by retail. Even the things that they were free to sell, meats and meat products, they were not to sell by retail." United Mr. Justice Cardozo added that with the addition of groceries to meats, "[t]he opportunity will be theirs to renew the war of extermination that they waged in years gone by." The same sentiment had previously been stated in the Senate by Senator (now MR. JUSTICE) BLACK in opposing the move of the meatpacking industry to relax the *273 decree. His fear was opening the doors to control of groceries and other food by the meatpackers:[1] "If this court decree should be canceled and set aside by governmental consent, a giant food trust would not only be permitted but encouraged to rear its stupendous and ominous form over North, South, East, and West alike. Such governmental action will tacitly invite a monopoly
|
Justice Douglas
| 1,970 | 10 |
dissenting
|
United States v. Armour & Co.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108156/united-states-v-armour-co/
|
West alike. Such governmental action will tacitly invite a monopoly of such size and power that with one stroke of a pen in some large financial center of the Nation this trust could lift the price of bread and meat from Maine to California." Later he spoke of a financial prospectus based upon an expected modification of the decree:[2] " `With the expected modification of the consent decree, the big meat packers will enter the retail field anew, with nation-wide chains of grocery and other food shops, which will overshadow all the existing enterprises of that type in the United States.' " `As the nucleus of such chains of meat and grocery stores as they now contemplate the packers may take over most of the huge retail food store chains already existing, such as the big grocery chains, which now operate meat departments in 20,000 to 30,000 such shops in various parts of the country. " `It will pay every investor to scrutinize closely the increasing profit potentialities of the packing organizations.' " The specter of meatpacking and food products merging is as ominous today as it was then. It should not *274 matter how the predatory scheme is effectuated, whether one acquires the other or vice versa. On the facts here tendered, a case has been made out for making General Host and Greyhound parties and having a hearing to determine whether they or either of them has interfered with the decree. The question is not whether, as a de novo matter, the combination of either with Armour constitutes a violation of the Act. The issue whether General Host or Greyhound has interfered with the decree is a narrower one. If they and Armour had designed this scheme to avoid the decree, interference would be rather obvious. Why does it matter that General Host or Greyhound, acting without the connivance of Armour, achieves the same result unilaterally? A federal court has inherent power to prevent obstruction of its authority by acts of "force, guile, or otherwise," whether or not the person charged was or was not a party defendant. See Mississippi Valley Barge Line aff'd sub nom. For it is an historic equity principle that even a nonparty is bound "not to interfere with, and not to obstruct, the course of justice," or treat a court order as "unworthy of notice." See Seaward v. Paterson, [1897] 1 Ch. 545, 554. Cf. Rule 65 (d), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. I would not dismiss the case as moot. Rather, I would remand it to the District Court for a full
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
This controversy stems from a dispute concerning union representation at the Wilkesboro, North Carolina, headquarters facility of Holly Farms, a corporation engaged in the production, processing, and marketing of poultry products The parties divide, as have federal courts, over the classification of certain workers, described as "live-haul" crews teams of chicken catchers, fork lift operators, and truck drivers, who collect for slaughter chickens raised as broilers by independent contract growers, and transport the birds to Holly Farms' processing plant Holly Farms maintains that members of "live-haul" crews are "agricultural laborer[s]," a category of workers exempt from National Labor Relations Act coverage The National Labor Relations Board disagreed and approved a Wilkesboro plant bargaining unit including those employees Satisfied that the Board reasonably aligned the "live-haul" crews with the corporation's *395 processing operations, typing them covered "employee[s]," not exempt "agricultural laborer[s]," we affirm the Court of Appeals' judgment, which properly deferred to the Board's determination I A Petitioner Holly Farms Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tyson Foods, Inc, is a vertically integrated poultry producer headquartered in Wilkesboro, North Carolina[1] Holly Farms' activities encompass numerous poultry operations, including hatcheries, a feed mill, an equipment maintenance center, and a processing plant "Broiler" chickens are birds destined for human food markets[2] Holly Farms hatches broiler chicks at its own hatcheries, and immediately delivers the chicks to the farms of independent contractors The contractors then raise the birds into full-grown broiler chickens Holly Farms pays the contract growers for their services, but retains title to the broilers and supplies the food and medicine necessary to their growth When the broilers are seven weeks old, Holly Farms sends its live-haul crews to reclaim the birds and ferry them to the processing plant for slaughter The live-haul crewswhich typically comprise nine chicken catchers, one fork lift operator, and one live-haul drivertravel in a flat-bed truck from Holly Farms' processing plant to the farms of the independent growers At the farms, the chicken catchers enter the coops, manually capture the broilers, and load them into cages The fork lift operator lifts the caged chickens onto the bed of the truck, and the live-haul driver returns the *396 truck, with the loaded cases and the crew, to Holly Farms' processing plant There, the birds are slaughtered and prepared for shipment to retail stores B In 1989, the Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers, Local 391 (Union), filed a representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board (Board or NLRB), seeking an election in a proposed unit that included live-haul employees working out of Holly Farms' Wilkesboro processing plant Over Holly
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
working out of Holly Farms' Wilkesboro processing plant Over Holly Farms' objection, the Board approved the bargaining unit, ruling that the live-haul workers were "employee[s]" protected by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act), as amended, 29 US C 151 et seq, rather than "agricultural laborer[s]" excluded from the Act's coverage by 2(3) of the NLRA, 29 US C 152(3) See Holly Farms Corp, 311 N L R B 273, 273, n 4, 284 [3] After further proceedings not relevant here, the Board ordered the corporation to bargain with the Union as the representative of the unit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit enforced the Board's order The court held that the Board's classification of the live-haul workers as "employee[s]," rather than "agricultural laborer[s]," rested "on a reasonable interpretation of the Act" The Board's reading, the court added, was consistent with the NLRB's prior decisions, see Imco Div of Int'l Multifoods Corp, 202 N L R B 259, 260-261 (1973), adhered to in Seaboard Farms of Kentucky, Inc, 311 N L R B No 159 and Draper Valley Farms, Inc, 307 N L R B 1440 (1992), and with the Eighth Circuit's case law, see *397 1106 (per curiam), cert denied, and Valmac Industries, -[4] Other Federal Courts of Appeals, in conflict with the Fourth and Eighth Circuits, have held that live-haul workers employed by vertically integrated poultry producers are engaged in "agriculture" See, e g, Coleman v Sanderson Farms, Inc, 629 F2d 1077, ; NLRB v Ryckebosch, Inc, 471 F2d 20, We granted certiorari to resolve the division of authority 516 US 963 II The NLRA's protections extend only to workers who qualify as "employee[s]" under 2(3) of the Act 29 US C 152(3) The term "employee," NLRA 2(3) states, "[does] not include any individual employed as an agricultural laborer" Ibid No definition of "agricultural laborer" appears in the NLRA But annually since 1946, Congress has instructed, in riders to Appropriations Acts for the Board: "[A]gricultural laborer," for NLRA 2(3) purposes, shall derive its meaning from the definition of "agriculture" supplied by 3(f) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) See Enterprises, 429 US 298, and n 6 [5] Section 3(f) of the FLSA provides: "`Agriculture' includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes the cultivation and tillage *398 of the soil, dairying, the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities (including commodities defined as agricultural commodities in section 1141j(g) of title 12), the raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry, and any practices
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry, and any practices (including any forestry or lumbering operations) performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market" 29 US C 203(f) This definition, we have explained, "includes farming in both a primary and a secondary sense" 429 U S, at "Primary farming" includes the occupations listed first in 3(f): "the cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities [and] the raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry" 29 US C 203(f) "Secondary farming" has a broader meaning, encompassing, as stated in the second part of 3(f): "any practices performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market" Ibid; see 429 U S, at n 7; Farmers & Irrigation Co v McComb, 337 US 755, If a statute's meaning is plain, the Board and reviewing courts "must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress" U S A Inc v Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc, 467 US 837, When the legislative prescription is not free from ambiguity, the administrator must choose between conflicting reasonable *399 interpretations Courts, in turn, must respect the judgment of the agency empowered to apply the law "to varying fact patterns," 429 U S, at 304, even if the issue "with nearly equal reason [might] be resolved one way rather than another," id, (citing Farmers 337 U S, at 770 (Frankfurter, J, concurring)) We note, furthermore, that administrators and reviewing courts must take care to assure that exemptions from NLRA coverage are not so expansively interpreted as to deny protection to workers the Act was designed to reach See 48 F3d, at 1370 );[6] cf Arnold v Ben Kanowsky, Inc, 361 US 388, ; Mitchell v Kentucky Finance Co, 359 US 290, ("It is well settled that exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act are to be narrowly construed") III Primary farming includes the raising of poultry See 429 U S, at -301 All agree that the independent *400 growers, who raise Holly Farms' broiler chickens on their own farms, are engaged in primary agriculture But we confront no contention that Holly Farms' live-haul employees are themselves engaged in raising poultry[7] Thus, the only question we resolve is whether the chicken catchers,
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
the only question we resolve is whether the chicken catchers, forklift operators, and truckdrivers are engaged in secondary agriculture that is, practices "performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations" 29 US C 203(f) We take up, initially, the "performed by a farmer" strand of FLSA 3(f) We do not labor over the point, for our decision in securely leads us to the conclusion that the live-haul activities are not performed "by a farmer" In we considered the application of 3(f)'s "by a farmer" specification to integrated agricultural companies that contract out farming work We upheld the Board's rejection of the contention that "all of the activity on a contract farm should be regarded as agricultural activity of an integrated farmer" such as Holly Farms 429 US, When an integrated poultry producer "contracts with independent growers for the care and feeding of [its] chicks, [its] status as a farmer engaged in raising poultry ends with respect to those chicks" n 9 (citing Imco 202 N L R B, ) Accordingly, when the live-haul employees arrive on the independent farms to collect broilers for carriage to slaughter and processing, Holly Farms does not resume its status as "farmer" with respect to those birds, the status Holly Farms had weeks before, when the birds *401 were hatched in its hatcheries This conclusion, we note, entirely disposes of the contention that the truckdrivers are employed in secondary agriculture, for Holly Farms acknowledges that these crew members do not work "on a farm" Tr of Oral Arg 5 We turn, now, to the nub of the case for the chicken catchers and forklift operators: the "on a farm" strand of FLSA 3(f) A Holly Farms argues that under the plain language of the statute, the catching and loading of broilers qualifies as work performed "on a farm as an incident to" the raising of poultry The corporation emphasizes that 3(f) of the FLSA enumerates "preparation for market" and "delivery to storage or to market" among activities that count as "agriculture" The live-haul employees' work, Holly Farms concludes, thus falls within the domain of the FLSA exemption and, accordingly, enjoys no NLRA protection We find Holly Farms' position to be a plausible, but not an inevitable, construction of 3(f) Hence, we turn to the Board's position, examining only its reasonableness as an interpretation of the governing legislation B While agreeing that the chicken catchers and forklift operators work "on a farm," the Board contends that their catch and cage work is not incidental to
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
that their catch and cage work is not incidental to farming operations Rather, the work is tied to Holly Farms' slaughtering and processing operations, activities that do not constitute "farming" under the statute We conclude, as we next explain, that the Board's position "is based on a reasonable interpretation of the statute, is consistent with the Board's prior holdings, and is supported by the Secretary of Labor's construction of 3(f)" 429 U S, at 303 *402 1 The Board underscores the statutory words "such farming operations" It does not suffice that the alleged secondary agriculture consists of "preparation for market," or "delivery to storage or to market," the Board maintains; to qualify for the statutory exemption, the Board urges, the work must be incidental to, or conjoined with, primary farming operations[8] As just explained, see at the growing stage in the short life of a broiler, Holly Farms is not involved in primary farming, but the contract growers are The essential question, then, is whether the live-haul employees' activities are inevitably "incident to or in conjunction with" the farming operations of the independent growers[9] The Board answers this question in the negative *403 See Imco 202 N L R B, (Because chicken catching crews "have no business relationship with the independent farmers, we conclude that the employees' activities were not incidental to the independent farmers' poultry raising operations") We find the Board's answer reasonable Once the broilers have grown on the farm for seven weeks, the growers' contractual obligation to raise the birds ends, and the work of the live-haul crew begins The record reflects minimal overlap between the work of the live-haul crew and the independent growers' raising activities The growers do not assist the live-haul crews in catching or loading the chickens; their only responsibilities are to move certain equipment from the chicken coops prior to the crews' arrival, and to be present when the crews are on the farms App to Brief for Federal Respondent 3a Nor do the live-haul employees play any role in the growers' performance of their contractual undertakings The record, furthermore, supports the Board's conclusion that the live-haul crews' activities were conjoined with Holly Farms' processing operations, rather than with farming[10]*404 The chicken catchers, forklift operators, and truckdrivers work as a unit They all "work out of the processing plant" in Wilkesboro, App 22a, located three miles from the hatcheries, App to Pet for Cert A-381, n 119 Crew members begin and end each shift by punching a timeclock at the processing plant, id, at A-831 to A-832, and are functionally integrated with
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
id, at A-831 to A-832, and are functionally integrated with other processing-plant employees, App 22a See also App to Pet for Cert A-396 (correlation between Holly Farms' slaughter rate and work available for live-haul crews); App 29a (live production manager for Holly Farms' Wilkesboro facility described catching and delivery of grown broilers as the first step in the producer's processing operations) The Board's determination, in sum, has the requisite "warrant in the record" 429 U S, at 304, n 14 ) We think it sensible, too, that the Board homed in on the status of the live-haul crews' employer The employer's status respecting the particular activity at issue accounts for the Board's determination that Holly Farms' "egg haulers" (who transport eggs from the laying houses to the hatcheries), and "pullet catchers" (who collect the breeding-destined birds on the farms of independent growers) rank as "agricultural laborer[s]" As the record shows, the pullet catchers and egg haulers work in Holly Farms' hatchery operations, while the live-haul employeeswho deal only with broilers work out of the processing plant "There is no interchange between these classifications Broiler haulers do not haul pullets and pullet haulers do not haul broilers" App 20a-a Accordingly, the Board reasonably aligned the pullet catchers and egg haulers with Holly Farms' poultry-raising operation, and the live-haul employees with the corporation's slaughtering and processing activities *405 2 The Board's decision regarding Holly Farms' live-haul crews adheres to longstanding NLRB precedent For more than 23 years, the NLRB has maintained that vertically integrated poultry producers' employees who "handl[e] and transpor[t] chicks on the farms of independent growers only after [the poultry producers'] farming operations have ended cannot be performing practices incident to, or in conjunction with, [their employer's] farming operations" Imco 202 N L R B, Rather, such employees, the Board has repeatedly ruled, perform work "incident to, or in conjunction with, a separate and distinct business activity of [their employer], i e, shipping and marketing" See also Draper Valley Farms, Inc, 307 N L R B, at 1440 ("We think it follows plainly from Imco that the Employer's chicken catchers are not, when working on the farms of independent growers who have concluded their `raising' activities, exempt as agricultural laborers"); Seaboard Farms of Kentucky, Inc, 311 N L R B No 159 (same)[11] 3 In construing the agricultural laborer exemption, the Board endeavors to "follow, whenever possible, the interpretations of Section 3(f) adopted by the Department of Labor, the agency which is charged with the responsibility for and has the experience of administering the Fair Labor Standards *406 Act" Cornell
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
experience of administering the Fair Labor Standards *406 Act" Cornell University, 254 N L R B 110 (1981); see also Mario Saikon, Inc, 278 N L R B 1289, 1290 (1986); Wegman's Food Market, Inc, 236 N L R B 1062 (1978) The Board has not departed from that endeavor here[12] The Department of Labor's regulations do not address the precise situation of the live-haul workers before us, nor are the regulations free from ambiguity We agree with the Board, however, that they are consistent with "employee" characterization of the crews that catch grown chickens for carriage to Holly Farms' processing plant On contract arrangements for raising poultry, the Department of Labor has issued an interpretative regulation, which we noted in 429 U S, at 303-304, n 13, as follows: "Feed dealers and processors sometimes enter into contractual arrangements with farmers under which the latter agree to raise to marketable size baby chicks supplied by the former who also undertake to furnish all the required feed and possibly additional items Typically, the feed dealer or processor retains title to the chickens until they are sold Under such an arrangement, the activities of the farmers and their employees in raising the poultry are clearly within section 3(f) The activities of the feed dealer or processor, on the other hand, are not `raising of poultry,' and employees engaged in them cannot be considered agricultural employees on that ground Employees of the feed dealer or processor who perform work on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with the raising of poultry on the farm are employed in `secondary' agriculture (see *407 780137 et seq [explaining that work must be performed in connection with the farmer-employer's own farming to qualify as `secondary' agriculture by a farmer] and Johnston v Cotton Producers Assn, 244 F2d 553)" 29 CFR 780126 This regulation suggests that live-haul crews surely are not engaged in a primary farming operation The crews could rank as workers engaged in "secondary" agriculture if they "perform[ed] work on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with the raising of poultry on the farm" Ibid As we developed earlier, however, see in the Board's judgment, the crews do not fit that bill The livehaul crew members perform their work, as the Board sees it, not "as an incident to" poultry raising by independent growers, but "incident to" and "in conjunction with" the slaughter and processing of chickens at Holly Farms' Wilkesboro plant In the Board's words, the crews are tied to "a separate and distinct business activity," the business of
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
to "a separate and distinct business activity," the business of processing poultry for retail sale, see Imco 202 N L R B, not to the anterior work of agriculture[13] Other Department of Labor regulations are in harmony with the Board's conclusion that the live-haul crews do not engage in secondary farming because their work, though "on *408 a farm," is not performed "as an incident to or in conjunction with" the independent growers' poultry-raising operations Thus, 29 CFR 780129 reiterates that the work "must be performed `as an incident to or in conjunction with' the farming operations," and 780143 adds: "The fact that a practice performed on a farm is not performed by or for the farmer is a strong indication that it is not performed in connection with the farming operations there conducted" Ibid The same regulation, 780143, further states that, in determining whether a practice is performed "for" a farmer, it is "highly significant" whether the practice involves property to which the farmer has title or for which the farmer otherwise has responsibility Ibid Holly Farms retains title to the chicks and, once the live-haul crew undertakes its catch and remove operation, the independent grower "divest[s] himself of further responsibility with respect to the product" Ibid[14] The Department of Labor candidly observed that "[t]he line between practices that are and those that are not performed `as an incident to or in conjunction with' such farming operations is not susceptible of precise definition" 780144 This acknowledgment accords with our recognition that the meaning of FLSA 3(f) is not so "plain" as to bear only one permissible construction in the context at hand IV In sum, we find persuasive the Board's conclusion that the collection of broilers for slaughter was an activity serving *409 Holly Farms' processing operations, and not Holly Farms' own or the independent growers' farming operations Again, we stress that "the reviewing court's function is limited" 429 U S, at 304, n 14 (citing Hearst 322 U S, at ) For the Board to prevail, it need not show that its construction is the best way to read the statute; rather, courts must respect the Board's judgment so long as its reading is a reasonable one See Sure-Tan, 467 US 883, ("we will uphold any interpretation [of the term `employee' in NLRA 2(3)] that is reasonably defensible") "[R]egardless of how we might have resolved the question as an initial matter," 429 U S, at 304, the Board's decision here reflects a reasonable interpretation of the law and, therefore, merits our approbation The judgment of the Court of
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
therefore, merits our approbation The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly Affirmed JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE SCALIA, and JUSTICE THOMAS join, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part Today the Court concludes that three categories of workers fall outside the definition of "agricultural laborer" supplied by 3(f) the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) and 2(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA): (1) Holly Farms' chicken catchers, who labor on a farm manually rounding up, catching, and caging live chickens, (2) forklift operators, who then load the caged chickens onto the bed of a flatbed truck, and (3) live-haul drivers, who drive the loaded trucks to Holly Farms' processing plants, where the chickens are slaughtered and prepared for market I concur in the Court's judgment with respect to the live-haul drivers, since their work is neither performed "by a farmer" nor "on a farm" But the Court's conclusion that Holly Farms' chicken catchers and forklift operators do not perform agricultural work runs contrary to common sense and finds no *410 support in the text of the relevant statute Because the definition supplied by Congress makes clear that the chicken catchers and forklift operators are agricultural workers exempt from the reach of the NLRA, I respectfully dissent The Court devotes the bulk of its opinion to an analysis of the reasonableness of the National Labor Relations Board's (Board) interpretation of the statute, but gives remarkably short shrift to the statute itself The Court dismisses Holly Farms' claim that the plain language of the statute covers the chicken catchers and forklift operators with the conclusory remark that Holly Farms' reading of the statute is "a plausible, but not an inevitable, construction of 3(f)" Ante, at 401 In my view, however, the language of the statute is unambiguous As we said in U S A Inc v Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc, 467 US 837 : "First, always, is the question whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress" - None of our precedents sanction blind adherence to the Board's position when it is directly contrary to the plain language of the relevant statute See, e g, NLRB v Brown, 380 US 278, ; American Ship Building Co v NLRB, 380 US ("The deference owed to an expert tribunal cannot be allowed to slip into a judicial
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
expert tribunal cannot be allowed to slip into a judicial inertia ") Section 3(f) of the FLSA defines agriculture as "farming in all its branches," including "the raising of poultry," as well as "any practices performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations" 29 US C 203(f) (emphasis added) The coverage *411 intended by Congress under both the FLSA and the NLRA is best determined by consulting the language of the statute at issue Because the relevant portions of 3(f) are perfectly plain and "directly [speak] to the precise question at issue," I would hold that the chicken catchers and forklift operators are agricultural laborers and that the Board's contrary conclusion does not deserve deference The Court's determination rests largely upon a misreading of the statute in two respects First, the Court tethers the "or on a farm" clause of 3(f) to the employment relationship (or lack thereof) between the chicken catchers and forklift operators and the independent farmer who is charged with raising the chickens And second, the Court decides that the secondary farming activities performed by the chicken catchers and forklift operators must not only be "incident" to the independent farmer's primary farming activities, but must be "mainly" or "most tightly" tied thereto Neither conclusion finds support in the language of 3(f) The Court's first error stems from its adoption of the Board's focus on the lack of a direct employment relationship between the live-haul workers and the independent growers But the "or on a farm" clause nowhere mentions the nature of the employment relationship Instead, it is plainly concerned only with the nature of the work performed by the worker The Board's interpretation must be rejected, as it would read the "or on a farm" clause out of the statute entirely The Court relies on the legislative history underlying the "or on a farm" clause, which we described in Farmers & Irrigation Co v McComb, 337 US 755, That history reveals that the clause was intended to include within the statutory definition work performed on a farm that was "necessary to" the farming operations but not performed by the farmer himself One example figures prominently in the legislative history: a wheat *412 thresher who travels from farm to farm performing wheat threshing chores for small farmers on a contract basis The Court reasons that Holly Farms' employees are unlike the fictional wheat thresher, however, in that they are employed by Holly Farms, rather than by the independent growers themselves See ante, at 402, n 8 ("If
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
independent growers themselves See ante, at 402, n 8 ("If the chicken catching crews were employed by the independent growers, rather than by Holly Farms' processing operation, those crews would more closely resemble the wheat threshers contemplated by the framers of 3(f)") The Court and the Board emphasize formal contractual arrangements to the virtual exclusion of practical realities The fact that Holly Farms supplies the services of the chicken catchers and forklift operators seems entirely beside the point; the work performed by these employees is precisely the same whether they are hired by Holly Farms or by the independent growers And the notion that Congress intended the status of the chicken catchers and forklift operators to turn on such a readily manipulable criterion strains credibility If the live-haul crew's status depends only upon who "hires" them to perform the work, Holly Farms can simply charge the independent growers with raising and catching, caging, and cooping the chickens, and require the independent growers to hire Holly Farms' own live-haul workers to perform those tasks The Court's quotation from Imco Div of Int'l Multifoods Corp, 202 N L R B 259 (1973), reveals precisely where the Board and the Court have gone astray: The Board takes the position that live-haul workers "`cannot be performing practices incident to, or in conjunction with, [their employer's] farming operations'" Ante, at 405 (quoting Imco ) But the statute does not require that work be performed "incident to or in conjunction with" one's employer's farming operations, but only incident to or in conjunction with "such" farming operations the antecedent for which term is plainly the first clause of *413 3(f), to wit, "farming in all its branches," including "the raising of poultry" If the sine qua non of status as an agricultural laborer is employment by the farmer or the independent grower, the "or on a farm" clause is redundant, because chicken catching crews that are agents or employees of the farmers themselves fall within the "by a farmer" clause Ordinarily, "terms connected by a disjunctive [are] given separate meanings, unless the context dictates otherwise" Reiter v Sonotone Corp, 442 US 330, The "or on a farm" clause has independent significance only if the work encompassed by that clause is performed by someone other than a farmer or the farmer's own agents or employees deference is not owed to a Board construction of the statute that effectively redacts one of the statute's operative clauses The Court also cites with approval a Department of Labor (DOL) interpretive regulation that addresses contractual arrangements for raising poultry such as those
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
that addresses contractual arrangements for raising poultry such as those between Holly Farms and the independent growers The DOL regulation declares that "[e]mployees of [a] feed dealer or processor who perform work on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with the raising of poultry on the farm are employed in `secondary' agriculture" 29 CFR 780126 The Court thus accepts as reasonable a DOL regulation that plainly suggests that even workers employed by a poultry processor such as Holly Farms can be engaged in secondary agriculture and also accepts as reasonable a Board interpretation of 3(f) that, in essence, dictates that employees of a processor cannot be employed in secondary agriculture See ante, at 404 ("We think it sensible that the Board homed in on the status of the live-haul crews' employer") (emphasis in original) The Court cannot have it both ways, and it need not, since the "or on a farm" clause is plainly indifferent to the nature of the employment relationship The Court's second misstep likewise derives from its deference to a Board construction that lacks foundation in the *414 statute Section 3(f) exempts work performed "as an incident to or in conjunction with" primary farming operations The statutory language manifestly does not disqualify the work from agricultural status if it also "serve[s]," ante, at 408, or is "tied to," ante, at 407, some other enterprise Even accepting the Court's conclusion that the work of the chicken catchers and forklift operators is "incident to" Holly Farms' processing operations, those workers fall within the 3(f) definition so long as their work is also "incident to or in conjunction with" the farming operations performed by the independent growers As Holly Farms points out, the Board's contrary position hinges on the premise that a given activity can only be incident to one thingeither processing or farming, but not both But the Board's position cannot be squared with the statute itself, which places no conditions upon the statutory prerequisite that work be "incident to or in conjunction with" covered farming operations Indeed, the wheat thresher of the legislative history was clearly performing work "incident to" the business operations of the wheat threshing enterprise as well as "incident to" the farmer's farming operations The statutory requirement is simple, and the imposition of a more stringent prerequisite must be rejected as contrary to the statute itself When the chicken catchers and forklift operators arrive at the farm of an independent grower to catch, cage, and load the live chickens in preparation for their delivery to market, they are certainly doing work that
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,996 | 5 |
majority
|
Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118020/holly-farms-corp-v-nlrb/
|
their delivery to market, they are certainly doing work that is directly related to the farming operations that occurred on that very farm during the preceding weeks: the raising of poultry As Holly Farms points out, unless the chickens are caught, caged, and removed from the farm, the independent grower's farming operations will have been for naught The independent grower must see to it that the chickens grow to the designated age and are caught, removed, and replaced with new chicks for the next growing cycle See Brief for Petitioners *415 23 And the fact that 3(f) lists "preparation for market" as one of the activities that customarily is "incident to or in conjunction with" covered farming operations buttresses petitioners' argument The Court's response relies on the facts that the independent grower's contractual duties have ended, that the workers punch a timeclock in Holly Farms' processing plant rather than in Farmer Brown's barn, and that Holly Farms rather than the independent grower signs their paychecks at the end of the day But these facts are irrelevant to the statutory definition Section 3(f) asks only whether the chicken catchers and forklift operators perform work "on a farm" (which all parties concede they do) and whether that work is "incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations" that is, whether the activities of the chicken catching crews are "incident to" the covered farming operations that take place on the farms of the independent growers, the raising of poultry for slaughter To that question, there can be only one answer Because the Court today defers to an NLRB interpretation that runs directly contrary to the statutory language, I respectfully dissent from the Court's conclusion with respect to the chicken catchers and forklift operators
|
Justice Scalia
| 2,006 | 9 |
majority
|
United States v. Grubbs
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145670/united-states-v-grubbs/
|
Federal law enforcement officers obtained a search warrant for respondent's house on the basis of an affidavit explaining that the warrant would be executed only after a controlled delivery of contraband to that location. We address two challenges to the constitutionality of this anticipatory warrant. I Respondent Jeffrey Grubbs purchased a videotape containing child pornography from a Web site operated by an undercover postal inspector. Officers from the Postal Inspection Service arranged a controlled delivery of a package containing the videotape to Grubbs' residence. A postal inspector submitted a search warrant application to a Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of California, accompanied by an affidavit describing the proposed operation in detail. The affidavit stated: "Execution of this search warrant will not occur unless and until the parcel has been received by a person(s) and has been physically taken into the residence At that time, and not before, this search warrant will be executed by me and other United States Postal inspectors, with appropriate assistance from other law enforcement officers in accordance with this warrant's command." App. to Pet. for Cert. 72a. In addition to describing this triggering condition, the affidavit referred to two attachments, which described Grubbs' residence and the items officers would seize. These attachments, but not the body of the affidavit, were incorporated into the requested warrant. The affidavit concluded: "Based upon the foregoing facts, I respectfully submit there exists probable cause to believe that the items set forth in Attachment B to this affidavit and the search warrant, will be found [at Grubbs' residence], which residence is further described at Attachment A." *3 The Magistrate Judge issued the warrant as requested. Two days later, an undercover postal inspector delivered the package. Grubbs' wife signed for it and took the unopened package inside. The inspectors detained Grubbs as he left his home a few minutes later, then entered the house and commenced the search. Roughly 30 minutes into the search, Grubbs was provided with a copy of the warrant, which included both attachments but not the supporting affidavit that explained when the warrant would be executed. Grubbs consented to interrogation by the postal inspectors and admitted ordering the videotape. He was placed under arrest, and various items were seized, including the videotape. A grand jury for the Eastern District of California indicted Grubbs on one count of receiving a visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. See 18 U.S. C. 2252(a)(2). He moved to suppress the evidence seized during the search of his residence, arguing as relevant here that the warrant was invalid because
|
Justice Scalia
| 2,006 | 9 |
majority
|
United States v. Grubbs
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145670/united-states-v-grubbs/
|
arguing as relevant here that the warrant was invalid because it failed to list the triggering condition. After an evidentiary hearing, the District Court denied the motion. Grubbs pleaded guilty, but reserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. Relying on Circuit precedent, it held that "the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment applies with full force to the conditions precedent to an anticipatory search warrant." -1078 ). An anticipatory warrant defective for that reason may be "cur[ed]" if the conditions precedent are set forth in an affidavit that is incorporated in the warrant and "presented to the person whose property is being searched." Because the postal inspectors "failed to present the affidavitthe only document in which the triggering conditions were listed"to Grubbs or *4 his wife, the "warrant was inoperative, and the search was illegal." We granted certiorari. II Before turning to the Ninth Circuit's conclusion that the warrant at issue here ran afoul of the Fourth Amendment's particularity requirement, we address the antecedent question whether anticipatory search warrants are categorically unconstitutional.[1] An anticipatory warrant is "a warrant based upon an affidavit showing probable cause that at some future time (but not presently) certain evidence of crime will be located at a specified place." 2 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure 3.7(c), p. 38 Most anticipatory warrants subject their execution to some condition precedent other than the mere passage of timea so-called "triggering condition." The affidavit at issue here, for instance, explained that "[e]xecution of th[e] search warrant will not occur unless and until the parcel [containing child pornography] has been received by a person(s) and has been physically taken into the residence." App. to Pet. for Cert. 72a. If the government were to execute an anticipatory warrant before the triggering condition occurred, there would be no reason to believe the item described in the warrant could be found at the searched location; by definition, the triggering condition which establishes probable cause has not yet been satisfied when the warrant is issued. Grubbs argues that for this reason anticipatory warrants contravene the Fourth *5 Amendment's provision that "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause." We reject this view, as has every Court of Appeals to confront the issue, see, e. g., United Probable cause exists when "there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place." Because the probable-cause requirement looks to whether evidence will be found when the search is conducted, all warrants are, in a
|
Justice Scalia
| 2,006 | 9 |
majority
|
United States v. Grubbs
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145670/united-states-v-grubbs/
|
when the search is conducted, all warrants are, in a sense, "anticipatory." In the typical case where the police seek permission to search a house for an item they believe is already located there, the magistrate's determination that there is probable cause for the search amounts to a prediction that the item will still be there when the warrant is executed. See[2] The anticipatory nature of warrants is even clearer in the context of electronic surveillance. See, e. g., When police request approval to tap a telephone line, they do so based on the probability that, during the course of the surveillance, the subject will use the phone to engage in crime-related conversations. The relevant federal provision requires a judge authorizing "interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications" to determine that "there is probable *6 cause for belief that particular communications concerning [one of various listed offenses] will be obtained through such interception." 18 U.S. C. 2518(3)(b) (emphasis added); see also United Thus, when an anticipatory warrant is issued, "the fact that the contraband is not presently located at the place described in the warrant is immaterial, so long as there is probable cause to believe that it will be there when the search warrant is executed." United Anticipatory warrants are, therefore, no different in principle from ordinary warrants. They require the magistrate to determine (1) that it is now probable that (2) contraband, evidence of a crime, or a fugitive will be on the described premises (3) when the warrant is executed. It should be noted, however, that where the anticipatory warrant places a condition (other than the mere passage of time) upon its execution, the first of these determinations goes not merely to what will probably be found if the condition is met. (If that were the extent of the probability determination, an anticipatory warrant could be issued for every house in the country, authorizing search and seizure if contraband should be deliveredthough for any single location there is no likelihood that contraband will be delivered.) Rather, the probability determination for a conditioned anticipatory warrant looks also to the likelihood that the condition will occur, and thus that a proper object of seizure will be on the described premises. In other words, for a conditioned anticipatory warrant to comply with the Fourth Amendment's requirement of probable cause, two prerequisites of probability must be satisfied. It must be true not only that if the triggering condition occurs "there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place," *7 at but
|
Justice Scalia
| 2,006 | 9 |
majority
|
United States v. Grubbs
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145670/united-states-v-grubbs/
|
will be found in a particular place," *7 at but also that there is probable cause to believe the triggering condition will occur. The supporting affidavit must provide the magistrate with sufficient information to evaluate both aspects of the probable-cause determination. See In this case, the occurrence of the triggering condition successful delivery of the videotape to Grubbs' residence would plainly establish probable cause for the search. In addition, the affidavit established probable cause to believe the triggering condition would be satisfied. Although it is possible that Grubbs could have refused delivery of the videotape he had ordered, that was unlikely. The Magistrate therefore "had a `substantial basis for conclud[ing]' that probable cause existed." at -23 ). III The Ninth Circuit invalidated the anticipatory search warrant at issue here because the warrant failed to specify the triggering condition. The Fourth Amendment's particularity requirement, it held, "applies with full force to the conditions precedent to an anticipatory search warrant." -1078. The Fourth Amendment, however, does not set forth some general "particularity requirement." It specifies only two matters that must be "particularly describ[ed]" in the warrant: "the place to be searched" and "the persons or things to be seized." We have previously rejected efforts to expand the scope of this provision to embrace unenumerated matters. In 441 U.S. we considered an order authorizing the interception of oral communications by means of a "bug" installed by the police in the petitioner's office. The petitioner argued that, if a covert entry is necessary to install such a listening device, the authorizing order must "explicitly set forth its approval of such entries before the fact." This argument fell before the "`precise and clear'" words of the Fourth *8 Amendment: "Nothing in the language of the Constitution or in this Court's decisions interpreting that language suggests that, in addition to the [requirements set forth in the text], search warrants also must include a specification of the precise manner in which they are to be executed." ); The language of the Fourth Amendment is likewise decisive here; its particularity requirement does not include the conditions precedent to execution of the warrant. Respondent, drawing upon the Ninth Circuit's analysis below, relies primarily on two related policy rationales. First, he argues, setting forth the triggering condition in the warrant itself is necessary "to delineate the limits of the executing officer's power." Brief for Respondent 20. This is an application, respondent asserts, of the following principle: "[I]f there is a precondition to the valid exercise of executive power, that precondition must be particularly identified on the face of the warrant."
|
Justice Scalia
| 2,006 | 9 |
majority
|
United States v. Grubbs
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145670/united-states-v-grubbs/
|
must be particularly identified on the face of the warrant." That principle is not to be found in the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment does not require that the warrant set forth the magistrate's basis for finding probable cause, even though probable cause is the quintessential "precondition to the valid exercise of executive power." Much less does it require description of a triggering condition. Second, respondent argues that listing the triggering condition in the warrant is necessary to "`assur[e] the individual whose property is searched or seized of the lawful authority of the executing officer, his need to search, and the limits of his power to search.'" ). The Ninth Circuit went even further, asserting that if the property owner were not informed of the triggering condition, he "would `stand [no] real chance of policing the officers' conduct.'" ). This argument assumes that the executing officer must present the property owner with * a copy of the warrant before conducting his search. See n. In fact, however, neither the Fourth Amendment nor Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 imposes such a requirement. See "The absence of a constitutional requirement that the warrant be exhibited at the outset of the search, or indeed until the search has ended, is evidence that the requirement of particular description does not protect an interest in monitoring searches." United 17 F.3d 1030, The Constitution protects property owners not by giving them license to engage the police in a debate over the basis for the warrant, but by interposing, ex ante, the "deliberate, impartial judgment of a judicial officer between the citizen and the police," Wong -482 (163), and by providing, ex post, a right to suppress evidence improperly obtained and a cause of action for damages. * * * Because the Fourth Amendment does not require that the triggering condition for an anticipatory search warrant be set forth in the warrant itself, the Court of Appeals erred in invalidating the warrant at issue here. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. JUSTICE ALITO took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom Justice STEVENS and JUSTICE GINSBURG join, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,975 | 13 |
second_dissenting
|
Warth v. Seldin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109301/warth-v-seldin/
|
In this case, a wide range of plaintiffs, alleging various kinds of injuries, claimed to have been affected by the *520 Penfield zoning ordinance, on its face and as applied, and by other practices of the defendant officials of Penfield. Alleging that as a result of these laws and practices low- and moderate-income and minority people have been excluded from Penfield, and that this exclusion is unconstitutional, plaintiffs sought injunctive, declaratory, and monetary relief. The Court today, in an opinion that purports to be a "standing" opinion but that actually, I believe, has overtones of outmoded notions of pleading and of justiciability, refuses to find that any of the variously situated plaintiffs can clear numerous hurdles, some constructed here for the first time, necessary to establish "standing." While the Court gives lip service to the principle, oft repeated in recent years,[1] that "standing in no way depends on the merits of the plaintiff's contention that particular conduct is illegal," ante, at 500, in fact the opinion, which tosses out of court almost every conceivable kind of plaintiff who could be injured by the activity claimed to be unconstitutional, can be explained only by an indefensible hostility to the claim on the merits. I can appreciate the Court's reluctance to adjudicate the complex and difficult legal questions involved in determining the constitutionality of practices which assertedly limit residence in a particular municipality to those who are white and relatively well off, and I also understand that the merits of this case could involve grave sociological and political ramifications. But courts cannot refuse to hear a case on the merits merely because they would prefer not to, and it is quite clear, when the record is viewed with dispassion, that at least three of the groups of plaintiffs have made *521 allegations, and supported them with affidavits and documentary evidence, sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss for lack of standing.[2] I Before considering the three groups I believe clearly to have standingthe low-income, minority plaintiffs, Rochester Home Builders Association, Inc., and the Housing Council in the Monroe County Area, Inc.it will be helpful to review the picture painted by the allegations as a whole, in order better to comprehend the interwoven interests of the various plaintiffs. Indeed, one glaring defect of the Court's opinion is that it views each set of plaintiffs as if it were prosecuting a separate lawsuit, refusing to recognize that the interests are intertwined, and that the standing of any one group must take into account its position vis-a-vis the others. For example, the Court says that
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,975 | 13 |
second_dissenting
|
Warth v. Seldin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109301/warth-v-seldin/
|
position vis-a-vis the others. For example, the Court says that the low-income minority plaintiffs have not alleged facts sufficient to show that but for the exclusionary practices claimed, they would be able to reside in Penfield. The Court then intimates that such a causal relationship could be shown only if "the initial focus [is] on a particular project." Ante, at 508 n. 18. Later, the Court objects to the ability of the Housing Council to prosecute the suit on behalf of its member, Penfield Better Homes Corp., despite the fact that Better Homes had displayed an interest in a particular project, because that project was no longer live. Thus, we must suppose that even if the low-income plaintiffs had alleged a desire to live in the Better Homes project, that allegation would *522 be insufficient because it appears that that particular project might never be built. The rights of low-income minority plaintiffs who desire to live in a locality, then, seem to turn on the willingness of a third party to litigate the legality of preclusion of a particular project, despite the fact that the third party may have no economic incentive to incur the costs of litigation with regard to one project, and despite the fact that the low-income minority plaintiffs' interest is not to live in a particular project but to live somewhere in the town in a dwelling they can afford. Accepting, as we must, the various allegations and affidavits as true, the following picture emerges: The Penfield zoning ordinance, by virtue of regulations concerning "lot area, set backs, population density, density of use, units per acre, floor area, sewer requirements, traffic flow, ingress and egress[, and] street location," makes "practically and economically impossible the construction of sufficient numbers of low and moderate income" housing. App. 25. The purpose of this ordinance was to preclude low- and moderate-income people and nonwhites from living in Penfield, and, particularly because of refusals to grant zoning variances and building permits and by using special permit procedures and other devices, the defendants succeeded in keeping "low and moderate income persons and non-white persons from residing within Penfield." As a result of these practices, various of the plaintiffs were affected in different ways. For example, plaintiffs Ortiz, Reyes, Sinkler, and Broadnax, persons of low or moderate income and members of minority groups, alleged that "as a result" of respondents' exclusionary scheme, 21, 23-2, 26, 29 they could not live in Penfield, although they *523 desired and attempted to do so, and consequently incurred greater commuting costs, lived in substandard housing, and had
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,975 | 13 |
second_dissenting
|
Warth v. Seldin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109301/warth-v-seldin/
|
incurred greater commuting costs, lived in substandard housing, and had fewer services for their families and poorer schools for their children than if they had lived in Penfield. Members of the Rochester Home Builders Association were prevented form constructing homes for low- and moderate-income people in Penfield, 3, harming them economically. And Penfield Better Homes, a member of the Housing Council, was frustrated in its attempt to build moderate-income housing, Thus, the portrait which emerges from the allegations and affidavits is one of total, purposeful, intransigent exclusion of certain classes of people from the town, pursuant to a conscious scheme never deviated from. Because of this scheme, those interested in building homes for the excluded groups were faced with insurmountable difficulties, and those of the excluded groups seeking homes in the locality quickly learned that their attempts were futile. Yet, the Court turns the very success of the allegedly unconstitutional scheme into a barrier to a lawsuit seeking its invalidation. In effect, the Court tells the low-income minority and building company plaintiffs they will not be permitted to prove what they have allegedthat they could and would build and live in the town if changes were made in the zoning ordinance and its applicationbecause they have not succeeded in breaching, before the suit was filed, the very barriers which are the subject of the suit. II Low-income and Minority Plaintiffs As recounted above, plaintiffs Ortiz, Broadnax, Reyes, and Sinkler alleged that "as a result" of respondents' exclusionary practices, they were unable, despite attempts, *52 to find the housing they desired in Penfield, and consequently have incurred high commuting expenses, received poorer municipal services,[3] and, in some instances, have been relegated to live in substandard housing.[] The Court does not, as it could not, suggest that *525 the injuries, if proved, would be insufficient to give petitioners the requisite "personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure the concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues," ; Rather, it is abundantly clear that the harm alleged satisfies the "injury in fact, economic or otherwise," Data requirement which is prerequisite to standing in federal court. The harms claimedconsisting of out-of-pocket losses as well as denial of specifically enumerated services available in Penfield but not in these petitioners' present communities, see nn. 3 and supraare obviously more palpable and concrete than those held sufficient to sustain standing in other cases. See United ; Sierra Cf. Data Instead, the Court insists that these petitioners' allegations are insufficient to show that the harms suffered were caused by respondents' allegedly unconstitutional practices, because
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,975 | 13 |
second_dissenting
|
Warth v. Seldin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109301/warth-v-seldin/
|
harms suffered were caused by respondents' allegedly unconstitutional practices, because "their inability to reside in Penfield [may be] the consequence of the economics of the area housing market, rather than of respondents' assertedly illegal acts." Ante, at 506. True, this Court has held that to maintain standing, a plaintiff must not only allege an injury but must also assert a " `direct' relationship between the alleged injury *526 and the claim sought to be adjudicated," Linda R. that is, "[t]he party who invokes [judicial] power must be able to show that he has sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury as the result of [a statute's] enforcement." ; Linda R. at But as the allegations recited above show, these petitioners have alleged precisely what our cases requirethat because of the exclusionary practices of respondents, they cannot live in Penfield and have suffered harm.[5] Thus, the Court's real holding is not that these petitioners have not alleged an injury resulting from respondents' action, but that they are not to be allowed to prove one, because "realization of petitioners' desire to live in Penfield always has depended on the efforts and willingness of third parties to build low- and moderate-cost housing," ante, at 505, and "the record is devoid of any indication that [any] projects, would have satisfied petitioners' needs at prices they could afford." Ante, at 506. Certainly, this is not the sort of demonstration that can or should be required of petitioners at this preliminary stage. In a similar challenge was made: it was claimed that the allegations were 12 U., n. 15, and that the causation theory *527 asserted was untrue, We said: "If these allegations were in fact untrue, then the appellants should have moved for summary judgment on the standing issue and demonstrated to the District Court that the allegations were sham and raised no genuine issue of fact. We cannot say that the appellees could not prove their allegations which, if proved, would place them squarely among those persons injured in fact." -690.[6] See also 395 U. 11, Here, the very fact that, as the Court stresses, these petitioners' claim rests in part upon proving the intentions and capabilities of third parties to build in Penfield suitable housing which they can afford, coupled with the exclusionary character of the claim on the merits, makes it particularly inappropriate to assume that these petitioners' lack of specificity reflects a fatal weakness in their theory of causation.[7] Obviously they cannot be expected, *528 prior to discovery and trial, to know the future plans of building
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,975 | 13 |
second_dissenting
|
Warth v. Seldin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109301/warth-v-seldin/
|
discovery and trial, to know the future plans of building companies, the precise details of the housing market in Penfield, or everything which has transpired in 15 years of application of the Penfield zoning ordinance, including every housing plan suggested and refused. To require them to allege such facts is to require them to prove their case on paper in order to get into court at all, reverting to the form of fact pleading long abjured in the federal courts. This Court has not required such unachievable specificity in standing cases in the past, see and and the fact that it does so now can only be explained by an indefensible determination by the Court to close the doors of the federal courts to claims of this kind. Understandably, today's decision will be read as revealing hostility to breaking down even unconstitutional zoning *529 barriers that frustrate the deep human yearning of low-income and minority groups for decent housing they can afford in decent surroundings, see nn. 3 and III Associations Including Building Concerns Two of the petitioners are organizations among whose members are building concerns. Both of these organizations, Home Builders and Housing Council, alleged that these concerns have attempted to build in Penfield low- and moderate-income housing, but have been stymied by the zoning ordinance and refusal to grant individual relief therefrom. Specifically, Home Builders, a trade association of concerns engaged in constructing and maintaining residential housing in the Rochester area, alleged that "[d]uring the past 15 years, over 80% of the private housing units constructed in the Town of Penfield have been constructed by [its] members." App. 17. Because of respondents' refusal to grant relief from Penfield's restrictive housing statutes, members of Home Builders could not proceed with planned low- and moderate-income housing projects, 7, and thereby lost profits. 6. Housing Council numbers among its members at least 17 groups involved in the development and construction of low- and middle-income housing. In particular, one member, Penfield Better Homes, "is and has been actively attempting to develop moderate income housing in Penfield" but has been unable to secure the necessary approvals. The Court finds that these two organizations lack standing to seek prospective relief for basically the same reasons: none of their members is, as far as the allegations show, currently involved in developing a particular *530 project. Thus, Home Builders has "failed to show the existence of any injury to its members of sufficient immediacy and ripeness to warrant judicial intervention," ante, at 516 while "the controversy between respondents and Better Homes, however vigorous it may once
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,975 | 13 |
second_dissenting
|
Warth v. Seldin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109301/warth-v-seldin/
|
between respondents and Better Homes, however vigorous it may once have been, [has not] remained a live, concrete dispute." Ante, at 517. Again, the Court ignores the thrust of the complaints and asks petitioners to allege the impossible. According to the allegations, the building concerns' experience in the past with Penfield officials has shown any plans for low- and moderate-income housing to be futile for, again according to the allegations, the respondents are engaged in a purposeful, conscious scheme to exclude such housing. Particularly with regard to a low- or moderate-income project, the cost of litigating, with respect to any particular project, the legality of a refusal to approve it may well be prohibitive. And the merits of the exclusion of this or that project is not at the heart of the complaint; the claim is that respondents will not approve any project which will provide residences for low- and moderate-income people. When this sort of pattern-and-practice claim is at the heart of the controversy, allegations of past injury, which members of both of these organizations have clearly made, and of a future intent, if the barriers are cleared, again to develop suitable housing for Penfield, should be more than sufficient. The past experiences, if proved at trial, will give credibility and substance to the claim of interest in future building activity in Penfield. These parties, if their allegations are proved, certainly have the requisite personal stake in the outcome of this controversy, and the Court's conclusion otherwise is only a conclusion that this controversy may not be litigated in a federal court. I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
Although the workings of our Nation’s immigration system are often complex, the narrow question of statutory interpretation at the heart of this case is straightforward. Which aged-out children are entitled to retain their prior- ity dates: derivative beneficiaries of visa petitions in all five family-preference categories, or derivative beneficiar- ies of petitions in only one category? The initial clause of 8 U.S. C. provides a clear answer: Aged-out children may retain their priority dates so long as they meet a single condition—they must be “determined to be 21 years of age or older for purposes of” derivative beneficiary status. Because all five categories of aged-out children satisfy this condition, all are entitled to relief. Notwithstanding this textual command, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruled that four of the five categories of aged-out children to whom un- ambiguously promises priority date retention, are, in fact, entitled to no relief at all. See Matter of Wang, 25 I. & N. Dec. 28, 38–39 (2009). The Court defers to that interpre- tation today. In doing so, the Court does not identify any 2 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting ambiguity in the dispositive initial clause of Indeed, it candidly admits that the clause mandates relief for “every aged-out beneficiary of a family-preference petition” in any of the five categories. Ante, at 21. The Court nevertheless holds that the BIA was free to ignore this unambiguous text on the ground that also offers aged-out derivative beneficiaries a type of relief— automatic conversion—that it thinks can apply only to one of the five categories. The Court thus perceives a conflict in the statute that, in its view, permits the BIA to override ’s initial eligibility clause. In reaching this conclusion, the Court fails to follow a cardinal rule of statutory interpretation: When deciding whether Congress has “specifically addressed the question at issue,” thereby leaving no room for an agency to fill a statutory gap, courts must “interpret the statute ‘as a coherent regulatory scheme’ and ‘fit, if possible, all parts into [a] harmonious whole.’ ” (citation omitted). Because the Court and the BIA ignore obvious ways in which can operate as a coherent whole and instead construe the statute as a self-contradiction that was broken from the moment Congress wrote it, I respectfully dissent. I Under the first question we ask when review- ing an agency’s construction of a statute is whether “Con- gress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue.” U. S. A. If it has, then “the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to th[at]
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
as well as the agency, must give effect to th[at] unambiguously expressed intent.” at –843. Con- gress has spoken directly to the question in this case. United States and lawful permanent residents (LPRs) may petition for certain relatives who reside Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 3 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting abroad (known as the “principal beneficiaries” of such petitions) to receive immigrant visas. Congress has de- fined five categories of eligible relatives—referred to as family-preference categories—with annual limits on the number of visas that may be issued within each category.1 Because the demand for visas outstrips supply, the wait for a visa can often last many years. While a principal beneficiary waits, her place in line is determined based on her “priority date,” the date on which her petition was filed. See (b) (2014); 22 CFR (2013). Priority dates are therefore crucial—the earlier one’s priority date, the sooner one’s place will come up in line and a visa will be available. Significantly, when the wait ends and a principal beneficiary finally becomes eligible to apply for a visa, 8 U.S. C. enables the beneficiary’s spouse and minor children (known as “deriv- ative beneficiaries”) to do so too. This case arises from a common problem: Given the lengthy period prospective immigrants must wait for a visa, a principal beneficiary’s child—although younger than 21 when her parent’s petition was initially filed— often will have turned 21 by the time the parent’s priority date comes up in line. Such a child is said to have “aged out” of derivative beneficiary treatment under By way of example, respondent Norma Uy was the princi- pal beneficiary of an F4 family-preference petition filed by her U. S. citizen sister in February 1981. That petition listed Norma’s daughter, Ruth, who was then two years old, as a derivative beneficiary. If Norma had reached the front of the visa line at any time before Ruth’s 21st birth- day, would have enabled Ruth to accompany —————— 1 The five categories are F1 (unmarried adult children of U. S. citi- zens); F2A (spouses and unmarried minor children of LPRs); F2B (unmarried adult children of LPRs); F3 (married children of U. S. ); and F4 (brothers and sisters of U. S. ). 8 U.S. C. 4 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting Norma to the United States. Unfortunately, it took more than two decades for Norma’s priority date to become current, by which point Ruth was 23 and thus too old for derivative beneficiary status under Norma therefore immigrated alone to the United States, where she filed a new
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
alone to the United States, where she filed a new F2B petition (for unmarried children of LPRs) on Ruth’s behalf. Before was enacted, however, an immigrant in Ruth’s position would have been unable to retain the February 1981 priority date from her original petition; the law would have instead required her to receive a new priority date all the way at the back of the F2B line. Congress responded to this problem by enacting a provision entitled “[r]etention of priority date.” It states: “If the age of an alien is determined under [the for- mula specified in] paragraph (1)[2] to be 21 years of age or older for the purpos[e] of [] of this section, the alien’s petition shall automatically be converted to the appropriate category and the alien shall retain the original priority date issued upon re- ceipt of the original petition.” The provision’s structure is crucial to its meaning. The initial clause (call it the “eligibility clause”) specifies who is eligible for relief. The concluding clause (call it the “relief clause”) describes the two forms of relief to which eligible persons are entitled. As the title of the provision suggests, the main form of relief is the right of an aged-out derivative beneficiary to retain the priority date of her original petition. In Ruth Uy’s case, such relief would mean the difference between resuming her wait near the —————— 2 As the plurality explains, ante, at 9–10, the formula specified in paragraph (1) subtracts out bureaucratic delays resulting from the Government’s review of the relevant immigration paperwork. That formula is not at issue in this case. Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 5 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting front of the F2B line (which would allow her to receive a visa in short order) and being sent to the back of the line (where she would potentially have to wait an additional 27 years). Brief for Respondents 52. The question in this case is which aged-out beneficiaries of family-preference petitions are eligible for priority date retention: the aged-out beneficiaries of petitions in all five family-preference categories (which would include re- spondents’ children, who were derivative beneficiaries of F3 and F4 petitions for adult children and adult siblings of U. S. respectively), or the aged-out beneficiaries of only F2A petitions for spouses and children of LPRs (the interpretation offered by the BIA)? Congress answered that question in ’s eligi- bility clause, which specifies that relief is to be conferred on any immigrant who has been “determined under [the formula specified in] paragraph (1) to be 21 years of age or older”
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
paragraph (1) to be 21 years of age or older” for the purpose of As the plurality con- cedes, this clause “states a condition that every aged-out beneficiary of a preference petition satisfies”—that is, it makes eligible for relief aged-out children within each of the F1, F2A, F2B, F3, and F4 categories. Ante, at 14. Congress made this clear in two mutually reinforc- ing ways. First, by referring to the formula set forth in “paragraph (1),” the statute incorporates that paragraph’s cross-reference to Section 1153(h)(2) in turn defines the set of covered petitions to include, “with re- spect to an alien child who is a derivative beneficiary under [], a petition filed for classification of the alien’s parent under And encompasses all five family-preference categories. See Second, promises relief to those who are found to be 21 “for the purpos[e] of the provision governing derivative beneficiar- ies. And that provision also unambiguously covers all five family-preference categories. See (a minor child 6 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting is “entitled to the same status” as a parent who is the principal beneficiary of a petition filed under ); (setting forth the five family-preference categories). In short, ’s eligibility clause answers the precise question in this case: Aged-out beneficiaries within all five categories are entitled to relief. “[T]he intent of Congress is clear,” so “that is the end of the matter.” 467 U.S., at II A Because it concedes that ’s eligibility clause unambiguously “encompasses every aged-out beneficiary of a family-preference petition,” ante, at 21, the plurality tries to fit this case into a special pocket of juris- prudence in which it says we must defer to an agency’s decision to ignore a clear statutory command due to a conflict between that command and another statutory provision. See ante, at 14, 21. Thus, unlike in the usual case, where ambiguity derives from the fact that the text does not speak with sufficient specificity to the question at issue, the plurality argues that this is a case in which ambiguity can only arise—if it is to arise at all—if Congress has spoken clearly on the issue in diametrically opposing ways.3 As the plurality frames it, ’s —————— 3 To understand the kind of conflict that can make deference appro- priate to an agency’s decision to override unambiguous statutory text, consider the provisions at issue in National Assn. of Home v. Defenders of Wildlife, One provision, of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S. C. commanded, “without qualification, that the [Environmental Protection Agency] ‘shall ap- prove’ a transfer application” whenever nine exclusive
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
Agency] ‘shall ap- prove’ a transfer application” whenever nine exclusive criteria were A second provision, of the Endan- gered Species Act of 1973, 16 U.S. C. was “similarly imperative,” ordering “ ‘[e]ach Federal agency’ ” to ensure that its actions were “ ‘not likely to jeopardize’ ” an endangered species. Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 7 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting eligibility and relief clauses are “Janus-faced,” and that conflict “makes possible alternative reasonable construc- tions.” Ante, at 14. In rushing to find a conflict within the statute, the plurality neglects a fundamental tenet of statutory inter- pretation: We do not lightly presume that Congress has legislated in self-contradicting terms. See A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 180 (2012) (“The provisions of a text should be interpreted in a way that renders them compatible, not contradic- tory. [T]here can be no justification for needlessly ren- dering provisions in conflict if they can be interpreted harmoniously”). That is especially true where, as here, the conflict that Congress supposedly created is not be- tween two different statutes or even two separate provi- sions within a single statute, but between two clauses in the same sentence. See (“[I]t is invariably true that intelligent drafters do not contradict themselves”). Thus, time and again we have stressed our duty to “fit, if possi- ble, all parts [of a statute] into [a] harmonious whole.” ; see also (when two provisions “are capable of co-existence, it is the duty of the courts to regard each as effective”). In reviewing an agency’s construction of a statute, courts “must,” we have emphasized, “interpret the statute ‘as a coherent regulatory scheme’ ” rather than an internally inconsistent muddle, at war with itself and defective from —————— U. S., at 662. “[A]pplying [’s] language literally,” we observed, would contravene the “mandatory and exclusive list of [nine] criteria set forth in” because it would “engraf[t] a tenth criterion onto” the statute. at 662–663. The agency accordingly could not “simul- taneously obey” both commands: It could consider 9 criteria or 10, but not both. In that circumstance, we found it appropriate to defer to the agency’s choice as to “which command must give way.” 8 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting the day it was written. Brown & Williamson, 529 U.S., at 133. And in doing so, courts should “[e]mplo[y] traditional tools of statutory construction.” Each of these cautions springs from a common well: As judicious as it can be to defer to administrative agencies, our foremost duty is, and always has been, to give effect
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
foremost duty is, and always has been, to give effect to the law as drafted by Congress. The plurality contends that deference is appropriate here because, in its view, 8 U.S. C. ’s two clauses are “self-contradictory.” Ante, at 33. But far from it being unworkable (or even difficult) for the agency to obey both clauses, traditional tools of statutory construc- tion reveal that clauses are entirely compatible. B The plurality argues that although ’s eligibil- ity clause clearly encompasses aged-out beneficiaries within all five preference categories, the relief clause implies a conflicting “limitation on the eligible class of recipients.” Ante, at 15. The plurality infers that limita- tion from two premises. First, it contends that no aged- out child may retain her priority date unless her petition is also eligible for automatic conversion. And second, it asserts that only aged-out F2A beneficiaries may receive automatic conversion. As a result, the plurality concludes, it was reasonable for the BIA to exclude aged-out children in the four other categories from receiving both automatic conversion and priority date retention, thereby rendering ’s eligibility clause defunct. The plurality’s conclusion is wrong because its premises are wrong. For one, is naturally read to confer priority date retention as an independent form of relief to all aged-out children, regardless of whether automatic conversion is separately available. And even if that were wrong, the plurality’s supposition that only F2A benefi- ciaries can receive automatic conversion is incorrect on its Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 9 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting own terms. Because either of these interpretations would treat as a coherent whole, the BIA’s construc- tion was impermissible. 1 The most obvious flaw in the plurality’s analysis is its presumption that permits an aged-out child to retain her original priority date only if her petition can be automatically converted. That is incorrect for many reasons. When an immigrant is determined to have aged out of derivative beneficiary status, prescribes two forms of relief: “[T]he alien’s petition shall automatically be converted to the appropriate category and the alien shall retain the original priority date issued upon receipt of the original petition.” We have held that when a statute provides two forms of relief in this manner, joined by the conjunction “and,” the two remedies are “distinct.” United 241– 242 (1989). That understanding makes particular sense here, where Congress used the mandatory word “shall” twice, once before each form of relief. See Lexecon Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, (1998) (“[T]he mandatory [term] ‘shall’ normally cre- ates an obligation impervious to judicial discretion”). Moreover, the two
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
ates an obligation impervious to judicial discretion”). Moreover, the two “shall” commands operate on different subjects, further reinforcing that they prescribe distinct remedies: An aged-out “alien’s petition shall automatically be converted,” but it is “the alien” herself who, in all events, “shall retain” her original priority date. (emphasis added). The plurality responds with a series of examples in which the word “and” is used to join two commands, one of which is—as the plurality asserts here—dependent on another. Ante, at 28, and n. 15. But as the plurality recognizes, ante, at 28, that is hardly the only way the 10 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting word can be used. For example: “If today’s baseball game is rained out, your ticket shall automatically be converted to a ticket for next Saturday’s game, and you shall retain your free souvenir from today’s game.” Or: “If you provide the DMV with proof of your new address, your voter regis- tration shall automatically be converted to the correct polling location, and you shall receive in the mail an up- dated driver’s license.” It is plain in both of these exam- ples that the two commands are distinct—the fan in the first example can keep her free souvenir even if she cannot attend next Saturday’s game; the new resident will receive an updated driver’s license even if she is ineligible to vote. What the plurality does not explain is why we should forgo the same understanding of ’s relief clause when that would treat the statute as a coherent whole (and when the plurality’s alternative interpretation would render the statute a walking self-contradiction within the span of a few words). With the text unavailing, the plurality turns to a policy argument. The plurality worries that if automatic conver- sion and priority date retention are independent benefits, aged-out beneficiaries will be able to “hold on to a priority date for years while waiting for a relative to file a new petition,” which might hamper U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) operations. Ante, at 29–30. But the plurality’s fears of administrative inconvenience are belied by the fact that USCIS has administered prior- ity date retention in exactly this manner for years, with no apparent problems. Well before was enacted, a regulation provided aged-out F2A derivative beneficiar- ies the ability to retain their priority dates without also providing automatic conversion. See (a)(4) (permitting priority date retention after a “separate peti- tion” is filed); 41059 (1992) (adopting this provision). Indeed, the USCIS continues to instruct field officers that a “separate petition” must be filed in
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
field officers that a “separate petition” must be filed in Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 11 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting order for such beneficiaries to “retain” their “original priority date[s].” Adjudicator’s Field Manual, ch. 21.2(c)(5), online at http://www.uscis.gov/iframe/ilink/docView/ AFM/HTML/AFM/0-0-0-1.html (all Internet materials as visited June 5, 2014, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). The notion that it is somehow impossible for an immigrant to retain her priority date contingent upon the filing of a separate petition is therefore contradicted by years of agency experience.4 —————— 4 The plurality does not dispute that USCIS has administered priority date retention as a form of relief independent from automatic conver- sion for years. Ante, at 30, n. 16. It nonetheless argues that the same approach is impermissible here for the counterintuitive reason that a pre-existing regulation used express language limiting priority date retention to derivative beneficiaries of F2A petitions alone. See ante, at 30, n. 16 (noting that (a)(4) permitted an aged-out benefi- ciary to retain her priority date “ ‘if the subsequent petition is filed by the same petitioner’ ”). Congress included no such language to limit the scope of priority date retention in 8 U.S. C. however, which just reinforces what the eligibility clause already makes clear: Priority date retention is independently available for aged-out de- rivative beneficiaries of all family-preference petitions, not just F2A petitions. The plurality also fails to account for the numerous other contexts in which USCIS has administered priority date retention as a benefit distinct from automatic conversion. See, e.g., (providing priority date retention to unmarried adult children of LPRs whose parents become naturalized “[r]egardless of whether a petition is converted”); (e) (“A petition approved on behalf of an alien under [the employment-based immigration provisions of accords the alien the priority date of the approved petition for any subsequently filed [employment] petition”); (a “physician beneficiary” who finds a “new employer [who] desir[es] to petition [USCIS] on the physician’s behalf” must submit a new petition, but “will retain the priority date from the initial” petition). Finally, the plurality suggests that priority date retention can operate independently of automatic conversion only if the date to be retained is attached to a valid petition. Ante, at 30, and n. 16. But that cannot be squared with USCIS’s longstanding practice of allowing F2A beneficiaries to retain the priority dates from their no-longer valid petitions upon the filing of a new petition. 12 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting In the end, the plurality suggests that we should defer to the BIA’s all-or-nothing approach because “context compels” it.
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
defer to the BIA’s all-or-nothing approach because “context compels” it. Ante, at 28. Yet fatally absent from the plu- rality’s discussion of context is any mention of the first clause of the very same provision, which, as the plurality admits, unambiguously confers relief upon all five catego- ries of aged-out children. That clause is dispositive, be- cause—assuming that F2A beneficiaries alone can receive automatic conversion—a reading that treats automatic conversion and priority date retention as independent benefits is the only one that would “produc[e] a substan- tive effect that is compatible with the rest of the law.” United Sav. Assn. of ; see also Home U.S., (“ ‘It is a “fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme” ’ ”). 2 Even if it were somehow impossible for an aged-out child to retain her priority date independently of auto- matic conversion, the plurality is wrong to view automatic conversion as a benefit that F2A beneficiaries alone may enjoy. Section 1153(h)(3) provides that if an aged-out child qualifies for relief under the statute’s eligibility clause, “the alien’s petition shall automatically be converted to the appropriate category.” Whether an aged-out benefi- ciary in a given preference category may enjoy this relief turns on how one understands the words “automatically” and “converted.” Because the statute does not define the terms, we apply their ordinary meaning. See Burrage v. United States, 571 U. S. (2014) (slip op., at 6). The ordinary meaning of “automatic” is “ ‘having the capability of starting, operating, moving, etc., inde- Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 13 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting pendently’ ” based upon some predetermined predicate event, with no “additional decisions, contingencies, or delays.” Ante, at 15 (quoting Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 140 (2d ed. 2001)). The ordinary meaning of “convert” is “to change (something) into a different form.” Here, the statute specifies the form into which an aged-out child’s petition shall be changed: another petition in the “appropriate category.” Tying the terms together, then, “automatic conversion” means changing an old petition into a new petition in an appropriate category upon the occurrence of some predicate event, without a further decision or contingency. All aged-out beneficiaries can have their petitions auto- matically converted under this definition. Perhaps most sensibly, all five categories of petitions may be converted to an appropriate category, without any further decision or contingency, upon a logical predicate event: when USCIS receives confirmation that an appropriate category exists. To see how this would
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
that an appropriate category exists. To see how this would work, recall the case of Norma Uy, and her daughter, Ruth. Norma was the principal benefi- ciary of an F4 petition filed by her U. S. citizen sister; Ruth was a derivative beneficiary of the same petition. Because Ruth had aged out of derivative beneficiary sta- tus prior to Norma’s reaching the front of the visa line, Norma immigrated to the United States without Ruth. Once Norma became an LPR, however, she also became eligible to file a new petition on Ruth’s behalf under the F2B category (unmarried adult children of LPRs), (2)(B). Thus, once Norma provides confirmation of that eligibility to sponsor Ruth (i.e., that she is an LPR, that Ruth is her daughter, and that she has not committed disqualifying criminal conduct, see ante, at 4), Ruth’s original F4 petition can automatically be converted to an 14 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting F2B petition, with no additional decision or contingency.5 Indeed, this is how USCIS already applies automatic conversion in other contexts. For example, when an LPR has filed an F2A petition on behalf of a spouse or child, and the LPR subsequently becomes a U. S. citizen, a pro- vision entitled “[a]utomatic conversion of preference classi- fication,” (i), permits the F2A petition to be automatically converted to an “immediate relative” peti- tion, See ante, at 16. Significantly, the predi- cate event that triggers this conversion is the agency’s receipt of proof that the petition’s sponsor has become a U. S. citizen—proof, in other words, that there is an ap- propriate category into which the petition can be converted.6 Section 1153(h)(3)’s automatic conversion remedy can sensibly be administered in the same way. The plurality’s contrary conclusion that automatic conversion is impossible for all but one category of family- preference petitions hinges on three basic misunderstand- —————— 5 Of course, just like any other beneficiary of a family visa petition, one whose petition has been automatically converted must still satisfy the requirements for actually obtaining a visa. See ante, at 5. For example, all visa applicants must attach an “affidavit of support” from their sponsors. 8 U.S. C. As is true for any other beneficiary, nothing stops a sponsor from declining to swear their support for the beneficiary of an automatically converted petition after a visa has become available. Converting petitions upon proof of an appropriate category therefore produces no uncertainties or contingen- cies that do not already exist for all family visa applicants to begin with. 6 See Dept. of State, If You Were an
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
with. 6 See Dept. of State, If You Were an LPR and Are Now a U. S. Citizen: Upgrading a Petition, online at http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/ types/types_2991.html#5. The regulation cited by the plurality, 8 CFR is not to the contrary; it merely establishes that when an automatic conversion occurs, it shall be treated as “[e]ffective upon the date of naturalization,” As the State Department’s instruc- tions make clear, the conversion itself takes place after the new citizen “send[s] proof of [her] U. S. hip to the National Visa Center.” Dept. of State, If You Were an LPR and Are Now a U. S. Citizen: Upgrading a Petition. Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 15 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting ings. First, the plurality contends that automatic conver- sion is triggered not by confirmation of the existence of an appropriate category, but rather by a different predicate event: the moment when “ ‘an immigrant visa number bec[omes] available for the alien’s parent.’ ” Ante, at 19. This is a curious argument, not least because nothing in suggests it. That provision simply makes automatic conversion available “[i]f the age of an alien is determined” to be “be 21 years of age or older” for pur- poses of Section 1153(h)(3) thus states the condition that an immigrant must satisfy to be eligible for automatic conversion, but it nowhere commands when the conversion should occur. There is no reason why conver- sion cannot occur at the logical point just described: the moment when USCIS receives proof that an appropriate category exists. The plurality acknowledges that “does not explicitly identify th[e] point in time” at which a “petition is to be ‘converted.’ ” Ante, at 18. It nevertheless suggests that the date when a conversion occurs “is best viewed” as the date when a visa became available for the aged-out child’s parent. Ante, at 19. But Congress could not have intended conversion to occur at that point for a glaring reason: The date on which a visa becomes available for an aged-out child’s parent occurs before the point at which the child is determined to have aged-out under — the very requirement prescribes for the aged- out child to be eligible for automatic conversion in the first place. As the plurality explains, ante, at 5–6, such age determinations occur when an immigration official re- views the child’s derivative visa application, which invari- ably happens after a visa became available for the child’s parent as the principal beneficiary. At best, then, the plurality’s interpretation requires USCIS to convert peti- tions at a time when it does not know which petitions
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
at a time when it does not know which petitions are eligible for conversion; at worst, it requires the automatic 16 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting conversion of petitions benefiting immigrants who will never even qualify for such relief (i.e., aged-out immi- grants who, for any number of reasons, never file a visa application and so are never determined by officials to be older than 21). Faced with this fact, the plurality falls back to the posi- tion that automatic conversion must merely be viewed as having occurred “as of th[e] date” when a parent’s visa becomes available, although the actual “assess[ment]” of the conversion will necessarily occur at some future point in time. Ante, at 24, n. 13. That approach, however, introduces precisely the kind of “additional decisions, contingencies, and delays” that the plurality regards as inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of “automatic,” ante, at 15. For even under the plurality’s view, automatic conversion cannot actually be “assesse[d]” until and unless the aged-out child decides to apply for a visa and officials assessing the child’s application deem her to have aged out (events which may themselves be contingent on the child’s parent first filing her own successful visa application, see ante, at 6). The far simpler approach is for conversion to occur automatically upon the most logical moment sug- gested by the statute: the moment when USCIS confirms that an “appropriate category” exists, Indeed, the plurality fails to explain why this cannot be the proper predicate; it simply dismisses such an approach as sup- ported “only” by “a single-minded resolve to grant relief to every possible aged-out beneficiary.” Ante, at 25, n. 13. But that criticism is revealing: The “single-minded resolve” the plurality maligns is Congress’ own, for it is Congress that expressly provided, in the eligibility clause, for aged-out beneficiaries in all five categories to be granted relief. The plurality’s second argument is a corollary of its first. If automatic conversion must occur when a visa first becomes available for a parent, the plurality frets, that Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 17 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting will mean an aged-out child will have her petition auto- matically converted before immigration officials can ascer- tain whether her parent is even qualified to sponsor her. See ante, at 17–18. True enough, but that only confirms that it makes no sense to force USCIS to convert petitions so prematurely. The plurality’s fears can all be averted by having automatic conversion occur, as with petitions sponsored by LPRs who later become U. S. at 13–15, when USCIS receives confirmation
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
later become U. S. at 13–15, when USCIS receives confirmation that conver- sion is appropriate.7 The plurality’s final argument is that something about the term “conversion” precludes relief for all but the aged- out derivative beneficiaries of F2A petitions. The plurality accepts that “conversion” will always require changing some aspects of a petition, including its preference category (e.g., from F2A to F2B) and the identity of its principal beneficiary (e.g., from an aged-out child’s parent to the —————— 7 The plurality is unsatisfied with this approach to automatic conver- sion on the theory that, in order to eliminate all additional “decisions, contingencies, or delays” in the process, this solution postpones the moment of “conversion” until the necessary contingencies are Yet the plurality’s approach does the same thing, because even on its account, some “decisions, contingencies, or delays” must occur before conversion can actually be assessed by immigration officials (i.e., a parent’s visa must become available, the child must apply for a visa, and immigration officials must deem her to have aged out, see at 16). So the only question is whether the “conversion” should be consid- ered to occur after all “decisions, contingencies, or delays” are in the past such that there is an appropriate category for conversion, or after only some. The former understanding would allow the unambiguous language of the eligibility clause to be carried into effect; the latter would preclude relief for four categories of derivative beneficiaries. In support of its restrictive interpretation, the plurality offers only the argument that converting a petition upon proof of an appropriate category would require the “filing of a new document. that shows the parent’s eligibility to sponsor her aged-out [child].” Ante, at 26, n. 14. The fact that a statute may require an agency to process a form is not a reason to disregard a coherent reading of a statute in favor of a self- contradictory one. 18 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting child). But the plurality asserts that a related kind of change is entirely off the table: a change to the identity of the petition’s sponsor. Ante, at 15. If a converted petition requires a different sponsor than the original petition, the plurality suggests, then it cannot be “converted” at all. The plurality points to nothing in the plain meaning of “conversion” that supports this distinction. It instead argues that a “conversion” cannot entail a change to the identity of a petition’s sponsor because that is “the exclu- sive way immigration law used the term when Congress enacted the CSPA.” Ante, at 16. But immigration
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
when Congress enacted the CSPA.” Ante, at 16. But immigration law has long allowed petitions to be converted from one category to another in contexts where doing so requires changing the sponsor’s identity. In 2006, for example, the Secretary of Homeland Security promulgated a regulatory provision entitled “automatic conversion of preference classifica- tion,” (i)(1)(iv), which allows the automatic conversion of a petition filed by a U. S. citizen on behalf of her spouse to a widower petition if the citizen dies before the petition is approved. That conversion requires chang- ing the sponsor from the citizen to the widower himself. The fact that the agency used the word “conversion” to refer to a process in which the petition’s sponsor was changed, just a few years after 8 U.S. C. was enacted, strongly suggests that the term did not have the exclusive meaning that the plurality suggests. Similarly, a provision enacted two years before see Victims of Trafficking and Violence Pro- tection Act of 2000, provides that a peti- tion filed by a battered spouse on behalf of her child “shall be considered” a self-petition filed by the child herself if the child ages out—a conversion that obviously requires changing the identity of the sponsor from the battered spouse to the aged-out child. And confirms that such “self-petitioners” are entitled to ’s automatic conversion remedy. The plurality never ex- Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 19 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting plains how it can be mandatory to “convert” the identity of the sponsors in these contexts yet impermissible to “con- vert” the sponsors of the petitions at issue here—an un- derstanding that is especially implausible in light of Con- gress’ command that such petitions “shall automatically be converted to the appropriate category.”8 III The concurrence reaches the same result as the plural- ity does, but for a different reason. It begins by recognizing that ’s eligibility clause “states a condition” that is satisfied by aged-out “beneficiaries from any pref- erence category.” Ante, at 2 (ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment). The concurrence thus acknowledges that the eligibility clause encompasses aged-out beneficiaries of family-preference petitions in the F1, F2A, F2B, F3, and F4 categories. The concurrence nonetheless concludes that the BIA was free to exclude F1, F2B, F3, and F4 beneficiaries from —————— 8 Moreover, had Congress actually intended to permit relief only where a new petition has the same sponsor as the original petition, it had a ready model in the language of a pre-existing regulation. See 8 CFR (conferring priority date retention on a derivative beneficiary only “if the subsequent petition
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
retention on a derivative beneficiary only “if the subsequent petition is filed by the same peti- tioner”). If it had wanted to limit to just the beneficiaries preferred by the BIA, “Congress could easily have said so.” Kucana v. Holder, The plurality’s argument that a “conversion” cannot entail a change to a petition’s sponsor ultimately boils down to this: A “conversion” cannot include “any substantive alteration” to a petition, ante, at 15, except when it can. For example, a “conversion” can (indeed, must) entail changing a petition’s family-preference category and changing the petition’s principal beneficiary (from the aged-out child’s parent to the child herself). And the plurality concedes that in other contexts, conversion must entail changing the identity of a petition’s sponsor from the beneficiary’s qualifying relative to the beneficiary himself. Ante, at 16–17, n. 10. The plurality does not explain why the word “conversion” can encompass all of these other substantive alterations, but not a change to the identity of a petition’s sponsor in just this case. 20 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting the clear scope of the eligibility clause because of a per- ceived ambiguity as to which beneficiaries can receive “automatic conversion.” See ante, at 4 (“Congress did not speak clearly to which petitions can ‘automatically be converted’ ”). In other words, the concurrence concludes that it was reasonable for the agency to ignore the clear text of the eligibility clause because the phrase “automatic conversion” might be read in a manner that would benefit F2A beneficiaries alone. This is an unusual way to interpret a statute. The concurrence identifies no case in which we have deferred to an agency’s decision to use ambiguity in one portion of a statute as a license to ignore another statutory provision that is perfectly clear. To the contrary, “[a] provision that may seem ambiguous in isolation is often clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme because only one of the permissible meanings produces a substantive effect that is compatible with the rest of the law.” United Sav. Assn. of 484 U.S., at The concurrence justifies its conclusion only by treating the eligibility clause as a nullity. The concurrence is quite candid about its approach, arguing that ’s relief clause is its “only operative provision” and that the eligi- bility clause does not “grant anything to anyone.” Ante, at 3. Yet “[i]t is our duty ‘to give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute.’ ” United And there is an easy way to give meaning to the eligibility clause: The clause identi- fies
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
give meaning to the eligibility clause: The clause identi- fies who is entitled to the benefits specified in the ensuing relief clause. The concurrence relies ultimately on an irrelevant hypothetical: “If a student is determined to be enrolled at an accredited university, the student’s cost of off-campus housing shall be deductible on her tax return.” Ante, at 3. In this example, the concurrence points out, it is “appar- ent. that an enrolled student who lives on campus is not Cite as: 573 U. S. (2014) 21 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting entitled to the deduction, even though the student falls within the conditional first clause.” That is correct, but it says nothing about this case. For in the hypothet- ical, it is plain that the promised relief (a tax deduction for off-campus housing) cannot apply to the persons at issue (students who live on campus). Here, however, the relief promised in (priority date retention and auto- matic conversion) can be given to persons specified in the initial eligibility clause (aged-out children in all five family-preference categories). See at 9–19. And once one recognizes that aged-out children in each cate- gory unambiguously covered by the eligibility clause can receive relief, the BIA’s view that no children in four of those categories can ever receive any relief cannot be reasonable.9 * * * Congress faced a difficult choice when it enacted Given the “zero-sum world of allocating a limited number of visas,” ante, at 33, Congress could have —————— 9 More fundamentally, the concurrence’s hypothetical is irrelevant because it altogether ignores a critical feature of the statute before us: express enumeration of the covered petitions to include petitions filed within the F1, F2A, F2B, F3, and F4 preference catego- ries. See at 5–6. A proper analogy would therefore be a provi- sion that says the following: “If a student is determined to be enrolled at an accredited junior college, community college, or 4-year college, the student’s room and board shall be tax-deductible and the student shall receive financial aid.” Is there any permissible reading of this provision under which, although expressly covered in the eligibility clause, all junior and community college students are categorically forbidden to receive both the tax deduction and financial aid? Of course not. And that would be true even if the term “room and board” were ambiguous and thus open to an interpretation under which only 4-year students could receive the tax deduction. Likewise here, where F1, F2B, F3, and F4 derivative beneficiaries may not be categorically excluded from relief because they are indisputably covered by ’s eligibility clause and
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,014 | 24 |
second_dissenting
|
Scialabba v. Cuellar De Osorio
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2678135/scialabba-v-cuellar-de-osorio/
|
because they are indisputably covered by ’s eligibility clause and able to receive the relief described in the relief clause. 22 SCIALABBA v. CUELLAR DE OSORIO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting required aged-out children like Ruth Uy to lose their place in line and wait many additional years (or even decades) before being reunited with their parents, or it could have enabled such immigrants to retain their place in line— albeit at the cost of extending the wait for other immi- grants by some shorter amount. Whatever one might think of the policy arguments on each side, however, this much is clear: Congress made a choice. The plurality’s contrary view—that Congress actually delegated the choice to the BIA in a statute that unambiguously encom- passes aged-out children in all five preference categories and commands that they “shall retain the[ir] original priority date[s],” —is untenable. In the end, then, this case should have been resolved under a commonsense approach to statutory interpreta- tion: Using traditional tools of statutory construction, agencies and courts should try to give effect to a statute’s clear text before concluding that Congress has legislated in conflicting and unintelligible terms. Here, there are straightforward interpretations of that allow it to function as a coherent whole. Because the BIA and the Court ignore these interpretations and advance a con- struction that contravenes the language Congress wrote, I respectfully dissent.
|
Justice Rehnquist
| 1,976 | 19 |
majority
|
Aldinger v. Howard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109503/aldinger-v-howard/
|
This case presents the "subtle and complex question with far-reaching implications," alluded to but not answered in and : whether the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction extends to confer jurisdiction over a party as to whom *3 no independent basis of federal jurisdiction exists. In this action, where jurisdiction over the main, federal claim against various officials of Spokane County, Wash., was grounded in 28 U.S. C. 1343 (3), the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that pendent jurisdiction was not available to adjudicate petitioner's state-law claims against Spokane County, over which party federal jurisdiction was otherwise nonexistent. While noting that its previous holdings to this effect were left undisturbed by which arose from that Circuit, the Court of Appeals was "not unaware of the widespread rejection" of its position in almost all other Federal Circuits. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict on this important question. We affirm. I This case arises at the pleading stage, and the allegations in petitioner's complaint are straightforward. Petitioner was hired in 1971 by respondent Howard, the Spokane County treasurer, for clerical work in that office. Two months later Howard informed petitioner by letter that although her job performance was "excellent," she would be dismissed, effective two weeks hence, because she was allegedly "living with [her] boy friend." Howard's action, petitioner alleged, was taken pursuant to a state statute which provides that the appointing county officer "may revoke each appointment at pleasure."[1] Though a hearing was requested, none was held before or after the effective date of the discharge. Petitioner's action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, as embodied in her second amended complaint, claimed principally under *4 the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S. C. 1983,[2] that the discharge violated her substantive constitutional rights under the First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and was procedurally defective under the latter's Due Process Clause. An injunction restraining the dismissal and damages for salary loss were sought against Howard, his wife, the named county commissioners, and the county. Jurisdiction over the federal claim was asserted under 28 U.S. C. 1343 (3),[3] and pendent jurisdiction was alleged to lie over the "state law claims against the parties." As to the county, the state-law *5 claim was said to rest on state statutes waiving the county's sovereign immunity and providing for vicarious liability arising out of tortious conduct of its officials. The District Court dismissed the action as to the county on the ground that since it was not suable as a "person" under 1983, there was no independent basis
|
Justice Rehnquist
| 1,976 | 19 |
majority
|
Aldinger v. Howard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109503/aldinger-v-howard/
|
as a "person" under 1983, there was no independent basis of jurisdiction over the county, and thus "this court [has no] power to exercise pendent jurisdiction over the claims against Spokane County." From this final judgment, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 54 (b), petitioner appealed. The Court of Appeals first rejected petitioner's claim that her 1983 action against the county fell within the District Court's 1343 (3) jurisdiction, as obviously foreclosed by this Court's decisions in and City of Turning to petitioner's pendent-jurisdiction argument, the Court of Appeals that the District Court had made no alternative ruling on the "suitability of this case for the discretionary exercise of pendent jurisdiction" under the second part of the rule enunciated in Mine 383 U.S. But since this Court in had expressly left undisturbed the Ninth Circuit's refusal to apply pendent jurisdiction over a nonfederal party, the instant panel felt free to apply that rule as set out in and v. Madigan, aff'd in part, rev'd in part, This kind of case, the Court of Appeals reasoned, presented the "weakest rationale" for extension of to pendent parties: (1) The state claims are pressed against a party who would otherwise not be in federal court;[4] (2) diversity cases generally present more *6 attractive opportunities for exercise of pendent-party jurisdiction, since all claims therein by definition arise from state law; (3) federal courts should be wary of extending court-created doctrines of jurisdiction to reach parties who are expressly excluded by Congress from liability, and hence federal jurisdiction, in the federal statute sought to be applied to the defendant in the main claim; (4) pendent state-law claims arising in a civil rights context will "almost inevitably" involve the federal court in difficult and unsettled questions of state law, with the accompanying potential for confusion. 513 F.2d, at -1262. II The question whether "pendent" federal jurisdiction encompasses not merely the litigation of additional claims between parties with respect to whom there is federal jurisdiction, but also the joining of additional parties with respect to whom there is no independent basis of federal jurisdiction, has been much litigated in other federal courts[5] and much discussed by commentators[6] since this Court's decision in in turn, is the most recent in a long line of our cases dealing with the relationship between the judicial power of the United States and the actual contours of the cases and controversies to which that power is extended by Art. III. In Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in his opinion for the Court addressed the argument that the presence in a federal lawsuit of questions
|
Justice Rehnquist
| 1,976 | 19 |
majority
|
Aldinger v. Howard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109503/aldinger-v-howard/
|
argument that the presence in a federal lawsuit of questions which were not dependent on the construction of a law of the United States prevented the federal court from exercising Art. III jurisdiction, even in a case in which the plaintiff had been authorized by Congress to sue in federal court. Noting that "[t]here is scarcely any case, every part of which depends" upon federal law, the Chief Justice rejected the contention: "If it be a sufficient foundation for jurisdiction, that the title or right set up by the party, may be defeated by one construction of the constitution or law of the United States, and sustained by the opposite construction, provided the facts necessary to support the action be made out, then all the other questions must be decided as incidental to this, which gives that jurisdiction. Those other questions cannot arrest the proceedings. "We think, then, that when a question to which the judicial power of the Union is extended by the constitution, forms an ingredient of the original cause, it is in the power of congress to give the Circuit Courts jurisdiction of that cause, although other questions of fact or of law may be involved in it." This doctrine was later applied in to hold that where federal jurisdiction is properly based on a colorable federal claim, the court has the "right to decide all the questions in the case, even though it decided the Federal questions adversely to the party raising them, or even if it omitted to decide them at all, but decided the case on local or state questions only." In e v. N. Y. Cotton Exchange, *8 the Court in similar fashion sustained jurisdiction over a defendant's compulsory counterclaim arising out of the same transaction upon which the plaintiff's federal antitrust claim was grounded, although the latter had been dismissed for failure to state a claim, and the former had no independent federal jurisdictional basis. A few years later, in the Court drew upon the foregoing cases to establish federal jurisdiction to decide a state-law claim joined with a federal copyright infringement claim, where both were considered "two distinct grounds in support of a single cause of action," although the federal ground had proved unsuccessful. In the respondent brought an action in federal court against petitioner UMW, asserting parallel claims a federal statutory claim and a claim under the common law of Tennesseearising out of alleged concerted union efforts to deprive him of contractual and employment relationships with the coal mine's owners. Though the federal claim was ultimately dismissed after trial, and
|
Justice Rehnquist
| 1,976 | 19 |
majority
|
Aldinger v. Howard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109503/aldinger-v-howard/
|
Though the federal claim was ultimately dismissed after trial, and though diversity was absent, the lower courts sustained jurisdiction over the state-law claim, and affirmed the damages award based thereon. Before reaching the merits (on which the lower courts were reversed), this Court addressed the argument that under the rule of pendent jurisdiction as set out in had merely stated "two separate and distinct causes of action" as opposed to "two distinct grounds in support of a single cause of action," in which former case the federal court lacked the power to "retain and dispose" of the "non-federal cause of action." The Court stated that since the test was formulated before the unification of law and equity by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it was therefore unnecessarily tied to the outmoded concept of a "cause of *9 action" developed under code pleading rules. Recognizing that the Federal Rules themselves cannot expand federal-court jurisdiction, the Court nevertheless found in them a sufficient basis to go beyond 's "unnecessarily grudging" approach to parallel claims, and to adopt a more flexible treatment within the contours of Art. III, 2. Thus, in a federal-question case, where the federal claim is of sufficient substance, and the factual relationship between "that claim and the state claim permits the conclusion that the entire action before the court comprises but one constitutional `case,' " pendent jurisdiction extends to the state The Court, in the second aspect of the formulation, went on to enumerate the various factors bearing on a district court's discretionary decision whether the power should be exercised in a given parallel-claims case, emphasizing that "pendent jurisdiction is a doctrine of discretion, not of plaintiff's right." These cases, from Osborn to show that in treating litigation where nonfederal questions or claims were bound up with the federal claim upon which the parties were already in federal court, this Court has found nothing in Art. III's grant of judicial power which prevented adjudication of the nonfederal portions of the parties' dispute. None of them, however, adverted to the separate question, involved in the instant case, of whether a nonfederal claim could in turn be the basis for joining a party over whom no independent federal jurisdiction exists, simply because that claim could be derived from the "common nucleus of operative fact" giving rise to the dispute between the parties to the federal But while none of the foregoing line of cases discussed the joining of additional parties, other decisions of this Court have developed a doctrine of "ancillary jurisdiction," *10 and it is in part upon this
|
Justice Rehnquist
| 1,976 | 19 |
majority
|
Aldinger v. Howard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109503/aldinger-v-howard/
|
"ancillary jurisdiction," *10 and it is in part upon this developmentand its relationship to that petitioner relies to support "pendent party" jurisdiction here. Under this doctrine, the Court has identified certain considerations which justified the joining of parties with respect to whom there was no independent basis of federal jurisdiction. In the Court held that the state court had no jurisdiction over a replevin action brought by creditor claimants to property that had already been attached by the federal marshal in a federal diversity action. The claimants argued that a want of state-court jurisdiction would leave them without a remedy, since diversity between them and the marshal was lacking. This Court stated that an equitable action in federal court by those claimants, seeking to prevent injustice in the diversity suit, would not have been "an original suit, but ancillary and dependent, supplementary merely to the original suit," and thus maintainable irrespective of diversity of citizenship. A similar approach was taken in where, after a creditors' suit to set aside an allegedly fraudulent conveyance was removed to federal court on grounds of diversity, other nondiverse creditors were permitted to intervene to assert an identical interest. Since it was merely a matter of form whether the latter appeared as parties or came in later under a final decree to prove their claims before a master, the federal court "could incidentally decree in favor of [the nondiverse] creditors[, and s]uch a proceeding would be ancillary to the jurisdiction acquired between the original parties" Dunham was in turn held controlling in Supreme Tribe of There, suing in diversity, out-of-state "Class A" members of an Indiana fraternal benefit society had sought a decree adjudicating their common interests in the control and disposition of *11 the society's funds. After successfully defending that action, the society brought a second suit in federal court seeking to protect that judgment as against an identical state-court action brought by members of "Class A" who were of Indiana citizenship. Since under Dunham "intervention of the Indiana citizens in the [original] suit would not have defeated the jurisdiction already acquired," the earlier judgment was binding against them, and the federal court had ancillary jurisdiction over the society's suit to enjoin the later state action, irrespective of diversity. The doctrine of ancillary jurisdiction developed in the foregoing cases is bottomed on the notion that since federal jurisdiction in the principal suit effectively controls the property or fund under dispute, other claimants thereto should be allowed to intervene in order to protect their interest, without regard to jurisdiction.[7] As this Court stated in Fulton
|
Justice Rehnquist
| 1,976 | 19 |
majority
|
Aldinger v. Howard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109503/aldinger-v-howard/
|
without regard to jurisdiction.[7] As this Court stated in Fulton : "The general rule is that when a federal court has properly acquired jurisdiction over a cause it may entertain, by intervention, dependent or ancillary controversies; but no controversy can be regarded as dependent or ancillary unless it has direct relation *12 to property or assets actually or constructively drawn into the court's possession or control by the principal suit." The decisional bridge between these two relatively discrete lines of cases appears to be this Court's decision in e. Since the defendant's nonfederal counterclaim in e arose out of the same transaction giving rise to the antitrust dispute between the parties, and federal jurisdiction was sustained over the former, the Court in though faced with a plaintiff's assertion of pendent jurisdiction over an additional nonfederal claim, thought the two cases, "in principle, cannot be distinguished." It was 's "unnecessarily grudging" test of pendent jurisdiction, of course, which the Court expanded in On the other hand, because e was a suit in equity, the jurisdiction sustained there has been rationalized as falling under the umbrella of ancillary jurisdiction,[8] though e neither used that term nor cited to Fulton Petitioner thus suggests that since e, read as an "ancillary" case, adopted a "transactional" test of jurisdiction quite similar to that set out in there is presently no "principled" distinction between the two doctrines. Since under the Federal Rules "joinder of claims, parties and remedies is strongly encouraged," her use of the Rules here is as a matter of jurisdictional power assertedly limited only by whether the claim against the county "derive[s] from a common nucleus of operative fact." Hence, petitioner concludes, based on ' treatment of pendent claims, and the use of ancillary jurisdiction to *13 bring in additional parties, that her nonfederal claim against a nonfederal defendant falls within pendent jurisdiction since it satisfies ' test on its face. For purposes of addressing the jurisdictional question in this case, however, we think it quite unnecessary to formulate any general, all-encompassing jurisdictional rule. Given the complexities of the many manifestations of federal jurisdiction, together with the countless factual permutations possible under the Federal Rules, there is little profit in attempting to decide, for example, whether there are any "principled" differences between pendent and ancillary jurisdiction; or, if there are, what effect had on such differences. Since it is upon ' language that the lower federal courts have relied in extending the kind of pendent-party jurisdiction urged by petitioner here, we think the better approach is to determine what did and did not
|
Justice Rehnquist
| 1,976 | 19 |
majority
|
Aldinger v. Howard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109503/aldinger-v-howard/
|
better approach is to determine what did and did not decide, and to identify what we deem are important differences between the jurisdiction sustained in and that asserted here. and its lineal ancestor, Osborn, were couched in terms of Art. III's grant of judicial power in "Cases arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and [its] Treaties," since they (and implicitly the cases which linked them) represented inquiries into the scope of Art. III jurisdiction in litigation where the "common nucleus of operative fact" gave rise to non-federal questions or claims between the parties. None of them posed the need for a further inquiry into the underlying statutory grant of federal jurisdiction or a flexible analysis of concepts such as "question," "claim," and "cause of action," because Congress had not addressed itself by statute to this matter. In short, Congress had said nothing about the scope of the word "Cases" in Art. III which would offer guidance on the *14 kind of elusive question addressed in Osborn and : whether and to what extent jurisdiction extended to a parallel state claim against the existing federal defendant. Thus, it was perfectly consistent with Art. III, and the particular grant of subject-matter jurisdiction upon which the federal claim against the defendant in those cases was grounded, to require that defendant to answer as well to a second claim deriving from the "common nucleus" of fact, though it be of state-law vintage. This would not be an "unfair" use of federal power by the suing party, he already having placed the defendant properly in federal court for a substantial federal cause of action. Judicial economy would also be served because the plaintiff's claims were "such that he would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding" 383 U. S., The situation with respect to the joining of a new party, however, strikes us as being both factually and legally different from the situation facing the Court in and its predecessors. From a purely factual point of view, it is one thing to authorize two parties, already present in federal court by virtue of a case over which the court has jurisdiction, to litigate in addition to their federal claim a state-law claim over which there is no independent basis of federal jurisdiction. But it is quite another thing to permit a plaintiff, who has asserted a claim against one defendant with respect to which there is federal jurisdiction, to join an entirely different defendant on the basis of a state-law claim over which there is no independent
|
Justice Rehnquist
| 1,976 | 19 |
majority
|
Aldinger v. Howard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109503/aldinger-v-howard/
|
of a state-law claim over which there is no independent basis of federal jurisdiction, simply because his claim against the first defendant and his claim against the second defendant "derive from a common nucleus of operative fact." True, the same considerations of judicial economy would be served *15 insofar as plaintiff's claims "are such that he would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding" But the addition of a completely new party would run counter to the well-established principle that federal courts, as opposed to state trial courts of general jurisdiction, are courts of limited jurisdiction marked out by Congress. We think there is much sense in the observation of Judge Sobeloff, writing for the Court of Appeals in Kenrose Mfg. : "The value of efficiency in the disposition of law-suits by avoiding multiplicity may be readily conceded, but that is not the only consideration a federal court should take into account in assessing the presence or absence of jurisdiction. Especially is this true where, as here, the efficiency plaintiff seeks so avidly is available without question in the state courts." There is also a significant legal difference. In Osborn and Congress was silent on the extent to which the defendant, already properly in federal court under a statute, might be called upon to answer nonfederal questions or claims; the way was thus left open for the Court to fashion its own rules under the general language of Art. III. But the extension of to this kind of "pendent party" jurisdictionbringing in an additional defendant at the behest of the plaintiffpresents rather different statutory jurisdictional considerations. Petitioner's contention that she should be entitled to sue Spokane County as a new third party, and then to try a wholly state-law claim against the county, all of which would be "pendent" to her federal claim against respondent county treasurer, must be decided, not in the context of congressional silence or tacit encouragement, but in *16 quite the opposite context. The question here, which it was not necessary to address in or Osborn, is whether by virtue of the statutory grant of subject-matter jurisdiction, upon which petitioner's principal claim against the treasurer rests, Congress has addressed itself to the party as to whom jurisdiction pendent to the principal claim is sought. And it undoubtedly has done so. III Congress has in specific terms conferred Art. III jurisdiction on the district courts to decide actions brought to redress deprivations of civil rights. Under the opening language of 1343,[9] those courts "shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action authorized by
|
Justice Rehnquist
| 1,976 | 19 |
majority
|
Aldinger v. Howard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109503/aldinger-v-howard/
|
"shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action authorized by law to be commenced by any person" (emphasis added). The civil rights action set out in 1983[10] is, of course, included within the jurisdictional grant of subsection (3) of 1343. Yet petitioner does not, and indeed could not, contest the fact that as to 1983, counties are excluded from the "person[s]" answerable to the plaintiff "in an action at law [or] suit in equity" to redress the enumerated deprivations.[11] Petitioner must necessarily argue that in spite of the language emphasized above Congress left it open for the federal courts to fashion a jurisdictional doctrine under the general language of Art. III enabling them to circumvent this exclusion, as long as the civil rights action and the state-law claim arise from a "common nucleus of operative fact." But the question whether jurisdiction over the instant lawsuit extends not only to a related state-law claim, but to the defendant against whom that claim is made, turns initially, not on the general *17 contours of the language in Art. III, i. e., "Cases arising under," but upon the deductions which may be drawn from congressional statutes as to whether Congress wanted to grant this sort of jurisdiction to federal courts. Parties such as counties, whom Congress excluded from liability in 1983, and therefore by reference in the grant of jurisdiction under 1343 (3), can argue with a great deal of force that the scope of that "civil action" over which the district courts have been given statutory jurisdiction should not be so broadly read as to bring them back within that power merely because the facts also give rise to an ordinary civil action against them under state law. In short, as against a plaintiff's claim of additional power over a "pendent party," the reach of the statute conferring jurisdiction should be construed in light of the scope of the cause of action as to which federal judicial power has been extended by Congress. Resolution of a claim of pendent-party jurisdiction, therefore, calls for careful attention to the relevant statutory language. As we have indicated, we think a fair reading of the language used in 1343, together with the scope of 1983, requires a holding that the joinder of a municipal corporation, like the county here, for purposes of asserting a state-law claim not within federal diversity jurisdiction, is without the statutory jurisdiction of the district court.[12] *18 There are, of course, many variations in the language which Congress has employed to confer jurisdiction upon the federal courts, and we decide here only
|
Justice Rehnquist
| 1,976 | 19 |
majority
|
Aldinger v. Howard
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109503/aldinger-v-howard/
|
jurisdiction upon the federal courts, and we decide here only the issue of so-called "pendent party" jurisdiction with respect to a claim brought under 1343 (3) and 1983. Other statutory grants and other alignments of parties and claims might call for a different result. When the grant of jurisdiction to a federal court is exclusive, for example, as in the prosecution of tort claims against the United States under 28 U.S. C. 1346, the argument of judicial economy and convenience can be coupled with the additional argument that only in a federal court may all of the claims be tried together.[13] As we indicated at the outset of this opinion, the question of pendent-party jurisdiction is "subtle and complex," and we believe that it would be as unwise as it would be unnecessary to lay down any sweeping pronouncement upon the existence or exercise of such jurisdiction. Two observations suffice for the disposition of the type of case before us. If the new party sought to be joined is not otherwise subject to federal jurisdiction, there is a more serious obstacle to the exercise of pendent jurisdiction than if parties already before the court are required to litigate a state-law Before it can be concluded that such jurisdiction exists, a federal court must satisfy itself not only that Art. III permits it, but that Congress in the statutes conferring jurisdiction has not expressly or by implication negated its existence. *19 We conclude that in this case Congress has by implication declined to extend federal jurisdiction over a party such as Spokane County. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is therefore Affirmed. MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL and MR.
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
dissenting
|
Department of Air Force v. Rose
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109431/department-of-air-force-v-rose/
|
If "hard cases make bad law," unusual cases surely have the potential to make even worse law. Today, on the basis of a highly unusual request for information about a unique governmental process, a military academy honor system, the Court interprets definitively a substantial and very significant part of a major federal statute governing the balance between the public's "right to know" and the privacy of the individual citizen. In my view, the Court makes this case carry too much jurisprudential baggage. Consequently, the basic congressional intent to protect a reasonable balance between the availability of information in the custody of the Government and the particular individual's right of privacy is undermined. In addition, district courts are burdened with a task Congress could not have intended for them. (1) This case does not compel us to decide whether the summaries at issue here are "personnel files" or whether files so categorized are beyond the proviso of Exemption 6 that disclosure constitute "a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." Even assuming, arguendo, that the Government must show that the summaries are subject to the foregoing standard, it is quite *383 clear, in my view, that the disclosure of the material at issue here constitutes such an invasion, no matter what excision process is attempted by a federal judge. The Court correctly notes that Congress, in enacting Exemption 6, intended to strike "a proper balance between the protection of the individual's right of privacy and the preservation of the public's right to Government information by excluding those kinds of files the disclosure of which might harm the individual." H. R. Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 11 (1966). Having acknowledged the necessity of such a balance, however, the Court, in my view, blandly ignores and thereby frustrates the congressional intent by refusing to weigh, realistically, the grave consequences implicit in release of this particular information, in any form, against the relatively inconsequential claim of "need" for the material alleged in the complaint. The opinions of this Court have long recognized the opprobrium which both the civilian and the military segments of our society attribute to allegations of dishonor among commissioned officers of our Armed Forces. See, e. g., quoting The stigma which our society imposes on the individual who has accepted such a position of trust[1] and abused it is not erasable, in any realistic sense, by the passage of time *384 or even by subsequent exemplary conduct. The absence of the broken sword, the torn epaulets, and the Rogue's March from our military ritual does not lessen the indelibility of
|
Justice Burger
| 1,976 | 12 |
dissenting
|
Department of Air Force v. Rose
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109431/department-of-air-force-v-rose/
|
from our military ritual does not lessen the indelibility of the stigma. Significantly, cadets and midshipmen "inchoate officers"[2]have traditionally been held to the same high standards and subjected to the same stigma as commissioned officers when involved in matters with overtones of dishonor.[3] Indeed, the mode of punitive separation as the result of court-martial is the same for both officers and cadetsdismissal. United States v. Ellman, 9 U.S. C. M. A. 549, 26 Cow. M. R. 329 (1958). Moreover, as the Court of Appeals noted, it is unrealistic to conclude, in most cases, that a finding of "not guilty" or "discretion" exonerates the cadet in anything other than the purely technical and legal sense of the term. Admittedly, the Court requires that, before release, these documents be subject to in camera inspection with power of excising parts. But, as the Court admits, any such attempt to "sanitize" these summaries would still leave the very distinct possibility that the individual would still be identifiable and thereby injured. In light of Congress' recent manifest concern in the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S. C. 552a (1970 ed., Supp. V), for "governmental respect for the privacy of citizens" S. Rep. No. 93-1183, p. 1 it is indeed difficult to attribute to Congress a willingness to subject an individual citizen to the risk of possible severe damage to his reputation simply to permit law students to invade individual privacy to prepare a law journal article. Its definition of a "clearly unwarranted invasion of personal *385 privacy" as equated with "protect[ing] an individual's private affairs from unnecessary public scrutiny" S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 9 (1965) (emphasis supplied), would otherwise be rendered meaningless. (2) Moreover, excision would not only be ineffectual in accomplishing the legislative intent of protecting an individual's affairs from unnecessary public scrutiny, but it would place an intolerable burden upon a district court which, in my view, Congress never intended to inflict. Although the 1974 amendments to the Freedom of Information Act require that "[a]ny reasonably segregable portion of a record" 5 U.S. C. 552 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. V), otherwise exempt, be provided, there is nothing in the legislative history of the original Act or its amendments which would require a district court to construct, in effect, a new document. Yet, the excision process mandated here could only require such a sweeping reconstruction of the material that the end product would constitute an entirely new document. No provision of the Freedom of Information Act contemplates a federal district judge acting as a "rewrite editor" of the original material.
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
Vaccine manufacturers have long been subject to a legal duty, rooted in basic principles of products liability law, to improve the designs of their vaccines in light of advances in science and technology. Until today, that duty was enforceable through a traditional state-law tort action for defective design. In holding that of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of (Vaccine Act or Act), 42 U.S. C. pre-empts all design defect claims for injuries stemming from vaccines covered under the Act, the Court imposes its own bare policy preference over the considered judgment of Congress. In doing so, the Court excises 13 words from the statutory text, mis construes the Act’s legislative history, and disturbs the careful balance Congress struck between compensating vaccine-injured children and stabilizing the childhood vaccine market. Its decision leaves a regulatory vacuum in which no one ensures that vaccine manufacturers ade quately take account of scientific and technological ad vancements when designing or distributing their products. Because nothing in the text, structure, or legislative his tory of the Vaccine Act remotely suggests that Congress intended such a result, I respectfully dissent. 2 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting I A Section 22 of the Vaccine Act provides “[s]tandards of responsibility” to govern civil actions against vaccine manufacturers. 42 U.S. C. Section 22(a) sets forth the “[g]eneral rule” that “State law shall apply to a civil action brought for damages for a vaccine-related injury or death.” This baseline rule that state law applies is subject to three narrow exceptions, one of which, is at issue in this case. Section 22(b)(1) provides: “No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil ac tion for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vac cine after October 1, if the injury or death re sulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.” The provision contains two key clauses: “if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable” (the “if ” clause), and “even though the vaccine was prop erly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings” (the “even though” clause). Blackletter products liability law generally recognizes three different types of product defects: design defects, manufacturing defects, and labeling defects (e.g., failure to warn).1 The reference in the “even though” clause to a “properly prepared” vaccine “accompanied by proper direc tions and warnings” is an obvious reference to two such defects—manufacturing and labeling defects. The plain terms of the “even though” clause thus indicate that
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
plain terms of the “even though” clause thus indicate that —————— 1 W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts 69 Cite as: 62 U. S. (2011) 3 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting applies only where neither kind of defect is pre sent. Because is invoked by vaccine manufactur ers as a defense to tort liability, it follows that the “even though” clause requires a vaccine manufacturer in each civil action to demonstrate that its vaccine is free from manufacturing and labeling defects to fall within the liability exemption of2 Given that the “even though” clause requires the ab sence of manufacturing and labeling defects, the “if ” clause’s reference to “side effects that were unavoidable” must refer to side effects caused by something other than manufacturing and labeling defects. The only remaining kind of product defect recognized under traditional prod ucts liability law is a design defect. Thus, “side effects that were unavoidable” must refer to side effects caused by a vaccine’s design that were “unavoidable.” Because uses the conditional term “if,” moreover, the text plainly implies that some side effects stemming from a vaccine’s design are “unavoidable,” while others are avoid able. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1124 (2002) (“if ” means “in the event that,” “so long as,” or “on condition that”). Accordingly, because the “if ” clause (like the “even though” clause) sets forth a condition to invoke ’s defense to tort liability, Congress must also have intended a vaccine manufacturer to demonstrate in each civil action that the particular side effects of a vaccine’s design were “unavoidable.” Congress’ use of conditional “if” clauses in two other provisions of the Vaccine Act supports the conclusion that requires an inquiry in each case in which a manufacturer seeks to invoke the provision’s exception to —————— 2 See ; Brown v. Earthboard Sports USA, Inc., )). 4 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting state tort liability. In Congress created a pre sumption that, for purposes of “a vaccine shall be presumed to be accompanied by proper directions and warnings if the vaccine manufacturer shows that it com plied in all material respects with” federal labeling re quirements. 42 U.S. C. Similarly, in Congress created an exemption from punitive damages “[i]f the manufacturer shows that it complied, in all material respects,” with applicable federal laws, unless it engages in “fraud,” “intentional and wrongful withholding of information” from federal regulators, or “other criminal or illegal activity.” It would be highly anomalous for Congress to use a condi tional “if ” clause in
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
Congress to use a condi tional “if ” clause in and 23(d)(2) to require a specific inquiry in each case while using the same condi tional “if ” clause in to denote a categorical ex emption from liability. Cf. (“[A] legislative body generally uses a particular word with a consistent meaning in a given context”). Indeed, when Congress intends to pre-empt design defect claims categorically, it does so using categorical (e.g., “all”) and/or declarative language (e.g., “shall”), rather than a conditional term (“if ”). For example, in a related context, Congress has authorized the Secretary of Health and Human Services to designate a vaccine designed to prevent a pandemic or epidemic as a “covered countermeasure.” 42 U.S. C. (i)(1), (i)(7)(A)(i). With respect to such “covered countermea sure[s],” Congress provided that subject to certain excep tions, “a covered person shall be immune from suit and liability under Federal and State law with respect to all claims for loss caused by, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from the administration to or the use by an individual of a covered countermeasure,” (emphasis added), including specifically claims relating to Cite as: 62 U. S. (2011) SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting “the design” of the countermeasure, The plain text and structure of the Vaccine Act thus compel the conclusion that pre-empts some—but not all—design defect claims. Contrary to the majority’s and respondent’s categorical reading, petitioners correctly contend that, where a plaintiff has proved that she has suffered an injury resulting from a side effect caused by a vaccine’s design, a vaccine manufacturer may invoke ’s liability exemption only if it demonstrates that the side effect stemming from the particular vaccine’s design is “unavoidable,” and that the vaccine is otherwise free from manufacturing and labeling defects.3 B The legislative history confirms petitioners’ interpreta tion of and sheds further light on its pre-emptive scope. The House Energy and Commerce Committee Report accompanying the Vaccine Act, H. R. Rep. No. 99– 908, pt. 1 (hereinafter Report), explains in relevant part: “Subsection (b)—Unavoidable Adverse Side Effects; Direct Warnings.—This provision sets forth the prin ciple contained in Comment K of Section A of the Restatement of Torts (Second) that a vaccine manu facturer should not be liable for injuries or deaths re sulting from unavoidable side effects even though the vaccine was properly prepared and accompanied by proper directions and warnings. “The Committee has set forth Comment K in this bill because it intends that the principle in Comment K regarding ‘unavoidably unsafe’ products, i.e., those products which in the present state of human skill and knowledge cannot be made
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
present state of human skill and knowledge cannot be made safe, apply to the vac —————— 3 This leaves the question of what precisely means by “un avoidable” side effects, which I address in the next section. 6 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting cines covered in the bill and that such products not be the subject of liability in the tort system.” at 2– 26. The Report expressly adopts comment k of of the Restatement of Torts (Second) (1963–1964) (hereinafter Restatement), which provides that “unavoidably unsafe” products—i.e., those that “in the present state of human knowledge, are quite incapable of being made safe for their intended and ordinary use”—are not defective.4 As “[a]n outstanding example” of an “[u]navoidably unsafe” product, comment k cites “the vaccine for the Pasteur treatment of rabies, which not uncommonly leads to very serious and damaging consequences when it is injected”; —————— 4 Comment k provides as follows: “Unavoidably unsafe products. There are some products which, in the present state of human knowledge, are quite incapable of being made safe for their intended and ordinary use. These are especially common in the field of drugs. An outstanding example is the vaccine for the Pasteur treatment of rabies, which not uncommonly leads to very serious and damaging consequences when it is injected. Since the disease itself invariably leads to a dreadful death, both the marketing and the use of the vaccine are fully justified, notwithstanding the unavoidable high degree of risk which they involve. Such a product, properly prepared, and accompanied by proper directions and warning, is not defective, nor is it unreasonably dangerous. The same is true of many other drugs, vaccines, and the like, many of which for this very reason cannot legally be sold except to physicians, or under the pre scription of a physician. It is also true in particular of many new or experimental drugs as to which, because of lack of time and opportunity for sufficient medical experience, there can be no assurance of safety, or perhaps even of purity of ingredients, but such experience as there is justifies the marketing and use of the drug notwithstanding a medically recognizable risk. The seller of such products, again with the qualifica tion that they are properly prepared and marketed, and proper warning is given, where the situation calls for it, is not to be held to strict liability for unfortunate consequences attending their use, merely because he has undertaken to supply the public with an apparently useful and desirable product, attended with a known but apparently reasonable risk.” Restatement 33–34.
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
attended with a known but apparently reasonable risk.” Restatement 33–34. Cite as: 62 U. S. (2011) 7 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting “[s]ince the disease itself invariably leads to a dreadful death, both the marketing and the use of the vaccine are fully justified, notwithstanding the unavoidable high degree of risk which they involve.” Comment k thus provides that “seller[s]” of “[u]navoidably unsafe” products are “not to be held to strict liability” provided that such products “are properly prepared and marketed, and proper warning is given.” As the Report explains, Congress intended that the “principle in Comment K regarding ‘unavoidably unsafe’ products” apply to the vaccines covered in the bill. Report 26. That intent, in turn, is manifested in the plain text of —in particular, Congress’ use of the word “unavoidable,” as well as the phrases “properly prepared” and “accompanied by proper directions and warnings,” which were taken nearly verbatim from comment k. 42 U.S. C. see Restatement 33–34 (“Such a[n unavoidably unsafe] product, properly prepared, and accompanied by proper directions and warning, is not defective”). By the time of the Vaccine Act’s enactment in numerous state and federal courts had interpreted comment k to mean that a product is “unavoidably unsafe” when, given proper manufacture and labeling, no feasible alternative design would reduce the safety risks without compromising the product’s cost and utility. Given Con —————— See, e.g., Smith ex rel. (“[A] prescription drug is not ‘unavoidably unsafe’ when its dangers can be eliminated through design changes that do not unduly affect its cost or utility”); 464 (198) (“unavoidability” turns on “(i) whether the product was designed to minimize—to the extent scientifically knowable at the time it was distributed—the risk inherent in the product, and (ii) the avail ability of any alternative product that would have as effectively accomplished the full intended purpose of the subject product”), disap proved in part by ; Belle Bonfils Memorial Blood 8 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting gress’ expressed intent to codify the “principle in Comment K,” Report 26, the term “unavoidable” in is best understood as a term of art, which incorporates the commonly understood meaning of “unavoidably unsafe” products under comment k at the time of the Act’s enact ment in See McDermott Int’l, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U.S. 337, 342 (1991) (“[W]e assume that when a statute uses a term [of art], Congress intended it to have its established meaning”); Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 263 (192) (same).6 Similarly, courts applying —————— 122 (Colo. 1983) (“[A]pplicability of comment k depends upon the co existence of several factors,” including
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
k depends upon the co existence of several factors,” including that “the product’s benefits must not be achievable in another manner; and the risk must be unavoidable under the present state of knowledge”); see also 1 L. Frumer & M. Friedman, Products Liability pp. 8–277 to 8–278 (2010) (comment k applies “only to defects in design,” and there “must be no feasible alternative design which on balance accomplishes the subject product’s purpose with a lesser risk” (internal quotation marks omit ted)). To be sure, a number of courts at the time of the Vaccine Act’s enactment had interpreted comment k to preclude design defect claims categorically for certain kinds of products, see Hill v. Searle Labs., 884 F.2d 1064, 1068 (CA8 1989) (collecting cases), but as indicated by the sources cited above, the courts that had construed comment k to apply on a case-specific basis generally agreed on the basic elements of what constituted an “unavoidably unsafe” product. See also n. 8, infra. The majority’s suggestion that “judges who must rule on motions to dismiss, motions for summary judgment, and motions for judgment as a matter of law” are incapable of adjudicating claims alleging “unavoidable” side effects, ante, –8, n. 3, is thus belied by the experience of the many courts that had adjudicated such claims for years by the time of the Vaccine Act’s enactment. 6 The majority refuses to recognize that “unavoidable” is a term of art derived from comment k, suggesting that “ ‘[u]navoidable’ is hardly a rarely used word.” Ante, at 10. In fact, however, “unavoidable” is an extremely rare word in the relevant context. It appears exactly once (i.e., in in the entirety of Title 42 of the U. S. Code (“Public Health and Welfare”), which governs, inter alia, Social Secu rity, see 42 U.S. C. et seq., Medicare, see et seq., and several other of the Federal Government’s largest entitlement programs. The singular rarity in which Congress used the term supports the conclu Cite as: 62 U. S. (2011) 9 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting comment k had long required manufacturers invoking the defense to demonstrate that their products were not only “unavoidably unsafe” but also properly manufactured and labeled.7 By requiring “prope[r] prepar[ation]” and “proper directions and warnings” in Congress plainly intended to incorporate these additional comment k requirements. The Report thus confirms petitioners’ interpreta tion of The Report makes clear that “side effects that were unavoidable” in refers to side effects stemming from a vaccine’s design that were “unavoidable.” By explaining what Congress meant by the term “un avoidable,” moreover, the Report also confirms
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
by the term “un avoidable,” moreover, the Report also confirms that whether a side effect is “unavoidable” for purposes of involves a specific inquiry in each case as to whether the vaccine “in the present state of human skill and knowledge cannot be made safe,” Report 26—i.e., whether a feasible alternative design existed that would have eliminated the adverse side effects of the vaccine without compromising its cost and utility. See Brief for Kenneth W. Starr et al. as Amici Curiae 14–1 (“If a par ticular plaintiff could show that her injury at issue was avoidable through the use of a feasible alternative design for a specific vaccine, then she would satisfy the plain language of the statute, because she would have demonstrated that the side effects were not unavoidable”). Finally, the Report confirms that the “even though” clause is properly read to establish two additional prerequisites— proper manufacturing and proper labeling—to qualify for —————— sion that “unavoidable” is a term of art. 7 See, e.g., (CA1 1981); (CA7 1981); ; ; Feldman v. Lederle Labs., 97 N. J. 429, 448, ; see also 10 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting ’s liability exemption.8 In addition to the Report, one other piece of the Act’s legislative history provides further confirmation of the petitioners’ textual reading of When Con gress enacted the Vaccine Act in it did not initially include a source of payment for the no-fault compensation program the Act established. The Act thus “made the compensation program and accompanying tort reforms contingent on the enactment of a tax to provide funding —————— 8 Respondent suggests an alternative reading of the Report. According to respondent, “the principle in Comment K” is simply that of nonliability for “unavoidably unsafe” products, and thus Congress’ stated intent in the Report to apply the “principle in Comment K” to “the vaccines covered in the bill” means that Congress viewed the covered vaccines as a class to be “ ‘unavoidably unsafe.’ ” Report 2–26; Brief for Respondent 42. The concurrence makes a similar argument. Ante, at 1–2 (opinion of BREYER, J.). This interpretation finds some support in the Report, which states that “if [injured individuals] cannot demonstrate under applicable law either that a vaccine was improperly prepared or that it was accompanied by im proper directions or inadequate warnings [they] should pursue recom pense in the compensation system, not the tort system.” Report 26. It also finds some support in the pre-Vaccine Act case law, which reflected considerable disagreement in the courts over “whether com ment k applies to pharmaceutical products across the board
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
com ment k applies to pharmaceutical products across the board or only on a case-by-case basis.” Ausness, Unavoidably Unsafe Products and Strict Products Liability: What Liability Rule Should be Applied to the Sellers of Pharmaceutical Products? 78 Ky. L. J. 70, 708, and n. 11 (collecting cases). This interpretation, however, is under mined by the fact that Congress has never directed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or any other federal agency to review vaccines for optimal vaccine design, see infra, at 20–22, and n. 19, and thus it seems highly unlikely that Congress intended to eliminate the tradi tional mechanism for such review (i.e., design defect liability), particu larly given its express retention of state tort law in the Vaccine Act, see 42 U.S. C. In any event, to the extent there is ambiguity as to how precisely Congress intended the “principle in Comment K” to apply to the covered vaccines, that ambiguity is explicitly resolved in petitioners’ favor by the House Energy and Commerce Committee Report, H. R. Rep. No. 100–391, pt. 1, pp. 690–691 (hereinafter Report). See infra this page and 11–12. Cite as: 62 U. S. (2011) 11 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting for the compensation.” Report 690. In Con gress passed legislation to fund the compensation pro gram. The House Energy and Commerce Committee Report9 accompanying that legislation specifically stated that “the codification of Comment (k) of The Restatement (Second) of Torts was not intended to decide as a matter of law the circumstances in which a vaccine should be deemed unavoidably unsafe.” The Committee noted that “[a]n amendment to establish that a manu facturer’s failure to develop [a] safer vaccine was not grounds for liability was rejected by the Committee during its original consideration of the Act.” In light of that rejection, the Committee emphasized that “there should be no misunderstanding that the Act undertook to decide as a matter of law whether vaccines were unavoidably unsafe or not,” and that “[t]his question is left to the courts to determine in accordance with applicable law.” To be sure, postenactment legislative history created by a subsequent Congress is ordinarily a hazardous basis from which to infer the intent of the enacting Congress. See (SCALIA, J., concurring in part). But unlike ordinary postenactment legislative history, which is justifiably given little or no weight, the Report reflects the intent of the Congress that enacted the funding legislation necessary to give operative effect to the principal provi sions of the Vaccine Act, including10 Congress in —————— 9 The Third Circuit’s opinion below expressed uncertainty as to whether the Report was
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
opinion below expressed uncertainty as to whether the Report was authored by the House Budget Commit tee or the House Energy and Commerce Committee. See 20 (2009). As petitioners explain, although the Budget Committee compiled and issued the Report, the Energy and Commerce Committee wrote and approved the relevant language. Title IV of the Report, entitled “Committee on Energy and Commerce,” comprises “two Com mittee Prints approved by the Committee on Energy and Commerce for inclusion in the forthcoming reconciliation bill.” Report 377, 380. 10 The majority suggests that the legislation creating the fund 12 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting had a number of options before it, including adopting an entirely different compensation scheme, as the Reagan administration was proposing;11 establishing different limitations on tort liability, including eliminating design defect liability, as pharmaceutical industry leaders were advocating;12 or not funding the compensation program at all, which would have effectively nullified the relevant portions of the Act. Because the tort reforms in the Act, including had no operative legal effect unless and until Congress provided funding for the com pensation program, the views of the Congress that enacted that funding legislation are a proper and, indeed, authori tative guide to the meaning of Those views, as reflected in the Report, provide unequivocal confir —————— ing mechanism is akin to appropriations legislation and that giving weight to the legislative history of such legislation “would set a danger ous precedent.” Ante, at 18. The difference, of course, is that appro priations legislation ordinarily funds congressional enactments that already have operative legal effect; in contrast, operation of the tort reforms in the Act, including was expressly conditioned on the enactment of a separate tax to fund the compensation program. See Accordingly, this Court’s general reluc tance to view appropriations legislation as modifying substantive legislation, see, e.g., has no bearing here. 11 See Report 700 (describing the administration’s alternative proposal). 12 See, e.g., Hearings on Funding of the Childhood Vaccine Program before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures of the House Committee on Ways and Means, 100th Cong., 1st Sess., 8 (“[T]he liability provisions of the Act should be amended to assure that manufacturers will not be found liable in the tort system if they have fully complied with applicable government regulations. In par ticular, manufacturers should not face liability under a ‘design defect’ theory in cases where plaintiffs challenge the decisions of public health authorities and federal regulators that the licensed vaccines are the best available way to protect children from deadly diseases” (statement of Robert B. Johnson, President, Lederle Laboratories Division,
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
diseases” (statement of Robert B. Johnson, President, Lederle Laboratories Division, Ameri can Cyanamid Co.)). Cite as: 62 U. S. (2011) 13 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting mation of petitioners’ reading of In sum, the text, structure, and legislative history of the Vaccine Act are fully consistent with petitioners’ reading of Accordingly, I believe exempts vaccine manufacturers from tort liability only upon a showing by the manufacturer in each case that the vaccine was properly manufactured and labeled, and that the side effects stemming from the vaccine’s design could not have been prevented by a feasible alternative design that would have eliminated the adverse side effects without compro mising the vaccine’s cost and utility. II In contrast to the interpretation of set forth above, the majority’s interpretation does considerable vio lence to the statutory text, misconstrues the legislative history, and draws the wrong conclusions from the struc ture of the Vaccine Act and the broader federal scheme regulating vaccines. A As a textual matter, the majority’s interpretation of is fundamentally flawed in three central re spects. First, the majority’s categorical reading rests on a faulty and untenable premise. Second, its reading func tionally excises 13 words from the statutory text, including the key term “unavoidable.” And third, the majority en tirely ignores the Vaccine Act’s default rule preserving state tort law. To begin, the majority states that “[a] side effect of a vaccine could always have been avoidable by use of a differently designed vaccine not containing the harmful element.” Ante, From that premise, the majority concludes that the statute must mean that “the design of the vaccine is a given, not subject to question in the tort action,” because construing the statute otherwise would 14 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting render a nullity. A tort claimant, accord ing to the majority, will always be able to point to a differ ently designed vaccine not containing the “harmful ele ment,” and if that were sufficient to show that a vaccine’s side effects were not “unavoidable,” the statute would pre empt nothing. The starting premise of the majority’s interpretation, however, is fatally flawed. Although in the most literal sense, as the majority notes, a side effect can always be avoided “by use of a differently designed vaccine not con taining the harmful element,” ib this interpretation of “unavoidable” would effectively read the term out of the statute, and Congress could not have intended that result. Indeed, specifically uses the conditional phrase “if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable,” which plainly indicates that Congress con templated that there
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
unavoidable,” which plainly indicates that Congress con templated that there would be some instances in which a vaccine’s side effects are “unavoidable” and other in stances in which they are not. See The major ity’s premise that a vaccine’s side effects can always be “avoid[ed] by use of a differently designed vaccine not containing the harmful element,” ante, entirely ig nores the fact that removing the “harmful element” will often result in a less effective (or entirely ineffective) vaccine. A vaccine, by its nature, ordinarily employs a killed or weakened form of a bacteria or virus to stimulate antibody production;13 removing that bacteria or virus might remove the “harmful element,” but it would also necessarily render the vaccine inert. As explained above, the legislative history of the Vaccine Act and the cases interpreting comment k make clear that a side effect is —————— 13 SeeAmerican Academy of Pediatrics, Questions and Answers about Vaccine Ingredients http://www.aap.org/immunization/ families/faq/Vaccineingredients.pdf (all Internet materials as visited Feb. 18, 2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). Cite as: 62 U. S. (2011) 1 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting “unavoidable” for purposes of only where there is no feasible alternative design that would eliminate the side effect of the vaccine without compromising its cost and utility. See The majority’s premise—that side effects stemming from a vaccine’s design are always avoidable—is thus belied by the statutory text and legisla tive history of And because its starting premise is invalid, its conclusion—that the design of a vaccine is not subject to challenge in a tort action—is also necessar ily invalid. The majority’s reading suffers from an even more fun damental defect. If Congress intended to exempt vaccine manufacturers categorically from all design defect liabil ity, it more logically would have provided: “No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1, if the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.” There would have been no need for Congress to include the additional 13 words “the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though.” See TRW (noting “cardinal principle of statutory construction that a statute ought, upon the whole, to be so construed that, if it can be prevented, no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant” (internal quotation marks omitted)). In 44 U.S. 4 this Court considered an analogous situation where an express pre-emption provision stated that certain States “ ‘shall not impose or continue in effect any
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
States “ ‘shall not impose or continue in effect any requirements for labeling or packaging in addition to or different from those required under this subchapter.’ ” (quot ing 7 U.S. C. (2000 ed.)). The Court stated: 16 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting “Conspicuously absent from the submissions by [re spondent] and the United States is any plausible al ternative interpretation of ‘in addition to or different from’ that would give that phrase meaning. Instead, they appear to favor reading those words out of the statute, which would leave the following: ‘Such State shall not impose or continue in effect any require ments for labeling or packaging.’ This amputated version of [the statute] would no doubt have clearly and succinctly commanded the pre-emption of all state requirements concerning labeling. That Con gress added the remainder of the provision is evidence of its intent to draw a distinction between state label ing requirements that are pre-empted and those that are not.” –. As with the statutory interpretation rejected by this Court in the majority’s interpretation of func tionally excises 13 words out of the statute, including the key term “unavoidable.” See Duncan v. Walker, 33 U.S. 167, 174 (“We are especially unwilling” to treat a statutory term as surplusage “when the term occupies so pivotal a place in the statutory scheme”). Although the resulting “amputated version” of the statutory provision “would no doubt have clearly and succinctly commanded the pre-emption of all state” design defect claims, the fact “[t]hat Congress added the remainder of the provision” is strong evidence of its intent not to pre-empt design defect claims categorically. ; see also American Home Prods. 284 Ga. (“ ‘If Congress had intended to deprive injured parties of a long available form of compen sation, it surely would have expressed that intent more clearly’ ” (quoting )), cert. pending, No. 08–1120. Strikingly, the majority concedes that its interpretation Cite as: 62 U. S. (2011) 17 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting renders 13 words of the statute entirely superfluous. See ante, at 12 (“The intervening passage (‘the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though’) is unnecessary. True enough”). Nevertheless, the majority contends that “the rule against giving a portion of text an interpretation which renders it superfluous applies only if verbosity and prolixity can be eliminated by giving the offending passage, or the remainder of the text, a competing interpretation.” According to the major ity, petitioners’ reading of renders the “even though” clause superfluous because, to reach petitioners’ desired outcome, “[i]t would suffice to say ‘if the injury
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
desired outcome, “[i]t would suffice to say ‘if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable’— full stop.” As explained above, however, the “even though” clause establishes two additional prerequisites— proper manufacturing and proper labeling—to qualify for ’s exemption from liability. Contrary to the ma jority’s contention, then, the “even though” clause serves an important function by limiting the scope of the pre emption afforded by the preceding “if ” clause.14 The majority’s only other textual argument is based on —————— 14 In this manner, the “even though” clause functions in a “concessive subordinat[ing]” fashion, ante, at 11, in accord with normal grammati cal usage. According to the majority, however, the “even though” clause “clarifies the word that precedes it” by “delineat[ing]” the conditions that make a side effect “unavoidable” under the statute. Ante, The majority’s interpretation hardly treats the clause as “concessive,” and indeed strains the meaning of “even though.” In the majority’s view, proper manufacturing and labeling are the sole prerequisites that render a vaccine’s side effects unavoidable. Thus, an injurious side effect is unavoidable because the vaccine was properly prepared and labeled, not “even though” it was. The two conjunctions are not equiva lent: The sentence “I am happy even though it is raining” can hardly be read to mean that “I am happy because it is raining.” In any event, the more fundamental point is that petitioners’ interpretation actually gives meaning to the words “even though,” whereas the majority concedes that its interpretation effectively reads those words entirely out of the statute. See this page. 18 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting the expressio unius, exclusio alterius canon. According to the majority, because blackletter products liability law generally recognizes three different types of product de fects, “[i]f all three were intended to be preserved, it would be strange [for Congress] to mention specifically only two”—namely, manufacturing and labeling defects in the “even though” clause—“and leave the third to implication.” Ante, at 8. The majority’s argument, however, ignores that the default rule under the Vaccine Act is that state law is preserved. As explained above, expressly provides that the “[g]eneral rule” is that “State law shall apply to a civil action brought for damages for a vaccine related injury or death.” 42 U.S. C. Be cause already preserves state-law design defect claims (to the extent the exemption in does not apply), there was no need for Congress separately and expressly to preserve design defect claims in Indeed, Congress’ principal aim in enacting was not to preserve manufacturing and labeling claims (those, too, were
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
not to preserve manufacturing and labeling claims (those, too, were already preserved by ), but rather, to federalize comment k-type protection for “unavoidably unsafe” vaccines. The “even though” clause simply func tions to limit the applicability of that defense. The lack of express language in specifically preserving de sign defect claims thus cannot fairly be understood as impliedly (and categorically) pre-empting such traditional state tort claims, which had already been preserved by1 —————— 1 This Court, moreover, has long operated on “the assumption that the historic police powers of the States are not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Con gress.” Altria Group, Inc. v. Good, U. S. (slip op., at ) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). Given the long history of state regulation of vaccines, see Brief for Petitioners 3–6, the presumption provides an additional reason not to read as pre empting all design defect claims, especially given Congress’ inclusion of Cite as: 62 U. S. (2011) 19 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting The majority also suggests that if Congress wished to preserve design defect claims, it could have simply pro vided that manufacturers would be liable for “defective manufacture, defective directions or warning, and defec tive design.” Ante, at 8 (internal quotation marks omit ted). Putting aside the fact that already preserves design defect claims (to the extent does not ap ply), the majority’s proposed solution would not have fully effectuated Congress’ intent. As the legislative history makes clear, Congress used the term “unavoidable” to effectuate its intent that the “principle in Comment K regarding ‘unavoidably unsafe’ products apply to the vaccines covered in the bill.” Report 26; see also Report 691. At the time of the Vaccine Act’s enact ment in at least one State had expressly rejected comment k,16 while many others had not addressed the applicability of comment k specifically to vaccines or ap plied comment k to civil actions proceeding on a theory other than strict liability (e.g., negligence17). A statute —————— an express saving clause in the same statutory section, see 42 U.S. C. and its use of the conditional “if” clause in defining the pre-emptive scope of the provision. See 44 U.S. 4, (“In areas of traditional state regulation, we assume that a federal statute has not supplanted state law unless Congress has made such an intention clear and manifest” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 16 See 2 (“We conclude that the rule embodied in comment k is too restrictive and, therefore, not commensurate with strict products liability law in Wisconsin”). Collins did, however,
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
with strict products liability law in Wisconsin”). Collins did, however, “recognize that in some exigent circumstances it may be necessary to place a drug on the market before adequate testing can be done.” It thus adopted a narrower defense (based on “exigent circumstances”) than that recog nized in other jurisdictions that had expressly adopted comment k. 17 See, e.g., 172 Cal. App. 3d, at 8, n. 1, 218 Cal. Rptr., at 46, n. 1 (“[T]he unavoidably dangerous product doctrine merely exempts the product from a strict liability design defect analysis; a plaintiff remains free to pursue his design defect theory on the basis of 20 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting that simply stated that vaccine manufacturers would be liable for “defective design” would be silent as to the avail ability of a comment k-type defense for “unavoidably unsafe” vaccines, and thus would not have fully achieved Congress’ aim of extending greater liability protection to vaccine manufacturers by providing comment k-type protection in all civil actions as a matter of federal law. B The majority’s structural arguments fare no better than its textual ones. The principal thrust of the majority’s position is that, since nothing in the Vaccine Act or the FDA’s regulations governing vaccines expressly mentions design defects, Congress must have intended to remove issues concerning the design of FDA-licensed vaccines from the tort system. Ante, at 13. The flaw in that rea soning, of course, is that the FDA’s silence on design de fects existed long before the Vaccine Act was enacted. Indeed, the majority itself concedes that the “FDA has never even spelled out in regulations the criteria it uses to decide whether a vaccine is safe and effective for its in tended use.”18 And yet it is undisputed that prior to the Act, vaccine manufacturers had long been subject to liability under state tort law for defective vaccine design. That the Vaccine Act did not itself set forth a comprehen sive regulatory scheme with respect to design defects is thus best understood to mean not that Congress suddenly decided to change course sub silentio and pre-empt a —————— negligence”); 112 Idaho, 40, 732 P. 2d, 09–0 (“The authorities universally agree that where a product is deemed unavoid ably unsafe, the plaintiff is deprived of the advantage of a strict liabil ity cause of action, but may proceed under a negligence cause of ac tion”). 18 See 42 U.S. C. (“The Secretary shall approve a biologics license application on the basis of a demonstration that the biological product that is the subject of the application is
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,011 | 24 |
dissenting
|
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205203/bruesewitz-v-wyeth-llc/
|
biological product that is the subject of the application is safe, pure, and potent”). Cite as: 62 U. S. (2011) 21 SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting longstanding, traditional category of state tort law, but rather, that Congress intended to leave the status quo alone (except, of course, with respect to those aspects of state tort law that the Act expressly altered). See Report 691 (“It is not the Committee’s intention to pre clude court actions under applicable law. The Commit tee’s intent at the time of considering the Act was to leave otherwise applicable law unaffected, except as expressly altered by the Act”). The majority also suggests that Congress necessarily intended to pre-empt design defect claims since the aim of such tort suits is to promote the development of improved designs and provide compensation for injured individuals, and the Vaccine Act “provides other means for achieving both effects”—most notably through the no-fault compen sation program and the National Vaccine Program. Ante, at 14, and nn. 7–60 (citing 42 U.S. C. 300aa– 2(a)(1)–(3), 300aa–3, 300aa–2(b), 300aa–27(a)(1)). But the majority’s position elides a significant difference be tween state tort law and the federal regulatory scheme. Although the Vaccine Act charges the Secretary of Health and Human Services with the obligation to “promote the development of childhood vaccines” and “make or assure improvements in vaccines, and research on vaccines,” neither the Act nor any other provision of federal law places a legal duty on vaccine manufacturers to improve the design of their vaccines to account for scientific and technological advances. Indeed, the FDA does not condition approval of a vaccine on it being the most optimally designed among reasonably available alternatives, nor does it (or any other federal entity) en sure that licensed vaccines keep pace with technological and scientific advances.19 Rather, the function of ensuring —————— 19 See, e.g., (“[T]he FDA is a passive agency: it considers whether to approve 22 BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting that vaccines are optimally designed in light of existing science and technology has traditionally been left to the States through the imposition of damages for design de fects. Cf. (“ ‘[T]he specter of dam age actions may provide manufacturers with added dy namic incentives to continue to keep abreast of all possible injuries stemming from use of their product[s] so as to forestall such actions through product improvement’ ”); Wyeth v. Levine, U. S. (2009) (slip op., at 22– —————— vaccine designs only if and when manufacturers come forward with a proposal”); (“[T]he agency takes the drugs and manufacturers as it finds them. While its goal
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.