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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
MR. Justice Rehnquist
announced the judgment of the Court, and delivered an opinion in which The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice White join.
In July 1958, petitioner loaned the sum of $15 million to a predecessor of respondent. The loan was secured by a pledge of United States Government bonds. The loan was renewed the following year, and in 1960 $5 million was repaid, the $10 million balance was renewed for one year, and collateral equal to the value of the portion repaid was released by petitioner.
Meanwhile, on January 1, 1959, the Castro government came to power in Cuba. On September 16, 1960, the Cuban militia, allegedly pursuant to decrees of the Castro government, seized all of the branches of petitioner located in Cuba. A week later the bank retaliated by selling the collateral securing the loan, and applying the proceeds of the sale to repayment of the principal and unpaid interest. Petitioner concedes that an excess of at least $1.8 million over and above principal and unpaid interest was realized from the sale of the collateral. Respondent sued petitioner in the Federal District Court to recover this excess, and petitioner, by way of setoff and counterclaim, asserted the right to recover damages as a result of the expropriation of its property in Cuba.
The District Court recognized that our decision in Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U. S. 398 (1964), holding that generally the courts of one nation will not sit in judgment on the acts of another nation within its own territory would bar the assertion of the counterclaim, but it further held that congressional enactments since the decision in Sabbatino had “for all practical purposes” overruled that case. Following summary judgment in favor of the petitioner in the District Court on all issues except the amount by which the proceeds of the sale of collateral exceeded the amount that could properly be applied to the loan by petitioner, the parties stipulated that in any event this difference was less than the damages that petitioner could prove in support of its expropriation claim if that claim were allowed. Petitioner then waived any recovery on its counterclaim over and above the amount recoverable by respondent on its complaint, and the District Court then rendered judgment dismissing respondent’s complaint on the merits.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the congressional enactments relied upon by the District Court did not govern this case, and that our decision in Sabbatino barred the assertion of petitioner’s counterclaim. We granted cer-tiorari and vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals for consideration of the views of the Department of State which had been furnished to us following the filing of the petition for certiorari. 400 U. S. 1019 (1971). Upon reconsideration, the Court of Appeals by a divided vote adhered to its earlier decision. We again granted certiorari. 404 U. S. 820 (1971).
We must here decide whether, in view of the substantial difference between the position taken in this case by the Executive Branch and that which it took in Sabbatino, the act of state doctrine prevents petitioner from litigating its counterclaim on the merits. We hold that it does not.
The separate lines of cases enunciating both the act of state and sovereign immunity doctrines have a common source in the case of The Schooner Exchange v. M’Faddon, 7 Cranch 116, 146 (1812). There Chief Justice Marshall stated the general principle of sovereign immunity: sovereigns are not presumed without explicit declaration to have opened their tribunals to suits against other sovereigns. Yet the policy considerations at the root of this fundamental principle are in large part also the underpinnings of the act of state doctrine. The Chief Justice observed:
“The arguments in favor of this opinion which have been drawn from the general inability of the judicial power to enforce its decisions in cases of this description, from the consideration, that the sovereign power of the nation is alone competent to avenge wrongs committed by a sovereign, that the questions to which such wrongs give birth are rather questions of policy than of law, that they are for diplomatic, rather than legal discussion, are of great weight, and merit serious attention.” (Emphasis added.)
Thus, both the act of state and sovereign immunity doctrines are judicially created to effectuate general notions of comity among nations and among the respective branches of the Federal Government. The history and the legal basis of the act of state doctrine are treated comprehensively in the Court’s opinion in Sabbatino, supra. The Court there cited Chief Justice Fuller’s “classic American statement” of the doctrine, found in Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U. S. 250, 252 (1897):
“Every sovereign State is bound to respect the independence of every other sovereign State, and the courts of one country will not sit in judgment on the acts of the government of another done within its own territory. Redress of grievances by reason of such acts must be obtained through the means open to be availed of by sovereign powers as between themselves.”
The act of state doctrine represents an exception to the general rule that a court of the United States, where appropriate jurisdictional standards are met, will decide cases before it by choosing the rules appropriate for decision from among various sources of law including international law. The Paquete Habana, 175 U. S. 677 (1900). The doctrine precludes any review whatever of the acts of the government of one sovereign State done within its own territory by the courts of another sovereign State. It is clear, however, from both history and the opinions of this Court that the doctrine is not an inflexible one. Specifically, the Court in Sabbatino described the act of state doctrine as “a principle of decision binding on federal and state courts alike but compelled by neither international law nor the Constitution,” 376 U. S., at 427, and then continued:
“[I]ts continuing vitality depends on its capacity to reflect the proper distribution of functions between the judicial and political branches of the Government on matters bearing upon foreign affairs.” Id., at 427-428.
In Sabbatino, the Executive Branch of this Government, speaking through the Department of State, advised attorneys for amici in a vein which the Court described as being “intended to reflect no more than the Department’s then wish not to make any statement bearing on this litigation.” Id., at 420. The United States argued before this Court in Sabbatino that the Court should not “hold, for the first time, that executive silence regarding the act of state doctrine is equivalent to executive approval of judicial inquiry into the foreign act.”
In the case now' before us, the Executive Branch has taken a quite different position. The Legal Adviser of the Department of State advised this Court on November 17, 1970, that as a matter of principle where the Executive publicly advises the Court that the act of state doctrine need not be applied, the Court should proceed to examine the legal issues raised by the act of a foreign sovereign within its own territory as it would any other legal question before it. His letter refers to the decision of the court below in Bernstein v. N. V. NederlandscheAmerikaansche, 210 F. 2d 375 (CA2 1954), as representing a judicial recognition of such a principle, and suggests that the applicability of the principle was not limited to the Bernstein case. The Legal Adviser’s letter then goes on to state:
“The Department of State believes that the act of state doctrine should not be applied to bar consideration of a defendant’s counterclaim or set-off against the Government of Cuba in this or like cases.”
The question that we must now decide is whether the so-called Bernstein exception to the act of state doctrine should be recognized in the context of the facts before the Court. In Sabbatino, the Court said:
“This Court has never had occasion to pass upon the so-called Bernstein exception, nor need it do so now.” 376 U. S., at 420.
The act of state doctrine, like the doctrine of immunity for foreign sovereigns, has its roots, not in the Constitution, but in the notion of comity between independent sovereigns. Sabbatino, supra, at 438; National City Bank v. Republic of China, 348 U. S. 356 (1955); The Schooner Exchange v. M’Faddon, 7 Cranch 116 (1812). It is also buttressed by judicial deference to the exclusive power of the Executive over conduct of relations with other sovereign powers and the power of the Senate to advise and consent on the making of treaties. The issues presented by its invocation are therefore quite dissimilar to those raised in Zschernig v. Miller, 389 U. S. 429 (1968), where the Court struck down an Oregon statute that was held to be “an intrusion by the State into the field of foreign affairs which the Constitution entrusts to the President and the Congress.” Id., at 432.
The line of cases from this Court establishing the act of state doctrine justifies its existence primarily on the basis that juridical review of acts of state of a foreign power could embarrass the conduct of foreign relations by the political branches of the government. The Court’s opinion in Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U. S. 250 (1897), stressed the fact that the revolutionary government of Venezuela had been recognized by the United States.
In Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U. S. 297, 302 (1918), the Court was explicit:
“The conduct of the foreign relations of our Government is committed by the Constitution to the Executive and Legislative — 'the political’ — Departments of the Government, and the propriety of what may be done in the exercise of this political power is not subject to judicial inquiry or decision. ... It has been specifically decided that 'Who is the sovereign, de jure or de facto, of a territory is not a judicial, but is a political question, the determination of which by the legislative and executive departments of any government conclusively binds the judges, as well as all other officers, citizens and subjects of that government. . . .’ ”
United States v. Belmont, 301 U. S. 324 (1937), is another case that emphasized the exclusive competence of the Executive Branch in the field of foreign affairs. A year earlier, the Court in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., 299 U. S. 304, 319 (1936), had quoted with approval the statement of John Marshall when he was a member of the House of Representatives dealing with this same subject:
“ ‘The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations.’ ”
The opinion of Scrutton, L. J., in Luther v. James Sagor & Co., [1921] 3 K. B. 532, described in Sabbatino as a “classic case” articulating the act of state doctrine “in terms not unlike those of the United States cases,” strongly suggests that under the English doctrine the Executive by representation to the courts may waive the application of the doctrine:
“But it appears a serious breach of international comity, if a state is recognized as a sovereign independent state, to postulate that its legislation is 'contrary to essential principles of justice and morality.’ Such an allegation might well with a susceptible foreign government become a casus belli; and should in my view be the action of the Sovereign through his ministers, and not of the judges in reference to a state which their Sovereign has recognized. . . . The responsibility for recognition or nonrecognition with the consequences of each rests on the political advisers of the Sovereign and not on the judges.” Id., at 559.
We think that the examination of the foregoing cases indicates that this Court has recognized the primacy of the Executive in the conduct of foreign relations quite as emphatically as it has recognized the act of state doctrine. The Court in Sabbatino throughout its opinion emphasized the lead role of the Executive in foreign policy, particularly in seeking redress for American nationals who had been the victims of foreign expropriation, and concluded that any exception to the act of state doctrine based on a mere silence or neutrality on the part of the Executive might well lead to a conflict between the Executive and Judicial Branches. Here, however, the Executive Branch has expressly stated that an inflexible application of the act of state doctrine by this Court would not serve the interests of American foreign policy.
The act of state doctrine is grounded on judicial concern that application of customary principles of law to judge the acts of a foreign sovereign might frustrate the conduct of foreign relations by the political branches of the government. We conclude that where the Executive Branch, charged as it is with primary responsibility for the conduct of foreign affairs, expressly represents to the Court that application of the act of state doctrine would not advance the interests of American foreign policy, that doctrine should not be applied by the courts. In so doing, we of course adopt and approve the so-called Bernstein exception to the act of state doctrine. We believe this to be no more than an application of the classical common-law maxim that “[t]he reason of the law ceasing, the law itself also ceases” (Black’s Law Dictionary 288 (4th ed. 1951)).
Our holding is in no sense an abdication of the judicial function to the Executive Branch. The judicial power of the United States extends to this case, and the jurisdictional standards established by Congress for adjudication by the federal courts have been met by the parties. The only reason for not deciding the case by use of otherwise applicable legal principles would be the fear that legal interpretation by the judiciary of the act of a foreign sovereign within its own territory might frustrate the conduct of this country’s foreign relations. But the branch of the government responsible for the conduct of those foreign relations has advised us that such a consequence need not be feared in this case. The judiciary is therefore free to decide the case without the limitations that would otherwise be imposed upon it by the judicially created act of state doctrine.
It bears noting that the result we reach is consonant with the principles of equity set forth by the Court in National City Bank v. Republic of China, 348 U. S. 356 (1955). Here respondent, claimed by petitioner to be an instrument of the government of Cuba, has sought to come into our courts and secure an adjudication in its favor, without submitting to decision on the merits of the counterclaim which petitioner asserts against it. Speaking of a closely analogous situation in Republic of China, supra, the Court said:
“We have a foreign government invoking our law but resisting a claim against it which fairly would curtail its recovery. It wants our law, like any other litigant, but it wants our law free from the claims of justice. It becomes vital, therefore, to examine the extent to which the considerations which led this Court to bar a suit against a sovereign in The Schooner Exchange are applicable here to foreclose a court from determining, according to prevailing law, whether the Republic of China’s claim against the National City Bank would be unjustly enforced by disregarding legitimate claims against the Republic of China. As expounded in The Schooner Exchange, the doctrine is one of implied consent by the territorial sovereign to exempt the foreign sovereign from its 'exclusive and absolute’ jurisdiction, the implication deriving from standards of public morality, fair dealing, reciprocal self-interest, and respect for the ‘power and dignity’ of the foreign sovereign.” Id., at 361-362.
The act of state doctrine, as reflected in the cases culminating in Sabbatino, is a judicially accepted limitation on the normal adjudicative processes of the courts, springing from the thoroughly sound principle that on occasion individual litigants may have to forgo decision on the merits of their claims because the involvement of the courts in such a decision might frustrate the conduct of the Nation’s foreign policy. It would be wholly illogical to insist that such a rule, fashioned because of fear that adjudication would interfere with the conduct of foreign relations, be applied in the face of an assurance from that branch of the Federal Government that conducts foreign relations that such a result would not obtain. Our holding confines the courts to adjudication of the case before them, and leaves to the Executive Branch the conduct of foreign relations. In so doing, it is both faithful to the principle of separation of powers and consistent with earlier cases applying the act of state doctrine where we lacked the sort of representation from the Executive Branch that we have in this case.
We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and remand the case to it for consideration of respondent’s alternative bases of attack on the judgment of the District Court.
Reversed and remanded.
In the latter case, speaking of sovereign immunity, Chief Justice Marshall said:
“It seems then to the Court, to be a principle of public law, that national ships of war, entering the port of a friendy power open for their reception, are to be considered as exempted by the consent of that power from its jurisdiction.
“Without doubt, the sovereign of the place is capable of destroying this implication. He may claim and exercise jurisdiction either by employing force, or by subjecting such vessels to the ordinary tribunals. But until such power be exerted in a manner not to be misunderstood, the sovereign cannot be considered as having imparted to the ordinary tribunals a jurisdiction, which it would be a breach of faith to exercise.” 7 Cranch, at 145-146.
“Governmental power over external affairs is not distributed, but is vested exclusively in the national government. And in respect of what was done here, the Executive had authority to speak as the sole organ of that government." 301 U. S., at 330.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether the custodian of corporate records may resist a subpoena for such records on the ground that the act of production would incriminate him in violation of the Fifth Amendment. We conclude that he may not.
From 1965 to 1980, petitioner Randy Braswell operated his business — which comprises the sale and purchase of equipment, land, timber, and oil and gas interests — as a sole proprietorship. In 1980, he incorporated Worldwide Machinery Sales, Inc., a Mississippi corporation, and began conducting the business through that entity. In 1981, he formed a second Mississippi corporation, Worldwide Purchasing, Inc., and funded that corporation with the 100 percent interest he held in Worldwide Machinery. Petitioner was and is the sole shareholder of Worldwide Purchasing, Inc.
Both companies are active corporations, maintaining their current status with the State of Mississippi, filing corporate tax returns, and keeping current corporate books and records. In compliance with Mississippi law, both corporations have three directors, petitioner, his wife, and his mother. Although his wife and mother are secretary-treasurer and vice-president of the corporations, respectively, neither has any authority over the business affairs of either corporation.
In August 1986, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena to “Randy Braswell, President Worldwide Machinery Sales, Inc. [and] Worldwide Purchasing, Inc.,” App. 6, requiring petitioner to produce the books and records of the two corporations. The subpoena provided that petitioner could deliver the records to the agent serving the subpoena, and did not require petitioner to testify. Petitioner moved to quash the subpoena, arguing that the act of producing the records would incriminate him in violation of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The District Court denied the motion to quash, ruling that the “collective entity doctrine” prevented petitioner from asserting that his act of producing the corporations’ records was protected by the Fifth Amendment. The court rejected petitioner's argument that the collective entity doctrine does not apply when a corporation is so small that it constitutes nothing more than the individual’s alter ego.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, citing Bellis v. United States, 417 U. S. 85, 88 (1974), for the proposition that a corporation’s records custodian may not claim a Fifth Amendment privilege no matter how small the corporation may be. The Court of Appeals declared that Bellis retained vitality following United States v. Doe, 465 U. S. 605 (1984), and therefore, “Braswell, as custodian of corporate documents, has no act of production privilege under the fifth amendment regarding corporate documents.” In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 814 F. 2d 190, 193 (1987). We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals. 484 U. S. 814 (1987). We now affirm.
There is no question but that the contents of the subpoenaed business records are not privileged. See Doe, supra; Fisher v. United States, 425 U. S. 391 (1976). Similarly, petitioner asserts no self-incrimination claim on behalf of the corporations; it is well established that such artificial entities are not protected by the Fifth Amendment. Bellis, supra. Petitioner instead relies solely upon the argument that his act of producing the documents has independent testimonial significance, which would incriminate him individually, and that the Fifth Amendment prohibits Government compulsion of that act. The bases for this argument are extrapolated from the decisions of this Court in Fisher, supra, and Doe, supra.
In Fisher, the Court was presented with the question whether an attorney may resist a subpoena demanding that he produce tax records which had been entrusted to him by his client. The records in question had been prepared by the client’s accountants. In analyzing the Fifth Amendment claim forwarded by the attorney, the Court considered whether the client-taxpayer would have had a valid Fifth Amendment claim had he retained the records and the subpoena been issued to him. After explaining that the Fifth Amendment prohibits “compelling a person to give ‘testimony’ that incriminates him,” 425 U. S., at 409, the Court rejected the argument that the contents of the records were protected. The Court, however, went on to observe:
“The act of producing evidence in response to a subpoena nevertheless has communicative aspects of its own, wholly aside from the contents of the papers produced. Compliance with the subpoena tacitly concedes the existence of the papers demanded and their possession or control by the taxpayer. It also would indicate the taxpayer’s belief that the papers are those described in the subpoena. Curcio v. United States, 354 U. S. 118, 125 (1957). The elements of compulsion are clearly present, but the more difficult issues are whether the tacit averments of the taxpayer aré both ‘testimonial’ and ‘incriminating’ for purposes of applying the Fifth Amendment. These questions perhaps do not lend themselves to categorical answers; their resolution may instead depend on the facts and circumstances of particular cases or classes thereof.” Id., at 410.
The Court concluded that under the “facts and circumstances” there presented, the act of producing the accountants’ papers would not “involve testimonial self-incrimination.” Id., at 411.
Eight years later, in United States v. Doe, supra, the Court revisited the question, this time in the context of a claim by a sole proprietor that the compelled production of business records would run afoul of the Fifth Amendment. After rejecting the contention that the contents of the records were themselves protected, the Court proceeded to address whether respondent’s act of producing the records would constitute protected testimonial incrimination. The Court concluded that respondent had established a valid Fifth Amendment claim. It deferred to the lower courts, which had found that enforcing the subpoenas at issue would provide the Government valuable information: By producing the records, respondent would admit that the records existed, were in his possession, and were authentic. 465 U. S., at 613, n. 11.
Had petitioner conducted his business as a sole proprietorship, Doe would require that he be provided the opportunity to show that his act of production would entail testimonial self-incrimination. But petitioner has operated his business through the corporate form, and we have long recognized that, for purposes of the Fifth Amendment, corporations and other collective entities are treated differently from individuals. This doctrine — known as the collective entity rule— has a lengthy and distinguished pedigree.
The rule was first articulated by the Court in the case of Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43 (1906). Hale, a corporate officer, had been served with a subpoena ordering him to produce corporate records and to testify concerning certain corporate transactions. Although Hale was protected by personal immunity, he sought to resist the demand for the records by interposing a Fifth Amendment privilege on behalf of the corporation. The Court rejected that argument: “[W]e are of the opinion that there is a clear distinction... between an individual and a corporation, and... the latter has no right to refuse to submit its books and papers for an examination at the suit of the State.” Id., at 74. The Court explained that the corporation “is a creature of the State,” ibid., with powers limited by the State. As such, the State may, in the exercise of its right to oversee the corporation, demand the production of corporate records. Id., at 75.
The ruling in Hale represented a limitation on the prior holding in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616 (1886), which involved a court order directing partners to produce an invoice received by the partnership. The partners had produced the invoice, but steadfastly maintained that the court order ran afoul of the Fifth Amendment. This Court agreed. After concluding that the order transgressed the Fourth Amendment, the Court declared: “[A] compulsory production of the private books and papers of the owner of goods sought to be forfeited... is compelling him to be a witness against himself, within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution....” Id., at 634-635 (emphasis added). Hale carved an exception out of Boyd by establishing that corporate books and records are not “private papers” protected by the Fifth Amendment.
Although Hale settled that a corporation has no Fifth Amendment privilege, the Court did not address whether a corporate officer could resist a subpoena for corporate records by invoking his personal privilege — Hale had been protected by immunity. In Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361 (1911), the Court answered that question in the negative. There, a grand jury investigating Wilson had issued a subpoena to a corporation demanding the production of corporate letterpress copybooks, which Wilson, the corporation’s president, possessed. Wilson refused to produce the books, arguing that, the Fifth Amendment prohibited compulsory production of personally incriminating books that he held and controlled. The Court rejected this argument, observing first that the records sought were not private or personal, but rather belonged to the corporation. The Court continued:
“[Wilson] held the corporate books subject to the corporate duty. If the corporation were guilty of misconduct, he could not withhold its books to save it; and if he were implicated in the violations of law, he could not withhold the books to protect himself from the effect of their disclosures. The [State’s] reserved power of visitation would seriously be embarrassed, if not wholly defeated in its effective exercise, if guilty officers could refuse inspection of the records and papers of the corporation. No personal privilege to which they are entitled requires such a conclusion.... [T]he visitatorial power which exists with respect to the corporation of necessity reaches the corporate books without regard to the conduct of the custodian.” Id., at 384-385.
“... When [Wilson] became president of the corporation and as such held and used its books for the transaction of its business committed to his charge, he was at all times subject to its direction, and the books continuously remained under its control. If another took his place his custody would yield. He could assert no personal right to retain the corporate books against any demand of government which the corporation was bound to recognize.” Id., at 385.
In a companion case, Dreier v. United States, 221 U. S. 394 (1911), the Court applied the holding in Wilson to a Fifth Amendment attack on a subpoena addressed to the corporate custodian. Although the subpoena in Wilson had been addressed to the corporation, the Court found the distinction irrelevant: “Dreier was not entitled to refuse the production of the corporate records. By virtue of the fact that they were the documents of the corporation in his custody, and not his private papers, he was under the obligation to produce them when called for by proper process.” 221 U. S., at 400.
The next significant step in the development of the collective entity rule occurred in United States v. White, 322 U. S. 694 (1944), in which the Court held that a labor union is a collective entity unprotected by the Fifth Amendment. There, a grand jury had issued a subpoena addressed to a union requiring the production of certain ünion records. White, an assistant supervisor of the union, appeared before the grand jury and declined to produce the documents “‘upon the ground that they might tend to incriminate [the union], myself as an officer thereof, or individually.’” Id., at 696.
We upheld an order of contempt against White, reasoning first that the Fifth Amendment privilege applies only to natural individuals and protects only private papers. Representatives of a “collective group” act as agents “[a]nd the official records and documents of the organization that are held by them in a representative rather than in a personal capacity cannot be the subject of the personal privilege against self-incrimination, even though production of the papers might tend to incriminate them personally.” Id., at 699. With this principle in mind, the Court turned to whether a union is a collective group:
“The test... is whether one can fairly say under all the circumstances that a particular type of organization has a character so impersonal in the scope of its membership and activities that it cannot be said to embody or represent the purely private or personal interests of its constituents, but rather to embody their common or group interests only. If so, the privilege cannot be invoked on behalf of the organization or its representatives in their official capacity. Labor unions — national or local, incorporated or unincorporated — clearly meet that test.” Id., at 701
In applying the collective entity rule to unincorporated associations such as unions, the Court jettisoned reliance on the visitatorial powers of the State over corporations owing their existence to the State — one of the bases for earlier decisions. See id., at 700-701.
The frontiers of the collective entity rule were expanded even further in Bellis v. United States, 417 U. S. 85 (1974), in which the Court ruled that a partner in a small partnership could not properly refuse to produce partnership records. Beilis, one of the members of a three-person law firm that had previously been dissolved, was served with a subpoena directing him to produce partnership records he possessed. The District Court held Beilis in contempt when he refused to produce the partnership’s financial books and records. We upheld the contempt order. After rehearsing prior precedent involving corporations and unincorporated associations, the Court examined the partnership form and observed that it had many of the incidents found relevant in prior collective entity decisions. The Court suggested that the test articulated in White, supra, for determining the applicability of the Fifth Amendment to organizations was “not particularly helpful in the broad range of cases.” 417 U. S., at 100. The Court rejected the notion that the “formulation in White can be reduced to a simple proposition based solely upon the size of the organization. It is well settled that no privilege can be claimed by the custodian of corporate records, regardless of how small the corporation may be.” Ibid. Beilis held the partnership’s financial records in “a representative capacity,” id., at 101, and therefore, “his personal privilege against compulsory self-incrimination is inapplicable.” Ibid.
The plain mandate of these decisions is that without regard to whether the subpoena is addressed to the corporation, or as here, to the individual in his capacity as a custodian, see Dreier, supra; Bellis, supra, a corporate custodian such as petitioner may not resist a subpoena for corporate records on Fifth Amendment grounds. Petitioner argues, however, that this rule falls in the wake of Fisher v. United States, 425 U. S. 391 (1976), and United States v. Doe, 465 U. S. 605 (1984). In essence, petitioner’s argument is as follows: In response to Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616 (1886), with its privacy rationale shielding personal books and records, the Court developed the collective entity rule, which declares simply that corporate records are not private and therefore are not protected by the Fifth Amendment. The collective entity decisions were concerned with the contents of the documents subpoenaed, however, and not with the act of production. In Fisher and Doe, the Court moved away from the privacy-based collective entity rule, replacing it with a compelled-testimony standard under which the contents of business documents are never privileged but the act of producing the documents may be. Under this new regime, the act of production privilege is available without regard to the entity whose records are being sought. See In re Grand Jury Matter (Brown), 768 F. 2d 525, 528 (CA3 1985) (en banc) (“[Fisher and Doe] make the significant factor, for the privilege against self-incrimination, neither the nature of entity which owns the documents, nor the contents of documents, but rather the communicative or noncommunicative nature of the arguably incriminating disclosures sought to be compelled”).
To be sure, the holding in Fisher — later reaffirmed in Doe-embarked upon a new course of Fifth Amendment analysis. See Fisher, supra, at 409. We cannot agree, however, that it rendered the collective entity rule obsolete. The agency rationale undergirding the collective entity decisions, in which custodians asserted that production of entity records would incriminate them personally, survives. From Wilson forward, the Court has consistently recognized that the custodian of corporate or entity records holds those documents in a representative rather than a personal capacity. Artificial entities such as corporations may act only through their agents, Bellis, supra, at 90, and a custodian’s assumption of his representative capacity leads to certain obligations, including the duty to produce corporate records on proper demand by the Government. Under those circumstances, the custodian’s act of production is not deemed a personal act, but rather an act of the corporation. Any claim of Fifth Amendment privilege asserted by the agent would be tantamount to a claim of privilege by the corporation — which of course possesses no such privilege.
The Wilson Court declared: “[B]y virtue of their character and the rules of law applicable to them, the books and papers are held subject to examination by the demanding authority, the custodian has no privilege to refuse production although their contents tend to criminate him. In assuming their custody he has accepted the incident obligation to permit inspection.” 221 U. S., at 382. “Nothing more is demanded than that the appellant should perform the obligations pertaining to his custody and should produce the books which he holds in his official capacity in accordance with the requirements of the subpoena.” Id., at 386.
This theme was echoed in White:
“But individuals, when acting as representatives of a collective group, cannot be said to be exercising their personal rights and duties nor to be entitled to their purely personal privileges. Rather they assume the rights, duties and privileges of the artificial entity or association of which they are agents or officers and they are bound by its obligations. In their official capacity, therefore, they have no privilege against self-incrimination. And the official records and documents of the organization that are held by them in a representative rather than in a personal capacity cannot be the subject of the personal privilege against self-incrimination, even though production of the papers might tend to incriminate them personally.” 322 U. S., at 699.
In Dreier, 221 U. S. 394 (1911), and Bellis, 417 U. S. 85 (1974), the subpoenas were addressed to the custodians and demanded that they produce the records sought. In both eases, the custodian’s act of producing the documents would “tacitly admi[t] their existence and their location in the hands of their possessor,” Fisher, supra, at 411-412. Nevertheless, the Court rejected the Fifth Amendment claims advanced by the custodians. Although the Court did not focus on the testimonial aspect of the act of production, we do not think such a focus would have affected the results reached. “It is well settled that no privilege can be claimed by the custodian of corporate records....” Bellis, supra, at 100.
Indeed, the opinion in Fisher — upon which petitioner places primary reliance — indicates that the custodian of corporate records may not interpose a Fifth Amendment objection to the compelled production of corporate records, even though the act of production may prove personally incriminating. The Fisher Court cited the collective entity decisions with approval and offered those decisions to support the conclusion that the production of the accountant’s workpapers would “not... involve testimonial self-incrimination.” 425 U. S., at 411. The Court observed: “This Court has... time and again allowed subpoenas against the custodian of corporate documents or those belonging to other collective entities such as unions and partnerships and those of bankrupt businesses over claims that the documents will incriminate the custodian despite the fact that producing the documents tacitly admits their existence and their location in the hands of their possessor.” Id., at 411-412. The Court later noted that “in Wilson, Dreier, White, Bellis, and In re Harris, [221 U. S. 274 (1911)], the custodian of corporate, union, or partnership books or those of a bankrupt business was ordered to respond to a subpoena for the business’ books even though doing so involved a ‘representation that the documents produced are those demanded by the subpoena,’ Curcio v. United States, 354 U. S., at 125.” Id., at 413 (citations omitted). In a footnote, the Court explained: “In these cases compliance with the subpoena is required even though the books have been kept by the person subpoenaed and his producing them would itself be sufficient authentication to permit their introduction against him.” Id., at 413, n. 14. The Court thus reaffirmed the obligation of a corporate custodian to comply with a subpoena addressed to him.
That point was reiterated by Justice Brennan in his concurrence in Fisher. Id., at 429 (concurring in judgment). Although Justice Brennan disagreed with the majority as to its use of the collective entity cases to support the proposition that the act of production is not testimonial, he nonetheless acknowledged that a custodian may not resist a subpoena on the ground that the act of production would be incriminating. “Nothing in the language of [the collective entity] cases, either expressly or impliedly, indicates that the act of production with respect to the records of business entities is insufficiently testimonial for purposes of the Fifth Amendment. At most, those issues, though considered, were disposed of on the ground, not that production was insufficiently testimonial, but that one in control of the records of an artificial organization undertakes an obligation with respect to those records foreclosing any exercise of his privilege.” Id., at 429-430; see also id., at 430, n. 9. Thus, whether one concludes — as did the Court — that a custodian’s production of corporate records is deemed not to constitute testimonial self-incrimination, or instead that a custodian waives the right to exercise the privilege, the lesson of Fisher is clear: A custodian may not resist a subpoena for corporate records on Fifth Amendment grounds.
Petitioner also attempts to extract support for his contention from Curcio v. United States, 354 U. S. 118 (1957). But rather than bolstering petitioner’s argument, we think Curcio substantiates the Government’s position. Curcio had been served with two subpoenas addressed to him in his capacity as secretary-treasurer of a local union, which was under investigation. One subpoena required that he produce union books, the other that he testify. Curcio appeared before the grand jury, stated that the books were not in his possession, and refused to answer any questions as to their whereabouts. Curcio was held in contempt for refusing to answer the questions propounded. We reversed the contempt citation, rejecting the Government’s argument “that the representative duty which required the production of union records in the White case requires the giving of oral testimony by the custodian.” Id., at 123.
Petitioner asserts that our Curcio decision stands for the proposition that although the contents of a collective entity’s records are unprivileged, a representative of a collective entity cannot be required to provide testimony about those records. It follows, according to petitioner, that because Fisher recognizes that the act of production is potentially testimonial, such an act may not be compelled if it would tend to incriminate the representative personally. We find this reading of Curdo flawed.
The Curdo Court made clear that with respect to a custodian of a collective entity’s records, the line drawn was between oral testimony and other forms of incrimination. “A custodian, by assuming the duties of his office, undertakes the obligation to produce the books of which he is custodian in response to a rightful exercise of the State’s visitorial powers. But he cannot lawfully be compelled, in the absence of a grant of adequate immunity from prosecution, to condemn himself by his own oral testimony.” 354 U. S., at 123-124 (emphasis added).
In distinguishing those cases in which a corporate officer was required to produce corporate records and merely identify them by oral testimony, the Court showed that it understood the testimonial nature of the act of production: “The custodian’s act of producing books or records in response to a subpoena duces tecum is itself a representation that the documents produced are those demanded by the subpoena. Requiring the custodian to identify or authenticate the documents for admission in evidence merely makes explicit what is implicit in the production itself.” Id., at 125. In the face of this recognition, the Court nonetheless noted: “In this case petitioner might have been proceeded against for his failure to produce the records demanded by the subpoena duces tecum" Id., at 127, n. 7. As Justice Brennan later observed in his concurrence in Fisher: “The Court in Curdo, however, apparently did not note any self-incrimination problem [with the testimonial significance of the act of production] because of the undertaking by the custodian with respect to the documents.” 425 U. S., at 430, n. 9.
We note further that recognizing a Fifth Amendment privilege on behalf of the records custodians of collective entities would have a detrimental impact on the Government’s efforts to prosecute “white-collar crime,” one of the most serious problems confronting law enforcement authorities. “The greater portion of evidence of wrongdoing by an organization or its representatives is usually found in the official records and documents of that organization. Were the cloak of the privilege to be thrown around these impersonal records and documents, effective enforcement of many federal and state laws would be impossible.” White, 322 U. S., at 700. If custodians could assert a privilege, authorities would be stymied not only in their enforcement efforts against those individuals but also in their prosecutions of organizations. In Beilis, the Court observed: “In view of the inescapable fact that an artificial entity can only act to produce its records through its individual officers or agents, recognition of the individual's claim of privilege with respect to the financial records of the organization would substantially undermine the unchallenged rule that the organization itself is not entitled to claim any Fifth Amendment privilege, and largely frustrate legitimate governmental regulation of such organizations.” 417 U. S., at 90.
Petitioner suggests, however, that these concerns can be minimized by the simple expedient of either granting the custodian statutory immunity as to the act of production, 18 U. S. C. §§6002, 6003, or addressing the subpoena to the corporation and allowing it to chose an agent to produce the records who can do so without incriminating himself. We think neither proposal satisfactorily addresses these concerns. Taking the last first, it is no doubt true that if a subpoena is addressed to a corporation, the corporation “must find some means by which to comply because no Fifth Amendment defense is available to it.” In re Sealed Case, 266 U. S. App. D. C. 30, 44, n. 9, 832 F. 2d 1268, 1282, n. 9 (1987). The means most commonly used to comply is the appointment of an alternate custodian. See, e. g., In re Two Grand Jury Subpoenae Duces Tecum, 769 F. 2d 52, 57 (CA2 1985); United States v. Lang, 792 F. 2d 1235, 1240-1241 (CA4), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 985 (1986); In re Grand Jury No. 86-3 (Will Roberts Corp.), 816 F. 2d 569, 573 (CA11 1987). But petitioner insists he cannot be required to aid the appointed custodian in his search for the demanded records, for any statement to the surrogate would itself be testimonial and incriminating. If this is correct, then petitioner’s “solution” is a chimera. In situations such as this — where the corporate custodian is likely the only person with knowledge about the demanded documents — the appointment of a surrogate will simply not ensure that the documents sought will ever reach the grand jury room; the appointed custodian will essentially be sent on an unguided search.
This problem is eliminated if the Government grants the subpoenaed custodian statutory immunity for the testimonial aspects of his act of production. But that “solution” also entails a significant drawback. All of the evidence obtained under a grant of immunity to the custodian may of course be used freely against the corporation, but if the Government has any thought of prosecuting the custodian, a grant of act of production immunity can have serious consequences. Testimony obtained pursuant to a grant of statutory use immunity may be used neither directly nor derivatively. 18 U. S. C. § 6002; Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441 (1972). And “[o]ne raising a claim under [the federal immunity] statute need only show that he testified under a grant of immunity in order to shift to the government the heavy burden of proving that all of the evidence it proposes to use was derived from legitimate independent sources.” Id., at 461-462. Even in cases where the Government does not employ the immunized testimony for any purpose — direct or derivative — against the witness, the Government’s inability to meet the “heavy burden” it bears may result in the preclusion of crucial evidence that was obtained legitimately.
Although a corporate custodian is not entitled to resist a subpoena on the ground that his act of production will be personally incriminating, we do think certain consequences flow from the fact that the custodian’s act of production is one in his representative rather than personal capacity. Because the custodian acts as a representative, the act is deemed one of the corporation and not the individual. Therefore, the Government concedes, as it must, that it may make no evi-dentiary use of the “individual act” against the individual. For example, in a criminal prosecution against the custodian, the Government may not introduce into evidence before the jury the fact that the subpoena was served upon and the corporation’s documents were delivered by one particular individual, the custodian. The Government has the right, however, to use the corporation’s act of production against the custodian. The Government may offer testimony — for example, from the process server who delivered the subpoena and from the individual who received the records — establishing that the corporation produced the records subpoenaed. The jury may draw from the corporation’s act of production the conclusion that the records in question are authentic corporate records, which the corporation possessed, and which it produced in response to the subpoena. And if the defendant held a prominent position within the corporation that produced the records, the jury may, just as it would had someone else produced the documents, reasonably infer that he had possession of the documents or knowledge of their contents. Because the jury is not told that the defendant produced the records, any nexus between the defendant and the documents results solely from the corporation’s act of production and other evidence in the case.
Consistent with our precedent, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that petitioner could not resist the subpoena for corporate documents on the ground that the act of production might tend to incriminate him. The judgment is therefore
Affirmed.
The subpoena requested the following: receipts and disbursement journals; general ledger and subsidiaries; accounts receivable/aecounts payable ledgers, cards, and all customer data; bank records of savings and checking accounts, including statements, checks, and deposit tickets; contracts, invoices — sales and purchase — conveyances, and correspondence; minutes and stock books and ledgers; loan disclosure statements and agreements; liability ledgers; and retained copies of Forms 1120, W-2, W-4, 1099, 940 and 941.
Compare In re Grand Jury Proceedings (Morganstern), 771 F. 2d 143 (CA6) (en banc), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 1033 (1985); In re Grand Jury Subpoena (85-W-71-5), 784 F. 2d 857 (CA8 1986), cert. dism’d sub nom. See v. United States, 479 U. S. 1048 (1987); United States v. Malis, 737 F. 2d 1511 (CA9 1984); In re Grand Jury Proceedings (Vargas), 727 F. 2d 941 (CA10), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 819 (1984), which have refused to recognize a Fifth Amendment privilege, with United States v. Antonio J. Sancetta, M. D., P. C., 788 F. 2d 67, 74 (CA2 1986); In re Grand Jury Matter (Brown), 768 F. 2d 525 (CA3 1985) (en banc); United States v. Lang, 792 F. 2d 1235, 1240 (CA4), cert, denied, 479 U. S. 985 (1986); In re Grand Jury No. 86-3 (Will Roberts Corp.), 816 F. 2d 569, 573 (CA11 1987); In re Sealed Case, 266 U. S. App. D. C. 30, 832 F. 2d 1268 (1987), which have recognized a Fifth Amendment privilege.
After observing that the papers in question had been prepared by the taxpayer’s accountants, the Court noted: “The existence and location of the papers are a foregone conclusion and the taxpayer adds little or nothing to the sum total of the Government’s information by conceding that he in fact has the papers.” 425 U. S., at 411. Nor would the taxpayer’s production of the papers serve to authenticate or vouch for the accuracy of the accountants’ work. Id., at 413.
See also Bellis v. United States, 417 U. S. 85, 88 (1974) (“[A]n individual cannot rely upon the privilege to avoid producing the records of a collective entity which are in his possession in a representative capacity, even if these records might incriminate him personally”); Essgee Co. of China v. United States, 262 U. S. 151, 158 (1923) (“[T]he cases of Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361, and Wheeler v. United States, 226 U. S. 478, show clearly that an officer of a corporation in whose custody are its books and papers is given no right to object to the production of the corporate records because they may disclose his guilt. He does not hold them in his private capacity and is not, therefore, protected against their production or against a writ requiring him as agent of the corporation to produce them”).
Petitioner also offers United States v. Doe, 465 U. S. 605 (1984), as support for his position, but that decision is plainly inapposite. The Doe opinion begins by explaining that the question presented for review is “whether, and to what extent, the Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination applies to the business records of a sole proprietorship.” Id., at 606 (emphasis added). A sole proprietor does not hold records in a representative capacity. Thus, the absence of any discussion of the collective entity rule can in no way be thought a suggestion that the status of the holder of the records is irrelevant.
See also 354 U. S., at 124-125 (“There is no hint in [the collective entity] decisions that a custodian of corporate or association books waives his constitutional privilege as to oral testimony by assuming the duties of his office. By accepting custodianship of records he ‘has voluntarily assumed a duty which overrides his claim of privilege’ only with respect to the production of the records themselves. Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361, 380”) (emphasis in original).
The dissent’s suggestion that we have extracted from Curdo a distinction between oral testimony
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question of whether a United States District Court may properly direct a telephone company to provide federal law enforcement officials the facilities and technical assistance necessary for the implementation of its order authorizing the use of pen registers to investigate offenses which there was probable cause to believe were being committed by means of the telephone.
I
On March 19, 1976, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an order authorizing agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to install and use pen registers with respect to two telephones and directing the New York Telephone Co. (Company) to furnish the FBI “all information, facilities and technical assistance” necessary to employ the pen registers unobtrusively. The FBI was ordered to compensate the Company at prevailing rates for any assistance which it furnished. App. 6-7. The order was issued on the basis of an affidavit submitted by an FBI agent which stated that certain individuals were conducting an illegal gambling enterprise at 220 East I4th Street in New York City and that, on the basis of facts set forth therein, there was probable cause to believe that two telephones bearing different numbers were being used at that address in furtherance of the illegal activity. Id., at 1-5. The District Court found that there was probable cause to conclude that an illegal gambling enterprise using the facilities of interstate commerce was being conducted at the East 14th Street address in violation of 18 U. S. C. §§.371 and 1952, and that the two telephones had been, were currently being, and would continue to be used in connection with those offenses. Its order authorized the FBI to operate the pen registers with respect to the two telephones until knowledge of the numbers dialed led to the identity of the associates and confederates of those believed to be conducting the illegal operation or for 20 days, “whichever is earlier.”
The Company declined to comply fully with the court order. It did inform the FBI of the location of the relevant “appearances,” that is, the places where specific telephone lines emerge from the sealed telephone cable. In addition, the Company agreed to identify the relevant “pairs,” or the specific pairs of wires that constituted the circuits of the two telephone lines. This information is required to install a pen register. The Company, however, refused to lease lines to the FBI which were needed to install the pen registers in an unobtrusive fashion. Such lines were required by the FBI in order to install the pen registers in inconspicuous locations away from the building containing the telephones. A “leased line” is an unused telephone line which makes an “appearance” in the same terminal box as the telephone line in connection with which it is desired to install a pen register. If the leased line is connected to the subject telephone line, the pen register can then be installed on the leased line at a remote location and be monitored from that point. The Company, instead of providing the leased lines, which it conceded that the court’s order required it to do, advised the FBI to string cables from the “subject apartment” to another location where pen registers could be installed. The FBI determined after canvassing the neighborhood of the apartment for four days that there was no location where it could string its own wires and attach the pen registers without alerting the suspects, in which event, of course, the gambling operation would cease to function. App. 15-22.
On March 30, 1976, the Company moved in the District Court to vacate that portion of the pen register order directing it to furnish facilities and technical assistance to the FBI in connection with the use of the pen registers on the ground that such a directive could be issued only in connection with a wiretap order conforming to the requirements of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U. S. C. §§2510-2520 (1970 ed. and Supp. V). It contended that neither Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 41 nor the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651 (a), provided any basis for such an order. App. 10-14. The District Court ruled that pen registers are not governed by the proscriptions of Title III because they are not devices used to intercept oral communications. It concluded that it had jurisdiction to authorize the installation of the pen registers upon a showing of probable cause and that both the All Writs Act and its inherent powers provided authority for the order directing the Company to assist in the installation of the pen registers.
On April 9, 1976, after the District Court and the Court of Appeals denied the Company’s motion to stay the pen register order pending appeal, the Company provided the leased lines.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part, with one judge dissenting on the ground that the order below should have been affirmed in its entirety. Application of United States in re Pen Register Order, 538 F. 2d 956 (CA2 1976). It agreed with the District Court that pen registers do not fall within the scope of Title III and are not otherwise prohibited or regulated by statute. The Court of Appeals also concluded that district courts have the power, either inherently or as a logical derivative of Fed. Crim. Proc. 41, to authorize pen register surveillance upon an adequate showing of probable cause. The majority held, however, that the District Court abused its discretion in ordering the Company to assist in the installation and operation of the pen registers. It assumed, arguendo, that “a district court has inherent discretionary authority or discretionary power under the All Writs Act to compel technical assistance by the Telephone Company,” but concluded that “in the absence of specific and properly limited Congressional action, it was an abuse of discretion for the District Court to order the Telephone Company to furnish technical assistance.” 538 F. 2d, at 961. The majority expressed concern that “such an order could establish a most undesirable, if not dangerous and unwise, precedent for the authority of federal courts to impress unwilling aid on private third parties” and that “there is no assurance that the court will always be able to protect '[third parties] from excessive or overzealous Government activity or compulsion.” Id., at 962-963.
We granted the United States’ petition for certiorari challenging the Court of Appeals’ invalidation of the District Court’s order against respondent. 429 U. S. 1072.
II
We first reject respondent’s contention, which is renewed here, that the District Court lacked authority to order the Company to provide assistance because the use of pen registers may be authorized only in conformity with the procedures set forth in Title III for securing judicial authority to intercept wire communications. Both the language of the statute and its legislative history establish beyond any doubt that pen registers are not governed by Title III.
Title III is concerned only with orders “authorizing or approving the interception of a wire or oral communication....” 18 U. S. C. §2518(1) (emphasis added). Congress defined “intercept” to mean “the aural acquisition of the contents of any wire or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device.” 18 U. S. C. § 2510 (4) (emphasis added). Pen registers do not “intercept” because they do not acquire the “contents” of communications, as that term is defined by 18 U. S. C. § 2510 (8). Indeed, a law enforcement official could not even determine from the use of a pen register whether a communication existed. These devices do not hear sound. They disclose only the telephone numbers that have been dialed — a means of establishing communication. Neither the purport of any communication between the caller and the recipient of the call, their identities, nor whether the call was even completed is disclosed by pen registers. Furthermore, pen registers do not accomplish the “aural acquisition” of anything. They decode outgoing telephone numbers by responding to changes in electrical voltage caused by the turning of the telephone dial (or the pressing of buttons on pushbutton telephones) and present the information in a form to be interpreted by sight rather than by hearing.
The legislative history confirms that there was no congressional intent to subject pen registers to the requirements of Title III. The Senate Report explained that the definition of “intercept” was designed to exclude pen registers:
“Paragraph 4 [of § 2510] defines 'intercept’ to include the aural acquisition of the contents of any wire or oral communication by any electronic, mechanical, or other device. Other forms of surveillance are not within the proposed legislation.... The proposed legislation is not designed to prevent'the tracing of phone calls. The use of a 'pen register/ for example, would be permissible. But see United States v. Dote, 371 F. 2d 176 (7th 1966). The proposed legislation is intended to protect the privacy of the communication itself and not the means of communication.” S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 90 (1968).
It is clear that Congress did not view pen registers as posing a threat to privacy of the same dimension as the interception of oral communications and did not intend to impose Title III restrictions upon their use.
Ill
We also agree with the Court of Appeals that the District Court had power to authorize the installation of the pen registers. It is undisputed that the order in this case was predicated upon a proper finding of probable cause, and no claim is made that it was in any way inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment. Federal Rule Crim. Proc. 41 (b) authorizes the issuance of a warrant to:
“search for and seize any (1) property that constitutes evidence of the commission of a criminal offense; or (2) contraband, the fruits of crime, or things otherwise criminally possessed; or (3) property designed or intended for use or which is or has been used as the means of committing a criminal offense.”
This authorization is broad enough to encompass a “search” designed to ascertain the use which is being made of a telephone suspected of being employed as a means of facilitating a criminal venture and the “seizure” of evidence which the “search” of the telephone produces. Although Rule 41 (h) defines property “to include documents, books, papers and any other tangible objects,” it does not restrict or purport to exhaustively enumerate all the items which may be seized pursuant to Rule 41. Indeed, we recognized in Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967), which held that telephone conversations were protected by the Fourth Amendment, that Rule 41 is not limited to tangible items but is sufficiently flexible to include within its scope electronic intrusions authorized upon a finding of probable cause. 389 U. S., at 354-356, and n. 16. See also Osborn v. United States, 385 U. S. 323, 329-331 (1966).
Our conclusion that Rule 41 authorizes the use of pen registers under appropriate circumstances is supported by Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 57 (b), which provides: “If no procedure is specifically prescribed by rule, the court may proceed in any lawful manner not inconsistent with these rules or with any applicable statute.” Although we need not and do not decide whether Rule 57 (b) by itself would authorize the issuance of pen register orders, it reinforces our conclusion that Rule 41 is sufficiently broad to include seizures of intangible items such as dial impulses recorded by pen registers as well as tangible items.
Finally, we could not hold that the District Court lacked any power to authorize the use of pen registers without defying the congressional judgment that the use of pen registers “be permissible.” S. Rep. No. 1097, supra, at 90. Indeed, it would be anomalous to permit the recording of conversations by means of electronic surveillance while prohibiting the far lesser intrusion accomplished by pen registers. Congress intended no such result. We are unwilling to impose it in the absence of some showing that the issuance of such orders would be inconsistent with Rule 41. Cf. Rule 57 (b), supra.
IV
The Court of Appeals held that even though the District Court had ample authority to issue the pen register warrant and even assuming the applicability of the All Writs Act, the order compelling the Company to provide technical assistance constituted an abuse of discretion. Since the Court of Appeals conceded that a compelling case existed for requiring the assistance of the Company and did not point to any fact particular to this case which would warrant a finding of abuse of discretion, we interpret its holding as generally barring district courts from ordering any party to assist in the installation or operation of a pen register. It was apparently concerned that sustaining the District Court's order would authorize courts to compel third parties to render assistance without limitation regardless of the burden involved and pose a severe threat to the autonomy of third parties who for whatever reason prefer not to render such assistance. Consequently the Court of Appeals concluded that courts should not embark upon such a course without specific legislative authorization. We agree that the power of federal courts to impose duties upon third parties is not without limits; unreasonable burdens may not be imposed. We conclude, however, that the order issued here against respondent was clearly authorized by the All Writs Act and was consistent with the intent of Congress.
The All Writs Act provides:
“The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.” 28 U. S. C. § 1651 (a).
The assistance of the Company was required here to implement a pen register order which we have held the District Court was empowered to issue by Rule 41. This Court has repeatedly recognized the power of a federal court to issue such commands under the All Writs Act as may be necessary or appropriate to effectuate and prevent the frustration of orders it has previously issued in its exercise of jurisdiction otherwise obtained: “This statute has served since its inclusion, in substance, in the original Judiciary Act as a ‘legislatively approved source of procedural instruments designed to achieve “the rational ends of law.” ’ ” Harris v. Nelson, 394 U. S. 286, 299 (1969), quoting Price v. Johnston, 334 U. S. 266, 282 (1948). Indeed, “[ujnless appropriately confined by Congress, a federal court may avail itself of all auxiliary writs as aids in the performance of its duties, when the use of such historic aids is calculated in its sound judgment to achieve the ends of justice entrusted to it.” Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U. S. 269, 273 (1942).
The Court has consistently applied the Act.flexibly in conformity with these principles. Although § 262 of the Judicial Code, the predecessor to § 1651, did not expressly authorize courts, as does § 1651, to issue writs “appropriate” to the proper exercise of their jurisdiction but only “necessary” writs, Adams held that these supplemental powers are not limited to those situations where it is “necessary” to issue the writ or order “in the sense that the court could not otherwise physically discharge its appellate duties.” 317 U. S., at 273. In Price v. Johnston, supra, § 262 supplied the authority for a United States Court of Appeals to issue an order commanding that a prisoner be brought before the court for the purpose of arguing his own appeal. Similarly, in order to avoid frustrating the “very purpose” of 28 U. S. C. § 2255, § 1651 furnished the District Court with authority to order that a federal prisoner be produced in court for purposes of a hearing. United States v. Hayman, 342 U. S. 205, 220-222 (1952). The question in Harris v. Nelson, supra, was whether, despite the absence of specific statutory authority, the District Court could issue a discovery order in connection with a habeas corpus proceeding pending before it. Eight Justices agreed that the district courts have power to require discovery when essential to render a habeas corpus proceeding effective. The Court has also held that despite the absence of express statutory authority to do so, the Federal Trade Commission may petition for, and a Court of Appeals may issue, pursuant to § 1651, an order preventing a merger pending hearings before the Commission to avoid impairing or frustrating the Court of Appeals’ appellate jurisdiction. FTC v. Dean Foods Co., 384 U. S. 597 (1966).
The power conferred by the Act extends, under appropriate circumstances, to persons who, though not parties to the original action or engaged in wrongdoing, are in a position to frustrate the implementation of a court order or the proper administration of justice, Mississippi Valley Barge Line Co. v. United States, 273 F. Supp. 1, 6 (ED Mo. 1967), summarily aff’d, 389 U. S. 579 (1968); Board of Education v. York, 429 F. 2d 66 (CA10 1970), cert. denied, 401 U. S. 954 (1971), and encompasses even those who have not taken any affirmative action to hinder justice. United States v. McHie, 196 F. 586 (ND Ill. 1912); Field v. United States, 193 F. 2d 92, 95-96 (CA2), cert. denied, 342 U. S. 894 (1951).
Turning to the facts of this case, we do not think that the Company was a third party so far removed from the underlying controversy that its assistance could not be permissibly compelled. A United States District Court found that there was probable cause to believe that the Company’s facilities were being employed to facilitate a criminal enterprise on a continuing basis. For the Company, with this knowledge, to refuse to supply the meager assistance required by the FBI in its efforts to put an end to this venture threatened obstruction of an investigation which would determine whether the Company’s facilities were being lawfully used. Moreover, it can hardly be contended that the Company, a highly regulated public utility with a duty to serve the public, had a substantial interest in not providing assistance. Certainly the use of pen registers is by no means offensive to it. The Company concedes that it regularly employs such devices without court order for the purposes of checking billing operations, detecting fraud, and preventing violations of law. It also agreed to supply the FBI with all the information required to install its own pen registers. Nor was the District Court’s order in any way burdensome. The order provided that the Company be fully reimbursed at prevailing rates, and compliance with it required minimal effort on the part of the Company and no disruption to its operations.
Finally, we note, as the Court of Appeals recognized, that without the Company’s assistance there is no conceivable way in which the surveillance authorized by the District Court could have been successfully accomplished. The FBI, after an exhaustive search, was unable to find a location where it could install its own pen registers without tipping off the targets of the investigation. The provision of a leased line by the Company was essential to the fulfillment of the purpose— to learn the identities of those connected with the gambling operation — for which the pen register order had been issued.
The order compelling the Company to provide assistance was not only consistent with the Act but also with more recent congressional actions. As established in Part II, supra, Congress clearly intended to permit the use of pen registers by federal law enforcement officials. Without the assistance of the Company in circumstances such as those presented here, however, these devices simply cannot be effectively employed. Moreover, Congress provided in a 1970 amendment to Title III that “fa]n order authorizing the interception of a wire or oral communication shall, upon request of the applicant, direct that a communication common carrier... shall furnish the applicant forthwith all information, facilities, and technical assistance necessary to accomplish the interception unobtrusively....” 18 U. S. C. § 2518 (4). In light of this direct command to federal courts to compel, upon request, any assistance necessary to accomplish an electronic interception, it would be remarkable if Congress thought it beyond the power of the federal courts to exercise, where required, a discretionary authority to order telephone companies to assist in the installation and operation of pen registers, which accomplish a far lesser invasion of privacy. We are convinced that to prohibit the order challenged here would frustrate the clear indication by Congress that the pen register is a permissible law enforcement tool by enabling a public utility to thwart a judicial determination that its use is required to apprehend and prosecute successfully those employing the utility’s facilities to conduct a criminal venture. The contrary judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly reversed.
So ordered.
A pen. register is a mechanical device that records the numbers dialed on a telephone by monitoring the electrical impulses caused when the dial on the telephone is released. It does not overhear oral communications and does not indicate whether calls are actually completed.
The gambling operation was known to employ countersurveillance techniques. App. 21.
On the same date another United States District Court judge extended the original order of March 19 for an additional 20 days. Id., at 33.
The Court of Appeals recognized that "without [the Company’s] technical aid, the order authorizing the use of a pen register will be worthless. Federal law enforcement agents simply cannot implement pen register surveillance without the Telephone Company’s help. The assistance requested requires no extraordinary expenditure of time or effort by [the Company]; indeed, as we understand it, providing lease or private lines is a relatively simple, routine procedure.” 538 F. 2d, at 961-962.
Judge Mansfield dissented in part on the ground that the District Court possessed a discretionary power under the All Writs Act to direct the company to render such assistance as was necessary to implement its valid order authorizing the use of pen registers and that a compelling case had been established for the exercise of discretion in favor of the assistance order. He argued that district court judges could be trusted to exercise their powers under the All Writs Act only in cases of clear necessity and to balance the burden imposed upon the party required to render assistance against the necessity.
Although the pen register surveillance had been completed by the time the Court of Appeals issued its decision on July 13, 1976, this fact does not render the case moot, because the controversy here is one “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 498, 515 (1911); Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 125 (1973). Pen register orders issued pursuant to Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 41 authorize surveillance only for brief periods. Here, despite expedited action by the Court of Appeals, the order, as.extended, expired six days after oral argument. Moreover, even had the pen register order been stayed pending appeal, the mootness problem would have remained, because the showing of probable cause upon which the order authorizing the installation of the pen registers was based would almost certainly have become stale before review could have been completed. It is also plain, given the Company’s policy of refusing to render voluntary assistance in installing pen registers and the Government’s determination to continue to utilize them,, that the Company will be subjected to similar orders in the future. See Weinstein v. Bradford, 423 U. S. 147, 149 (1975).
The Court of Appeals held that pen register surveillance was subject to the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. This conclusion is not challenged by either party, and we find it unnecessary to consider the matter. The Government concedes that its application for the pen register order did not' conform to the requirements of Title III.
Although neither this issue nor that of the scope of Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 41 is encompassed within the question posed in the petition for certiorari and the Company has not filed a cross-petition, we have discretion to consider them because the prevailing party may defend a judgment on any ground which the law and the record permit that would not expand the relief it has been granted. Langnes v. Green, 282 U. S. 531, 538-539 (1931); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 475 n. 6 (1970). The only relief sought by the Company is that granted by the Court of Appeals: the reversal of the District Court’s order directing it to assist in the installation and operation of the pen registers. The Title III and Rule 41 questions were considered by both the District Court and the Court of Appeals and fully argued here.
Four Justices reached this conclusion in United States v. Giordano, 416 U. S. 505, 553-554 (1974) (Powell, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Blackmun and Rehnquist, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part). The Court’s opinion did not reach the issue since the evidence derived from a pen register was suppressed as being in turn derived from an illegal wire interception. Every Court of Appeals that has considered the matter has agreed that pen registers are not within the scope of Title III. See United States v. Illinois Bell Tel. Co., 531 F. 2d 809 (CA7 1976); United States v. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 546 F. 2d 243 (CA8 1976); Michigan Bell Tel. Co. v. United States, 565 F. 2d 385 (CA6 1977); United States v. Falcone, 505 F. 2d 478 (CA3 1974), cert. denied, 420 U. S. 955 (1975); Hodge v. Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co., 555 F. 2d 254 (CA9 1977); United States v. Clegg, 509 F. 2d 605, 610 n. 6 (CA5 1975).
Similarly, the sanctions of Title III are aimed only at one who “willfully intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire or oral communication....” 18 U. S. C. §2511 (l)(a).
“ ‘Contents’... includes any information concerning the identity of the parties to [the] communication or the 'existence, substance, purport, or meaning of [the] communication.”
See 538 P. 2d, at 957.
United States v. Dote, 371 F. 2d 176 (CA7 1966), held that § 605 of the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U. S. C. § 605, which prohibited the interception and divulgence of “any communication” by wire or radio, included pen registers within the scope of its ban. In § 803 of Title III, 82 Stat. 223, Congress amended § 605 by restricting it to the interception of “any radio communication.” Thus it is clear that pen registers are no longer within the scope of § 605. See Korman v. United States, 486 F. 2d 926, 931-932 (CA7 1973). The reference to Dote in the Senate Report is indicative of Congress’ intention not to place restrictions upon their use. We find no merit in the Company’s suggestion that the reference to Dote is merely an oblique expression of Congress’ desire that telephone companies be permitted to use pen registers in the ordinary course of business, as Dote allowed, so long as they are not used to assist law enforcement. Brief for Respondent 16. The sentences preceding the reference to' Dote state unequivocally that pen registers are not within the scope of Title III. In addition, a separate provision of Title III, 18 U. S. C. § 2511 (2) (a) (i), specifically excludes all normal telephone company business practices from the prohibitions of the Act. Congress clearly intended to disavow Dote to the extent that it prohibited the use of pen registers by law enforcement authorities.
The Courts of Appeals that have considered the question have agreed that pen register orders are authorized by Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 41 or by an inherent power closely akin to it to issue search warrants under circumstances conforming to the Fourth Amendment. See Michigan Bell Tel. Co., supra; Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., supra; Illinois Bell Tel. Co., supra.
Where the definition of a term in Rule 41 (h) was intended to be all inclusive, it is introduced by the phrase “to mean” rather than “to include.” Cf. Helvering, v. Morgan’s, Inc., 293 U. S. 121, 125 n. 1 (1934).
The question of whether the FBI, in its implementation of the District Court’s pen register authorization, complied with all the requirements of Rule 41 is not before us. In Katz, the Court stated that the notice requirement of Rule 41 (d) is not so inflexible as to require invariably that notice be given the person “searched” prior to the commencement of the search. 389 U. S., at 355-356, n. 16. Similarly, it is clear to us that the requirement of Rule 41 (c) that the warrant command that the search be conducted within 10 days of its issuance does not mean that the duration of a pen register surveillance may not exceed 10 days. Thus the District Court’s order, which authorized surveillance for a 20-day period, did not conflict with Rule 41.
See United States v. Baird, 414 F. 2d 700, 710 (CA2 1969), cert. denied, 396 U. S. 1005 (1970); Jackson v. United States, 122 U. S. App. D. C. 324, 326, 353 F. 2d 862, 864 (1965); United States v. Remolif, 227 F: Supp. 420, 423 (Nev. 1964); Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U. S. 626, 633 n. 8 (1962) (applying the analogous provision of Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 83).
The dissent argues, post, at 182-184, that Rule 41 (b), as modified following Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294 (1967), to explicitly authorize searches for any property that constitutes evidence of a crime, falls short of authorizing warrants to “search” for and "seize” intangible evidence. The elimination of the restriction against seizing property that is “mere evidence,” however, has no bearing whatsoever on the scope of the definition of property set forth in Rule 41 (h) which, as the dissent acknowledges, remained unchanged. Moreover, the definition of property set forth in Rule 41 (h) is introduced by the phrase, “[t]he term 'property’ is used in this rule to include" (emphasis added), which indicates that it was not intended to be exhaustive. See supra, at 169.
We are unable to comprehend the logic supporting the dissent’s contention, post, at 184-185, that the conclusion of Katz v. United States that Rule 41 was not confined to tangible property did not survive the enactment of Title III and Title IX of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, because Congress failed to expand the definition of property contained in Rule 41 (h). There was obviously no need for any such action in light of the Court’s construction of the Rule in Katz. The dissent’s assertion that it “strains credulity” to conclude that Congress intended to permit the seizure of intangibles outside the scope of Title III without its safeguards disregards the congressional judgment that the use of pen registers be permissible without Title III restrictions. Indeed, the dissent concedes that pen registers are not governed by Title III. What “strains credulity” is the dissent’s conclusion, directly contradicted by the legislative history of Title III, that Congress intended to permit the interception of telephone conversations while prohibiting the use of pen registers to obtain much more limited information.
The three other Courts of Appeals which have considered the question reached a different conclusion from the Second Circuit. The Sixth Circuit in Michigan Bell Tel. Co. v. United States, 565 F. 2d 385 (1977), and the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Illinois Bell Tel. Co., 531 F. 2d 809 (1976), held that the Act did authorize the issuance of orders compelling a telephone company to assist in the use of surveillance devices not covered by Title III such as pen registers. The Eighth Circuit found such authority to be part of the inherent power of district courts and “concomitant of the power to authorize pen register surveillance.” United States v. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 546 F. 2d, at 246.
See Labette County Comm’rs v. Moulton, 112 U. S. 217, 221 (1884): “[I]t does not follow because the jurisdiction in mandamus [now included in § 1651] is ancillary merely that it cannot be exercised over persons not parties to the judgment sought to be enforced.”
See 47 U. S. C. § 201 (a) and N. Y. Pub. Serv. Law § 91 (McKinney 1955 and Supp. 1977-1978).
Tr. of Oral Arg. 27-28, 40.
The dissent’s attempt to draw a distinction between orders in aid of a court’s own duties and jurisdiction and orders designed to better enable a party to effectuate his rights and duties, post, a.t 189-190, is specious. Courts normally exercise their jurisdiction only in order to protect the legal rights of parties. In Price v. Johnston, 334 U. S. 266 (1948), for example, the production of the federal prisoner in court was required in order to enable him to effectively present his appeal which the court had jurisdiction to hear. Similarly, in Harris v. Nelson, 394 U. S. 286 (1969), discovery was ordered in connection with a habeas corpus proceeding for the purpose of enabling a prisoner adequately to protect his rights. Here, we have held that Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 41 provided the District Court with power to authorize the FBI to install pen registers. The order issued by the District Court compelling the Company to provide technical assistance was required to prevent nullification of the court’s warrant and the frustration of the Government’s right under the warrant to conduct a pen register surveillance, just as the orders issued in Price and Harris were necessary to protect the rights of prisoners.
We are unable to agree with the Company’s assertion that “it is extraordinary to expect citizens to directly involve themselves in the law enforcement process.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 41. The conviction that private citizens have a duty to provide assistance to law enforcement officials when it is required is by no means foreign to our traditions, as the Company apparently believes. See Babington v. Yellow Taxi Corp., 250 N. Y. 14, 17, 164 N. E. 726, 727 (1928) (Cardozo, C. J.) (“Still, as in the days of Edward I, the citizenry may be called upon to enforce the justice of the state, not faintly and with lagging steps, but honestly and bravely and with whatever implements and facilities are convenient and at hand”). See also In re Quarles and Butler, 158 U. S. 532, 535 (1895) (“It is the duty... of every citizen, to assist in prosecuting, and in securing the punishment of, any breach of the peace of the United States”); Hamilton v. Regents, 293 U. S. 245, 265 n. (1934) (Card
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue here is whether a Government motion attesting to the defendant’s substantial assistance in a criminal investigation and requesting that the district court depart below the minimum of the applicable sentencing range under the Sentencing Guidelines also permits the district court to depart below any statutory minimum sentence. We hold that it does not.
I
Petitioner and several others entered into an agreement to buy cocaine from confidential informants of the United States Customs Service. As a result, petitioner was charged with conspiring to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine, see §406, 84 Stat. 1265, as amended, 21 U. S. C. §846, a crime that carries a statutory minimum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment, see § 841(b)(1)(A). Plea negotiations ensued, and petitioner ultimately signed a cooperating plea agreement. The agreement provided, in pertinent part, that in return for petitioner’s cooperation with the Government’s investigation and his guilty plea, the Government would “move the sentencing court, pursuant to Section 5K1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines, to depart from the otherwise applicable guideline range.” App. 9. The agreement noted that the offense to which petitioner would plead guilty “carries a statutory mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment.” Id., at 6. The agreement did not require the Government to authorize the District Court to impose a sentence below the statutory minimum, nor did it specifically state that the Government would oppose departure below the statutory minimum.
Petitioner pleaded guilty to the charged conspiracy. The probation officer determined that the Guideline sentencing range applicable to petitioner’s crime was 135 to 168 months’ imprisonment. In a letter to the court, the Government described the assistance rendered by petitioner and moved the court to impose “a sentence lower than what the [c]ourt ha[d] determined to be the otherwise applicable [sic] under the sentencing guidelines.” Id., at 13-14. The letter specifically noted that “[t]his motion is made pursuant to Section 5K1.1.” Id., at 13. The Government did not request a sentence below the statutory minimum, although, again, it did not state that the Government opposed such a departure. The District Court granted the Government’s motion and departed downward from the sentencing range set by the Guidelines. However, because the Government had not also moved the District Court to depart below the statutory minimum pursuant to 18 U. S. C. § 3553(e), the court ruled that it had no authority to so depart; it thus imposed the 10-year minimum sentence required by statute.
On appeal, petitioner contended that the District Court had erred in concluding that it had no authority to depart below the statutory minimum. A § 5K1.1 motion, he argued, not only allows the court to depart downward from the sentencing level set by the Guidelines but also permits the court to depart below a lower statutory minimum. See United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §5K1.1, p. s. (Nov. 1995) (USSG). A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected that argument and affirmed the 10-year sentence. 55 F. 3d 130 (1995). A petition for rehearing was denied, with six judges dissenting.
As we noted in Wade v. United States, 504 U. S. 181, 185 (1992), the Courts of Appeals disagree as to whether a Government motion attesting to the defendant’s substantial assistance and requesting that the district court depart below the minimum of the applicable sentencing range under the Guidelines also permits the district court to depart below any statutory minimum.
We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 516 U. S. 963 (1995). We now hold that such a motion does not authorize a departure below a lower statutory minimum.
II
The question presented involves two subsections of federal statutes and a policy statement of the Guidelines. Title 18 U. S. C. § 3553(e) provides:
“Limited authority to impose a sentence below a statutory minimum. — Upon motion of the Government, the court shall have the authority to impose a sentence below a level established by statute as minimum sentence so as to reflect a defendant’s substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense. Such sentence shall be imposed in accordance with the guidelines and policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission pursuant to section 994 of title 28, United States Code.”
Title 28 U. S. C. § 994(n), in turn, states:
“The Commission shall assure that the guidelines reflect the general appropriateness of imposing a lower sentence than would otherwise be imposed, including a sentence that is lower than that established by statute as a minimum sentence, to take into account a defendant’s substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense.”
Finally, the text of § 5K1.1 of the Guidelines provides:
“Substantial Assistance to Authorities (Policy Statement)
“Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has provided substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense, the court may depart from the guidelines.
“(a) The appropriate reduction shall be determined by the court for reasons stated that may include, but are not limited to, consideration of the following: [List of five factors for the court’s consideration, including] the government’s evaluation of the assistance rendered.”
Petitioner argues that §5K1.1 creates what he calls a “unitary” motion system, in which a motion attesting to the substantial assistance of the defendant and requesting a departure below the Guidelines range also permits a district court to depart below the statutory minimum. The Government views § 5K1.1 as establishing a binary motion system, which permits the Government to authorize a departure below the Guidelines range while withholding from the court the authority to depart below a lower statutory minimum. The parties argue, naturally, that their respective interpretations of the system actually adopted by the Sentencing Commission were permissible ones under §3553(e).and §994(n).
We believe that § 3553(e) requires a Government motion requesting or authorizing the district court to “impose a sentence below a level established by statute as minimum sentence” before the court may impose such a sentence. Petitioner and his amici repeatedly characterize the motion required by § 3553(e) as a “motion that substantial assistance has occurred,” Brief for Petitioner 12, a “motion acknowledging the defendant’s ‘substantial assistance,’ ” id., at 8, and the like. But the term “motion” generally means “[a]n application made to a court or judge for purpose of obtaining a rule or order directing some act to be done in favor of the applicant.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1013 (6th ed. 1990). Papers simply “acknowledging” substantial assistance are not sufficient if they do not indicate desire for, or consent to, a sentence below the statutory minimum.
Of course, the Government did more than simply “acknowledge” substantial assistance here: It moved the court to impose a sentence below the Guideline range. But we agree with the Government that nothing in § 3553(e) suggests that a district court has power to impose a sentence below the statutory minimum to reflect a defendant’s cooperation when the Government has not authorized such a sentence, but has instead moved for a departure only from the applicable Guidelines range. Nor does anything in § 3553(e) or § 994(n) suggest that the Commission itself may dispense with § 3553(e)’s motion requirement or, alternatively, “deem” a motion requesting or authorizing different action — such as a departure below the Guidelines minimum — to be a motion authorizing the district court to depart below the statutory minimum.
Moreover, we do not read § 5K1.1 as attempting to exercise this nonexistent authority. Section 5K1.1 says: “Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has provided substantial assistance . . . the court may depart from the guidelines,” while its Application Note 1 says: “Under circumstances set forth in 18 U. S. C. § 3553(e) and 28 U. S. C. § 994(n). .. substantial assistance .. . may justify a sentence below a statutorily required minimum sentence,” §5K1.1, comment., n. 1. One of the circumstances set forth in § 3553(e) is, as we have explained previously, that the Government has authorized the court to impose a sentence below the statutory minimum.
Petitioner and his amici argue that § 3553(e) requires a sentence below the statutory minimum to be imposed in “accordance” with the Guidelines; that § 994(n) specifically directs the Commission to draft a provision covering substantial assistance cases, including cases in which a sentence below a statutory minimum is warranted; and that if §5K1.1 is not read as creating a unitary motion system, then the Commission has improperly failed to meet its obligation, because no other provision of the Guidelines implements § 3553(e) and § 994(n). They also argue' (1) that the reference to § 3553(e) in §5Kl.Ts Application Note 1 indicates that § 5K1.1 is a “conduit” established by the Commission for “implementation” of § 3553(e); (2) that Application Note 2’s use of the broad term “sentencing reduction,” rather than “departure from the guidelines range,” supports petitioner’s view that §5K1.1 authorizes departures below a statutory minimum; (3) that Application Note 3 makes sense only on the assumption that the district court retains “full discretionary power” over the extent of the sentencing reduction (i. e., the authority to choose any sentence once the Government makes any motion confirming the defendant’s substantial assistance); (4) that the reference to §5K1.1 alone (rather than to § 3553(e)) in USSG §2Dl.l’s Application Note 7 further supports petitioner’s claim that § 5K1.1 is a conduit for implementation of § 3553(e); and (5) that if the factors described in §5Kl.l(a) limiting the district court’s discretion do not apply to sentences imposed after the Government moves to depart below the statutory minimum, then the district court’s discretion will be wholly unlimited in those circumstances.
In the Government’s view, § 3553(e) already gives the district court authority to depart below the statutory minimum on motion to do so by the prosecutor. The Government urges us to read the last sentence of § 3553(e), and the inclusion of the phrase “including a sentence that is lower than that established by statute as a minimum sentence” in § 994(n), as merely requiring the Commission to constrain the district court’s discretion in choosing a sentence after the Government moves to depart below the statutory minimum. The Government contends that the first paragraph of § 5K1.1 does not authorize departures below the statutory minimum, but that § 5Kl.l(a) does apply to sentences imposed after the Government moves to depart below the statutory minimum (as well as to sentences imposed after the Government moves to depart below the Guidelines range); §5Kl.l(a) thus implements the requirements of § 3553(e) and §994(n) that relate to sentences below the statutory minimum, by requiring the district court to consider the factors listed in §§5Kl.l(a)(])-(5) in determining the appropriate extent of a departure below the statutory minimum. According to the Government, the difficulties and gaps referred to by petitioner vanish once §5Kl.l(a) is so construed.
We agree with the Government that the relevant parts of the statutes merely charge the Commission with constraining the district court’s discretion in choosing a specific sentence after the Government moves for a departure below the statutory minimum. Congress did not charge the Commission with “implementing” §3553(e)’s Government motion requirement, beyond adopting provisions constraining the district court’s discretion regarding the particular sentence selected.
Although the various relevant Guidelines provisions invoked by the parties could certainly be clearer, we also believe that the Government’s interpretation of the current provisions is the better one. Section 5Kl.l(a) may guide the district court when it selects a sentence below the statutory minimum, as well as when it selects a sentence below the Guidelines range. The Commission has not, however, improperly attempted to dispense with or modify the requirement for a departure below the statutory minimum spelled out in § 3553(e) — that of a Government motion requesting or authorizing a departure below the statutory minimum.
The Government has made no such motion here. Hence, the District Court correctly concluded that it lacked the authority to sentence petitioner to less than 10 years’ imprisonment.
Ill
What is at stake in the long run is whether the Government can make a motion authorizing the district court to depart below the Guidelines range but withholding from the district court the power to depart below the statutory minimum. Although the Government contends correctly that the Commission does not have authority to “deem” a Government motion that does not authorize a departure below the statutory minimum to be one that does authorize such a departure, the Government apparently reads § 994(n) to permit the Commission to construct a unitary motion system by adjusting the requirements for a departure below the Guidelines minimum — that is, by providing that the district cou,rt may depart below the Guidelines range only when the Government is willing to authorize the court to depart below the statutory minimum, if the court finds that to be appropriate. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 26-31.
We need not decide whether the Commission could create this second type of unitary motion system, for two reasons. First, even if the Commission had done so, that would not help petitioner, since the Government has not authorized a departure below the statutory minimum here. Second, we agree with the Government that the Commission has not adopted this type of unitary motion system. Neither the text of §5K1.1 nor its commentary expressly limits the authority of the court to depart below the Guidelines minimum to situations in which the Government has moved to depart below the statutory minimum. The text of §5K1.1 says: “Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has provided substantial assistance . . . , the court may depart from the guidelines.” We do not read this sentence to say: “Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has provided substantial assistance ... and authorizing the court to depart below the statutory minimum, if any, the court may depart from the guidelines.” Rather, we read it as permitting the district court to depart below the Guidelines range when the Government states that the defendant has provided substantial assistance and requests or authorizes the district court to depart below the Guidelines range. As we have noted, supra, at 127-130, the Application Notes to §5K1.1 and §2D1.1 do not compel any other reading.
The judgment is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Compare 55 F. 3d 130 (CA3 1995) and United States v. Rodriguez-Morales, 958 F. 2d 1441 (CA8), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 940 (1992), with United States v. Ah-Kai, 951 F. 2d 490 (CA2 1991), United States v. Beckett, 996 F. 2d 70 (CA5 1993), United States v. Wills, 35 F. 3d 1192 (CA7 1994), and United States v. Keene, 933 F. 2d 711 (CA9 1991).
Petitioner also argues for the first time in his reply brief that the plea agreement into which he entered was at least ambiguous with respect to whether it required the Government to move the District Court to depart below the statutory minimum — and thus that the agreement itself permitted the court to depart below the 10-year minimum. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 7-8. We do not view this issue as included within the question upon which we granted certiorari, see Pet. for Cert. 3 (“Did the sentencing court have the discretion to depart below the applicable statutory minimum once the United States moved for departure under USSG §5K1, without the requirement of a second government departure application under 18 U. S. C. 3553(e)?”), and petitioner appears to concede that it is not, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 15. We therefore decline to address the argument.
Although it is plain that under § 994(n), the Commission was at least authorized to create a system in which no Government motion of any kind need be filed before the district court may depart below the Guidelines minimum, neither party argues that the Commission has created such a system.
See also Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1254 (2d ed. 1987) (defining “motion” in the legal sense as “an application made to a court or judge for an order, ruling, or the like”); Wade v. United States, 504 U. S. 181, 187 (1992) (“[Substantial assistance] is a necessary condition for [a departure, but] it is not a sufficient one. The Government’s decision not to move may have been based not on a failure to acknowledge or appreciate [the defendant’s] help, but simply on its rational assessment of the cost and benefit that would flow from moving”).
We do not mean to imply, of course, that specific language (such as that quoted in text) or, on the other hand, an express reference to § 3553(e) is necessarily required before a court may depart below the statutory minimum. Cf. Brief for Petitioner 5-6, 18, 32, 34 (characterizing the opposing argument in this fashion). But the Government must in some way indicate its desire or consent that the court depart below the statutory minimum before the court may do so.
Application Note 2 provides in relevant part: “The sentencing reduction for assistance to authorities shall be considered independently of any reduction for acceptance of responsibility.” USSG § 5K1.1, comment., n. 2.
Application Note 3 provides: “Substantial weight should be given to the government’s evaluation of the extent of the defendant’s assistance, particularly where the extent and value of the assistance are difficult to ascertain.” USSG §5K1.1, comment., n. 3.
Application Note 7 provides in pertinent part: “Where a mandatory (statutory) minimum sentence applies, this mandatory minimum sentence may be ‘waived’ and a lower sentence imposed (including a sentence below the applicable guideline range), as provided in 28 U. S. C. § 994(n), by reason of a defendant’s ‘substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense.’ See §5K1.1 (Substantial Assistance to Authorities).” USSG §2D1.1, comment., n. 7. Section 2D1.1 is a Guideline addressed to a variety of drug offenses.
Notably, § 3553(e) states that the “sentence” shall be imposed in accordance with the Guidelines and policy statements, not that the “departure” shall occur, or shall be authorized, in accordance with the Guidelines and policy statements.
Section §5Kl.l(a) may apply of its own force to sentences below the statutory minimum, see ibid, (providing that the district court shall determine “[tjhe appropriate reduction” by applying a nonexhaustive list of factors), and both the reference to § 3553(e) in §5Kl.l’s Application Note 1 and the reference to §5K1.1 in §2Dl.l’s Application Note 7 may reflect that fact. Or perhaps the phrase “[t]he appropriate reduction” in §5Kl.l(a) encompasses only departures below the Guidelines range, but the Application Notes are meant to suggest that the court should also consider the § 5Kl.l(a) factors in the analogous circumstance of a departure below the statutory minimum.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent, a Philippine corporation owned largely by Americans, brought this suit against the United States in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, alleging jurisdiction under the Suits in Admiralty Act, 41 Stat. 525, as amended, 46 U. S. C. § 741 et seq., and the Public Vessels Act, 43 Stat. 1112, as amended, 46 U. S. C. § 781 et seq. It sought recovery for damages resulting from the sinking of its fishing vessel, the MV Orient, after a collision with the U. S. S. Parsons, a naval destroyer of the United States.
Upon the United States’ motion for summary judgment, the District Court held that since the naval destroyer was a “public vessel of the United States,” the suit was governed by the provisions of the Public Vessels Act. See 46 U. S. C. § 781. In particular, the court held that respondent was subject to the Act’s reciprocity provision, which bars any suit by a foreign national under the Act unless it appears that his government, “under similar circumstances, allows nationals of the United States to sue in its courts.” § 785. Finding no such reciprocity, the District Court dismissed the complaint.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed on the ground that respondent’s action, although involving a public vessel, is maintainable under the Suits in Admiralty Act without reference to the reciprocity provision of the Public Vessels Act. 499 F. 2d 774 (1974). We granted certiorari, 420 U. S. 971 (1975), and we now reverse.
I
It is undisputed that before 1960 suits involving public vessels could not be maintained under the Suits in Admiralty Act. The Act then authorized suits involving vessels owned by, possessed by, or operated by or for the United States as follows:
“[I]n cases where if such vessel were privately owned or operated, or if such cargo were privately owned and possessed, a proceeding in admiralty could be maintained at the time of the commencement of the action herein provided for, a libel in personam may be brought against the United States . . . provided that such vessel is employed as a merchant ves- sel_” 41 Stat. 525, 46 U. S. C. § 742 (1958 ed.) (emphasis added).
In 1960, however, Congress amended this provision of the Suits in Admiralty Act by deleting the proviso, italicized above, that the vessel must be “employed as a merchant vessel.” 74 Stat. 912. Reading the amended provision literally, the Court of Appeals held that suits involving public vessels could now be brought under the Suits in Admiralty Act, free from the restrictions imposed by the Public Vessels Act. The court reached this result in spite of its acknowledgment that “such a conclusion permits the [Public Vessels Act’s] reciprocity provision to be circumvented in a manlier neither explicitly authorized nor perhaps contemplated by Congress.” 499 F. 2d, at 778.
The Court of Appeals’ result would permit circumvention of not only the reciprocity requirement, but also several other significant limitations imposed upon suits brought under the Public Vessels Act. Under 46 U. S. C. § 784, for example, officers and members of the crew of a public vessel may not be subpoenaed in connection with any suit authorized by the Public Vessels Act without the consent of the Secretary of the Department, the commanding officer, or certain other persons. In time of war, the Secretary of the Navy can obtain a stay of any suit brought under the Public Vessels Act when it appears that prosecution of the suit would tend to interfere with naval operations. 10 U. S. C. §§ 7721-7730. And under the Public Vessels Act, unlike under the Suits in Admiralty Act, interest on judgments does not accrue prior to the time of judgment. Compare 46 U. S. C. § 782 with 46 U. S. C. § 745.
Under the Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the 1960 amendment to the Suits in Admiralty Act, circumvention of these restrictive provisions of the Public Vessels Act would not be limited to a handful of cases. Since there is virtually no reason for a litigant to prefer to have his suit governed by the provisions of the Public Vessels Act, the import of the Court of Appeals’ interpretation is to render the restrictive provisions of the Public Vessels Act ineffectual in practically every case to which they would otherwise have application. If Congress had intended that result, it might just as well have repealed the Public Vessels Act altogether.
The Public Vessels Act was not amended in 1960, and, as the Court of Appeals recognized, the 1960 amendment to the Suits in Admiralty Act contains no language expressly permitting claims previously governed by the Public Vessels Act to be brought under the Suits in Admiralty Act, free from the restrictive provisions of the Public Vessels Act. What amounts to the effective repeal of those provisions is urged as a matter of implication. It is, of course, a cardinal principle of statutory construction that repeals by implication are not favored. See, e. g., Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U. S. 102, 133 (1974); Amell v. United States, 384 U. S. 158, 165-166 (1966); Silver v. New York Stock Exchange, 373 U. S. 341, 357 (1963); United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188, 198-199 (1939). The principle carries special weight when we are urged to find that a specific statute has been repealed by a more general one. See, e. g., Morton v. Mancari, 417 U. S. 535, 550-551 (1974); Bulova Watch Co. v. United States, 365 U. S. 753, 758 (1961); Rodgers v. United States, 185 U. S. 83, 87-89 (1902).
To be sure, the principle of these cases is not precisely applicable in this case — for here the argument is not that the Public Vessels Act can no longer have application to a particular set of facts, but simply that its terms can be evaded at will by asserting jurisdiction under another statute. We should, however, be as hesitant to infer that Congress intended to authorize evasion of a statute at will as we are to infer that Congress intended to narrow the scope of a statute. Both types of “repeal” — effective and actual — involve the compromise or abandonment of previously articulated policies, and we would normally expect some expression by Congress that such results are intended. Indeed, the expectation that there would be some expression of an intent to “repeal” is particularly strong in a case like this one, in which the “repeal” would extend to virtually every case to which the statute had application.
The ultimate question in this case is whether Congress intended, by the deletion of the “employed as a merchant vessel” proviso from the Suits in Admiralty Act, to authorize the wholesale evasion of the restrictions specifically imposed by the Public Vessels Act on suits for damages caused by public vessels. An examination of the history of the Suits in Admiralty Act, the Public Vessels Act, and, in particular, the 1960 amendment to the Suits in Admiralty Act, indicates quite clearly that Congress had no such intent.
H-i l-H
A
The history of the Suits in Admiralty Act and the Public Vessels Act has been the subject of the Court’s attention on several prior occasions. See Canadian Aviator, Ltd. v. United States, 324 U. S. 215, 218-225 (1945); American Stevedores, Inc. v. Porello, 330 U. S. 446, 450-454 (1947); Johansen v. United States, 343 U. S. 427, 432-434 (1952); Amell v. United States, supra, at 164-166. The history is quite clear and, for our purposes, can be stated briefly.
Prior to 1916, the doctrine of sovereign immunity barred any suit by a private owner whose vessel was damaged by a vessel owned or operated by the United States. Recognizing the inequities of denying recovery to private owners and the difficulties inherent in attempting to grant relief to deserving private owners through private Acts of Congress, Congress provided in the Shipping Act, 1916, that Shipping Board vessels employed as merchant vessels were subject to “all laws, regulations, and liabilities governing merchant vessels.” 39 Stat. 730, 46 U. S. C. § 808. In The Lake Monroe, 250 U. S. 246 (1919), this Court held that the Shipping Act had subjected all Shipping Board merchant vessels to proceedings in rem in admiralty, including arrest and seizure. Congress, concerned that the arrest and seizure of Shipping Board merchant vessels would occasion unnecessary delay and expense, promptly responded to the Lake Monroe decision by enacting the Suits in Admiralty Act. The Act prohibited the arrest or seizure of any vessel owned by, possessed by, or operated by or for the United States. 46 U. S. C. § 741. In the place of an in rem proceeding, the Act authorized a libel in personam in cases involving such vessels, if such a proceeding could have been maintained had the vessel been a private vessel, and “provided that such vessel is employed as a merchant vessel.” 41 Stat. 525, 46 U. S. C. § 742 (1958 ed.). Significantly, Congress was urged to include in the Suits in Admiralty Act authorization for suits against the United States for damages caused by public vessels, but the suggestion was rejected in committee as a “radical change” in policy that might “materially delay passage” of the Act.
Until 1925 the only recourse for the owner of a vessel or cargo damaged by a public vessel was to apply to Congress for a private bill. In that year, Congress enacted the Public Vessels Act, which authorized a libel in personam against the United States “for damages caused by a public vessel of the United States.” 46 U. S. C. § 781. The Act provided that suits involving public vessels “shall be subject to and proceed in accordance with the provisions of [the Suits in Admiralty Act] or any amendment thereof, insofar as the same are not inconsistent herewith . . . .” § 782. Some of the inconsistencies lay in the Public Vessels Act’s provisions, referred to above, restricting subpoenas to officers and crew members of a public vessel, barring recovery of prejudgment interest, and imposing a requirement of reciprocity. Each of these provisions must be assumed to have reflected deliberate policy choices by Congress. In particular, the notion of reciprocity was central to the scheme enacted by Congress. One of the spurs to enactment of the Public Vessels Act was Congress’ recognition that the principal maritime nations, notably England, France, and Germany, already permitted their nationals and foreigners to bring suit for damages caused by public vessels. And while the debates on the Public Vessels Act were sparse, the Act’s requirement of reciprocity was specifically mentioned on the House floor in response to a question whether the Act gave foreign nationals the same rights as citizens to bring suit.
B
The 1960 amendment to the Suits in Admiralty Act, which formed the basis of the Court of Appeals’ decision, was an outgrowth of severe jurisdictional problems facing the plaintiff with a maritime claim against the United States. Both the Suits in Admiralty Act and the Public Vessels Act authorized suits on the admiralty side of the district courts, and were viewed as providing the exclusive remedy for claims within their coverage. See 46 U. S. C. § 745; Johnson v. United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp., 280 U. S. 320 (1930); Aliotti v. United States, 221 F. 2d 598 (CA9 1955). But these Acts were not generally interpreted to encompass all actionable maritime claims against the United States. Maritime tort claims deemed beyond the reach of both Acts could be brought only on the law side of the district courts under the Federal Tort Claims Act. 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346 (b), 2671 et seq. More importantly for our purposes, contract claims not enconrpassed by either Act fell within the Tucker Act, which lodged exclusive jurisdiction in the Court of Claims for claims exceeding $10,000. 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346 (a) (2), 1491.
A plaintiff with a contract claim against the United States for more than $10,000 often found himself in a difficult position. He had to choose between proceeding in the district court under one of the admiralty Acts, and proceeding in the Court of Claims under the Tucker Act. And he had to choose his forum wisely, for cases were not transferable between the district courts and the Court of Claims, and an incorrect choice could result in the applicable statute of limitations having run by the time the error was discovered. The solution of filing claims in both the district court and the Court of Claims was unavailable, because under 28 U. S. C. § 1500 the Court of Claims has no jurisdiction over any claim that is the subject of a pending suit in any other court. See Wessel, Duval & Co. v. United States, 129 Ct. Cl. 464, 124 F. Supp. 636 (1954).
Because of serious uncertainties about the reach of the Suits in Admiralty and Public Vessels Acts on the one hand, and the Tucker Act on the other, the crucial determination of the appropriate forum for a claim was often a difficult one. The jurisdictional uncertainties under these Acts were illustrated in Calmar S. S. Corp. v. United States, 345 U. S. 446 (1953). In that case the private owner of a steamship under charter to the United States brought suit for additional charter hire for the loss of its vessel, which was bombed by enemy airplanes while carrying military supplies and equipment. The vessel was clearly not a “public vessel” under the Public Vessels Act, because it was privately owned and operated. The question was whether the vessel, “undoubtedly ‘operated ... for the United States’ was ‘employed as a merchant vessel’ within the meaning of the [Suits in Admiralty] Act while carrying military supplies and equipment for hire.” Id., at 447. The District Court held that it was a merchant vessel and assumed jurisdiction under the Suits in Admiralty Act. The Court of Appeals reversed on the ground that while the vessel could have been employed as a merchant vessel under its charter, it was not so employed while transporting war materiel. Having thus successfully argued to the Court of Appeals that the suit was not cognizable under either the Suits in Admiralty Act or the Public Vessels Act, the Government reversed its position in this Court. It argued, and the Court held, that the nature of the cargo was irrelevant and that the vessel was employed as a merchant vessel within the meaning of the Suits in Admiralty Act. The Court was clearly sensitive to the fact that a contrary ruling would have relegated the plaintiff to the Court of Claims, id., at 455, but even after Calmar there remained the possibility that a particular vessel would be held to be neither a “public vessel” nor “employed as a merchant vessel.”
The sharp reversals of position by the Government and the courts in the Calmar case were but illustrative of the jurisdictional uncertainties faced by potential litigants. In several instances, courts reached conflicting results as to whether certain types of claims should be brought in the district court under the Suits in Admiralty Act or the Public Vessels Act on the one hand, or in the Court of Claims under the Tucker Act on the other.
It was the difficulty in determining the appropriate forum for a maritime claim against the United States that moved Congress to amend the Suits in Admiralty Act in 1960. The amendment first passed by the House in 1959 was designed to ameliorate the harsh consequences of misfilings by authorizing the transfer of cases between the district courts and the Court of Claims. The transfer provision would “prevent dismissal of suits which would become time-barred when the appropriate forum had finally been determined.” But the Senate Committee on the Judiciary found the House bill inadequate:
“The transfer bill would operate to prevent ultimate loss of rights of litigants, but it did nothing to eliminate or correct the cause of original erroneous choices of forum while it could increase the existing delays.”
Accordingly, the committee, while accepting the House amendment, proposed several additional amendments, whose purpose was stated succinctly as follows:
“The purpose of the amendments is to make as certain as possible that suits brought against the United States for damages caused by vessels and employees of the United States through breach of contract or tort can be originally filed hi the correct court so as to proceed to trial promptly on their merits.”
Two amendments were designed to clarify the jurisdictional language of the Suits in Admiralty Act. First, the committee added language authorizing suits against the United States where a suit would be maintainable “if a private person or property were involved.” The .prior version of the Act had authorized suits against the United States only when suits would be maintainable if the “vessel” or “cargo” were privately owned, operated, or possessed, and that language had generated considerable confusion.
Second, the committee made the change that concerns us in this case: it deleted the language in the jurisdictional section of the Suits in Admiralty Act requiring that a vessel be “employed as a merchant ¥68861.” We have already noted the confusion evidenced by the Government and the courts in the Calmar case over whether the vessel in question was “employed as a merchant vessel.” In addition, the Senate Report referred to other cases in which the “employed as a merchant vessel” language had caused jurisdictional difficulties. For example, in Continental Cas. Co. v. United States, 140 Ct. Cl. 500, 156 F. Supp. 942 (1957), the Court of Claims had held that a suit on a contract for the repair of a vessel that had been out of service for several years was not authorized by the Suits in Admiralty Act, because at the time the repairs were made “the vessel was not employed at all,” and could not therefore be said to have been “employed as a merchant vessel.” Similarly, in Eastern S. S. Lines v. United States, 187 F. 2d 956 (CA1 1951), the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a vessel owner’s contract claim against the United States for the amount necessary to recondition its vessel as a cargo and passenger ship after the Army had used it for troop transport and hospital services. The Court of Appeals held that the Suits in Admiralty Act had no application because the Army had not employed the vessel as a merchant vessel. The results in Continental Casualty and Eastern S. S. Lines were, the Senate Report noted, contrary to results reached in other cases “on essentially identical facts.” It was to make clear that such cases could be brought on the admiralty side of the district courts that the committee recommended the deletion of the confusing “employed as a merchant vessel” proviso.
C
Respondent contends that the deletion of the “employed as a merchant vessel” proviso was intended to abolish the distinction between a merchant vessel and a public vessel, and thereby enable suits previously cognizable under the Public Vessels Act to be brought under the Suits in Admiralty Act, free from the restrictive provisions of the Public Vessels Act. There is no indication that Congress had any such broad purpose. The legislative history contains no explicit suggestion that Congress intended to render nugatory the provisions of the Public Vessels Act. Nor does it express any broad intent to put an end to all litigation over whether a vessel is a public vessel.
The definitions of “merchant vessel” and “public vessel” were of interest to Congress only insofar as they related to Congress’ basic purpose: to remove uncertainty over the proper forum for a claim against the United States. In this regard, it is quite clear that Congress’ concern was not with uncertainty whether a suit should be brought under the Suits in Admiralty Act or under the Public Vessels Act, since in either event the proper forum was the admiralty side of the district court. See Calmar S. S. Corp., 345 U. S., at 454-455. The Senate Report stated the concern precisely:
“The serious problem, and the one to which this bill is directed, arises in claims exceeding $10,000 where there is uncertainty as to whether a suit is properly brought under the Tucker Act [in the Court of Claims] on the one hand or the Suits in Admiralty or Public Vessels Act [on the admiralty side of the district court] on the other.”
In short, Congress saw confusion between the category of suits cognizable under the Suits in Admiralty Act or Public Vessels Act on the one hand, and the category of suits cognizable under the Tucker Act on the other. It attempted to eliminate the confusion between these two categories by expanding the scope of the Suits in Admiralty Act at the expense of the Tucker Act — thereby virtually eliminating the quasi-admiralty jurisdiction of the Court of Claims under the Tucker Act. But Congress did nothing to alter the distinction between the Suits in Admiralty Act and the Public Vessels Act, or expand the one at the expense of the other.
That the House and Senate Reports contain a reference to “confusion in establishing whether a vessel is a ‘merchant vessel* or a ‘public vessel* *’ does not suggest otherwise. That reference appears in the course of a discussion of the difficulty in choosing the proper forum for a claim. To a limited extent, doubt whether a vessel was a merchant vessel or a public vessel created uncertainty over the proper forum. The Reports explained:
“If [a vessel is] a ‘merchant vessel/ under the Suits in Admiralty Act exclusive jurisdiction is in the district court in admiralty. If a ‘public vessel/ jurisdiction may be either in admiralty under the Public Vessels Act or under the Tucker Act, depending on the nature of the claim. It will be recalled that a claim under the Tucker Act exceeding $10,000 must be brought in the Court of Claims.”
Congress’ concern was that because of differences in the authorizational language of the Suits in Admiralty Act and the Public Vessels Act, some claims that would clearly have been within the jurisdiction of the district court if merchant vessels were involved had been held to be beyond the district court’s jurisdiction when public vessels were involved. Thus, some courts had held that contract claims other than those expressly authorized by the Public Vessels Act were generally not cognizable under the Act. Litigants with certain types of contract claims therefore faced the possibility that the appropriate forum would depend on the type of vessel involved. Congress’ deletion of the “employed as a merchant vessel” proviso was clearly intended to remove such uncertainty as to the proper forum by bringing within the Suits in Admiralty Act whatever category of claims involving public vessels was beyond the scope of the Public Vessels Act. But claims like the instant one, that fell within the Public Vessels Act, presented none of the problems' with which Congress was concerned in 1960, and there is therefore no reason to infer that Congress intended to affect them.
i — l hH I — I
In sum, the interpretation of the 1960 amendment advanced by the respondent and adopted by the Court of Appeals would effectively nullify specific policy judgments made by Congress when it enacted the Public Vessels Act, by enabling litigants to bring suits previously subject to the terms of the Public Vessels Act under the Suits in Admiralty Act. The language of the amendment does not explicitly authorize such a result, and the legislative history reflects a narrow congressional purpose that would not be advanced by that result. We therefore hold that claims within the scope of the Public Vessels Act remain subject to its terms after the 1960 amendment to the Suits in Admiralty Act. Since there is no dispute that respondent's claim falls within the embrace of the Public Vessels Act, the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that the reciprocity provision of the Public Vessels Act is inapplicable.
Respondent urges two additional grounds for affirmance. First, it contends that the reciprocity provision, even if applicable, does not bar its claim, because the owners of 99 % of its stock are Americans and it is in substance an American owner. The District Court rejected this contention, and the Court of Appeals did not address it since it found the reciprocity provision inapplicable. Second, respondent argues that if it is considered a national of the Philippines, whose suit would fall within the prohibition of the reciprocity provision, that provision denies it due process in violation of the Fifth Amendment. This argument was not even presented to the District Court, and was not addressed by the Court of Appeals. We leave the consideration of these two additional contentions, to the extent they were adequately raised, to the Court of Appeals on remand.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
We need not concern ourselves in this case with the definitions of the terms “merchant vessel” and “public vessel.” It suffices to say that the terms are mutually exclusive, and that the naval destroyer in this case is beyond question a “public vessel.”
The only apparent advantage to bringing suit under the Public Vessels Act lies in its broader venue provision. Both the Suits in Admiralty Act and the Public Vessels Act provide venue in the district in which the vessel or cargo is found, and in the district in which any plaintiff resides or has a place of business (under the Suits in Admiralty Act it must be the principal place of business in the United States). 46 U. S. C. §§742, 782. But the Public Vessels Act provides further that if there is no such district, suit may be brought in any district in the United States. 46 U. S. C. § 782.
See S. Rep. No. 223, 66th Cong., 1st Sess. (1919); H. R. Rep. No. 497, 66th Cong., 2d Sess. (1919).
Id., at 4.
H. R. Rep. No. 913, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 5-6, 15-16 (1924); S. Rep. No. 941, 68th Cong., 2d Sess., 5-6, 15-16 (1925); 66 Cong. Rec. 2088 (1925) (remarks of Rep. Underhill).
Ibid, (remarks of Reps. Denison, Underhill, and Bulwinkle).
H. R. Rep. No. 523, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1959) (hereinafter cited as House Report); S. Rep. No. 1894, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1960) (hereinafter cited as Senate Report). The problem was most severe when suit was incorrectly brought in the Court of Claims under the Tucker Act, which has a six-year statute of limitations, 28 U. S. C. § 2401 (a); the Suits in Admiralty and Public Vessels Acts have two-year limitation periods. 46 U. S. C. §§ 745, 782.
The respective House and Senate Committee Reports explained the problem as follows:
“Since the applicability of [the Suits in Admiralty, Public Vessels, and Tucker Acts] to a given factual situation is frequently exceedingly difficult to determine and a question on which reasonable men may differ, lawyers in maritime practice occasionally and unavoidably bring suit in the wrong forum.” House Report 2; Senate Report 3.
See House Report 3; Senate Report 4. Compare Aliotti v. United States, 221 F. 2d 598 (CA9 1955), with Eastern S. S. Lines v. United States, 187 F. 2d 956 (CA1 1951); Lykes Bros. S. S. Co. v. United States, 129 Ct. Cl. 455, 124 F. Supp. 622 (1954), with States Marine Corp. v. United States, 120 F. Supp. 585 (SDNY 1954), rev’d, 220 F. 2d 655 (CA2 1955); Smith-Johnson S. S. Corp. v. United States, 135 Ct. Cl. 869, 139 F. Supp. 298, cert. denied, 351 U. S. 988 (1956), with Sword Line v. United States, 228 F. 2d 344 (CA2 1955), 230 F. 2d 75 (CA2), aff’d, 351 U. S. 976 (1956) (after Sword Line was affirmed, the Court of Claims reversed itself in Smith-Johnson, supra, in 135 Ct. Cl. 866, 142 F. Supp. 367 (1956)).
The House had passed an identical bill in 1958, H. R. 3046, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., but it did not emerge from the Senate Committee on the Judiciary before the expiration of the 85th Congress.
House Report 3; Senate Report 4.
Id., at 6.
Id., at 2.
Senate Report 5, citing Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. United States, 175 F. 2d 490 (CA2), cert. denied, 338 U. S. 899 (1949). Compare Lykes Bros. S. S. Co. v. United States, supra, with States Marine Corp. v. United States, supra.
This amendment, which has no bearing on this case, has generally been held to require that those maritime tort claims that were previously cognizable only on the law side of the district courts under the Federal Tort Claims Act now be brought on the admiralty side of the district courts under the Suits in Admiralty Act. See T. J. Falgout Boats, Inc. v. United States, 361 F. Supp. 838 (CD Cal. 1972), aff’d, 508 F. 2d 855 (CA9 1974), cert. denied, 421 U. S. 1000 (1975); Roberts v. United States, 498 F. 2d 520 (CA9), cert. denied, 419 U. S. 1070 (1974); De Bardeleben Marine Corp. v. United States, 451 F. 2d 140 (CA5 1971); Utzinger v. United States, 246 F. Supp. 1022 (SD Ohio 1965); Tankrederiet Gefion A/S v. United States, 241 F. Supp. 83 (ED Mich. 1964); Tebbs v. Baker-Whitely Towing Co., 227 F. Supp. 656 (Md. 1964); Beeler v. United States, 224 F. Supp. 973 (WD Pa.), rev’d on other grounds, 338 F. 2d 687 (CA3 1964).
Senate Report 5, citing Shewan & Sons v. United States, 266 U. S. 108 (1924); Aliotti v. United States, 221 F. 2d 598 (CA9 1955); Sinclair Rfg. Co. v. United States, 129 Ct. Cl. 474, 124 F. Supp. 628 (1954). Of course, this Court's decision in the Calmar case cast doubts on at least some decisions narrowly defining the scope of admiralty jurisdiction under the Suits in Admiralty and Public Vessels Acts. Congress was understandably of the view that confusion remained after Calmar.
We do not view the dictum in Amell v. United States, 384 U. S. 158, 164 (1966), as requiring a result different from the one we reach today.
Senate Report 3.
The Court of Claims has not been completely deprived of jurisdiction over claims arising in a maritime context. In Amell v. United States, supra, we held that wage claims exceeding $10,000 by Government employees working aboard Government vessels are still cognizable exclusively in the Court of Claims, where wage claims by Government employees have traditionally been cognizable.
House Report 2; Senate Report 3.
See, e. g., Eastern S. S. Lines v. United States, 187 F. 2d, at 959; Continental Cas. Co. v. United States, 140 Ct. Cl. 500, 156 F. Supp. 942 (1957). Other than claims for “damages caused by a public vessel of the United States,” the only claims expressly authorized by the Public Vessels Act are claims “for compensation for towage and salvage services, including contract salvage, rendered to a public vessel of the United States.” 46 U. S. C. § 781.
It is not to be assumed that contract claims other than those expressly authorized by the Public Vessels Act were necessarily beyond the scope of the Act. As in Calmar S. S. Corp. v. United States, 345 U. S. 446, 456 n. 8 (1953), we intimate no view on the subject.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellant, a South Carolina taxpayer, brought this action to challenge the South Carolina Educational Facilities Authority Act (the Act), S. C. Code Ann. § 22-41 et seq. (Supp. 1971), as violative of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment insofar as it authorizes a proposed financing transaction involving the issuance of revenue bonds for the benefit of the Baptist College at Charleston (the College). The trial court’s denial of relief was affirmed by the Supreme Court of South Carolina. 255 S. C. 71, 177 S. E. 2d 362 (1970). This Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of the intervening decisions in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Earley v. DiCenso, and Robinson v. DiCenso, 403 U. S. 602 (1971); and Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 672 (1971). 403 U. S. 945 (1971). On remand, the Supreme Court of South Carolina adhered to its earlier position. 258 S. C. 97, 187 S. E. 2d 645 (1972). We affirm.
I
We begin by setting out the general structure of the Act. The Act established an Educational Facilities Authority (the Authority), the purpose of which is “to assist institutions for higher education in the construction, financing and refinancing of projects . . . ,” S. C. Code Ann. § 22-41.4 (Supp. 1971), primarily through the issuance of revenue bonds. Under the terms of the Act, a project may encompass buildings, facilities, site preparation, and related items, but may not include
“any facility used or to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place of religious worship nor any facility which is used or to be used primarily in connection with any part of the program of a school or department of divinity for any religious denomination.” S. C. Code Ann. § 22-41.2 (b) (Supp. 1971).
Correspondingly, the Authority is accorded certain powers over the project, including the powers to determine the fees to be charged for the use of the project and to establish regulations for its use. See infra, at 747-749.
While revenue bonds to be used in connection with a project are issued by the Authority, the Act is quite explicit that the bonds shall not be obligations of the State, directly or indirectly:
“Revenue bonds issued under the provisions of this chapter shall not be deemed to constitute a debt or liability of the State or of any political subdivision thereof or a pledge of the faith and credit of the State or of any such political subdivision, but shall be payable solely from the funds herein provided therefor from revenues. All such revenue bonds shall contain on the face thereof a statement to the effect that neither the State of South Carolina nor the Authority shall be obligated to pay the same or the interest thereon except from revenues of the project or the portion thereof for which they are issued and that neither the faith and credit nor the taxing power of the State of South Carolina or of any political subdivision thereof is pledged to the payment of the principal of or the interest on such bonds. The issuance of revenue bonds under the provisions of this chapter shall not directly or indirectly or contingently obligate the State or any political subdivision thereof to levy or to pledge any form of taxation whatever therefor or to make any appropriation for their payment.” S. C. Code Ann. §22-41.10 (Supp. 1971).
Moreover, since all of the expenses of the Authority must be paid from the revenues of the various projects in which it participates, S. C. Code Ann. § 22-41.5 (Supp. 1971), none of the general revenues of South Carolina is used to support a project.
On January 6, 1970, the College submitted to the Authority for preliminary approval an application for the issuance of revenue bonds. Under the proposal, the Authority would issue the bonds and make the proceeds available to the College for use in connection with a portion of its campus to be designated a project (the Project) within the meaning of. the Act. In return, the College would convey the Project, without cost, to the Authority, which would then lease the property so conveyed back to the College. After payment in full of the bonds, the Project would be reconveyed to the College. The Authority granted preliminary approval on January 16, 1970, 255 S. C., at 76, 177 S. E. 2d, at 365.
In its present form, the application requests the issuance of revenue bonds totaling $1,250,000, of which $1,050,000 would be applied to refund short-term financing of capital improvements and $200,000 would be applied to the completion of dining hall facilities. The advantage of financing educational institutions through a state-created authority derives from relevant provisions of federal and South Carolina state income tax laws which provide in effect that the interest on such bonds is not subject to income taxation. The income-tax-exempt status of the interest enables the Authority, as an instrumentality of the State, to market the bonds at a significantly lower rate of interest than the educational institution would be forced to pay if it borrowed the money by conventional private financing.
Because the College’s application to the Authority was a preliminary one, the details of the financing arrangement have not yet been fully worked out. But Rules and Regulations adopted by the Authority govern certain of its aspects. See Jurisdictional Statement, Appendix C, pp. 47-51. Every lease agreement between the Authority and an institution must contain a' clause
“obligating the Institution that neither the leased land, nor the facility located thereon, shall be used for sectarian instruction or as a place of religious worship, or in connection with any part of the program of a school or department of divinity of any religious denomination.” 258 S. C., at 101, 187 S. E. 2d, at 647.
To insure that this covenant is honored, each lease agreement must allow the Authority to conduct inspections, and any reconveyance to the College must contain a restriction against use for sectarian purposes. The Rules further provide that simultaneously with the execution of the lease agreement, the Authority and the trustee bank would enter into a Trust Indenture which would create, for the benefit of the bondholders, a foreclosable mortgage lien on the Project property including a mortgage on the “right, title and interest of the Authority in and to the Lease Agreement.” Jurisdictional Statement, Appendix C, p. 50.
Our consideration of appellant’s Establishment Clause claim extends only to the proposal as approved preliminarily with such additions as are contemplated by the Act, the Rules, and the decisions of the courts below.
II
As we reaffirm today in Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, post, p. 756, the principles which govern our consideration of challenges to statutes as violative of the Establishment Clause are three:
“First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion . . . ; finally, the statute must not foster 'an excessive government entanglement with religion.’ ” Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S., at 612-613.
With full recognition that these are no more than helpful signposts, we consider the present statute and the proposed transaction in terms of the three “tests”: purpose, effect, and entanglement.
A
The purpose of the statute is manifestly a secular one. The benefits of the Act are available to all institutions of higher education in South Carolina, whether or not having a religious affiliation. While a legislature’s declaration of purpose may not always be a fair guide to its true intent, appellant makes no suggestion that the introductory paragraph of the Act represents anything other than a good-faith statement of purpose:
“It is hereby declared that for the benefit of the people of the State, the increase of their commerce, welfare and prosperity and the improvement of their health and living conditions it is essential that this and future generations of youth be given the fullest opportunity to learn and to develop their intellectual and mental capacities; that it is essential that institutions for higher education within the State be provided with appropriate additional means to assist such youth in achieving the required levels of learning and development of their intellectual and mental capacities; and that it is the purpose of this chapter to provide a measure of assistance and an alternative method to enable institutions for higher education in the State to provide the facilities and structures which are sorely needed to accomplish the purposes of this chapter, all to the public benefit and good, to the extent and manner provided herein.” S. C. Code Ann. § 22.41 (Supp.1971).
The College and other private institutions of higher education provide these benefits to the State. As of the academic year 1969-1970, there were 1,548 students enrolled in the College, in addition to approximately 600 night students. Of these students, 95% are residents of South Carolina who are thereby receiving a college education without financial support from the State of South Carolina.
B
To identify “primary effect,” we narrow our focus from the statute as a whole to the only transaction presently before us. Whatever may be its initial appeal, the proposition that the Establishment Clause prohibits any program which in some manner aids an institution with a religious affiliation has consistently been rejected. E. g., Bradfield v. Roberts, 175 U. S. 291 (1899); Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S. 664 (1970); Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 672 (1971). Stated another way, the Court has not accepted the recurrent argument that all aid is forbidden because aid to one aspect of an institution frees it to spend its other resources on religious ends.
Aid normally may be thought to have a primary effect of advancing religion when it flows to an institution in which religion is so pervasive that a substantial portion of its functions are subsumed in the religious mission or when it funds a specifically religious activity in an otherwise substantially secular setting. In Tilton v. Richardson, supra, the Court refused to strike down a direct federal grant to four colleges and universities in Connecticut. Mr. Chief Justice Burger, for the plurality, concluded that despite some institutional rhetoric, none of the four colleges was pervasively sectarian, but held open that possibility for future cases:
“Individual projects can be properly evaluated if and when challenges arise with respect to particular recipients and some evidence is then presented to show that the institution does in fact possess these characteristics.” Id., at 682.
Appellant has introduced no evidence in the present case placing the College in such a category. It is true that the members of the College Board of Trustees are elected by the South Carolina Baptist Convention, that the approval of the Convention is required for certain financial transactions, and that the charter of the College may be amended only by the Convention. But it was likewise true of the institutions involved in Tilton that they were “governed by Catholic religious organizations.” Id., at 686. What little there is in the record concerning the College establishes that there are no religious qualifications for faculty membership or student admission, and that only 60% of the College student body is Baptist, a percentage roughly equivalent to the percentage of Baptists in that area of South Carolina. 255 S. C., at 85, 177 S. E. 2d, at 369. On the record in this case there is no basis to conclude that the College’s operations are oriented significantly towards sectarian rather than secular education.
Nor can we conclude that the proposed transaction will place the Authority in the position of providing aid to the religious as opposed to the secular activities of the College. The scope of the Authority’s power to assist institutions of higher education extends only to “projects,” and the Act specifically states that a project “shall not include” any buildings or facilities used for religious purposes. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that all of the proposed financing and refinancing relates to buildings and facilities within a properly delimited project. It is not at all clear from the record that the portion of the campus to be conveyed by the College to the Authority and leased back is the same as that being financed, but in any event it too must be part of the Project and subject to the same prohibition against use for religious purposes. In addition, as we have indicated, every lease agreement must contain a clause forbidding religious use and another allowing inspections to enforce the agreement. For these reasons, we are satisfied that implementation of the proposal will not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion.
C
The final question posed by this case is whether under the arrangement there would be an unconstitutional degree of entanglement between the State and the College. Appellant argues that the Authority would become involved in the operation of the College both by inspecting the project to insure that it is not being used for religious purposes and by participating in the management decisions of the College.
The Court’s opinion in Lemon and the plurality opinion in Tilton are grounded on the proposition that the degree of entanglement arising from inspection of facilities as to use varies in large measure with the extent to which religion permeates the institution. In finding excessive entanglement, the Court in Lemon relied on the “substantial religious character of these church-related” elementary schools. 403 U. S., at 616. Mr. Chief Justice Burger’s opinion for the plurality in Tilton placed considerable emphasis on the fact that the federal aid there approved would be spent in a college setting:
“Since religious indoctrination is not a substantial purpose or activity of these church-related colleges and universities, there is less likelihood than in primary and secondary schools that religion will permeate the area of secular education.” 403 U. S., at 687.
Although Mr. Justice White saw no such clear distinction, he concurred in the judgment, stating:
“It is enough for me that . . . the Federal Government [is] financing a separable secular function of overriding importance in order to sustain the legislation here challenged.” 403 U. S., at 664.
A majority of the Court in Tilton, then, concluded that on the facts of that case inspection as to use did not threaten excessive entanglement. As we have indicated above, there is no evidence here to demonstrate that the College is any more an instrument of religious indoctrination than were the colleges and universities involved in Tilton.
A closer issue under our precedents is presented by the contention that the Authority could become deeply involved in the day-to-day financial and policy decisions of the College. The Authority is empowered by the Act:
“(g) [generally, to fix and revise from time to time and charge and collect rates, rents, fees and charges for the use of and for the services furnished or to be furnished by a project or any portion thereof and to contract with any person, partnership, association or corporation or other body public or private in respect thereof;
“(h) [t] o establish rules and regulations for the use of a project or any portion thereof and to designate a participating institution for higher education as its agent to establish rules and regulations for the use of a project undertaken for such participating institution for higher education. . . S. C. Code Ann. §22-41.4 (Supp. 1971).
These powers are sweeping ones, and were there a realistic likelihood that they would be exercised in their full detail, the entanglement problems with the proposed transaction would not be insignificant.
As the South Carolina Supreme Court pointed out, 258 S. C., at 107, 187 S. E. 2d, at 651, the Act was patterned closely after the South Carolina Industrial Revenue Bond Act, and perhaps for this reason appears to confer unnecessarily broad power and responsibility on the Authority. The opinion of that court, however, reflects a narrow interpretation of the practical operation of these powers:
“Counsel for plaintiff argues that the broad language of the Act causes the State, of necessity, to become excessively involved in the operation, management and administration of the College. We do not so construe the Act. . . . [T]he basic function of the Authority is to see . . . that fees are charged sufficient to meet the bond payments.” Id., at 108, 187 S. E. 2d, at 651.
As we read the College’s proposal, the Lease Agreement between the Authority and the College will place on the College the responsibility for making the detailed decisions regarding the government of the campus and the fees to be charged for particular services. Specifically, the proposal states that the Lease Agreement
“will unconditionally obligate the College (a) to pay sufficient rentals to meet the principal and interest requirements as they become due on such bonds, [and] (b) to impose an adequate schedule of charges and fees in order to provide adequate revenues with which to operate and maintain the said facilities and to make the rental payments . . . .” App. 18.
In short, under the proposed Lease Agreement, neither the Authority nor a trustee bank would be justified in taking action unless the College fails to make the prescribed rental payments or otherwise defaults in its obligations. Only if the College refused to meet rental payments or was unable to do so would the Authority or the trustee be obligated to take further action. In that event, the Authority or trustee might either foreclose on the mortgage or take a hand in the setting of rules, charges, and fees. It may be argued that only the former would be consistent with the Establishment Clause, but we do not now have that situation before us.
Ill
This case comes to us as an action for injunctive and declaratory relief to test the constitutionality of the Act as applied to a proposed — rather than an actual— issuance of revenue bonds. The specific provisions of the Act under which the bonds will be issued, the Rules and Regulations of the Authority, and the College’s proposal — all as interpreted by the South Carolina Supreme Court — confine the scope of the assistance to the secular aspects of this liberal arts college and do not foreshadow excessive entanglement between the State and religion. Accordingly, we affirm the holding of the court below that the Act is constitutional as interpreted and applied in this case.
Affirmed.
At various points during this litigation, appellant has made reference to the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, but has made no arguments specifically addressed to violations of that Clause except insofar as this Court’s approach to cases involving the Religion Clauses represents an interaction of the two Clauses.
As originally submitted by the College and approved by the Authority, the proposal called for the issuance of “not exceeding $3,500,000 of revenue bonds . . . .” 255 S. C. 71, 75, 177 S. E. 2d 362, 364. As indicated by a stipulation of counsel in this Court, the College subsequently secured a bank loan in the amount of $2,500000 and now proposes the issuance of only $1,250,000 in revenue bonds under the Act, the proceeds to be used:
“(i) to repay in full the College’s Current Fund for the balance (approximately $250,000) advanced to the College’s Plant Fund as aforesaid; (ii) to refund outstanding short-term loans in the amount of $800,000 whose proceeds were to pay off indebtedness incurred for capital improvements, and (iii) to finance the completion of the dining hall facilities at a cost of approximately $200,000.” App. 49. (Emphasis in original.)
Gross income for federal income tax purposes does not include interest on “the obligations of a State, a Territory; or a possession of the United States, or any political subdivision of any of the foregoing . . . .” 26 U. S. C. §103 (a)(1). For state income tax purposes, gross income does not include interest “upon obligations of the United States or its possessions or of this State or any political subdivision thereof S. C. Code Ann. § 65-253 (4) (Supp. 1971).
Rule 4 relating to the Lease Agreement provides in part that:
“If the Lease Agreement contains a provision permitting the Institution to repurchase the project upon payment of the bonds, then in such instance the Lease Agreement shall provide that the Deed of reconveyance from the Authority to the Institution shall be made subject to the condition that so long as the Institution, or any voluntary grantee of the Institution, shall own the leased premises, or any part thereof, that no facility thereon, financed in whole or in part with the proceeds of the bonds, shall be used for sectarian instruction or as a place of religious worship, or used in connection with any part of the program of a school or department of divinity of any religious denomination.” 258 S. C. 97, 101-102, 187 S. E. 2d 645, 647-648.
The Rule goes on to allow the institution to remove this option in the case of involuntary sales:
“The condition may provide, at the option of the Institution, that if the leased premises shall become the subject of an involuntary judicial sale, as a result of any foreclosure of any mortgage, or sale pursuant to any order of any court, that the title to be vested in any purchaser at such judicial sale, other than the Institution, shall be in fee simple and shall be free of the condition applicable to the Institution or any voluntary grantee thereof.” 258 S. C., at 102, 187 S. E. 2d, at 648. See n. 6, infra.
In Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236 (1968), this Court commented on the importance of the role of private education in this country:
“Underlying these cases, and underlying also the legislative judgments that have preceded the court decisions, has been a recognition that private education has played and is playing a significant and valuable role in raising national levels of knowledge, competence, and experience.” Id., at 247.
Appellant also takes issue with the Authority’s rule allowing a purchaser at an involuntary sale to take title free of restrictions as to religious use. See n. 4, supra. Appellant’s reliance on Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 672 (1971), in this respect is misplaced. There, the Court struck down a provision under which the church-related colleges would have unrestricted use of a federally financed project after 20 years. In the present case, by contrast, the restriction against religious use is lifted, not as to the institution seeking the assistance of the Authority nor as to voluntary transferees, but only as to a purchaser at a judicial sale. Because some other religious institution bidding for the property at a judicial sale could purchase the property only by outbidding all other prospective purchasers, there is only a speculative possibility that the absence of a use limitation would ever afford aid to religion. Even in such an event, the acquiring religious institution presumably would have had to pay the then fair value of the property.
The “state aid” involved in this case is of a very special sort. We have here no expenditure of public funds, either by grant or loan, no reimbursement by a State for expenditures made by a parochial school or college, and no extending or committing of a State’s credit. Rather, the only state aid consists, not of financial assistance directly or indirectly which would implicate public funds or credit, but the creation of an instrumentality (the Authority) through which educational institutions may borrow funds on the basis of their own credit and the security of their own property upon more favorable interest terms than otherwise would be available. The Supreme Court of New Jersey characterized the assistance rendered an educational institution under an act generally similar to the South Carolina Act as merely being a "governmental service.” Clayton v. Kervick, 56 N. J. 523, 530-531, 267 A. 2d 503, 506-507 (1970). The South Carolina Supreme Court, in the opinion below, described the role of the State as that of a “mere conduit.” 258 S. C., at 107, 187 S. E. 2d, at 650. Because we conclude that the primary effect of the assistance afforded here is neither to advance nor to inhibit religion under Lemon and Tilton, we need not decide whether, as appellees argue, Brief for Appellees 14, the importance of the tax exemption in the South Carolina scheme brings the present case under Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S. 664 (1970), where this Court upheld a local property tax exemption which included religious institutions.
Although the record in this case is abbreviated and not free from ambiguity, the burden rests on appellant to show the extent to which the College is church related, cf. Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S., at 248, and he has failed to show more than a formalistic church relationship. As Tilton established, formal denominational control over a liberal arts college does not render all aid to the institution a violation of the Establishment Clause. So far as the record here is concerned, there is no showing that the College places any special emphasis on Baptist denominational or any other sectarian type of education. As noted above, both the faculty and the student body are open to persons of any (or no) religious affiliation.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This action for injunctive relief and treble damages alleging violations of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1 and 2, was brought in the District Court for the Southern District of New York against the petitioners in No. 309, American Federation of Musicians and its Local 802. The question is whether union practices of the petitioners affecting orchestra leaders violate the Sherman Act as activities in combination with a “non-labor” group, or are exempted by the Norris-LaGuardia Act as activities affecting a “labor” group which is party to a “labor dispute.” After a five-week trial without a jury the District Court dismissed the action on the merits, holding that all of the petitioners’ practices brought in question “come within the definition of the term 'labor dispute’ . . . and are exempt from the antitrust laws.” 241 F. Supp. 865, 894. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed on the issue of alleged price fixing, but in all other respects affirmed the dismissal. 372 F. 2d 155. Both parties sought certiorari, in No. 309 the petitioners from the reversal of the dismissal in respect of alleged price fixing, and in No. 310 the respondents from the affirmance of the dismissal in the other respects. We granted both petitions, 389 U. S. 817. We hold that the District Court properly dismissed the action on the merits, and that the Court of Appeals should have affirmed the District Court judgment in its entirety.
I.
The petitioners are labor unions of professional musicians. The union practices questioned here are mainly those applied to “club-date” engagements of union members. These are one-time engagements of orchestras to provide music, usually for only a few hours, at such social events as weddings, fashion shows, commencements, and the like. The purchaser of the music, e. g., the father of the bride, the chairman of the events, etc., makes arrangements with a musician, or with a musician’s booking agent, for an orchestra of a conductor and a given number of instrumentalists, or “sidemen,” at a specified time and place. The musician in such cases assumes the role of “leader” of the orchestra, obtains the “sidemen” and attends to the bookkeeping and other details of the engagement. Usually the “leader” performs with the orchestra, sometimes only conducting but often also playing an instrument. When he does not personally appear, he designates a “subleader” who conducts for him and often also plays an instrument.
A musician performing “club-dates” may perform in different capacities on the same day or during the same week, at times as leader and other times as subleader or sideman. The four respondents, however, are musicians who usually act as leaders and maintain offices and employ personnel to solicit engagements through advertising and personal contacts. When two or more engagements are accepted for the same time, each of the respondents will conduct, and, except respondent Peterson, sometimes play, at one and designate a subleader to perform the functions of leader at the other.
The four respondents were members of the petitioner Federation and Local 802 when this suit was filed. Virtually all musicians in the United States and the great majority of the orchestra leaders are union members. There are no collective bargaining agreements in the club-date field. Club-date engagements are rigidly regulated by unilaterally adopted union bylaws and regulations. Under these bylaws and regulations
(1) Petitioners enforce a closed shop and exert various pressures upon orchestra leaders to become union members.
(2) Orchestra leaders must engage a minimum number of sidemen for club-date engagements.
(3) Orchestra leaders must charge purchasers of music minimum prices prescribed in a “Price List Booklet.” The prices are the total of (a) the minimum wage scales for sidemen, (b) a “leader’s fee” which is double the sideman’s scale when four or more musicians compose the orchestra, and (c) an additional 8% to cover social security, unemployment insurance, and other expenses. When the leader does not personally appear at an engagement, but designates a subleader and four or more musicians perform, the leader must pay the subleader one and one-half times the wage scale out of his “leader’s fee.”
(4) Orchestra leaders are required to use a form of contract, called the Form B contract, for all engagements. In the club-date field, however, Local 802 accepts assurances that the terms of club-date engagements comply with all union regulations and provide for payment of the minimum wage. Union business agents police compliance.
(5) Additional regulations apply to traveling engagements. The leader of a traveling orchestra must charge 10% more than the minimum price of either the home local or of the local in whose territory the orchestra is playing, whichever is greater.
(6) Orchestra leaders are prohibited from accepting engagements from or making any payments to caterers.
(7) Orchestra leaders may accept engagements made by booking agents only if the booking agents have been licensed by the unions under standard forms of license agreements provided by the unions.
The District Court assumed, and the Court of Appeals held, that orchestra leaders in the club-date field are employers and independent contractors. Respondents argue that petitioners’ involvement' of the orchestra leaders in the promulgation and enforcement of the challenged regulations and bylaws creates a combination or conspiracy with a “non-labor” group which violates the Sherman Act. Allen Bradley Co. v. Union, 325 U. S. 797, 800; Los Angeles Meat & Provision Drivers Union v. United States, 371 U. S. 94; Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U. S. 657. But the Court of Appeals concurred in the finding of the District Court that such orchestra leaders, although deemed to be employers and independent contractors, constitute not a “non-labor” group but a “labor” group. 372 F. 2d, at 168.
The criterion applied by the District Court in determining that the orchestra leaders were a “labor” group and parties to a “labor dispute” was the “presence of a job or wage competition or some other economic interrelationship affecting legitimate union interests between the union members and the independent contractors. If such a relationship existed the independent contractors were a 'labor group’ and party to a labor dispute under the Norris-LaGuardia Act.” 241 F. Supp., at 887. The Court of Appeals held, and we agree, that this is a correct statement of the applicable principles. The Norris-LaGuardia Act took all “labor disputes” as therein defined outside the reach of the Sherman Act and established that the allowable area of union activity was not to be restricted to an immediate employer-employee relation. United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219, 229-236; Allen Bradley Co. v. Union, supra, at 805-806; Los Angeles Meat & Provision Drivers Union v. United States, supra, at 103; Milk Wagon Drivers’ Union v. Lake Valley Farm Prods., 311 U. S. 91. “This Court has recognized that a legitimate aim of any national labor organization is to obtain uniformity of labor standards and that a consequence of such union activity may be to eliminate competition based on differences in such standards.” Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U. S. 657, 666.
The District Court found that the orchestra leaders performed work and functions which actually or potentially affected the hours, wages, job security, and working conditions of petitioners’ members. These findings have substantial support in the evidence and in the light of the job and wage competition thus established, both courts correctly held that it was lawful for petitioners to pressure the orchestra leaders to become union members, Los Angeles Meat Drivers, supra, and Milk Wagon Drivers’, supra, to insist upon a closed shop, United States v. American Federation of Musicians, 318 U. S. 741, affirming 47 F. Supp. 304, to refuse to bargain collectively with the leaders, see Hunt v. Crumboch, 325 U. S. 821, to impose the minimum employment quotas complained of, United States v. American Federation of Musicians, supra, to require the orchestra leaders to use the Form B contract, see Teamsters Union v. Oliver, 362 U. S. 605 (Oliver II), and to favor local musicians by requiring that higher wages be paid to musicians from outside a local’s jurisdiction, Rambusch Decorating Co. v. Brotherhood of Painters, 105 F. 2d 134.
The District Court also sustained the legality of the “Price List” stating, “In view of the competition between leaders and sidemen and subleaders which underlies the finding that the leaders are a labor group, the union has a legitimate interest in fixing minimum fees for a participating leader and minimum engagement prices equal to the total minimum wages of the sidemen and the participating leader.” 241 F. Supp., at 890. The Court of Appeals, one judge dissenting, disagreed that the “Price List” was within the labor exemption, stating that “the unions’ establishment of price floors on orchestral engagements constitutes a per se violation of the Sherman Act.” 372 F. 2d, at 165. The premise of the majority’s conclusion was that the “Price List” was disqualified for the exemption because its concern is “prices” and not “wages.” But this overlooks the necessity of inquiry beyond the form. Mr. Justice White’s opinion in Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea, 381 U. S. 676, 690, n. 5, emphasized that “[t]he crucial determinant is not the form of the agreement — e. g., prices or wages — but its relative impact on the product market and the interests of union members.” It is therefore not dispositive of the question that petitioners’ regulation in form establishes price floors. The critical inquiry is whether the price floors in actuality operate to protect the wages of the subleader and sidemen. The District Court found that the price floors were expressly designed to and did function as a protection of sidemen’s and subleaders’ wage scales against the job and wage competition of the leaders. The Court said:
“As a consequence of this relationship, the practices of [orchestra leaders] when they lead and play must have a vital effect on the working conditions of the non-leader members of the union. If they undercut the union wage scale or do not adhere to union regulations regarding hours or other working conditions when they perform they will undermine these union standards. They would put pressure on the union members they compete with to correspondingly lower their own demands.” 241 F. Supp., at 888.
The Court of Appeals itself expressed a similar view in saying:
“even those orchestra leaders who, as employers in club dates, lead but never perform as players, are proper subjects for membership because they are in job competition with union sub-leaders; each time a non-union orchestra leader performs, he displaces a ‘union job’ with a ‘non-union job.’ ” 372 F. 2d, at 168.
And of particular significance, the Court of Appeals noted that where the leader performs
“the services of a sub-leader would not be required and the leader may in this way save the wages he would otherwise have to pay. Consequently, he could make the services of his orchestra available at a lower price than could a non-performing leader.” 372 F. 2d, at 166.
Thus the price floors, including the minimums for leaders, are simply a means for coping with the job and wage competition of the leaders to protect the wage scales of musicians who respondents concede are employees on club-dates, namely sidemen and subleaders. As such the provisions of the “Price List” establishing those floors are indistinguishable in their effect from the collective bargaining provisions in Teamsters Union v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283 (Oliver I), which we held governed not prices but the mandatory bargaining subject of wages. The precise issue in Oliver I was whether Article XXXII of a multi-employer, multistate collective bargaining agreement between the Teamsters Union and a bargaining organization of motor carriers dealt with a mandatory subject of bargaining. Article XXXII provided that drivers who own and drive their own vehicles should be paid, in addition to the prescribed driver’s wage, not less than a prescribed minimum rental for the use of their vehicles. We held that the article was a wage and not a price provision, saying:
“The inadequacy of a rental which means that the owner makes up his excess costs from his driver’s wages not only clearly bears a close relation to labor’s efforts to improve working conditions but is in fact of vital concern to the carrier’s employed drivers; an inadequate rental might mean the progressive curtailment of jobs through withdrawal of more and more carrier-owned vehicles from service. . . .” 358 U. S., at 294.
We disagree with the Court of Appeals that “[t]he circumstances constituting a possible threat to the employment of sub-leaders or the displacement of a sideman . . . are not at all comparable,” 372 F. 2d, at 166. The price floors here serve the identical ends served by Article XXXII in Oliver I. The Price List has in common with Article XXXII the objective to protect employees’ job opportunities and wages from job and wage competition of other union members — in the case of the Article, drivers when they drive their own vehicles, and in the case of the Price List, musicians on the occasions they are leaders and play a role as employers. Like the Article, the Price List is therefore “a direct and frontal attack upon a problem thought to threaten the maintenance of the basic wage structure . . . .” 358 U. S., at 294.
The majority of the Court of Appeals apparently regarded Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea, supra, as militating against this conclusion. The majority read the opinions of Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Goldberg in that case as requiring a holding that “mandatory subjects of collective bargaining carry with them an exemption . . . ,” but that “[o]n matters outside of the mandatory area ... no such considerations govern . . . .” 372 F. 2d, at 165. Even if only mandatory subjects of bargaining enjoy the exemption — a question not in this case and upon which we express no view — nothing Mr. Justice White or Mr. Justice Goldberg said remotely suggests that the distinction between mandatory and nonmandatory subjects turns on the form of the method taken to protect a wage scale, here a price floor. To the contrary, we pointed out above that Mr. Justice White’s opinion emphasized that the “crucial determinant is not the form of the agreement . . .” and cited Oliver I as settling that proposition. 381 U. S., at 690, n. 5.
The reasons which entitle the Price List to the exemption embrace the provision fixing the minimum price for a club-date engagement when the orchestra leader does not perform, and does not displace an employee-musician. That regulation is also justified as a means of preserving the scale of the sidemen and subleaders. There was evidence that when the leader does not collect from the purchaser of the music an amount sufficient to make up the total of his out-of-pocket expenses, including the sum of his wage-scale wages and the scale wages of the sidemen, he will, in fact, not pay the sidemen the prescribed scale. The District Court found:
“It is unquestionably true that skimping on the part of the person who sets up the engagement [the leader] so that his costs are not covered is likely to have an adverse effect on the fees paid to the participating musicians. By fixing a reasonable amount over the sum of the minimum wages of the musicians participating in an engagement to cover these expenses, the union insures that ‘no part of the labor costs paid to a [leader] would be diverted by him for overhead or other non-labor costs.’ ” 241 F. Supp., at 891.
In other words, the price of the product — here the price for an orchestra for a club-date — represents almost entirely the scale wages of the sidemen and the leader. Unlike most industries, except for the 8% charge, there are no other costs contributing to the price. Therefore, if leaders cut prices, inevitably wages must be cut.
The analyses of Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Goldberg in Jewel Tea support our conclusion. Jewel Tea did not hold that an agreement respecting marketing hours would always come within the labor exemption. Rather, that case held that such an agreement was lawful because it was found that the marketing-hours restriction had a substantial effect on hours worked by the union members. Similarly, the price-list requirement is brought within the labor exemption under the finding that the requirement is necessary to assure that scale wages will be paid to the sidemen and the leader. If the union may not require that the full-time leader charge the purchaser of the music an amount sufficient to compensate him for the time he spends selecting musicians and performing the other musical functions involved in leading, the full-time leader may compete with other union members who seek the same jobs through price differentiation in the product market based on differences in a labor standard. His situation is identical to that of a truck owner in Oliver I who does not charge an amount sufficient to compensate him for the value of his labor services in driving the truck, and is a situation which the union can prevent consistent with its antitrust exemption. There can be no differentiation between the leader who appears with his orchestra and the one who on occasion hires a subleader. In either case part of the union-prescribed “leader’s fee” is attributable to service rendered in either conducting or playing and part to the service rendered in selecting musicians, bookkeeping, etc. The only difference is that in the former situation the leader keeps the entire fee while in the latter he is required to pay that part of it attributable to playing or conducting to the subleader. In this respect we agree with the view espoused by Judge Friendly in his separate opinion, 372 F. 2d, at 168-170.
We think also that the caterer and booking agent restrictions “are at least as intimately bound up with the subject of wages,” Oliver II, supra, at 606, as the price floors. The District Court found that the booking agent regulations were adopted because of experience that “many booking agents charged exorbitant fees to members and booked engagements for musicians at wages which were below union scale.” 241 F. Supp., at 881-882. On the basis of these findings, the District Court concluded:
“Because the activities of the booking agents here have and had a direct and substantial effect on the wages of the members of [the unions], I find that they are in an economic interrelationship with the members . . . such that the [unions] are justified in regulating their activities .... Furthermore, I find the regulations to be reasonably related to their interest in maintaining observance of union scale wages and working conditions.” 241 F. Supp., at 893.
The finding concerning the caterer regulations was to the same effect.
“The evidence discloses that caterers took advantage of their position before the union adopted its regulations to, in effect, book orchestras and they continue to do so, at least to some extent. Caterers recommend orchestras to customers and receive commissions from orchestra leaders. These practices actually or potentially affect the wages of the musicians involved.
“I believe that this constitutes an economic interrelationship which permits the defendants to regulate and prohibit the booking activities of the caterers without violating the Sherman Act.” 241 F. Supp., at 893.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the cases are remanded with direction to enter a judgment affirming the judgment of the District Court in its entirety.
It is so ordered.
The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
Peterson and Carroll, respondents in No. 309, filed the first action in July 1960 and the other in December 1960. The latter was brought to challenge an increase in the musicians’ wage scale adopted after the first complaint was filed. The other respondents were allowed to intervene. By stipulation the testimony in Carroll v. Associated Musicians, 206 F. Supp. 462, 316 F. 2d 574, and Cutler v. American Federation of Musicians, 211 F. Supp. 433, 316 F. 2d 546, was made part of the record.
§ 13 (c), 47 Stat. 73, 29 U. S. C. § 113 (c); see also §§ 6 and 20 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 738, 15 U. S. C. § 17, 29 U. S. C. §52.
“Musical engagements are generally classified as either ‘steady/ those lasting for longer than one week, or ‘single/ usually one day or one performance affairs but including all engagements lasting less than one week. The much sought after steady engagements are rare in comparison with the number of single engagements.
“The predominant form of single engagement is the ‘club date’.... Single engagements also include the ‘non-club date’ field, consisting of television appearances or recording engagements, etc. . . .” 372 F. 2d, at 158.
Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals held that respondents did not prove that they properly represented a class under former Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23 (a), 241 F. Supp., at 884-886; 372 F. 2d, at 161-163. The record sustains this conclusion. Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255 U. S. 356; Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S. 32. Since all of the respondents either play an instrument or conduct their orchestras unless they book more than one engagement for the same time, we do not have before us a leader who merely books engagements and never appears with his orchestra.
Carroll and Peterson have since been expelled from membership. See 241 F. Supp., at 870. Both are still permitted to book engagements and hire musicians to play at them but cannot appear with their orchestra either as conductors or instrumentalists. See Carroll v. American Federation of Musicians, 310 F. 2d 325.
“The distinction, between the kinds of single engagements is vital; the non-club date engagements are ordinarily governed by collective bargaining agreements .... The same is usually true of the steady engagement field. Local 802 has collective bargaining agreements with the major users or 'purchasers’ of live music within its area such as recording companies, hotels, television and film producers, opera companies and theatres.” 372 F. 2d, at 158.
See 241 F. Supp., at 887; 372 F. 2d, at 159. We need not decide the question.
The Court of Appeals also found “no evidence of a conspiracy between Local 802, or the Federation, and orchestra leaders to eliminate competitors, fix prices or achieve any other commercial restraint, nor was such a finding made by the district judge. Rather, the record establishes that all restraints were instituted unilaterally by the unions and acquiesced in by the orchestra leaders.” 372 F. 2d, at 164; see 241 F. Supp., at 891.
“[I]n the club date and hotel steady engagement fields . . . orchestra leaders are in competition with employee members of the . . . unions regarding jobs, wages and other working conditions. As a result, they comprise a labor group in these fields.” 241 F. Supp., at 887-888.
The “Price List” establishes only a minimum charge; there is no attempt to set a maximum. Nor does the union attempt by its minimum charge to assure the leader a profit above the fair value of his labor services. The District Court found no evidence “which indicates that the increment to the [leader] is unrelated to his costs in that function.” 241 F. Supp., at 891. See also 372 F. 2d, at 170 (Friendly, J., in separate opinion): “A different result might be warranted if the floor were set so high as to cover not merely compensation for the additional services rendered by a leader but entrepreneurial profit as well. But there has been no such showing here.”
Because of the intense competition for positions as leader, the full-time leader “displaces” another union member simply by securing an engagement for himself. Union members who act principally as sidemen and subleaders but who act occasionally as leaders “bid for the same jobs as full-time leaders such as plaintiffs and perform the same musical service when they get a job. They also perform in the same places as full-time leaders.” 241 F. Supp., at 872.
Only two things can happen when the leader does not charge the specified minimum; either he works below union scale or the musicians he employs work below union scale. In either event the result is price competition through differences of standards in the labor market.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
After his first trial in 1984 ended in a hung jury, petitioner Curtis Lee Kyles was tried again, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to death. On habeas review, we follow the established rule that the state’s obligation under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), to disclose evidence favorable to the defense, turns on the cumulative effect of all such evidence suppressed by the government, and we hold that the prosecutor remains responsible for gauging that effect regardless of any failure by the police to bring favorable evidence to the prosecutor’s attention. Because the net effect of the evidence withheld by the State in this case raises a reasonable probability that its disclosure would have produced a different result, Kyles is entitled to a new trial.
I
Following the mistrial when the jury was unable to reach a verdict, Kyles’s subsequent conviction and sentence of death were affirmed on direct appeal. State v. Kyles, 513 So. 2d 265 (La. 1987), cert. denied, 486 U. S. 1027 (1988). On state collateral review, the trial court denied relief, but the Supreme Court of Louisiana remanded for an evidentiary hearing on Kyles’s claims of newly discovered evidence. During this state-court proceeding, the defense was first able to present certain evidence, favorable to Kyles, that the State had failed to disclose before or during trial. The state trial court nevertheless denied relief, and the State Supreme Court denied Kyles’s application for discretionary review. State ex rel. Kyles v. Butler, 566 So. 2d 386 (La. 1990).
Kyles then filed a petition for habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, which denied the petition. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed by a divided vote. 5 F. 3d 806 (1993). As we explain, infra, at 440-441, there is reason to question whether the Court of Appeals evaluated the significance of undisclosed evidence under the correct standard. Because “[o]ur duty to search for constitutional error with painstaking care is never more exacting than it is in a capital case,” Burger v. Kemp, 483 U. S. 776, 785 (1987), we granted certiorari, 511 U. S. 1051 (1994), and now reverse.
II
A
The record indicates that, at about 2:20 p.m. on Thursday, September 20, 1984, 60-year-old Dolores Dye left the Schwegmann Brothers’ store (Schwegmann’s) on Old Gentilly Road in New Orleans after doing some food shopping. As she put her grocery bags into the trunk of her red Ford LTD, a man accosted her and after a short struggle drew a revolver, fired into her left temple, and killed her. The gunman took Dye’s keys and drove away in the LTD.
New Orleans police took statements from six eyewitnesses, who offered various descriptions of the gunman. They agreed that he was a black man, and four of them said that he had braided hair. The witnesses differed significantly, however, in their descriptions of height, age, weight, build, and hair length. Two reported seeing a man of 17 or 18, while another described the gunman as looking as old as 28. One witness described him as 5'4" or 5'5", medium build, 140-150 pounds; another described the man as slim and close to six feet. One witness said he had a mustache; none of the others spoke of any facial hair at all. One witness said the murderer had shoulder-length hair; another described the hair as “short.”
Since the police believed the killer might have driven his own car to Schwegmann’s and left it there when he drove off in Dye’s LTD, they recorded the license numbers of the cars remaining in the parking lots around the store at 9:15 p.m. on the evening of the murder. Matching these numbers with registration records produced the names and addresses of the owners of the cars, with a notation of any owner’s police record. Despite this list and the eyewitness descriptions, the police had no lead to the gunman until the Saturday evening after the shooting.
At 5:30 p.m., on September 22, a man identifying himself as James Joseph called the police and reported that on the day of the murder he had bought a red Thunderbird from a friend named Curtis, whom he later identified as petitioner, Curtis Kyles. He said that he had subsequently read about Dye’s murder in the newspapers and feared that the car he purchased was the victim’s. He agreed to meet with the police.
A few hours later, the informant met New Orleans Detective John Miller, who was wired with a hidden body microphone, through which the ensuing conversation was recorded. See App. 221-257 (transcript). The informant now said his name was Joseph Banks and that he was called Beanie. His actual name was Joseph Wallace.
His story, as well as his name, had changed since his earlier call. In place of his original account of buying a Thunderbird from Kyles on Thursday, Beanie told Miller that he had not seen Kyles at all on Thursday, id., at 249-250, and had bought a red LTD the previous day, Friday, id., at 221-222, 225. Beanie led Miller to the parking lot of a nearby bar, where he had left the red LTD, later identified as Dye’s.
Beanie told Miller that he lived with Kyles’s brother-in-law (later identified as Johnny Burns), whom Beanie repeatedly called his “partner.” Id., at 221. Beanie described Kyles as slim, about 6-feet tall, 24 or 25 years old, with a “bush” hairstyle. Id., at 226, 252. When asked if Kyles ever wore his hair in plaits, Beanie said that he did but that he “had a bush” when Beanie bought the car. Id., at 249.
During the conversation, Beanie repeatedly expressed concern that he might himself be a suspect in the murder. He explained that he had been seen driving Dye’s car on Friday evening in the French Quarter, admitted that he had changed its license plates, and worried that he “could have been charged” with the murder on the basis of his possession of the LTD. Id., at 231, 246, 250. He asked if he would be put in jail. Id., at 235, 246. Miller acknowledged that Beanie’s possession of the car would have looked suspicious, id., at 247, but reassured him that he “didn’t do anything wrong,” id., at 235.
Beanie seemed eager to cast suspicion on Kyles, who allegedly made his living by “robbing people,” and had tried to kill Beanie at some prior time. Id., at 228, 245, 251. Beanie said that Kyles regularly carried two pistols, a.38 and a.32, and that if the police could “set him up good,” they could “get that same gun” used to kill Dye. Id., at 228-229. Beanie rode with Miller and Miller’s supervisor, Sgt. James Eaton, in an unmarked squad car to Desire Street, where he pointed out the building containing Kyles’s apartment. Id., at 244-246.
Beanie told the officers that after he bought the car, he and his “partner” (Burns) drove Kyles to Schwegmann’s about 9 p.m. on Friday evening to pick up Kyles’s car, described as an orange four-door Ford. Id., at 221, 223, 231-232, 242. When asked where Kyles’s car had been parked, Beanie replied that it had been “[o]n the same side [of the lot] where the woman was killed at.” Id., at 231. The officers later drove Beanie to Schwegmann’s, where he indicated the space where he claimed Kyles’s car had been parked. Beanie went on to say that when he and Burns had brought Kyles to pick up the car, Kyles had gone to some nearby bushes to retrieve a brown purse, id., at 253-255, which Kyles subsequently hid in a wardrobe at his apartment. Beanie said that Kyles had “a lot of groceries” in Schwegmann’s bags and a new baby’s potty “in the car.” Id., at 254-255. Beanie told Eaton that Kyles’s garbage would go out the next day and that if Kyles was “smart” he would “put [the purse] in [the] garbage.” Id., at 257. Beanie made it clear that he expected some reward for his help, saying at one point that he was not “doing all of this for nothing.” Id., at 246. The police repeatedly assured Beanie that he would not lose the $400 he paid for the car. Id., at 243, 246.
After the visit to Schwegmann’s, Eaton and Miller took Beanie to a police station where Miller interviewed him again on the record, which was transcribed and signed by Beanie, using his alias “Joseph Banks.” See id., at 214-220. This statement, Beanie’s third (the telephone call being the first, then the recorded conversation), repeats some of the essentials of the second one: that Beanie had purchased a red Ford LTD from Kyles for $400 on Friday evening; that Kyles had his hair “combed out” at the time of the sale; and that Kyles carried a.32 and a.38 with him “all the time.”
Portions of the third statement, however, embellished or contradicted Beanie’s preceding story and were even internally inconsistent. Beanie reported that after the sale, he and Kyles unloaded Schwegmann’s grocery bags from the trunk and back seat of the LTD and placed them in Kyles’s own car. Beanie said that Kyles took a brown purse from the front seat of the LTD and that they then drove in separate cars to Kyles’s apartment, where they unloaded the groceries. Id., at 216-217. Beanie also claimed that, a few hours later, he and his “partner” Burns went with Kyles to Schwegmann’s, where they recovered Kyles’s car and a “big brown pocket book” from “next to a building.” Id., at 218. Beanie did not explain how Kyles could have picked up his car and recovered the purse at Schwegmann’s, after Beanie had seen Kyles with both just a few hours earlier. The police neither noted the inconsistencies nor questioned Beanie about them.
Although the police did not thereafter put Kyles under surveillance, Tr. 94 (Dec. 6, 1984), they learned about events at his apartment from Beanie, who went there twice on Sunday. According to a fourth statement by Beanie, this one given to the chief prosecutor in November (between the first and second trials), he first went to the apartment about 2 p.m., after a telephone conversation with a police officer who asked whether Kyles had the gun that was used to kill Dye. Beanie stayed in Kyles’s apartment until about 5 p.m., when he left to call Detective John Miller. Then he returned about 7 p.m. and stayed until about 9:30 p.m., when he left to meet Miller, who also asked about the gun. According to this fourth statement, Beanie “rode around” with Miller until 3 a.m. on Monday, September 24. Sometime during those same early morning hours, detectives were sent at Sgt. Eaton’s behest to pick up the rubbish outside Kyles’s building. As Sgt. Eaton wrote in an interoffice memorandum, he had “reason to believe the victims [sic] personal papers and the Schwegmann’s bags will be in the trash.” Record, Defendant’s Exh. 17.
At 10:40 a.m., Kyles was arrested as he left the apartment, which was then searched under a warrant. Behind the kitchen stove, the police found a.32-caliber revolver containing five live rounds and one spent cartridge. Ballistics tests later showed that this pistol was used to murder Dye. In a wardrobe in a hallway leading to the kitchen, the officers found a homemade shoulder holster that fit the murder weapon. In a bedroom dresser drawer, they discovered two boxes of ammunition, one containing several.32-caliber rounds of the same brand as those found in the pistol. Back in the kitchen, various cans of cat and dog food, some of them of the brands Dye typically purchased, were found in Schwegmann’s sacks. No other groceries were identified as possibly being Dye’s, and no potty was found. Later that afternoon at the police station, police opened the rubbish bags and found the victim’s purse, identification, and other personal belongings wrapped in a Schwegmann’s sack.
The gun, the LTD, the purse, and the cans of pet food were dusted for fingerprints. The gun had been wiped clean. Several prints were found on the purse and on the LTD, but none was identified as Kyles’s. Dye’s prints were not found on any of the cans of pet food. Kyles's prints were found, however, on a small piece of paper taken from the front passenger-side floorboard of the LTD. The crime laboratory recorded the paper as a Schwegmann’s sales slip, but without noting what had been printed on it, which was obliterated in the chemical process of lifting the fingerprints. A second Schwegmann’s receipt was found in the trunk of the LTD, but Kyles’s prints were not found on it. Beanie’s fingerprints were not compared to any of the fingerprints found. Tr. 97 (Dec. 6, 1984).
The lead detective on the case, John Dillman, put together a photo lineup that included a photograph of Kyles (but not of Beanie) and showed the array to five of the six eyewitnesses who had given statements. Three of them picked the photograph of Kyles; the other two could not confidently identify Kyles as Dye’s assailant.
B
Kyles was indicted for first-degree murder. Before trial, his counsel filed a lengthy motion for disclosure by the State of any exculpatory or impeachment evidence. The prosecution responded that there was “no exculpatory evidence of any nature,” despite the government’s knowledge of the following evidentiary items: (1) the six contemporaneous eyewitness statements taken by police following the murder; (2) records of Beanie’s initial call to the police; (3) the tape recording of the Saturday conversation between Beanie and officers Eaton and Miller; (4) the typed and signed statement given by Beanie on Sunday morning; (5) the computer printout of license numbers of cars parked at Schwegmann’s on the night of the murder, which did not list the number of Kyles’s car; (6) the internal police memorandum calling for the seizure of the rubbish after Beanie had suggested that the purse might be found there; and (7) evidence linking Beanie to other crimes at Schwegmann’s and to the unrelated murder of one Patricia Leidenheimer, committed in January before the Dye murder.
At the first trial, in November, the heart of the State’s case was eyewitness testimony from four people who were at the scene of the crime (three of whom had previously picked Kyles from the photo lineup). Kyles maintained his innocence, offered supporting witnesses, and supplied an alibi that he had been picking up his children from school at the time of the murder. The theory of the defense was that Kyles had been framed by Beanie, who had planted evidence in Kyles’s apartment and his rubbish for the purposes of shifting suspicion away from himself, removing an impediment to romance with Pinky Burns, and obtaining reward money. Beanie did not testify as a witness for either the defense or the prosecution.
Because the State withheld evidence, its case was much stronger, and the defense case much weaker, than the full facts would have suggested. Even so, after four hours of deliberation, the jury became deadlocked on the issue of guilt, and a mistrial was declared.
After the mistrial, the chief trial prosecutor, Cliff Strider, interviewed Beanie. See App. 258-262 (notes of interview). Strider’s notes show that Beanie again changed important elements of his story. He said that he went with Kyles to retrieve Kyles’s car from the Schwegmann’s lot on Thursday, the day of the murder, at some time between 5 and 7:30 p.m., not on Friday, at 9 p.m., as he had said in his second and third statements. (Indeed, in his second statement, Beanie said that he had not seen Kyles at all on Thursday. Id., at 249-250.) He also said, for the first time, that when they had picked up the car they were accompanied not only by Johnny Burns but also by Kevin Black, who had testified for the defense at the first trial. Beanie now claimed that after getting Kyles’s car they went to Black's house, retrieved a number of bags of groceries, a child’s potty, and a brown purse, all of which they took to Kyles’s apartment. Beanie also stated that on the Sunday after the murder he had been at Kyles’s apartment two separate times. Notwithstanding the many inconsistencies and variations among Beanie’s statements, neither Strider’s notes nor any of the other notes and transcripts were given to the defense.
In December 1984, Kyles was tried a second time. Again, the heart of the State’s case was the testimony of four eyewitnesses who positively identified Kyles in front of the jury. The prosecution also offered a blown-up photograph taken at the crime scene soon after the murder, on the basis of which the prosecutors argued that a seemingly two-toned car in the background of the photograph was Kyles’s. They repeatedly suggested during cross-examination of defense witnesses that Kyles had left his own car at Schwegmann’s on the day of the murder and had retrieved it later, a theory for which they offered no evidence beyond the blown-up photograph. Once again, Beanie did not testify.
As in the first trial, the defense contended that the eyewitnesses were mistaken. Kyles’s counsel called several individuals, including Kevin Black, who testified to seeing Beanie, with his hair in plaits, driving a red car similar to the victim’s about an hour after the killing. Tr. 209 (Dec. 7, 1984). Another witness testified that Beanie, with his hair in braids, had tried to sell him the car on Thursday evening, shortly after the murder. Id., at 234-235. Another witness testified that Beanie, with his hair in a “Jheri curl,” had attempted to sell him the car on Friday. Id., at 249-251. One witness, Beanie’s “partner,” Burns, testified that he had seen Beanie on Sunday at Kyles’s apartment, stooping down near the stove where the gun was eventually found, and the defense presented testimony that Beanie was romantically interested in Pinky Burns. To explain the pet food found in Kyles’s apartment, there was testimony that Kyles’s family kept a dog and cat and often fed stray animals in the neighborhood.
Finally, Kyles again took the stand. Denying any involvement in the shooting, he explained his fingerprints on the cash register receipt found in Dye’s car by saying that Beanie had picked him up in a red car on Friday, September 21, and had taken him to Schwegmann’s, where he purchased transmission fluid and a pack of cigarettes. He suggested that the receipt may have fallen from the bag when he removed the cigarettes.
On rebuttal, the prosecutor had Beanie brought into the courtroom. All of the testifying eyewitnesses, after viewing Beanie standing next to Kyles, reaffirmed their previous identifications of Kyles as the murderer. Kyles was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Beanie received a total of $1,600 in reward money. See Tr. of Hearing on Post-Conviction Relief 19-20 (Feb. 24, 1989); id., at 114 (Feb. 20, 1989).
Following direct appeal, it was revealed in the course of state collateral review that the State had failed to disclose evidence favorable to the defense. After exhausting state remedies, Kyles sought relief on federal habeas, claiming, among other things, that the evidence withheld was material to his defense and that his conviction was thus obtained in violation of Brady. Although the United States District Court denied relief and the Fifth Circuit affirmed, Judge King dissented, writing that “[f]or the first time in my fourteen years on this court... I have serious reservations about whether the State has sentenced to death the right man.” 5 F. 3d, at 820.
Ill
The prosecution’s affirmative duty to disclose evidence favorable to a defendant can trace its origins to early 20th-century strictures against misrepresentation and is of course most prominently associated with this Court’s decision in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963). See id., at 86 (relying on Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103, 112 (1935), and Pyle v. Kansas, 317 U. S. 213, 215-216 (1942)). Brady held “that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.” 373 U. S., at 87; see Moore v. Illinois, 408 U. S. 786, 794-795 (1972). In United States v. Agurs, 427 U. S. 97 (1976), however, it became clear that a defendant’s failure to request favorable evidence did not leave the Government free of all obligation. There, the Court distinguished three situations in which a Brady claim might arise: first, where previously undisclosed evidence revealed that the prosecution introduced trial testimony that it knew or should have known was perjured, 427 U. S., at 103-104; second, where the Government failed to accede to a defense request for disclosure of some specific kind of exculpatory evidence, id., at 104-107; and third, where the Government failed to volunteer exculpatory evidence never requested, or requested only in a general way. The Court found a duty on the part of the Government even in this last situation, though only when suppression of the evidence would be “of sufficient significance to result in the denial of the defendant’s right to a fair trial.” Id., at 108.
In the third prominent case on the way to current Brady law, United States v. Bagley, 473 U. S. 667 (1985), the Court disavowed any difference between exculpatory and impeachment evidence for Brady purposes, and it abandoned the distinction between the second and third Agurs circumstances, i. e., the “specific-request”'and “general- or no-request” situations. Bagley held that regardless of request, favorable evidence is material, and constitutional error results from its suppression by the government, “if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” 473 U. S., at 682 (opinion of Blackmun, J.); id., at 685 (White, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
Four aspects of materiality under Bagley bear emphasis. Although the constitutional duty is triggered by the potential impact of favorable but undisclosed evidence, a showing of materiality does not require demonstration by a preponderance that disclosure of the suppressed evidence would have resulted ultimately in the defendant’s acquittal (whether based on the presence of reasonable doubt or acceptance of an explanation for the crime that does not inculpate the defendant). Id., at 682 (opinion of Blackmun, J.) (adopting formulation announced in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 694 (1984)); Bagley, supra, at 685 (White, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (same); see 473 U. S., at 680 (opinion of Blackmun, J.) (Agurs “rejected a standard that would require the defendant to demonstrate that the evidence if disclosed probably would have resulted in acquittal”); cf. Strickland, supra, at 693 (“[W]e believe that a defendant need not show that counsel’s deficient conduct more likely than not altered the outcome in the case”); Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U. S. 157, 175 (1986) (“[A] defendant need not establish that the attorney’s deficient performance more likely than not altered the outcome in order to establish prejudice under Strickland”). Bagley’s touchstone of materiality is a “reasonable probability” of a different result, and the adjective is important. The question is not whether the defendant would more likely than not have received a different verdict with the evidence, but whether in its absence he received a fair trial, understood as a trial resulting in a verdict worthy of confidence. A “reasonable probability” of a different result is accordingly shown when the government’s evidentiary suppression “undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial.” Bagley, 473 U. S., at 678.
The second aspect of Bagley materiality bearing emphasis here is that it is not a sufficiency of evidence test. A defendant need not demonstrate that after discounting the inculpatory evidence in light of the undisclosed evidence, there would not have been enough left to convict. The possibility of an acquittal on a criminal charge does not imply an insufficient evidentiary basis to convict. One does not show a Brady violation by demonstrating that some of the inculpatory evidence should have been excluded, but by showing that the favorable evidence could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict.
Third, we note that, contrary to the assumption made by the Court of Appeals, 5 F. 3d, at 818, once a reviewing court applying Bagley has found constitutional error there is no need for further harmless-error review. Assuming, arguendo, that a harmless-error enquiry were to apply, a Bagley error could not be treated as harmless, since “a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different,” 473 U. S., at 682 (opinion of Blackmun, J.); id., at 685 (White, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), necessarily entails the conclusion that the suppression must have had “‘substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict,’ ” Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, 623 (1993), quoting Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U. S. 750, 776 (1946). This is amply confirmed by the development of the respective governing standards. Although Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 24 (1967), held that a conviction tainted by constitutional error must be set aside unless the error complained of “was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,” we held in Brecht that the standard of harmlessness generally to be applied in habeas cases is the Kotteakos formulation (previously applicable only in reviewing nonconstitutional errors on direct appeal), Brecht, supra, at 622-623. Under Kotteakos a conviction may be set aside only if the error “had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Kotteakos, supra, at 776. Agurs, however, had previously rejected Kotteakos as the standard governing constitutional disclosure claims, reasoning that “the constitutional standard of materiality must impose a higher burden on the defendant.” Agurs, 427 U. S., at 112. Agurs thus opted for its formulation of materiality, later adopted as the test for prejudice in Strickland, only after expressly noting that this standard would recognize reversible constitutional error only when the harm to the defendant was greater than the harm sufficient for reversal under Kotteakos. In sum, once there has been Bagley error as claimed in this case, it cannot subsequently be found harmless under Brecht.
The fourth and final aspect of Bagley materiality to be stressed here is its definition in terms of suppressed evidence considered collectively, not item by item. As Justice Blackmun emphasized in the portion of his opinion written for the Court, the Constitution is not violated every time the government fails or chooses not to disclose evidence that might prove helpful to the defense. 473 U. S., at 675, and n. 7. We have never held that the Constitution demands an open file policy (however such a policy might work out in practice), and the rule in Bagley (and, hence, in Brady) requires less of the prosecution than the ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, which call generally for prosecutorial disclosures of any evidence tending to exculpate or mitigate. See ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Prosecution Function and Defense Function 3-3.11(a) (3d ed. 1993) (“A prosecutor should not intentionally fail to make timely disclosure to the defense, at the earliest feasible opportunity, of the existence of all evidence or information which tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigate the offense charged or which would tend to reduce the punishment of the accused”); ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 3.8(d) (1984) (“The prosecutor in a criminal case shall... make timely disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense”).
While the definition of Bagley materiality in terms of the cumulative effect of suppression must accordingly be seen as leaving the government with a degree of discretion, it must also be understood as imposing a corresponding burden. On the one side, showing that the prosecution knew of an item of favorable evidence unknown to the defense does not amount to a Brady violation, without more. But the prosecution, which alone can know what is undisclosed, must be assigned the consequent responsibility to gauge the likely net effect of all such evidence and make disclosure when the point of “reasonable probability” is reached. This in turn means that the individual prosecutor has a duty to learn of any favorable evidence known to the others acting on the government’s behalf in the case, including the police. But whether the prosecutor succeeds or fails in meeting this obligation (whether, that is, a failure to disclose is in good faith or bad faith, see Brady, 373 U. S., at 87), the prosecution’s responsibility for failing to disclose known, favorable evidence rising to a material level of importance is inescapable.
The State of Louisiana would prefer an even more lenient rule. It pleads that some of the favorable evidence in issue here was not disclosed even to the prosecutor until after trial, Brief for Respondent 25, 27, 30, 31, and it suggested below that it should not be held accountable under Bagley and Brady for evidence known only to police investigators and not to the prosecutor. To accommodate the State in this manner would, however, amount to a serious change of course from the Brady line of cases. In the State’s favor it may be said that no one doubts that police investigators sometimes fail to inform a prosecutor of all they know. But neither is there any serious doubt that “procedures and regulations can be established to carry [the prosecutor’s] burden and to insure communication of all relevant information on each case to every lawyer who deals with it.” Giglio v. United States, 405 U. S. 150, 154 (1972). Since, then, the prosecutor has the means to discharge the government’s Brady responsibility if he will, any argument for excusing a prosecutor from disclosing what he does not happen to know about boils down to a plea to substitute the police for the prosecutor, and even for the courts themselves, as the final arbiters of the government’s obligation to ensure fair trials.
Short of doing that, we were asked at oral argument to raise the threshold of materiality because the Bagley standard “makes it difficult... to know” from the “perspective [of the prosecutor at] trial... exactly what might become important later on.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 33. The State asks for “a certain amount of leeway in making a judgment call” as to the disclosure of any given piece of evidence. Ibid.
Uncertainty about the degree of further “leeway” that might satisfy the State’s request for a “certain amount” of it is the least of the reasons to deny the request. At bottom, what the State fails to recognize is that, with or without more leeway, the prosecution cannot be subject to any disclosure obligation without at some point having the responsibility to determine when it must act. Indeed, even if due process were thought to be violated by every failure to disclose an item of exculpatory or impeachment evidence (leaving harmless error as the government’s only fallback), the prosecutor would still be forced to make judgment calls about what would count as favorable evidence, owing to the very fact that the character of a piece of evidence as favorable will often turn on the context of the existing or potential evidentiary record. Since the prosecutor would have to exercise some judgment even if the State were subject to this most stringent disclosure obligation, it is hard to find merit in the State’s complaint over the responsibility for judgment under the existing system, which does not tax the prosecutor with error for any failure to disclose, absent a further showing of materiality. Unless, indeed, the adversary system of prosecution is to descend to a gladiatorial level unmitigated by any prosecutorial obligation for the sake of truth, the government simply cannot avoid responsibility for knowing when the suppression of evidence has come to portend such an effect on a trial’s outcome as to destroy confidence in its-result.
This means, naturally, that a prosecutor anxious about tacking too close to the wind will disclose a favorable piece of evidence. See Agurs, 427 U. S., at 108 (“[T]he prudent prosecutor will resolve doubtful questions in favor of disclosure”). This is as it should be. Such disclosure will serve to justify trust in the prosecutor as “the representative... of a sovereignty... whose interest... in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.” Berger v. United States, 295 U. S. 78, 88 (1935). And it will tend to preserve the criminal trial, as distinct from the prosecutor’s private deliberations, as the chosen forum for ascertaining the truth about criminal accusations. See Rose v. Clark, 478 U. S. 570, 577-578 (1986); Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532, 540 (1965); United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 900-901 (1984) (recognizing general goal of establishing “procedures under which criminal defendants are ‘acquitted or convicted on the basis of all the evidence which exposes the truth’ ” (quoting Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165, 175 (1969)). The prudence of the careful prosecutor should not therefore be discouraged.
There is room to debate whether the two judges in the majority in the Court of Appeals made an assessment of the cumulative effect of the evidence. Although the majority’s Brady discussion concludes with the statement that the court was not persuaded of the reasonable probability that Kyles would have obtained a favorable verdict if the jury had been “exposed to any or all of the undisclosed materials,” 5 F. 3d, at 817, the opinion also
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
A California court convicted respondent Kenneth Roy of the robbery and first-degree murder of Archie Mannix. The State’s theory, insofar as is relevant here, was that Roy, coming to the aid of a confederate who was trying to rob Mannix, helped the confederate kill Mannix. The trial judge gave the jury an instruction that permitted it to convict Roy of first-degree murder as long as it concluded that (among other things) Roy, “with knowledge of” the confederate’s “unlawful purpose” (robbery), had helped the confederate, i. e., had “aid[ed],” “promote[d],” “encourage[d],” or “instigate[d]” by “act or advice ... the commission of” the confederate’s crime. The California Supreme Court later held in People v. Beeman, 35 Cal. 3d 547, 561, 674 P. 2d 1318, 1326 (1984), that an identical instruction was erroneous because of what it did not say, namely, that state law also required the jury to find that Roy had the “knowledge [and] intent or purpose of committing, encouraging, or facilitating” the confederate’s crime. Id., at 561, 674 P. 2d, at 1326 (emphasis added). Despite this error, the California Court of Appeal affirmed Roy’s conviction because it found the error “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” See Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 24 (1967). The California Supreme Court denied postconviction relief.
Subsequently Roy, pointing to the same instructional error, asked a Federal District Court to issue a writ of habeas corpus. The District Court denied the request because, in its view, the error was harmless. Indeed, the District Court wrote that no rational juror could have found that Roy knew the confederate’s purpose and helped him but also found that Roy did not intend to help him. A divided Ninth Circuit panel affirmed. Roy v. Gomez, 55 F. 3d 1483 (1995).
The Ninth Circuit later heard the case en bane and reversed the District Court. It held that the instructional error was not harmless. 81 F. 3d 863 (1996). In doing so, the majority applied a special “harmless error” standard, which it believed combined aspects of our decisions in Carella v. California, 491 U. S. 263 (1989) (per curiam), and O’Neal v. McAninch, 513 U. S. 432 (1995). The Ninth Circuit described the standard as follows:
“[T]he omission is harmless only if review of the facts found by the jury establishes that the jury necessarily found the omitted element.” 81 F. 3d, at 867 (emphasis in original).
As we understand that statement in context, it meant:
“[T]he omission [of the ‘intent’ part of the instruction] is harmless only if review of the facts found by the jury [namely, assistance and knowledge] establishes that the jury necessarily found the omitted element [namely, ‘intent’].” Ibid.
The State of California, seeking certiorari, argues that this definition of “harmless error” is far too strict and that this Court’s decisions require application of a significantly less strict “harmless error” standard in cases on collateral review. See Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993); O’Neal, supra.
We believe that the State, and the dissenting judges in the Ninth Circuit, are correct about the proper standard. The Ninth Circuit majority drew its special standard primarily from a concurring opinion in Carella, supra, a case that dealt with legal presumptions. The concurrence in that case set out the views of several Justices about the proper way to determine whether an error in respect to the use of a presumption was “harmless.” Subsequent to Carella, however, this Court held that a federal court reviewing a state-court determination in a habeas corpus proceeding ordinarily should apply the “harmless error” standard that the Court had previously enunciated in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U. S. 750 (1946), namely, “whether the error ‘had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.’ ” Brecht, supra, at 637 (citing Kotteakos, supra, at 776). The Court recognized that the Kotteakos standard did not apply to “‘structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism, which defy analysis by “harmless-error” standards,’ ” 507 U. S., at 629, but held that the Kotteakos standard did apply to habeas review of what the Court called “trial errors,” including errors in respect to which the Constitution requires state courts to apply a stricter, Chapman-type standard of “harmless error” when they review a conviction directly. 507 U. S., at 638. In O’Neal, supra, this Court added that where a judge, in a habeas proceeding, applying this standard of harmless error, “is in grave doubt as to the harmlessness of an error,” the habeas “petitioner must win.” Id., at 437.
The case before us is a case for application of the “harmless error” standard as enunciated in Brecht and O’Neal. This Court has written that “constitutional error” of the sort at issue in Carella is a “trial error,” not a “structural error,” and that it is subject to “harmless error” analysis. Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U. S. 279, 306-307 (1991). The state courts in this case applied harmless-error analysis of the strict variety, and they found the error “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Chapman, supra, at 24. The specific error at issue here — an error in the instruction that defined the crime — is, as the Ninth Circuit itself recognized, as easily characterized as a “misdescription of an element” of the crime, as it is characterized as an error of “omission.” 81 F. 3d, at 867, n. 4. No one claims that the error at issue here is of the “structural” sort that “‘def[ies] analysis by “harmless error” standards.’” Brecht, supra, at 629. The analysis advanced by the Ninth Circuit, while certainly consistent with the concurring opinion in Carella, does not, in our view, overcome the holding of Brecht, followed in O’Neal, that for reasons related to the special function of habeas courts, those courts must review such error (error that may require strict review of the Chapman-type on direct appeal) under the Kotteakos standard. Thus, we are convinced that the “harmless error” standards enunciated in Brecht and O’Neal should apply to the “trial error” before us as enunciated in those opinions and without the Ninth Circuit’s modification.
For these reasons, we grant respondent’s motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari, vacate the Ninth Circuit’s determination, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case, a companion to Carter v. Jury Commission of Greene County, ante, p. 320, involves a challenge to the constitutionality of the system used in many counties of Georgia to select juries and school boards. The basic statutory scheme at issue is this. The county board of education consists of five freeholders. It is selected by the grand jury, which in turn is drawn from a jury list selected by the six-member county jury commission. The commissioners are appointed by the judge of the state superior court for the circuit in which the county is located.
Some 2,500 to 3,000 people live in Taliaferro County, Georgia, of whom about 60% are Negroes. The county school system consists of a grammar school and a high school, and all the students at both schools are Negroes, every white pupil having transferred elsewhere. Sandra and Calvin Turner, a Negro schoolchild and her father who reside in that county, brought this class action against the members of the county board of education, the jury commissioners, and three named white grand jurors. Their complaint alleged that the board of education consisted entirely of white people; that it had been selected by a predominantly white grand jury, which in turn had been selected by the jury commissioners, all of whom were white people. The complaint charged that the board of education had deprived the Negro schoolchildren of textbooks, facilities, and other advantages; also that the Turners and other Negro citizens had sought unsuccessfully to communicate their dissatisfaction to the board of education.
According to the appellants, the members of the county grand jury, on which white people were perennially overrepresented and Negroes underrepresented, chose only white people as members of the board of education pursuant to the Georgia constitutional and statutory provisions governing the school-board selection. The complaint attacked those provisions as accounting for both the exclusion of Negroes and nonfreeholders from the board of education, and for the merely token inclusion of Negroes on the grand juries. The appellants sought (1) an injunction prohibiting enforcement of the Georgia constitutional and statutory provisions by which the board of education and gránd jury were selected; (2) a declaration that the provisions were void on their face and as applied; (3) a further declaration that the various positions on the board of education, grand jury, and jury commission were vacant; (4) the appointment of a receiver for the school system and a special master for the selection of the grand jurors; and (5) $500,000 in ancillary damages.
A three-judge District Court was convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §§ 2281 and 2284, and conducted extensive evidentiary hearings. The evidence showed that whenever a jury commissioner thought a voter from his area of the county qualified as a potentially good juror, he offered the name for consideration to his fellow commissioners; if all agreed, the name went on the master jury list. No name of a county resident was placed on the list unless he was personally known to at least one of the jury commissioners. The commissioners looked for “people that we felt would be capable of interpreting proceedings of court and . . . render [ing] a just verdict . . . .” The state superior court judge had instructed them to put Negroes on the list. Following the compilation of the list, the commissioners “picked the ones we thought were the very best people in the county” and put them on the grand-jury list. The superior court judge then drew the names of the grand jurors at random in open court. Only he could excuse from grand-jury service those whose names he drew; and he denied that Negroes were ever excused out of turn, or on account of their race.
At its first hearing, held in January 1968, the District Court voiced its concern that only 11 Negroes had found their way to the 130-member grand-jury list. The court adjourned for one month to enable the defendants to remedy the situation. It noted that two vacancies had opened up on the board of education and that, although the board had held an interim election, the grand jury had not yet confirmed the new members. The court suggested that “[i]f those two men would willingly stand aside the other members might select two outstanding Negro citizens ... to go on the Board.” The court also advised counsel for the defendants to explain the law of jury discrimination to his clients, and expressed the hope that the jury commissioners would be “generous” in their recomposition of the panel.
At the adjourned hearing in February, it appeared that three days after the first hearing the state superior court judge had discharged the county grand jury and directed the jury commissioners to recompose the jury list. Working from the voter registration list at the last general election, the commissioners had prepared a new grand-jury list containing the names of 44 Negroes and 77 white people. From this list the superior court judge drew the names that led to the impaneling of a new grand jury of 23 members, of whom only six were Negroes. Meanwhile the board of education had elected a Negro and a white man to fill the two vacancies, and the new grand jury had confirmed the new members in their offices.
Following these developments, the District Court declined to invalidate on their face either the various provisions governing the school-board and grand-jury selections, or the freeholder requirement for school-board membership. It found that at the commencement of suit Negroes had been systematically excluded from the grand juries through token inclusion, but it concluded that the new grand-jury list, drawn following the January hearing, was not unconstitutional. 290 F. Supp. 648.
Subsequently the District Court entered a final judgment permanently enjoining the defendant jury commissioners and their successors from systematically excluding Negroes from the Taliaferro County grand-jury system. The appellants, complaining of the court’s failure to hold the challenged provisions of Georgia law invalid on their face and as applied, took a direct appeal to this Court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1253, and we noted probable jurisdiction, 393 U. S. 1078.
I
The appellants urge that the constitutional and statutory scheme by which the Taliaferro County grand jury selects the board of education is unconstitutional on its face. They point to the discretion of the state superior court judge to exclude anyone he deems not “discreet” from appointment to the jury commission, and of the jury commissioners to eliminate from grand-jury service anyone they find not “upright” and “intelligent.” These provisions, the appellants say, provide the county officials an opportunity to discriminate exercised both before and after the commencement of this litigation. It is argued that the terms are so vague as to leave the judge and jury commissioners at large in the exercise of discretion, with their decisions “unguided by statutory or other guidelines.” Only by excising the challenged terms from Georgia’s laws, it is urged, can the jury discrimination revealed in the record of this case be eliminated.
Such arguments are similar to those advanced in Carter v. Jury Commission of Greene County, ante, p. 320. Our decision in that case fairly controls disposition of the contentions here. Georgia’s constitutional and statutory scheme for selecting its grand juries and boards of education is not inherently unfair, or necessarily incapable of administration without regard to race; the federal courts are not powerless to remedy unconstitutional departures from Georgia law by declaratory and injunctive relief. The challenged provisions do not refer to race; indeed, they impose on the jury commissioners the affirmative duty to supplement the jury lists by going out into the county and personally acquainting themselves with other citizens of the county whenever the jury lists in existence do not fairly represent a cross section of the county’s upright and intelligent citizens.
But the appellants contend that even if the challenged provisions are not void on their face, they have been unconstitutionally applied. The District Court found that prior to the commencement of suit Negroes had been excluded in the administration of the grand-jury system, and the appellees do not contest that finding here. The District Court also concluded that the newly composed grand-jury list was constitutional, and the appellants challenge that ruling. Consideration of the issues thus presented requires a fuller statement of the events following the January hearing in the court below.
As noted above, after the District Court had held its first hearing, the state superior court judge discharged the grand jury then sitting and ordered the jury commissioners to draw up a new jury list. The commissioners obtained the list of all persons registered to vote in the county in the last general election — 2,152 names. To assist in the identification of all the people on the list, the commissioners consulted with “three Negroes that [they] brought in to work with [them] one afternoon . . . .” From the list the commissioners eliminated 374 people for poor health and old age; 79 as under 21 years old; 93 as dead; 514 as away from the county most of the time but maintaining a permanent place of residence there; 48 who requested that they be removed from consideration; 225 about whom the commissioners could obtain no information; 33 as duplicated names; and 178 “as not conforming to the statutory qualifications for juries either because of their being unintelligent or because of their not being upright citizens.”
The process of elimination left 608 names. The commissioners arranged the names in alphabetical order and placed every other one on the list of potential jurors. At this point, for the first time, the commissioners classified the remaining 304 people by race: 113 were Negro, 191 white people. From this list the commissioners drew two-fifths of the names by lot for the grand-jury list; a check revealed 44 Negroes and 77 white people. The state superior court judge drew from this group nine Negroes and 23 white people by lot. He excused nine, leaving a 23-member grand jury of whom only six were Negroes. It was this grand jury that the District Court determined had been constitutionally impaneled.
After the February hearing of the District Court, and at that court's request, the commissioners classified by race the persons eliminated from the voter list in arriving at the 608 persons eligible for jury service. The classification revealed that 171 of those rejected as unintelligent or not upright were Negroes — 96% of the total removed for that reason. Although at the adjourned hearing the District Court recognized the potential for discrimination underlying the exclusion process, it did not reopen the matter following its receipt of the racial classification to consider the extraordinarily high percentage of Negroes eliminated as “unintelligent” or not “upright,” or the large number of persons about whom the commissioners said they could obtain no information even though they were registered to vote in the county.
The appellants insist the District Court has erred. They say that since the grand jury selects the board of education, the situation must be viewed as one involving a distribution of voting power among the citizens of Taliaferro County in the manner of a voting apportionment case. A grand jury with only about 25% Negro membership, they say, constitutes the school-board “electorate” in a county whose population is about 60% Negro. The State must offer a compelling justification, it is argued, in support of its “fencing out” such a substantial proportion of the potential Negro “electors” in the county.
We do not find it necessary to consider the appellants’ argument. Nor do we reach the premise upon which it rests — that the choice of the county board of education by the grand jury rather than delegates from local school boards turns the challenged procedure into an “election” for federal constitutional purposes. For we think that even under long-established tests for racial discrimination in the composition of juries, the District Court erred in its determination that the new list before it had been properly compiled.
The undisputed fact was that Negroes composed only 37 % of the Taliaferro County citizens on the 304-member list from which the new grand jury was drawn. That figure contrasts sharply with the representation that their percentage (60%) of the general Taliaferro County population would have led them to obtain in a random selection. In the absence of a countervailing explanation by the appellees, we cannot say that the under-representation reflected in these figures is so insubstantial as to warrant no corrective action by a federal court charged with the responsibility of enforcing constitutional guarantees..
Specifically, we hold that the District Court should have responded to the elimination of 171 Negroes out of the 178 citizens disqualified for lack of “intelligence” or “uprightness.” On the record as presently constituted, it is impossible to say that this purge of Negroes from the roster of potential jurors did not contribute in substantial measure to the ultimate underrepresentation. The retention of these 178 citizens might well have produced a jury list of at least an equal percentage of Negroes and white people, instead of the highly disproportionate list that actually materialized.
A second factor should have called itself to the District Court’s attention: the lack of information respecting the 225 citizens named on the county’s voting list but unknown to the jury commissioners or their assistants. Entirely apart from the question whether the commissioners’ failure to inquire into the eligibility of the 225 voters comported with their statutory duty to ensure that the jury list fairly represents a cross-section of the county’s intelligent and upright citizens, the court should not have passed without response the commissioners’ elimination from consideration for jury service of about 9% of the population of the entire county. In the face of the commissioners’ unfamiliarity with Negroes in the community and the informality of the arrangement by which they sought to remedy the deficiency in their knowledge upon recompiling the jury list, we cannot assume that inquiry would not have led to the discovery of many qualified Negroes.
In sum, the appellants demonstrated a substantial disparity between the percentages of Negro residents in the county as a whole and of Negroes on the newly constituted jury list. They further demonstrated that the disparity originated, at least in part, at the one point in the selection process where the jury commissioners invoked their subjective judgment rather than objective criteria. The appellants thereby made out a prima facie case of jury discrimination, and the burden fell on the appellees to overcome it.
The testimony of the jury commissioners and the superior court judge that they included or excluded no one because of race did not suffice to overcome the appellants’ prima facie case. So far the appellees have offered no explanation for the overwhelming percentage of Negroes disqualified as not “upright” or “intelligent,” or for the failure to determine the eligibility of a substantial segment of the county’s already registered voters. No explanation for this state of affairs appears in the record. The evidentiary void deprives the District Court’s holding of support in the record as presently constituted. “If there is a ‘vacuum’ it is one which the State must fill, by moving in with sufficient evidence to dispel the prima facie case of discrimination.”
II
The appellants also urge that the limitation of school-board membership to freeholders violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court rejected this claim, finding no evidence before it “to indicate that such a qualification resulted in an invidious discrimination against any particular segment of the community, based on race or otherwise.” 290 F. Supp., at 652.
Subsequent to the ruling of the District Court, this Court decided Kramer v. Union Free School District, 395 U. S. 621, and Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U. S. 701. The appellants urge that those decisions require Georgia to demonstrate a “compelling” interest in support of its freeholder requirement for school-board membership. The appellees reply that Kramer and Cipriano are inapposite because they involved exclusions from voting, not from office-holding. We find it unnecessary to resolve the dispute, because the Georgia freeholder requirement must fall even when measured by the traditional test for a denial of equal protection: whether the challenged classification rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to the achievement of a valid state objective.
We may assume that the appellants have no right to be appointed to the Taliaferro County board of education. But the appellants and the members of their class do have a federal constitutional right to be considered for public service without the burden of invidiously discriminatory disqualifications. The State may not deny to some the privilege of holding public office that it extends to others on the basis of distinctions that violate federal constitutional guarantees.
Georgia concedes that “the desirability and wisdom of ‘freeholder’ requirements for State or county political office may indeed be open to question . . . .” But apart from its contention that prior decisions of this Court foreclose any challenge to the constitutionality of such “freeholder” requirements — a contention we think ill-founded — the sole argument Georgia advances in support of its statute is that nothing in its constitution or laws specifies any minimum quantity or value for the real property the freeholder must own. Thus, says Georgia, anyone who seriously aspires to county school-board membership “would be able to obtain a conveyance of the single square inch of land he would require to become a ‘freeholder.’ ”
If we take Georgia at its word, it is difficult to conceive of any rational state interest underlying its requirement. But even absent Georgia’s own indication of the insub-stantiality of its interest in preserving the freeholder requirement, it seems impossible to discern any interest the qualification can serve. It cannot be seriously urged that a citizen in all other respects qualified to sit on a school board must also own real property if he is to participate responsibly in educational decisions, without regard to whether he is a parent with children in the local schools, a lessee who effectively pays the property taxes of his lessor as part of his rent, or a state and federal taxpayer contributing to the approximately 85% of the Taliaferro County annual school budget derived from sources other than the board of education’s own levy on real property.
Nor does the lack of ownership of realty establish a lack of attachment to the community and its educational values. However reasonable the assumption that those who own realty do possess such an attachment, Georgia may not rationally presume that that quality is necessarily wanting in all citizens of the county whose estates are less than freehold. Whatever objectives Georgia seeks to obtain by its “freeholder” requirement must be secured, in this instance at least, by means more finely tailored to achieve the desired goal. Without excluding the possibility that other circumstances might present themselves in which a property qualification for office-holding could survive constitutional scrutiny, we cannot say, on the record before us, that the present freeholder requirement for membership on the county board of education amounts to anything more than invidious discrimination.
The judgment below is vacated, and the cause is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Ga. Const., Art. VIII, §V, ¶1, Ga. Code Ann. §2-6801 (1948). At the oral argument we were advised that under Georgia law a “freeholder” is any person who owns real estate.
Ibid. See also Ga. Code Ann. §32-902 (1969).
Ga. Code Ann. §§ 59-101, 59-106 (1965 and Supp. 1968).
Ga. Code Ann. §59-101 (1965). Prior to 1966 the superior court judges were elected by all the voters in the State, but now they are elected by the voters of the circuits over which they have jurisdiction. See Ga. Const., Art. VI, § III, ¶ II, Ga. Code Ann. § 2-3802 (Supp. 1968); Stokes v. Fortson, 234 F. Supp. 575.
In its brief Georgia informs us that its Department of Public Health estimates that Taliaferro County now has about 1,500 Negro and 1,000 white citizens. According to the 1960 federal census, the county had a population of 3,370, of whom 2,096 were Negroes and 1,273 white people. U. S. Dept, of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1960 Census of Population, Yol. I, Characteristics of the Population, pt. 12, Georgia, 12-83.
This state of affairs has arisen following litigation attacking the county’s former dual school system. Prior to the fall of 1965 Taliaferro County had used one school building for Negroes and the other for whites. In that year, after 87 Negro pupils sought transfers to a desegregated school, the superintendent, knowing the white school would be closed, arranged for the transfer of the white pupils, at public expense, to public schools in adjoining counties. A three-judge District Court declared the arrangement illegal, placed the Taliaferro County school system in receivership under the State’s superintendent of schools, and instructed him to prepare a plan that would allow those Negroes who wanted to transfer to a desegregated school the opportunity to do so. Turner v. Goolsby, 255 F. Supp. 724. It is undisputed that some white pupils now attend a private institution in the county. In addition, the appellants suggest that white children continue to attend public schools in neighboring counties. Efforts to combine districts to avoid an all-Negro school system in Taliaferro County have proved unsuccessful.
The District Court struck the grand jurors as parties defendant for failure of the appellants to state as against them a claim upon which relief could be granted. The appellants did not appeal from that portion of the judgment below, and the motion of the appellee grand jurors to dismiss the appeal as to them is granted.
Georgia has used the voter registration lists rather than the books of the tax receiver since our decision in Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U. S. 545.
The District Court found that the appellants’ claim that the board of education had deprived the Negro schoolchildren of textbooks, facilities, and other advantages failed for want of proof. The court also declined to reach the appellants’ claim for ancillary damages, leaving this question to single-judge inquiry. No issue concerning these rulings is presented on the appeal.
We reject the appellees’ suggestion that we lack jurisdiction to entertain an appeal from the District Court on the theory that a court of three judges was not required under 28 U. S. C. §2281 because the appellants sought to enjoin only the acts of county officials. The jury commissioners and members of the board of education were “functioning pursuant to a statewide policy and performing a state function,” Moody v. Flowers, 387 U. S. 97, 102; cf. Spielman Motor Sales Co. v. Dodge, 295 U. S. 89, 92-95; and see Dusch v. Davis, 387 U. S. 112,114; Sailors v. Board of Education, 387 U. S. 105, 107. The appellants cannot be denied a three-judge court below and direct review here simply because Georgia chooses to denominate as “local” or “county” the officials to whom it has entrusted the administration of the challenged constitutional and statutory provisions. Rorick v. Board of Commissioners, 307 U. S. 208, 212; cf. City of Cleveland v. United States, 323 U. S. 329, 332.
Under Georgia law Taliaferro County may replace the constitutional and statutory arrangement by which the grand jury elects the board of education with the direct election of the board by the qualified voters of the county upon the enactment of a local or special law by the legislature and its approval in a referendum by a majority of the qualified voters. Ga. Const., Art. VIII, § V, ¶ 2, Ga. Code Ann. § 2-6802 (Supp. 1968). But Georgia does not suggest that so many counties have taken advantage of this provision that the present selection of the board by the grand jury in effect amounts to a local option.
The appellees also propose a distinction between attacks on statutes and attacks upon the results of their administration, and urge that the appellants’ case comes within the latter category. But this argument overlooks the line, delineated by our past decisions, that falls between a petition for injunction on the ground of the unconstitutionality of a statute, either on its face or as applied, which requires a three-judge court, and a petition seeking an injunction on the ground of the unconstitutionality of the result obtained by the use of a statute not attacked as unconstitutional. Louisiana v. United States, 380 U. S. 145, 150 and n. 9; Query v. United States, 316 U. S. 486, 489; Ex parte Bransford, 310 U. S. 354, 361; Stratton v. St. Louis S. W. B. Co., 282 TJ. S. 10,15; Ex parte Hobbs, 280 U. S. 168, 172.
Similarly, we reject the appellees’ contention, ancillary to their basic attack on our jurisdiction, that the three-judge court was improperly convened because of the insubstantiality of the appellants’ challenge to the Georgia laws. Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U. S. 111, 115; Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp. v. Epstein, 370 U. S. 713, 715 (per curiam)] California Water Service Co. v. City of Redding, 304 U. S. 252, 255 (per curiam); Ex parte Poresky, 290 U. S. 30, 32 (per curiam). Further, the District Court properly entertained the question whether the constitutional and statutory complex, even if not invalid on its face, was unconstitutionally administered. Without regard to whether that issue was one by itself warranting a three-judge court, see Ex parte Bransford, supra; Currie, The Three-Judge District Court in Constitutional Litigation, 32 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1, 37-50, it related to the appellants’ claim that Georgia’s school-board selection procedure was unlawful on its face. Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 90-91; Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1, 5-6; United States v. Georgia Pub. Serv. Commission, 371 U. S. 285, 287-288; Paul v. United States, 371 U. S. 245, 249-250; Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Jacobsen, 362 U. S. 73, 75-85; Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Garrett, 231 U. S. 298, 303-304.
Ga. Code Ann. §59-101 (1965).
Ga. Code Ann. § 59-106 (Supp. 1968).
Ibid.
Our decisions in Avery v. Georgia, 345 U. S. 559, and Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U. S. 545, cannot aid the appellants. In Avery we reversed a judgment of conviction where the names of prospective petit jurors had been printed on differently colored tickets according to their race — white tickets for white people, and yellow tickets for Negroes. A state superior court judge drew the names from the jury box and handed them to the sheriff, who entrusted them to the court clerk for arranging the tickets and typing up the list of persons to be called to serve on the panel. We found that the use of the white and yellow tickets made it easier “for those to discriminate who are of a mind to discriminate,” and that even if the judge had drawn the names without looking to see the color of the tickets, “opportunity was available to resort to [discrimination] at other stages in the selection process.” 345 U. S., at 562.
Whitus involved a refinement of the process we had condemned in Avery. In Whitus the jury commissioners made up the jury list from which both traverse and grand jurors were selected by reference to -the tax digest, which was segregated into sections — one with white sheets for white people and the other with yellow sheets for Negroes — and to an old jury list required by former law to be made up from the tax digest. We concluded that “[u]nder such a system the opportunity for discrimination was present,” and on the record before us we could not say that that opportunity “was not resorted to by the commissioners.” 385 U. S., at 552.
In both Avery and Whitus we noted without comment the “upright and intelligent” requirement for jury membership. 385 U. S., at 552; 345 U. S., at 562. In Avery we expressly commented that Georgia law did not authorize the use of the potentially discriminatory process under review. 345 U. S., at 562. In both cases we struck down the white-and-yellow system, however varied in design, because of the obvious danger of abuse. See Williams v. Georgia, 349 U. S. 375, 382. We dealt in both cases with a physical, even mechanical, aspect of the jury-selection process that could have no conceivable purpose or effect other than to enable those so disposed to discriminate against Negroes solely on the basis of their race. It is evident that the challenged provisions now before us contain no such defect. The appellants cannot contend that the present requirements serve no rational function other than to afford an opportunity to state officials to discriminate against Negroes if they desire to do so.
Indeed, at the oral argument before this Court, counsel candidly conceded: “There is no question but that Georgia’s jury selection statute is capable of being improperly administered. There is no question but that in Taliaferro County, Georgia, it has been misadministered.”
Although Georgia grants the franchise to its citizens at 18, Gi. Const., Art. II, § I, ¶11, Ga. Code Ann. §2-702 (1948), jurors must be over 21, Ga. Code Ann. §59-201 (1965), and so the jury commissioners struck all persons under 21.
At the adjourned hearing the superior court judge testified that he regularly excuses people from the traverse-jury lists as well as the grand-jury panel he draws in the courtroom. Whether the request to be excused was made in open court, in writing, or over the telephone, only the judge could excuse from grand-jury service those whose names he had drawn.
It also appeared that 191 of those stricken for poor health and old age were Negro (51%); 71 of those under 21 (90%); 263 of those away from the county (51%); and three who asked to be relieved from jury duty (6%).
See Sailors v. Board of Education, 387 U. S. 105, 106.
Ga. Code Ann. § 59-106 (Supp. 1968).
See Jones v. Georgia, 389 U. S. 24, 25 (per curiam); Coleman v. Alabama, 389 U. S. 22, 23 (per curiam); Avery v. Georgia, 345 U. S. 559, 562-563; Patton v. Mississippi, 332 U. S. 463, 468-469; Hill v. Texas, 316 U. S. 400, 405-406; Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 594-596, 598.
Sims v. Georgia, 389 U. S. 404, 407; Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U. S. 545, 551; Eubanks v. Louisiana, 356 U. S. 584, 587; Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S. 475, 481-482; Avery v. Georgia, supra, at 561; Norris v. Alabama, supra, at 598; cf. Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 481.
Avery v. Georgia, supra, at 562; cf. Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U. S. 354, 361-362; Norris v. Alabama, supra, at 594-595, 598-599.
We reserve the question whether a State that for years has provided separate and inferior schools for Negroes may now disqualify them from jury service on the “impartial” ground of educational inadequacy, however defined. See Gaston County v. United States, 395 U. S. 285, 297.
Georgia’s contention that no appellant has standing to raise this claim is without merit. The appellant Calvin Turner is a freeholder, but the appellant Joseph Heath is not. Heath’s motion to intervene was granted by the District Court for the express purpose of adding a party plaintiff to the case to ensure that the court could reach the merits of this issue. Georgia also argues that the question is not properly before us because the record is devoid of evidence that the freeholder requirement actually has operated to exclude anyone from the Taliaferro County board of education. But the appellant Heath’s allegation that he is npt a freeholder is uncontested, and Georgia can hardly urge that her county officials may be depended on to ignore a provision of state law.
McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 425-426; Kotch v. Board of River Port Pilot Commissioners, 330 U. S. 552, 556.
Cf. Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1, 7.
Cf. Anderson v. Martin, 375 U. S. 399, 402, 404; Snowden v. Hughes, supra, at 7-8.
Cf. Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89, 91; Lassiter v. Northampton County Board of Elections, 360 U. S. 45, 50-51; Pope v. Williams, 193 U. S. 621, 632.
Language to such effect may be found in Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 310. But the passage relied upon by Georgia is no more than dictum. Later decisions invoking Strauder fall in the same category. Gibson v. Mississippi, 162 U. S. 565, 580; Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370, 386. Vought v. Wisconsin, 217 U. S. 590, is hardly apposite; there we dismissed an appeal for want of a meritorious question in a case where the appellant challenged a judgment of conviction arising from an indictment returned by a grand jury selected by commissioners required by statute to be freeholders.
Cf. Leary v. United States, 395 U. S. 6, 32-36; Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463, 468.
Cf. Carrington v. Rash, supra, at 95-96.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, 83 Stat. 742, 30 U. S. C. § 801 et seq., requires the Secretary of the Interior to prepare a decision with formal findings of fact before assessing a civil penalty against a mine operator absent a request by the mine operator for an administrative hearing, the penalty being enforceable only by way of a subsequent judicial proceeding in which the operator is entitled to a trial de novo as to the amount of the penalty.
The National Independent Coal Operators’ Association sought declaratory and injunctive relief on the ground that certain civil penalty assessment regulations utilized by the Secretary violated the procedural requirements of the Act. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the regulations did not violate the Act. National Independent Coal Operators’ Assn. v. Morton, 161 U. S. App. D. C. 68, 494 F. 2d 987 (1974).
We granted certiorari, 420 U. S. 906 (1975), to resolve the apparent conflict between the District of Columbia Circuit and the Third Circuit holding in Morton v. Delta Mining, Inc., 495 F. 2d 38 (1974), reversed and remanded, post, p. 403.
(1)
The statutory provision in question, § 109 (a)(3), 30 U. S. C. § 819 (a)(3), is part of the enforcement scheme of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. The Act prescribes health and safety standards for the protection of coal miners, Titles II and III, 30 U. S. C. § 841 et seq.; it requires coal mine operators and miners to comply with the standards. § 2 (g)(2), 30 U. S. C. §801 (g)(2).
Section 103 of the Act, 30 U. S. C. § 813, requires the Secretary to conduct continuing surveillance of mines by inspectors. Among the purposes of the inspections are finding imminently dangerous conditions and violations of mandatory health or safety standards. Section 104, 30 U. S. C. § 814, provides procedures for abating the conditions • found by the inspectors. If an imminent danger is found, the inspector is required to issue a withdrawal order compelling the mine operator to withdraw all persons from the danger area. If a violation of a mandatory standard is found that is not imminently dangerous, the inspector issues a notice to the operator fixing a reasonable time for its abatement. If the violation is not abated and the time for abatement is not extended, the inspector then issues a withdrawal order. Withdrawal orders are also issued for any “unwarrantable failure” of mine operators to comply with the standards. The notices and orders issued contain a detailed description of the dangerous conditions or violations and their locations. The notices must be in writing and given promptly to the mine operators.
Under § 105, 30 U. S. C. § 815, an operator may apply to the Secretary for review of the factual basis of any order or notice issued under § 104, or for review of the amount of time allowed for abatement of violations. Upon application from a mine operator the Secretary makes whatever investigation he deems appropriate; an opportunity for a public hearing is provided. Hearings are subject to § 5 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 554, and following the hearing the Secretary must make findings of fact. Section 105 also requires that actions by the Secretary be taken promptly because of the urgent need for prompt decision. The orders issued by the Secretary under this section are subject to judicial review under § 106, 30 U. S. C. § 816, by a court of appeals.
As part of the enforcement scheme, the Act requires the Secretary to assess and collect civil penalties. Section 109 (a)(1), 30 U. S. C. §819 (a)(1), subjects mine operators to civil penalties not exceeding $10,000 for each violation of a mandatory standard or other provision of the Act. In determining the amount of the penalty, § 109 (a)(1) requires the Secretary to consider
“the operator’s history of previous violations, the appropriateness of such penalty to the size of the business of the operator charged, whether the operator was negligent, the effect on the operator’s ability to continue in business, the gravity of the violation, and the demonstrated good faith of the operator charged in attempting to achieve rapid compliance after notification of a violation.”
The provision in question, § 109 (a) (3), as noted above, authorizes the Secretary to assess a civil penalty only after the operator charged with a violation “has been given an opportunity for a public hearing and the Secretary has determined, by decision incorporating his findings of fact therein, that a violation did occur, and the amount of the penalty which is warranted . . . .” Hearings under this section are to be consolidated with other proceedings when appropriate. They must be of record and subject to provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 ü. S. C. § 554.
If the operator does not pay the penalty assessed, the Secretary is required, pursuant to § 109 (a) (4), 30 U. S. C. § 819 (a)(4), to petition for judicial enforcement of the assessment in the district court for the district in which the mine is located. At that stage the court must resolve the issues relevant to the amount of the penalty in a de novo proceeding with a jury trial if requested. The trial de novo with a jury is not available for review of issues of fact which “were or could have been litigated” in the court of appeals under § 106.
(2)
We are concerned in this case with the regulations the Secretary has adopted to govern only one part of this statutory scheme: the assessment of penalties under § 109 (a)(3). When the Secretary initially implemented the Act, he published regulations that provided for civil penalty assessments to be determined by a hearing examiner, with a right of appeal to a departmental appeals board. 30 CFR pt. 301 (1971), recodified, 43 CFR §4.540 et seg. (1972). Nine months later, due to the large numbers of violations charged (approximately 80,000 or more per year), the Secretary adopted the regulations contested here. 30 CFR pt. 100 (1972). These regulations provide that assessment officers assess a penalty based on a notice of violation issued by mine inspectors and a penalty schedule graduated according to the seriousness of the violation. The pt. 100 procedures follow the mandate of § 109 (a)(1) as to the criteria to be applied in determining the amount of the proposed penalty for an operator. 30 CFR § 100.4 (c).
The regulations also provide that the operators are to be advised when they receive original or reissued proposed orders that they have 15 working days from the receipt of the order to “protest the proposed assessment, either partly or in its entirety.” If an operator fails to make a timely protest and request adjudication, he is “deemed to have waived his right of protest including his right of formal adjudication and opportunity for hearing . . . .” The proposed assessment order then becomes the “final assessment order of the Secretary.” 30 CFR § 100.4 (d-h).
In any case in which an operator makes a timely request for a formal hearing, by so indicating in his protest, or in response to a reissued or amended proposed assessment order, the assessment officer is required to forward the matter to the Office of the Solicitor, Department of the Interior; a petition to assess a penalty can then be filed by the Solicitor with the Department’s Office of Hearings and Appeals. 30 CFR § 100.4 (i) (1); 43 CFR §4.540 (a). The petition is served on the operator who then has an opportunity to answer and secure a public hearing. 30 CFR § 100.4 (i)(2). A hearing de novo is conducted and the examiner is free to assess a different penalty. 30 CFR § 100.4 (i) (4). The Bureau of Mines, represented by the Office of the Solicitor, has the burden of proving the penalty by a preponderance of the evidence. 43 CFR § 4.587. The regulations provide that the hearing examiner consider the statutory criteria. 43 CFR § 4.546. The decision is subject to review by the Secretary’s delegate, the Board of Mine Operations Appeals. 43 CFR §§4.1 (b)(4), 4.500 (a)(2), 4.600.
Whether or not the operator requests formal adjudication, he may obtain de novo judicial review of the amount of the penalty by refusing to pay it and awaiting the Secretary’s enforcement action in the district court. § 109 (a)(4), 30 U. S. C. § 819 (a)(4).
(3)
The National Independent Coal Operators’ Association and various operators brought suit against the Secretary in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to enjoin the use of the pt. 100 regulations. The court granted the Association’s motion for summary judgment, holding that the summary procedures were not authorized by § 109 (a) of the Act. 357 F. Supp. 509 (1973). The court noted that there were no written guidelines within the assessment office to guide the assessment officers in evaluating or applying the statutory criteria for penalty assessment. The court held that the Secretary must make express findings of fact whether or not a hearing is requested. The court believed that requiring a mine operator to request a hearing “would shift the initial burden to the mine operator.” Id., at 512.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed, holding that the Secretary need not render a formal decision incorporating findings of fact; it held that, absent a request for a hearing, the Secretary is entitled to conclude that the operator does not dispute the proposed order, including the factual basis of the violation. In the view of that court, a “decision incorporating his findings of fact” with findings and conclusions is required only if a hearing is requested and takes place; otherwise, any findings of fact would consist of essentially the same information already recited in the proposed assessment order and would be a meaningless duplication. The court also noted that the legislative history of the Act supports an interpretation that the Secretary’s findings are not required unless the operator requests a hearing; however, when a hearing is requested, the burden of proof remains with the Secretary. 161 U. S. App. D. C. 68, 494 F. 2d 987 (1974).
(4)
Under the Act, a mine operator plainly has a right to notice of violations and proposed penalties; it is equally clear that an operator has a right to be heard, if a hearing is requested. In this Court the mine operators continue to urge that the Secretary may not assess a civil penalty without making formal “findings of fact” even though no hearing was requested as to the violation charged and the proposed order.
Section 109 (a)(3), as previously noted, provides:
“A civil penalty shall be assessed by the Secretary only after the person charged with a violation under this Act has been given an opportunity for a public hearing and the Secretary has determined, by decision incorporating his findings of fact therein, that a violation did occur, and the amount of the penalty which is warranted . . . .”
The operators argue that a penalty assessment itself is an adjudicatory function and hence the Secretary must make a formal “decision incorporating his findings of fact” even when an operator has not requested a hearing on the violation issue. In short, what they argue for is the same type of formal findings of fact that are the usual product of the adversary hearing to which they have an absolute right, but which was waived by failure to make a request.
Section 109 (a) (3) provides the mine operators with no more than “an opportunity” for a hearing. The word “opportunity” would be meaningless if the statute contemplated formal adjudicated findings whether or not a requested evidentiary hearing is held. Absent a request, the Secretary has a sufficient factual predicate for the assessment of a penalty based on the reports of the trained and experienced inspectors who find violations; when the assessment officers fix penalties as the Secretary’s “authorized representatives,” the operators may still have review of the penalty in the district court. See Morton v. Whitaker, Civ. No. 74.96 (ED Ky., Jan. 14, 1975) (appeal pending in CA6).
We therefore agree with'the Court of Appeals that the language of the statute, especially when read in light of its legislative history, requires the Secretary to make formal findings of fact specified in § 109 (a) (3) only when the mine operator requests a hearing. The requirement for a formal hearing under § 109 (a) (3) is keyed to a request, and the requirement for formal findings is keyed to the same request.
This reading of the statute plainly comports with the purpose of the Act. Congressional attention was focused on the need for stricter coal mine regulations by a 1968 explosion in a Farmington, W. Ya., mine which killed 78 miners, but Congress also recognized that an inordinate number of miners lose their lives in day-today accidents other than multidisaster situations. The Act was seen as a major step in preventing death and injury in mines. H. R. Rep. No. 91-563, pp. 1-3 (1969). The need for stricter regulation of coal mines was commented on by President Truman when he signed the 1952 amendment to the Federal Coal Mine Safety Act, 66 Stat. 692. In approving that measure into law he called the attention of Congress to its flaws:
“The measure contains complex procedural provisions relating to inspections, appeals, and the postponing of orders which I believe will make it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for those charged with the administration of the act to carry out an effective enforcement program.”
Congress noted President Truman’s comments when it reported the 1969 Act. S. Rep. No. 91-411, p. 5 (1969). Effective enforcement of the Act would be weakened if the Secretary were required to make findings of fact for every penalty assessment including those cases in which the mine operator did not request a hearing and thereby indicated no disagreement with the Secretary’s proposed determination. While a protest by a mine operator may trigger an administrative re-examination, the protest is not the equivalent of a request for a hearing. When no request for a hearing is made, the operator has in effect voluntarily defaulted and abandoned the right to a hearing and findings of fact on the factual basis of the violation and the penalty.
The Court of Appeals for-the District of Columbia Circuit regarded § 109 as possibly ambiguous and turned to the legislative history. Assuming, arguendo, that the statute is ambiguous, we read that history as supporting the result reached by the Court of Appeals. The bills passed by the Senate and House each called for hearings only if requested. The House bill provided:
“Upon written request made by an operator within thirty days after receipt of an order assessing a penalty under this section, the Secretary shall afford such operator an opportunity for a hearing and, in accordance with the request, determine by decision whether or not a violation did occur or whether the amount of the penalty is warranted or should be compromised.” H. R. 13950, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., § 109 (b) (1969). (Emphasis added.)
The Senate bill read:
“An order assessing a civil penalty under this subsection shall be issued by the Secretary only after the person against whom the order is issued has been given an opportunity for a hearing and the Secretary has determined by decision incorporating findings of fact based on the record of such hearing whether or not a violation did occur and the amount of the penalty, if any, which is warranted. Section 554 of title 5 of the United States Code shall apply to any such hearing and decision.” S. 2917, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., §308 (a) (3) (1969). (Emphasis added.)
Thus it is clear that under both bills the requirement for a formal decision with findings was contingent on the operator's request for a hearing.
Both bills were referred to a Conference Committee to resolve differences. The Conference Committee adopted the Senate version but deleted the second italicized phrase. That change did not alter the requirement that if findings of fact are desired, a hearing must be requested. The Conference Committee explained § 109 as follows:
“Both the Senate bill and the House amendment provided an opportunity for a hearing in assessing such penalties, but the Senate bill required a record hearing under 5 U. S. C. [§] 554. The conference substitute adopts the Senate provision with the added provision that, where appropriate, such as in the case of an appeal from a withdrawal order, an effort should be made to consolidate the hearings. The commencement of such proceedings, however, shall not stay any notice or order involving a violation of a standard.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 91-761, p. 71 (1969). (Emphasis added.)
No mention was made of the language deleted from the Senate bill or the similar language contained in the House bill. A change to require findings of fact without a request for a hearing would be a significant matter that would not likely have escaped attention; such a change would have called for explanation.
The importance of § 109 in the enforcement of the Act cannot be overstated. Section 109 provides a strong incentive for compliance with the mandatory health and safety standards. That the violations of the Act have been abated or miners withdrawn from the dangerous area before § 109 comes into effect is not dis-positive; if a mine operator does not also face a monetary penalty for violations, he has little incentive to eliminate dangers until directed to do so by a mine inspector. The inspections may be as infrequent as four a year. A major objective of Congress was prevention of accidents and disasters; the deterrence provided by monetary sanctions is essential to that objective.
We conclude, as did the Court of Appeals, that the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 does not mandate a formal decision with findings as a predicate for a penalty assessment order unless the mine operator exercises his statutory right to request a hearing on the factual issues relating to the penalty, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Consolidated with No. 74-521, Kleppe v. Delta Mining, Inc., post, p. 403.
In the companion case, supra, three mine operators in a consolidated action raised the same challenge as a defense when the Secretary sought judicial enforcement of assessment orders in a suit, where, under the Act, the operators had a right to a trial de novo as to the amount of the penalties. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit noted the District of Columbia Circuit’s holding but held that the regulations were invalid for failure to require findings of fact, rejecting the Secretary’s contention that such findings are required only when an administrative hearing is requested by a mine operator.
Respondents have suggested that trial de novo is available on the factual basis of the violation as well as on the amount of the penalty. The statutory scheme is less than clear on this matter. Compare § 106 with § 109 (a). See Eastern Associated Coal Corp. v. Interior Bd. of Mine Operations Appeals, 491 F. 2d 277 (CA4 1974). We need not reach the issue to dispose of this case.
Those regulations have been reissued, 39 Fed. Reg. 27558-27561 (1974), since these suits were initiated. The mine operators in the companion case, Kleppe v. Delta Mining, Inc., post, p. 403, argue that this case is moot. The case is not moot because there are assessments under the contested regulations awaiting enforcement and because the new regulations also do not provide a hearing unless one is requested.
Unless otherwise indicated, all citations to the Code of Federal Regulations throughout this opinion are to the regulations effective at the time this suit was initiated (Jan. 1, 1972, for 30 CFR, and Oct. 1,1972, for 43 CFR).
Section 100.2 (b) of the regulations states that the amount of proposed civil penalty “shall be within guidelines established by the Secretary (see Appendix A to this part) and revised periodically in the light of experience gained under the Act . . . 30 CFR § 100.2(b). Appendix A in effect at the time of this suit provided a range between $5,000 and $10,000 for violations resulting in the issuance of imminent-danger withdrawal orders (under § 104 (a) of the Act); a range between $1,000 and $5,000 for violations resulting in the issuance of other withdrawal orders (under §§ 104 (b), (c), (h), and (i) of the Act); a range between $100 and $1,000 for “serious violations”; and a range between $25 and $500 for other violations.
A penalty schedule with formulas for considering the six criteria was promulgated after these suits were filed. 30 CFR § 100.3 (1975).
The mine operators in the companion case contend that these orders are not final since the regulations provide only that the orders become final if accepted. 30 CFR § 100.4 (h). The regulations provide that a hearing can be requested but do not specify what happens if neither the orders are accepted nor a hearing is requested. This contention is without merit. The order is final. See 30 CFR § 100.4(e). The regulation is not misleading.
These uncontested regulations provide that if an operator fails to file a preliminary statement or response to a prehear-ing order, the hearing examiner can issue an order to show cause why the proceedings should not be summarily dismissed. 43 CFR § 4.545 (a). If the operator fails to respond to such an order, the proceedings are summarily dismissed and remanded to the assessment officer for entry of the last proposed order of assessment (issued under 30 CFR pt. 100) as the final assessment order of the Secretary. 43 CFR § 4.545 (b).
At the time of the events giving rise to these actions, the Act was enforced by the Secretary’s delegate, the Bureau of Mines. The Bureau’s safety and enforcement functions have since been transferred to a newly created Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration, Department of the Interior. 38 Eed. Reg. 18665-18668, 18695-18696 (1973).
A Conference Committee does not have authority to make changes on matters as to which both bills agree. 2 U. S. C. § 190c (a) (Sen. Conf. Reps.); Rule XXVIII (3), Rules of the House of Representatives; and §546, Jefferson’s Manual, H. R. Doc. No. 384, 92d Cong., 2d Sess., 526, 270-271 (1973).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
I
The facts of this case, taken principally from the opinion of the Florida Supreme Court, are as follows.. On April 1, 1975, at approximately 7:45 a. m., Thomas and Eunice Kersey, aged 86 and 74, were robbed and fatally shot at their farmhouse in central Florida. The evidence showed that Sampson and Jeanette Armstrong had gone to the back door of the Kersey house and asked for water for an overheated car. When Mr. Kersey came out of the house, Sampson Armstrong grabbed him, pointed a gun at him, and told Jeanette Armstrong to take his money. Mr. Kersey cried for help, and his wife came out of the house with a gun and shot Jeanette Armstrong, wounding her. Sampson Armstrong, and perhaps Jeanette Armstrong, then shot and killed both of the Kerseys, dragged them into the kitchen, and took their money and fled.
Two witnesses testified that they drove past the Kersey house between 7:30 and 7:40 a. m. and saw a large cream- or yellow-colored car parked beside the road about 200 yards from the house and that a man was sitting in the car. Another witness testified that at approximately 6:45 a. m. he saw Ida Jean Shaw, petitioner’s common-law wife and Jeanette Armstrong’s mother, driving a yellow Buick with a vinyl top which belonged to her and petitioner Earl Enmund. Enmund was a passenger in the car along with an unidentified woman. At about 8 a. m. the same witness saw the car return at a high rate of speed. Enmund was driving, Ida Jean Shaw was in the front seat, and one of the other two people in the car was lying down across the back seat.
Enmund, Sampson Armstrong, and Jeanette Armstrong were indicted for the first-degree murder and robbery of the Kerseys. Enmund and Sampson Armstrong were tried together. The prosecutor maintained in his closing argument that “Sampson Armstrong killed the old people.” Record 1577. The judge instructed the jury that “[t]he killing of a human being while engaged in the perpetration of or in the attempt to perpetrate the offense of robbery is murder in the first degree even though there is no premeditated design or intent to kill.” App. 6. He went on to instruct them that
“[i]n order to sustain a conviction of first degree murder while engaging in the perpetration of or in the attempted perpetration of the crime of robbery, the evidence must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was actually present and was actively aiding and abetting the robbery or attempted robbery, and that the unlawful killing occurred in the perpetration of or in the attempted perpetration of the robbery.” Id., at 9.
The jury found both Enmund and Sampson Armstrong guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of robbery. A separate sentencing hearing was held and the jury recommended the death penalty for both defendants under the Florida procedure whereby the jury advises the trial judge whether to impose the death penalty. See Fla. Stat. §921.141(2) (1981). The trial judge then sentenced Enmund to death on the two counts of first-degree murder. Enmund appealed, and the Florida Supreme Court remanded for written findings as required by Fla. Stat. §921.141(3) (1981). The trial judge found four statutory aggravating circumstances: the capital felony was committed while Enmund was engaged in or was an accomplice in the commission of an armed robbery, Fla. Stat. §921.141(5)(d) (1981); the capital felony was committed for pecuniary gain, §921.141(5)(f); it was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, § 921.141(5)(h); and Enmund was previously convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence, §921.141(5)(b). 399 So. 2d 1362, 1371-1372 (Fla. 1981). The court found that “none of the statutory mitigating circumstances applied” to Enmund and that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances. Id., at 1372. Enmund was therefore sentenced to death on each of the murder counts.
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed Enmund’s conviction and sentences. It found that “[t]here was no direct evidence at trial that Earl Enmund was present at the back door of the Kersey home when the plan to rob the elderly couple led to their being murdered.” Id., at 1370. However, it rejected petitioner’s argument that at most he could be found guilty of second-degree murder under Florida’s felony-murder rule. The court explained that the interaction of the “ ‘felony murder rule and the law of principals combine to make a felon generally responsible for the lethal acts of his co-felon.’” Id., at 1369, quoting Adams v. State, 341 So. 2d 765, 768-769 (Fla. 1976), cert. denied, 434 U. S. 878 (1977). Although petitioner could be convicted of second-degree murder only if he were an accessory before the fact rather than a principal, the Florida Supreme Court reasoned:
“[T]he only evidence of the degree of his participation is the jury’s likely inference that he was the person in the car by the side of the road near the scene of the crimes. The jury could have concluded that he was there, a few hundred feet away, waiting to help the robbers escape with the Kerseys’ money. The evidence, therefore, was sufficient to find that the appellant was a principal of the second degree, constructively present aiding and abetting the commission of the crime of robbery. This conclusion supports the verdicts of murder in the first degree on the basis of the felony murder portion of section 782.04(1)(a).” 399 So. 2d, at 1370.
The State Supreme Court rejected two of the four statutory aggravating circumstances found by the trial court. It held that the findings that the murders were committed in the course of a robbery and that they were committed for pecuniary gain referred to the same aspect of petitioner’s crime and must be treated as only one aggravating circumstance. Id., at 1373. In addition, the court held that “[t]he recited circumstance, that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel, cannot be approved.” Ibid., citing Armstrong v. State, 399 So. 2d 953 (Fla. 1981). However, because there were two aggravating circumstances and no mitigating circumstances, the death sentence was affirmed. In so doing, the court expressly rejected Enmund’s submission that because the evidence did not establish that he intended to take life, the death penalty was barred by the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. 399 So. 2d, at 1371.
We granted Enmund’s petition for certiorari, 454 U. S. 939 (1981), presenting the question whether death is a valid penalty under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments for one who neither took life, attempted to take life, nor intended to take life.
II
As recounted above, the Florida Supreme Court held that the record supported no more than the inference that Enmund was the person in the car by the side of the road at the time of the killings, waiting to help the robbers escape. This was enough under Florida law to make Enmund a constructive aider and abettor and hence a principal in first-degree murder upon whom the death penalty could be imposed. It was thus irrelevant to Enmund’s challenge to the death sentence that he did not himself kill and was not present at the killings; also beside the point was whether he intended that the Kerseys be killed or anticipated that lethal force would or might be used if necessary to effectuate the robbery or a safe escape. We have concluded that imposition of the death penalty in these circumstances is inconsistent with the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
A
The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment is directed, in part, “‘against all punishments which by their excessive length or severity are greatly disproportioned to the offenses charged.’” Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349, 371 (1910), quoting O’Neil v. Vermont, 144 U. S. 323, 339-340 (1892) (Field, J., dissenting). This Court most recently held a punishment excessive in relation to the crime charged in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584 (1977). There the plurality opinion concluded that the imposition of the death penalty for the rape of an adult woman “is grossly disproportionate and excessive punishment for the crime of rape and is therefore forbidden by the Eighth Amendment as cruel and unusual punishment.” Id., at 592. In reaching this conclusion, it was stressed that our judgment “should be informed by objective factors to the maximum possible extent.” Ibid. Accordingly, the Court looked to the historical development of the punishment at issue, legislative judgments, international opinion, and the sentencing decisions juries have made before bringing its own judgment to bear on the matter. We proceed to analyze the punishment at issue in this case in a similar manner.
B
The Coker plurality observed that “[a]t no time in the last 50 years have a majority of the States authorized death as a punishment for rape.” Id., at 593. More importantly, in reenacting death penalty laws in order to satisfy the criteria established in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972), only three States provided the death penalty for the rape of an adult woman in their revised statutes. 433 U. S., at 594. The plurality therefore concluded that “[t]he current judgment with respect to the death penalty for rape is not wholly unanimous among state legislatures, but it obviously weighs very heavily on the side of rejecting capital punishment as a suitable penalty for raping an adult woman.” Id., at 596 (footnote omitted).
Thirty-six state and federal jurisdictions presently authorize the death penalty. Of these, only eight jurisdictions authorize imposition of the death penalty solely for participation in a robbery in which another robber takes life. Of the remaining.28 jurisdictions, in 4 felony murder is not a capital crime. Eleven States require some culpable mental state with respect to the homicide as a prerequisite to conviction of a crime for which the death penalty is authorized. Of these 11 States, 8 make knowing, intentional, purposeful, or premeditated killing an element of capital murder. Three other States require proof of a culpable mental state short of intent, such as recklessness or extreme indifference to human life, before the death penalty may be imposed. In these 11 States, therefore, the actors in a felony murder are not subject to the death penalty without proof of their mental state, proof which was not required with respect to Enmund either under the trial court’s instructions or under the law announced by the Florida Supreme Court.
Four additional jurisdictions do not permit a defendant such as Enmund to be put to death. Of these, one State flatly prohibits capital punishment in cases where the defendant did not actually commit murder. Two jurisdictions preclude the death penalty in cases such as this one where the defendant “was a principal in the offense, which was committed by another, but his participation was relatively minor, although not so minor as to constitute a defense to prosecution.” One other State limits the death penalty in felony murders to narrow circumstances not involved here.
Nine of the remaining States deal with the imposition of the death penalty for a vicarious felony murder in their capital sentencing statutes. In each of these States, a defendant may not be executed solely for participating in a felony in which a person was killed if the defendant did not actually cause the victim’s death. For a defendant to be executed in these States, typically the statutory aggravating circumstances which are present must outweigh mitigating factors. To be sure, a vicarious felony murderer may be sentenced to death in these jurisdictions absent an intent to kill if sufficient aggravating circumstances are present. However, six of these nine States make it a statutory mitigating circumstance that the defendant was an accomplice in a capital felony committed by another person and his participation was relatively minor. By making minimal participation in a capital felony committed by another person a mitigating circumstance, these sentencing statutes reduce the likelihood that a person will be executed for vicarious felony murder. The remaining three jurisdictions exclude felony murder from their lists of aggravating circumstances that will support a death sentence. In each of these nine States, a nontriggerman guilty of felony murder cannot be sentenced to death for the felony murder absent aggravating circumstances above and beyond the felony murder itself.
Thus only a small minority of jurisdictions — eight—allow the death penalty to be imposed solely because the defendant somehow participated in a robbery in the course of which a murder was committed. Even if the nine States are included where such a defendant could be executed for an unintended felony murder if sufficient aggravating circumstances are present to outweigh mitigating circumstances — which often include the defendant’s minimal participation in the murder — only about a third of American jurisdictions would ever permit a defendant who somehow participated in a robbery where a murder occurred to be sentenced to die. Moreover, of the eight States which have enacted new death penalty statutes since 1978, none authorize capital punishment in such circumstances. While the current legislative judgment with respect to imposition of the death penalty where a defendant did not take life, attempt to take it, or intend to take life is neither “wholly unanimous among state legislatures,” Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S., at 596, nor as compelling as the legislative judgments considered in Coker, it nevertheless weighs on the side of rejecting capital punishment for the crime at issue.
c
Society’s rejection of the death penalty for accomplice liability in felony murders is also indicated by the sentencing decisions that juries have made. As we have previously observed, “‘[t]he jury... is a significant and reliable objective index of contemporary values because it is so directly involved.’” Coker v. Georgia, supra, at 596, quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 181 (1976). The evidence is overwhelming that American juries have repudiated imposition of the death penalty for crimes such as petitioner’s. First, according to the petitioner, a search of all reported appellate court decisions since 1954 in cases where a defendant was executed for homicide shows that of the 362 executions, in 339 the person executed personally committed a homicidal assault. In 2 cases the person executed had another person commit the homicide for him, and in 16 cases the facts were not reported in sufficient detail to determine whether the person executed committed the homicide. The survey revealed only 6 cases out of 362 where a nontriggerman felony murderer was executed. All six executions took place in 1955. By contrast, there were 72 executions for rape in this country between 1955 and this Court’s decision in Coker v. Georgia in 1977.
That juries have rejected the death penalty in cases such as this one where the defendant did not commit the homicide, was not present when the killing took place, and did not participate in a plot or scheme to murder is also shown by petitioner’s survey of the Nation’s death-row population. As of October 1, 1981, there were 796 inmates under sentences of death for homicide. Of the 739 for whom sufficient data are available, only 41 did not participate in the fatal assault on the victim. Of the 40 among the 41 for whom sufficient information was available, only 16 were not physically present when the fatal assault was committed. These 16 prisoners included only 3, including petitioner, who were sentenced to die absent a finding that they hired or solicited someone else to kill the victim or participated in a scheme designed to kill the victim. The figures for Florida are similar. Forty-five felony murderers are currently on death row. The Florida Supreme Court either found or affirmed a trial court or jury finding that the defendant intended life to be taken in 36 cases. In eight cases the courts made no finding with respect to intent, but the defendant was the triggerman in each case. In only one case — Enmund’s—there was no finding of an intent to kill and the defendant was not the triggerman. The State does not challenge this analysis of the Florida cases.
The dissent criticizes these statistics on the ground that they do not reveal the percentage of homicides that were charged as felony murders or the percentage of cases where the State sought the death penalty for an accomplice guilty of felony murder. Post, at 818-819. We doubt whether it is possible to gather such information, and at any rate, it would be relevant if prosecutors rarely sought the death penalty for accomplice felony murder, for it would tend to indicate that prosecutors, who represent society’s interest in punishing crime, consider the death penalty excessive for accomplice felony murder. The fact remains that we are not aware of a single person convicted of felony murder over the past quarter century who did not kill or attempt to kill, and did not intend the death of the victim, who has been executed, and that only three persons in that category are presently sentenced to die. Nor can these figures be discounted by attributing to petitioner the argument that “death is an unconstitutional penalty absent an intent to kill,” post, at 819, and observing that the statistics are incomplete with respect to intent. Petitioner’s argument is that because he did not kill, attempt to kill, and he did not intend to kill, the death penalty is disproportionate as applied to him, and the statistics he cites are adequately tailored to demonstrate that juries— and perhaps prosecutors as well — consider death a disproportionate penalty for those who fall within his category.
III
Although the judgments of legislatures, juries, and prosecutors weigh heavily in the balance, it is for us ultimately to judge whether the Eighth Amendment permits imposition of the death penalty on one such as Enmund who aids and abets a felony in the course of which a murder is committed by others but who does not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend that a killing take place or that lethal force will be employed. We have concluded, along with most legislatures and juries, that it does not.
We have no doubt that robbery is a serious crime deserving serious punishment. It is not, however, a crime “so grievous an affront to humanity that the only adequate response may be the penalty of death.” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S., at 184 (footnote omitted). “[I]t does not compare with murder, which does involve the unjustified taking of human life. Although it may be accompanied by another crime, [robbery] by definition does not include the death of or even the serious injury to another person. The murderer kills; the [robber], if no more than that, does not. Life is over for the victim of the murderer; for the [robbery] victim, life... is not over and normally is not beyond repair.” Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S., at 598 (footnote omitted). As was said of the crime of rape in Coker, we have the abiding conviction that the death penalty, which is “unique in its severity and irrevocability,” Gregg v. Georgia, supra, at 187, is an excessive penalty for the robber who, as such, does not take human life.
Here the robbers did commit murder; but they were subjected to the death penalty only because they killed as well as robbed. The question before us is not the disproportionality of death as a penalty for murder, but rather the validity of capital punishment for Enmund’s own conduct. The focus must be on Ms culpability, not on that of those who committed the robbery and shot the victims, for we insist on “individualized consideration as a constitutional requirement in imposing the death sentence,” Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586, 605 (1978) (footnote omitted), which means that we must focus on “relevant facets of the character and record of the individual offender.” Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 304 (1976). Enmund himself did not kill or attempt to kill; and, as construed by the Florida Supreme Court, the record before us does not warrant a finding that Enmund had any intention of participating in or facilitating a murder. Yet under Florida law death was an authorized penalty because Enmund aided and abetted a robbery in the course of which murder was committed. It is fundamental that “causing harm intentionally must be punished more severely than causing the same harm unintentionally.” H. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility 162 (1968). Enmund did not kill or intend to kill and thus his culpability is plainly different from that of the robbers who killed; yet the State treated them alike and attributed to Enmund the culpability of those who killed the Kerseys. This was impermissible under the Eighth Amendment.
In Gregg v. Georgia the opinion announcing the judgment observed that “[t]he death penalty is said to serve two principal social purposes: retribution and deterrence of capital crimes by prospective offenders.” 428 U. S., at 183 (footnote omitted). Unless the death penalty when applied to those in Enmund’s position measurably contributes to one or both of these goals, it “is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering,” and hence an unconstitutional punishment. Coker v. Georgia, supra, at 592. We are quite unconvinced, however, that the threat that the death penalty will be imposed for murder will measurably deter one who does not kill and has no intention or purpose that life will be taken. Instead, it seems likely that “capital punishment can serve as a deterrent only when murder is the result of premeditation and deliberation,” Fisher v. United States, 328 U. S. 463, 484 (1946) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting), for if a person does not intend that life be taken or contemplate that lethal force will be employed by others, the possibility that the death penalty will be imposed for vicarious felony murder will not “enter into the cold calculus that precedes the decision to act.” Gregg v. Georgia, supra, at 186 (footnote omitted).
It would be very different if the likelihood of a killing in the course of a robbery were so substantial that one should share the blame for the killing if he somehow participated in the felony. But competent observers have concluded that there is no basis in experience for the notion that death so frequently occurs in the course of a felony for which killing is not an essential ingredient that the death penalty should be considered as a justifiable deterrent to the felony itself. Model Penal Code §210.2, Comment, p. 38, and n. 96. This conclusion was based on three comparisons of robbery statistics, each of which showed that only about one-half of one percent of robberies resulted in homicide. The most recent national crime statistics strongly support this conclusion. In addition to the evidence that killings only rarely occur during robberies is the fact, already noted, that however often death occurs in the course of a felony such as robbery, the death penalty is rarely imposed on one only vicariously guilty of the murder, a fact which further attenuates its possible utility as an effective deterrence.
As for retribution as a justification for executing Enmund, we think this very much depends on the degree of Enmund’s culpability — what Enmund’s intentions, expectations, and actions were. American criminal law has long considered a defendant’s intention — and therefore his moral guilt — to be critical to “the degree of [his] criminal culpability,” Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684, 698 (1975), and the Court has found criminal penalties to be unconstitutionally excessive in the absence of intentional wrongdoing. In Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660, 667 (1962), a statute making narcotics addiction a crime, even though such addiction “is apparently an illness which may be contracted innocently or involuntarily,” was struck down under the Eighth Amendment. Similarly, in Weems v. United States, the Court invalidated a statute making it a crime for a public official to make a false entry in a public record but not requiring the offender to “injur[e] any one by his act or inten[d] to injure any one.” 217 U. S., at 363. The Court employed a similar approach in Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U. S. 420, 433 (1980), reversing a death sentence based on the existence of an aggravating circumstance because the defendant’s crime did not reflect “a consciousness materially more ‘depraved’ than that of any person guilty of murder.”
For purposes of imposing the death penalty, Enmund’s criminal culpability must be limited to his participation in the robbery, and his punishment must be tailored to his personal responsibility and moral guilt. Putting Enmund to death to avenge two killings that he did not commit and had no intention of committing or causing does not measurably contribute to the retributive end of ensuring that the criminal gets his just deserts. This is the judgment of most of the legislatures that have recently addressed the matter, and we have no reason to disagree with that judgment for purposes of construing and applying the Eighth Amendment.
IV
Because the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the death penalty in this case in the absence of proof that Enmund killed or attempted to kill, and regardless of whether Enmund intended or contemplated that life would be taken, we reverse the judgment upholding the death penalty and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Jeanette Armstrong’s trial was severed and she was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder and one count of robbery and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. 399 So. 2d 1362, 1371 (Fla. 1981).
The Florida Supreme Court’s understanding of the evidence differed sharply from that of the trial court with respect to the degree of Enmund’s participation. In its sentencing findings, the trial court concluded that Enmund was a major participant in the robbery because he planned the robbery in advance and himself shot the Kerseys. 399 So. 2d, at 1372. Both of these findings, as we understand it, were rejected by the Florida Supreme Court’s holding that the only supportable inference with respect to Enmund’s participation was that he drove the getaway car. The dissent, while conceding that this holding negated the finding that Enmund was one of the triggermen, argues that the trial court’s finding that Enmund planned the robbery was implicitly affirmed. Post, at 809. As we have said, we disagree with that view. In any event, the question is irrelevant to the constitutional issue before us, since the Florida Supreme Court held that driving the escape car was enough to warrant conviction and the death penalty, whether or not Enmund intended that life be taken or anticipated that lethal force would be used.
In Armstrong the Florida Supreme Court rejected the trial court’s conclusion that the Kerseys had been killed in order to eliminate them as witnesses, and stated that according to the only direct account of the events, “the shootings were indeed spontaneous and were precipitated by the armed resistance of Mrs. Kersey.” 399 So. 2d, at 963.
The petitioner argues a second question: whether the degree of Enmund’s participation in the killings was given the consideration required by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. We need not deal with this question.
Cal. Penal Code Ann. §§ 189, 190.2(a)(17) (West Supp. 1982); Fla. Stat. §§782.04(l)(a), 775.082(1), 921.141(5)(d) (1981); Ga. Code §§26-1101(b), (e), 27-2534.1(b)(2) (1978); Miss. Code Ann. §§ 97-3-19(2)(e), 99-19-101(5)(d) (Supp. 1981); Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 200.030(1)(b), 200.030(4), 200.033(4) (1981); S. C. Code §§ 16-3-10,16-3-20(C)(a)(1) (1976 and Supp. 1981); Tenn. Code Ann. §§39-2402(a), 39-2404(i)(7) (Supp. 1981); Wyo. Stat. §§ 6-4-101, 6-4-102(h)(iv) (1977).
Mo. Rev. Stat. §§565.001, 565.003, 565.008(2) (1978) (death penalty may be imposed only for capital murder; felony murder is first-degree murder); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 630:1, 630:1(111), 630:l-a(I)(b)(2) (1974 and Supp. 1981) (capital murder includes only killing a law enforcement officer, killing during a kidnaping, and murder for hire); 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 2502(a), (b), 1102 (1980) (death penalty may be imposed only for first-degree murder; felony murder is second-degree murder); Wash. Rev. Code §§ 9A.32.030,10.95.020 (1981) (death penalty may be imposed only for premeditated killing).
Ala. Code §§ 13A-2-23, 13A-5-40(a)(2), 13A-6-2(a)(1) (1977 and Supp. 1982) (to be found guilty of capital murder, accomplice must have had “intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense” and murder must be intentional); 111. Rev. Stat., ch. 38,1ff19-1(a)(3), 9-1(b)(6) (1979) (capital crime only if defendant killed intentionally or with knowledge that his actions “created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm”); La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14:30(1) (West Supp. 1982) (“specific intent to kill”); N. M. Stat. Ann. §§30-2-l(A)(2), 31-18-14(A), 31-20A-5 (Supp. 1981) (felony murder is a capital crime but death penalty may not be imposed absent intent to kill unless victim was a peace officer); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 2903.01(B), (C), (D), 2929.02(A), 2929.04(A)(7) (1982) (accomplice not guilty of capital murder unless he intended to kill); Tex. Penal Code Ann. §§ 19.02(a), 19.03(a)(2) (1974) (“intentionally commits the murder in the course of [a felony]”); Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-202(1) (1978) (“intentionally or knowingly causes the death of another”); Va. Code § 18.2-31(d) (1982) (“willful, deliberate and premeditated killing of any person in the commission of robbery while armed with a deadly weapon”).
Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1501(1)(a) (1977) (“extreme indifference to... life”); see also §41-1501, Commentary (“an inadvertent killing in the course of a felony will not... support... a conviction entailing punishment by death”); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 11, §§636(a)(2), (6) (1979) (“recklessly” or “with criminal negligence” causes death during the commission of a felony); Ky. Rev. Stat. §507.020(1)(b) (Supp. 1980) (defendant must manifest “extreme indifference to human life” and “wantonly engag[e] in conduct which creates a grave risk of death... and thereby causes... death”); see also Commentary following Criminal Law of Kentucky Annotated, Penal Code § 507.020, p. 677 (1978) (each accomplice’s “participation in [the] felony” must “constitute wantonness manifesting extreme indifference to human life”).
Md. Code Ann., Art. 27, §§410, 412(b), 413(d)(10), 413(e)(1) (1982) (except in cases of murder for hire, only principal in the first degree subject to the death penalty). In addition, two jurisdictions already accounted for in n. 7, swpra, also preclude the death penalty where the defendant did not commit the murder. Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶¶9-1(a)(3), 9-1 (b)(6) (1979) (defendant must actually kill victim); Va. Code §§ 18.2-31(d), 18.2-10(a), 18.2-18 (1982) (except in cases of murder for hire, only principal in the first degree may be tried for capital murder).
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16-11-103(5)(d) (1978); 49 U. S. C. § 1473(c)(6)(D) (same).
Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 13, §§ 2303(b), (c) (Supp. 1981) (capital murder reserved for offenders who commit a second unrelated murder or murder of a correctional officer).
Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-703(G)(3) (Supp. 1981-1982) (“relatively minor” participation); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-46a(f )(4) (Supp. 1982) (same); Ind. Code § 35-50-2-9(c)(4) (Supp. 1981) (same); Mont. Code Ann. §46-18-304(6) (1981) (same); Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-2523(2)(e) (1979) (same); N. C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-2000(f )(4) (Supp. 1981) (same).
Idaho Code §19-2515(f) (1979); Okla. Stat., Tit. 21, §701.12 (1981); S. D. Comp. Laws Ann. § 23A-27A-1 (Supp. 1981).
See the Ala., Colo., Conn., Md., Ohio, Pa., S. D., and Wash, statutes cited in nn. 5-7, 9, 10, 12, and 13, supra.
The dissent characterizes the state statutes somewhat differently. It begins by noting that 31 States “authorize a senteneer to impose a death sentence for a death that occurs during the course of a robbery.” Post, at 819. That is not relevant to this case, however. Rather, at issue is the number of States which authorize the death penalty where the defendant did not kill, attempt to kill, or intend to kill. The dissent divides the statutes into three categories. Its first category of 20 statutes include 8 about which there is no disagreement — Cal., Fla., Ga., Miss., Nev., S. C., Tenn., and Wyo. In 11 other States listed by the dissent — Ariz., Colo., Conn., Idaho, Ind., Mont., Neb., N. M., N. C., Okla., and S. D. — the dissent looks solely at the provisions defining the crime of capital murder. Colorado’s
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Subtitle C of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. § 3101 et seq. (Code), imposes a number of employment taxes, among which are the income tax withheld from an employee’s wages and the Social Security tax. The Code divides the burden of the Social Security tax between the employer and the employee, but imposes the income tax on the employee alone. The employer has responsibility, however, for both paying its share of the Social Security tax and withholding from the employee’s wages the income tax and the employee’s share of the Social Security tax. If the employer fails to pay over the withheld Social Security and income taxes to the Government, the employer is liable for their payment. Within 60 days of making an assessment of unpaid taxes against an employer, the Government is required, under § 6303(a) of the Code, to provide the employer with notice of the assessment and demand for payment. In some instances, a person other than the employer, such as a lender, may directly or indirectly pay the employee’s wages. Section 3505 of the Code provides that such a person may be personally liable if the employee’s Social Security and income taxes are not withheld and paid to the Government. This case presents the question whether § 6303(a) requires the Government to proyide notice and demand for payment to a lender before bringing a civil suit against the lender to collect sums for which it is liable under § 3505. We hold that it does not.
The United States brought the present action against Jersey Shore State Bank in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, seeking a determination that Jersey Shore was personally liable under §3505 for amounts reflecting unpaid taxes required to be withheld from the wages of the employees of Pennmount Industries. The Government claimed that Jersey Shore paid wages directly to Pennmount employees during the fourth quarter of 1977 through the first quarter of 1980, thereby making it liable under § 3505(a) for a sum equal to the full amount of the unpaid withholding taxes for that period. In the alternative, the complaint alleged that, for the same period, Jersey Shore supplied funds to Pennmount for the wages of Penn-mount employees “with actual notice and knowledge” that Pennmount “did not intend or would not be able to make timely payment or desposits [sic] of the . . . taxes required to be deducted and withheld” from the wages. App. to Pet. for Cert. 40a-41a. Based on this latter allegation, the Government asserted that Jersey Shore was liable under § 3505(b) for 25 percent of the amount of funds supplied to Pennmount.
The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of Jersey Shore, holding that § 6303(a) requires the Government to send notice of an assessment against an employer to a third-party lender liable under §3505. 628 F. Supp. 15 (MD Pa. 1985). Because the United States conceded that it had not provided Jersey Shore with notice of the assessments against Pennmount pursuant to § 6303(a), the court concluded that the suit against Jersey Shore was barred. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed. 781 F. 2d 974 (1986). We granted certiorari to resolve the intercircuit conflict over the issue decided by the Court of Appeals. 476 U. S. 1157 (1986). We now affirm.
Section 6303(a) requires notice of an assessment to “each person liable for the unpaid tax.” According to Jersey Shore, this phrase clearly describes a third-party lender liable under §3505 for unpaid withholding taxes assessed against an employer. The relationship between § 3505 and § 6303(a), however, is not as clear as Jersey Shore maintains. Section 3505 does not declare that a lender is “liable for the unpaid tax.” Instead, the section imposes liability on the lender for all or part of “a sum equal to the taxes.” §§ 3505(a),(b).
Other portions of the text of § 6303(a) further demonstrate a lack of connection between that section and § 3505. Section 6303(a) not only provides that the Government shall give notice of an assessment “to each person liable for the unpaid tax,” but it also requires notice “stating the amount” assessed and “demanding payment thereof.” §6303(a). Notice complying with these latter two requirements may have little meaning for a third-party lender. In the first place, the assessment against the employer may include the employer’s share of unpaid Social Security taxes for which the lender is not liable. See § 3505; H. R. Rep. No. 1884, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 21 (1966) (a lender “is not liable for the employer’s portion of payroll taxes”); S. Rep. No. 1708, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 23 (1966) (same). Even where the assessment does not include such taxes, the lender’s liability could equal the amount stated in the notice only if the lender provided payroll financing throughout the time period reflected in the assessment. Moreover, the chances are slim that the notice amount would be accurate for lenders liable only under § 3505(b), which limits a lender’s exposure to 25 percent of the funds supplied to the employer. Accordingly, if sent to a lender, the notice required under § 6303(a) is likely to demand payment of an amount different from that for which the lender is liable. We find it improbable that Congress intended such a result. Reading the two sections together, we agree with the Court of Appeals that § 6303(a) is most logically read not to apply where the Government seeks to collect from a lender under § 3505.
In arguing to the contrary, Jersey Shore urges that it would be fundamentally unfair not to require the Government to provide lenders with § 6303(a) notice. Jersey Shore first maintains that, because employers and lenders are similarly situated under the Code, the procedural requirements applicable to employers also must be accorded to lenders. But even assuming that § 6303(a) notice would provide lenders with meaningful information, we are unpersuaded by this contention. Under the collection mechanism's established by the Code, employers and lenders are in very different positions. While employers are subject to the Government’s summary collection procedures soon after unpaid employment taxes are assessed, see, e. g., §§6321, 6322, 6331, 6335, the legislative history of § 3505 makes clear that the Government may forcibly collect against a lender only by filing a civil suit. See H. R. Rep. No. 1884, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 66 (1966) (where a third-party does not voluntarily satisfy the liability imposed by §3505, “the United States may collect such liability by appropriate civil proceeding”). An employer therefore has a far greater need for an assessment notice than third-party lenders, who are not subject to summary collection procedures.
We also reject Jersey Shore’s related contention that a third-party lender is unfairly prejudiced by lack of an assessment notice because of the effect of an assessment on the statute of limitations for collection suits. Under the general rule set forth in § 6501(a), “the amount of any tax imposed . . . shall be assessed within 3 years after the return was filed . . . and no proceeding in court without assessment for the collection of such tax shall be begun after the expiration of such period. ” Nevertheless, where a proper assessment has been made, the unpaid tax generally “may be collected by levy or by a proceeding in court. . . begun. . . within 6 years after the assessment.” § 6502(a)(1). Under Jersey Shore’s reading of these provisions, the Government enjoys an additional 6-year limitations period for collecting against a lender if it makes an assessment against the employer within three years after the corresponding employment tax return is filed. Jersey Shore submits that Congress could not have intended the Government to benefit from this longer statute of limitations when it seeks to collect against a lender without also requiring the Government to provide the lender with notice of the assessment against the employer.
Assuming, without deciding, that Jersey Shore’s reading of the statute of limitations provisions is correct, we are not convinced that they render our construction of § 6303(a) implausible. A lender is not liable under §3505 unless it either “pays wages directly” to an employee or supplies funds for the wages with “actual notice or knowledge” that the employer is either unable to make timely payment of the required withholding taxes or has no intention of doing so. The lender is deemed to have such actual notice or knowledge from the time the lender, in the exercise of due diligence, would have been aware that the employer would not or could not make timely payment. § 6323(i)(l). Accordingly, a prudent lender could be alerted to its liability under § 3505 at the time it engaged in what the Government describes as “net payroll financing,” a practice whereby the lender provides funds for payment of employees’ net wages, but not funds for payment of withholding taxes. Thus, even without § 6303(a) notice, such a lender could take steps to protect itself against the possibility of a future §3505 suit. The Committee Reports concerning §3505 demonstrate that Congress considered precautions third parties could take to protect themselves:
“[S]ureties can protect themselves against any losses attributable to withholding taxes by including this risk of liability in establishing their premiums, and lenders by including the amounts in their loans and taking adequate security.” S. Rep. No. 1708, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 23 (1966); H. R. Rep. No. 1884, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 22 (1966).
As the Court of Appeals recognized, this passage suggests that “Congress envisioned a system in which third parties would take their potential liability under section 3505 into consideration at the time they entered into the transaction exposing them to liability under the statute.” 781 F. 2d, at 982.
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Congress did not intend to require the Government to provide a lender with notice under § 6303(a) before bringing a civil suit to collect under § 3505. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is therefore
Affirmed.
Section 3506(a) provides, in pertinent part:
“[I]f a lender, surety, or other person, who is not an employer . . . with respect to an employee,. . . pays wages directly to such an employee . . . , such lender, surety, or other person shall be liable in his own person and estate to the United States in a sum equal to the taxes (together with interest) required to be deducted and withheld . . . .”
Section 350503) provides, in pertinent part:
“If a lender, surety, or other person supplies funds to ... an employer for the specific purpose of paying wages of the employees of such employer, with actual notice or knowledge . . . that such employer does not intend to or will not be able to make timely payment or deposit of the amounts of tax required ... to be deducted and withheld by such employer . . . , such lender, surety, or other person shall be liable in his own person and estate to the United States in a sum equal to the taxes (together with interest) which are not paid over to the United States by such employer. However, . . . the liability of such lender, surety, or other person shall be limited to an amount equal to 25 percent of the amount so supplied to . . . such employer for such purpose.”
Section 6303(a) provides, in pertinent part:
“Where it is not otherwise provided by this title, the Secretary shall, as soon as practicable, and within 60 days, after the making of an assessment of a tax pursuant to section 6203, give notice to each person liable for the unpaid tax, stating the amount and demanding payment thereof.”
One judge dissented from the majority opinion, arguing that the plain language of § 6303(a) required that the Government provide notice to the lender.
In addition to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, four other Circuits have addressed whether the Government must provide § 6303(a) notice to third parties liable under § 3506. See United States v. Messina Builders & Contractors Co., 801 F. 2d 1029 (CA8 1986) (§ 6303(a) notice required), cert. pending, No. 86-1007; United States v. Hunter Engineers & Constructors, Inc., 789 F. 2d 1436 (CA9 1986) (§ 6303(a) notice not required), cert. pending, No. 86-209; United States v. Merchants National Bank of Mobile, 772 F. 2d 1522 (CA11 1985) (§ 6303(a) notice required), cert. pending, No. 85-1480; United States v. Associates Commercial Corp., 721 F. 2d 1094 (CA7 1983) (§ 6303(a) notice required); see also United States v. Friedman, 739 F. 2d 252 (CA7 1984) (failure to provide notice within 60 days of assessment will not bar suit where Government has provided notice before assessment to person liable under § 3505).
Jersey Shore argues that this passage does not relate to §3505, but instead refers only to an amendment to the Miller Act concerning the requirements for performance bonds on public works. It is true that the passage appears in each Committee Report under subheadings referencing the Miller Act. In both Reports, however, the passage immediately follows a discussion of lenders, sureties, and other persons liable under § 3505 and is prefaced with the phrase “[i]n the cases discussed above.” Thus, the context of the passage makes clear that it relates to § 3505.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in this case is whether the Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to trial by jury in an action brought in the' District of Columbia for the recovery of possession of real property. In May 1971, petitioner, Dave Pernell, entered into a lease agreement with respondent, Southall Realty, for the rental of a house in the District of Columbia. In July 1971, Southall filed a complaint in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia seeking to evict Pernell from the premises for alleged nonpayment of rent. Suit was brought under D. C. Code §§ 16-1501 through 16-1505, which establish a procedure for the recovery of possession of real property. In his answer, Pernell denied that rent was owing, asserted that Southall maintained the premises in an unsafe, unhealthy, and unsanitary condition in violation of the housing regulations of thé District of Columbia, and alleged that Southall breached an agreement to waive several months’ rent in exchange for Pernell’s making certain improvements on the property. Pernell also claimed a setoff of $389.60 for repairs made to bring the premises into partial compliance with the District’s housing regulations and a counterclaim of $75 for back rent paid.
In his answer, Pernell also requested a trial by jury. The trial judge, however, struck the jury demand, tried the case himself, and entered judgment for Southall. Pernell appealed to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, claiming that the Seventh Amendment guaranteed the right to trial by jury in all cases brought under § 16-1501 and, alternatively, that he was entitled to a jury trial in this case by virtue of the counterclaim and setoff specified in his answer. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 294 A. 2d 490 (1972), holding that jury trials are not guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment in landlord7tenant cases predicated on nonpayment of rent or some other breach of the lease where the only remedy sought is repossession of the rented premises. Id., at 496. The court also held that if Pernell wished to litigate his counterclaim for damages before a jury, he should have instituted a separate action rather than raise the counterclaim in the landlord’s action for repossession. Id., at 498.
Because of the novel nature of the Seventh Amendment question, we granted certiorari. 411 U. S. 915 (1973). We reverse.
I
Although the statutory cause of action now codified in § 16-1501 dates back to 1864, it was unnecessary until recently for any court to pass upon the Seventh Amendment question now before us. Prior to 1970, D. C. Code § 13-702 preserved the right to jury trial “[w]hen the amount in controversy in a civil action... exceeds $20, and in all actions for the recovery of possession of real property....” See, e. g., Kass v. Baskin, 82 U. S. App. D. C. 385, 164 F. 2d 513 (1947). The matter now appears in a different light, however, since § 13-702 was repealed by the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970. See Pub. L. 91-358, §142 (5) (A), 84 Stat. 552.
We are met at the outset by the suggestion that, notwithstanding the repeal of § 13-702, it might still be possible to interpret the relevant statutes as providing for a right to jury trial. It is, of course, a “ ‘cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the [constitutional] question may be avoided.’ ” United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U. S. 363, 369 (1971).
The Court of Appeals recognized that “Congress did not make clear what it intended by the repeal of this section.” 294 A. 2d, at 491. Although the legislative history on this question is meager, an argument can be made that Congress in 1970 harbored no intent to do away with jury trials, but rather repealed § 13-702 as a housekeeping measure in the belief that jury trials would continue to be afforded in all cases previously covered by that section, including actions for the recovery of possession of real property. The'Court of Appeals, however, appears to have been of the view that, regardless of congressional intent, it was no longer possible to interpret the relevant statutes as providing a right to jury trial in light of the outright repeal of § 13-702. In its view, after 1970 the right to jury trial had to stand on constitutional ground if it were to stand at all. We find ourselves bound, by that court’s analysis of the effect of the 1970 Act in the circumstances of this case.
This Court has long expressed its reluctance to review decisions of the courts of the District involving matters of peculiarly local concern, absent a constitutional claim or a problem of general federal law of nationwide application. See, e. g., Griffin v. United States, 336 U. S. 704, 717-718 (1949); Fisher v. United States, 328 U. S. 463, 476 (1946). See also Miller v. United States, 357 U. S. 301, 306 (1958). In the past, this reluctance has typically been expressed with regard to positions taken by the courts, of the District on common-law questions of evidence and substantive criminal law. But in view of the restructuring of the District’s cou'rt system accomplished by the Court Reform Act in 1970, we believe the same deference is owed the courts of the District with respect to their interpretation of. Acts of Congress directed toward the local jurisdiction.
One of the primary purposes of the Court Reform Act was to restructure the District’s court system so that “the District will have a court system comparable to those of the States and other large municipalities.” H. R. Rep. No. 91-907, p. 23 (1970). Prior to 1970, the District’s local courts and the United States District Court and Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, unlike their counterparts in the several States, shared a complex and often confusing form of concurrent jurisdiction, with loc¿l-law matters often litigated in the United States District Court and decisions of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals reviewable in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. See generally ibid.
The 1970 Act made fundamental changes in this structure. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals was made the highest court of the District, “similar to a state Supreme Court,” and its judgments made reviewable by this Court in the same manner that we review judgments of the- highest courts of the several States. See ibid. See also Pub. L. 91-358, § 111, 84 Stat. 475, codified at D. C. Code § 11-102; § 172 (a)(1), 84 Stat. 590, amending 28 U. S. C. § 1257. The respective jurisdictions of the newly created Superior Court of the District of Columbia and of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia were adjusted so as to “result in a Federal-State court system in the District of Columbia analogous to. court systems in the several States.” H. R. Rep. No. 91-907, supra, at 35.
This new structure plainly contemplates that the de cisions of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on. matters '-of local law — both common law and statutory law — will be treated by this Court in a manner similar to the way in which we treat decisions of the highest court of a State on questions of state law. Congressional Acts directed toward the District, like other federal laws, admittedly come within this Court's Art. Ill jurisdiction, and we'are therefore not barred from reviewing the interpretations of those Acts by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in the same jurisdictional sense that we are barred from reconsidering a state court's interpretation of a state statute. See, e. g., O’Brien v. Skinner, 414 U. S. 524, 531 (1974); Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U. S. 250, 256 (1974). But the new court structure certainly lends additional support to our longstanding practice of not overruling the courts of the District on local law matters “save in exceptional situations where egregious error has been committed.”. Fisher v. United States, 328 U. S., at 476; Griffin v. United States, 336 U. S., at 718. This principle, long embedded in practice and now supported by the clear intent of Congress in enacting the 1970 Court Reform Act, must serve as our guide in the present ease. As no such obvious error was committed here, we must accept the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the right to jury trial must stand or fall on constitutional ground after the repeal of § 13-702. Accordingly, it is to the Seventh Amendment issue' that we now turn.
II
District of. Columbia Code § 16-1501 provides a remedy “[w]hen a person detains possession of real property without right, or after his right to possession has ceased....” The statute is not limited to situations where a landlord seeks to evict a tenant, but may be invoked by any “person aggrieved” by a wrongful detention of property. Ibid. See also infra, at 379. Under the statute, when a verified complaint is filed by the person aggrieved by the detention, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia may issue a summons to the defendant to appear and show cause why judgment should not be given against him for the restitution of possession. This summons must be served seven days before the day fixed for the trial of the action. § 16-1502. If, after the trial, it appears that the plaintiff is entitled to possession, judgment and execution for possession shall be awarded in his favor with costs. If, on the other hand, the plaintiff nonsuits or fails to prove his case, the defendant shall have judgment and execution for his costs. See § 16-1503.
The Seventh Amendment provides: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall.be preserved....” Like other provisions of the Bill of Rights, it is fully applicable to courts established by Congress in the District of Columbia. See Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1, 5 (1899).
This Court has long assumed that actions to recover land, like actions for damages to a person or property, are actions at law triable to a jury. In Whitehead v. Shattuck, 138 U. S. 146, 151 (1891), for example, we recognized that
“[i]t would be difficult, and perhaps impossible, to state any general rule which would determine, in all cases, what should be deemed a suit in equity as distinguished from an action at law... ; but this may be said, that, where an action is simply for the recovery and possession of specific real or personal property, or for the recovery of a money judgment, the action is one at law.”
See also Scott v. Neely, 140 U. S. 106, 110 (1891); Ross v. Bernhard, 396 U. S. 531, 533 (1970).
Respondent suggests, however, that these precedents should be limited to actions to recover property where title is in issue and that actions brought under § 16-1501 should be distinguished as actions for the recovery of possession where claims of title are irrelevant. The distinction between title to and possession of property, of course, was well recognized at common law. See Grant Timber & Mfg. Co. v. Gray, 236 U. S. 133, 134 (1915). But however relevant it was for certain purposes, it had no bearing on the right to a jury trial. The various forms of action which the common law developed for the recovery of possession of real property were also actions at law in which trial by jury was afforded.
Over the course of its history, the common law developed several possessory actions. Among the earliest of these was the assize of novel disseisin which developed in the latter half of the 12th century and permitted one •who had been recently disseised of his tenement to be put back into seisin by judgment of the King's court.Trial by assize represented one of the earliest forms of trial by jury. After the plaintiff lodged his complaint, a writ would issue bidding the sheriff to summon 12 good and lawful men of the neighborhood to “recognize” before the King’s justices whether the defendant had unjustly disseised the plaintiff of his tenement. Like the modern cause of action embodied in § 16-1501, novel disseisin was a summary procedure designed to mete out prompt justice in possessory disputes.
Writs of entry, dating from about the same period, were developed to encompass situations not covered by the assize of novel disseisin. Novel disseisin, for example, was applicable only where the defendant gained possession wrongfully by putting the plaintiff out of seisin. Writs of entry, in contrast, permitted recovery where the defendant entered into possession lawfully but no longer had rightful possession. Indeed, one of the writs of entry, the writ of entry ad terminum qui praetmt, could be used by a plaintiff to recover lands from a defendant,who had originally held them for a term of years, which term had expired. The writ, in other words, embodied a cause of action quite similar to that encompassed in § 16-1501. Significantly for present purposes, it is clear that either party could demand a jury trial.
Both of these forms of action, though not legally abolished until well. into, the 19th century, had fallen into disuse by the time our Constitution was drafted. By then, ejectment had become the most important possessory action. Ejectment originated as a very narrow remedy, designed to give the lessee of property a cause of action against anyone who ejected him, including his lessor. But by a. variety of intricate fietions, ejectment eventually developed into the primary means of trying either the title to or the right to possession of real property.
In particular, ejectment became the principal means employed by landlords to evict tenants for overstaying the terms of their leases, nonpayment of rent, or other breach of lease covenants. Had Southall Realty' leased a home in London in 1791 instead of one in the District of Columbia in 1971, it no doubt would have used ejectment to seek to remove its allegedly defaulting tenant. And, as all parties here concede, questions of fact arising in an ejectment action were resolved by a jury.
Notwithstanding this history, the Court of Appeals reasoned that an action under § 16-1501 was not the “equivalent” of an action of ejectment. 294 A. 2d, at 492. It noted that another section of the D. C. Code sets forth a more specific action of ejectment. Moreover, the expedited character of a, § 16-1501 proceeding was seen as contrasting sharply with the archaic limitations and cumbersome procedures that marked the common-law action of ejectment. Ibid. Since, in its opinion', neither § 16-1501 nor its equivalent existed at common law, the Court of Appeals held that the Seventh Amendment did not guarantee the right to jury trial.
In our view, this analysis is fundamentally at odds with the test we have formulated for resolving Seventh Amendment questions. We recently had occasion to note that while “the thrust of the Amendment was to preserve the right to jury trial as it existed in 1791, it has long been settled that the right extends beyond the common-law forms of action recognized at that time.” Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 193 (1974). The phrase “suits at common law” includes not only suits. •'
“which the common law recognized among its old and settled proceedings, but suits in which legal rights were to be ascertained and determined, in contradistinction to those where equitable rights alone were recognized, and equitable remedies were administered.... In a just sense, the amendment then may well be construed to embrace all suits which are not of equity and admiralty jurisdiction, whatever may be the peculiar form which they may assume to settle legal rights.” Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 447 (1830) (emphasis in original).
Whether or not a close equivalent to § 16-1501 existed in England in 1791 is irrelevant for Seventh Amendment purposes, for that Amendment requires trial by jury in actions unheard of at common law, provided that the action involves rights and remedies of the sort traditionally enforced in an action at law, rather than in an action in equity or admiralty. See Curtis v. Loether, supra, at 195.
The proceeding established by § 16-1501, while á far cry in detail from die common-law action of ejectment, serves the same essential function — to permit the plaintiff to evict one who is wrongfully detaining possession and to regain possession himself. As one commentator has noted, while statutes such as § 16-1501 were “unknown to the common law... [t]hey are designed as statutes for relief, not to create new causes of action. The evident intention is to give this summary relief in those cases where... the action of ejectment would lie.” Indeed, the courts of the District themselves have frequently characterized the action created in § 16-1501 as a “substitute” for an.ejectment action. Moreover, it appears that every action recognized in 1791 for the recovery of possession of property carried with it the right to jury trial. Neither respondent nor the Court of Appeals was able to point to any equitable action even remotely resembling § 16-1501. Since the right to recover possession of real property governed by § 16-1501 was a right ascertained and protected by courts at common law, the Seventh Amendment preserves to either party.the right to trial by jury.
in
Respondent argues, however, that the closest historical analogue to § 16-1501 was neither an action at law nor an action in equity, but rather a forcible entry and detainer statute enacted in the reign of Henry VI. See 8 Hen. 6, c. 9 (1429). That statute made it unlawful to “make any forcible Entry in Lands and Tenements, or other Possessions, or them hold forcibly.” § II. Justices of the peace were directed to enforce its provisions. If complaint were made, they were to inquire into the matter and any persons found holding a place forcibly were to “be taken-and put in the next Gaol, there to remain convict by the' Record of the same Justices or Justice, until they have made Fine and Ransom to the King.” § I. The justices of the peace were also empowered “to reseize the Lands and Tenements so entered or holden as afore, and shall put the Party so put out in full Possession of the same Lands and Tenements....” § III.
While respondent’s argument is lent some support by the fact that § 16-1501 is presently captioned “Forcible Entry and Detainer,” closer examination of the pertinent history reveals that respondent has misconstrued the actual relationship between the two statutes.
The first, predecessor of § 16-1501 was the Act of July 4, 1864, c. 243, 13 Stat. 383. That Act provided a remedy for three separate situations: “when forcible entry is made”; “when a peaceable entry is made and the. possession unlawfully held by force”; and “when possession is held without right, after the estate is determined by the terms of the lease by its own limitation, or by notice to quit, or otherwise •....” See id., § 2.
There is no question but that the first two of these remedies — for forcible entry or for peaceable entry followed by possession unlawfully held by force — can be traced directly to the statute of Henry VI. The Eng-, lish statute,' however, had no provision like that in the 1864 Act specifically designed for landlord-tenant disputes.
In 1953, Congress amended the, 1864 Act and did away entirely with the provisions ■ relating to forcible entry and peaceable entry with possession unlawfully held by force which can be traced to the English statute. See Act of June 18, 1953, c. 130, 67 Stat. 66. In its place, Congress enacted a general provision dealing with unlawful detention of property which could be invoked, like § 16-1501 today, “[w]henever any person shall detain possession of real property without right, or after his right to possession shall have ceased....” Ibid.
Not only is the historical nexus between the two-statutes weak, it is also evident that the English forcible entry and detainer statute arid § 16-1501 serve totally different functions. While the English statute provided for the restitution of possession in appropriate cases, it was essentially a criminal provision, prosecuted through the usual criminal process. The gravamen of the offense was the use of violence in obtaining or detaining possession. The question in an action brought under the English statute was not who had the better right to possession. If one with the better right" used force to oust another, he could be made to relinquish possession to the party he ousted and would be remitted to seeking legal process to obtain his rightful possession. As Blackstone states, there was no “inquiring into the merits of the.title: for the force is the only thing to be tried, punished, and remedied....”
In contrast, § 16-1501 is not a criminal action intended to redress the use of force, but rather was designed as a general civil remedy to determine which of two parties has the better legal right to possession of real estate. And, in this respect, § 16-1501 is not limited, as was the.1864 Act, to landlord-tenant disputes, but has been held to encompass, for example, suits by a purchaser at a foreclosure sale to evict the former owner, by the heir of property to evict the current occupant, and by a tenant in common seeking to share possession of the premises.
Even were we to accept respondent's contention that the statute of Henry VI provides the closest common-law analogue for § 16-1501, that would lend no support to its argument that no right to jury trial should be recognized in actions under § 16-1501. The fact of the matter is that, jury trials before justices of the peace were afforded in actions to recover possession of property brought under the statute of Henry VI. Indeed, the statute itself provides for jury trials.
Respondent claims, however, that this trial by jury before a justice of the peace was not a trial by jury as that concept came to be established in the Seventh Amendment. Respondent relies primarily on our decisión in Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1 (1899), where the Court held that trial by a jury before a justice of the peace presiding over a small claims suit in the District of Columbia was not a trial by jury in the constitutional sense. This Court reasoned in Hof that the District’s justice of the peace
“was not, properly speaking, a judge, or his tribunal a court; least of all, a court of record. The proceedings before him were not according to the course of the common law____ [The Act which permitted him to try cases with a jury] did not require him Jo superintend the course of the trial or to instruct che jury in matter of law; nor did it authorize him, upon the return of their verdict, to arrest judgment upon it, or to set it aside, for any cause whatever; but made it his duty to enter judgment upon it forthwith, a.s a thing of course. - A body of men, so free from judicial control, was not a common law jury; nor was a trial by them a trial by jury, within the meaning of the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution.” Id., at 38-39.
We think respondent’s reliance on Hof is misplaced. Although containing broad language to this effect, see id., at 18, Hof does not stand for the proposition that a trial by jury before a justice of the peace was totally unknown at common law. Rather, Hof relied on the fact that at common law, justices of the peace had no jurisdiction, whatever over civil suits similar to the small claims action involved in that case. Id., at 16. A trial before a justice of the peace in this kind of case, with or without a jury, was.therefore unknown at common law, and could not have been within the contemplation of. the Seventh Amendmént. Id., at 18.
The Court recognized in Hof, however, that English justices of the peace did have criminal. ;jurisdiction. Id., at 16. And, as we have seen, this" criminal -jurisdiction- extended to trial of forcible entry and detainer and included trial by jury. History plainly reveals that a trial by jury before a justice of the peace in England,. unlike trial before a justice of the peace in the District of ■Columbia, was a júry trial in the full constitutional sense. English justices of the peace were required to be learned in the law. They were judges of record and their courts, courts of record. The procedures they followed differed in no essential manner from that of the higher court of assize held by the King’s judges. Trial by jury before the justices of the peace proceeded in the usual manner of a criminal trial by jury in the King’s court.- Respondent’s attempted analogy between § 16-1501 and the English forcible entry and detainer statute, rather than cutting against a right to jury trial.in the present ease, lends further support tó our conclusion that § 16-1501 encompasses rights and remedies which were enforced, at common law, through trial by jury.
IY
The Court of Appeals also relied on our opinion in Block v. Hirsh, 256 U. S. 135 (1921), where we-faced a challenge to the constitutionality of a statute transferring actions to recover possession, of real property from the courts to a rent control commission. It was there argued that the statute deprived both landlords and tenants of their right to trial by jury. The Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Holmes, rejected this suggestion:
• “The statute is objected to on the further ground that landlords and tenants are deprived by it of a trial by jury on the right to possession of the land. If the power of the Commission established by the statute to regulate the relation is established, as we think it is, by what we have said, this objection.amounts to little. To regulate the relation and to decide the facts affecting it are hardly separable.” Id., at 158.
The Court,of Appeals reasoned that we “could scarcely have made this observation if the right to jury trial was conferred by the Constitution.” 294 A. 2d, at 496. We think, the Court of Appeals misunderstood the rationale of this case. Block v. Hirsh merely stands for the principle that the Seventh Amendment is generally inapplicable in administrative proceedings, where jury trials would be incompatible with the whole concept of administrative adjudication.. See Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S., at 194. See also NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1 (1937). We may assume that, the Seventh Amendment would not be a bar to a congressional effort to entrust landlord-tenant disputes, including those over the right to possession, to an administrative agency. Congress has not seen fit to do so, however, but rather has provided that actions under § 16-1501 be brought as ordinary civil actions in the District of Columbia’s court of general jurisdiction. Where it has done so, and where the action involves rights and remedies recognized at common law, it must preserve to parties their right to a jury trial. Curtis v. Loether, supra, at 195.
The Court of Appeals appeared troubled by the burden jury trials might place on the District’s court system and by the possibility that a right to jury trial would conflict with efforts to expedite judicial disposition of landlord-tenant controversies. We think it doubtful, however, that the right to a jury trial would significantly impair these important interests. As indicated earlier, the right to trial by jury was recognized by statute for over a century from 1864 to 1970, and it does not appear to have posed any unmanageable problems during that period.
ín the average landlord-tenant dispute, where the failure to pay rent is established and no substantial -defenses exist, it is unlikely that a defendant would request a jury trial. And, of course, the trial court’s power to grant summary judgment where no genuine issues,of material fact are in dispute provides-'a substantial bulwark against any possibility that a defendant will demand a jury trial simply as a means of delaying an évic,-tion. More importantly, however; we reject the notion that there is some necessary inconsistency between the desire for-speedy justice and the right.to jury trial.- We note, for example, that the Oregon landlord-tenant procedure at issue in Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U. S. 56 (1972), although providing for a trial no later than” six days after service of the complaint unless- the defendant pro-. vided security for accruing, rent, nevertheless guaranteed a right rto' jury trial. Many - other States similarly provide 'for trial by jury'in summary eviction proceedings.
Some delay, of course, is inherent in any fab-minded system of justice. A landlord-tenant dispute, like any other lawsuit, cannot be resolved with due process of law unless both parties have had a fait opportunity to present their cases. Our courts were never intended to serve as rubber stamps for landlords' seeking to evict their tenants, but rather to see that justice be done before a man is evicted from his home.
Reversed and remanded.
The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Douglas concur in the result.
In the District of Cohunbia, a tenant may defend against eviction proceedings for nonpayment of rent on the ground' that housing regulations have not been complied with and that the premises are not being maintained in a habitable condition by the landlord. See Javins v. First Nat. Realty Corp., 138 U. S. App. D. C. 369, 428 F. 2d 1071, cert. denied, 400 U. S. 925 (1970).
See Act of July 4, 1864, c. 243, 13 Stat. 383. See also infra, at 377-378.
The Senate version of the Court Reform Act retained a statutory guarantee of a right to jury trial almost identical to § 13-702. See S. 2601, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., §202 (Sept. 16, 1969). While the House bill, which was adopted by the Conference Committee, did not contain a similar provision, the House Report seems to indicate that. § 13-702 was not repealed in a conscious effort to change the practice of affording jury trial in actions to recover possession of real property, but was struck “as superfluous in light of constitutional jury trial requirements. ;..” H. R. Rep. No. 91-907, p. 164 (1970). See also H. R. 16196, 91st Cong., 2d Sess., § 142 (5) (A) (Mar. 13, 1970); H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 91-1303 (1970). It appears then that Congress itself believed that jury trials were constitutionally required in all actions previously covered by § 13-702 and would continue to be provided in such actions.
We do not.intend to imply that th@s>:District of Columbia Superior Court and Court of Appeals must be treated as state courts for all purposes. Cf. District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U. S. 418 (1973). There are apparently several questions as yet unresolved concerning the relationship between the District of Columbia, local courts and the United States District Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit..Among these are whether the United States District Court has jurisdiction under either 28 U. S. C. §2254 or §2255 to hear habeas corpus petitions or motions to vacate a sentence brought by persons in confinement by virtue of convictions had in the District of Columbia Superior Court 'and, if it does not, whether this Court has a special obligation.to resolve conflicts between the District's “local” and “federal” courts on questions of constitutional law raised in such petitions. See D. C. Code §§ 16-1901 through 16-,1909: Other unresolved questions involve the extent to which the principles of Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), and related cases apply to the relationship between the District's two court systems. See generally Sullivan v. Murphy, 156 U. S. App. D. C. 28, 50-54, 478 F. 2d 938, 960-964, cert. denied, 414 U. S. 880 (1973). We, of course, express no views on these issues.
Prior to the enactment of the Court Reform Act in 1970, D. C. Code § 16-1504 provided that if the defendant in an action brought under § 16-1501 pleads title in himself or in another under whom he claims, and provides a surety to pay damages, costs, and reasonable intervening rent for the premises, the court (then the District of Columbia Court of General Sessions) shall certify 'the proceedings to the United - States District Court for the District of Columbia. Today, a rule of the Superior Court provides that when an issue of title intrudes in an action brought -under § 16-1501, the case is transferred from the Landlord and Tenant Branch which normally tries actions under § 16-1501 to the regular Civil Division. See 294 A. 2d 490, 492 and n. 8.
See F. Maitland, The Forms of Action at Common Law 27-29 (1936); 1 F. Pollock & F. Maitland, The History of English Law 145-147 (2d ed. 1899); 3 W. Blaekstone, Commentaries *187-188. Novel disseisin, like the action now embodied in § 16-1501, was designed primarily as a possessory action to permit one who had been ejected from his land to be restored to possession. If the ejector wished to raise questions of title, he could proceed later in a separate action. See T. Plucknett, A Concise History of the Common Law 341 (4th ed. 1948). See also Grant Timber & Mfg. Co. v. Gray, 236 U. S. 133, 134 (1915). Cf. n. 5, supra.
See, e. g., Maitland, supra, n. 6, at 83-84. Unlike the forcible entry and detainer remedy discussed infra, at 376-381, assizes of novel disseisin were presided over by a judge of the King’s court rather than a justice of the peace. See ibid. The use of itiner
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This litigation involves two cases with independent factual backgrounds yet presenting the identical issue. The two cases were consolidated for argument before the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and were heard en banc. The common question is whether money received as exemplary damages for fraud or as the punitive two-thirds portion of a treble-damage antitrust recovery must be reported by a taxpayer as gross income under § 22 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, In a single opinion, 211 F. 2d 928, the Court of Appeals affirmed the Tax Court’s separate rulings in favor of the taxpayers. 18 T. C. 860; 19 T. C. 637. Because of the frequent recurrence of the question and differing interpretations by the lower courts of this Court’s decisions bearing upon the problem, we granted the Commissioner of Internal Revenue’s ensuing petition for certiorari. 348 U. S. 813.
The facts of the cases were largely stipulated and are not in dispute. So far as pertinent they are as follows:
Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co.—The Glenshaw Glass Company, a Pennsylvania corporation, manufactures glass bottles and containers. It was engaged in protracted litigation with the Hartford-Empire Company, which manufactures machinery of a character used by Glenshaw. Among the claims advanced by Glenshaw were demands for exemplary damages for fraud and treble damages for injury to its business by reason of Hartford’s violation of the federal antitrust laws. In December, 1947, the parties concluded a settlement of all pending litigation, by which Hartford paid Glenshaw approximately $800,000. Through a method of allocation which was approved by the Tax Court, 18 T. C. 860, 870-872, and which is no longer in issue, it was ultimately determined that, of the total settlement, $324,529.94 represented payment of punitive damages for fraud and antitrust violations. Glenshaw did not report this portion of the settlement as income for the tax year involved. The Commissioner determined a deficiency claiming as taxable the entire sum less only deductible legal fees. As previously noted, the Tax Court and the Court of Appeals upheld the taxpayer.
Commissioner v. William Goldman Theatres, Inc.— William Goldman Theatres, Inc., a Delaware corporation operating motion picture houses in Pennsylvania, sued Loew’s, Inc., alleging a violation of the federal antitrust laws and seeking treble damages. After a holding that a violation had occurred, William Goldman Theatres, Inc. v. Loew’s, Inc., 150 F. 2d 738, the case was remanded to the trial court for a determination of damages. It was found that Goldman had suffered a loss of profits equal to $125,000 and was entitled to treble damages in the sum of $375,000. William Goldman Theatres, Inc. v. Loew’s, Inc., 69 F. Supp. 103, aff’d, 164 F. 2d 1021, cert. denied, 334 U. S. 811. Goldman reported only $125,000 of the recovery as gross income and claimed that the $250,000 balance constituted punitive damages and as such was not taxable. The Tax Court agreed, 19 T. C. 637, and the Court of Appeals, hearing this with the Glenshaw case, affirmed. 211 F. 2d 928.
It is conceded by the respondents that there is no constitutional barrier to the imposition of a tax on punitive damages. Our question is one of statutory construction: are these payments comprehended by § 22 (a) ?
The sweeping scope of the controverted statute is readily apparent:
“SEC. 22. GROSS INCOME.
“(a) General Definition. — ‘Gross income’ includes gains, profits, and income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service ... of whatever kind and in whatever form paid, or from professions, vocations, trades, businesses, commerce, or sales, or dealings in property, whether real or personal, growing out of the ownership or use of or interest in such property; also from interest, rent, dividends, securities, or the transaction of any business carried on for gain or profit, or gains or profits and income derived from any source whatever. . . .” (Emphasis added.)
This Court has frequently stated that this language was used by Congress to exert in this field “the full measure of its taxing power.” Helvering v. Clifford, 309 U. S. 331, 334; Helvering v. Midland Mutual Life Ins. Co., 300 U. S. 216, 223; Douglas v. Will cuts, 296 U. S. 1, 9; Irwin v. Gavit, 268 U. S. 161, 166. Respondents contend that punitive damages, characterized as “windfalls” flowing from the culpable conduct of third parties, are not within the scope of the section. But Congress applied no limitations as to the source of taxable receipts, nor restrictive labels as to their nature. And the Court has given a liberal construction to this broad phraseology in recognition of the intention of Congress to tax all gains except those specifically exempted. Commissioner v. Jacobson, 336 U. S. 28, 49; Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, 293 U. S. 84, 87-91. Thus, the fortuitous gain accruing to a lessor by reason of the forfeiture of a lessee’s improvements on the rented property was taxed in Helvering v. Bruun, 309 U. S. 461. Cf. Robertson v. United States, 343 U. S. 711; Rutkin v. United States, 343 U. S. 130; United States v. Kirby Lumber Co., 284 U. S. 1. Such decisions demonstrate that we cannot but ascribe content to the catchall provision of § 22 (a), “gains or profits and income derived from any source whatever.” The importance of that phrase has been too frequently recognized since its first appearance in the Revenue Act of 1913 to say now that it adds nothing to the meaning of “gross income.”
Nor can we accept respondents’ contention that a narrower reading of § 22 (a) is required by the Court’s characterization of income in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189, 207, as “the gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined.” The Court was there endeavoring to determine whether the distribution of a corporate stock dividend constituted a realized gain to the shareholder, or changed “only the form, not the essence,” of his capital investment. Id., at 210. It was held that the taxpayer had “received nothing out of the company’s assets for his separate use and benefit.” Id., at 211. The distribution, therefore, was held not a taxable event. In that context — distinguishing gain from capital — the definition served a useful purpose. But it was not meant to provide a touchstone to all future gross income questions. Helvering v. Bruun, supra, at 468-469; United States v. Kirby Lumber Co., supra, at 3.
Here we have instances of undeniable accessions to wealth, clearly realized, and over which the taxpayers have complete dominion. The mere fact that the payments were extracted from the wrongdoers as punishment for unlawful conduct cannot detract from their character as taxable income to the recipients. Respondents concede, as they must, that the recoveries are taxable to the extent that they compensate for damages actually incurred. It would be an anomaly that could not be justified in the absence of clear congressional intent to say that a recovery for actual damages is taxable but not the additional amount extracted as punishment for the same conduct which caused the injury. And we find no such evidence of intent to exempt these payments.
It is urged that re-enactment of § 22 (a) without change since the Board of Tax Appeals held punitive damages nontaxable in Highland Farms Corp., 42 B. T. A. 1314, indicates congressional satisfaction with that holding. Re-enactment — particularly without the slightest affirmative indication that Congress ever had the Highland Farms decision before it — is an unreliable indicium at best. Helvering v. Wilshire Oil Co., 308 U. S. 90, 100-101; Koshland v. Helvering, 298 U. S. 441, 447. Moreover, the Commissioner promptly published his nonacquiescence in this portion of the Highland Farms holding and has, before and since, consistently maintained the position that these receipts are taxable. It therefore cannot be said with certitude that Congress intended to carve an exception out of § 22 (a)’s pervasive coverage. Nor does the 1954 Code’s legislative history, with its reiteration of the proposition that' statutory gross income is “all-inclusive," give support to respondents’ position. The definition of gross income has been simplified, but no effect upon its present broad scope was intended. Certainly punitive damages cannot reasonably be classified as gifts, cf. Commissioner v. Jacobson, 336 U. S. 28, 47-52, nor do they come under any other exemption provision in the Code. We would do violence to the plain meaning of the statute and restrict a clear legislative attempt to bring the taxing power to bear upon all receipts constitutionally taxable were we to say that the payments in question here are not gross income. See Helvering v. Midland Mutual Life Ins. Co., supra, at 223.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents.
Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
53 Stat. 9, 53 Stat. 574, 26 U. S. C. § 22 (a).
For the bases of Glenshaw’s claim for damages from fraud, see Shawkee Manufacturing Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co., 322 U. S. 2701; Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co., 322 U. S. 238.
See Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States, 323 U. S. 386, 324 U. S. 570.
See note 1, supra.
38 Stat. 114,167.
The phrase was derived from Stratton’s Independence, Ltd. v. Howbert, 231 U. S. 399, 415, and Doyle v. Mitchell Bros. Co., 247 U. S. 179, 185, two cases construing the Revenue Act of 1909, 36 Stat. 11, 112. Both taxpayers were “wasting asset” corporations, one being engaged in mining, the other in lumbering operations. The definition was applied by the Court to demonstrate a distinction between a return on capital and “a mere conversion of capital assets.” Doyle v. Mitchell Bros. Co., supra, at 184. The question raised by the instant case is clearly distinguishable.
1941-1 Cum. Bull. 16.
The long history of departmental rulings holding personal injury recoveries nontaxable on the theory that they roughly correspond to a return of capital cannot support exemption of punitive damages following injury to property. See 2 Cum. Bull. 71; 1-1 Cum. Bull. 92, 93; VII-2 Cum. Bull. 123; 1954-1 Cum. Bull. 179, 180. Damages for personal injury are by definition compensatory only. Punitive damages, on the other hand, cannot be considered a restoration of capital for taxation purposes.
68A Stat. 3 et seq. Section 61 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 68A Stat. 17, is the successor to § 22 (a) of the 1939 Code.
H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. a18; S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. 168.
In discussing § 61 (a) of the 1954 Code, the House Report states:
“This section corresponds to section 22 (a) of the 1939 Code. While the language in existing section 22 (a) has been simplified, the all-inclusive nature of statutory gross income has not been affected thereby. Section 61 (a) is as broad in scope as section 22 (a).
“Section 61 (a) provides that gross income includes ‘all income from whatever source derived.’ This definition is based upon the 16th Amendment and the word ‘income’ is used in its constitutional sense.” H. R. Rep. No. 1337, supra, note 10, at a18.
A virtually identical statement appears in S. Rep. No. 1622, supra, note 10, at 168.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The challenge here is to the use of the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651(a), by the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, to enjoin the President and various military officials from dropping respondent from the rolls of the Air Force. Because that court’s process was neither “in aid of” its strictly circumscribed jurisdiction to review court-martial findings and sentences under 10 U. S. C. §867 nor “necessary or appropriate” in light of a servieemember’s alternative opportunities to seek relief, we hold that the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces lacked jurisdiction to issue the injunction.
I
Respondent James Goldsmith, a major in the United States Air Force, was ordered by a superior officer to inform his sex partners that he was HIV-positive and to take measures to block any transfer of bodily fluids during sexual relations. Contrary to this order, on two occasions Goldsmith had unprotected intercourse, once with a fellow officer and once with a civilian, without informing either that he was carrying HIV.
As a consequence of his defiance, Goldsmith was convicted by general court-martial of willful disobedience of an order from a superior commissioned officer, aggravated assault with means likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm, and assault consummated by battery, in violation of Articles 90 and 128 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), 10 U. S. C. §§890, 928(b)(1), (a). In 1994, he was sentenced to six years’ confinement and forfeiture of $2,500 of his pay each month for six years. The Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction and sentence in 1995, and when he sought no review of that decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF), his conviction became final, see § 871(c)(1)(A).
In 1996, Congress empowering him to drop from the rolls of the Armed Forces any officer who had both beerLsentenced by a court-martial to more than six months’ confinement and served at least six months. See National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996, 110 Stat. 325, 10 U. S. C. §§ 1161(b)(2), 1167 (1994 ed., Supp. III). In reliance on this statutory authorization, the Air Force notified Goldsmith in 1996 that it was taking action to drop him from the rolls.
Goldsmith did not immediately drop him, but rather petitioned the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals for extraordinary relief under the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651(a), to redress the unrelated alleged interruption of his HIV medication during his incarceration. The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to act, and it was in Goldsmith’s appeal from that determination that he took the first steps to raise the issue now before us, an entirely new claim that the Air Force’s action to drop him from the rolls was unconstitutional. He did not challenge his underlying court-martial conviction (the appeal period for which had expired, see Rule 19(a)(1), CAAF Rules of Practice and Procedure). But he charged that the proposed action violated the Ex Post Facto Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 3 (arguing that the statute authorizing it had been enacted after the date of his conviction), and the Double Jeopardy Clause, U. S. Const., Arndt. 5 (arguing that the action would inflict successive punishment based on the same conduct underlying his first conviction). 48 M. J. 84, 89-90 (CAAF 1998). The CAAF, on a division of 3 to 2, granted the petition for extraordinary relief and relied on the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651(a), in enjoining the President and various other Executive Branch officials from dropping respondent from the rolls of the Air Force. We granted certiorari, 525 U. S. 961 (1998), and now reverse.
II
When Congress exercised its power to govern and regulate the Armed Forces by establishing the CAAF, see U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 14; 10 U. S. C. § 941; see generally Weiss v. United States, 510 U. S. 163, 166-169 (1994), it confined the court's jurisdiction to the review of specified sentences imposed by courts-martial: the CAAF has the power to act "only with respect to the findings and sentence as approved by the [court-martial's] convening authority and as affirmed or set aside as incorrect in law by the Court of Criminal Appeals.” 10 U. S. C. § 867(c). Cf. Parisi v. Davidson, 405 U. S. 84, 44 (1972) (Court of Military Appeals lacked express authority over claim for discharge based on conscientious objector status). Despite these limitations, the CAAF asserted jurisdiction and purported to justify reliance on the All Writs Act in this case on the view that “Congress intended [it] to have broad responsibility with respect to administration of military justice,” 48 M. J., at 86-87, a position that Goldsmith urges us to adopt. This we cannot do.
While the All Writs Act authorizes employment extraordinary writs, it confines the authority to the issuance of process “in aid of” the issuing court’s jurisdiction. 28 U. S. C. § 1651(a) (“[A]ll courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law”). Thus, although military appellate courts are among those empowered to issue extraordinary writs under the Act, see Noyd v. Bond, 395 U. S. 683, 695, n. 7 (1969), the express terms of the Act confine the power of the CAAF to issuing process “in aid of” its existing statutory jurisdiction; the Act does not enlarge that jurisdiction, see, e. g., Pennsylvania Bureau of Correction v. United States Marshals Service, 474 U. S. 34, 41 (1985). See also 16 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3932, p. 470 (2d ed. 1996) (“The All Writs Act... is not an independent grant of appellate jurisdiction”); 19 J. Moore & G. Pratt, Moore’s Federal Practice §204.02[4] (3d ed. 1998) (“The All Writs Act cannot enlarge a court’s jurisdiction”).
We have already seen that the CAAF’s independent statutory jurisdiction is narrowly circumscribed. To be more specific, the CAAF is accorded jurisdiction by statute (so far as it concerns us here) to “review the record in [specified] cases reviewed by” the service courts of criminal appeals, 10 U. S. C. §§ 867(a)(2), (3), which in turn have jurisdiction to “revie[w] court-martial eases,” § 866(a). Since the Air Force’s action to drop respondent from the rolls was an executive action, not a “findin[g]” or “sentence,” § 867(c), that was (or could have been) imposed in a court-martial proceeding, the elimination of Goldsmith from the rolls appears straightforwardly to have been beyond the CAAF’s jurisdiction to review and hence beyond the “aid” of the All Writs Act in reviewing it.
Goldsmith nonetheless claims that the CAAF has satisfied the “aid” requirement of the Act because it protected and effectuated the sentence meted out by the court-martial. Goldsmith emphasizes that the court-martial could have dismissed Mm from service, but instead chose to impose only-confinement and forfeitures. Hence, he says the CAAF merely preserved that sentence as the court-martial imposed it, by precluding additional punishment, which would incidentally violate the Ex Post Facto and Double Jeopardy Clauses. But this is beside the point, for two related reasons. First, Goldsmith’s court-martial sentence has not been changed; another military agency has simply taken independent action. It would presumably be an entirely different matter if a military authority attempted to alter a judgment by revising a court-martial finding and sentence to increase the punishment, contrary to the specific provisions of the UCMJ, and it certainly would be a different matter when such a judgment had been affirmed by an appellate court. In such a case, as the Government concedes, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 15, 19, 52, the All Writs power would allow the appellate court to compel adherence to its own judgment. See, e. g., United States v. United States Dist Court for Southern Dist. of N. Y., 334 U. S. 258, 263-264 (1948). Second, the CAAF is not given authority, by the All Writs Act or otherwise, to oversee all matters arguably related to military justice, or to act as a plenary administrator even of criminal judgments it has affirmed. Simply stated, there is no source of continuing jurisdiction for the CAAF over all actions administering sentences that the CAAF at one time had the power to review. Thus the CAAF spoke too expansively when it held itself to be “empowered by the All Writs Act to grant extraordinary relief in a ease in which the court-martial rendered a sentence that constituted an adequate basis for direct review in [the CAAF] after review in the intermediate court,” 48 M. J., at 87.
Ill
Even if the CAAF had some seriously arguable basis for jurisdiction in these circumstances, resort to the All Writs Act would still be out of bounds, being unjustifiable either as “necessary” or as “appropriate” in light of alternative remedies available to a servicemember demanding to be kept on the rolls. The All Writs Act invests a court with a power essentially equitable and, as such, not generally available to provide alternatives to other, adequate remedies at law. See, e. g., Carlisle v. United States, 517 U. S. 416, 429 (1996) (“ ‘The All Writs Act is a residual source of authority to issue writs that are not otherwise covered by statute’ ” (quoting Pennsylvania Bureau of Correction, 474 U. S., at 43)). See also 19 Moore’s Federal Practice §201.40 (“[A] writ may not be used . . . when another method of review will suffice”). This limitation operates here, since other administrative bodies in the military, and the federal courts, have authority to provide administrative or judicial review of the action challenged by respondent.
was being considered to drop him from the rolls, he presented his claim to the Secretary of the Air Force. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-5. If the Secretary takes final action to drop him from the rolls (as he has not yet done), Goldsmith will (as the Government concedes) be entitled to present his claim to the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records (BCMR). This is a civilian body within the military service, with broad-ranging authority to review a service-member’s “discharge or dismissal (other than a discharge or dismissal by sentence of a general court-martial),” 10 U. S. C. § 1553(a), or “to correct an error or remove an injustice” in a military record, § 1552(a)(1).
Respondent may also have recourse to the federal trial courts. We have previously held, for example, that “[BCMR] decisions are subject to judicial review [by federal courts] and can be set aside if they are arbitrary, capricious, or not based on substantial evidence.” Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U. S. 296, 303 (1983). A servicemember claiming something other than monetary relief may challenge a BCMR’s decision to sustain a decision to drop him from the rolls (or otherwise dismissing him) as final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. §551 et seq.; see §§704, 706. For examples of such challenges entertained in the district courts or courts of appeals, see Roelofs v. Secretary of Air Force, 628 F. 2d 594, 599-601 (CADC 1980) (proceeding in District Court under APA raising due process challenge to administrative discharge based on conviction of civilian offense); Walker v. Shannon, 848 F. Supp. 250, 251, 254-255 (DC 1994) (suit under APA for review of Army BCMR decision upholding involuntary separation). In the instances in which a claim for monetary relief may be framed, a servicemember may enter the Court of Federal Claims with a challenge to dropping from the rolls (or other discharge) under the Tucker Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1491. See, e. g., Doe v. United States, 132 F. 3d 1430, 1433-1434 (CA Fed. 1997) (suit for backpay and correction of military records following administrative discharge); Mitchell v. United States, 930 F. 2d 893, 896-897 (CA Fed. 1991) (suit for back-pay, reinstatement, and correction of records). Or he may enter a district court under the “Little Tucker Act,” 28 U. S. C. § 1346(a)(2). See, e. g., Thomas v. Cheney, 925 F. 2d 1407, 1411, 1416 (CA Fed. 1991) (reviewing challenge to action to drop plaintiff from the rolls); Sibley v. Ball, 924 F. 2d 25, 29 (CA1 1991) (transferring to Federal Circuit case for backpay because within purview of “Little Tucker Act”).
In sum, executive action to drop respondent falls outside of the CAAF’s express statutory jurisdiction, and alternative statutory avenues of relief are available. The CAAF’s injunction against dropping respondent from the rolls of the Air Force was neither “in aid of [its] juris-dictio[n]” nor “necessary or appropriate.” Accordingly, we reverse the court’s judgment.
It is so ordered.
When a servicemember is dropped horn the rolls, he forfeits his military pay. See 37 U. S. C. §803. The drop-from-the-rolls remedy targets a narrow category of servicemembers who are absent without leave (AWOL) or else have been convicted of serious crimes. Since 1870, the President has had authority to drop from the rolls of the Army any officer who has been AWOL for at least three months. See Act of July 15,1870, § 17,16 Stat. 319. The power was subsequently extended to officers confined in prison after final conviction by a civil court, see Act of Jan. 19, 1911, ch. 22,36 Stat. 894, and then to “any armed force” officer AWOL for at least three months or else finally sentenced to confinement in a federal or state penitentiary or correctional institution, see Act of May 5, 1950, §10, 64 Stat. 146.
Section 1161(b)(2) authorizes the any armed force any commissioned officer... who may be separated under Section 1167 of this title by reason of a sentence to confinement adjudged by a court-martial.” Section 1167 provides that “a member sentenced by a court-martial to a period of confinement for more than six months may be separated from the member’s armed force at any time after the sentence to confinement has become final... and the member has served in confinement for a period of six months.”
Because respondent had been released from confinement, the CAAF denied respondent’s writ-appeal petition concerning his medical treatment claim as moot. See 48 M. J. 84, 87-88 (1998).
As a result of the CAAF’s order, respondent has not been dropped from the rolls, and has returned to active duty status. The Air Force initiated an administrative separation proceeding against respondent, see 10 U. S. C. § 1181, which has been deferred pending resolution of this case. See Brief for Petitioners 8, n. 2.
In light of our holding that the CAAF lacked jurisdiction in this case, we do not reach the merits of respondent’s double jeopardy and ex post facto claims.
When Congress established the Court of Military Appeals (the CAAF's predecessor), it similarly confined its jurisdiction to the review of specified sentences imposed by courts-martial. See Act of May 5, 1950, ch. 169, Art. 67(d), 64 Stat. 130. See also H. R. Rep. No. 491, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 32 (1949); S. Rep. No. 486, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 3, 28-29 (1949).
One judge was even more emphatic: <cWe should use our diction under the [UCMJ] to correct injustices like this and we need not wait for another court to perhaps act.... Our Court has the responsibility of protecting the rights of all servicemembers in court-martial matters.” 48 M. J., at 91 (Sullivan, J., concurring).
A court-martial is specifically barred from dismissing or discharging an officer except as in accordance with the UCMJ, which gives it no authority to drop a servicemember from the rolls. See Rules for Courts-Martial 1003(b)(9)(A) — (C); Rule 1003(b)(9) (“A court-martial may not adjudge an administrative separation from the service”). Moreover, respondent brought the petition against the President, the Secretary of Defense, and military officials who were not even parties to the court-martial.
At the court-martial, respondent faced a maximum punishment of dismissal, confinement for 10 years, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and afine.
Indeed, the approved findings and sentence in Goldsmith’s case had become final over one year before the Air Force initiated its action to drop him from the rolls.
The court, moreover, was simply wrong when it treated itself as a court of original jurisdiction, see supra, at 535.
These remedies are in addition to the review as of right by the military department’s Court of Criminal Appeals of any court-martial sentence that includes punitive dismissal or discharge. See 10 U.S. C. § 866(b)(1); § 867(a) (decisions of the Court of Criminal Appeals subject to discretionary review by the CAAF). And of course, once a criminal conviction has been finally reviewed within the military system, and a servicemember in custody has exhausted other avenues provided under the UCMJ to seek relief from his conviction, see Noyd v. Bond, 395 U. S. 683, 693-699 (1969), he is entitled to bring a habeas corpus petition, see 28 U. S. C. §2241(e), claiming that his conviction is affected by a fundamental defect that requires that it be set aside. See, e. g., Burns v. Wilson, 346 U. S. 137, 142 (1953) (opinion of Vinson, C. J.). See also Calley v. Callaway, 519 F. 2d 184,199 (CA5 1975); Gorko v. Commanding Officer, Second Air Force, 314 F. 2d 858, 859 (CA10 1963). In this case, however, respondent chose not to challenge his underlying conviction. See supra, at 533.
Respondent argues nonetheless that seeking BCMR review in his case would have been futile (especially in light of his life-threatening illness) since BCMR’s lack authority to declare statutes unconstitutional, cannot consider records of courts-martial and related administrative records (with two inapplicable exceptions), and are generally ‘“unresponsive, bureaucratic extensions of the uniformed services,”’ Brief for Respondent 16 (quoting H. R. Coni Rep. No. 104-450, p. 798 (1996)).
In light of the fact that respondent chose to circumvent we need not address whether the Air Force BCMR has the power to correct a record that is erroneous as a result of a constitutional violation. Cf. Guerra v. Scruggs, 942 F. 2d 270, 273 (CA4 1991) (“The [Army BCMR] has authority to consider claims of constitutional, statutory, and regulatory violations”); Bois v. Marsh, 801 F. 2d 462, 467 (CADC1986) (“[Appellant’s] claims based on [the] Constitution, executive orders and Army regulations ‘could readily have been made within the framework of this intramili-tary procedure’” (quoting Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U. S. 296, 303 (1983))). And while it is true that unless specifically authorized a BCMR may not correct a court-martial record, see 10 U. S. C. § 1552(f), it may still consider the record, especially where, as here, the court-martial record is relevant in determining the validity of the subsequent dropping from the rolls. Finally, the alleged unresponsive nature of the BCMR’s, if true, would in no way alter the fact that BCMR’s are legislatively authorized to provide the relief sought by respondent.
In any event, it is dear as noted in the text that follows that respondent’s constitutional objections could have been addressed (by the federal courts.
Under the Tucker Act, the Court of Federal Claims has exclusive jurisdiction over nontort daims against the Government for greater than $10,000. See 28 U. S. G. § 1491. Determinations of the Court of Federal Claims may be appealed to the Federal Circuit.
The “Little Tucker Act,” 28 U. S. C. § 1346(a)(2), confers jurisdiction on district courts for claims of $10,000 or less. Appeals are taken to the Federal Circuit.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
MR. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellants challenge as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment the application of Title D, Chapter 17, of the New York City Administrative Code to two improved parcels of land owned by them as trustees. The statute is the counterpart, operative in the City of New York, of the state tax lien foreclosure statute that was before us last Term in Covey v. Town of Somers, 351 U. S. 141.
In 1950, the City proceeded to foreclose its lien on the first of these parcels, referred to as the 45th Avenue property, for water charges that had been unpaid for four years. These charges, for the years 1945 and 1946, amounted to $65; the property was assessed at $6,000. The action was begun on May 20 with the filing of a list of 294 liened parcels, including the 45th Avenue property, in two sections of the Borough of Queens. Under the statute, this constituted the filing of a complaint. The statute requires that notice of such a foreclosure proceeding be posted and published and a copy of the published notice mailed to the last known address of the owner of property sought to be foreclosed. It is undisputed that the statutory notice requirements were satisfied in this case; a copy of the published notice was mailed to the address of the trust estate. However, appellants took no action during the 7 weeks allowed for redeeming the property through payment of back charges nor during the 20 additional days allowed for answering the City’s complaint. Judgments of foreclosure were entered by default, and on August 22 the City acquired title to the parcel. The property was later sold to a private party for $7,000, the City retaining all the proceeds.
On December 17, 1951, a similar in rem foreclosure action was commenced against 1,704 parcels in four sections of the Borough of Brooklyn, including appellants’ second parcel, referred to as the Powell Street property. The four-year-old water charges on this parcel amounted to $814.50; the property was assessed at $46,000. Again the statutory notice requirements were satisfied, and again judgment of foreclosure was entered by default. The City acquired title to the Powell Street property on May 19, 1952, and still retains it.
In November 1952, the appellants offered to pay with interest and penalties all amounts owing to the City on the two parcels. The offer was refused, and the appellants instituted a plenary action to set aside the City’s deed to the Powell Street property and to recover the surplus proceeds from the sale of the 45th Avenue property. The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court affirmed the denial of the requested relief without prejudice to appellants’ seeking to open their default by motions in the foreclosure proceedings. The appellants filed such motions, requesting the same relief they had sought in the plenary action. The case was submitted to the Supreme Court, Special Term, on opposing affidavits, and the motions were denied. The Special Term’s orders were affirmed by the Appellate Division, 284 App. Div. 894, 134 N. Y. S. 2d 597, and the Court of Appeals, 309 N. Y. 94, 127 N. E. 2d 827. The Court of Appeals amended its remittitur to show that the federal questions here presented were decided adversely to appellants. 309 N. Y. 801, 130 N. E. 2d 602.
1. Appellants contend they received no actual notice of the foreclosure proceedings. The reason they assign is that the mailed notices were concealed by their trusted bookkeeper, who is also alleged to have concealed from them the nonpayment of the water charges. There is no claim that the bills for the water charges were not mailed to the estate. They assert that it was not until November 1952, when the judgments of foreclosure had long since become final, that they discovered the bookkeeper's derelictions, and. thus were made aware of their loss. However, as we have said, it is not disputed that the notices were mailed to the proper address. Nor is this all. Appellants themselves placed in evidence as exhibits 1950-1951 and 1951-1952 real estate tax bills for the 45th Avenue property. These were concededly brought to the attention of appellant Gerald D. Nelson, the “active” or “managing” trustee. On the face of the bills appears the word “ARREARS,” with a prominent black arrow pointing to it and beneath the arrow the statement, “The word ARREARS if it appears in the space indicated by the ARROW, means that, as of JUNE 30, 1950, previous TAXES, ASSESSMENTS or WATER CHARGES HAVE NOT BEEN RECORDED AS PAID. If these have not been paid since June 30, 1950, payment should be made IMMEDIATELY.” Furthermore, the City’s assistant corporation counsel stated in his affidavit that the tax bills for the Powell Street property each year from 1946 to 1953 contained a notice that the property was in arrears. Appellant Nelson stated that the bookkeeper “had been regularly presenting to deponent for payment all of the bills for real estate taxes which were paid through the first half of 1951-52 . ...” It is clear that the City cannot be charged with responsibility for the misconduct of the bookkeeper in whom appellants misplaced their confidence nor for the carelessness of the managing trustee in overlooking notices of arrearages.
Appellants make the further contention that the City officials should have known from the state of the records of the two parcels that mailed notice would probably be ineffective. That is, the fact that water charges were not paid while the much larger real estate taxes were paid should have indicated to the officials that something was amiss. They rely on Covey v. Town of Somers, supra. We cannot so hold. In the Covey case, there were uncon-troverted allegations that the taxpayer, who lived on the foreclosed property, was known by the officials of a small community to be an incompetent, unable to understand the meaning of any notice served upon her; no attempt was made to have a committee appointed for her person or property until after entry of judgment of foreclosure in an in rem proceeding. The affidavit of the assistant corporation counsel here states that there are more than 834,000 tax parcels in the City, and on the facts of this ease the City cannot be held to a duty to determine why a taxpayer neglects some taxes while paying others.
We conclude, therefore, that the City having taken steps to notify appellants of the arrearages and the foreclosure proceedings and their agent having received such notices, its application of the statute did not deprive appellants of procedural due process.
2. Appellants also claim a denial of the equal protection of the laws in that the City officials had available to them other remedies for collecting taxes, which would not necessarily have resulted in forfeiture of the entire value of their property. Their theory is that the choice to proceed against their property under Title D, Chapter 17, was arbitrary. We find the contention without merit. The statute is explicit that when the strict foreclosure provisions of Title D, Chapter 17, are invoked, they must be used against all parcels in a section of the City on which charges have been outstanding for four years'. It is clear that the aim is to prevent precisely the kind of discrimination of which appellants complain. Appellants do not assert that the statute was not complied with in this regard.
3. In their reply brief, appellants urged that by reasons of the City’s retention of property, in one instance, and proceeds of sale in the other, far exceeding in value the amounts due, they are deprived of property without due process of law or have suffered a taking without just compensation. They called our attention to United States v. Lawton, 110 U. S. 146. In affirming a judgment in favor of a foreclosed landowner for the surplus proceeds from the sale of his land, the Court there said: “To withhold the surplus from the owner would be to violate the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and to deprive him of his property without due process of law, or to take his property for public use without just compensation.” 110 U. S., at 150. However, the statute involved in that case had been construed in United States v. Taylor, 104 U. S. 216, to require that the surplus be paid to the owner, and there the problem was treated as purely one of statutory construction without constitutional overtones. But we do not have here a statute which absolutely precludes an owner from obtaining the surplus proceeds of a judicial sale. In City of New York v. Chapman Docks Co., 1 App. Div. 2d 895, 149 N. Y. S. 2d 679, an owner filed a timely answer in a foreclosure proceeding, asserting his property had a value substantially exceeding the tax due. The Appellate Division construed § D17-12.0 of the statute to mean that upon proof of this allegation a separate sale should be directed so that the owner might receive the' surplus. What the City of New York has done is to foreclose real property for charges four years delinquent and, in the absence of timely action to redeem or to recover any surplus, retain the property or the entire proceeds of its sale. We hold that nothing in the Federal Constitution prevents this where the record shows adequate steps were taken to notify the owners of the charges due and the foreclosure proceedings.
It is contended that this is a harsh statute. The New York Court of Appeals took cognizance of this claim and spoke of the “extreme hardships” resulting from the application of the statute in this case. But it held, as we must, that relief from the hardship imposed by a state statute is the responsibility of the state legislature and not of the courts, unless some constitutional guarantee is infringed. In this connection, we note that the New York Legislature this year has ameliorated to some extent the severity of Title D, Chapter 17. Section D17-25.0 was added to the statute, permitting the reconveyance of property acquired and still held by the City upon payment of arrears, interest and the costs of foreclosure. The City concedes this amendment applies to the Powell Street property. Appellants have applied for a reconveyance of that property, and action has been held in abeyance pending the disposition of this appeal.
Affirmed.
The statute, §§ D 17-1.0 et seq., enacted in 1948, provides for the judicial foreclosure of tax liens on real property. The city treasurer files in the appropriate county clerk’s office a list of all parcels in a section or ward of the City on which tax liens have been unpaid for at least four years. Tax liens include unpaid taxes, assessments or water rents, interest and penalties. This filing constitutes the filing of a complaint and commences an action against the property. Provision is made for notice by posting, publication and mail. The notice must be mailed to the property owner at his last known address. The prescribed notice is to the effect that, unless the amount of unpaid tax liens, together with interest and penalties, are paid within 7 weeks or an answer interposed within 20 days thereafter, any person having the right to redeem or answer shall be foreclosed of all his right, title and interest and equity in and to the delinquent property. Provision is made for entry of a judgment of foreclosure awarding possession of the property to the City and directing execution of a deed conveying an estate in fee simple absolute to the City. The City may retain the property or sell it and retain the entire proceeds.
Appellants and the New York Court of Appeals used the figure $72.50. But the figures given in the affidavit of appellant Gerald D. Nelson (R. 68) yield a total of $65. Altogether, back charges, including those less than four years old, totaled $320.20. This includes $91.20 representing the second half of the 1948-1949 real estate taxes. No water charges were paid from 1945 on. All real estate taxes, with the exception noted, were paid.
§ D17-5.0.
§ D17-6.0.
For the years 1945 through 1947. No water charges had been paid since 1945, and the second half 1948-1949 real estate tax was not paid. The total delinquency was $2,681. R. 13-14.
The date on the other bill was June 30, 1951. Appellants introduced the tax bills as a basis for an argument that the City’s error in continuing to bill them after the City had acquired title to the 45th Avenue property lulled them into thinking that all was well, so that they took no steps to protect the Powell Street property. The effect of the notice of arrears should, it seems, have been quite the opposite.
In addition, a deputy city collector annexed to his affidavit copies of letters sent to the trust estate on June 5 and July 9, 1951, advising that there had been double payments of the taxes on the 45th Avenue property.
§ D17-5.0, which provides for the filing of lists of delinquent property, provides further, “Each such list shall comprise all such parcels within a particular section or ward designated on the tax maps of the city, except those parcels excluded from such lists as hereinafter provided.” The grounds for exclusion are (1) question raised as to the validity of the tax lien on the parcel, (2) and (3) accepted agreement to pay delinquent taxes in installments, and (4) tax lien on the property sold within two years and enforcement .of the lien not completed.
See also Chapman v. Zobelein, 237 U. S. 135.
Section D17-12.0 (a) provides in pertinent part, “The court shall have full power ... in a proper case to direct a sale of . . . lands and the distribution or other disposition of the proceeds of the sale.” By § D17-6.0 it is provided, “Every person having any right, title or interest in or lien upon any parcel . . . may serve a duly verified answer . . . setting forth in detail the nature and amount of his interest or lien and any defense or objection to the foreclosure.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in this § 1983 action is whether a federal court may accord preclusive effect to an unappealed arbitration award in a case brought under that statute. In an unpublished opinion, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that such awards have preclusive effect. We granted certiorari, 464 U. S. 813 (1983), and now reverse.
H-H
On November 26, 1976, petitioner Gary McDonald, then a West Branch, Mich., police officer, was discharged. McDon-aid filed a grievance pursuant to the collective-bargaining agreement then in force between West Branch and the United Steelworkers of America (the Union), contending that there was “no proper cause” for his discharge, and that, as a result, the discharge violated the collective-bargaining agreement. After the preliminary steps in the contractual grievance procedure had been exhausted, the grievance was taken to arbitration. The arbitrator ruled against McDonald, however, finding that there was just cause for his discharge.
McDonald did not appeal the arbitrator’s decision. Subsequently, however, he filed this § 1983 action against the city of West Branch and certain of its officials, including its Chief of Police, Paul Longstreet. In his complaint, McDonald alleged that he was discharged for exercising his First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances. The case was tried to a jury which returned a verdict against Longstreet, but in favor of the remaining defendants.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the judgment against Longstreet. 709 F. 2d 1505 (1983). The court reasoned that the parties had agreed to settle their disputes through the arbitration process and that the arbitrator had considered the reasons for McDonald’s discharge. Finding that the arbitration process had not been abused, the Court of Appeals concluded that McDonald’s First Amendment claims were barred by res judicata and collateral estoppel.
II
A
At the outset, we must consider whether federal courts are obligated by statute to accord res judicata or collateral-estoppel effect to the arbitrator’s decision. Respondents contend that the Federal Full Faith and Credit Statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1738, requires that we give preclusive effect to the arbitration award.
Our cases establish that §1738 obliges federal courts to give the same preclusive effect to a state-court judgment as would the courts of the State rendering the judgment. See, e. g., Migra v. Warren City School District Board of Education, 465 U. S. 75, 81 (1984); Kremer v. Chemical Construction Corp., 456 U. S. 461, 466 (1982). As we explained in Kremer, however, “[arbitration decisions . . . are not subject to the mandate of § 1738.” Id., at 477. This conclusion follows from the plain language of § 1738 which provides in pertinent part that the “judicial proceedings [of any court of any State] shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State . . . from which they are taken.” (Emphasis added.) Arbitration is not a “judicial proceeding” and, therefore, § 1738 does not apply to arbitration awards.
B
Because federal courts are not required by statute to give res judicata or collateral-estoppel effect to an unappealed arbitration award, any rule of preclusion would necessarily be judicially fashioned. We therefore consider the question whether it was appropriate for the Court of Appeals to fashion such a rule.
On two previous occasions this Court has considered the contention that an award in an arbitration proceeding brought pursuant to a collective-bargaining agreement should preclude a subsequent suit in federal court. In both instances we rejected the claim.
Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S. 36 (1974), was an action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 brought by an employee who had unsuccessfully claimed in an arbitration proceeding that his discharge was racially motivated. Although Alexander protested the same discharge in the Title VII action, we held that his Title VII claim was not foreclosed by the arbitral decision against him. In addition, we declined to adopt a rule that would have required federal courts to defer to an arbitrator’s decision on a discrimination claim when “(i) the claim was before the arbitrator; (ii) the collective-bargaining agreement prohibited the form of discrimination charged in the suit under Title VII; and (iii) the arbitrator has authority to rule on the claim and to fashion a remedy.” Id., at 55-56.
Similarly, in Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 450 U. S. 728 (1981), Barrentine and a fellow employee had unsuccessfully submitted wage claims to arbitration. Nevertheless, we rejected the contention that the arbitration award precluded a subsequent suit based on the same underlying facts alleging a violation of the minimum wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Id., at 745-746.
Our rejection of a rule of preclusion in Barrentine and our rejection of a rule of deferral in Gardner-Denver were based in large part on our conclusion that Congress intended the statutes at issue in those cases to be judicially enforceable and that arbitration could not provide an adequate substitute for judicial proceedings in adjudicating claims under those statutes. 450 U. S., at 740-746; 415 U. S., at 56-60. These considerations similarly require that we find the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel inapplicable in this § 1983 action.
Because § 1983 creates a cause of action, there is, of course, no question that Congress intended it to be judicially enforceable. Indeed, as we explained in Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 242 (1972), “[t]he very purpose of § 1983 was to interpose the federal courts between the States and the people, as guardians of the people’s federal rights — to protect the people from unconstitutional action under color of state law.” See also Patsy v. Florida Board of Regents, 457 U. S. 496, 503 (1982). And, although arbitration is well suited to resolving contractual disputes, our decisions in Barrentine and Gardner-Denver compel the conclusion that it cannot provide an adequate substitute for a judicial proceeding in protecting the federal statutory and constitutional rights that § 1983 is designed to safeguard. As a result, according preclusive effect to an arbitration award in a subsequent § 1983 action would undermine that statute’s efficacy in protecting federal rights. We need only briefly reiterate the considerations that support this conclusion.
First, an arbitrator’s expertise “pertains primarily to the law of the shop, not the law of the land.” Gardner-Denver, supra, at 57. An arbitrator may not, therefore, have the expertise required to resolve the complex legal questions that arise in § 1983 actions.
Second, because an arbitrator’s authority derives solely from the contract, Barrentine, supra, at 744, an arbitrator may not have the authority to enforce § 1983. As we explained in Gardner-Denver: “The arbitrator . . . has no general authority to invoke public laws that conflict with the bargain between the parties .... If an arbitral decision is based ‘solely upon the arbitrator’s view of the requirements of enacted legislation,’ rather than on an interpretation of the collective-bargaining agreement, the arbitrator has ‘exceeded the scope of the submission,’ and the award will not be enforced.” 415 U. S., at 53, quoting Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U. S. 593, 597 (1960). Indeed, when the rights guaranteed by § 1983 conflict with provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement, the arbitrator must enforce the agreement. Gardner-Denver, 415 U. S., at 43.
Third, when, as is usually the case, the union has exclusive control over the “manner and extent to which an individual grievance is presented,” Gardner-Denver, supra, at 58, n. 19, there is an additional reason why arbitration is an inadequate substitute for judicial proceedings. The union’s interests and those of the individual employee are not always identical or even compatible. As a result, the union may present the employee’s grievance less vigorously, or make different strategic choices, than would the employee. See Gardner-Denver, supra, at 58, n. 19; Barrentine, supra, at 742. Thus, were an arbitration award accorded preclusive effect, an employee’s opportunity to be compensated for a constitutional deprivation might be lost merely because it was not in the union’s interest to press his claim vigorously.
Finally, arbitral factfinding is generally not equivalent to judicial factfinding. As we explained in Gardner-Denver, “[t]he record of the arbitration proceedings is not as complete; the usual rules of evidence do not apply; and rights and procedures common to civil trials, such as discovery, compulsory process, cross-examination, and testimony under oath, are often severely limited or unavailable.” 415 U. S., at 57-58.
It is apparent, therefore, that in a § 1983 action, an arbitration proceeding cannot provide an adequate substitute for a judicial trial. Consequently, according preclusive effect to arbitration awards in § 1983 actions would severely undermine the protection of federal rights that the statute is designed to provide. We therefore hold that in a §1983 action, a federal court should not afford res judicata or collateral-estoppel effect to an award in an arbitration proceeding brought pursuant to the terms of a collective-bargaining agreement.
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.
Title 42 U. S. C. § 1983 provides in pertinent part:
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State . . . subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”
Section 3.0 of Article III of the collective-bargaining agreement between the city of West Branch and the Union provided in pertinent part:
“Among the powers, rights, authority, duties and responsibilities which shall continue to be vested in the City of West Branch, but not intended as a wholly inclusive list of them, shall be: The right to . . . suspend or discharge employees for proper cause.”
In addition to Longstreet, the complaint named the following city officials as defendants: Acting City Manager Bernard Olson, City Attorney Charles Jennings, and City Attorney Demetre Ellias. McDonald also named the Union as a defendant, claiming that it had breached its state-law duty to represent him fairly. The District Court declined to exercise pendent jurisdiction over this claim.
In addition, McDonald alleged that his discharge deprived him of property without due process of law. The jury, however, rejected this claim.
Earlier this Term, we noted that various phrases have been used to describe the preclusive effects of former judgments. Migra v. Warren City School District Board of Education, 465 U. S. 75 (1984). Because the Court of Appeals used the terms “res judicata” and “collateral estoppel,” we find it convenient to use these terms in this opinion. Thus, in this case, we utilize the term “res judicata” to refer to the effect of a judgment on the merits in barring a subsequent suit between the same parties or their privies that is based on the same claim. See Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U. S. 322, 326, n. 5 (1979). By contrast, “[ujnder collateral estoppel, once a court has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, that decision may preclude relitigation of the issue in a suit on a different cause of action involving a party to the first case.” Allen v. McCurry, 449 U. S. 90, 94 (1980).
The complete text of § 1738 provides:
“The Acts of the legislature of any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States, or copies thereof, shall be authenticated by affixing the seal of such State, Territory or Possession thereto.
“The records and judicial proceedings of any court of any such State, Territory or Possession, or copies thereof, shall be proved or admitted in other courts within the United States and its Territories and Possessions by the attestation of the clerk and seal of the court annexed, if a seal exists, together with a certificate of a judge of the court that the said attestation is in proper form.
“Such Acts, records and judicial proceedings or copies thereof, so authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which they are taken.”
The statute also applies to Acts of state legislatures and records of state courts. See n. 6, supra. Arbitration obviously falls into neither of these categories.
The Court of Appeals in Gardner-Denver had concluded that the Title VII suit was barred by the doctrines of election of remedies and waiver, and by “the federal policy favoring arbitration of labor disputes.” 415 U. S., at 46. In addition to holding that none of these doctrines justified a rule of preclusion, we noted that “[t]he policy reasons for rejecting the doctrines of election of remedies and waiver in the context of Title VII are equally applicable to the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel.” Id., at 49. n. 10.
Indeed, many arbitrators are not lawyers. See Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc. 450 U. S. 728, 743 (1981); Gardner-Denver, 415 U. S., at 57, n. 18. In addition, amici AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers of America note that “[t]he union's case in a labor arbitration is commonly prepared and presented by non-lawyers.” Brief as Amici Curiae 10.
Amici AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers of America inform us that under most collective-bargaining agreements the union “controls access to the arbitrator, the strategy and tactics of how to present the case, the nature of the relief sought, and the actual presentation of the case.” Id.. at 7.
In addition to diminishing the protection of federal rights, a rule of preclusion might have a detrimental effect on the arbitral process. Were such a rule adopted, employees who were aware of this rule and who believed that arbitration would not protect their § 1983 rights as effectively as an action in a court might bypass arbitration. See Gardner-Denver, supra, at 59.
The Court of Appeals justified its application of res judicata and collateral estoppel in part by stating that “[t]he parties have agreed to settle this dispute through the private means of arbitration.” In both Gardner-Denver and Barrentine, however, we rejected similar contentions. See Gardner-Denver, supra, at 51-52; Barrentine, supra, at 736-746. For example, in Gardner-Denver we considered the argument that the arbitration provision of the collective-bargaining agreement waived the employee’s right to bring a Title VII action. We found this contention unpersuasive, however, concluding that “[t]he rights conferred [by Title VII] can form no part of the collective-bargaining process since waiver of these rights would defeat the paramount congressional purpose behind Title VII.” Gardner-Denver, supra, at 51. Similarly, because preclusion of a judicial action would gravely undermine the effectiveness of § 1983, we must reject the Court of Appeals’ reliance on and deference to the provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement.
Consistent with our decisions in Barrentine and Gardner-Denver, an arbitral decision may be admitted as evidence in a § 1983 action. As in those cases:
‘We adopt no standards as to the weight to be accorded an arbitral decision, since this must be determined in the court's discretion with regard to the facts and circumstances of each case. Relevant factors include the existence of provisions in the collective-bargaining agreement that conform substantially with [the statute or constitution], the degree of procedural fairness in the arbitral forum, adequacy of the record with respect to the issue [in the judicial proceeding], and the special competence of particular arbitrators. Where an arbitral determination gives full consideration to an employee’s [statutory or constitutional] rights, a court may properly accord it great weight. This is especially true where the issue is solely one of fact, specifically addressed by the parties and decided by the arbitrator on the basis of an adequate record. But courts should ever be mindful that Congress . . . thought it necessary to provide a judicial forum for the ultimate resolution of [these] claims. It is the duty of courts to assure the full availability of this forum.” Gardner-Denver, 415 U. S., at 60, n. 21.
See also Barrentine, 450 U. S., at 743-744, n. 22.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Harlan
announced the judgments of the Court and delivered an opinion in which Mr. Justice Clark, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice Fortas join.
In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 279-280, this Court held that “[t]he constitutional guarantees [of freedom of speech and press] require... a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with 'actual malice’ — that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” We brought these two cases here, 385 U. S. 811, 385 U. S. 812, to consider the impact of that decision on libel actions instituted by persons who are not public officials, but who are “public figures” and involved in issues in which the public has a justified and important interest. The sweep of the New York Times rule in libel actions brought under state law was a question expressly reserved in that case, 376 U. S., at 283, n. 23, and while that question has been involved in later cases, Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64; Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U. S. 75; Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374, it has not been fully settled.
The matter has, however, been passed on by a considerable number of state and lower federal courts and has produced a sharp division of opinion as to whether the New York Times rule should apply only in actions brought by public officials or whether it has a longer reach. Compare, e. g., Pearson v. Fairbanks Publishing Co., 413 P. 2d 711 (Alaska), with Clark v. Pearson, 248 E. Supp. 188. The resolution of the uncertainty in this area of libel actions requires, at bottom, some further exploration and clarification of the relationship between libel law and the freedom of speech and press, lest the New York Times rule become a talisman which gives the press constitutionally adequate protection only in a limited field, or, what would be equally unfortunate, one which goes far to immunize the press from having to make just reparation for the infliction of needless injury upon honor and reputation through false publication. These two libel actions, although they arise out of quite different sets of circumstances, provide that opportunity. We think they are best treated together in one opinion.
I.
No. 37, Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, stems from an article published in petitioner’s Saturday Evening Post which accused respondent of conspiring to “fix” a football game between the University of Georgia and the University of Alabama, played in 1962. At the time of the article, Butts was the athletic director of the University of Georgia and had overall responsibility for the administration of its athletic program. Georgia is a state university, but Butts was employed by the Georgia Athletic Association, a private corporation, rather than by the State itself. Butts had previously served as head football coach of the University and was a well-known and respected figure in coaching ranks. He had maintained an interest in coaching and was negotiating for a position with a professional team at the time of publication.
The article was entitled “The Story of a College Football Fix” and prefaced by a note from the editors stating: “Not since the Chicago White Sox threw the 1919 World Series has there been a sports story as shocking as this one.... Before the University of Georgia played the University of Alabama... Wally Butts... gave [to its coach]... Georgia’s plays, defensive patterns, all the significant secrets Georgia’s football team possessed.” The text revealed that one George Burnett, an Atlanta insurance salesman, had accidentally overheard, because of electronic error, a telephone conversation between Butts and the head coach of the University of Alabama, Paul Bryant, which took place approximately one week prior to the game. Burnett was said to have listened while “Butts outlined Georgia’s offensive plays... and told... how Georgia planned to defend.... Butts mentioned both players and plays by name.” The readers were told that Burnett had made notes of the conversation, and specific examples of the divulged secrets were set out.
The article went on to discuss the game and the players’ reaction to the game, concluding that “[t]he Georgia players, their moves analyzed and forecast like those of rats in a maze, took a frightful physical beating,” and said that the players, and other sideline observers, were aware that Alabama was privy to Georgia’s secrets. It set out the series of events commencing with Burnett’s later presentation of his notes to the Georgia head coach, Johnny Griffith, and culminating in Butts’ resignation from the University’s athletic affairs, for health and business reasons. The article’s conclusion made clear its expected impact:
“The chances are that Wally Butts will never help any football team again.... The investigation by university and Southeastern Conference officials is continuing; motion pictures of other games are being scrutinized; where it will end no one so far can say. But careers will be ruined, that is sure.”
Butts brought this diversity libel action in the federal courts in Georgia seeking $5,000,000 compensatory and $5,000,000 punitive damages. The complaint was filed, and the trial completed, before this Court handed down its decision in New York Times, and the only defense raised by petitioner Curtis was one of substantial truth. No constitutional defenses were interposed although Curtis’ counsel were aware of the progress of the New York Times case, and although general constitutional defenses had been raised by Curtis in a libel action instituted by the Alabama coach who was a state employee.
Evidence at trial was directed both to the truth of the article and to its preparation. The latter point was put in issue by the claim for punitive damages which required a finding of “malice” under Georgia law. The evidence showed that Burnett had indeed overheard a conversation between Butts and the Alabama coach, but the content of that conversation was hotly disputed. It was Butts’ contention that the conversation had been general football talk and that nothing Burnett had overheard would have been of any particular value to an opposing coach. Expert witnesses supported Butts by analyzing Burnett’s notes and the films of the game itself. The Saturday Evening Post’s version of the game and of the players’ remarks about the game was severely contradicted.
The evidence on the preparation of the article, on which we shall focus in more detail later, cast serious doubt on the adequacy of the investigation underlying the article. It was Butts’ contention that the magazine had departed greatly from the standards of good investigation and reporting and that this was especially reprehensible, amounting to reckless and wanton conduct, in light of the devastating nature of the article’s assertions.
The jury was instructed that in order for the defense of truth to be sustained it was “necessary that the truth be substantially portrayed in those parts of the article which libel the plaintiff.” The “sting of the libel” was said to be “the charge that the plaintiff rigged and fixed the 1962 Georgia-Alabama game by giving Coach Bryant [of Alabama] information which was calculated to or could have affected the outcome of the game.” The jury was also instructed that it could award punitive damages “to deter the wrong-doer from repeating the trespass” in an amount within its sole discretion if it found that actual malice had been proved.
The jury returned a verdict for $60,000 in general damages and for $3,000,000 in punitive damages. The trial court reduced the total to $460,000 by remittitur. Soon thereafter we handed down our decision in New York Times and Curtis immediately brought it to the attention of the trial court by a motion for new trial. The trial judge rejected Curtis’ motion on two grounds. He first held that New York Times was inapplicable because Butts was not a public official. He also held that “there was ample evidence from which a jury could have concluded that there was reckless disregard by defendant of whether the article was false or not.”
Curtis appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit which affirmed the judgment of the District Court by a two-to-one vote. The majority there did not reach the merits of petitioner’s constitutional claim, holding that Curtis had “clearly waived any right it may have had to challenge the verdict and judgment on any of the constitutional grounds asserted in Times,” 351 F. 2d 702, 713, on the basis of Michel v. Louisiana, 350 U. S. 91. It found Curtis chargeable with knowledge of the constitutional limitations on libel law at the time it filed its pleadings below because of its “interlocking battery of able and distinguished attorneys” some of whom were involved in the New York Times litigation. This holding rendered the compensatory damage decision purely one of state law and no error was found in its application. Turning to the punitive damage award, the majority upheld it as stemming from the “enlightened conscience” of the jury as adjusted by the lawful action of the trial judge. It was in “complete accord” with the trial court’s determination that the evidence justified the finding “that what the Post did was done with reckless disregard of whether the article was false or not.” 351 F. 2d, at 719.
Judge Rives dissented, arguing that the record did not support a finding of knowing waiver of constitutional defenses. He concluded that the New York Times rule was applicable because Butts was involved in activities of great interest to the public. He would have reversed because “the jury might well have understood the district court’s charge to allow recovery on a showing of intent to inflict harm or even the culpably negligent infliction of harm, rather than the intent to inflict harm through falsehood... 351 F. 2d, at 723.
Rehearing was denied, 351 F. 2d, at 733, and we granted certiorari, as indicated above. For reasons given below, we would affirm.
II.
No. 150, Associated Press v. Walker, arose out of the distribution of a news dispatch giving an eyewitness account of events on the campus of the University of Mississippi on the night of September 30, 1962, when a massive riot erupted because of federal efforts to enforce a court decree ordering the enrollment of a Negro, James Meredith, as a student in the University. The dispatch stated that respondent Walker, who was present on the campus, had taken command of the violent crowd and had personally led a charge against federal marshals sent there to effectuate the court’s decree and to assist in preserving order. It also described Walker as encouraging rioters to use violence and giving them technical advice on combating the effects of tear gas.
Walker was a private citizen at the time of the riot and publication. He had pursued a long and honorable career in the United States Army before resigning to engage in political activity, and had, in fact, been in command of the federal troops during the school segregation confrontation at Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. He was acutely interested in the issue of physical federal intervention, and had made a number of strong statements against such action which had received wide publicity. Walker had his own following, the “Friends of Walker," and could fairly be deemed a man of some political prominence.
Walker initiated this libel action in the state courts of Texas, seeking a total of $2,000,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. Associated Press raised both the defense of truth and constitutional defenses. At trial both sides attempted to reconstruct the stormy events on the campus of the University of Mississippi. Walker admitted his presence on the campus and conceded that he had spoken to a group of students. He claimed, however, that he had counseled restraint and peaceful protest, and exercised no control whatever over the crowd which had rejected his plea. He denied categorically taking part in any charge against the federal marshals.
There was little evidence relating to the preparation of the news dispatch. It was clear, however, that the author of this dispatch, Van Saveli, was actually present during the events described and had reported them almost immediately to the Associated Press office in Atlanta. A discrepancy was shown between an oral account given the office and a later written dispatch, but it related solely to whether Walker had spoken to the group before or after approaching the marshals. No other showing of improper preparation was attempted, nor was there any evidence of personal prejudice or incompetency on the part of Saveli or the Associated Press.
The jury was instructed that an award of compensatory damages could be made if the dispatch was not substantially true, and that punitive damages could be added if the article was actuated by “ill will, bad or evil motive, or that entire want of care which would raise the belief that the act or omission complained of was the result of a conscious indifference to the right or welfare of the person to be affected by it.”
A verdict of $500,000 compensatory damages and $300,000 punitive damages was returned. The trial judge, however, found that there was “no evidence to support the jury’s answers that there was actual malice” and refused to enter the punitive award. He concluded that the failure further to investigate the minor discrepancy between the oral and written versions of the incident could not “be construed as that entire want of care which would amount to a conscious indifference to the rights of plaintiff. Negligence, it may have been; malice, it was not. Moreover, the mere fact that AP permitted a young reporter to cover the story of the riot is not evidence of malice.” (Emphasis in original.) The trial judge also noted that this lack of “malice” would require a verdict for the Associated Press if New York Times were applicable. But he rejected its applicability since there were “no compelling reasons of public policy requiring additional defenses to suits for libel. Truth alone should be an adequate defense.”
Both sides appealed and the Texas Court of Civil Appeals affirmed both the award of compensatory damages and the striking of punitive damages. It stated without elaboration that New York Times was inapplicable. As to the punitive damage award, the plea for reinstatement was refused because “[i]n view of all the surrounding circumstances, the rapid and confused occurrence of events on the occasion in question, and in the light of all the evidence, we hold that appellee failed to prove malice....” 393 S. W. 2d 671, 683.
The Supreme Court of Texas denied a writ of error, and we granted certiorari, as already indicated. For reasons given below, we would reverse.
III.
Before we reach the constitutional arguments put forward by the respective petitioners, we must first determine whether Curtis has waived its right to assert such arguments by failing to assert them before trial. As our dispositions of Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U. S. 75, and other cases involving constitutional questions indicate, the mere failure to interpose such a defense prior to the announcement of a decision which might support it cannot prevent a litigant from later invoking such a ground. Of course it is equally clear that even constitutional objections may be waived by a failure to raise them at a proper time, Michel v. Louisiana, supra, at 99, but an effective waiver must, as was said in Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464, be one of a “known right or privilege.”
Butts makes two arguments in support of his contention that Curtis’ failure to raise constitutional defenses amounted to a knowing waiver. The first is that the general state of the law at the time of this trial was such that Curtis should, in the words of the Fifth Circuit majority, have seen “the handwriting on the wall.” 351 F. 2d, at 734. We cannot accept this contention. Although our decision in New York Times did draw upon earlier precedents in state law, e. g., Coleman v. MacLennan, 78 Kan. 711, 98 P. 281, and there were intimations in a prior opinion and the extra-judicial comments of one Justice, that some applications of libel law might be in conflict with the guarantees of free speech and press, there was strong precedent indicating that civil libel actions were immune from general constitutional scrutiny. Given the state of the law prior to our decision in New York Times, we do not think it unreasonable for a lawyer trying a case of this kind, where the plaintiff was not even a public official under state law, to have looked solely to the defenses provided by state libel law. Nor do we think that the previous grant of certiorari in New York Times alone indicates a different conclusion. The questions presented for review there were premised on Sullivan’s status as an elected public official, and elected officials traditionally have been subject to special rules of libel law.
Butts’ second contention is that whatever defenses might reasonably have been apparent to the average lawyer, some of Curtis’ trial attorneys were involved in the New York Times litigation and thus should have been especially alert to constitutional contentions. This was the argument which swayed the Court of Appeals, but we do not find it convincing.
First, as a general matter, we think it inadvisable to determine whether a “right or privilege” is “known” by relying on information outside the record concerning the special legal knowledge of particular attorneys. Second, even a lawyer fully cognizant of the record and briefs in the New York Times litigation might reasonably have expected the resolution of that case to have no impact on this litigation, since the arguments advanced.there depended so heavily on the analogy to seditious libel. We think that it was our eventual resolution of New York Times, rather than its facts and the arguments presented by counsel, which brought out the constitutional question here. We would not hold that Curtis waived a “known right” before it was aware of the New York Times decision. It is agreed that Curtis’ presentation of the constitutional issue after our decision in New York Times was prompt.
Our rejection of Butts’ arguments is supported by factors which point to the justice of that conclusion. See Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U. S. 552, 556-557. Curtis’ constitutional points were raised early enough so that this Court has had the benefit of some ventilation of them by the courts below. The resolution of the merits of Curtis’ contentions by the District Court makes it evident that Butts was not prejudiced by the time at which Curtis raised its argument, for it cannot be asserted that an earlier interposition would have resulted in any different proceedings below. Finally the constitutional protection which Butts contends that Curtis has waived safeguards a freedom which is the “matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.” Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 327. Where the ultimate effect of sustaining a claim of waiver might be an imposition on that valued freedom, we are unwilling to find waiver in circumstances which fall short of being clear and compelling. Cf. New York Times Co. v. Connor, 365 F. 2d 567, 572.
IV.
We thus turn to a consideration, on the merits, of the constitutional claims raised by Curtis in Butts and by the Associated Press in Walker. Powerful arguments are brought to bear for the extension of the New York Times rule in both cases. In Butts it is contended that the facts are on all fours with those of Rosenblatt v. Baer, supra, since Butts was charged with the important responsibility of managing the athletic affairs of a state university. It is argued that while the Athletic Association is financially independent from the State and Butts was not technically a state employee, as was Baer, his role in state administration was so significant that this technical distinction from Rosenblatt should be ignored. Even if this factor is to be given some weight, we are told that the public interest in education in general, and in the conduct of the athletic affairs of educational institutions in particular, justifies constitutional protection of discussion of persons involved in it equivalent to the protection afforded discussion of public officials.
A similar argument is raised in the Walker case where the important public interest in being informed about the events and personalities involved in the Mississippi riot is pressed. In that case we are also urged to recognize that Walker’s claims to the protection of libel laws are limited since he thrust himself into the “vortex” of the controversy.
We are urged by the respondents, Butts and Walker, to recognize society’s “pervasive and strong interest in preventing and redressing attacks upon reputation,” and the “important social values which underlie the law of defamation.” Rosenblatt v. Baer, supra, at 86. It is pointed out that the publicity in these instances was not directed at employees of government and that these cases cannot be analogized to seditious libel prosecutions. Id., at 92 (Stewart, J., concurring). We are told that “[t]he rule that permits satisfaction of the deep-seated need for vindication of honor is not a mere historic relic, but promotes the law’s civilizing function of providing an acceptable substitute for violence in the settlement of disputes,” Afro-American Publishing Co. v. Jaffe, 125 U. S. App. D. C. 70, 81, 366 F. 2d 649, 660, and that:
“Newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting companies are businesses conducted for profit and often make very large ones. Like other enterprises that inflict damage in the course of performing a service highly useful to the public... they must pay the freight; and injured persons should not be relegated [to remedies which] make collection of their claims difficult or impossible unless strong policy considerations demand.” Buckley v. New York Post Corp., 373 F. 2d 175, 182.
We fully recognize the force of these competing considerations and the fact that an accommodation between them is necessary not only in these cases, but in all libel actions arising from a publication concerning public issues. In Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374, 388, we held that “[t]he guarantees for speech and press are not the preserve of political expression or comment upon public affairs...” and affirmed that freedom of discussion “must embrace all issues about which information is needed or appropriate to enable the members of society to cope with the exigencies of their period.” Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 102. This carries out the intent of the Founders who felt that a free press would advance “truth, science, morality, and arts in general” as well as responsible government. Letter to the Inhabitants of Quebec, 1 Journals of the Continental Cong. 108. From the point of view of deciding whether a constitutional interest of free speech and press is properly involved in the resolution of a libel question a rational distinction “cannot be founded on the assumption that criticism of private citizens who seek to lead in the determination of... policy will be less important to the public interest than will criticism of government officials.” Pauling v. Globe-Democrat Publishing Co., 362 F. 2d 188, 196.
On the other hand, to take the rule found appropriate in New York Times to resolve the “tension” between the particular constitutional interest there involved and the interests of personal reputation and press responsibility, Rosenblatt v. Baer, supra, at 86, as being applicable throughout the realm of the broader constitutional interest, would be to attribute to this aspect of New York Times an unintended inexorability at the threshold of this new constitutional development. In Time, Inc. v. Hill, supra, at 390, we counseled against “blind application of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan” and considered “the factors which arise in the particular context.” Here we must undertake a parallel evaluation.
The modern history of the guarantee of freedom of speech and press mainly has been one of a search for the outer limits of that right. From the fountainhead opinions of Justices Holmes and Brandeis in Schenck, Abrams, and Whitney, which considered the problem when the disruptive effects of speech might strip the protection from the speaker, to our recent decision in Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39, where we found freedom of speech not to include a freedom to trespass, the Court’s primary concern has been to determine the extent of the right and the surrounding safeguards necessary to give it “breathing space.” NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 433. That concern has perhaps omitted from searching consideration the “real problem” of defining or delimiting the right itself. See Freund, Mr. Justice Black and the Judicial Function, 14 U. C. L. A. L. Rev. 467, 471.
It is significant that the guarantee of freedom of speech and press falls between the religious guarantees and the guarantee of the right to petition for redress of grievances in the text of the First Amendment, the principles of which are carried to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. It partakes of the nature of both, for it is as much a guarantee to individuals of their personal right to make their thoughts public and put them before the community, see Holt, Of the Liberty of the Press, in Nelson, Freedom of the Press from Hamilton to the Warren Court 18-19, as it is a social necessity required for the “maintenance of our political system and an open society.” Time, Inc. v. Hill, supra, at 389. It is because of the personal nature of this right that we have rejected all manner of prior restraint on publication, Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 697, despite strong arguments that if the material was unprotected the time of suppression was immaterial. Pound, Equitable Relief Against Defamation and Injuries to Personality, 29 Harv. L. Rev. 640. The dissemination of the individual’s opinions on matters of public interest is for us, in the historic words of the Declaration of Independence, an “unalienable right” that “governments are instituted among men to secure.” History shows us that the Founders were not always convinced that unlimited discussion of public issues would be “for the benefit of all of us” but that they firmly adhered to the proposition that the “true liberty of the press” permitted “every man to publish his opinion.” Respublica v. Oswald, 1 Dall. 319, 325 (Pa.).
The fact that dissemination of information and opinion on questions of public concern is ordinarily a legitimate, protected and indeed cherished activity does not mean, however, that one may in all respects carry on that activity exempt from sanctions designed to safeguard the legitimate interests of others. A business “is not immune from regulation because it is an agency of the press. The publisher of a newspaper has no special immunity from the application of general laws. He has no special privilege to invade the rights and liberties of others.” Associated Press v. Labor Board, 301 U. S. 103, 132-133. Federal securities regulation, mail fraud statutes, and common-law actions for deceit and misrepresentation are only some examples of our understanding that the right to communicate information of public interest is not “unconditional.” See Note, Freedom of Expression in a Commercial Context, 78 Harv. L. Rev. 1191. However, as our decision in New York Times makes explicit, while protected activity may in some respects be subjected to sanctions, it is not open to all forms of regulation. The guarantees of freedom of speech and press were not designed to prevent “the censorship of the press merely, but any action of the government by means of which it might prevent such free and general discussion of public matters as seems absolutely essential....” 2 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 886 (8th ed.). Our touchstones are that acceptable limitations must neither affect the impartial distribution of news” and ideas, Associated Press v. Labor Board, supra, at 133, nor because of their history or impact constitute a special burden on the press, Grosjean v. American Press Co., Inc., 297 U. S. 233, nor deprive our free society of the stimulating benefit of varied ideas because their purveyors fear physical or economic retribution solely because of what they choose to think and publish.
The history of libel law leaves little doubt that it originated in soil entirely different from that which nurtured these constitutional values. Early libel was primarily a criminal remedy, the function of which was to make punishable any writing which tended to bring into disrepute the state, established religion, or any individual likely to be provoked to a breach of the peace because of the words. Truth was no defense in such actions and while a proof of truth might prevent recovery in a civil action, this limitation is more readily explained as a manifestation of judicial reluctance to enrich an undeserving plaintiff than by the supposition that the defendant was protected by the truth of the publication. The same truthful statement might be the basis of a criminal libel action. See Commonwealth v. Clap, 4 Mass. 163; see generally Yeeder, The History and Theory of the Law of Defamation, 3 Col. L. Rev. 546, 4 Col. L. Rev. 33.
The law of libel has, of course, changed substantially since the early days of the Republic, and this change is “the direct consequence of the friction between it... and the highly cherished right of free speech.” State v. Browne, 86 N. J. Super. 217, 228, 206 A. 2d 591, 597. The emphasis has shifted from criminal to civil remedies, from the protection of absolute social values to the safeguarding of valid personal interests. Truth has become an absolute defense in almost all cases, and privileges designed to foster free communication are almost universally recognized. But the basic theory of libel has not changed, and words defamatory of another are still placed “in the same class with the use of explosives or the keeping of dangerous animals.” Prosser, The Law of Torts § 108, at 792. Thus some antithesis between freedom of speech and press and libel actions persists, for libel remains premised on the content of speech and limits the freedom of the publisher to express certain sentiments, at least without guaranteeing legal proof of their substantial accuracy.
While the truth of the underlying facts might be said to mark the line between publications Which are of significant social value and those which might be suppressed without serious social harm and thus resolve the antithesis on a neutral ground, we have rejected, in prior cases involving materials and persons commanding justified and important public interest, the argument that a finding of falsity alone should strip protections from the publisher. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, at 272. We have recognized “the inevitability of some errror in the situation presented in free debate,” Time, Inc. v. Hill, supra, at 406 (opinion of this writer), and that “putting to the pre-existing prejudices of a jury the determination of what is 'true’ may effectively institute a system of censorship.”
Our resolution of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, in the context of the numerous statutes and cases which allow ideologically neutral, and generally applicable regulatory measures to be applied to publication, makes clear, however, that neither the interests of the publisher nor those of society necessarily preclude a damage award based on improper conduct which creates a false publication. It is the conduct element, therefore, on which we must principally focus if we are successfully to resolve the antithesis between civil libel actions and the freedom of speech and press. Impositions based on misconduct can be neutral with respect to content of the speech involved, free of historical taint, and adjusted to strike a fair balance between the interests of the community in free circulation of information and those of individuals in seeking recompense for harm done by the circulation of defamatory falsehood.
In New York Times we were adjudicating in an area which lay close to seditious libel, and history dictated extreme caution in imposing liability. The plaintiff in that case was an official whose position in government was such “that the public [had] an independent interest in the qualifications and performance of the person who [held] it.” Rosenblatt v. Baer, supra, at 86. Such officials usually enjoy a privilege against libel actions for their utterances, see, e. g., Barr v. Matteo, 360 U. S. 564, and there were analogous considerations involved in New York Times, supra, at 282. Thus we invoked “the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies,” Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494, 503, and limited recovery to those cases where “calculated falsehood” placed the publisher “at odds with the premises of democratic government and with the orderly manner in which economic, social, or political change is to be effected.” Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 75. That is to say, such officials were permitted to recover in libel only when they could prove that the publication involved was deliberately falsified, or published recklessly despite the publisher’s awareness of probable falsity. Investigatory failures alone were held insufficient to satisfy this standard. See New York Times, at 286-288, 292; Garrison v. Louisiana, supra, at 73-75, 79.
In the cases we decide today none of the particular considerations involved in New York Times is present. These actions cannot be analogized to prosecutions for seditious libel. Neither plaintiff has any position in government which would permit a recovery by him to be viewed as a vindication of governmental policy. Neither was entitled to a special privilege protecting his utterances against accountability in libel. We are prompted, therefore, to seek guidance from the rules of liability which prevail in our society with respect to compensation of persons injured by the improper performance of a legitimate activity by another. Under these rules, a departure from the kind of care society may expect from a reasonable man performing such activity leaves the actor open to a judicial shifting of loss. In defining these rules, and especially in formulating the standards for determining the degree of care to be expected in the circumstances, courts have consistently given much attention to the importance of defendants’ activities. Prosser, The Law of Torts § 31, at 151. The courts have also, especially in libel cases, investigated the plaintiff’s position to determine whether he has a legitimate call upon the court for protection in light of his prior activities and means of self-defense. See Brewer v. Hearst Publishing Co., 185 F. 2d 846; Flanagan v. Nicholson Publishing Co., 137 La. 588, 68 So. 964. We note that the public interest in the circulation of the materials here involved, and the publisher’s interest in circulating them, is not less than that involved in New York Times. And both Butts and Walker commanded a substantial amount of independent public interest at the time of the publications; both, in our opinion, would have been labeled “public figures” under ordinary tort rules. See Spahn v. Julian Messner, Inc., 18 N. Y. 2d 324, 221 N. E. 2d 543, remanded on other grounds, 387 U. S. 239. Butts may have attained that status by position alone and Walker by his purposeful activity amounting to a thrusting of his personality into the “vortex” of an important public controversy, but both commanded sufficient continuing public interest and had sufficient access to the means of counterargument to be able “to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies” of the defamatory statements. Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 377 (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
These similarities and differences between libel actions involving persons who are public officials and libel actions involving those circumstanced as were Butts and Walker, viewed in light of the principles of liability which are of general applicability in our society, lead us to the conclusion that libel actions of the present kind
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act regulates " 'debt collector[s].' " 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6) ; see 91 Stat. 874, 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq. A " 'debt collector,' " the Act says, is "any person ... in any business the principal purpose of which is the collection of any debts, or who regularly collects or attempts to collect, directly or indirectly, debts." § 1692a(6). This definition, however, goes on to say that "[f]or the purpose of section 1692f(6)" (a separate provision of the Act), "[the] term [debt collector] also includes any person ... in any business the principal purpose of which is the enforcement of security interests." Ibid.
The question before us concerns this last sentence. Does it mean that one principally involved in "the enforcement of security interests" is not a debt collector (except "[f]or the purpose of section 1692f(6)")? If so, numerous other provisions of the Act do not apply. Or does it simply reinforce the fact that those principally involved in the enforcement of security interests are subject to § 1692f(6) in addition to the Act's other provisions?
In our view, the last sentence does (with its § 1692f(6) exception) place those whose "principal purpose ... is the enforcement of security interests" outside the scope of the primary "debt collector" definition, § 1692a(6), where the business is engaged in no more than the kind of security-interest enforcement at issue here-nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings.
I
A
When a person buys a home, he or she usually borrows money from a lending institution, such as a bank. The resulting debt is backed up by a "mortgage"-a security interest in the property designed to protect the creditor's investment. Restatement (Third) of Property: Mortgages § 1.1 (1996) (Restatement). (In some States, this security interest is known as a "deed of trust," though for present purposes the difference is immaterial. See generally ibid. ) The loan likely requires the homeowner to make monthly payments. And if the homeowner defaults, the mortgage entitles the creditor to pursue foreclosure, which is "the process in which property securing a mortgage is sold to pay off the loan balance due." 2 B. Dunaway, Law of Distressed Real Estate § 15:1 (2018) (Dunaway).
Every State provides some form of judicial foreclosure: a legal action initiated by a creditor in which a court supervises sale of the property and distribution of the proceeds. Id. , § 16:1. These procedures offer various protections for homeowners, such as the right to notice and to protest the amount a creditor says is owed. Id. , §§ 16:17, 16:20; Restatement § 8.2. And in the event that the foreclosure sale does not yield the full amount due, a creditor pursuing a judicial foreclosure may sometimes obtain a deficiency judgment, that is, a judgment against the homeowner for the unpaid balance of a debt. National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), Foreclosures and Mortgage Servicing §§ 12.3.1-2 (5th ed. 2014).
About half the States also provide for what is known as nonjudicial foreclosure, where notice to the parties and sale of the property occur outside court supervision. 2 Dunaway § 17:1. Under Colorado's form of nonjudicial foreclosure, at issue here, a creditor (or more likely its agent) must first mail the homeowner certain preliminary information, including the telephone number for the Colorado foreclosure hotline. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-38-102.5(2) (2018). Thirty days later, the creditor may file a "notice of election and demand" with a state official called a "public trustee." § 38-38-101. The public trustee records this notice and mails a copy, alongside other materials, to the homeowner. §§ 38-38-102, 38-38-103. These materials give the homeowner information about the balance of the loan, the homeowner's right to cure the default, and the time and place of the foreclosure sale. §§ 38-38-101(4), 38-38-103. Assuming the debtor does not cure the default or declare bankruptcy, the creditor may then seek an order from a state court authorizing the sale. Colo. Rule Civ. Proc. 120 (2018); see Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-38-105. (Given this measure of court involvement, Colorado's "nonjudicial" foreclosure process is something of a hybrid, though no party claims these features transform Colorado's nonjudicial scheme into a judicial one.) In court, the homeowner may contest the creditor's right to sell the property, and a hearing will be held to determine whether the sale should go forward. Colo. Rules Civ. Proc. 120(c), (d).
If the court gives its approval, the public trustee may then sell the property at a public auction, though a homeowner may avoid a sale altogether by curing the default up until noon on the day before. Colo. Rev. Stat. §§ 38-38-110, 38-38-104(VI)(b). If the sale goes forward and the house sells for more than the amount owed, any profits go first to lienholders and then to the homeowner. § 38-38-111. If the house sells for less than what is owed, the creditor cannot hold the homeowner liable for the balance due unless it files a separate action in court and obtains a deficiency judgment. See § 38-38-106(6); Bank of America v. Kosovich , 878 P.2d 65, 66 (Colo. App. 1994). Other States likewise prevent creditors from obtaining deficiency judgments in nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings. Restatement § 8.2. And in some States, pursuing nonjudicial foreclosure bars or curtails a creditor's ability to obtain a deficiency judgment altogether. NCLC, Foreclosures and Mortgage Servicing § 12.3.2.
B
In 2007, petitioner Dennis Obduskey bought a home in Colorado with a $ 329,940 loan secured by the property. About two years later, Obduskey defaulted.
In 2014, Wells Fargo Bank, N. A., hired a law firm, McCarthy & Holthus LLP, the respondent here, to act as its agent in carrying out a nonjudicial foreclosure. According to the complaint, McCarthy first mailed Obduskey a letter that said it had been "instructed to commence foreclosure" against the property, disclosed the amount outstanding on the loan, and identified the creditor, Wells Fargo. App. 37-38; see id. , at 23. The letter purported to provide notice "[p]ursuant to, and in compliance with," both the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and Colorado law. Id. , at 37. (The parties seem not to dispute that this and other correspondence from McCarthy was required under state law. Because that is a question of Colorado law not briefed by the parties before us nor passed on by the courts below, we proceed along the same assumption.) Obduskey responded with a letter invoking § 1692g(b) of the FDCPA, which provides that if a consumer disputes the amount of a debt, a "debt collector" must "cease collection" until it "obtains verification of the debt" and mails a copy to the debtor.
Yet, Obduskey alleges, McCarthy neither ceased collecting on the debt nor provided verification. App. 22-23. Instead, the firm initiated a nonjudicial foreclosure action by filing a notice of election and demand with the county public trustee. Ibid. ; see id. , at 39-41. The notice stated the amount due and advised that the public trustee would "sell [the] property for the purpose of paying the indebtedness." Id. , at 40.
Obduskey then filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that the firm had violated the FDCPA by, among other things, failing to comply with the verification procedure. Id. , at 29. The District Court dismissed the suit on the ground that the law firm was not a "debt collector" within the meaning of the Act, so the relevant Act requirements did not apply. Obduskey v. Wells Fargo , 2016 WL 4091174, *3 (D. Colo., July 19, 2016).
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed the dismissal, concluding that the "mere act of enforcing a security interest through a non-judicial foreclosure proceeding does not fall under" the Act. Obduskey v. Wells Fargo , 879 F.3d 1216, 1223 (2018).
Obduskey then petitioned for certiorari. In light of different views among the Circuits about application of the FDCPA to nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings, we granted the petition. Compare ibid. and Vien-Phuong Thi Ho v. ReconTrust Co., NA , 858 F.3d 568, 573 (C.A.9 2016) (holding that an entity whose only role is the enforcement of security interests is not a debt collector under the Act), with Kaymark v. Bank of America, N. A. , 783 F.3d 168, 179 (C.A.3 2015) (holding that such an entity is a debt collector for the purpose of all the Act's requirements), Glazer v. Chase Home Fin. LLC , 704 F.3d 453, 461 (C.A.6 2013) (same), and Wilson v. Draper & Goldberg, P. L. L. C. , 443 F.3d 373, 376 (C.A.4 2006) (same).
II
A
The FDCPA's definitional section, 15 U.S.C. § 1692a, defines a "debt" as:
"any obligation or alleged obligation of a consumer to pay money arising out of a transaction in which the money, property, insurance, or services which are the subject of the transaction are primarily for personal, family, or household purposes." § 1692a(5) (emphasis added).
The Act then sets out the definition of the term "debt collector." § 1692a(6). The first sentence of the relevant paragraph, which we shall call the primary definition, says that the term "debt collector":
"means any person ... in any business the principal purpose of which is the collection of any debts, or who regularly collects or attempts to collect, directly or indirectly, debts owed or asserted to be owed or due another." Ibid.
The third sentence, however, provides what we shall call the limited-purpose definition:
"For the purpose of section 1692f(6) [the] term [debt collector] also includes any person ... in any business the principal purpose of which is the enforcement of security interests." Ibid .
The subsection to which the limited-purpose definition refers, § 1692f(6), prohibits a "debt collector" from:
"Taking or threatening to take any nonjudicial action to effect dispossession or disablement of property if-
"(A) there is no present right to possession of the property ... ;
"(B) there is no present intention to take possession of the property; or
"(C) the property is exempt by law from such dispossession or disablement."
The rest of the Act imposes myriad other requirements on debt collectors. For example, debt collectors may not use or threaten violence, or make repetitive annoying phone calls. § 1692d. Nor can debt collectors make false, deceptive, or misleading representations in connection with a debt, like misstating a debt's "character, amount, or legal status." § 1692e. And, as we have mentioned, if a consumer disputes the amount of a debt, a debt collector must "cease collection" until it "obtains verification of the debt" and mails a copy to the debtor. § 1692g(b).
No one here disputes that McCarthy is, by virtue of its role enforcing security interests, at least subject to the specific prohibitions contained in § 1692f(6). The question is whether other provisions of the Act apply. And they do if, but only if, McCarthy falls within the scope of the Act's primary definition of "debt collector."
B
Three considerations lead us to conclude that McCarthy is not subject to the main coverage of the Act.
First , and most decisive, is the text of the Act itself. As a preliminary matter, we concede that if the FDCPA contained only the primary definition, a business engaged in nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings would qualify as a debt collector for all purposes. We have explained that a home loan is an obligation to pay money, and the purpose of a mortgage is to secure that obligation. See supra , at ----. Foreclosure, in turn, is "the process in which property securing a mortgage is sold to pay off the loan balance due." 2 Dunaway § 15:1. In other words, foreclosure is a means of collecting a debt. And a business pursuing nonjudicial foreclosures would, under the capacious language of the Act's primary definition, be one that "regularly collects or attempts to collect, directly or indirectly, debts." § 1692a(6).
It is true that, as McCarthy points out, nonjudicial foreclosure does not seek "a payment of money from the debtor " but rather from sale of the property itself. Brief for Respondent 17 (emphasis added). But nothing in the primary definition requires that payment on a debt come "from a debtor." The statute speaks simply of the "collection of any debts ... owed or due." § 1692a(6). Moreover, the provision sweeps in both "direc[t]" and "indirec[t]" debt collection. Ibid. So, even if nonjudicial foreclosure were not a direct attempt to collect a debt, because it aims to collect on a consumer's obligation by way of enforcing a security interest, it would be an indirect attempt to collect a debt.
The Act does not, however, contain only the primary definition. And the limited-purpose definition poses a serious, indeed an insurmountable, obstacle to subjecting McCarthy to the main coverage of the Act. It says that "[f]or the purpose of section 1692f(6) " a debt collector "also includes" a business, like McCarthy, "the principal purpose of which is the enforcement of security interests." § 1692a(6) (emphasis added). This phrase, particularly the word "also," strongly suggests that one who does no more than enforce security interests does not fall within the scope of the general definition. Otherwise why add this sentence at all?
It is logically, but not practically, possible that Congress simply wanted to emphasize that the definition of "debt collector" includes those engaged in the enforcement of security interests. But why then would Congress have used the word "also"? And if security-interest enforcers are covered by the primary definition, why would Congress have needed to say anything special about § 1692f(6)? After all, § 1692f(6), just like all the provisions applicable to debt collectors, would have already applied to those who enforce security interests. The reference to § 1692f(6) would on this view be superfluous, and we "generally presum[e] that statutes do not contain surplusage." Arlington Central School Dist. Bd. of Ed. v. Murphy , 548 U.S. 291, 299, n. 1, 126 S.Ct. 2455, 165 L.Ed.2d 526 (2006). By contrast, giving effect to every word of the limited-purpose definition narrows the primary definition, so that the debt-collector-related prohibitions of the FDCPA (with the exception of § 1692f(6)) do not apply to those who, like McCarthy, are engaged in no more than security-interest enforcement.
Second , we think Congress may well have chosen to treat security-interest enforcement differently from ordinary debt collection in order to avoid conflicts with state nonjudicial foreclosure schemes. As Colorado's law makes clear, supra , at ---- - ----, state nonjudicial foreclosure laws provide various protections designed to prevent sharp collection practices and to protect homeowners, see 2 Dunaway § 17:1. And some features of these laws are in tension with aspects of the Act. For example, the FDCPA broadly limits debt collectors from communicating with third parties "in connection with the collection of any debt." § 1692c(b). If this rule were applied to nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings, then advertising a foreclosure sale-an essential element of such schemes-might run afoul of the FDCPA. Given that a core purpose of publicizing a sale is to attract bidders, ensure that the sale price is fair, and thereby protect the borrower from further liability, the result would hardly benefit debtors. See 2 Dunaway § 17:4. To be sure, it may be possible to resolve these conflicts without great harm to either the Act or state foreclosure schemes. See Heintz v. Jenkins , 514 U.S. 291, 296-297, 115 S.Ct. 1489, 131 L.Ed.2d 395 (1995) (observing that the FDCPA's protections may contain certain "implici[t] exception[s]"). But it is also possible, in light of the language it employed, that Congress wanted to avoid the risk of such conflicts altogether.
Third , for those of us who use legislative history to help interpret statutes, the history of the FDCPA supports our reading. When drafting the bill, Congress considered a version that would have subjected security-interest enforcers to the full coverage of the Act. That version defined a debt collector as "any person who engages in any business the principal purpose of which is the collection of any debt or enforcement of security interests. " S. 918, 95th Cong., 1st Sess., § 803(f) (1977) (emphasis added). A different version of the bill, however, would have totally excluded from the Act's coverage "any person who enforces or attempts to enforce a security interest in real or personal property." S. 1130, 95th Cong., 1st Sess., § 802(8)(E) (1977). Given these conflicting proposals, the Act's present language has all the earmarks of a compromise: The prohibitions contained in § 1692f(6) will cover security-interest enforcers, while the other "debt collector" provisions of the Act will not.
These considerations convince us that, but for § 1692f(6), those who engage in only nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings are not debt collectors within the meaning of the Act.
III
Obduskey makes several arguments to the contrary. But, on balance, we do not find them determinative.
First , Obduskey acknowledges that unless the limited-purpose definition is superfluous, it must make some kind of security-interest enforcer a "debt collector" who would not otherwise fall within the primary definition. Reply Brief 11-13. But, according to Obduskey, "repo men"-those who seize automobiles and other personal property in response to nonpayment-fit the bill. See Black's Law Dictionary 1493 (10th ed. 2014) (explaining that "repo" is short for "repossession," which means "retaking property; esp., a seller's retaking of goods sold on credit when the buyer has failed to pay for them"). This is so, he says, because repossession often entails only "limited communication" with the debtor, as when the repo man sneaks up and "tows a car in the middle of the night." Brief for Petitioner 25-26, and n. 13. And because, according to Obduskey, the language of § 1692f(6), which forbids "[t]aking or threatening to take any nonjudicial action to effect dispossession or disablement of property," applies more naturally to the seizure of personal property than to nonjudicial foreclosure. (Emphasis added.)
But we do not see why that is so. The limited-purpose provision speaks broadly of "the enforcement of security interests," § 1692a(6), not "the enforcement of security interests in personal property "; if Congress meant to cover only the repo man, it could have said so. Moreover, Obduskey's theory fails to save the limited-purpose definition from superfluity. As we have just discussed, supra , at ---- - ----, if the Act contained only the primary definition, enforcement of a security interest would at least be an indirect collection of a debt. The same may well be true of repo activity, a form of security-interest enforcement, as the point of repossessing property that secures a debt is to collect some or all of the value of the defaulted debt. And while Obduskey argues that the language of § 1692f(6) fits more comfortably with repossession of personal property than nonjudicial foreclosure, we think it at least plausible that "threatening" to foreclose on a consumer's home without having legal entitlement to do so is the kind of "nonjudicial action" without "present right to possession" prohibited by that section. § 1692f(6)(A). (We need not, however, here decide precisely what conduct runs afoul of § 1692f(6).)
We are also unmoved by Obduskey's argument that repossession would not fall under the primary definition because it generally involves only limited communication with the debtor. For one thing, while some of the FDCPA's substantive protections apply where there has been a "communicat[ion]" with a consumer, see, e.g. , § 1692c, the primary definition of debt collector turns on the "collection of ... debts," without express reference to communication, § 1692a(6). For another, while Obduskey imagines a silent repo man striking in the dead of night, state law often requires communication with a debtor during the repossession process, such as notifying a consumer of a sale. NCLC, Repossessions § 10.4 (9th ed. 2017).
Second , Obduskey points to the Act's venue provision, 15 U.S.C. § 1692i(a), which states that "[a]ny debt collector who brings any legal action on a debt against any consumer shall ... in the case of an action to enforce an interest in real property securing the consumer's obligation, bring such action only in a judicial district" where the "property is located." (Emphasis added.) This provision, he says, makes clear that a person who judicially enforces a real-property-related security interest is a debt collector; hence, a person who nonjudicially enforces such an interest must also be a debt collector. Indeed, he adds, this subsection "only makes sense" if those who enforce security interests in real property are debt collectors subject to all prohibitions and requirements that come with that designation. Brief for Petitioner 21.
This argument, however, makes too much of too little. To begin with, the venue section has no direct application in this case, for here we consider nonjudicial foreclosure. And whether those who judicially enforce mortgages fall within the scope of the primary definition is a question we can leave for another day. See 879 F.3d at 1221-1222 (noting that the availability of a deficiency judgment is a potentially relevant distinction between judicial and nonjudicial foreclosures).
More to the point, the venue provision does nothing to alter the definition of a debt collector. Rather, it applies whenever a "debt collector" brings a "legal action ... to enforce an interest in real property." § 1692i(a)(1). In other words, the provision anticipates that a debt collector can bring a judicial action respecting real property, but it nowhere says that an entity is a debt collector because it brings such an action. Obduskey suggests that under our interpretation this provision will capture a null set. We think not. A business that qualifies as a debt collector based on other activities (say, because it "regularly collects or attempts to collect" unsecured credit card debts, § 1692a(6) ) would have to comply with the venue provision if it also filed "an action to enforce an interest in real property," § 1692i(a)(1). Here, however, the only basis alleged for concluding that McCarthy is a debt collector under the Act is its role in nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings.
Third , Obduskey argues that even if "simply enforcing a security interest" falls outside the primary definition, McCarthy engaged in more than security-interest enforcement by sending notices that any ordinary homeowner would understand as an attempt to collect a debt backed up by the threat of foreclosure. Brief for Petitioner 15-16; see Reply Brief 13. We do not doubt the gravity of a letter informing a homeowner that she may lose her home unless she pays her outstanding debts. But here we assume that the notices sent by McCarthy were antecedent steps required under state law to enforce a security interest. See supra , at ----. Indeed, every nonjudicial foreclosure scheme of which we are aware involves notices to the homeowner. See 2 Dunaway § 17:4 (describing state procedures concerning notice of sale). And because he who wills the ends must will the necessary means, we think the Act's (partial) exclusion of "the enforcement of security interests" must also exclude the legal means required to do so. This is not to suggest that pursuing nonjudicial foreclosure is a license to engage in abusive debt collection practices like repetitive nighttime phone calls; enforcing a security interest does not grant an actor blanket immunity from the Act. But given that we here confront only steps required by state law, we need not consider what other conduct (related to, but not required for, enforcement of a security interest) might transform a security-interest enforcer into a debt collector subject to the main coverage of the Act.
Finally , Obduskey fears that our decision will open a loophole, permitting creditors and their agents to engage in a host of abusive practices forbidden by the Act. States, however, can and do guard against such practices, for example, by requiring notices, review by state officials such as the public trustee, and limited court supervision. See supra , at ---- - ----, ----. Congress may think these state protections adequate, or it may choose to expand the reach of the FDCPA. Regardless, for the reasons we have given, we believe that the statute exempts entities engaged in no more than the "enforcement of security interests" from the lion's share of its prohibitions. And we must enforce the statute that Congress enacted.
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the same issue as Sherman v. United States, ante, p. 369, decided this day: Should petitioner’s conviction be set aside on the ground that as a matter of law the defense of entrapment was established? Cf. Sorrells v. United States, 287 U. S. 435. Petitioner was convicted on three counts, two of which charged him with the illegal sale of narcotics and one with conspiracy to make a sale. The issue of entrapment went to the jury, and conviction followed. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. 236 F. 2d 601. We granted "certiorari. 352 U. S. 1000.
The evidence discloses the following events. On January 14, 1954, petitioner was introduced to government agent Marshall by a government informer, Kowel. Although petitioner had known Kowel for approximately four years, he was unaware of Kowel’s undercover activities. Marshall was introduced as a big narcotics buyer. Both Marshall and petitioner testified concerning the ensuing conversation. Marshall testified that he immediately made it clear that he wanted to talk about buying large quantities of high-grade narcotics and that if petitioner were not interested, the conversation would end at once. Instead of leaving, petitioner questioned Marshall on his knowledge of the narcotics traffic and then boasted that while he was primarily a gambler, “he knew someone whom he considered high up in the narcotics traffic to whom he would introduce me [Marshall] and that I was able to get — and I can quote this — ‘88 per cent pure heroin’ from this source.” Marshall also stated that petitioner gave him a telephone number where he could be reached. In his testimony petitioner admitted that he was a gambler and had told Marshall that through his gambling contacts he knew about the narcotics traffic. He denied that he had then known any available source of narcotics or that he said he could obtain narcotics for Marshall at that time. Petitioner explained that he met Marshall only to help Kowel impress Marshall. Petitioner also said that it was Marshall who gave him the telephone number. It is noteworthy that nowhere in his testimony did petitioner state that during the conversation either Marshall or Kowel tried to persuade him to enter the narcotics traffic. In the six weeks following the conversation just related Marshall and petitioner met or spoke with each other at least ten times; petitioner kept telling Marshall that he was trying to make his contact but was having trouble doing so. Finally, on March 1, 1954, petitioner introduced Marshall to Seifert, who sold some heroin to Marshall on the next day. Petitioner even loaned his sister’s car to Seifert in order to get the narcotics. It was this sale for which petitioner was convicted.
In this case entrapment could have occurred in only one of two ways. Either Marshall induced petitioner, or Kowel did. As for Marshall, petitioner has conceded here that the jury could have found that when petitioner met Marshall he was ready and willing to search out a source of narcotics and to bring about a sale. As for Kowel, petitioner testified that the informer engaged in a campaign to persuade him to sell narcotics by using the lure of easy income. Petitioner argues that this undisputed testimony explained why he was willing to deal with Marshall and so established entrapment as a matter of law. However, his testimony alone could not have this effect. While petitioner presented enough evidence for the jury to consider, they were entitled to disbelieve him in regard to Kowel and so find for the Government on the issue of guilt. Therefore, the trial court properly submitted the case to the jury.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
See 26 U. S. C. §§2553 (a), 2554 (a); 21 U. S. C. § 174, and 18 U. S. G. § 2.
The charge to the jury was not in issue here.
Well might petitioner concede this, for despite petitioner’s version of the meeting and his explanation for being there, the jury could have believed Marshall and have inferred from his narration that petitioner needed no persuasion to seek a narcotics buyer.
We conclude from the argument that neither party even attempted to subpoena Kowel.
For the reasons stated in Sherman v. United States, ante, p. 369, we decline to consider the contention that this case should be reversed and remanded to the District Court for a determination of the issue of entrapment by the trial judge. This issue was never raised by the parties. The question of entrapment was submitted to the jury, and the charge to the jury was not put in issue by petitioner either here or in the Court of Appeals.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Rutledge
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The action is for treble damages incurred by virtue of alleged violation of the Sherman Act, §§ 1 and 2. 26 Stat. 209, 38 Stat. 731,15 U. S. C. §§ 1,2, 7,15. The case comes here on certiorari, 331 U. S. 800, from affirmance by the Circuit Court of Appeals, 159 F. 2d 71, of a judgment of the District Court, 64 F. Supp. 265. That judgment dismissed the amended complaint as insufficient to state a cause of action arising under the Act. In this posture of the case, the legal issues are to be determined upon the allegations of the amended complaint.
The main question is whether, in the circumstances pleaded, California sugar refiners who sell sugar in interstate commerce may agree among themselves to pay a uniform price for sugar beets grown in California without incurring liability to the local beetgrowers under the Act. Narrowly the question is whether the refiners’ agreement together with the allegations made concerning its effects shows a conspiracy to monopolize and to restrain interstate trade and commerce or one thus affecting only purely local trade and commerce.
The material facts pleaded, which stand admitted as if they had been proved for the purposes of this proceeding, may be summarized as follows: Petitioners’ farms are located in northern California, within the area lying north of the thirty-sixth parallel. The only practical market available to beet growers in that area was sale to one of three refiners. Respondent was one of these. Each season growers contract with one of the refiners to grow beets and to sell their entire crops to the refiner under standard form contracts drawn by it. Since prior to 1939 petitioners have thus contracted with respondent.
The refiners control the supply of sugar beet seed. Both by virtue of this fact and by the terms of the contracts, the farmers are required to buy seed from the refiner. The seed can be planted only on land specifically covered by the contract. Any excess must be returned to the refiner in good order at the end of the planting season.
The standard contract gives the refiner the right to supervise the planting, cultivation, irrigation and harvesting of the beets, including the right to ascertain quality during growing and harvesting seasons by sampling and polarizing. Before delivering beets to the company, the farmers must make preliminary preparations for processing them into raw sugar. The refiner has the option to reject beets if the contract conditions are not complied with and if the beets are not suitable in its judgment for the manufacture of sugar.
Prior to 1939 the contract fixed the grower’s price by a formula combining two variables, a percentage of the refiner’s net returns per hundred pounds from sales of sugar and the sugar content of the individual grower’s beets determined according to the refiner’s test.
Sometime before the 1939 season the three refiners entered into an agreement to pay uniform prices for sugar beets. The mechanics of the price-fixing arrangement were simple. The refiners adopted identical form contracts and began to compute beet prices on the basis of the average net returns of all three rather than the separate returns of the purchasing refiner. Inevitably all would pay the same price for beets of the same quality.
Since the refiners controlled the seed supply and the only practical market for beets grown in northern California, when the new contracts were offered to the farmers, they had the choice of either signing or abandoning sugar beet farming. Petitioners accordingly contracted with respondent under this plan during the 1939, 1940 and 1941 seasons. The plan was discontinued after the 1941 season. Because beet prices were determined for the three seasons with reference to the combined returns of the three refiners, the prices received by petitioners for those seasons were lower than if respondent, the most efficient of the three, had based its prices on its separate returns.
The foregoing allegations set forth the essential features of the contractual arrangements between the refiners and the growers and of the agreement among the refiners themselves. Other allegations were made to complete the showing of violation and injury. They relate specifically to the peculiarly integrated character of the industry, effects of the arrangements upon interstate commerce, and the relation between the violations charged and the injuries suffered by petitioners.
With reference to the industry in general, it was stated that sugar beets were grown during the seasons 1938 to 1942 on large acreages not only in northern California but also in Utah, Colorado, Michigan, Idaho, Illinois and other states. The crops so grown, when harvested, were not “sold in central markets as were potatoes, onions, corn, grain, fruit and berries, but were produced by growers under contract with manufacturers or processors and immediately upon being harvested were delivered to these manufacturers and taken to their beet sugar refineries where the sugar beets were manufactured by an elaborate process into raw sugar by the said manufacturers, who thereafter sold the resulting sugar in interstate commerce.” Then follow the allegations summarized above in note 2 concerning the bulky and semiperishable nature of sugar beets, the impossibility of transporting them over long distances or of storing them cheaply or safely, their rapid deterioration when ripe, and the necessity for prompt harvesting and marketing. These allegations must be taken as intended and effective to put the agreements complained of in the general setting of the industry’s unique structure and special mode of operation.
The specific allegation is added that the sugar manufactured by respondent and the other northern California refiners from beets grown in the region “was, during all of said period [1938 to 1942], sold in interstate commerce throughout the United States.”
By way of legal as well as ultimate factual conclusions the amended complaint charged that respondent had unlawfully conspired with the other northern California refiners to “monopolize and restrain trade and commerce among the several states and to unlawfully fix prices to be paid the growers... all in violation of the anti-trust laws.. and that each refiner no longer competed against the others as to the price to be paid the growers, but paid the same price on the agreed uniform basis of average net returns.
There were further charges that prior to 1939 the northern California refiners had “competed in interstate commerce with each other as to the performance, ability and efficiency of their manufacturing, sales and executive departments, and each strove to increase sales return and decrease expenses,” with the result that for 1938 respondent secured substantially greater “net gross receipts of sales of sugar” than the other refiners. These in turn were reflected in the payment of 29% to 52% cents per ton more to petitioners and other growers dealing with respondent than was paid by the other refiners to their growers.
However, for the seasons 1939, 1940 and 1941, under the new uniform contracts and prices, “there was no longer any such competition... Instead it was alleged upon information and belief that, as a result of the alleged conspiracy, respondent did not conduct its interstate operations as carefully and efficiently as previously or “as it would have had said conspiracy not existed.” In consequence, respondent received less in sales returns for raw sugar and incurred greater expenses than if competition had been free, and petitioners “did not receive the reasonable value of their sugar beets.”
Further charges were that as “a direct, expected and planned result of said conspiracy, the free and natural flow of commerce in interstate trade was intentionally hindered and obstructed,” so that instead of the refiners “producing and selling raw sugar in interstate commerce... in competition with each other... they became illegally associated in a common plan wherein they pooled their receipts and expenses and frustrated the free enterprise system...”; all incentive to efficiency, economy and individual enterprise disappeared; and the refiners operated, “in so far as the growers were concerned,” as if they were one corporation owning and controlling all factories in the area, but with three completely separated overheads and with none of the efficiency that consolidation into one corporation might bring.
We are not concerned presently with the allegations relating to the injuries and amounts of damages inflicted upon petitioners, except to say that they are sufficient to present those questions for support by proof, if the allegations made to show a cause of action arising under the statute are sufficient for that purpose.
In our judgment the amended complaint states a cause of action arising under the Sherman Act, §§ 1 and 2, and the complaint was improperly dismissed.
I.
Broadly petitioners regard the entire sequence of growing the beets, refining them into sugar and distributing it, under the arrangements set forth, as a chain of events so integrated and taking place in interstate commerce or in such close and intimate connection with it that, for purposes of applying the Sherman Act, the complete sequence is an entirety and no part of it can be segregated from the remainder so as to put it beyond the statute’s grasp.
Respondent, on the contrary, broadly severs the phase or phases of growing and selling beets from the later ones of refining them and of marketing the sugar. The initial growing process together with sale of the beets, and it would seem also the intermediate stage of refining, are taken to be “purely local,” since all occurred entirely within California; therefore were wholly intrastate events; and consequently were beyond the Sherman Act’s reach.
Connected with this severance is the assertion that the complaint alleges no monopolistic or restrictive effects upon interstate commerce, but only such effects in the intrastate phases of the industry.
Much stress is laid upon the so-called interruption of the sequence at the refining stage. Prior to the interruption only beets are involved, afterward only sugar. Since the two commodities are different and all that affects the beets takes place in California, including the restraints alleged upon their sale, the trade and commerce in beets is wholly distinct from that in sugar and is entirely local, as are therefore the restraint and monopolization of that trade. Admittedly once the beets are converted into sugar and the sugar starts on its interstate journey to the tables of the nation, interstate commerce becomes involved. But only then is it affected, and nothing occurring before the journey begins or at any rate before the beets become sugar substantially affects or, for purposes of the statute’s application, has relevance to that commerce.
Thus sugar together with its interstate sale and transportation is absolutely divorced from sugar beets, their production, sale and delivery to the refiner. Manufacture breaks the relationship and with it all consequences growing out of the restraints for the interstate processes and the purposes of the statute. In other words, since the restraints precede the interstate marketing of the sugar and immediately affect only the local marketing of the beets, they have no restrictive effect upon the trade and commerce in sugar.
This very nearly denies that sugar beets contain sugar. It certainly denies that the price of beets and restrictions upon it have any substantial relation in fact or in legal significance for the statute’s purposes to the price of sugar sold interstate, when the restrictions take place within the confines of a single state and before the interstate marketing process begins.
II.
The broad form of respondent’s argument cannot be accepted. It is a reversion to conceptions formerly held but no longer effective to restrict either Congress’ power, Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. Ill, or the scope of the Sherman Act’s coverage. The artificial and mechanical separation of “production” and “manufacturing” from “commerce,” without regard to their economic continuity, the effects of the former two upon the latter, and the varying methods by which the several processes are organized, related and carried on in different industries or indeed within a single industry, no longer suffices to put either production or manufacturing and refining processes beyond reach of Congress’ authority or of the statute.
It is true that the first decision under the Sherman Act applied those mechanical distinctions with substantially nullifying effects for coverage both of the power and of the Act. United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1. Like this one, that case involved the refining and interstate distribution of sugar. But because the refining was done wholly within a single state, the case was held to be one involving “primarily” only “production” or “manufacturing,” although the vast part of the sugar produced was sold and shipped interstate, and this was the main end of the enterprise. The interstate distributing phase, however, was regarded as being only “'incidentally,” “indirectly,” or “remotely” involved; and to be “incidental,” “indirect,” or “remote” was to be, under the prevailing climate, beyond Congress’ power to regulate, and hence outside the scope of the Sherman Act. See Wickard v. Filburn, supra, at 119 et seq.
The Knight decision made the statute a dead letter for more than a decade and, had its full force remained unmodified, the Act today would be a weak instrument, as would also the power of Congress, to reach evils in all the vast operations of our gigantic national industrial system antecedent to interstate sale and transportation of manufactured products. Indeed, it and succeeding decisions, embracing the same artificially drawn lines, produced a series of consequences for the exercise of national power over industry conducted on a national scale which the evolving nature of our industrialism foredoomed to reversal.
We do not stop to review again in detail the familiar story of the progression of decision to that end, perhaps not told elsewhere more succinctly or pertinently than in Wickard v. Filburn, supra. Suffice it to say that after coming back to life again in the Northern Securities case, 193 U. S. 197, for matters of transportation, the Sherman Act had a second rebirth in 1911 with the decisions in Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, and United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U. S. 106. Cf. United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn., 322 U. S. 533, 553 et seq.
Not thereafter could it be foretold with assurance that application of the labels of “production” and “manufacture,” “incidental” and “indirect,” would throw protective covering over those processes against the Act’s consequences. Very soon also came the Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342, again in the field of transportation, but inevitably to add force and scope to the Standard Oil and American Tobacco rulings that manufacturing companies lay within the reach of the power and of the statute, deriving no immunity for their conduct violative of the prohibitions merely from the fact of engaging in that character of activity.
With extension of the Shreveport influence to general application, it was necessary no longer to search for some sharp point or line where interstate commerce ends and intrastate commerce begins, in order to decide whether Congress’ commands were effective. For the essence of the affectation doctrine was that the exact location of this line made no difference, if the forbidden effects flowed across it to the injury of interstate commerce or to the hindrance or defeat of congressional policy regarding it.
The formulation of the Shreveport doctrine was a great turning point in the construction of the commerce clause, comparable in this respect to the landmark of Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299. For, while the latter gave play for state power to work in the field of commerce, the former broke bonds confining Congress’ power and made it an effective instrument for fulfilling its purpose. The Shreveport doctrine cut Congress loose from the haltering labels of “production” and “manufacturing” and gave it rein to reach those processes when they were used to defy its purposes regarding interstate trade and commerce. In doing so the decision substituted judgment as to practical impeding effects upon that commerce for rubrics concerning its boundaries as the basic criterion of effective congressional action.
The transition, however, was neither smooth nor immediately complete, particularly for applying the Sherman Act. The old ideas persisted in specific applications as late as the 1930’s. But after the historic decisions of 1911, and even more following the Shreveport decision, a constantly growing number of others rejected "the idea that production and manufacturing are “purely local” and hence beyond the Act’s compass, simply because those phases of a combination restraining or monopolizing trade were carried on within the confines of a single state or, of course, of several states. The struggle for supremacy between the conflicting approaches was long continued. But more and more until the climax came in the late 1930’s, this Court refused to decide those issues of power and coverage merely by asking whether the restraints or monopolistic practices, shown to have the forbidden effects on commerce, took place in a phase or phases of the total economic process which, apart from other phases and from the outlawed effects, occurred only in intrastate activities.
In view of this evolution, the inquiry whether the restraint occurs in one phase or another, interstate or intrastate, of the total economic process is now merely a preliminary step, except for those situations in which no aspect of or substantial effect upon interstate commerce can be found in the sum of the facts presented. For, given a restraint of the type forbidden by the Act, though arising in the course of intrastate or local activities, and a showing of actual or threatened effect upon interstate commerce, the vital question becomes whether the effect is sufficiently substantial and adverse to Congress’ paramount policy declared in the Act’s terms to constitute a forbidden consequence. If so, the restraint must fall, and the injuries it inflicts upon others become remediable under the Act’s prescribed methods, including the treble damage provision.
The Shreveport doctrine did not contemplate that restraints or burdens become or remain immune merely because they take place as events prior to the point in time when interstate commerce begins. Exactly the contrary is comprehended, for it is the effect upon that commerce, not the moment when its cause arises, which the doctrine was fashioned to reach.
Obviously therefore the criteria respondent would have us follow furnish no basis for reaching the result it seeks. Only by returning to the Knight approach, and severing the intrastate events relating to the beets, including the price restraints, from the later events relating to the sugar, including its interstate sale, could we conclude there were no forbidden restraints or practices touching interstate commerce here. At this late day we are not willing to take that long backward step.
III.
We turn then to consider the questions posed upon the amended complaint that are relevant under the presently controlling criteria. These are whether the allegations disclose a restraint and monopolistic practices of the types outlawed by the Sherman Act; whether, if so, those acts are shown to produce the forbidden effects upon commerce; and whether the effects create injury for which recovery of treble damages by the petitioners is authorized.
It is clear that the agreement is the sort of combination condemned by the Act, even though the price-fixing was by purchasers, and the persons specially injured under the treble damage claim are sellers, not customers or consumers. And even if it is assumed that the final aim of the conspiracy was control of the local sugar beet market, it does not follow that it is outside the scope of the Sherman Act. For monopolization of local business, when achieved by restraining interstate commerce, is condemned by the Act. Stevens Co. v. Foster & Kleiser, 311 U. S. 255, 261. And a conspiracy with the ultimate object of fixing local retail prices is within the Act, if the means adopted for its accomplishment reach beyond the boundaries of one state. United States v. Frankfort Distilleries, 324 U. S.293.
The statute does not confine its protection to consumers, or to purchasers, or to competitors, or to sellers. Nor does it immunize the outlawed acts because they are done by any of these. Cf. United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150; American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U. S. 781. The Act is comprehensive in its terms and coverage, protecting all who are made victims of the forbidden practices by whomever they may be perpetrated. Cf. United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn., supra, at 553.
Nor is the amount of the nation’s sugar industry which the California refiners control relevant, so long as control is exercised effectively in the area concerned, Indiana Farmer’s Guide v. Prairie Farmer, 293 U. S. 268, 279, United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U. S. 218, 225, the conspiracy being shown to affect interstate commerce adversely to Congress’ policy. Congress’ power to keep the interstate market free of goods produced under conditions inimical to the general welfare, United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 115, may be exercised in individual cases without showing any specific effect upon interstate commerce, United States v. Walsh, 331 U. S. 432, 437-438; it is enough that the individual activity when multiplied into a general practice is subject to federal control, Wickard v. Filburn, supra, or that it contains a threat to the interstate economy that requires preventive regulation. Consolidated Edison Co. v. Labor Board, 305 U.S. 197, 221-222.
Moreover, as we said in the Frankfort Distilleries case, “... there is an obvious distinction to be drawn between a course of conduct wholly within a state and conduct which is an inseparable element of a larger program dependent for its success upon activity which affects commerce between the states.” 324 U. S. 293, 297. That statement is as true of the situation now presented as of the one then before us, although instead of restraining trade in order to control a local market petitioners control a local market in which they purchase. For this is not a case involving only “a course of conduct wholly within a state”; it is rather one involving “conduct which is an inseparable element of a larger program dependent for its success upon activity which affects commerce between the states,” and in such a case it is not material that the source of the forbidden effects upon that commerce arises in one phase or another of that program.
In view of all this, it is difficult to understand respondent’s argument that the complaint does not allege that the conspiracy had any effect on interstate commerce, except on the basis of the discarded criteria discussed in Part II above. The contention ignores specific allegations which we have set forth. But apart from that fact it rests only on a single grounding, which in the circumstances of this case is little, if any, more than a different phrasing of the criteria supplanted by the Shreveport approach.
This is that the change undergone in the manufacturing stage when the beets are converted into sugar makes the case different, for the Sherman Act’s objects, than it would be if the identical commodity were concerned from the planting stage through the phase of interstate distribution, e. g., if the commodity were wheat, as was true in Wickard v. Filburn, supra, or raisins purchased by packers from growers and shipped interstate after packing, cf. Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341, 350.
We do not stop to consider specific and varied situations in which a change of form amounting to one in the essential character of the commodity takes place by manufacturing or processing intermediate the stages of producing and disposing of the raw material intrastate and later interstate distribution of the finished product; or the effects, if any, of such a change in particular situations unlike the one now presented. For mere change in the form of the commodity or even complete change in essential quality by intermediate refining, processing or manufacturing does not defeat application of the statute to practices occurring either during those processes or before they begin, when they have the effects forbidden by the Act. Again, as we have said, the vital thing is the effect on commerce, not the precise point at which the restraint occurs or begins to take effect in a scheme as closely knit as this in all phases of the industry. Hence in this case the mere fact that the price fixing related directly to the beets did not sever or render insubstantial its effect subsequently in the sale of sugar.
Indeed that severance would not necessarily take place if the manufacturing stage had produced a much greater change in commodities than was effected here. But under the facts characterizing this industry’s operation and the tightening of controls in this producing area by the new agreements and understandings, there can be no question that their restrictive consequences were projected substantially into the interstate distribution of the sugar, as the amended complaint repeatedly alleges. Indeed they permeated the entire structure of the industry in all its phases, intrastate and interstate.
We deal here, as petitioners say, with an industry tightly interwoven from sale of the seed through all the intermediate stages to and including interstate sale and distribution of the sugar. In the middle of all these processes and dominating all of them stand the refiners. They control the supply and price of seed, the quantity sold and the volume of land planted, the processes of cultivation and harvesting, the quantity of beets purchased and rejected, the refining, and the distribution of sugar both interstate and local.
Some of these controls have been built up by taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by the industry’s unique character, both natural and in its general pattern and habits of organization; others by utilizing the key positions these advantages give the refiners to put contractual restraints upon the growers by their separate actions; and still greater ones by the refiners’ ability, by virtue of their central and dominating place thus achieved, to agree among themselves upon further restrictions.
Even without the uniform price provision and with full competition among the three refiners, their position is a dominating one. The growers' only competitive outlet is the one which exists when the refiners compete among themselves. There is no other market. The farmers’ only alternative to dealing with one of the three refiners is to stop growing beets. They can neither plant nor sell except at the refiners’ pleasure and on their terms. The refiners thus effectively control the quantity of beets grown, harvested and marketed, and consequently of sugar sold from the area in interstate commerce, even when they compete with each other. They dominate the entire industry. And their dominant position, together with the obstacles created by the necessity for large capital investment and the time required to make it productive, makes outlet through new competition practically impossible. Upon the allegations, it is absolutely so for any single growing season. A tighter or more all-inclusive monopolistic position hardly can be conceived.
When therefore the refiners cease entirely to compete with each other in all stages of the industry prior to marketing the sugar, the last vestige of local competition is removed and with it the only competitive opportunity for the grower to market his product. Moreover it is inconceivable that the monopoly so created will have no effects for the lessening of competition in the later interstate phases of the over-all activity or that the effects in those phases will have no repercussions upon the prior ones, including the price received by the growers.
There were indeed two distinct effects flowing from the agreement for paying uniform growers’ prices, one immediately upon the price received by the grower rendering it devoid of all competitive influence in amount; the other, the necessary and inevitable effect of that agreement, in the setting of the industry as a whole, to reduce competition in the interstate distribution of sugar.
The idea that stabilization of prices paid for the only raw material consumed in an industry has no influence toward reducing competition in the distribution of the finished product, in an integrated industry such as this, is impossible to accept. By their agreement the combination of refiners acquired not only a monopoly of the raw material but also and thereby control of the quantity of sugar manufactured, sold and shipped interstate from the northern California producing area. In substance and roughly, if not precisely, they allocated among themselves the market for California beets substantially upon the basis of quotas competitively established among them at the time the uniform price arrangement was agreed upon. It is hardly likely that any refiner would have entered into an agreement with its only competitors, the effect of which would have been to drive away its growers, or therefore that many of the latter would have good reason to shift their dealings within the closed circle. Thus control of quantity in the interstate market was enhanced.
This effect was further magnified by the fact that the widely scattered location of sugar beet growing regions and their different accessibilities to market give the refiners of each region certainly some advantage over growers and refiners in other regions, and undoubtedly large ones over those most distant from the segment of the interstate market served by reason of being nearest to hand.
Finally, the interdependence and inextricable relationship between the interstate and the intrastate effects of the combination and monopoly are shown perhaps most clearly by the provision of the uniform price agreement which ties in the price paid for beets with the price received for sugar. The percentage factor of interstate receipts from sugar which the grower’s contract specifies shall enter his price for beets makes that price dependent upon the price of sugar sold interstate. The uniform agreement’s effect, when added to this, is to deprive the grower of the advantage of the individual efficiency of the refiner with which he deals, in this case the most efficient of the three, and of the price that refiner receives. It is also to reflect in the grower’s price the consequences of the combination’s effects for reducing competition among the refiners in the interstate distribution of sugar.
In sum, the restraint and its monopolistic effects were reflected throughout each stage of the industry, permeating its entire structure. This was the necessary and inevitable effect of the agreement among the refiners to pay uniform prices for beets, in the circumstances of this case. Those monopolistic effects not only deprived the beet growers of any competitive opportunity for disposing of their crops by the immediate operation of the uniform price provision; they also tended to increase control over the quantity of sugar sold interstate; and finally by the tie-in provision they interlaced those interstate effects with the price paid for the beets.
These restrictive and monopolistic effects, resulting necessarily from the practices allegedly intended to produce them, fall squarely within the Sherman Act’s prohibitions, creating the very injuries they were designed to prevent, both to the public and to private individuals.
It does not matter, contrary to respondent’s view, that the growers contracting with the other two refiners may have been benefited, rather than harmed, by the combination's effects, even if that result is assumed to have followed. It is enough that these petitioners have suffered the injuries for which the statutory remedy is afforded. For the test of the legality and immunity of such a combination, in view of the statute’s policy, is not that some others than the members of the combination have profited by its operation. It is rather whether the statute’s policy has been violated in a manner to produce the general consequences it forbids for the public and the special consequences for particular individuals essential to the recovery of treble damages. Both types of injury are present in this case, for in addition to the restraints put upon the public interest in the interstate sale of sugar, enhancing the refiner’s controls, there are special injuries affecting the petitioners resulting from those effects as well as from the immediate operation of the uniform price arrangement itself.
The fact that that arrangement is the source of both effects cannot be taken to mean that neither is outlawed by the statute, in view of their interdependence and the completely unified and comprehensive nature of the scheme as respects its interstate and intrastate phases. The policy of the Act is competition. It cannot be flouted, as has been done here, by artificial nomenclatural severance of the plan’s forbidden effects, any more than by such a segmentation of the integrated industry into legally unrelated phases. Nor can the severance be made in such a case merely by virtue of the fact that a refining or manufacturing process constitutes an intermediate stage in the whole.
To compare an industry so completely interlocked in all its stages, by all-inclusive contract as well as by industrial structure and organization, with one like producing, processing, and marketing fruits, vegetables, corn, or other products, susceptible of various uses and under conditions affording varied outlets for market, both local and interstate, in the raw or refined state, in which neither such a contractual nor such an industrial integration exists, is to ignore the facts of industrial life. So is it also to make conclusive comparisons with other industries in which the manufacturing process requires and has available a greater variety of raw materials for making the finished product, and involves a longer and more extensive process of change, than does extracting the sugar content of beets to make raw sugar.
We deal with the facts before us. With respect to others which may be significantly different, for purposes of violating the statute’s terms and policy, we await another day.
IV.
Little more remains to be said concerning the amended complaint. The allegations comprehend all that we have set forth. We do not stop to restate them, leaving their substance at this point for reference to the summary made at the beginning of this opinion.
Respondent has presented its argument as if the amended complaint omitted all reference to restraint or effects upon interstate trade in sugar and confined these allegations to the trade in beets. It is true that at the hearing which followed filing of the amended complaint, petitioners at one point, apparently in response to some intimation from the court, eliminated the words “sugar and sugar beets” from one of the allegations that the refiners had conspired to “monopolize and restrain trade and commerce among the several states....”
Respondent takes this elision as effective to constitute an express disavowal by petitioners of any charge of restraint of trade in sugar, the only interstate commodity. The amendment did not eliminate or affect numerous other allegations which in effect repeated the charge in various forms and with reference to various specific effects upon interstate as well as local phases of the commerce. Some of these explicitly specified trade or commerce in sugar, others designated the trade affected as interstate, which on the facts could mean only sugar. Moreover, petitioners deny the disavowal, both in intent and in effect. They say the elision was insubstantial, since in the clause from which it was made the allegation of conspiracy to monopolize and restrain interstate commerce remained, and the only interstate trade was in sugar. We think the amendment, for whatever reason made, was not effective to constitute a disavowal, disclaimer or waiver.
The allegations are comprehensive and, for the greater part, specific concerning both the restraints and their effects. They clearly state a cause of action under the Sherman Act.
The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cause is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
The original complaint contained three counts, the first alleging violations of the Sherman Act and the second and third charging breach of contracts made in 1940 and 1941 respectively. In order to expedite decision and review upon the Sherman Act contention, by stipulation- the amended complaint was filed setting forth, with an amendment to be noted, see note 5, only the allegations of the Sherman Act count. The stipulation provided for following this course without prejudice to further assertion by petitioners of rights under the two contract counts within a specified period following final determination of the Sherman Act issues.
It was alleged that the beets, when harvested, are "bulky and semi-perishable and incapable of being transported over long distances or of being stored cheaply or safely for any extended period.... when ripe, deteriorated rapidly if kept in the ground and not harvested, and it was necessary to harvest them promptly when matured.”
There were also allegations that initial outlay, annual upkeep and operating expenses, and time required for erecting and equipping a refinery, were so great that no competition from any new refinery could be expected short of two years at best; that the three refiners had a monopoly in the area of the supply of seeds and of refining; and that no grower in the region could sell beets at a profit except to one of the three refiners.
These include cutting off the beet tops, trimming the crowns in a specified way, and removing all foreign substances likely to interfere with factory work.
Net returns from sugar sales were measured by gross sales price less selling expenses directly applicable to sugar. Monthly settlements were made for beets delivered during the preceding month on the estimated net returns of the refiner. But final settlement had to be deferred until the end of the season when net returns could be accurately determined.
At this point the words “in sugar and sugar beets
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This action requires us to consider the circumstances under which a manufacturer of a generic drug, designed to duplicate the appearance of a similar drug marketed by a competitor under a registered trademark, can be held vicariously liable for infringement of that trademark by pharmacists who dispense the generic drug.
I
In 1955, respondent Ives Laboratories, Inc. (Ives), received a patent on the drug cyclandelate, a vasodilator used in long-term therapy for peripheral and cerebral vascular diseases. Until its patent expired in 1972, Ives retained the exclusive right to make and sell the drug, which it did under the registered trademark CYCLOSPASMOL. Ives marketed the drug, a white powder, to wholesalers, retail pharmacists, and hospitals in colored gelatin capsules. Ives arbitrarily selected a blue capsule, imprinted with “Ives 4124,” for its 200 mg dosage and a combination blue-red capsule, imprinted with “Ives 4148,” for its 400 mg dosage.
After Ives’ patent expired, several generic drug manufacturers, including petitioners Premo Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Inc., Inwood Laboratories, Inc., and MD Pharmaceutical Co., Inc. (collectively the generic manufacturers), began marketing cyclandelate. They intentionally copied the appearance of the CYCLOSPASMOL capsules, selling cyclandelate in 200 mg and 400 mg capsules in colors identical to those selected by Ives.
The marketing methods used by Ives reflect normal industry practice. Because cyclandelate can be obtained only by prescription, Ives does not direct its advertising to the ultimate consumer. Instead, Ives’ representatives pay personal visits to physicians, to whom they distribute product literature and “starter samples.” Ives initially directed these efforts toward convincing physicians that CYCLOSPASMOL is superior to other vasodilators. Now that its patent has expired and generic manufacturers have entered the market, Ives concentrates on convincing physicians to indicate on prescriptions that a generic drug cannot be substituted for CYCLOSPASMOL.
The generic manufacturers also follow a normal industry practice by promoting their products primarily by distribution of catalogs to wholesalers, hospitals, and retail pharmacies, rather than by contacting physicians directly. The catalogs truthfully describe generic cyclandelate as “equivalent” or “comparable” to CYCLOSPASMOL. In addition, some of the catalogs include price comparisons of the generic drug and CYCLOSPASMOL and some refer to the color of the generic capsules. The generic products reach wholesalers, hospitals, and pharmacists in bulk containers which correctly indicate the manufacturer of the product contained therein.
A pharmacist, regardless of whether he is dispensing CY-CLOSPASMOL or a generic drug, removes the capsules from the container in which he receives them and dispenses them to the consumer in the pharmacist’s own bottle with his own label attached. Hence, the final consumer sees no identifying marks other than those on the capsules themselves.
a
>
Ives instituted this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York under §§ 32 and 43(a) of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act), 60 Stat. 427, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1051 et seq., and under New York’s unfair competition law, N. Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 368-d (McKinney 1968).
Ives’ claim under § 32, 60 Stat. 437, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1114, derived from its allegation that some pharmacists had dispensed generic drugs mislabeled as CYCLOSPASMOL. Ives contended that the generic manufacturers’ use of lookalike capsules and of catalog entries comparing prices and revealing the colors of the generic capsules induced pharmacists illegally to substitute a generic drug for CYCLOSPAS-MOL and to mislabel the substitute drug CYCLOSPASMOL. Although Ives did not allege that the petitioners themselves applied the Ives trademark to the drug products they produced and distributed, it did allege that the petitioners contributed to the infringing activities of pharmacists who mislabeled generic cyclandelate.
Ives’ claim under § 43(a), 60 Stat. 441, 15 U. S. C. § 1125(a), alleged that the petitioners falsely designated the origin of their products by copying the capsule colors used by Ives and by promoting the generic products as equivalent to CYCLOSPASMOL. In support of its claim, Ives argued that the colors of its capsules were not functional and that they had developed a secondary meaning for the consumers.
Contending that pharmacists would continue to mislabel generic drugs as CYCLOSPASMOL so long as imitative products were available, Ives asked that the court enjoin the petitioners from marketing cyclandelate capsules in the same colors and form as Ives uses for CYCLOSPASMOL. In addition, Ives sought damages pursuant to § 35 of the Lanham Act, 60 Stat. 439, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1117.
B
The District Court denied Ives’ request for an order preliminarily enjoining the petitioners from selling generic drugs identical in appearance to those produced by Ives. 455 F. Supp. 939 (1978). Referring to the claim based upon § 32, the District Court stated that, while the “knowing and deliberate instigation” by the petitioners of mislabeling by pharmacists would justify holding the petitioners as well as the pharmacists liable for trademark infringement, Ives had made no showing sufficiently to justify preliminary relief. Id., at 945. Ives had not established that the petitioners conspired with the pharmacists or suggested that they disregard physicians’ prescriptions.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. 601 F. 2d 631 (1979). To assist the District Court in the upcoming trial on the merits, the appellate court defined the elements of a claim based upon § 32 in some detail. Relying primarily upon Coca-Cola Co. v. Snow Crest Beverages, Inc., 64 F. Supp. 980 (Mass. 1946), aff’d, 162 F. 2d 280 (CA1), cert. denied, 332 U. S. 809 (1947), the court stated that the petitioners would be liable under § 32 either if they suggested, even by implication, that retailers fill bottles with generic cyclandelate and label the bottle with Ives’ trademark or if the petitioners continued to sell cyclandelate to retailers whom they knew or had reason to know were engaging in infringing practices. 601 F. 2d, at 636.
C
After a bench trial on remand, the District Court entered judgment for the petitioners. 488 F. Supp. 394 (1980). Applying the test approved by the Court of Appeals to the claim based upon § 32, the District Court found that the petitioners had not suggested, even by implication, that pharmacists should dispense generic drugs incorrectly identified as CYCLOSPASMOL.
In reaching that conclusion, the court first looked for direct evidence that the petitioners intentionally induced trademark infringement. Since the petitioners’ representatives do not make personal visits to physicians and pharmacists, the petitioners were not in a position directly to suggest improper drug substitutions. Cf. William R. Warner & Co. v. Eli Lilly & Co., 265 U. S. 526, 530-531 (1924); Smith, Kline & French Laboratories v. Clark & Clark, 157 F. 2d 725, 731 (CA3), cert. denied, 329 U. S. 796 (1946). Therefore, the court concluded, improper suggestions, if any, must have come from catalogs and promotional materials. The court determined, however, that those materials could not “fairly be read” to suggest trademark infringement. 488 F. Supp., at 397.
The trial court next considered evidence of actual instances of mislabeling by pharmacists, since frequent improper substitutions of a generic drug for CYCLOSPASMOL could provide circumstantial evidence that the petitioners, merely by making available imitative drugs in conjunction with comparative price advertising, implicitly had suggested that pharmacists substitute improperly. After reviewing the evidence of incidents of mislabeling, the District Court concluded that such incidents occurred too infrequently to justify the inference that the petitioners’ catalogs and use of imitative colors had “impliedly invited” druggists to mislabel. Ibid. Moreover, to the extent mislabeling had occurred, the court found it resulted from pharmacists’ misunderstanding of the requirements of the New York Drug Substitution Law, rather than from deliberate attempts to pass off generic cyclandelate as CYCLOSPASMOL. Ibid.
The District Court also found that Ives failed to establish its claim based upon § 43(a). In reaching its conclusion, the court found that the blue and blue-red colors were functional to patients as well as to doctors and hospitals: many elderly patients associate color with therapeutic effect; some patients commingle medications in a container and rely on color to differentiate one from another; colors are of some, if limited, help in identifying drugs in emergency situations; and use of the same color for brand name drugs and their generic equivalents helps avoid confusion on the part of those responsible for dispensing drugs. Id., at 398-399. In addition, because Ives had failed to show that the colors indicated the drug’s origin, the court found that the colors had not acquired a secondary meaning. Id., at 399.
Without expressly stating that the District Court’s findings were clearly erroneous, and for reasons which we discuss below, the Court of Appeals concluded that the petitioners violated § 32. 638 F. 2d 538 (1981). The Court of Appeals did not reach Ives’ other claims. We granted certiorari, 454 U. S. 891 (1981), and now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Ill
A
As the lower courts correctly discerned, liability for trademark infringement can extend beyond those who actually mislabel goods with the mark of another. Even if a manufacturer does not directly control others in the chain of distribution, it can be held responsible for their infringing activities under certain circumstances. Thus, if a manufacturer or distributor intentionally induces another to infringe a trademark, or if it continues to supply its product to one whom it knows or has reason to know is engaging in trademark infringement, the manufacturer or distributor is contribu-torially responsible for any harm done as a result of the deceit. See William R. Warner & Co. v. Eli Lilly & Co., supra; Coca-Cola Co. v. Snow Crest Beverages, Inc., supra.
It is undisputed that those pharmacists who mislabeled generic drugs with Ives’ registered trademark violated § 32. However, whether these petitioners were liable for the pharmacists’ infringing acts depended upon whether, in fact, the petitioners intentionally induced the pharmacists to mislabel generic drugs or, in fact, continued to supply cyclandelate to pharmacists whom the petitioners knew were mislabeling generic drugs. The District Court concluded that Ives made neither of those factual showings.
B
In reviewing the factual findings of the District Court, the Court of Appeals was bound by the “clearly erroneous” standard of Rule 52(a), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Pullman-Standard v. Swint, ante, p. 273. That Rule recognizes and rests upon the unique opportunity afforded the trial court judge to evaluate the credibility of witnesses and to weigh the evidence. Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U. S. 100, 123 (1969). Because of the deference due the trial judge, unless an appellate court is left with the “definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed,” United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U. S. 364, 395 (1948), it must accept the trial court’s findings.
IV
In reversing the District Court’s judgment, the Court of Appeals initially held that the trial court failed to give sufficient weight to the evidence Ives offered to show a “pattern of illegal substitution and mislabeling in New York. . . .” 638 F. 2d, at 543. By rejecting the District Court’s findings simply because it would have given more weight to evidence of mislabeling than did the trial court, the Court of Appeals clearly erred. Determining the weight and credibility of the evidence is the special province of the trier of fact. Because the trial court’s findings concerning the significance of the instances of mislabeling were not clearly erroneous, they should not have been disturbed.
Next, after completing its own review of the evidence, the Court of Appeals concluded that the evidence was “clearly sufficient to establish a § 32 violation.” Ibid. In reaching its conclusion, the Court of Appeals was influenced by several factors. First, it thought the petitioners reasonably could have anticipated misconduct by a substantial number of the pharmacists who were provided imitative, lower priced products which, if substituted for the higher priced brand name without passing on savings to consumers, could provide an economic advantage to the pharmacists. Ibid. Second, it disagreed with the trial court’s finding that the mislabeling which did occur reflected confusion about state law requirements. Id., at 544. Third, it concluded that illegal substitution and mislabeling in New York are neither de minimis nor inadvertent. Ibid. Finally, the Court of Appeals indicated it was further influenced by the fact that the petitioners did not offer “any persuasive evidence of a legitimate reason unrelated to CYCLOSPASMOL” for producing an imitative product. Ibid.
Each of those conclusions is contrary to the findings of the District Court. An appellate court cannot substitute its interpretation of the evidence for that of the trial court simply because the reviewing court “might give the facts another construction, resolve the ambiguities differently, and find a more sinister cast to actions which the District Court apparently deemed innocent.” United States v. Real Estate Boards, 339 U. S. 485, 495 (1950).
V
The Court of Appeals erred in setting aside findings of fact that were not clearly erroneous. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals that the petitioners violated § 32 of the Lanham Act is reversed.
Although the District Court also dismissed Ives’ claims alleging that the petitioners violated § 43(a) of the Lanham Act and the state unfair competition law, the Court of Appeals did not address those claims. Because § 43(a) prohibits a broader range of practices than does § 32, as may the state unfair competition law, the District Court’s decision dismissing Ives’ claims based upon those statutes must be independently reviewed. Therefore, we remand to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Under the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act), 60 Stat. 427, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1051 et seq., the term “trade-mark” includes “any word, name, symbol, or device or any combination thereof adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify his goods and distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by others.” 15 U. S. C. § 1127. A “registered mark” is one registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office under the terms of the Lanham Act “or under the Act of March 3, 1881, or the Act of February 20, 1905, or the Act of March 19, 1920.” Ibid.
The generic manufacturers purchase cyclandelate and empty capsules and assemble the product for sale to wholesalers and hospitals. The petitioner wholesalers, Darby Drug Co., Inc., Rugby Laboratories, Inc., and Sherry Pharmaceutical Co., Inc., in turn, sell to other wholesalers, physicians, and pharmacies.
Initially, the generic manufacturers did not place any identifying mark on their capsules. After Ives initiated this action, Premo imprinted “Premo” on its capsules and Inwood imprinted “Inwood 258.”
Since the early 1970’s, most States have enacted laws allowing pharmacists to substitute generic drugs for brand name drugs under certain conditions. See generally Note, Consumer Protection and Prescription Drugs: The Generic Drug Substitution Laws, 67 Ky. L. J. 384 (1978-1979). The New York statutes involved in this action are typical of these generic substitution laws. New York law requires that prescription forms contain two lines, one of which a prescribing physician must sign. N. Y. Educ. Law § 6810 (McKinney Supp. 1981-1982). If the physician signs over the words “substitution permissible,” substitution is mandatory if a substitute generic drug is on an approved list, N. Y. Educ. Law § 6816-a (McKinney Supp. 1981-1982); N. Y. Pub. Health Law §206.1(o) (McKinney Supp. 1981-1982), and permissible if another generic drug is available. Unless the physician directs otherwise, the pharmacist must indicate the name of the generic manufacturer and the strength of the drug dispensed on the label. N. Y. Educ. Law § 6816-a(1)(c). In addition, the prescription form must specifically state that, unless the physician signs above the line “dispense as written,” the prescription will be filled generically. § 6810(6)(a).
If a pharmacist mislabels a drug or improperly substitutes, he is guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine, §§ 6811, 6815, 6816, and to revocation of his license. § 6808.
Ives conceded that CYCLOSPASMOL and the petitioners’ generic equivalents are bioequivalent and have the same bioavailability. See 455 F. Supp. 939, 942 (EDNY 1978), and 488 F. Supp. 394, 396 (EDNY 1980). Bioavailability is an absolute term which measures both the rate and the amount of a drug which reaches the general circulation from a defined dosage. Drugs are “bioequivalent” if, when administered in equal amounts to the same individual, they reach general circulation at the same relative rate and to the same relative extent. Remington’s Pharmaceutical Sciences 1368 (15th ed. 1975).
The state law claim was not discussed in the decision under review, and no further reference will be made to it here.
Section 32 of the Lanham Act, 60 Stat. 437, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1114, provides in part:
“(1) Any person who shall, without the consent of the registrant—
“(a) use in commerce any reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation of a registered mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive; or
“(b) reproduce, counterfeit, copy, or colorably imitate a registered mark and apply such reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation to labels, signs, prints, packages, wrappers, receptacles or advertisements intended to be used in commerce upon or in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive,
“shall be liable in a civil action by the registrant for the remedies hereinafter provided. Under subsection (b) of this section, the registrant shall not be entitled to recover profits or damages unless the acts have been committed with knowledge that such imitation is intended to be used to cause confusion, or to cause mistake or to deceive.”
The claim involved two types of infringements. The first was “direct” infringement, in which druggists allegedly filled CYCLOSPASMOL prescriptions marked “dispense as written” with a generic drug and mislabeled the product as CYCLOSPASMOL. The second, “intermediate” infringement, occurred when pharmacists, although authorized by the prescriptions to substitute, allegedly mislabeled a generic drug as CYCLO-SPASMOL. The one retail pharmacy originally named as a defendant consented to entry of a decree enjoining it from repeating such actions. 455 F. Supp., at 942.
Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, 60 Stat. 441, 15 U. S. C. § 1125(a), provides:
“(a) Any person who shall affix, apply, or annex, or use in connection with any goods or services, or any container or containers for goods, a false designation of origin, or any false description or representation, including words or other symbols tending falsely to describe or represent the same, and shall cause such goods or services to enter into commerce, and any person who shall with knowledge of the falsity of such designation of origin or description or representation cause or procure the same to be transported or used in commerce or deliver the same to any carrier to be transported or used, shall be liable to a civil action by any person doing business in the locality falsely indicated as that of origin or in the region in which said locality is situated, or by any person who believes that he is or is likely to be damaged by the use of any such false description or representation.”
In general terms, a product feature is functional if it is essential to the use or purpose of the article or if it affects the cost or quality of the article. See Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U. S. 225, 232 (1964); Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co., 305 U. S. 111, 122 (1938).
To establish secondary meaning, a manufacturer must show that, in the minds of the public, the primary significance of a product feature or term is to identify the source of the product rather than the product itself. See Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co., supra, at 118.
The District Court also found that the petitioners did not continue to provide drugs to retailers whom they knew or should have known were engaging in trademark infringement. 488 F. Supp., at 397. The Court of Appeals did not discuss that finding, and we do not address it.
Justice White, in his opinion concurring in the result, voices his concern that we may have “silently acquiesce[d] in a significant change in the test for contributory infringement.” Post, at 861. His concern derives from his perception that the Court of Appeals abandoned the standard enunciated by Judge Friendly in its first opinion, a standard which both we and Justice White approve, post, at 859-860. The Court of Appeals, however, expressly premised its second opinion on “the governing legal principles... set forth in Judge Friendly’s opinion upon the earlier appeal, 601 F. 2d 631 (2d Cir. 1979),” and explicitly claimed to have rendered its second decision by “[a]pplying those principles . . . .” 638 F. 2d 538, 542 (1981).
Justice White’s concern is based on a comment by the Court of Appeals that the generic manufacturers “could reasonably anticipate” illegal substitution of their drugs. Id., at 543. If the Court of Appeals had relied upon that statement to define the controlling legal standard, the court indeed would have applied a “watered down” and incorrect standard. As we read the Court of Appeals’ opinion, however, that statement was intended merely to buttress the court’s conclusion that the legal test for contributory infringement, as earlier defined, had been met. See infra, at 856-857.
Such blatant trademark infringement inhibits competition and subverts both goals of the Lanham Act. By applying a trademark to goods produced by one other than the trademark’s owner, the infringer deprives the owner of the goodwill which he spent energy, time, and money to obtain. See S. Rep. No. 1333, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1946). At the same time, the infringer deprives consumers of their ability to distinguish among the goods of competing manufacturers. See H. R. Rep. No. 944, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1939).
Of course, if the trial court bases its findings upon a mistaken impression of applicable legal principles, the reviewing court is not bound by the clearly erroneous standard. United States v. Singer Manufacturing Co., 374 U. S. 174, 194, n. 9 (1963). However, in this instance the District Court applied correct legal principles when it adopted the precise test developed by the Court of Appeals. Compare 601 F. 2d 631, 636 (1979), with 488 F. Supp., at 397.
As the opinions from the lower courts reveal, more than one inference can be drawn from the evidence presented. Prior to trial, test shoppers hired by Ives gave CYCLOSPASMOL prescriptions on which the “substitution permissible” line was signed to 83 New York pharmacists. Forty-eight of the pharmacists dispensed CYCLOSPASMOL; the rest dispensed a generic drug. Ten of the thirty-five pharmacists who dispensed a generic drug included the word CYCLOSPASMOL on the label, although 5 of those 10 also included some form of the word “generic.” Nine of the ten told the consumer of the substitution. Only 1 of the 10 charged the brand name price for the generic drug. 488 F. Supp., at 397.
The District Court concluded that that evidence did not justify the inference that the petitioners’ catalogs invite pharmacists to mislabel. Ibid. The Court of Appeals, emphasizing that 10 of the 35 druggists who dispensed a generic drug mislabeled it as CYCLOSPASMOL, found a pattern of substitution and mislabeling. 638 F. 2d, at 543. The dissenting judge on the appellate panel, emphasizing that only 1 of 83 pharmacists attempted an illegal substitution and reaped a profit made possible by the color imitation, concluded the facts supported the District Court’s finding that mislabeling resulted from confusion about the substitution laws rather than from profit considerations. Id., at 546.
On the basis of the record before us, the inferences drawn by the District Court are not, as a matter of law, unreasonable.
The Court of Appeals cited no evidence to support its conclusion, which apparently rests upon the assumption that a pharmacist who has been provided an imitative generic drug will be unable to resist the temptation to profit from illegal activity. We find no support in the record for such a far-reaching conclusion. Moreover, the assumption is inconsistent with the District Court’s finding that only a “few instances,” rather than a substantial number, of mislabelings occurred. 488 F. Supp., at 397.
The Court of Appeals characterized the District Court’s finding as resting on “a short and casual exchange with a witness . . . .” 638 F. 2d, at 544. The District Court, however, stated that its conclusion that pharmacists did not understand the drug substitution law rested upon the fact that, in numerous instances, a pharmacist told a consumer that state law prohibited filling prescriptions with generic products, even though the consumer had presented a prescription allowing generic substitution. 488 F. Supp., at 397-398.
In reaching that conclusion, the Court of Appeals took judicial notice of the fact that, in May 1980, six indictments were handed down in New York City charging pharmacists with substituting cyclandelate for CYCLO-SPASMOL. We note that the evidence of which the Court of Appeals took judicial notice not only involved no convictions but also reflected knowledge that was not available when the District Court rendered its decision. Moreover, even if the District Court failed to consider relevant evidence, which would have been an error of law, the Court of Appeals, rather than make its own factual determination, should have remanded for further proceedings to allow the trial court to consider the evidence. See Pullman-Standard v. Swint, ante, at 291-292.
The Court of Appeals reached that conclusion despite the District Court’s express finding that, for purposes of § 43(a), the capsule colors were functional. See supra, at 853. As the dissent below noted, the Court of Appeals’ majority either disregarded the District Court’s finding of functionality, see 638 F. 2d, at 545, n. 1 (Mulligan, J., dissenting), or implicitly rejected that finding as not “persuasive.” See id., at 547.
While the precise basis for the Court of Appeals’ ruling on this issue is unclear, it is clear that the Court of Appeals erred. The appellate court was not entitled simply to disregard the District Court’s finding of functionality. While the doctrine of functionality is most directly related to the question of whether a defendant has violated § 43(a) of the Lanham Act, see generally Note, The Problem of Functional Features: Trade Dress Infringement Under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, 82 Colum. L. Rev. 77 (1982), a finding of functionality may also be relevant to an action involving § 32. By establishing to the District Court’s satisfaction that uniform capsule colors served a functional purpose, the petitioners offered a legitimate reason for producing an imitative product.
Nor was the Court of Appeals entitled simply to dismiss the District Court’s finding of functionality as not “persuasive.” If the District Court erred as a matter of law, the Court of Appeals should have identified the District Court’s legal error. If the Court of Appeals disagreed with the District Court’s factual findings, it should not have dismissed them without finding them clearly erroneous.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Minton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This action, brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of a surviving widow and children, charged negligence against respondent railroad in the death of petitioner’s decedent, who was acting in the course of his employment as a brakeman for respondent at the time of his death. The case was tried before a jury. At the conclusion of all the evidence, respondent moved for a directed verdict on the ground, among others, that respondent was not shown to have been negligent. The District Court reserved decision, pursuant to Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and submitted the case to the jury, which returned a verdict for petitioner. Respondent then renewed its contention by motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, which was sustained, and the action was dismissed on the merits. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed, 184 F. 2d 176, and we granted certiorari to determine whether the province of the jury had been invaded by the action of the District Court. 340 U. S. 874.
On September 25, 1948, petitioner’s decedent was employed by respondent as a brakeman in respondent’s switching yards at Richmond, Virginia. The day was fair. At about 3:50 p. m., the crew with which decedent was working undertook its first car movement of the day. An engine and tender were headed into Track 12 and the front end of the engine was coupled onto 33 loaded freight cars which were to be moved out initially upon the straight track referred to as the ladder track. The switch at the junction of Track 12 and the ladder track was properly aligned for the train to pass onto the ladder track. Who aligned the switch does not appear.
Decedent gave the signal for the, engine to back out of Track 12 with the cars. It moved out in a westerly direction, with the rear of the tender as the front of the moving train. Decedent was standing on a footboard at the rear of the tender, his back to the tender; the outer edge of the footboard was about ten inches in from the outer edge of the tender and about a foot above the rail. The engineer was in his seat on the same side of the train as the footboard on which decedent was standing. The engineer was turned in the seat and leaning out the side cab window, looking in the direction in which the train was moving. Decedent’s duty as he rode on the foot-board was to give signals to the engineer, who testified that he could at all times see the edge of the arm and shoulder of decedent. To be thus seen and in a position to give signals, decedent had to extend outward beyond the edge of the tender, supporting himself partly by a handrail, otherwise the tender, the top of which was eight feet seven inches above the footboard, would have obstructed the engineer’s view of him altogether.
The engineer testified that as the train approached Switch 12 at about five miles an hour, having moved ten or twelve car lengths, he saw decedent slump as if his knees had given way, then right himself, then tumble forward in a somersault toward the outside of the track. The engineer testified that he then made an emergency stop in an unsuccessful effort to avoid injuring decedent. The train ran the length of the tender and engine and about a car length and a half before it stopped at a point about an engine or car length past the switch on the ladder track. Decedent died immediately of the injuries received.
To recover under the Act, it was incumbent upon petitioner to prove negligence of respondent which caused the fatal accident. Tennant v. Peoria & P. U. R. Co., 321 U. S. 29, 32. The negligence she alleged was that respondent’s engineer made a sudden and unexpected stop without warning, “thereby causing decedent to be thrown from a position of safety on the rear of the tender” into the path of the train.
It is undisputed that only one stop of the train was made and that a sudden stop without warning. The engineer was the only witness to the accident and was called to testify by petitioner. He testified that he saw decedent fall from the tender and that he made an emergency stop in an attempt to avoid injuring him. He testified that he received no signal to stop and had no reason to stop until he saw decedent fall. When his attention was directed to the point, the engineer never wavered in his testimony that decedent was continuously in his view and in a position to give signals up to the time he was seen to fall and the emergency stop was made.
Petitioner attempts to avoid the effect of this by pointing to statements of the engineer which allegedly contradict his testimony that decedent was continuously in his view. Petitioner relies on testimony and measurements of an expert witness, and upon the fact that the jury was permitted to view the engine and tender, to support the alleged contradiction. As a consequence, it is asserted, the jury was entitled to disbelieve the engineer’s version of the accident and to accept petitioner’s.
True, it is the jury’s function to credit or discredit all or part of the testimony. But disbelief of the engineer’s testimony would not supply a want of proof. Bunt v. Sierra Butte Gold Mng. Co., 138 U. S. 483, 485. Nor would the possibility alone that the jury might disbelieve the engineer’s version make the case submissible to it.
The burden was upon petitioner to prove that decedent fell after the train stopped without warning, which was the act of negligence she charged. Her evidence showed he fell before the train stopped. The only evidence which petitioner can glean from this record to support her charge is the engineer’s testimony that there was no one around the switch as the train approached it, and that he did not know whether “they” intended to take all of the 33 cars out of the switch at one time, or to stop and cut off some of them. From this it is said a jury might reasonably infer that the engineer decided to make and did make an emergency stop which threw decedent from the tender. However, the engineer’s testimony, appearing at the very same page of the transcript as the statement relied on, was that he worked by signals; that he had received no signal to stop or do anything; that in the event he did not receive a signal he would “[k]eep pulling the cars on back” until he received a signal, until he “cleared the switch” — “[p]robably beyond.” We do not think that the isolated portion of the engineer’s testimony relied on by petitioner permits an inference of negligence when placed in its setting of uncontradicted and unequivocal testimony totally at variance with such an inference.
Hence, all the evidence shows is that decedent fell before the train stopped. If one does not believe the engineer’s testimony that he stopped after — indeed, because of — the fall, then there is no evidence as to when decedent fell. There would still be a failure of proof.
To sustain petitioner, one would have to infer from no evidence at all that the train'stopped where and when it did for no purpose at all, contrary to all good railroading practice, prior to the time decedent fell, and then infer that decedent fell because the train stopped. This would be speculation run riot. Speculation cannot supply the place of proof. Galloway v. United States, 319 U. S. 372, 395.
Since there was no evidence of negligence, the court properly sustained the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The judgment is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter would dismiss this writ as improvidently granted, for reasons set forth by him in Carter v. Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay R. Co., 338 U. S. 430, 437. See Affolder v. N. Y., C. & St. L. R. Co., 339 U. S. 96, 101.
Mr. Justice Reed took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U. S. C. §§ 51 et seq.
“Q. Were you going to take all of those thirty-eight [sic] cars out at one time through that switch ?
“A. I don't know about that. I work by signals. I don’t know whether they intended to put them all out and switch them or to stop and cut part of them off.” R. 30.
Supra, n. 2;
“Q. Had you received any signal at that time to stop or to do anything — cut off any of the cars ?
“A. No, sir, I had not.
“Q. What were you going to do in the event you didn’t receive any further signals either from the conductor or from Mr. Moore or from anybody else?
“A. Keep pulling the cars on back until I received a signal.
“Q. And until you cleared the switch, until you cleared No. 12 switch?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. You keep-
“A. Probably beyond.
“Q. You keep on going?
“A. Yes.” R. 30.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Sotomayor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA or Act), 106 Stat. 73, note following 28 U. S. C. § 1350, authorizes a cause of action against “[a]n individual” for acts of torture and extrajudicial killing committed under authority or color of law of any foreign nation. We hold that the term “individual” as used in the Act encompasses only natural persons. Consequently, the Act does not impose liability against organizations.
I
Because this case arises from a motion to dismiss, we accept as true the allegations of the complaint. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U. S. 731, 734 (2011). Petitioners are the relatives of Azzam Rahim, who immigrated to the United States in the 1970⅛ and became a naturalized citizen. In 1995, while on a visit to the West Bank, Rahim was arrested by Palestinian Authority intelligence officers. He was taken to a prison in Jericho, where he was imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately killed. The following year, the U. S. Department of State issued a report concluding that Rahim “died in the custody of [Palestinian Authority] intelligence officers in Jericho.” Dept, of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1995, Submitted to the House Committee on International Relations and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., 1183 (Joint Committee Print 1996).
In 2005', petitioners filed this action against respondents, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization, asserting, inter alia, claims of torture and extrajudicial killing under the TVPA. The District Court granted respondents’ motion to dismiss, concluding, as relevant, that the Act’s authorization of suit against “[ajn individual” extended liability only to natural persons. Mohamad v. Rajoub, 664 F. Supp. 2d 20, 22 (DC 2009). The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed on the same ground. See Mohamad v. Rajoub, 634 F. 3d 604, 608 (2011) (“Congress used the word ‘individual’ to denote only natural persons”). We granted certiorari, 565 U. S. 962 (2011), to resolve a split among the Circuits with respect to whether the TVPA authorizes actions against defendants that are not natural persons, and now affirm.
II
The TVPA imposes liability on individuals for certain acts of torture and extrajudicial killing. The Act provides:
“An individual who, under actual or apparent authority, or color of law, of any foreign nation—
“(1) subjects an individual to torture shall, in a civil action, be liable for damages to that individual; or
“(2) subjects an individual to extrajudicial killing shall, in a civil action, be liable for damages to the individual’s legal representative, or to any person who may be a claimant in an action for wrongful death.” §2(a).
The Act defines “torture” and “extrajudicial killing,” §3, and imposes a statute of limitations and an exhaustion requirement, §§ 2(b), (c). It does not define “individual.”
Petitioners concede that foreign states may not be sued under the Act — namely, that the Act does not create an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, 28 U. S. C. § 1602 et seq., which renders foreign sovereigns largely immune from suits in U. S. courts. They argue, however, that the TVPA does not similarly restrict liability against other juridical entities. In petitioners’ view, by permitting suit against “[a]n individual,” the TVPA contemplates liability against natural persons and nonsovereign organizations (a category that, petitioners assert, includes respondents). We decline to read “individual” so unnaturally. The ordinary meaning of the word, fortified by its statutory context, persuades us that the Act authorizes suit against natural persons alone.
A
Because the TVPA does not define the term “individual,” we look first to the word’s ordinary meaning. See FCC v. AT&T Inc., 562 U. S. 397, 403 (2011) (‘"When a statute does not define a term, we typically give the phrase its ordinary meaning” (internal quotation marks omitted)). As a noun, “individual” ordinarily means “[a] human being, a person.” 7 Oxford English Dictionary 880 (2d ed. 1989); see also, e. g., Random House Dictionary of the English Language 974 (2d ed. 1987) (“a person”); Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1152 (1986) (hereinafter Webster’s) (“a particular person”). After all, that is how we use the word in everyday parlance. We say “the individual went to the store,” “the individual left the room,” and “the individual took the car,” each time referring unmistakably to a natural person. And no one, we hazard to guess, refers in normal parlance to an organization as an “individual.” Evidencing that common usage, this Court routinely uses “individual” to denote a natural person, and in particular to distinguish between a natural person and a corporation. See, e. g., Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S. A, v. Brown, 564 U. S. 915, 924 (2011) (“For an individual, the paradigm forum for the exercise of general jurisdiction is the individual’s domicile; for a corporation, it is an equivalent place, one in which the corporation is fairly regarded as at home”).
Congress does not, in the ordinary course, employ the word any differently. The Dictionary Act instructs that “[i]n determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise . . . the wor[d] ‘person’ . . . included] corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.” 1 U. S. C. § 1 (emphasis added). With the phrase “as well as,” the definition marks “individual” as distinct from the list of artificial entities that precedes it.
In a like manner, federal statutes routinely distinguish between an “individual” and an organizational entity of some kind. See, e. g., 7 U. S. C. § 92(k) (“ ‘Person’ includes partnerships, associations, and corporations, as well as individuals”); § 511 (same); 15 U. S. C. § 717a (“‘Person’ includes an individual or a corporation”); 16 U. S. C. § 796(4) (“ ‘[P]erson’ means an individual or a corporation”); 8 U. S. C. § 1101(b)(3) (“‘[Pierson’ means an individual or an organization”). Indeed, the very same Congress that enacted the TVPA also established a cause of action for U. S. nationals injured “by reason of an act of international terrorism” and defined “person” as it appears in the statute to include “any individual or entity capable of holding a legal or beneficial interest in property.” Federal Courts Administration Act of 1992, 18 U. S. C. §§ 2333(a), 2331(3) (emphasis added).
B
This is not to say that the word “individual” invariably means “natural person” when used in a statute. Congress remains free, as always, to give the word a broader or different meaning.- But before we will assume it has done so, there must be some indication Congress intended such a result. Perhaps it is the rare statute (petitioners point to only one such example, located in the Internal Revenue Code) in which Congress expressly defines “individual” to include corporate entities. See 26 U. S. C. § 542(a)(2). Or perhaps, as was the case in Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U. S. 417, 429 (1998), the statutory context makes that intention clear, because any other reading of “individual” would lead to an “‘absurd’” result Congress could not plausibly have intended.
There are no such indications in the TVPA. As noted, the Act does not define “individual,” much less do so in a manner that extends the term beyond its ordinary usage. And the statutory context strengthens — not undermines — the conclusion that Congress intended to create a cause of action against natural persons alone. The Act’s liability provision uses the word “individual” five times in the same sentence: once to refer to the perpetrator (i. e,, the defendant) and four times to refer to the victim. See § 2(a). Only a natural person can be a victim of torture or extrajudicial killing. “Since there is a presumption that a given term is used to mean the same thing throughout a statute, a presumption surely at its most vigorous when a term is repeated within a given sentence,” Brown v. Gardner, 513 U. S. 115, 118 (1994) (citation omitted), it is difficult indeed to conclude that Congress employed the term “individual” four times in one sentence to refer to a natural person and once to refer to a natural person and any nonsovereign organization. See also § 3(b)(1) (using term “individual” six times in referring to victims of torture).
It' is also revealing that the Act holds perpetrators liable for extrajudicial killing to “any person who may be a claimant in an action for wrongful death.” § 2(a)(2) (emphasis added). “Person,” we have recognized, often has a broader meaning in the law than “individual,” see Clinton, 524 U. S., at 428, n. 13, and frequently includes nonnatural persons, see, e. g., 1 U. S. C. § 1. We generally seek to respect Congress’ decision to use different terms to describe different categories of people or things. See Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 711, n. 9 (2004). Our construction of “individual” to encompass solely natural persons credits Congress’ use of the disparate terms; petitioners’ construction does not.
In sum, the text of the statute persuades us that the Act authorizes liability solely against natural persons.
f — H ⅜ — l
Petitioners’ counterarguments are unpersuasive.
A
Petitioners first dispute that the plain text of the TVPA requires today’s result. Although they concede that an ordinary meaning of “individual” is “human being,” petitioners point to definitions of “individual” that “frame the term . . . in distinctly non-human terms, instead placing their emphases on the oneness of something.” Brief for Petitioners 18 (citing, e. g., Webster’s 1152 (defining “individual” as “a single or particular being or thing or group of being or things”)). Those definitions, however, do not account even for petitioners’ preferred interpretation of “individual”- in the Act, for foreign states — which petitioners concede are not liable under the Act — do not differ from nonsovereign organizations in their degree of “oneness.” Moreover, “[w]ords that can have more than one meaning are given content . . . by their surroundings,” Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457, 466 (2001), and for the reasons explained supra, petitioners’ definition makes for an awkward fit in the context of the TVPA.
Petitioners next claim that federal tort statutes uniformly provide for liability against organizations, a convention they maintain is common to the legal systems of other nations. We are not convinced, however, that any such “domestic and international presumption of organizational liability” in tort actions overcomes the ordinary meaning of “individual.” Brief for Petitioners 16. It is true that “Congress is understood to legislate against a background of common-law adjudicatory principles.” Astoria Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. Solimino, 501 U. S. 104, 108 (1991). But Congress plainly can override those principles, see, e. g., id., at 108-109, and, as explained supra, the TVPA’s text evinces a clear intent not to subject nonsovereign organizations to liability.
We also decline petitioners’ suggestion to construe the TVPA’s scope of liability to conform with other federal statutes that petitioners contend provide civil remedies to victims of torture or extrajudicial killing. None of the three statutes petitioners identify employs the term “individual” to describe the covered defendant, and so none assists in the interpretive task we face today. See 42 U. S. C. § 1983; 28 U. S. C. § 1603(a) (2006 ed.), § 1605A(c) (2006 ed., Supp. IV); 18 U. S. C. §§2333, 2334(a)-(b), 2337. The same is true of the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1350, so it offers no comparative value here regardless of whether corporate entities can be held liable in a federal common-law action brought under that statute. Compare Doe v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 654 F. 3d 11 (CADC 2011), with Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 621 F. 3d 111 (CA2 2010), cert. granted, 565 U. S. 961 (2011). Finally, although petitioners rightly note that the TVPA contemplates liability against officers who do not personally execute the torture or extrajudicial killing, see, e. g., Chavez v. Carranza, 559 F. 3d 486 (CA6 2009), it does not follow (as petitioners argue) that the Act embraces liability against nonsovereign organizations. An officer who gives an order to torture or kill is an “individual” in that word’s ordinary usage; an organization is not.
B
Petitioners also contend that legislative history supports their broad reading of “individual.” But “reliance on legislative history is unnecessary in light of the statute’s unambiguous language.” Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz, P. A. v. United States, 559 U. S. 229, 236, n. 3 (2010). In any event, the excerpts petitioners cite do not help their cause. Petitioners note that the Senate Report states that “[t]he legislation uses the term ‘individual’ to make crystal clear that foreign states or their entities cannot be sued under this bill under any circumstances.” S. Rep. No. 102-249, p. 7 (1991) (S. Rep.); see also H. R. Rep. No. 102-367, pt. 1, p. 4 (1991) (“Only ‘individuals,’ not foreign states, can be sued”). Yet that statement, while clarifying that the Act does not encompass liability against foreign states, says nothing about liability against nonsovereign organizations. The other excerpts petitioners cite likewise are not probative of the meaning of “individual,” for they signal only that the Act does not impose liability on perpetrators who act without authority or color of law of a foreign state. See, e. g., id., at 5 (“The bill does not attempt to deal with torture or killing by purely private groups”); S. Rep., at 8 (The bill “does not cover purely private criminal acts by individuals or nongovernmental organizations”).
Indeed, although we need not rely on legislative history given the text’s clarity, we note that the history only supports our interpretation of “individual.” The version of the TVPA that was introduced in the 100th Congress established liability against a “person.” Hearing and Markup on H. R. .1417 before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Its Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations, 100th Cong., 2d Sess., 82 (1988). During the markup session of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, one of the bill’s sponsors proposed an amendment “to make it clear we are applying it to individuals and not to corporations.” Id., at 81, 87. Counsel explained that it was a “fairly simple” matter “of changing the word, ‘person’ to ‘individuals’ in several places in the bill.” Id., at 87-88. The amendment was unanimously adopted, and the version of the bill reported out of Committee reflected the change. Id., at 88; H. R. Rep. No. 100-693, pt. 1, p. 1 (1988). A materially identical version of the bill was enacted as the TVPA by the 102d Congress. Although we are cognizant of the limitations of this drafting history, cf. Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc., 545 U. S. 546, 568 (2005), we nevertheless find it telling that the sole explanation for substituting “individual” for “person” confirms what we have concluded from the text alone.
C
Petitioners' final argument is that the Act would be rendered toothless by a construction of “individual” that limits liability to natural persons. They contend that precluding organizational liability may foreclose effective remedies for victims and their relatives for any number of reasons. Victims may be unable to identify the men and women who subjected them to torture, all the while knowing the organization for whom they work. Personal jurisdiction may be more easily established over corporate than human beings. And natural persons may be more likely than organizations to be judgment proof. Indeed, we are told that only two TVPA’ plaintiffs have been able to recover successfully against a natural person — one only after the defendant won the state lottery. See Jean v. Dorélien, 431 F. 3d 776, 778 (CA11 2005).
We acknowledge petitioners’ concerns about the limitations on recovery. But they are ones that Congress imposed and that we must respect. “[N]o legislation pursues its purposes at all costs,” Rodriguez v. United States, 480 U. S. 522, 525-526 (1987) (per curiam), and petitioners’ purposive argument simply cannot overcome the force of the plain text. We add only that Congress appeared well aware of the limited nature of the cause of action it established in the Act. See, e. g., 138 Cong. Rec. 4177 (1992) (remarks of Sen. Simpson) (noting that “as a practical matter, this legislation will result in a very small number of cases”); 137 Cong. Rec. 2671 (1991) (remarks of Sen. Specter) (“Let me emphasize that the bill is a limited measure. It is estimated that only a few of these lawsuits will ever be brought”).
* * *
The text of the TVPA convinces us that Congress did not extend liability to organizations, sovereign or not. There are no doubt valid arguments for such an extension. But Congress has seen fit to proceed in more modest steps in the Act, and it is not the province of this branch to do otherwise. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia joins this opinion except as to Part III-B.
Respondents also argued before the District Court that the TVPA’s requirement that acts be committed under authority or color of law of a foreign nation was not met. Neither the District Court nor Court of Appeals addressed the argument, and we offer no opinion on its merits.
Compare Aziz v. Alcolac, Inc., 658 F. 3d 388 (CA4 2011) (TVPA excludes corporate defendants from liability); Mohamad v. Rajoub, 634 F. 3d 604 (CADC 2011) (TVPA liability limited to natural persons); Bowoto v. Chevron Corp., 621 F. 3d 1116 (CA9 2010) (same as Aziz), with Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co., 578 F. 3d 1252, 1264, n. 13 (CA11 2009) (TVPA liability extends to corporate defendants).
The parties debate whether estates, or other nonnatural persons, in fact may be claimants in a wrongful-death action. We think the debate largely immaterial. Regardless of whether jurisdictions today allow for such actions, Congress’ use of the broader term evidences an intent to accommodate that possibility.
Petitioners’ separate contention that the TVPA must be construed in light of international agreements prohibiting torture and extrajudicial killing fails for similar reasons. Whatever the scope of those agreements, the TVPA does not define “individual” by reference to them, and principles they elucidate cannot overcome the statute’s text. The same is true of petitioners’ suggestion that Congress in the TVPA imported a “specialized usage” of the word “individual” in international law. See Brief for Petitioners 6. There is no indication in the text of the statute or legislative history that Congress knew of any such specialized usage of the term, much less intended to import it into the Act.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners sell data processing services to businesses generally. In this suit they seek to challenge a ruling by respondent Comptroller of the Currency that, as an incident to their banking services, national banks, including respondent American National Bank & Trust Company, may make data processing services available to other banks and to bank customers. The District Court dismissed the complaint for lack of standing of petitioners to bring the suit. 279 F. Supp. 675. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 406 F. 2d 837. The case is here on a petition for writ of certiorari which we granted. 395 U. S. 976.
Generalizations about standing to sue are largely worthless as such. One generalization is, however, necessary and that is that the question of standing, in the federal courts is to be considered in the framework of Article III which restricts judicial power to “cases” and “controversies.” As we recently stated in Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 101, “[I]n terms of Article III limitations on federal court jurisdiction, the question of standing is related only to whether the dispute sought to be adjudicated will be presented in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of judicial resolution/' Flast was a taxpayer’s suit. The present is a competitor’s suit. And while the two have the same Article III starting point, they do not necessarily track one another.
The first question is whether the plaintiff alleges that the challenged action has caused him injury in fact, economic or otherwise. There can be no doubt but that petitioners have satisfied this test. The petitioners not only allege that competition by national banks in the business of providing data processing services might entail some future loss of profits for the petitioners, they also allege that respondent American National Bank & Trust Company was performing or preparing to perform such services for two customers for whom petitioner Data Systems, Inc., had previously agreed or negotiated to perform such services. The petitioners' suit was brought not only against the American National Bank & Trust Company, but also against the Comptroller of the Currency. The Comptroller was alleged to have caused petitioners injury in fact by his 1966 ruling which stated:
“Incidental to its banking services, a national bank may make available its data processing equipment or perform data processing services on such equipment for other banks and bank customers.” Comptroller's Manual for National Banks ¶ 3500 (October 15, 1966).
The Court of Appeals viewed the matter differently, stating:
“[A] plaintiff may challenge alleged illegal competition when as complainant it pursues (1) a legal interest by reason of public charter or contract, . . . (2) a legal interest by reason of statutory protection, ... or (3) a ‘public interest’ in which Congress has recognized the need for review of administrative action and plaintiff is significantly involved to have standing to represent the public . . . .” 406 F. 2d, at 842-843.
Those tests were based on prior decisions of this Court, such as Tennessee Power Co. v. TV A, 306 U. S. 118, where private power companies sought to enjoin TVA from operating, claiming that the statutory plan under which it was created was unconstitutional. The Court denied the competitors’ standing, holding that they did not have that status “unless the right invaded is a legal right,— one of property, one arising out of contract, one protected against tortious invasion, or one founded on a statute which confers a privilege.” Id., at 137-138.
The “legal interest” test goes to the merits. The question of standing is different. It concerns, apart from the “case” or “controversy” test, the question whether the interest sought to be protected by the complainant is arguably within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional guarantee in question. Thus the Administrative Procedure Act grants standing to a person “aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute.” 5 U. S. C. § 702 (1964 ed., Supp. IV). That interest, at times, may reflect “aesthetic, conservational, and recreational” as well as economic values. Scenic Hudson Preservation Conf. v. FPC, 354 F. 2d 608, 616; Office of Communication of United Church of Christ v. FCC, 123 U. S. App. D. C. 328, 334-340, 359 F. 2d 994, 1000-1006. A person or a family may have a spiritual stake in First Amendment values sufficient to give standing to raise issues concerning the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203. We mention these noneconomic values to emphasize that standing may stem from them as well as from the economic injury on which petitioners rely here. Certainly he who is “likely to be financially” injured, FCC v. Sanders Bros. Radio Station, 309 U. S. 470, 477, may be a reliable private attorney general to litigate the issues of the public interest in the present case.
Apart from Article III jurisdictional questions, problems of standing, as resolved by this Court for its own governance, have involved a “rule of self-restraint.” Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249, 255. Congress can, of course, resolve the question one way or another, save as the requirements of Article III dictate otherwise. Muskrat v. United States, 219 U. S. 346.
Where statutes are concerned, the trend is toward enlargement of the class of people who may protest administrative action. The whole drive for enlarging the category of aggrieved “persons” is symptomatic of that trend. In a closely analogous case we held that an existing entrepreneur had standing to challenge the legality of the entrance of a newcomer into the business, because the established business was allegedly protected by a valid city ordinance that protected it from unlawful competition. Chicago v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 357 U. S. 77, 83-84. In that tradition was Hardin v. Kentucky Utilities Co., 390 U. S. 1, which involved a section of the TVA Act designed primarily to protect, through area limitations, private utilities against TVA competition. We held that no explicit statutory provision was necessary to confer standing, since the private utility bringing suit was within the class of persons that the statutory provision was designed to protect.
It is argued that the Chicago case and the Hardin case are relevant here because of § 4 of the Bank Service Corporation Act of 1962, 76 Stat. 1132, 12 U. S. C. § 1864, which provides:
“No bank service corporation may engage in any activity other than the performance of bank services for banks.”
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held in Arnold Tours, Inc. v. Camp, 408 F. 2d 1147, 1153, that by reason of § 4 a data processing company has standing to contest the legality of a national bank performing data processing services for other banks and bank customers:
“Section 4 had a broader purpose than regulating only the service corporations. It was also a response to the fears expressed by a few senators, that without such a prohibition, the bill would have enabled ‘banks to engage in a nonbanking activity/ S. Rep. No. 2105, [87th Cong., 2d Sess., 7-12] (Supplemental views of Senators Proxmire, Douglas, and Neuberger), and thus constitute ‘a serious exception to the accepted public policy which strictly limits banks to banking.’ (Supplemental views of Senators Muskie and Clark). We think Congress has provided the sufficient statutory aid to standing even though the competition may not be the precise kind Congress legislated against.”
We do not put the issue in those words, for they implicate the merits. We do think, however, that § 4 arguably brings a competitor within the zone of interests protected by it.
That leaves the remaining question, whether judicial review of the Comptroller’s action has been precluded. We do not think it has been. There is great contrariety among administrative agencies created by Congress as respects “the extent to which, and the procedures by which, different measures of control afford judicial review of administrative action.” Stark v. Wickard, 321 U. S. 288, 312 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). The answer, of course, depends on the particular enactment under which review is sought. It turns on “the existence of courts and the intent of Congress as deduced from the statutes and precedents.” Id., at 308.
The Administrative Procedure Act provides that the provisions of the Act authorizing judicial review apply “except to the extent that — (1) statutes preclude judicial review; or (2) agency action is committed to agency discretion by law.” 5 U. S. C. § 701 (a) (1964 ed., Supp. IV).
In Shaughnessy v. Pedreiro, 349 U. S. 48, 51, we referred to “the generous review provisions” of that Act; and in that case as well as in others (see Rusk v. Cort, 369 U. S. 367, 379-380) we have construed that Act not grudgingly but as serving a broadly remedial purpose.
We read § 701 (a) as sympathetic to the issue presented in this case. As stated in the House Report:
“The statutes of Congress are not merely advisory when they relate to administrative agencies, any more than in other cases. To preclude judicial review under this bill a statute, if not specific in withholding such review, must upon its face give clear and convincing evidence of an intent to withhold it. The mere failure to provide specially by statute for judicial review is certainly no evidence of intent to withhold review.” H. R. Rep. No. 1980, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 41.
There is no presumption against judicial review and in favor of administrative absolutism (see Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140), unless that purpose is fairly discernible in the statutory scheme. Cf. Switchmen’s Union v. National Mediation Board, 320 U. S. 297.
We find no evidence that Congress in either the Bank Service Corporation Act or the National Bank Act sought to preclude judicial review of administrative rulings by the Comptroller as to the legitimate scope of activities available to national banks under those statutes. Both Acts are clearly “relevant” statutes within the meaning of § 702. The Acts do not in terms protect a specified group. But their general policy is apparent; and those whose interests are directly affected by a broad or narrow interpretation of the Acts are easily identifiable. It is clear that petitioners, as competitors of national banks which are engaging in data processing services, are within that class of “aggrieved” persons who, under § 702, are entitled to judicial review of “agency action.”
Whether anything in the Bank Service Corporation Act or the National Bank Act gives petitioners a “legal interest” that protects them against violations of those Acts, and whether the actions of respondents did in fact violate either of those Acts, are questions which go to the merits and remain to be decided below.
We hold that petitioners have standing to sue and that the case should be remanded for a hearing on the merits.
Reversed and remanded.
[For opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan, see post, p. 167.]
The first two tests applied by the Court of Appeals required a showing of a “legal interest.” But the existence or non-existence of a “legal interest” is a matter quite distinct from the problem of standing. Barlow v. Collins, post, p. 159. The third test mentioned by the Court of Appeals, which rests on an explicit provision in a regulatory statute conferring standing and is commonly referred to in terms of allowing suits by “private attorneys general,” is inapplicable to the present case. See FCC v. Sanders Bros. Radio Station, 309 U. S. 470; Associated Industries v. Ickes, 134 F. 2d 694, vacated on suggestion of mootness, 320 U. S. 707.
Petitioners allege that the Comptroller’s ruling violates the National Bank Act, Rev. Stat. § 5136, 12 U. S. C. § 24 Seventh, which provides that national banks have power to exercise “all such incidental powers as shall be necessary to carry on the business of banking.”
We intimate no view, under the decisions rendered today here and in Barlow v. Collins, supra, on the issue of standing involved in No. 835, National Association of Securities Dealers v. SEC, and No. 843, Investment Company Institute v. Camp, now pending on petitions for writs of certiorari.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice KAVANAUGH delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 2007, Apple started selling iPhones. The next year, Apple launched the retail App Store, an electronic store where iPhone owners can purchase iPhone applications from Apple. Those "apps" enable iPhone owners to send messages, take photos, watch videos, buy clothes, order food, arrange transportation, purchase concert tickets, donate to charities, and the list goes on. "There's an app for that" has become part of the 21st-century American lexicon.
In this case, however, several consumers contend that Apple charges too much for apps. The consumers argue, in particular, that Apple has monopolized the retail market for the sale of apps and has unlawfully used its monopolistic power to charge consumers higher-than-competitive prices.
A claim that a monopolistic retailer (here, Apple) has used its monopoly to overcharge consumers is a classic antitrust claim. But Apple asserts that the consumer-plaintiffs in this case may not sue Apple because they supposedly were not "direct purchasers" from Apple under our decision in Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 720, 745-746, 97 S.Ct. 2061, 52 L.Ed.2d 707 (1977). We disagree. The plaintiffs purchased apps directly from Apple and therefore are direct purchasers under Illinois Brick. At this early pleadings stage of the litigation, we do not assess the merits of the plaintiffs' antitrust claims against Apple, nor do we consider any other defenses Apple might have. We merely hold that the Illinois Brick direct-purchaser rule does not bar these plaintiffs from suing Apple under the antitrust laws. We affirm the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
I
In 2007, Apple began selling iPhones. In July 2008, Apple started the App Store. The App Store now contains about 2 million apps that iPhone owners can download. By contract and through technological limitations, the App Store is the only place where iPhone owners may lawfully buy apps.
For the most part, Apple does not itself create apps. Rather, independent app developers create apps. Those independent app developers then contract with Apple to make the apps available to iPhone owners in the App Store.
Through the App Store, Apple sells the apps directly to iPhone owners. To sell an app in the App Store, app developers must pay Apple a $ 99 annual membership fee. Apple requires that the retail sales price end in $ 0.99, but otherwise allows the app developers to set the retail price. Apple keeps 30 percent of the sales price, no matter what the sales price might be. In other words, Apple pockets a 30 percent commission on every app sale.
In 2011, four iPhone owners sued Apple. They allege that Apple has unlawfully monopolized "the iPhone apps aftermarket." App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a. The plaintiffs allege that, via the App Store, Apple locks iPhone owners "into buying apps only from Apple and paying Apple's 30% fee, even if" the iPhone owners wish "to buy apps elsewhere or pay less." Id., at 45a. According to the complaint, that 30 percent commission is "pure profit" for Apple and, in a competitive environment with other retailers, "Apple would be under considerable pressure to substantially lower its 30% profit margin." Id., at 54a-55a. The plaintiffs allege that in a competitive market, they would be able to "choose between Apple's high-priced App Store and less costly alternatives." Id., at 55a. And they allege that they have "paid more for their iPhone apps than they would have paid in a competitive market." Id., at 53a.
Apple moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the iPhone owners were not direct purchasers from Apple and therefore may not sue. In Illinois Brick, this Court held that direct purchasers may sue antitrust violators, but also ruled that indirect purchasers may not sue. The District Court agreed with Apple and dismissed the complaint. According to the District Court, the iPhone owners were not direct purchasers from Apple because the app developers, not Apple, set the consumers' purchase price.
The Ninth Circuit reversed. The Ninth Circuit concluded that the iPhone owners were direct purchasers under Illinois Brick because the iPhone owners purchased apps directly from Apple. According to the Ninth Circuit, Illinois Brick means that a consumer may not sue an alleged monopolist who is two or more steps removed from the consumer in a vertical distribution chain. See In re Apple iPhone Antitrust Litig., 846 F. 3d 313, 323 (2017). Here, however, the consumers purchased directly from Apple, the alleged monopolist. Therefore, the Ninth Circuit held that the iPhone owners could sue Apple for allegedly monopolizing the sale of iPhone apps and charging higher-than-competitive prices. Id., at 324. We granted certiorari. 585 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 2647, 201 L.Ed.2d 1049 (2018).
II
A
The plaintiffs' allegations boil down to one straightforward claim: that Apple exercises monopoly power in the retail market for the sale of apps and has unlawfully used its monopoly power to force iPhone owners to pay Apple higher-than-competitive prices for apps. According to the plaintiffs, when iPhone owners want to purchase an app, they have only two options: (1) buy the app from Apple's App Store at a higher-than-competitive price or (2) do not buy the app at all. Any iPhone owners who are dissatisfied with the selection of apps available in the App Store or with the price of the apps available in the App Store are out of luck, or so the plaintiffs allege.
The sole question presented at this early stage of the case is whether these consumers are proper plaintiffs for this kind of antitrust suit-in particular, our precedents ask, whether the consumers were "direct purchasers" from Apple. Illinois Brick, 431 U.S. at 745-746, 97 S.Ct. 2061. It is undisputed that the iPhone owners bought the apps directly from Apple. Therefore, under Illinois Brick, the iPhone owners were direct purchasers who may sue Apple for alleged monopolization.
That straightforward conclusion follows from the text of the antitrust laws and from our precedents.
First is text: Section 2 of the Sherman Act makes it unlawful for any person to "monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations." 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. § 2. Section 4 of the Clayton Act in turn provides that "any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue... the defendant... and shall recover threefold the damages by him sustained, and the cost of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee." 38 Stat. 731, 15 U.S.C. § 15(a) (emphasis added). The broad text of § 4-"any person" who has been "injured" by an antitrust violator may sue-readily covers consumers who purchase goods or services at higher-than-competitive prices from an allegedly monopolistic retailer.
Second is precedent: Applying § 4, we have consistently stated that "the immediate buyers from the alleged antitrust violators" may maintain a suit against the antitrust violators. Kansas v. UtiliCorp United Inc., 497 U.S. 199, 207, 110 S.Ct. 2807, 111 L.Ed.2d 169 (1990) ; see also Illinois Brick, 431 U.S. at 745-746, 97 S.Ct. 2061. At the same time, incorporating principles of proximate cause into § 4, we have ruled that indirect purchasers who are two or more steps removed from the violator in a distribution chain may not sue. Our decision in Illinois Brick established a bright-line rule that authorizes suits by direct purchasers but bars suits by indirect purchasers. Id., at 746, 97 S.Ct. 2061.
The facts of Illinois Brick illustrate the rule. Illinois Brick Company manufactured and distributed concrete blocks. Illinois Brick sold the blocks primarily to masonry contractors, and those contractors in turn sold masonry structures to general contractors. Those general contractors in turn sold their services for larger construction projects to the State of Illinois, the ultimate consumer of the blocks.
The consumer State of Illinois sued the manufacturer Illinois Brick. The State alleged that Illinois Brick had engaged in a conspiracy to fix the price of concrete blocks. According to the complaint, the State paid more for the concrete blocks than it would have paid absent the price-fixing conspiracy. The monopoly overcharge allegedly flowed all the way down the distribution chain to the ultimate consumer, who was the State of Illinois.
This Court ruled that the State could not bring an antitrust action against Illinois Brick, the alleged violator, because the State had not purchased concrete blocks directly from Illinois Brick. The proper plaintiff to bring that claim against Illinois Brick, the Court stated, would be an entity that had purchased directly from Illinois Brick. Ibid.
The bright-line rule of Illinois Brick, as articulated in that case and as we reiterated in UtiliCorp, means that indirect purchasers who are two or more steps removed from the antitrust violator in a distribution chain may not sue. By contrast, direct purchasers-that is, those who are "the immediate buyers from the alleged antitrust violators"-may sue. UtiliCorp, 497 U.S. at 207, 110 S.Ct. 2807.
For example, if manufacturer A sells to retailer B, and retailer B sells to consumer C, then C may not sue A. But B may sue A if A is an antitrust violator. And C may sue B if B is an antitrust violator. That is the straightforward rule of Illinois Brick. See Loeb Industries, Inc. v. Sumitomo Corp., 306 F.3d 469, 481-482 (C.A.7 2002) (Wood, J.).
In this case, unlike in Illinois Brick, the iPhone owners are not consumers at the bottom of a vertical distribution chain who are attempting to sue manufacturers at the top of the chain. There is no intermediary in the distribution chain between Apple and the consumer. The iPhone owners purchase apps directly from the retailer Apple, who is the alleged antitrust violator. The iPhone owners pay the alleged overcharge directly to Apple. The absence of an intermediary is dispositive. Under Illinois Brick, the iPhone owners are direct purchasers from Apple and are proper plaintiffs to maintain this antitrust suit.
B
All of that seems simple enough. But Apple argues strenuously against that seemingly simple conclusion, and we address its arguments carefully. For this kind of retailer case, Apple's theory is that Illinois Brick allows consumers to sue only the party who sets the retail price, whether or not that party sells the good or service directly to the complaining party. Apple says that its theory accords with the economics of the transaction. Here, Apple argues that the app developers, not Apple, set the retail price charged to consumers, which according to Apple means that the consumers may not sue Apple.
We see three main problems with Apple's "who sets the price" theory.
First, Apple's theory contradicts statutory text and precedent. As we explained above, the text of § 4 broadly affords injured parties a right to sue under the antitrust laws. And our precedent in Illinois Brick established a bright-line rule where direct purchasers such as the consumers here may sue antitrust violators from whom they purchased a good or service. Illinois Brick, as we read the opinion, was not based on an economic theory about who set the price. Rather, Illinois Brick sought to ensure an effective and efficient litigation scheme in antitrust cases. To do so, the Court drew a bright line that allowed direct purchasers to sue but barred indirect purchasers from suing. When there is no intermediary between the purchaser and the antitrust violator, the purchaser may sue. The Illinois Brick bright-line rule is grounded on the "belief that simplified administration improves antitrust enforcement." 2A P. Areeda, H. Hovenkamp, R. Blair, & C. Durrance, Antitrust Law ¶346e, p. 194 (4th ed. 2014) (Areeda & Hovenkamp). Apple's theory would require us to rewrite the rationale of Illinois Brick and to gut the longstanding bright-line rule.
To the extent that Illinois Brick leaves any ambiguity about whether a direct purchaser may sue an antitrust violator, we should resolve that ambiguity in the direction of the statutory text. And under the text, direct purchasers from monopolistic retailers are proper plaintiffs to sue those retailers.
Second, in addition to deviating from statutory text and precedent, Apple's proposed rule is not persuasive economically or legally. Apple's effort to transform Illinois Brick from a direct-purchaser rule to a "who sets the price" rule would draw an arbitrary and unprincipled line among retailers based on retailers' financial arrangements with their manufacturers or suppliers.
In the retail context, the price charged by a retailer to a consumer is often a result (at least in part) of the price charged by the manufacturer or supplier to the retailer, or of negotiations between the manufacturer or supplier and the retailer. Those agreements between manufacturer or supplier and retailer may take myriad forms, including for example a markup pricing model or a commission pricing model. In a traditional markup pricing model, a hypothetical monopolistic retailer might pay $ 6 to the manufacturer and then sell the product for $ 10, keeping $ 4 for itself. In a commission pricing model, the retailer might pay nothing to the manufacturer; agree with the manufacturer that the retailer will sell the product for $ 10 and keep 40 percent of the sales price; and then sell the product for $ 10, send $ 6 back to the manufacturer, and keep $ 4. In those two different pricing scenarios, everything turns out to be economically the same for the manufacturer, retailer, and consumer.
Yet Apple's proposed rule would allow a consumer to sue the monopolistic retailer in the former situation but not the latter. In other words, under Apple's rule a consumer could sue a monopolistic retailer when the retailer set the retail price by marking up the price it had paid the manufacturer or supplier for the good or service. But a consumer could not sue a monopolistic retailer when the manufacturer or supplier set the retail price and the retailer took a commission on each sale.
Apple's line-drawing does not make a lot of sense, other than as a way to gerrymander Apple out of this and similar lawsuits. In particular, we fail to see why the form of the upstream arrangement between the manufacturer or supplier and the retailer should determine whether a monopolistic retailer can be sued by a downstream consumer who has purchased a good or service directly from the retailer and has paid a higher-than-competitive price because of the retailer's unlawful monopolistic conduct. As the Court of Appeals aptly stated, "the distinction between a markup and a commission is immaterial." 846 F. 3d at 324. A leading antitrust treatise likewise states: "Denying standing because 'title' never passes to a broker is an overly lawyered approach that ignores the reality that a distribution system that relies on brokerage is economically indistinguishable from one that relies on purchaser-resellers." 2A Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶345, at 183. If a retailer has engaged in unlawful monopolistic conduct that has caused consumers to pay higher-than-competitive prices, it does not matter how the retailer structured its relationship with an upstream manufacturer or supplier-whether, for example, the retailer employed a markup or kept a commission.
To be sure, if the monopolistic retailer's conduct has not caused the consumer to pay a higher-than-competitive price, then the plaintiff's damages will be zero. Here, for example, if the competitive commission rate were 10 percent rather than 30 percent but Apple could prove that app developers in a 10 percent commission system would always set a higher price such that consumers would pay the same retail price regardless of whether Apple's commission was 10 percent or 30 percent, then the consumers' damages would presumably be zero. But we cannot assume in all cases-as Apple would necessarily have us do-that a monopolistic retailer who keeps a commission does not ever cause the consumer to pay a higher-than-competitive price. We find no persuasive legal or economic basis for such a blanket assertion.
In short, we do not understand the relevance of the upstream market structure in deciding whether a downstream consumer may sue a monopolistic retailer. Apple's rule would elevate form (what is the precise arrangement between manufacturers or suppliers and retailers?) over substance (is the consumer paying a higher price because of the monopolistic retailer's actions?). If the retailer's unlawful monopolistic conduct caused a consumer to pay the retailer a higher-than-competitive price, the consumer is entitled to sue the retailer under the antitrust laws.
Third, if accepted, Apple's theory would provide a roadmap for monopolistic retailers to structure transactions with manufacturers or suppliers so as to evade antitrust claims by consumers and thereby thwart effective antitrust enforcement.
Consider a traditional supplier-retailer relationship, in which the retailer purchases a product from the supplier and sells the product with a markup to consumers. Under Apple's proposed rule, a retailer, instead of buying the product from the supplier, could arrange to sell the product for the supplier without purchasing it from the supplier. In other words, rather than paying the supplier a certain price for the product and then marking up the price to sell the product to consumers, the retailer could collect the price of the product from consumers and remit only a fraction of that price to the supplier.
That restructuring would allow a monopolistic retailer to insulate itself from antitrust suits by consumers, even in situations where a monopolistic retailer is using its monopoly to charge higher-than-competitive prices to consumers. We decline to green-light monopolistic retailers to exploit their market position in that way. We refuse to rubber-stamp such a blatant evasion of statutory text and judicial precedent.
In sum, Apple's theory would disregard statutory text and precedent, create an unprincipled and economically senseless distinction among monopolistic retailers, and furnish monopolistic retailers with a how-to guide for evasion of the antitrust laws.
C
In arguing that the Court should transform the direct-purchaser rule into a "who sets the price" rule, Apple insists that the three reasons that the Court identified in Illinois Brick for adopting the direct-purchaser rule apply to this case-even though the consumers here (unlike in Illinois Brick ) were direct purchasers from the alleged monopolist. The Illinois Brick Court listed three reasons for barring indirect-purchaser suits: (1) facilitating more effective enforcement of antitrust laws; (2) avoiding complicated damages calculations; and (3) eliminating duplicative damages against antitrust defendants.
As we said in UtiliCorp, however, the bright-line rule of Illinois Brick means that there is no reason to ask whether the rationales of Illinois Brick "apply with equal force" in every individual case. 497 U.S. at 216, 110 S.Ct. 2807. We should not engage in "an unwarranted and counterproductive exercise to litigate a series of exceptions." Id., at 217, 110 S.Ct. 2807.
But even if we engage with this argument, we conclude that the three Illinois Brick rationales-whether considered individually or together-cut strongly in the plaintiffs' favor here, not Apple's.
First, Apple argues that barring the iPhone owners from suing Apple will better promote effective enforcement of the antitrust laws. Apple posits that allowing only the upstream app developers-and not the downstream consumers-to sue Apple would mean more effective enforcement of the antitrust laws. We do not agree. Leaving consumers at the mercy of monopolistic retailers simply because upstream suppliers could also sue the retailers makes little sense and would directly contradict the longstanding goal of effective private enforcement and consumer protection in antitrust cases.
Second, Apple warns that calculating the damages in successful consumer antitrust suits against monopolistic retailers might be complicated. It is true that it may be hard to determine what the retailer would have charged in a competitive market. Expert testimony will often be necessary. But that is hardly unusual in antitrust cases. Illinois Brick is not a get-out-of-court-free card for monopolistic retailers to play any time that a damages calculation might be complicated. Illinois Brick surely did not wipe out consumer antitrust suits against monopolistic retailers from whom the consumers purchased goods or services at higher-than-competitive prices. Moreover, the damages calculation may be just as complicated in a retailer markup case as it is in a retailer commission case. Yet Apple apparently accepts consumers suing monopolistic retailers in a retailer markup case. If Apple accepts that kind of suit, then Apple should also accept consumers suing monopolistic retailers in a retailer commission case.
Third, Apple claims that allowing consumers to sue will result in "conflicting claims to a common fund-the amount of the alleged overcharge." Illinois Brick, 431 U.S. at 737, 97 S.Ct. 2061. Apple is incorrect. This is not a case where multiple parties at different levels of a distribution chain are trying to all recover the same passed-through overcharge initially levied by the manufacturer at the top of the chain. Cf. id., at 726-727, 97 S.Ct. 2061 ; Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 392 U.S. 481, 483-484, 88 S.Ct. 2224, 20 L.Ed.2d 1231 (1968). If the iPhone owners prevail, they will be entitled to the full amount of the unlawful overcharge that they paid to Apple. The overcharge has not been passed on by anyone to anyone. Unlike in Illinois Brick, there will be no need to "trace the effect of the overcharge through each step in the distribution chain." 431 U.S. at 741, 97 S.Ct. 2061.
It is true that Apple's alleged anticompetitive conduct may leave Apple subject to multiple suits by different plaintiffs. But Illinois Brick did not purport to bar multiple liability that is unrelated to passing an overcharge down a chain of distribution. Basic antitrust law tells us that the "mere fact that an antitrust violation produces two different classes of victims hardly entails that their injuries are duplicative of one another." 2A Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶339d, at 136. Multiple suits are not atypical when the intermediary in a distribution chain is a bottleneck monopolist or monopsonist (or both) between the manufacturer on the one end and the consumer on the other end. A retailer who is both a monopolist and a monopsonist may be liable to different classes of plaintiffs-both to downstream consumers and to upstream suppliers-when the retailer's unlawful conduct affects both the downstream and upstream markets.
Here, some downstream iPhone consumers have sued Apple on a monopoly theory. And it could be that some upstream app developers will also sue Apple on a monopsony theory. In this instance, the two suits would rely on fundamentally different theories of harm and would not assert dueling claims to a "common fund," as that term was used in Illinois Brick. The consumers seek damages based on the difference between the price they paid and the competitive price. The app developers would seek lost profits that they could have earned in a competitive retail market. Illinois Brick does not bar either category of suit.
In short, the three Illinois Brick rationales do not persuade us to remake Illinois Brick and to bar direct-purchaser suits against monopolistic retailers who employ commissions rather than markups. The plaintiffs seek to hold retailers to account if the retailers engage in unlawful anticompetitive conduct that harms consumers who purchase from those retailers. That is why we have antitrust law.
* * *
Ever since Congress overwhelmingly passed and President Benjamin Harrison signed the Sherman Act in 1890, "protecting consumers from monopoly prices" has been "the central concern of antitrust." 2A Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶345, at 179. The consumers here purchased apps directly from Apple, and they allege that Apple used its monopoly power over the retail apps market to charge higher-than-competitive prices. Our decision in Illinois Brick does not bar the consumers from suing Apple for Apple's allegedly monopolistic conduct. We affirm the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
It is so ordered.
Justice GORSUCH, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Justice THOMAS, and Justice ALITO join, dissenting.
More than 40 years ago, in Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 720, 97 S.Ct. 2061, 52 L.Ed.2d 707 (1977), this Court held that an antitrust plaintiff can't sue a defendant for overcharging someone else who might (or might not) have passed on all (or some) of the overcharge to him. Illinois Brick held that these convoluted "pass on" theories of damages violate traditional principles of proximate causation and that the right plaintiff to bring suit is the one on whom the overcharge immediately and surely fell. Yet today the Court lets a pass-on case proceed. It does so by recasting Illinois Brick as a rule forbidding only suits where the plaintiff does not contract directly with the defendant. This replaces a rule of proximate cause and economic reality with an easily manipulated and formalistic rule of contractual privity. That's not how antitrust law is supposed to work, and it's an uncharitable way of treating a precedent which-whatever its flaws-is far more sensible than the rule the Court installs in its place.
I
To understand Illinois Brick, it helps to start with the case that paved the way for that decision: Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 392 U.S. 481, 88 S.Ct. 2224, 20 L.Ed.2d 1231 (1968). Hanover sued United, a company that supplied machinery Hanover used to make shoes. Hanover alleged that United's illegal monopoly in the shoe-making-machinery market had allowed it to charge supracompetitive prices. As damages, Hanover sought to recover the amount it had overpaid United for machinery. United replied that Hanover hadn't been damaged at all because, United asserted, Hanover had not absorbed the supposedly "illegal overcharge" but had "passed the cost on to its customers" by raising the prices it charged for shoes. Id., at 487-488, and n. 6, 88 S.Ct. 2224. This Court called United's argument a " 'passing-on' defense" because it suggested that a court should consider whether an antitrust plaintiff had "passed on" the defendant's overcharge to its own customers when assessing if and to what degree the plaintiff was injured by the defendant's anticompetitive conduct. Id., at 488, 88 S.Ct. 2224.
This Court rejected that defense. While § 4 of the Clayton Act allows private suits for those injured by antitrust violations, we have long interpreted this language against the backdrop of the common law. See, e.g., Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519, 529-531, 103 S.Ct. 897, 74 L.Ed.2d 723 (1983). And under ancient rules of proximate causation, the " 'general tendency of the law, in regard to damages at least, is not to go beyond the first step.' " Hanover Shoe, 392 U.S. at 490, n. 8, 88 S.Ct. 2224 (quoting Southern Pacific Co. v. Darnell-Taenzer Lumber Co., 245 U.S. 531, 533, 38 S.Ct. 186, 62 L.Ed. 451 (1918) ). In Hanover Shoe, the first step was United's overcharging of Hanover. To proceed beyond that and inquire whether Hanover had passed on the overcharge to its customers, the Court held, would risk the sort of problems traditional principles of proximate cause were designed to avoid. "[N]early insuperable" questions would follow about whether Hanover had the capacity and incentive to pass on to its customers in the shoe-making market United's alleged monopoly rent from the separate shoe-making-machinery market. 392 U.S. at 493, 88 S.Ct. 2224. Resolving those questions would, in turn, necessitate a trial within a trial about Hanover's power and conduct in its own market, with the attendant risk that proceedings would become "long and complicated" and would "involv[e] massive evidence and complicated theories." Ibid.
Illinois Brick was just the other side of the coin. With Hanover Shoe having held that an antitrust defendant could not rely on a pass-on theory to avoid damages, Illinois Brick addressed whether an antitrust plaintiff could rely on a pass-on theory to recover damages. The State of Illinois had sued several manufacturers of concrete blocks, alleging that the defendants'
price-fixing conspiracy had enabled them to overcharge building contractors, who in turn had passed on those charges to their customers, including the State. Recognizing that Hanover Shoe had already prohibited antitrust violators from using a "pass-on theory" defensively, the Court declined to "permit offensive use of a pass-on theory against an alleged violator that could not use the same theory as a defense." 431 U.S. at 735, 97 S.Ct. 2061. "Permitting the use of pass-on theories under § 4," the Court reasoned, would require determining how much of the manufacturer's monopoly rent was absorbed by intermediary building contractors and how much they were able and chose to pass on to their customers like the State. Id., at 737, 97 S.Ct. 2061. Allowing pass-on theories would, as well, allow "plaintiffs at each level in the distribution chain" to "assert conflicting claims to a common fund," which would require "massive efforts to apportion the recovery among all potential plaintiffs that could have absorbed part of the overcharge-from direct purchasers to middlemen to ultimate consumers." Ibid. Better again, the Court decided, to adhere to traditional rules of proximate causation and allow only the first affected customers-the building contractors-to sue for the monopoly rents they had directly paid.
There is nothing surprising in any of this. Unless Congress provides otherwise, this Court generally reads statutory causes of action as "limited to plaintiffs whose injuries are proximately caused by violations of the statute." Lexmark Int'l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 132, 134 S.Ct. 1377, 188 L.Ed.2d 392 (2014). That proximate cause requirement typically bars suits for injuries that are "derivative of misfortunes visited upon a third person by the defendant's acts." Id., at 133, 134 S.Ct. 1377 (internal quotation marks omitted). So, for example, if a defendant's false advertising causes harm to one of its competitors, the competitor can sue the false advertiser under the Lanham Act. But if the competitor is unable to pay its rent as a result, the competitor's landlord can't sue the false advertiser, because the landlord's harm derives from the harm to the competitor. Id., at 134, 134 S.Ct. 1377 ; see also, e.g., Bank of America Corp. v. Miami, 581 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 137 S.Ct. 1296, 1304-1306, 197 L.Ed.2d 678 (2017) ; Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Broudo, 544 U.S. 336, 346, 125 S.Ct. 1627, 161 L.Ed.2d 577 (2005) ; Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection Corporation, 503 U.S. 258, 268-270, 112 S.Ct. 1311, 117 L.Ed.2d 532 (1992). This Court has long understood Illinois Brick as simply applying these traditional proximate cause principles in the antitrust context. See Associated Gen. Contractors, 459 U.S. at 532-535, 544-545, 103 S.Ct. 897.
II
The lawsuit before us depends on just the sort of pass-on theory that Illinois Brick forbids. The plaintiffs bought apps from third-party app developers (or manufacturers) in Apple's retail Internet App Store, at prices set by the developers. The lawsuit alleges that Apple is a monopolist retailer and that the 30% commission it charges developers for the right to sell through its platform represents an anticompetitive price. The problem is that the 30% commission falls initially on the developers. So if the commission is in fact a monopolistic overcharge, the developers are the parties who are directly injured by it. Plaintiffs can be injured only if the developers are able and choose to pass on the overcharge to them in the form of higher app prices that the developers alone control. Plaintiffs admitted as much in the district court, where they described their theory of injury this way: "[I]f Apple tells the developer... we're going to take this 30 percent commission... what's the developer going to do? The developer is going to increase its price to cover Apple's... demanded profit." App. 143.
Because this is exactly the kind of "pass-on theory" Illinois Brick rejected, it should come as no surprise that the concerns animating that decision are also implicated. Like other pass-on theories, plaintiffs' theory will necessitate a complex inquiry into how Apple's conduct affected third-party pricing decisions. And it will raise difficult questions about apportionment of damages between app developers and their customers, along with the risk of duplicative damages awards. If anything, plaintiffs' claims present these difficulties even more starkly than did the claims at issue in Illinois Brick.
Consider first the question of causation. To determine if Apple's conduct damaged plaintiffs at all (and if so, the magnitude of their damages), a court will first have to explore whether and to what extent each individual app developer was able-and then opted-to pass on the 30% commission to its consumers in the form of higher app prices. Sorting this out, if it can be done at all, will entail wrestling with " 'complicated theories' " about "how the relevant market variables would have behaved had there been no overcharge." Illinois Brick, 431 U.S. at 741-743, 97 S.Ct. 2061. Will the court hear testimony to determine the market power of each app developer, how each set its prices, and what it might have charged consumers for apps if Apple's commission had been lower? Will the court also consider expert testimony analyzing how market factors might have influenced developers' capacity and willingness to pass on Apple's alleged monopoly overcharge? And will the court then somehow extrapolate its findings to all of the tens of thousands of developers who sold apps through the App Store at different prices and times over the course of years?
This causation inquiry will be complicated further by Apple's requirement that all app prices end in $ 0.99. As plaintiffs acknowledge, this rule has caused prices for the "vast majority" of apps to "cluster" at exactly $ 0.99. Brief for Respondents 44. And a developer charging $ 0.99 for its app can't raise its price by just enough to recover the 30-cent commission. Instead, if the developer wants to pass on the commission to consumers, it has to more than double its price to $ 1.99 (doubling the commission in the process), which could significantly affect its sales. In short, because Apple's 99-cent rule creates a strong disincentive for developers to raise their prices, it makes plaintiffs' pass-on theory of injury even harder to prove. Yet the court will have to consider all of this when determining what damages, if any, plaintiffs suffered as a result of Apple's allegedly excessive 30% commission.
Plaintiffs' claims will also necessitate "massive efforts to apportion the recovery among all potential plaintiffs that could have absorbed part of the overcharge," including both consumers and
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
In Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367 (1979), the Court held that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction is constitutionally valid if the offender is not incarcerated. This case presents the question whether such a conviction may be used under an enhanced penalty statute to convert a subsequent misdemeanor into a felony with a prison term.
Under Illinois law, theft “not from the person” of property worth less than $150 is a misdemeanor punishable by not more than a year of imprisonment and a fine of not more than $1,000. Ill. Rey. Stat., ch. 38, §§ 16-1 (e)(1), 1005-8-3 (a) (1), 1005-9-1 (a)(2) (1975). A second conviction for the same offense, however, may be treated as a felony with a prison term of one to three years. § 1005-8-1 (b) (5).
Thomas Baldasar, the petitioner, was convicted of misdemeanor theft in Cook County Circuit Court in May 1975. The record of that proceeding indicates that he was not represented by a lawyer and did not formally waive any right to counsel. Baldasar was fined $159 and sentenced to one year of probation. In November 1975 the State charged him with stealing a shower head worth $29 from a department store. The case was tried to a jury in Du Page County Circuit Court in August 1976. The prosecution introduced evidence of the prior conviction and asked that Baldasar be punished as a felon under the Illinois enhancement statute. Defense counsel objected to the admission of the 1975 conviction. She argued unsuccessfully that because Baldasar had not been represented by a lawyer at the first proceeding, the conviction was too unreliable to support enhancement of the second misdemeanor. App. 7-9. The jury returned a guilty verdict on the felony charge, and Baldasar was sentenced to prison for one to three years.
The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed by a divided vote. It emphasized that when the right to counsel in misdemeanor cases was recognized in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972), this Court confined that right to prosecutions that “ 'end up in the actual deprivation of a person’s liberty.’ ” 52 Ill. App. 3d 305, 307, 367 N. E. 2d 459, 462 (1977), quoting Argersinger, supra, at 40. The Illinois court rejected petitioner’s argument that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments prevented the imposition of the enhanced prison term. “The fact is,” the court wrote, “that [Baldasar] was sentenced to imprisonment for his second theft conviction only and not, as he suggests, sentenced again, and this time to imprisonment, for the first theft conviction.” 52 Ill. App. 3d, at 310, 367 N. E. 2d, at 463. The Supreme Court of Illinois denied leave to appeal, and we granted certiorari. 440 U. S. 956 (1979).
For the reasons stated in the concurring opinions, the judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District, for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Jackson
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which
Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Burton join.
This case calls up for review a holding that it is unconstitutional for Congress to open federal courts in the several states to action by a citizen of the District.of Columbia against a citizen of one of the states. The petitioner, as plaintiff, commenced in the United States District Court for Maryland an action for a money judgment on a claim arising out of an insurance contract. No cause of action under the laws or Constitution of the United States was pleaded, jurisdiction being predicated only upon an allegation of diverse citizenship. The diversity set forth was that plaintiff is a corporation created by District of Columbia law, while the defendant is a corporation chartered by Virginia, amenable to suit in Maryland by virtue of a license to do business there. The learned District Judge- concluded that, while this diversity met jurisdictional requirements under the Act of Congress, it did not comply with diversity requirements of the Constitution as to federal jurisdiction, and so dismissed. The Court of Appeals, by a divided court, affirmed. Of twelve district courts that had.considered the question up to the time review in this Court was sought, all except three had held the enabling Act unconstitutional, and the two Courts of Appeals which had spoken on the subject agreed with that conclusion. The controversy obviously was' an appropriate one for review here and writ of certiorari issued in the case.
The history oT the controversy begins with that of the Republic. In defining the. cases and controversies to which the judicial power of the United States could extend, the Constitution included those “between Citizens of different States.” In the Judiciary Act of 1789, Congress created a system of federal courts of first instance and' gave them jurisdiction of -suits “between a citizen of the State where the suit is brought, and a citizen of another State.” In 1804, the Supreme Court, through Chief Justice Marshall, held that a citizen of the District of Columbia was not a citizen of a.State within the meaning and intendment of this Act. This decision closed federal courts in the states to citizens of the District of Columbia in diversity cases, and for 136 years they remained closed. In 1940 Congress enacted the statute challenged here. It confers on such courts jurisdiction if the action “Is between citizens of different States, or citizens of the District of Columbia, the Territory of Hawaii, or Alaska, and any State or. Territory.” The issue here depends upon the validity of this Act, which, in substance, was reenacted by a later Congress as part of the Judicial Code.
Before concentrating on detail, it may be well to place the general issue in a larger perspective. This constitutional issue affects only the mechanics of administering justice in our federation. It does not involve an extension or a denial of any fundamental right or immunity which goes to make up our freedoms. Those rights and freedoms do not include immunity from suit by a citizen of Columbia or exemption from process of the federal courts. Defendant concedes that it can presently be sued in some court of law, if not this one, and it grants that Congress may make it suable at plaintiff’s complaint in some, if not this, federal court. Defendant’s contention only amounts to this: that it cannot be made to answer this plaintiff in the particular court which Congress has decided is the just and convenient forum..
The considerations which bid us strictly to apply the Constitution to congressional enactments which invade fundamental freedoms or which reach for powers that would substantially disturb the balance between, the Union and its component states, are not present here. In mere mechanics of government and administration we should, so far as the language of the great Charter fairly will permit, give Congress freedom to adapt its machinery to the needs of changing times. In no case could the admonition of the great Chief Justice be more appropriately heeded — “... we must never forget, that it is a constitution we are expounding.”
Our first inquiry is whether, under the third, or Judiciary, Article of the Constitution, extending the judicial power of the United States to cases or controversies “between Citizens of different States,” a citizen of the District of Columbia has the standing of a citizen of one of the states of the Union. This is the question which the opinion of Chief Justice Marshall answered in the negative, by way of dicta- if not of actual decision. Hepburn & Dundas v. Ellzey, 2 Cranch 445. To be sure, nothing was before that Court except interpretation of a statute which conferred jurisdiction substantially in the words of the Constitution with nothing in the text or context to show that Congress intended to regard the District as a state. But Marshall resolved the statutory question by invoking the analogy of- the constitutional provisions of the same tenor and reasoned that the District was not a state for purposes of the Constitution and, hence, was not for purposes of the Act. The opinion summarily disposed of arguments to the contrary, including the one repeated here that other provisions of the Constitution indicate that “the term state is sometimes used in its more enlarged sense.” Here, as there, “on examining the passages quoted, they do not prove what was to be shown by them”’ 2 Cranch-445, 453. Among his contemporaries at least, Chief Justice Marshall was not generally censured for undue literalness in interpreting the language of the Constitution to deny federal power and he wrote from close personal knowledge of the Founders and the foundation of our constitutional structure. Nor did he underestimate the equitable claims which his decision denied to residents of the District, for he said that “It is true that as citizens of the United States, and of that particular district which is subject to the jurisdiction of congress, it is extraordinary that the courts of the United States, which are open to aliens, and' to the citizens of every state in the union, should be closed upon them.— But this is a subject for legislative not for judicial consideration.”
The latter sentence, to which much importance is attached, is somewhat ambiguous, because constitutional amendment as well as statutory revision is for legislative, not judicial, consideration. But the opinion as a whole leaves no doubt that the Court did not then regard the District as a state for diversity purposes.
.To now overrule this early decision of the Court on this point-and hold that the District of Columbia is a state would, as that opinion pointed out, give to the word “state” a meaning in the Article which sets up the judicial establishment quite different from that which it carries in those Articles which set up the political departments and in other Articles of the instrument. While the word is one which can contain many meanings, such inconsistency in a single instrument is to be implied only where the context clearly requires it. There is no evidence that the Founders, pressed by more general and immediate anxieties, thought of the special problems of the District of Columbia in connection with the judiciary. This is not strange, for the District was then only a contemplated entity. But. had they thought of it, there is nothing to indicate that it would have been referred to as a state and much to indicate that it would have required special provisions to fit its anomalous relationship into the new judicial system, just as it did to fit it into the new political system.
Jn referring to the “States” in the fateful instrument which amalgamated them into the “United States,” the Founders obviously were not speaking of states in the abstract. They referred to those concrete organized societies which were thereby contributing to the federation by delegating somfe part of their sovereign powers and to those that-should later be organized and admitted to the partnership in the method prescribed. They obviously did not contemplate unorganized and dependent spaces as. states. The District of Columbia being nonexistent in any form, much less as a state, at the time of the compact, certainly was not taken into the Union of states by it, nor has it since been admitted as a new state is required to be admitted.
We therefore decline to overrule the opinion of Chief Justice Marshall, and we hold that the District of Columbia is not a state within Article III of the Constitution. In other words, cases between citizens of the District and those of the states were not included in the catalogue of controversies over which the Congress could give jurisdiction to the federal courts by virtue of Art. III.
This conclusion does not, however, determine that Congress lacks power under other provisions of the Constitution to enact this legislation. Congress, by the Act in question, sought not to challenge or disagree with the decision of Chief Justice Marshall that the District of Columbia is not a state for such purposes. It was careful to avoid conflict with that decision by basing the new legislation on powers that had not been relied upon by the First Congress in passing the Act of 1789.
The Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives recommended the Act of April 20, 1940, as “a reasonable exercise of the constitutional power of Congress, to legislate for the District of Columbia and for the Territories.” This power the Constitution confers in broad terms. By Art. I, Congress is empowered “to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District.” And of course it was also authorized “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” such powers. These provisions were not relevant in Chief Justice Marshall’s interpretation of the Act of 1789 because it did not refer in terms to the District but only to states.. It is therefore significant that, having decided that District citizens’ cases were not brought within federal jurisdiction by Art. Ill and the statute enacted pursuant to it, the Chief Justice added, ás-we have seen, that it was extraordinary that the federal courts should be closed to the citizens of “that particular district which is subject to the jurisdiction of congress.” Such language clearly refers to Congress’ Art. I power of “exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District.” And mention of that power seems particularly significant in the context of Marshall’s further statement that the matter is a subject for “legislativé not for judicial consideration.” Even if it be considered speculation to say that this was an expression by the Chief Justice that Congress had the requisite'power under Art. I, it would be in the teeth of his language to say that it is a denial of such power. The Congress has acted on the belief that it possesses that' power. Wé believe their conclusion is well founded.
It is elementary that the exclusive responsibility of. Congress for the welfare of the District includes both power and duty to provide its inhabitants and citizens with courts adequate to adjudge not only controversies among themselves but also their claims against, as well as suits brought by, citizens of the various states. It long has been held that Congress may clothe District of Columbia courts not oniy with the jurisdiction and powers of federal courts in the several states but with such authority as a state may confer on her courts. Kendall v. United States, 12 Pet. 524, 619; Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1; O’Donoghue v. United States, 289 U. S. 516. The defendant here does not challenge the power of Congress to assure justice to the citizens of the District by means of federal instrumentalities,, or to empower a federal court within the District to fun its process to summon defendants here from any part of the country. And no reason has been advanced why a special statutory court for cases of District citizens could not be authorized to proceed elsewhere in the United States to sit, where necessary or proper, to discharge the duties of Congress toward District citizens.
However, it is contended that Congress may not combine this function, under Art. I, with those under Art. Ill, in district courts of the United States. Two objections are urged to this. One is that no jurisdiction other than specified in Art. Ill can be imposed on courts that exercise the judicial power of the United States thereunder. The other is that Art. I powers over the District of Columbia must be exercised solely within that geographic area.
Of course there are limits to the nature of duties which Congress may impose on the constitutional courts vested with the federal judicial power. The doctrine of separation of powers is fundamental in oiir system. It arises, however, not from Art. Ill nor any other' single provision of the Constitution, but because “behind the words of the constitutional provisions are postulates which limit and control.” Chief Justice Hughes in Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 323. The permeative nature of this doctrine was early recognized during the Constitutional Convention. Objection that the present provision giving federal courts jurisdiction of cases arising “under this Constitution” would permit usurpation of non judicial functions by the federal courts was overruled as unwarranted since it was “generally supposed that the jurisdiction given was constructively limited to cases of a Judiciary nature.” 2 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention; 430. And this statute reflects that doctrine. It does not authorize or require either the district, courts or this Court to participate in any legislative, administrative, political or other nonjudicial function or to render any advisory opinion.- The jurisdiction conferred is limited to controversies of a justiciable nature, the sole feature distinguishing them from countless other controversies handled by the same courts being the fact that one party is a District citizen. Nor has the Congress by this statute attempted to usurp any judicial power. It has deliberately chosen the district courts as the appropriate instrumentality through which to exercise part of the judicial functions incidental tq exertion of sovereignty over the District and its citizens.
Unless we are to deny to Congress the same choice of means through which to- govern' the District of Columbia that we have held it to have in exercising other, legislative powers enumerated in the same Article, we cannot hold that Congress lacked the power it sought to exercise in the Act before us.
It is too late to hold that judicial functions incidental to Art. I powers of Congress cannot be conferred on courts existing under Art. Ill, for it has been done with this Court’s approval. O’Donoghue v. United States, 289 U. S. 516. In that case it was held that, although District of Columbia courts are Art. Ill courts, they can also exercise judicial power conferred by Congress pursuant to Art. I. The fact that District of Columbia courts, as local courts, can also be given administrative or legislative functions which other Art. Ill courts cannot exercise, does but emphasize the fact that, although the latter are limited to the exercise of judicial power, it may constitutionally be received from either Art. Ill or Art. I, and that congressional power over the District, flowing from Art. I, is plenary in every respect.
It is likewise too late to say that we should reach this result by overruling Chief Justice Marshall’s view, unless we are prepared also to overrule much more, including some of our own very recent utterances. Many powers of Congress other than its power to govern Columbia require for their intelligent and discriminating exercise determination of controversies of a justiciable character. In no instance has this Court yet held that jurisdiction of such cases could not be placed in the regular federal courts that Congress has been authorized to ordain and establish. We turn to some, analogous situations in which we have approved the very course that Congress has taken here.
Congress is given power by Art. I to pay debts of the United States. ( That involves as an incident the determination of disputed claims. We have held unanimously that congressional authority under Art. I, not the Art. Ill jurisdiction over suits to which the United States is a party, is the sole source of power to. establish the Court of Claims and of the judicial power which' that court exercises. Williams v. United States, 289 U. S. 553. In that decision we also noted that it is this same Art. I power that is conferred on district courts by the Tucker Act which authorizes them to hear and determine such claims in limited amounts. Since a legislative court such as the Court of Claims is “incapable of receiving” Art. Ill judicial power, American Insurance Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511, 546, it is clear that the power thus exercised by that court and concurrently by the district courts flows from Art. I, not Art. III. Indeed, more recently and again unanimously, this Court has said that by the Tucker Act the Congress authorized the district'-" courts to sit as a court of claims exercising the same but no more judicial power. United States v. Sherwood, 312 U. S. 584, 591. And but a few terms ago, in considering an Act by which Congress directed rehearing of a rejected claim and its redetermination in conformity with directions given in the Act, Chief Justice Stone, with the concurrence of all sitting colleagues, reasoned that “The problem presented here is no different than if Congress had given a like direction to any district court to be followed as in other Tucker Act cases.” Pope v. United States, 323 U. S. 1, 14. Congress has taken us at our word and recently conferred on the district courts exclusive jurisdiction of tort claims cognizable under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 60 Stat. 842, 843, also enacted pursuant to Art. I powers. See Brooks v. United States, ante, p. 49.
Congress also is given power in Art. I to make uniform laws on the subject of' bankruptcies. That this, and not the judicial power under Art. Ill, is the source of our system of reorganizations and bankruptcy is obvious, Continental Bank v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 294 U. S. 648. Not only may the district courts be required to handle these proceedings, but Congress may add to their jurisdiction cases between the trustee and others that, but for the bankruptcy powers, would be beyond their jurisdiction because of lack of diversity required under Art. III. Schumacher v. Beeler, 293 U. S. 367. In that case, Chief Justice Hughes for a unanimous court wrote that, by virtue of its Art. I authority over bankruptcies, the Congress could confer on the regular district courts jurisdiction of “all controversies at law and in equity, as distinguished from proceedings in bankruptcy, between trustees as such and adverse claimants” to the extent specified in § 23b oí the Bankruptcy Act as aménded. Such jurisdiction was there upheld in a plenary suit, in a district court, by which the trustee sought equitable relief relying on allegations raising only questions of Ohio law concerning the validity under that law of a sheriff’s levy and execution. Possession by the trustee not being shown,,and there being no divers ty, jurisdiction in the district court could flow only iro n the statute. Chief Justice Hughes noted that the distinction between proceedings in bankruptcy and suits at law and in equity was recognized by the terms of the statute itself, but held that “Congress, by virtue of its constitutional authority over bankruptcies, could confer or withhold jurisdiction to entertain such suits and could prescribe the conditions upon which the federal courts should have jurisdiction.... Exercising that power, the Congress prescribed in § 23b the condition of consent on the part of the defendant sued by the trustee. Section.23b was thus in effect a grant of jurisdiction subject to that condition.” 293 U. S. 367, 374. He concluded that the statute granted jurisdiction to the district court' “although the bankrupt could not have brought suit there if proceedings in bankruptcy had not been instituted....” 293 U. S. 367, 377. And he stated the correct view to be that § 23 conferred substantive jurisdiction, 293 U. S. 367, 371, disapproving statements in an earlier case that Congress lacked power to confer such jurisdiction. Id. at 377. Thus, the Court held that Congress had power to authorize an A.rt. Ill court to entertain a non-Art. Ill suit because such judicial power was conferred under Art. I.. Indeed, the present Court has.assumed, without even discussion, that Congress has such power. In Williams v. Austrian, 331 U. S. 642, 657, the Chief Justice, speaking for the Court, said that “... Congress intended by the elimination of § 23 [from Chapter X of the Bankruptcy Act] to establish the jurisdiction of federal courts to hear plenary^suits brought by a reorganization trustee, even though diversity or other usual ground for federal jurisdiction is lacking” (Emphasis supplied.) There was vigorous -dissent as to the meaning of the statute, but the dissenting Justices referred to thé Court’s holding that “a Chapter X trustee may bring this plenary suit in personam in a federal district court not the reorganization court, although neither diversity of citizenship nor other ground of federal jurisdiction exists.” 331 U. S. 642, 664. And the dissent continued: “No doubt Congress could authorize such a suit. See Schumacher v. Beeler, 293 U. S. 367, 374.” Ibid.
This assumption by the Court in the Beeler and Austrian cases, that the Congress had power to confer on the district courts júrisdiction of nondiversity suits involving only state law questions, made unnecessary any discussion of the source of the assumed power. In view of Congress’ plenary control over bankruptcies, the Court may have grounded such assumption on Art. I. Or it might have considered that the jurisdiction was based on Art. Ill, and statutes enacted pursuant to it, giving the district courts jurisdiction over suits arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States. Had the Court held such, a view, this latter might have commended itself as the most obvious answer. Consequently, silence in this respect, in the decision of each case, seems significant, particularly in contrast with repeated reference to Art. I power in the Beeler case, and sweeping language in the Austrian case that such jurisdiction existed despite lack of diversity “or other usual ground for federal jurisdiction.” Nevertheless, it is now asserted, in retrospect, that those cases did arise under the laws of the United States. No justification is offered for that conclusion and there is no effort to say just why or how the cases did so arise. This would indeed be difficult if we still adhere to the doctrine of Mr. Justice Holmes that “a suit arises under the law that creates the cause of action,” American Well Works Co. v. Layne Co., 241 U. S. 257, 260, for the cause of action in eách case rested solely on state law.
But the matter does not rest on inference alone. Other decisions of this Court demonstrate conclusively that jurisdiction over the Beeler and Austrian suits was not and could not have been conferred under Art. Ill and statutes concerning suits arising under the laws of the United States. A most thoroughly-considered utterance of this Court on that subject was given by. Mr. Justice Cardozo, in Gully v. First National Bank, 299 U. S. 109, where he said, without dissent, “How and when a case arises ‘under the Constitution or laws of the United States’ has been much considered in the books. Some tests are well established. To bring a case within the statute, a right or immunity created by the Constitution or laws of the United States must be an element, and an essential one, of the plaintiff’s cause of action.... [Emphasis added. ] Thé right or immunity must be such that it will be supportéd if the Constitution or laws of the United States are given one construction or effect, and defeated if they receive another.... A genuine and present controversy, not merely a possible or conjectural one, must exist with reference thereto... and the controversy must be disclosed upon the face of the complaint... 299 U. S. 109, 112-113. After reviewing-previous cases, Mr. Justice Cardozo referred to a then recent opinion by Mr. Justice Stone in which he said, for a unanimous court, that federal jurisdiction “may not be invoked where the right asserted is non-federal, merely because the plaintiff’s right to sue is derived from federal law, or because the property involved was obtained under federal statute. The federal nature of the right to.be established is decisive — not the source of the authority to establish it.” Puerto Rico v. Russell & Co., 288 U. S. 476, 483. (Emphasis added.) See also Switchmen’s Union v. Board, 320 U. S. 297; General Committee v. M.-K.-T. R. Co., 320 U. S. 323.
Neither the Austrian nor the Beeler case meets these tests,, required before a case can be said to arise under the laws of the United States, any more than does the case before us. Austrian, as trustee, sued in equity for an accounting based on a charge that affairs of a state-created corporation had been conducted by the officers in violation of state law. Beeler, as trustee, sued on a contention that a levy on property by an Ohio sheriff was void under state law. Both controversies, like the one before-us, called for a determination of no law question except those arising under state laws. The only way in which any law of the United States contributed to the case was in opening the district courts to the trustee, under Art. I powers of Congress, just as the present statute, under the same Article, opens those courts to residents of the District of Columbia. In each case, in the words of Chief Justice Stone, the federal law provided, not the right sought to be established, but only the authority of the trustee to'establish it. The fact that the congressional power over bankruptcy granted by Art. I could open the court to the trustee does not mean that such suits arise under the laws of the United States; but it does mean that Art. I can supply a source of judicial power for their adjudication. The distinction is important and it is decisive on this issue.
Neither the Beeler nor the Austrian case was one arising under the laws of the United States within the clear language of recent holdings by this Court. Unless we are to deny the jurisdiction in such cases which has-consistently been upheld, we must rely on the Art. I powers of the Congress. We have been cited to no holding that such jurisdiction cannot spring from that Article. Under Art. I the Congress has given the district courts not only jurisdiction over cases arising under the bankruptcy law but also judicial power over nondiversity cases which do not arise under that or any other federal law. And this Court has upheld the latter grant.
Consequently, we can deny validity to this present Act of Congress, only by saying that the power over the District' given by Art. I is' somehow less ample than that over bankruptcy given by the same Article. If Congress could require this district court to decide this very case if it were brought by a trustee, it is hard to see why it may not require its decision for a solvent claimant when done in pursuance of other Art. I powers.
We conclude that where Congress in the exercise of its powers under Art. I finds it necessary to provide those on whom its power is exerted with access to some kind of court or tribunal for determination of controversies that are within the traditional concept of the justiciable, it may open the regular federal courts to them regardless of lack of diversity of citizenship. The basis of the holdings we have discussed is that, when Congress deems that for such purposes it owes a forum to claimants and trustees, it may execute its power in this manner. The Congress, with equal justification, apparently considers that it also owes such a forum to the residents of the District of Columbia in execution of its power and duty under the same Article. We do not see how the one could be sustained and the other denied.
We therefore hold that Congress may exert its power to govern the District of Columbia by imposing the judicial function of adjudicating justiciable controversies on the regular federal courts which under the Constitution it has the power to ordain and establish and which it may invest with jurisdiction and from which it may withhold jurisdiction “in the exact degrees and character which to Congress may seem proper for the public good.” Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U. S. 182, 187.
The argument that congressional powers over the District are not to be exercised outside of its territorial limits also is pressed upon us. But this same contention has long been held by this Court to be untenable. In Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 425, 429, Chief Justice Marshall, answering the argument that Congress, when legislating for the District, “was reduced to a mere local legislature, whose laws could possess no obligation out of the ten miles square,” said “Congress is not a local legislature, but exercises this particular power, like all its other powers, in its high character, as the legislature of the Union. The American people thought it a necessary power, and they conferred it for their own benefit. Being so conferred, it carries with it all those incidental powers which are necessary to its complete and effectual execution.” In O’Donoghue v. United States, 289 U. S. 516, 539, this Court approved a statement made by Circuit Judge Taft, later Chief Justice of this Court, speaking for himself and Judge (later Mr. Justice) Lurton, that “The object of the grant of exclusive legislation over the district was, therefore, national in the highest sense, and the city organized under the grant became the city, not of a state, not off a district, but of a nation. In the same article which granted the powers of exclusive legislation over its seat of government are conferred all the other great powers which make the nation, including the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States. He would be a strict constructionist, indeed, who should deny to congress the exercise of this latter power in furtherance of that of organizing and maintaining a proper local government at the seat of government. Each is for a national purpose, and the one may be used in aid pf the other....” And, just prior to enactment of the statute now challenged on this ground, the Court of Appeals for the District itself, sitting en banc, and relying on the foregoing authorities, had said that Congress “possesses full and unlimited jurisdiction to provide for the general welfare” of District citizens “by any and every act of legislation which it may deem conducive to that end. •.. when it legislates for the District, Congress acts as a legislature of national character, exercising complete legislative control as contrasted with the limited power of a state legislature, on the one hand, and as contrasted with the limited sovereignty which Congress exercises within the boundaries of the states, on the other.” Neild v. District of Columbia, 71 App. D. C. 306, 310, 110 F. 2d 246, 250.
We could not of course countenance any exercise of this plenary power either within or without the District if it were such as to draw into congressional control subjects over which there has been no delegation of power to the Federal Government. But, as we have pointed out, the power to make this defendant suable by a District citizen is not claimed to be outside of federal competence. If Congress has power to bring the defendant from his home all the way to a forum within the District, there seems little basis for denying it power to require him to meet the plaintiff part way in another forum. The practical issue here is whether, if defendant is to be suable at all by District citizens, he must be compelled to come to the courts of the District of Columbia or perhaps to a special statutory court sitting outside of it, or whether Congress may authorize the regular federal courts to entertain the suit. We see no justification for holding that Congress in accomplishing an end admittedly within its power is restricted to those means which are most cumbersome and burdensome to a defendant. Since it may provide the District citizen with a federal forum in which to sue the citizens of one of the states, it is hard to imagine a fairer or less prejudiced one than the regular federal courts sitting in the defendant’s own state. To vest the jurisdiction in them rather than in courts sitting in the District of Columbia would seem less harsh to defendants and more.consistent with the principles of venue that prevail in our system under which defendants are generally suable in their home forums.
.The Act before us, as we see it, is not a resort by Congress to these means to reach forbidden ends. Rather, Congress is reaching permissible ends by a choice of means which certainly are not expressly forbidden by the Constitution. No good reason is advanced for the Court to deny them by implication. In no matter should we pay more deference to the opinions of Congress than in its choice of instrumentalities to perform a function that is within its power. To put federally administered justice within the reach of District citizens, in claims against citizens of another state, is an object which Congress has a right to accomplish. Its own carefully considered view that it has the power and that it is necessary and proper to utilize United States District Courts as means to this end, is entitled to great respect. Our own ideas as to the wisdom or desirability of such a statute or the constitutional provision authorizing it are totally irrelevant. Such a law of Congress should be stricken down only on a clear showing that it transgresses constitutional limitations. We think no such showing has been made. The Act is valid.
The judgment is
Reversed.
Act of April 2.0, 1940, e. 117, 54 Stat. 143. For terms of the statute see note 10.
No opinion was filed by the District Court, which in dismissing the complaint for lack of jurisdiction relied upon its former decision and opinion in Feely v. Sidney S. Schupper Interstate Hauling System, Inc., 72 F. Supp. 663.
165 F. 2d 531.
The Act had been upheld in Winkler v. Daniels, 43 F. Supp. 265; Glaeser v. Acacia Mutual Life Association, 55 F. Supp. 925; and in Duze v. Woolley, 72 F. Supp. 422 (with respect to Hawaii). It had been held unconstitutional in the District Court in the instant case; in Central States Co-operatives v. Watson Bros. Transportation Co., affirmed 165 F. 2d 392, and in McGarry v. City of Bethlehem, 45 F. Supp. 385; Behlert v. James Foundation, 60 F. Supp. 706; Ostrow v. Samuel Brilliant Co., 66 F. Supp. 593; Wilson v. Guggenheim, 70 F. Supp. 417; Feely v. Sidney S. Schupper Interstate Hauling System, 72 F. Supp. 663; Willis v. Dennis, 72 F. Supp. 853; and in Mutual Ben. Health & Acc. Assn. v. Dailey, 75 F. Supp. 832.
The Act had been held invalid by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the instant case, 165 F. 2d 531, with Judge Parker dissenting; and by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Central States Co-operatives v. Watson Bros. Transportation Co., 165 F. 2d 392, with Judge Evans dissenting.
333 U. S. 860.
U. S. Const. Art. Ill, § 2, cl. 1.
§ 11 of the Act of Sept. 24,1789, c. 20,1 Stat. 73,78.
Hepburn & Dundas v. Ellzey, 2 Cranch 445.
The effect of the Act was to amend 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 41 (1) so that it read in pertinent part: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction as follows:... Of all suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity... where the matter in controversy exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value of $3,000, and... (b) Is between citizens of different States, or citizens of the District of Columbia, the Territory of Hawaii,"or Alaska, and any State or Territory....”
Act of June 25,1948,62 Stat. 869.
28 U. S. C. 5J332.
McCulloch v. Maryland
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Social Security Act benefits based on the earnings of a deceased husband and father covered by the Act are payable, with some limitations, both to the widow and to the couple's minor children in her care. § 202 (g) of the Social Security Act, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 402 (g). Such benefits are payable on the basis of the earnings of a deceased wife and mother covered by the Act, however, only to the minor children and not to the widower. The question in this case is whether this gender-based distinction violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
A three-judge District Court for the District of New Jersey held that the different treatment of men and women mandated by § 402 (g) unjustifiably discriminated against female wage earners by affording them less protection for their survivors than is provided to male employees. 367 F. Supp. 981, 991 (1973). We noted probable jurisdiction, 419 U. S. 822 (1974). We affirm.
I
Appellee Stephen C. Wiesenfeld and Paula Polatschek were married on November 15, 1970. Paula, who worked as a teacher for five years before her marriage, continued teaching after her marriage. Each year she worked, maximum social security contributions were deducted from her salary. Paula’s earnings were the couple’s principal source of support during the marriage, being substantially larger than those of appellee.
On June 5, 1972, Paula died in childbirth. Appellee was left with the sole responsibility for the care of their infant son, Jason Paul. Shortly after his wife’s death, Stephen Wiesenfeld applied at the Social Security office in New Brunswick, N. J., for social security survivors’ benefits for himself and his son. He did obtain benefits for his son under 42 U. S. C. § 402 (d) (1970 ed. and Supp. Ill), and received for Jason $206.90 per month until September 1972, and $248.30 per month thereafter. However, appellee was told that he was not eligible for benefits for himself, because § 402 (g) benefits were available only to women. If he had been a woman, he would have received the same amount as his son as long as he was not working, see 42 U. S. C. §§ 402 (d)(2) and (g) (2), and, if working, that amount reduced by $1 for every $2 earned annually above $2,400. 42 U. S. C. §§ 403 (b) and (f).
Appellee filed this suit in February 1973, claiming jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331, on behalf of himself and of all widowers similarly situated. He sought a declaration that § 402 (g) is unconstitutional to the extent that men and women are treated differently, an injunction restraining appellant from denying benefits under § 402 (g) solely on the basis of sex, and payment of past benefits commencing with June 1972, the month of the original application. Cross motions for summary judgment were filed. After the three-judge court determined that it had jurisdiction, it granted summary judgment in favor of appellee, and issued an order giving appellee the relief he sought.
II
The gender-based distinction made by § 402 (g) is indistinguishable from that invalidated in Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677 (1973). Frontiero involved statutes which provided the wife of a male serviceman with dependents’ benefits but not the husband of a servicewoman unless she proved that she supplied more than one-half of her husband’s support. The Court held that the statutory scheme violated the right to equal protection secured by the Fifth Amendment. Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U. S. 498 (1975), explained: “In... Fron-tiero the challenged [classification] based on sex [was] premised on overbroad generalizations that could not be tolerated under the Constitution.... [T]he assumption... was that female spouses of servicemen would normally be dependent upon their husbands, while male spouses of servicewomen would not.” Id., at 507. A virtually identical “archaic and overbroad” generalization, id., at 508, “not... tolerated under the Constitution” underlies the distinction drawn by § 402 (g), namely, that male workers’ earnings are vital to the support of their families, while the earnings of female wage earners do not significantly contribute to their families’ support.
Section 402 (g) was added to the Social Security Act in 1939 as one of a large number of amendments designed to “afford more adequate protection to the family as a unit.” H. R. Rep. No. 728, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 7 (1939). Monthly benefits were provided to wives, children, widows, orphans, and surviving dependent parents of covered workers. Ibid. However, children of covered female workers were eligible for survivors’ benefits only in limited circumstances, see n. 5, supra, and no benefits whatever were made available to husbands or widowers on the basis of their wives’ covered employment.
Underlying the 1939 scheme was the principle that “[u]nder a social-insurance plan the primary purpose is to pay benefits in accordance with the probable needs of the beneficiaries rather than to make payments to the estate of a deceased person regardless of whether or not he leaves dependents.” H. R. Rep. No. 728, supra, at 7. (Emphasis supplied.) It was felt that “ [t]he payment of these survivorship benefits and supplements for the wife of an annuitant are... in keeping with the principle of social insurance....” Ibid. Thus, the framers of the Act legislated on the “then generally accepted presumption that a man is responsible for the support of his wife and children.” D. Hoskins & L. Bixby, Women and Social Security: Law and Policy in Five Countries, Social Security Administration Research Report No. 42, p. 77 (1973).
Obviously, the notion that men are more likely than women to be the primary supporters of their spouses and children is not entirely without empirical support. See Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U. S. 351, 354 n. 7 (1974). But such a gender-based generalization cannot suffice to justify the denigration of the efforts of women who do work and whose earnings contribute significantly to their families’ support.
Section 402 (g) clearly operates, as did the statutes invalidated by our judgment in Frontiero, to deprive women of protection for their families which men receive as a result of their employment. Indeed, the classification here is in some ways more pernicious. First, it was open to the servicewoman under the statutes invalidated in Frontiero to prove that her husband was in fact dependent upon her. Here, Stephen Wiesenfeld was not given the opportunity to show, as may well have been the case, that he was dependent upon his wife for his support, or that, had his wife lived, she would have remained at work while he took over care of the child. Second, in this case social security taxes were deducted from Paula’s salary during the years in which she worked. Thus, she not only failed to receive for her family the same protection which a similarly situated male worker would have received, but she also was deprived of a portion of her own earnings in order to contribute to the fund out of which benefits would be paid to others. Since the Constitution forbids the gender-based differentiation premised upon assumptions as to dependency made in the statutes before us in Frontiero, the Constitution also forbids the gender-based differentiation that results in the efforts of female workers required to pay social security taxes producing less protection for their families than is produced by the efforts of men.
I — I h-I \ — Í
Appellant seeks to avoid this conclusion with two related arguments. First, he claims that because social security benefits are not compensation for work done, Congress is not obliged to provide a covered female employee with the same benefits as it provides to a male. Second, he contends that § 402 (g) was “reasonably designed to offset the adverse economic situation of women by providing a widow with financial assistance to supplement or substitute for her own efforts in the marketplace,” Brief for Appellant 14, and therefore does not contravene the equal protection guarantee.
A
Appellant relies for the first proposition primarily on Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U. S. 603 (1960). We held in Flemming that the interest of a covered employee in future social security benefits is “noncontractual,” because “each worker's benefits, though flowing from the contributions he made to the national economy while actively employed, are not dependent on the degree to which he was called upon to support the system by taxation.” Id., at 609-610. Appellant apparently contends that since benefits derived from the social security program do not correlate necessarily with contributions made to the program, a covered employee has no right whatever to be treated equally with other employees as regards the benefits which flow from his or her employment.
We do not see how the fact that social security benefits are “noncontractual” can sanction differential protection for covered employees which is solely gender based. From the outset, social security old age, survivors’, and disability (OASDI) benefits have been “afforded as a matter of right, related to past participation in the productive processes of the country.” Final Report of the Advisory Council on Social Security 17 (1938). It is true that social security benefits are not necessarily related directly to tax contributions, since the OASDI system is structured to provide benefits in part according to presumed need. For this reason, Flemming held that the position of a covered employee “cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual premium payments.” 363 U. S., at 610. But the fact remains that the statutory right to benefits is directly related to years worked and amount earned by a covered employee, and not to the need of the beneficiaries directly. Since OASDI benefits do depend significantly upon the participation in the work force of a covered employee, and since only covered employees and not others are required to pay taxes toward the system, benefits must be distributed according to classifications which do not without sufficient justification differentiate among covered employees solely on the basis of sex.
B
Appellant seeks to characterize the classification here as one reasonably designed to compensate women beneficiaries as a group for the economic difficulties which still confront women who seek to support themselves and their families. The Court held in Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U. S., at 355, that a statute “reasonably designed to further the state policy of cushioning the financial impact of spousal loss upon the sex for which that loss imposes a disproportionately heavy burden” can survive an equal protection attack. See also Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U. S. 498 (1975). But the mere recitation of a benign, compensatory purpose is not an automatic shield which protects against any inquiry into the actual purposes underlying a statutory scheme. Here, it is apparent both from the statutory scheme itself and from the legislative history of § 402 (g) that Congress’ purpose in providing benefits to young widows with children was not to provide an income to women who were, because of economic discrimination, unable to provide for themselves. Rather, § 402 (g), linked as it is directly to responsibility for minor children, was intended to permit women to elect not to work and to devote themselves to the care of children. Since this purpose in no way is premised upon any special disadvantages of women, it cannot serve to justify a gender-based distinction which diminishes the protection afforded to women who do work.
That the purpose behind § 402 (g) is to provide children deprived of one parent with the opportunity for the personal attention of the other could not be more clear in the legislative history. The Advisory Council on Social Security, which developed the 1939 amendments, said explicitly that “[s]uch payments [under §402 (g)] are intended as supplements to the orphans' benefits with the purpose of enabling the widow to remain at home and care for the children.” Final Report of the Advisory Council on Social Security 31 (1938). (Emphasis supplied.) In 1971, a new Advisory Council, considering amendments to eliminate the various gender-based distinctions in the OASDI structure, reiterated this understanding : “Present law provides benefits for the mother of young... children... if she chooses to stay home and care for the children instead of working. In the Council’s judgment, it is desirable to allow a woman who is left with the care of the children the choice of whether to stay at home to care for the children or to work.” 1971 Advisory Council on Social Security, Reports on the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance and Medicare Programs 30 (hereinafter 1971 Reports). (Emphasis supplied.)
Indeed, consideration was given in 1939 to extending benefits to all widows regardless of whether or not there were minor children. The proposal was rejected, apparently because it was felt that young widows without children can be expected to work, while middle-aged widows “are likely to have more savings than younger widows and many of them have children who are grown and able to help them.” Report of the Social Security Board, H. R. Doc. No. 110, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 7-8 (1939). See also Final Report of the Advisory Council on Social Security 31 (1938); Hearings on the Social Security Act Amendments of 1939 before the House Committee on Ways and Means, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 61,1217, 2169-2170; H. R. Rep. No. 728, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 36-37 (1939). Thus, Congress decided not to provide benefits to all widows even though it was recognized that some of them would have serious problems in the job market. Instead, it provided benefits only to those women who had responsibility for minor children, because it believed that they should not be required to work.
The whole structure of survivors’ benefits conforms to this articulated purpose. Widows without minor children obtain no benefits on the basis of their husband’s earnings until they reach age 60 or, in certain instances of disability, age 50. 42 U. S. C. §§402 (e)(1) and (5). Further, benefits under § 402 (g) cease when all children of a beneficiary are no longer eligible for children’s benefits. If Congress were concerned with providing women with benefits because of economic discrimination, it would be entirely irrational to except those women who had spent many years at home rearing children, since those women are most likely to be without the skills required to succeed in the job market. See Walker, Sex Discrimination in Government Benefit Programs, 23 Hastings L. J. 277, 278-279 (1971); Hearings, supra, at 61 (remarks of Dr. Altemeyer, Chairman, Social Security Board); Report of the Committee on Social Insurance and Taxes, The President’s Commission on the Status of Women 31-32 (1963). Similarly, the Act now provides benefits to a surviving divorced wife who is the parent of a covered employee's child, regardless of how long she was married to the deceased or of whether she or the child was dependent upon the employee for support. §§ 402 (g), 416 (d)(3). Yet, a divorced wife who is not the mother of a child entitled to children’s benefits is eligible for benefits only if she meets other eligibility requirements and was married to the covered employee for 20 years. §§ 402 (b) and (e), 416(d). Once again, this distinction among women is explicable only because Congress was not concerned in § 402 (g) with the employment problems of women generally but with the principle that children of covered employees are entitled to the personal attention of the surviving parent if that parent chooses not to work.
Given the purpose of enabling the surviving parent to remain at home to care for a child, the gender-based distinction of § 402 (g) is entirely irrational. The classification discriminates among surviving children solely on the basis of the sex of the surviving parent. Even in the typical family hypothesized by the Act, in which the husband is supporting the family and the mother is caring for the children, this result makes no sense. The fact that a man is working while there is a wife at home does not mean that he would, or should be required to, continue to work if his wife dies. It is no less important for a child to be cared for by its sole surviving parent when that parent-is male rather than female. And a father, no less than a mother, has a constitutionally protected right to the “companionship, care, custody, and management” of “the children he has sired and raised, [which] undeniably warrants deference and, absent a powerful countervailing interest, protection.” Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 651 (1972). Further, to the extent that women who work when they have sole responsibility for children encounter special problems, it would seem that men with sole responsibility for children will encounter the same child-care related problems. Stephen Wiesenfeld, for example, found that providing adequate care for his infant son impeded his ability to work, see n. 7, supra.
Finally, to the extent that Congress legislated on the presumption that women as a group would choose to forgo work to care for children while men would not, the statutory structure, independent of the gender-based classification, would deny or reduce benefits to those men who conform to the presumed norm and are not hampered by their child-care responsibilities. Benefits under § 402 (g) decrease with increased earnings, see, supra, at 641. According to appellant, “the bulk of male workers would receive no benefits in any event,” Brief for Appellant 17 n. 11, because they earn too much. Thus, the gender-based distinction is gratuitous; without it, the statutory scheme would only provide benefits to those men who are in fact similarly situated to the women the statute aids.
Since the gender-based classification of § 402 (g) cannot be explained as an attempt to provide for the special problems of women, it is indistinguishable from the classification held invalid in Frontiero. Like the statutes there, “[b]y providing dissimilar treatment for men and women who are... similarly situated, the challenged section violates the [Due Process] Clause.” Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71, 77 (1971).
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Section 402 (g) is headed “Mother’s insurance benefits.” It provides in pertinent part:
“(1) The widow and every surviving divorced mother (as defined in section 416 (d) of this title) of an individual who died a fully or currently insured individual, if such widow or surviving divorced mother—
“(A) is not married,
“(B) is not entitled to a widow’s insurance benefit,
“(C) is not entitled to old-age insurance benefits, or is entitled to old-age insurance benefits each of which is less than three-fourths of the primary insurance amount of such individual,
“(D) has filed application for mother’s insurance benefits, or was entitled to wife’s insurance benefits on the basis of the wages and self-employment income of such individual for the month preceding the month in which he died,
“(E) at the time of filing such application has in her care a child of such individual entitled to a child’s insurance benefit...
shall... be entitled to a mother’s insurance benefit for each month, beginning with the first month after August 1950 in which she becomes so entitled to such insurance benefits and ending with the month preceding the first month in which any of the following occurs: no child of such deceased individual is entitled to a child’s insurance benefit, such widow or surviving divorced mother becomes entitled to an old-age insurance benefit equal to or exceeding three-fourths of the primary insurance amount of such deceased individual, she becomes entitled to a widow’s insurance benefit, she remarries, or she dies....”
The terms “fully” and “currently” insured are defined in 42 U. S. C. § 414. See n. 3, infra.
" [W]hile the Fifth Amendment contains no equal protection clause, it does forbid discrimination that is ‘so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process.’ ” Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U. S. 163, 168 (1964); see also Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497, 499 (1954). This Court’s approach to Fifth Amendment equal protection claims has always been precisely the same as to equal protection claims under the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e. g., Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U. S. 498 (1975); Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U. S. 628, 637 (1974); Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677 (1973).
Thus, Paula Wiesenfeld was “currently insured” when she died, see n. 1, supra, because she had “not less than six quarters of coverage during the thirteen-quarter period ending with (1) the quarter in which [she] died.” 42 U. S. C. §414 (b).
In 1970, Paula earned $9,808, and Stephen earned $3,100 as a self-employed consultant; in 1971, Paula earned $10,686 and Stephen $2,188; in 1972, Paula earned $6,836.35 before she died, and Stephen $2,475 for the entire year. Stephen completed his education before the marriage.
Section 402 (d) is headed “Child’s insurance benefits” and provides in pertinent part as follows:
“Every child... of an individual who dies a fully or currently insured individual, if such child—
“(A) has filed application for child’s insurance benefits,
“(B) at the time such application was filed was unmarried and (i) either had not attained the age of 18 or was a full-time student and had not attained the age of 22, or (ii) is under a disability (as defined in section 423 (d) of this title) which began before he attained the age of 22, and
“(C) was dependent upon such individual—
“(ii) if such individual has died, at the time of such death...
to a child’s insurance benefit for each month, beginning with the first month after August 1950 in which such child becomes so entitled to such insurance benefits and ending with the month preceding whichever of the following first occurs—
“(D) the month in which such child dies or marries,
“(E) the month in which such child attains the age of 18, but only if he (i) is not under a disability (as so defined) at the time he attains such age, and (ii) is not a full-time student during any part of such month.”
Thus, child’s insurance benefits are now available without regard to whether the worker upon whose earnings benefits are based is the mother or father. This was not always the case. Originally, a child could receive benefits based on his mother’s earnings only if he had not been living with his father and was being supported solely by his mother. Social Security Amendments of Aug. 10, 1939, § 202 (c), 53 Stat. 1364. This provision was amended in 1950 to provide automatic entitlement to otherwise eligible children of women workers who were currently insured, see nn. 1 and 3, supra, when they died, but retaining dependency qualifications if the mother's covered employment was not recent. Social Security Amendments of Aug. 28, 1950, § 101 (a), amending § 202 (d), 64 Stat. 483. In 1967, children of women workers were made eligible for children’s benefits on exactly the same criteria applied to children of male workers. Social Security Amendments of 1967, Pub. L. 90-248, § 151, 81 Stat. 860.
Appellee said in an affidavit that he was told orally at the Social Security office that he could not file an application for benefits on his own behalf. The appellant Secretary does not dispute that the request for benefits was orally made and orally denied. Tr. of Oral Arg. before District Court, June 20, 1973, p. 45; 367 F. Supp. 981, 985 n. 5.
Stephen Wiesenfeld was employed until October 1972. However, since he earned $2,475 for the entire year 1972, n. 4, supra, he apparently would have been eligible for benefits, were he a woman, from June 1972 until he obtained employment again on February 5, 1973, at a salary of $1,500 per month. This lawsuit was filed on February 24, 1973. On September 14, 1973, appellee was dismissed from his position, so that he was unemployed and again eligible for benefits, but for the gender-based distinction, when the lower court opinion issued on December 11, 1973. Appellee, in an affidavit filed in September 1973, ascribed his employment difficulties in large part to the difficulties of childcare. In particular, he noted that he had “encountered severe difficulty in obtaining the services of a suitable housekeeper, to whom I could conscientiously entrust Jason's care. I have employed four housekeepers in the past year....”
Appellee did not seek administrative review of the denial under 42 U. S. C. §405 (b). However, appellant stipulated that any administrative appeal would have been futile, since § 402 (g) on its face precludes granting benefits to men. Tr. of Oral Arg. before District Court, June 20, 1973, pp. 16-17. Nor does appellant now claim that §405 (h), which provides that “[n]o findings of fact or decision of the Secretary shall be reviewed... except as herein provided” (see § 405 (g)), is a bar to this action. See Public Utilities Comm’n of California v. United States, 355 U. S. 534, 539-540 (1958); Richardson v. Morris, 409 U. S. 464 (1973) (per curiam); Griffin v. Richardson, 346 F. Supp. 1226 (Md.), aff’d, 409 U. S. 1069 (1972).
The three-judge court declined to permit the action to proceed as a class action. 367 F. Supp., at 986-987. No appeal has been taken from this ruling.
The court recognized that the jurisdictional amount of $10,000 under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 is established as long as it does not “appear to a legal certainty” that the matter in controversy does not total $10,000, St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U. S. 283, 289 (1938), and therefore that where an injunction commanding future payments is sought, there is no need to await accrual of $10,000 in back benefits to bring suit. However, it was troubled by the fact that appellee was employed on the day suit was filed, see n. 7, supra, and thus would not have been entitled to benefits on that day. It held that there was nonetheless jurisdiction because of the futility of dismissing the suit when the plaintiff could refile immediately and establish jurisdiction, since he was unemployed by the time of decision. We believe that there was jurisdiction in any event on the day the suit was filed. Benefits under § 402 (g) could be available to appellee, if he prevailed, until his infant child became 18, see §§ 402 (d), (g), and (s)(1). At the then-prevailing benefit rates, appellee would reach $10,000 in benefits if he collected full benefits for a little more than three years, see supra, at 640-641. Social security benefits are to some degree in the nature of insurance, providing present security and peace of mind from fear of future lack of earnings. Also, unlike disability benefits, see 42 U. S. C. §423, these survivors’ benefits do not depend upon ability to earn, but only upon actual earnings. Thus, they give a potential recipient a choice between staying home to care for the child and working. This opportunity for choice, and the potential right to as much as $53,640 worth of benefits ($2,980 per year times 18 years), certainly has a present value of $10,000, whether or not the claimant was eligible for benefits on the day he filed suit.
See the observations in Frontiero, 411 13. S., at 689 n. 23, that in view of the large percentage of married women working (41.5% in 1971), the presumption of complete dependency of wives upon husbands has little relationship to present reality. In the same vein, Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522 (1975), observed that current statistics belie “the presumed role in the home” of contemporary women. Id.., at 535 n. 17.
Changes have been made in these provisions. For example, benefits are now available to husbands and aged widowers of covered workers if they can show that more than one-half of their support has been provided by their wives. 42 U. S. C. §§ 402 (c), (f). See also n. 5, supra. See generally Note, Sex Classifications in the Social Security Benefit Structure, 49 Ind. L. J. 181 (1973).
See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 728, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 36 (1939): “[A] child is not usually financially dependent upon his mother”; 84 Cong. Rec. 6896 (1939) (remarks of Rep. Cooper): “[W]e now have under the provisions of this bill a program on a family basis, and we will take care of these people who will need this assistance because of the loss of the father or the husband and the loss of the pay and wages that he has been bringing into the family.” (Emphasis supplied.) See also Report of the Committee on Social Insurance and Taxes, The President’s Commission on the Status of Women 29 (1963): “It was decided at that time that if the determination of dependency were based on generally valid presumptions, there would be no need in most situations for detailed investigations of family financial relationships. Since the husband traditionally was the wage earner in the family and the wife was the homemaker, benefits were provided for wives, widows, and children on the basis of presumed dependency on the husband...
See supra, at 644. There has been a continuing tension in the OASDI system between two goals: individual equity, which accords benefits commensurate with the contributions made to the system, and social adequacy, which assures to all contributors and their families a tolerable standard of living. See J. Pechman, H. Aaron & M. Taussig, Social Security: Perspectives for Reform 33-34 (1968); Report of the Social Security Board, H. R. Doc. No. 110, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 5 (1939). Rather than abandoning either goal, Congress has tried to meet both, by assuring that the protection afforded each contributor is at least that which his contributions could purchase on the private market. See H. R. Rep. No. 728, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 13-14 (1939); H. R. Rep. No. 1300, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1949).
See 42 U. S. C. §§ 414, 415 for the correlation between years worked, amount earned, and the “primary insurance amount,” which is the amount received by fully insured employees upon reaching retirement age. Benefits under § 402 (g) are 75% of the primary insurance amount of the covered employee.
This Court need not in equal protection cases accept at face value assertions of legislative purposes, when an examination of the legislative scheme and its history demonstrates that the asserted purpose could not have been a goal of the legislation. See Eisenstadt v. Baird, 406 U. S. 438 (1972); Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U. S., at 634; U. S. Dept. of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U. S. 528, 536-537 (1973).
In certain cases, mother’s benefits under § 402 (g) cease although some children are still eligible for children’s benefits under §402 (d). In particular, children continue to be eligible for benefits while full-time students until age 22 and, in some instances, for a few months thereafter. §§ 402 (d) (1) (F) and (d)(7). Yet, benefits to the mother under § 402 (g) cease if all children have reached 18 and are not disabled. §402 (s)(l). This distinction also sustains our conclusion that § 402 (g) was intended only to provide an opportunity for children to receive the personal attention of one parent, since mother’s benefits are linked to children’s benefits only so long as it is realistic to think that the children might need their parent at home.
Originally, no divorced wives were entitled to benefits on the basis of their former husbands’ earnings. The provision for surviving divorced wives who are the mothers of children entitled to survivors’ benefits was added in 1950. Social Security Amendments of 1950, § 101 (a), 64 Stat. 483. It was not until 1965 that benefits were provided for aged divorced wives and widows, premised upon a 20-year marriage. Social Security Amendments of 1965, Pub. L. 89-97, § 308, 79 Stat. 375. Both these groups of women were required to prove dependency upon the former husband. The proof-of-dependency requirements were eliminated in 1972. Social Security Amendments of 1972, Pub. L. 92-603, § 114, 86 Stat. 1348. This separate development of benefits for divorced women with children and those without reinforces the conclusion that the presence of children is the raison d'etre of § 402 (g).
The Commission on Railroad Retirement, commenting upon a similar provision of the railroad retirement system, significantly stated: “Statistically speaking, there are, of course, significant differences by sex in the roles played in our society. For example, far more women than men are primarily involved in raising minor children. But if the society’s aim is to further a socially desirable purpose, e. g., better care for growing children, it should tailor any subsidy directly to the end desired, not indirectly and unequally by helping widows with dependent children and ignoring widowers in the same plight. In this example, it is the economic and junctional capability of the surviving breadwinner to care for children which counts; the sex of the surviving parent is incidental.” Report of the Commission on Railroad Retirement, Railroad Retirement System— Its Coming Crisis, H. R. Doc. No. 92-350, p. 378 (1972). (
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to clarify the allocation of authority, as between the federal courts and the Interstate Commerce Commission, to set and review rates for movements of coal by rail.
I
This case arose as a result of a 1972 decision of San Antonio, Tex., acting through its City Public Service Board, to substitute coal-generated electricity for natural gas. Toward that end, in 1974, San Antonio entered into long-term contracts to purchase coal from two suppliers in Campbell County, Wyo.; began to construct two coal-fired generating units; and initiated negotiations with Burlington Northern Inc. and Southern Pacific Transportation Co. for contracts to transport coal from Wyoming to the new plants. Although the railroads originally quoted San Antonio a rate of $7.90 per ton for moving coal from Campbell County to San Antonio, economic conditions, which were characterized by rapid inflation, required the railroads to raise the rate to $11.90 per ton. In May 1975, San Antonio filed a complaint with the Interstate Commerce Commission seeking prescription of a just and reasonable tariff.
In October 1976, the Commission rendered a decision, San Antonio v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 3551. C. C. 405 (1976) (San Antonio I), establishing a rate of $10.93 per ton for the San Antonio movement. The Commission emphasized that the prescription was temporary by noting: “The public interest requires that, in view of the parties’ inability to reach an agreement, a rate be prescribed at this time so that the movement may commence. As actual experience is gained, the parties may petition for modification of the prescription if circumstances warrant.” Id., at 417-418. The order was to “continue in full force and effect until the further order of the Commission.” Ibid.
The railroads sought review in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, claiming, inter alia, that the Commission had erred in not considering the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976, Pub. L. 94-210, 90 Stat. 31 (4-R Act), which became effective before San Antonio I was announced. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Commission, reasoning that since the rate was temporary and expressly subject to modification, the parties could return to the Commission when guidelines for implementing the 4-R Act were promulgated, Burlington Northern, Inc. v. United States, 555 F. 2d 637, 648 (1977).
In June 1977, after six months of operation at the San Antonio I rates, the railroads petitioned the Commission for a modification of the rate. In October 1977, the Commission reopened the San Antonio proceeding, and one year later, issued a new order, San Antonio v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 359 I. C. C. 1 (1978) (San Antonio II), finding that when compared to other similar movements, the San Antonio I $10.93 rate was “below a maximum reasonable rate and that modification of that rate [was] warranted.” 359 I. C. C., at 7. After making extensive new cost findings and applying the ratemaking guidelines of the 4-R Act, the Commission set the maximum rate level at $16.12 per ton.
Both San Antonio and the railroads were dissatisfied with this rate and petitioned for reconsideration. In June 1979, a third order was issued, San Antonio v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 3611. C. C. 482 (1979) (San Antonio III), which made certain modifications in the San Antonio II analysis that resulted in a new maximum rate of $17.23 per ton for the San Antonio movement. The railroads then filed tariffs at the $17.23 rate.
Petitions for review of the San Antonio II and San Antonio III prescriptions were filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by all the parties. Without expressing an opinion as to whether the rate was too high, as San Antonio claimed, or too low, as the railroads urged, in June 1980, the Court of Appeals decided that aspects of both the San Antonio II and the San Antonio III rate orders were “arbitrary and capricious” and without “defensible rationale.” San Antonio v. United States, 203 U. S. App. D. C. 249, 269, 631 F. 2d 831, 851. The Commission’s orders were vacated, and the case was remanded to the Commission.
It is at this point that the present controversy arose, for the parties sharply disagreed about the effect of the Court of Appeals’ decision on the filed tariffs pending the Commission’s decision on remand. Construing the decision as vacating only the Commission’s orders in San Antonio II and III but not the rates that were filed, the railroads continued to treat the $17.23 rate as the one which San Antonio was required to pay pursuant to 49 U. S. C. §10761 (1976 ed., Supp. IV). San Antonio, on the other hand, interpreted the Court of Appeals’ decision as vacating the $17.23 rate and reviving the rate set by San Antonio I. Accordingly, the shipper unilaterally reduced its payments to the $10.93-per-ton rate set in 1976.
Although we might have thought otherwise, it was not clear to the railroads what legal action should be taken to force San Antonio to pay the filed $17.23 tariff. Several maneuvers were attempted: in its first effort to reestablish San Antonio III as the rate applicable to this period, the carriers filed a new tariff in early November 1980. That tariff, which would have required San Antonio to prepay at the $17.23 rate before coal service would be provided, was suspended by a division of the Commission which agreed with San Antonio that the Court of Appeals’ decision precluded any rate except $10.93.
The railroads asked the Court of Appeals for clarification of its decision. Pending review, however, the parties carried on their controversy in other forums. The railroads again attempted to file a tariff in conformity with San Antonio III. Although this time the tariff was not suspended or rejected by the Commission, San Antonio continued to pay at the San Antonio I rate even after the new tariff’s December 1980 effective date; in addition, it filed a complaint to enforce the San Antonio I rate in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Before the District Court could rule, the railroads countered by filing a petition asking the Commission to clarify its refusal to suspend or reject the new tariff by declaring that this action amounted to a modification of San Antonio I. In addition, the carriers filed a second prepayment tariff — which was also accepted by the Commission. Before the Commission could react to the railroads’ request for clarification, however, the Texas District Court ruled in San Antonio’s favor on an application to preliminarily enjoin the railroads from conditioning service on prepayment of rates that did not conform with San Antonio I. The railroads appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
In April 1981, while the railroads’ appeal was pending in the Fifth Circuit, the Commission finally took the step necessary to end the controversy over what rate applied from the time of the June 1980 decision of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In the context of considering the railroads’ request for clarification, the Commission formally vacated its San Antonio I prescription. The order stated that in a later proceeding, the Commission would determine “what the maximum reasonable rate should have been ... for the period during which the vacated maximum rate prescriptions in San Antonio II and III were in effect.” San Antonio v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 364 I. C. C. 887, 894 (1981) (San Antonio IV). Pursuant to 49 U. S. C. § 10327(h) (1976 ed., Supp. IV), this order became effective 30 days later, in May 1981.
It was at this point that the Fifth Circuit decided the railroads’ appeal of the Texas District Court decision. In its holding, that court vacated the preliminary injunction on the ground that only the Commission had jurisdiction to enjoin railroads from collecting their filed tariff rate. In addition, that court denied an application by San Antonio for a stay of the Commission’s San Antonio IV decision, San Antonio v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 650 F. 2d 49, clarified, 652 F. 2d 422 (1981). Thus, when the Commission’s San Antonio IV decision became effective in May 1981, San Antonio finally began to pay for the shipment of its coal at the carriers’ tariff rate of $17.23 per ton.
One month later, on June 30, 1981, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued the clarification of its 1980 holding. 211 U. S. App. D. C. 111, 655 F. 2d 1341. It is this clarification that is under review here. Citing Consolidated Rail Corp. v. National Assn. of Recycling Industries, Inc., 449 U. S. 609 (1981) (per curiam), and Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Wichita Board of Trade, 412 U. S. 800 (1973), the Court of Appeals held that since it was without authority to determine interim policy pending remand proceedings in the Commission, the effect of the court’s 1980 decision was necessarily to reinstate San Antonio I, which was “revived” by the vacation of San Antonio 11 and 111. 211 U. S. App. D. C., at 114, 655 F. 2d, at 1344. Tariffs set in excess of the San Antonio I rate were therefore declared “unlawful” for the period after the court vacated San Antonio II and III but before the Commission formally vacated San Antonio I. 211 U. S. App. D. C., at 113, 655 F. 2d, at 1343. We granted certiorari. 455 U. S. 988 (1982).
We agree that Consolidated Rail and Wichita Board of Trade control this case, but these holdings require federal courts to defer to the Commission on questions concerning the applicable rates; accordingly, we reverse.
II
In recent years, we have had four occasions to consider federal courts’ authority to alter rail rates regulated by the Interstate Commerce Act. In the first of these, Arrow Transportation Co. v. Southern R. Co., 372 U. S. 658 (1963), a railroad faced with declining revenues had attempted to lower its rates, and the issue before us was whether a Federal District Court had the power to enjoin this reduction at the request of competitors of the railroad and those who shipped by rail. Affirming the District Court’s denial of an injunction, we held that Congress, in the Interstate Commerce Act, meant to “vest in the Commission the sole and exclusive power to suspend” the rates. Id., at 667.
We noted several reasons for this rule. First, a review of the legislative history of the 1910 amendments to the Interstate Commerce Act demonstrated that Congress was dissatisfied with the nonuniformity in rates and inequities that resulted from the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act’s failure to give the Commission power to grant injunctive relief. We noted that the authority to suspend rates granted the Commission by the 1910 amendments would not cure the problem unless the suspension power was exclusive. Id., at 664.
Second, we held that court-ordered injunctive relief would interfere with the careful way in which the Commission’s suspension power takes into account the need of the carrier to receive a reasonable rate of return, and the desire of the shipper to pay only what is lawful. Unlike an injunction, a suspension order is limited to seven months’ duration. Id., at 665-666. The shippers, on the other hand, are fully protected by the reparation provision which requires carriers to reimburse shippers if the Commission later determines that the filed tariff was unreasonable. Id., at 666.
Finally, we emphasized that court-ordered injunctions were inconsistent with the congressional intent to vest rate-making decisions in the Commission, stating:
“Congress meant to foreclose a judicial power to interfere with the timing of rate changes which would be out of harmony with the uniformity of rate levels fostered by the doctrine of primary jurisdiction.” Id., at 668. (Emphasis in original.)
Ten years later, we again considered a federal court’s power to enjoin rail rates in United States v. SCRAP, 412 U. S. 669 (1973). There we reversed a three-judge District Court that had enjoined the Commission from permitting surcharges on shipments of recycled goods. We rejected the argument that injunctive relief could be granted under authority conferred by the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U. S. C. §4331 et seq., stating that “to grant an injunction in the present context, even though not based upon a substan tive consideration of the rates, would directly interfere with the Commission’s decision as to when the rates were to go into effect, and would ignore our conclusion in Arrow. . . .” 412 U. S., at 697. (First emphasis added; other in original.)
A third case, Wichita Board of Trade, supra, stated our position in even stronger terms. There the Commission had approved certain rate increases but failed, in the District Court’s view, to explain its reasoning adequately. In addition to vacating the order and remanding the case for reconsideration by the Commission, the District Court enjoined the railroads from charging the rates that had been approved in the order. Although we affirmed the remand to the Commission, we nevertheless reversed as to the injunction, reiterating the views we expressed in Arrow that a federal court has no jurisdiction to enter an order that operates to fix rates.
“The only consequence of suspending [an] order is that the railroads may not rely, in some subsequent proceeding, on a Commission finding that the proposed rates were just and reasonable. . . .
“Carriers may put into effect any rate that the Commission has not declared unreasonable. . . . Suspension of the Commission’s order thus does not in itself preclude the carriers from implementing a new rate.” 412 U. S., at 818-819. (Emphasis added.)
Again we noted that Congress channeled all rate decisions to the Commission in the first instance, id., at 820; that court-ordered relief interferes with the delicate balance the Act strikes between the competing interests of shipper and carrier, ibid.; and that the equities favor allowing the railroads to charge more than the Commission may ultimately find reasonable because the Act gives the shippers a right to reparations while no such protection is given to the carriers, id., at 823.
We now turn to our recent holding in Consolidated Rail, supra, which both parties appear to concede states the controlling law. There the Commission fixed rates for recycled materials. On review, the Court of Appeals revoked the rate increases, remanded to the Commission to determine a rate structure incorporating the standards set forth in the 4-R Act, and enjoined new rates until after the Commission’s reconsideration. In reversing this holding summarily, we held:
“The authority to determine when any particular rate should be implemented is a matter which Congress has placed squarely in the hands of the Commission. Arrow Transportation Co. v. Southern R. Co., 372 U. S. 658, 662-672 (1963). . . . [T]here is no basis in our prior decisions for the revocation order or for the injunction against further increases. Tf a reviewing court cannot discern [the Commission’s] policies, it may remand the case to the agency for clarification and further justification. . . . When a case is remanded on the ground that the agency’s policies are unclear, an injunction ordinarily interferes with the primary jurisdiction of the Commission.’ Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Wichita Board of Trade, 412 U. S. 800, 822 (1973)_” 449 U. S., at 612. (Emphasis added.)
To recapitulate, our cases stand for three propositions: (1) under the Interstate Commerce Act, primary jurisdiction to determine the reasonableness of rates lies with the Commission, see also Arizona Grocery Co. v. Atchison, T. &S.F.R. Co., 284 U. S. 370, 384 (1932); (2) federal-court authority to reject Commission rate orders for whatever reason extends to the orders alone, and not to the rates themselves, cf. 28 U. S. C. § 2349(a) (“The court of appeals . . . has exclusive jurisdiction to make. . . a judgment determining the validity of, and enjoining;. . . the order of the agency”) (emphasis added); (3) where there is a dispute about the appropriate rate, the equities favor allowing the carrier’s rate to control pending decision by the Commission, since under the Act, the shipper may receive reparations for overpayment while the carrier can never be made whole after underpayment. 49 U. S. C. § 11705(b)(3) (1976 ed., Supp. IV). Cf. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Florida, 295 U. S. 301 (1935).
HH J — I
We can discern no basis to distinguish this case from Arrow, SCRAP, Wichita Board of Trade, and Consolidated Rail, supra. By entering an order declaring that the San Antonio 1 rate order was “revived” for the period June 1980-May 1981, the Court of Appeals did that which we have said a federal court may not do: i. e., freeze the rate that railroads charge shippers prior to a decision by the Commission as to what a reasonable rate should be. That approach undermines the Commission’s ability to exercise the primary jurisdiction delegated to it by Congress to insure equitable and uniform rates. More important, the determination requires the railroads to accept a return that was considered temporary when it was approved in 1976, and “below a maximum reasonable rate” when it was modified in 1978. This result would be inequitable in the best of times, but the impact is particularly acute in a period of high inflation and changing regulatory standards.
Because the reparations provisions do not apply to both shippers and carriers, losses suffered by the carriers cannot be recovered. Carriers are not adequately protected by their authority under §§ 10761 and 10762 to file a new rate or their right under § 10327(g) to petition the Commission to modify its “revived” rate order, as San Antonio urges. It is arguable — and in other proceedings, San Antonio has so claimed, see Brief for Petitioners 38-39 — that before either action can take effect, the party adversely affected may ask for a hearing pursuant to Arizona Grocery, supra. A plenary hearing necessarily causes delay, and even if it did not, action by the Commission usually will not be effective until 30 days have elapsed after its order is served, § 10327(h).
The claim is made that the Court of Appeals was powerless to achieve a different result because, under § 10704(a)(1), the only rate the railroads could legally charge was the rate prescribed by the Commission. Since the Commission prescribed a rate in San Antonio I, the argument is that this is the rate the railroads must charge. We disagree. San Antonio I was by its terms limited to “continue in full force and effect until . . . further order of the Commission,” 355 I. C. C., at 418. Absent a contrary indication from the Commission, San Antonio II terminated the vitality of San Antonio I.
Moreover, if the court was unsure about the continued vitality of San Antonio I, the more appropriate course would have been to remand to the Commission for explanation rather than to undertake itself to construe the order, and in so doing to interfere with the Commission’s primary jurisdiction, contrary to important congressional policies.
The existence of a 1976 rate prescription does not require a result different from the result reached in Consolidated Rail. San Antonio II and III each in turn vacated the prescription which preceded it. In striking the orders in San Antonio II and III, the court’s action operated to leave in effect the rates filed under the Commission’s authority pending the Commission’s redetermination of a reasonable rate and subject always to reparations to protect the shipper should the Commission find that these rates were too high.
The June 30, 1981, judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
The 4-R Act changed the regulatory atmosphere in several key respects. Especially relevant here is § 205, which, as codified at 49 U. S. C. § 10704(a)(2) (1976 ed., Supp. IV), instructs the Commission to "make an adequate and continuing effort to assist. . . carriers in attaining revenue levels” that are “adequate, under honest, economical and efficient management, to cover total operating expenses . . . plus a reasonable and economic profit or return (or both) on capital employed in the business.”
For convenience, we continue to refer to the rates as “San Antonio I,” “San Antonio II," and “San Antonio III." In actual fact, general rate increases, which are not in issue here, have taken effect significantly raising each of these rates. See Brief for Petitioners 9, n. 3.
Initially, the Commission took the position adopted by the panel, namely that the Court of Appeals’ decision required the railroads to charge at San Antonio I rates. While the petition for clarification was pending, however, our decision in Consolidated Rail Corp. v. National Assn. of Recycling Industries, Inc., 449 U. S. 609 (1981) (per curiam), was handed down. At about this time, the Commission revised its view to espouse the railroads’ position. The Federal Government has thus joined the railroads in asking us to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals.
In the period in dispute, from June 1980, when the Court of Appeals vacated the San Antonio II and III orders, to May 1981, when the Commission formally vacated the San Antonio I prescription, San Antonio’s failure to pay the tariff rate resulted in a savings to it — and a loss to the railroads — of over $19 million. See Brief for Federal Respondents 6.
San Antonio argues that the railroads’ failure to petition for certiorari within 90 days after rehearing was denied on the June 1980 judgment deprives this Court of jurisdiction. Because the June 1981 decision “resolve[d] a genuine ambiguity in a judgment previously rendered” and dealt with a question which was not “plainly and properly settled with finality,” FTC v. Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co., 344 U. S. 206, 211-212 (1952) (footnote omitted), we plainly have jurisdiction.
Under § 207(d)(2) of the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, Pub. L. 96-448, 94 Stat. 1907, 49 U. S. C. § 10707(d)(2) (1976 ed., Supp. IV), the carrier can also receive reparations. This right is limited, however, to underpayments resulting from the Commission’s suspension of a tariff; it does not apply where, as here, a court has prevented the carrier from collecting a higher tariff.
See, e. g., 4-R Act, discussed in n. 1, supra; Staggers Rail Act of 1980, Pub. L. 96-448, 94 Stat. 1895, supra. Both statutes are directly relevant in the determination of a reasonable rate for the San Antonio coal movement; neither was considered in San Antonio I..
San Antonio makes much of the dictionary definitions of “modify” and “vacate.” While ordinary meanings are not insignificant in statutory construction, San Antonio has not cited a single case under the Interstate Commerce Act making this distinction.
Another way in which the Court of Appeals might have minimized interference with congressional objectives would have been to construe its own opinion as vacating only the Commission’s new rate calculations and not the Commission’s conclusion that the San Antonio I rate was too low. See 28 U. S. C. § 2349(a), allowing the court to enjoin or set aside “in whole or part, the order of the agency.” Cf. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Wichita Board of Trade, 412 U. S. 800, 822 (1973).
Because we find that Consolidated Rail mandates this result, we need not reach the railroads’ claim that the decision oí the Court oí Appeals is inconsistent with the filed rate doctrine.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.*
The Controlled Substances Act imposes a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence on a defendant who unlawfully distributes a Schedule I or II drug, when "death or serious bodily injury results from the use of such substance." 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A)-(C) (2012 ed.). We consider whether the mandatory-minimum provision applies when use of a covered drug supplied by the defendant contributes to, but is not a but-for cause of, the victim's death or injury.
I
Joshua Banka, a long-time drug user, died on April 15, 2010, following an extended drug binge. The episode began on the morning of April 14, when Banka smoked marijuana at a former roommate's home. Banka stole oxycodone pills from the roommate before departing and later crushed, cooked, and injected the oxycodone. Banka and his wife, Tammy Noragon Banka (Noragon), then met with petitioner Marcus Burrage and purchased one gram of heroin from him. Banka immediately cooked and injected some of the heroin and, after returning home, injected more heroin between midnight and 1 a.m. on April 15. Noragon went to sleep at around 5 a.m., shortly after witnessing Banka prepare another batch of heroin. When Noragon woke up a few hours later, she found Banka dead in the bathroom and called 911. A search of the couple's home and car turned up syringes, 0.59 grams of heroin, alprazolam and clonazepam tablets, oxycodone pills, a bottle of hydrocodone, and other drugs.
Burrage pleaded not guilty to a superseding indictment alleging two counts of distributing heroin in violation of § 841(a)(1). Only one of those offenses, count 2, is at issue here. (Count 1 related to an alleged distribution of heroin five months earlier than the sale to Banka.) Count 2 alleged that Burrage unlawfully distributed heroin on April 14, 2010, and that "death ... resulted from the use of th[at] substance"-thus subjecting Burrage to the 20-year mandatory minimum of § 841(b)(1)(C).
Two medical experts testified at trial regarding the cause of Banka's death. Dr. Eugene Schwilke, a forensic toxicologist, determined that multiple drugs were present in Banka's system at the time of his death, including heroin metabolites, codeine, alprazolam, clonazepam metabolites, and oxycodone. (A metabolite is a "product of metabolism," Webster's New International Dictionary 1544 (2d ed. 1950), or, as the Court of Appeals put it, "what a drug breaks down into in the body," 687 F.3d 1015, 1018, n. 2 (C.A.8 2012).) Although morphine, a heroin metabolite, was the only drug present at a level above the therapeutic range- i.e., the concentration normally present when a person takes a drug as prescribed-Dr. Schwilke could not say whether Banka would have lived had he not taken the heroin. Dr. Schwilke nonetheless concluded that heroin "was a contributing factor" in Banka's death, since it interacted with the other drugs to cause "respiratory and/or central nervous system depression." App. 196. The heroin, in other words, contributed to an overall effect that caused Banka to stop breathing. Dr. Jerri McLemore, an Iowa state medical examiner, came to similar conclusions. She described the cause of death as "mixed drug intoxication" with heroin, oxycodone, alprazolam, and clonazepam all playing a "contributing" role. Id., at 157. Dr. McLemore could not say whether Banka would have lived had he not taken the heroin, but observed that Banka's death would have been "[v]ery less likely." Id., at 171.
The District Court denied Burrage's motion for a judgment of acquittal, which argued that Banka's death did not "result from" heroin use because there was no evidence that heroin was a but-for cause of death. Id., at 30. The court also declined to give Burrage's proposed jury instructions regarding causation. One of those instructions would have required the Government to prove that heroin use "was the proximate cause of [Banka's] death." Id., at 236. Another would have defined proximate cause as "a cause of death that played a substantial part in bringing about the death," meaning that "[t]he death must have been either a direct result of or a reasonably probable consequence of the cause and except for the cause the death would not have occurred." Id., at 238. The court instead gave an instruction requiring the Government to prove "that the heroin distributed by the Defendant was a contributing cause of Joshua Banka's death." Id., at 241-242. The jury convicted Burrage on both counts, and the court sentenced him to 20 years' imprisonment, consistent with § 841(b)(1)(C)'s prescribed minimum.
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed Burrage's convictions. 687 F.3d 1015. As to the causation-in-fact element of count 2, the court held that the District Court's contributing-cause instruction was consistent with its earlier decision in United States v. Monnier, 412 F.3d 859, 862 (C.A.8 2005). See 687 F.3d, at 1021. As to proximate cause, the court held that Burrage's proposed instructions "d[id] not correctly state the law" because "a showing of 'proximate cause' is not required." Id., at 1020 (quoting United States v. McIntosh, 236 F.3d 968, 972-973 (C.A.8 2001)).
We granted certiorari on two questions: Whether the defendant may be convicted under the "death results" provision (1) when the use of the controlled substance was a "contributing cause" of the death, and (2) without separately instructing the jury that it must decide whether the victim's death by drug overdose was a foreseeable result of the defendant's drug-trafficking offense. 569 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 2049, 185 L.Ed.2d 884 (2013).
II
As originally enacted, the Controlled Substances Act, 84 Stat. 1242, 21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq., "tied the penalties for drug offenses to both the type of drug and the quantity involved, with no provision for mandatory minimum sentences." DePierre v. United States, 564 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 2225, 2229, 180 L.Ed.2d 114 (2011). That changed in 1986 when Congress enacted the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, 100 Stat. 3207, which redefined the offense categories, increased the maximum penalties and set minimum penalties for many offenders, including the "death results" enhancement at issue here. See id., at 3207-4. With respect to violations involving distribution of a Schedule I or II substance (the types of drugs defined as the most dangerous and addictive 1) the Act imposes sentences ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment for large-scale distributions, § 841(b)(1)(A), from 5 to 40 years for medium-scale distributions, § 841(b)(1)(B), and not more than 20 years for smaller distributions, § 841(b)(1)(C), the type of offense at issue here. These default sentencing rules do not apply, however, when "death or serious bodily injury results from the use of [the distributed] substance." § 841(b)(1)(A)-(C). In those instances, the defendant "shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment which ... shall be not less than twenty years or more than life," a substantial fine, "or both." 2Ibid.
Because the "death results" enhancement increased the minimum and maximum sentences to which Burrage was exposed, it is an element that must be submitted to the jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt. See Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 2151, 2162-2163, 186 L.Ed.2d 314 (2013);Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). Thus, the crime charged in count 2 of Burrage's superseding indictment has two principal elements: (i) knowing or intentional distribution of heroin, § 841(a)(1),3 and (ii) death caused by ("resulting from") the use of that drug, § 841(b)(1)(C).
III
A
The law has long considered causation a hybrid concept, consisting of two constituent parts: actual cause and legal cause. H. Hart & A. Honore, Causation in the Law 104 (1959). When a crime requires "not merely conduct but also a specified result of conduct," a defendant generally may not be convicted unless his conduct is "both (1) the actual cause, and (2) the 'legal' cause (often called the 'proximate cause') of the result." 1 W. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 6.4(a), pp. 464-466 (2d ed. 2003) (hereinafter LaFave); see also ALI, Model Penal Code § 2.03, p. 25 (1985). Those two categories roughly coincide with the two questions on which we granted certiorari. We find it necessary to decide only the first: whether the use of heroin was the actual cause of Banka's death in the sense that § 841(b)(1)(C) requires.
The Controlled Substances Act does not define the phrase "results from," so we give it its ordinary meaning. See Asgrow Seed Co. v. Winterboer, 513 U.S. 179, 187, 115 S.Ct. 788, 130 L.Ed.2d 682 (1995). A thing "results" when it "[a]rise[s] as an effect, issue, or outcome from some action, process or design." 2 The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 2570 (1993). "Results from" imposes, in other words, a requirement of actual causality. "In the usual course," this requires proof " 'that the harm would not have occurred' in the absence of-that is, but for-the defendant's conduct." University of Tex. Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, 570 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 2517, 2525, 186 L.Ed.2d 503 (2013) (quoting Restatement of Torts § 431, Comment a (1934)). The Model Penal Code reflects this traditional understanding; it states that "[c]onduct is the cause of a result" if "it is an antecedent but for which the result in question would not have occurred." § 2.03(1)(a). That formulation represents " the minimum requirement for a finding of causation when a crime is defined in terms of conduct causing a particular result." Id., Explanatory Note (emphasis added); see also United States v. Hatfield, 591 F.3d 945, 948 (C.A.7 2010) (but for "is the minimum concept of cause"); Callahan v. Cardinal Glennon Hospital, 863 S.W.2d 852, 862 (Mo.1993) (same).
Thus, "where A shoots B, who is hit and dies, we can say that A [actually] caused B's death, since but for A's conduct B would not have died." LaFave 467-468 (italics omitted). The same conclusion follows if the predicate act combines with other factors to produce the result, so long as the other factors alone would not have done so-if, so to speak, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Thus, if poison is administered to a man debilitated by multiple diseases, it is a but-for cause of his death even if those diseases played a part in his demise, so long as, without the incremental effect of the poison, he would have lived. See, e.g., State v. Frazier, 339 Mo. 966, 974-975, 98 S.W.2d 707, 712-713 (1936).
This but-for requirement is part of the common understanding of cause. Consider a baseball game in which the visiting team's leadoff batter hits a home run in the top of the first inning. If the visiting team goes on to win by a score of 1 to 0, every person competent in the English language and familiar with the American pastime would agree that the victory resulted from the home run. This is so because it is natural to say that one event is the outcome or consequence of another when the former would not have occurred but for the latter. It is beside the point that the victory also resulted from a host of other necessary causes, such as skillful pitching, the coach's decision to put the leadoff batter in the lineup, and the league's decision to schedule the game. By contrast, it makes little sense to say that an event resulted from or was the outcome of some earlier action if the action merely played a nonessential contributing role in producing the event. If the visiting team wound up winning 5 to 2 rather than 1 to 0, one would be surprised to read in the sports page that the victory resulted from the leadoff batter's early, non-dispositive home run.
Where there is no textual or contextual indication to the contrary, courts regularly read phrases like "results from" to require but-for causality. Our interpretation of statutes that prohibit adverse employment action "because of" an employee's age or complaints about unlawful workplace discrimination is instructive. Last Term, we addressed Title VII's antiretaliation provision, which states in part:
"It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to discriminate against any individual ... because he has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice by this subchapter, or because he has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this subchapter." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a) (2006 ed.) (emphasis added).
Given the ordinary meaning of the word "because," we held that § 2000e-3(a) "require[s] proof that the desire to retaliate was [a] but-for cause of the challenged employment action." Nassar, supra, at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2528. The same result obtained in an earlier case interpreting a provision in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act that makes it "unlawful for an employer ... to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's age." 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1) (emphasis added). Relying on dictionary definitions of "[t]he words 'because of' "-which resemble the definition of "results from" recited above-we held that "[t]o establish a disparate-treatment claim under the plain language of [§ 623(a)(1) ] ... a plaintiff must prove that age was [a] 'but for' cause of the employer's adverse decision." Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., 557 U.S. 167, 176, 129 S.Ct. 2343, 174 L.Ed.2d 119 (2009). 4
Our insistence on but-for causality has not been restricted to statutes using the term "because of." We have, for instance, observed that "[i]n common talk, the phrase 'based on' indicates a but-for causal relationship," Safeco Ins. Co. of America v. Burr, 551 U.S. 47, 63, 127 S.Ct. 2201, 167 L.Ed.2d 1045 (2007), and that "the phrase, 'by reason of,' requires at least a showing of 'but for' causation," Gross, supra, at 176, 129 S.Ct. 2343 (citing Bridge v. Phoenix Bond & Indemnity Co., 553 U.S. 639, 653-654, 128 S.Ct. 2131, 170 L.Ed.2d 1012 (2008)). See also Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection Corporation, 503 U.S. 258, 265-268, 112 S.Ct. 1311, 117 L.Ed.2d 532 (1992) (explaining that a statute permitting recovery for injuries suffered " 'by reason of' " the defendant's unlawful conduct "require[s] a showing that the defendant's violation ... was," among other things, "a 'but for' cause of his injury"). State courts, which hear and decide the bulk of the Nation's criminal matters, usually interpret similarly worded criminal statutes in the same manner. See, e.g.,People v. Wood, 276 Mich.App. 669, 671, 741 N.W.2d 574, 575-578 (2007) (construing the phrase "[i]f the violation results in the death of another individual" to require proof of but-for causation (emphasis deleted)); State v. Hennings, 791 N.W.2d 828, 833-835 (Iowa 2010) (statute prohibiting " 'offenses ... committed against a person or a person's property because of the person's race' " or other protected trait requires discriminatory animus to be a but-for cause of the offense); State v. Richardson, 295 N.C. 309, 322-323, 245 S.E.2d 754, 763 (1978) (statute requiring suppression of evidence " 'obtained as a result of' " police misconduct "requires, at a minimum," a but-for causal relationship between the misconduct and collection of the evidence).
In sum, it is one of the traditional background principles "against which Congress legislate[s]," Nassar, 570 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2525, that a phrase such as "results from" imposes a requirement of but-for causation. The Government argues, however, that distinctive problems associated with drug overdoses counsel in favor of dispensing with the usual but-for causation requirement. Addicts often take drugs in combination, as Banka did in this case, and according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, at least 46 percent of overdose deaths in 2010 involved more than one drug. See Brief for United States 28-29. This consideration leads the Government to urge an interpretation of "results from" under which use of a drug distributed by the defendant need not be a but-for cause of death, nor even independently sufficient to cause death, so long as it contributes to an aggregate force (such as mixed-drug intoxication) that is itself a but-for cause of death.
In support of its argument, the Government can point to the undoubted reality that courts have not always required strict but-for causality, even where criminal liability is at issue. The most common (though still rare) instance of this occurs when multiple sufficient causes independently, but concurrently, produce a result. See Nassar, supra, at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2525; see also LaFave 467 (describing these cases as "unusual" and "numerically in the minority"). To illustrate, if "A stabs B, inflicting a fatal wound; while at the same moment X, acting independently, shoots B in the head ... also inflicting [a fatal] wound; and B dies from the combined effects of the two wounds," A will generally be liable for homicide even though his conduct was not a but-for cause of B's death (since B would have died from X's actions in any event). Id., at 468 (italics omitted). We need not accept or reject the special rule developed for these cases, since there was no evidence here that Banka's heroin use was an independently sufficient cause of his death. No expert was prepared to say that Banka would have died from the heroin use alone.
Thus, the Government must appeal to a second, less demanding (but also less well established) line of authority, under which an act or omission is considered a cause-in-fact if it was a "substantial" or "contributing" factor in producing a given result. Several state courts have adopted such a rule, see State v. Christman, 160 Wash.App. 741, 745, 249 P.3d 680, 687 (2011); People v. Jennings, 50 Cal.4th 616, 643, 114 Cal.Rptr.3d 133, 237 P.3d 474, 496 (2010); People v. Bailey, 451 Mich. 657, 676-678, 549 N.W.2d 325, 334-336 (1996); Commonwealth v. Osachuk, 43 Mass.App. 71, 72-73, 681 N.E.2d 292, 294 (1997), but the American Law Institute declined to do so in its Model Penal Code, see ALI, 39th Annual Meeting Proceedings 135-141 (1962); see also Model Penal Code § 2.03(1)(a). One prominent authority on tort law asserts that "a broader rule ... has found general acceptance: The defendant's conduct is a cause of the event if it was a material element and a substantial factor in bringing it about." W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts § 41, p. 267 (5th ed. 1984) (footnote omitted). But the authors of that treatise acknowledge that, even in the tort context, "[e]xcept in the classes of cases indicated" (an apparent reference to the situation where each of two causes is independently effective) "no case has been found where the defendant's act could be called a substantial factor when the event would have occurred without it." Id., at 268. The authors go on to offer an alternative rule-functionally identical to the one the Government argues here-that "[w]hen the conduct of two or more actors is so related to an event that their combined conduct, viewed as a whole, is a but-for cause of the event, and application of the but-for rule to them individually would absolve all of them, the conduct of each is a cause in fact of the event." Ibid. Yet, as of 1984, "no judicial opinion ha[d] approved th[at] formulation."
Ibid., n. 40. The "death results" enhancement became law just two years later.
We decline to adopt the Government's permissive interpretation of § 841(b)(1). The language Congress enacted requires death to "result from" use of the unlawfully distributed drug, not from a combination of factors to which drug use merely contributed. Congress could have written § 841(b)(1)(C) to impose a mandatory minimum when the underlying crime "contributes to" death or serious bodily injury, or adopted a modified causation test tailored to cases involving concurrent causes, as five States have done, see Ala.Code § 13A-2-5(a) (2005); Ark.Code Ann. § 5-2-205 (2006); Me.Rev.Stat. Ann., Tit. 17-A, § 33 (2006); N.D. Cent. Code Ann. § 12.1-02-05 (Lexis 2012); Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 6.04 (West 2011). It chose instead to use language that imports but-for causality. Especially in the interpretation of a criminal statute subject to the rule of lenity, see Moskal v. United States, 498 U.S. 103, 107-108, 111 S.Ct. 461, 112 L.Ed.2d 449 (1990), we cannot give the text a meaning that is different from its ordinary, accepted meaning, and that disfavors the defendant.
B
The Government objects that the ordinary meaning of "results from" will "unduly limi[t] criminal responsibility" and "cannot be reconciled with sound policy." Brief for United States 24. We doubt that the requirement of but-for causation for this incremental punishment will prove a policy disaster. A cursory search of the Federal Reporter reveals that but-for causation is not nearly the insuperable barrier the Government makes it out to be. See, e.g., United States v. Krieger, 628 F.3d 857, 870-871 (C.A.7 2010) (affirming "death results" conviction based on expert testimony that, although the victim had several drugs in her system, the drug distributed by the defendant was a but-for cause of death); United States v. Webb, 655 F.3d 1238, 1254-1255 (C.A.11 2011) ( per curiam ) (same). Moreover, even when the prosecution is unable to prove but-for causation, the defendant will still be liable for violating § 841(a)(1) and subject to a substantial default sentence under § 841(b)(1).
Indeed, it is more likely the Government's proposal that "cannot be reconciled with sound policy," given the need for clarity and certainty in the criminal law. The judicial authorities invoking a "substantial" or "contributing" factor test in criminal cases differ widely in their application of it. Compare Wilson v. State, 24 S.W. 409, 410 (Tex.Crim.App.1893) (an act is an actual cause if it "contributed materially" to a result, even if other concurrent acts would have produced that result on their own), with Cox v. State, 305 Ark. 244, 248, 808 S.W.2d 306, 309 (1991) (causation cannot be found where other concurrent causes were clearly sufficient to produce the result and the defendant's act was clearly insufficient to produce it) (applying Ark.Code Ann. § 5-2-205 (1987)).5 Here the Government is uncertain about the precise application of the test that it proposes. Taken literally, its "contributing-cause" test would treat as a cause-in-fact every act or omission that makes a positive incremental contribution, however small, to a particular result. See Brief for State of Alaska et al. as Amici Curiae 20; see also Black's Law Dictionary 250 (9th ed. 2009)
(defining "contributing cause" as "[a] factor that-though not the primary cause-plays a part in producing a result"). But at oral argument the Government insisted that its test excludes causes that are "not important enough" or "too insubstantial." Tr. of Oral Arg. 28. Unsurprisingly, it could not specify how important or how substantial a cause must be to qualify. See id., at 41-42. Presumably the lower courts would be left to guess. That task would be particularly vexing since the evidence in § 841(b)(1) cases is often expressed in terms of probabilities and percentages. One of the experts in this case, for example, testified that Banka's death would have been "[v]ery less likely" had he not used the heroin that Burrage provided. App. 171. Is it sufficient that use of a drug made the victim's death 50 percent more likely? Fifteen percent? Five? Who knows. Uncertainty of that kind cannot be squared with the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard applicable in criminal trials or with the need to express criminal laws in terms ordinary persons can comprehend. See United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U.S. 81, 89-90, 41 S.Ct. 298, 65 L.Ed. 516 (1921).
But in the last analysis, these always-fascinating policy discussions are beside the point. The role of this Court is to apply the statute as it is written-even if we think some other approach might " 'accor[d] with good policy.' " Commissioner v. Lundy, 516 U.S. 235, 252, 116 S.Ct. 647, 133 L.Ed.2d 611 (1996) (quoting Badaracco v. Commissioner, 464 U.S. 386, 398, 104 S.Ct. 756, 78 L.Ed.2d 549 (1984)). As we have discussed, it is written to require but-for cause.
* * *
We hold that, at least where use of the drug distributed by the defendant is not an independently sufficient cause of the victim's death or serious bodily injury, a defendant cannot be liable under the penalty enhancement provision of 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C) unless such use is a but-for cause of the death or injury. The Eighth Circuit affirmed Burrage's conviction based on a markedly different understanding of the statute, see 687 F.3d, at 1020-1024, and the Government concedes that there is no "evidence that Banka would have lived but for his heroin use," Brief for United States 33. Burrage's conviction with respect to count 2 of the superseding indictment is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice GINSBURG, with whom Justice SOTOMAYOR joins, concurring in the judgment.
For reasons explained in my dissenting opinion in University of Tex. Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, 570 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 2517, 2534-2547, 186 L.Ed.2d 503 (2013), I do not read "because of" in the context of antidiscrimination laws to mean "solely because of." See id., at ---- - ----, ---- - ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2544-2546, 2546-2547. And I do not agree that words "appear[ing] in two or more legal rules, and so in connection with more than one purpose, ha[ve] and should have precisely the same scope in all of them." Cook, "Substance" and "Procedure" in the Conflict of Laws, 42 Yale L.J. 333, 337 (1933). But I do agree that "in the interpretation of a criminal statute subject to the rule of lenity," where there is room for debate, one should not choose the construction "that disfavors the defendant." Ante, at 891. Accordingly, I join the Court's judgment.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337, 26 S.Ct. 282, 50 L.Ed. 499.
Justice ALITO joins all but Part III-B of this opinion.
Schedule I drugs, such as heroin, have "a high potential for abuse," "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States," and "a lack of accepted safety" even "under medical supervision." § 812(b)(1). Schedule II drugs, such as methamphetamine, likewise have "a high potential for abuse" and a propensity to cause "severe psychological or physical dependence" if misused. 21 U.S.C. § 812(b)(2).
Although this language, read literally, suggests that courts may impose a fine or a prison term, it is undisputed here that the "death results" provision mandates a prison sentence. Courts of Appeals have concluded, in effect, that the "or" is a scrivener's error, see, e.g.,United States v. Musser, 856 F.2d 1484, 1486 (C.A.11 1988) ( per curiam ). The best evidence of that is the concluding sentence of § 841(b)(1)(C), which states that a court "shall not place on probation or suspend the sentence of any person sentenced under the provisions of this subparagraph which provide for a mandatory term of imprisonment if death or serious bodily injury results." (Emphasis added.)
Violation of § 841(a)(1) is thus a lesser included offense of the crime charged in count 2. It is undisputed that Burrage is guilty of that lesser included offense.
Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989), is not to the contrary. The three opinions of six Justices in that case did not eliminate the but-for-cause requirement imposed by the "because of" provision of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a), but allowed a showing that discrimination was a "motivating" or "substantial" factor to shift the burden of persuasion to the employer to establish the absence of but-for cause. See University of Tex. Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, 570 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 2517, 2525-2527, 186 L.Ed.2d 503 (2013). Congress later amended the statute to dispense with but-for causality. Civil Rights Act of 1991, Tit. I, § 107(a), 105 Stat. 1075 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m)).
Some cases apply what they call a "substantial factor" test only when multiple independently sufficient causes "operat[e] together to cause the result." Eversley v. Florida, 748 So.2d 963, 967 (Fla.1999); see also Callahan v. Cardinal Glennon Hospital, 863 S.W.2d 852, 862-863 (Mo.1993). We will not exaggerate the confusion by counting these as genuine "substantial factor" cases.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion for reconsideration of the question of the Court’s power to vacate Mr. Justice Douglas’ stay order and hear oral argument is denied.
Mr. Justice Black dissents.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
desires that it be noted that he too would deny the motion to reconsider the power of this Court to review Mr. Justice Douglas’ order to stay the execution, but not because he thinks the matter is free from doubt. See his dissenting opinion in Ex parte Peru, 318 U. S. 578, 590, in connection with Lambert v. Barrett, 157 U. S. 697, and Carper v. Fitzgerald, 121 U. S. 87.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Minton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question we have for determination here is whether a challenge for cause to jurors on voir dire because of employment by the Federal Government should have been sustained under the circumstances of this case.
Petitioner was convicted of violating R. S. § 102, 2 U. S. C. § 192, for willfully failing to appear before the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives in compliance with a subpoena duly served upon him. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 84 U. S. App. D. C. 31, 171 F. 2d 986. We granted certiorari limited to the question whether Government employees could properly serve on the jury which tried petitioner. 337 U. S. 954.
Petitioner voluntarily appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities which had under consideration two bills to outlaw the Communist Party. Petitioner was and is General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States. On his voluntary appearance before the Committee, petitioner refused to answer questions as to his name and the date and place of his birth. The Chairman of the Committee directed that a subpoena be served forthwith upon petitioner, requiring him to appear before the Committee on April 9, 1947. On the appointed date petitioner sent a representative but did not appear in accordance with the subpoena. The Committee reported his refusal to appear to the House of Representatives, and the House adopted a resolution certifying the report of the Committee to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. Petitioner was subsequently indicted.
When the case was called for trial, petitioner made a motion for transfer upon the ground that he could not obtain a fair and impartial trial in the District of Columbia. In his affidavit supporting the motion, he posited this contention mainly on the ground that Government employees, who comprise a large part of the District’s population, are subject to Executive Order 9835, 12 Fed. Reg. 1935, providing standards for their discharge upon reasonable grounds for belief that they are disloyal to the Government of the United States. He argued that Government employees would be afraid to risk the charge of disloyalty or possible termination of employment which would allegedly flow from a vote for acquittal. The motion for a transfer was denied.
Both sides conducted further voir dire examination at the conclusion of the court’s questioning of the panel. Attorney for petitioner questioned individually each member of the panel who indicated that he was employed by the Government. He then challenged for cause all Government employees. The court denied the challenge. Petitioner exercised two of his three peremptory challenges against Government employees. He exhausted all his peremptory challenges. Seven of the twelve finally selected were Government employees. Each of the seven expressed the belief that he could render a fair and impartial verdict.
Is petitioner entitled to a new trial because his challenge to the Government employees for cause was not sustained? The question of the presence of Government employees on District of Columbia juries is not a new controversy. It has been before this Court on three previous occasions. Crawford v. United States, 212 U. S. 183; United States v. Wood, 299 U. S. 123; Frazier v. United States, 335 U. S. 497. In the Crawford case the defendants were charged with a conspiracy to defraud the United States. The Court held that the statute prescribing the eligibility of jurors in the District of Columbia did not control the subject. The Court turned to the common law in force in Maryland when the District was formed, and found that a servant was subject to challenge for cause at common law where the master was party to the case on trial. In such a case, bias would be implied as a matter of law. The Court concluded that it was error to deny a challenge for cause to a Government employee in a case to which the Government was a party.
In 1935 Congress, prompted by the paucity of qualified jurors which resulted from the Crawford decision, passed an Act redefining eligibility for jury service in the District of Columbia. After exempting certain classes, the Act provided: “All other persons, otherwise qualified according to law whether employed in the service of the Government of the United States or of the District of Columbia . . . shall be qualified to serve as jurors in the District of Columbia and shall not be exempt from such service . . . 49 Stat. 682, D. C. Code, § 11-1420 (1940).
The constitutionality of this Act was sustained in United States v. Wood, 299 U. S. 123, where the defendant was charged with petty larceny from a private corporation. The defendant contended that the presence of Government employees on the jury denied the right of trial by an impartial jury within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. He pointed out that under the common law as expounded by Blackstone, a King’s servant and therefore a Government employee could not serve on a jury, and he argued that this view was carried into the Sixth Amendment.
Chief Justice Hughes, speaking for the Court, meticulously examined the problem. He found that Blackstone’s statement of disqualification had reference only to servants of private parties, and that there was no established practice with respect to the King’s servants at common law. The Court was of the view that even if such a common law disqualification existed, Congress had power to remove it. Unlike the statute in the Crawford case, the 1935 Act left no doubt that Congress intended to qualify Government employees as jurors. The constitutionality of such a declaration was presented for the first time. The opinion carefully emphasized that the Act left accused persons free to show the existence of actual bias. Only the question of implied bias was presented. The Court concluded that the guarantee of an impartial jury was not impaired, stating:
“It is manifest that the Act was passed to meet a public need and that no interference with the actual impartiality of the jury was contemplated. The enactment itself is tantamount to a legislative declaration that the prior disqualification was artificial and not necessary to secure impartiality. ... To impute bias as matter of law to the jurors in question here would be no more sensible than to impute bias to all storeowners and householders in cases of larceny or burglary.” United States v. Wood, supra, 148-149, 150.
Only last term in Frazier v. United States, 335 U. S. 497, the problem of jury service by Government employees was reexamined. There the defendant was tried and convicted of violating the Narcotics Act by a jury of the District of Columbia composed entirely, due to circumstances fortuitous or otherwise, of Federal Government employees. Mr. Justice Rutledge, speaking for the Court, reexamined the rule of the Wood case that Government employees are not disqualified as a matter of law from serving on a jury in a case to which the Government is a party. Government employees were again held to be subject to challenge only for “actual bias.”
It would be a work of supererogation to attempt to clarify the statement of the law after the Wood and Frazier cases. Some may doubt the wisdom of the Court’s decision in laying down the rule, but there can be no doubt that this Court has spoken very clearly, not only once, but twice.
No question of actual bias is before us. The way is open in every case to raise a contention of bias from the realm of speculation to the realm of fact. In both the Wood and Frazier cases this Court stressed that while impaneling a jury the trial court has a serious duty to determine the question of actual bias, and a broad discretion in its rulings on challenges therefor. United States v. Wood, supra, 133-134, 150; Frazier v. United States, supra, 511-512. We reaffirm those principles. In exercising its discretion, the trial court must be zealous to protect the rights of an accused. And we agree that this the court must do without reference to an accused’s political or religious beliefs, however such beliefs may be received by a predominant segment of our population. Ideological status is not an appropriate gauge of the high standard of justice toward which our courts may not be content only to strive. But while one of an unpopular minority group must be accorded that solicitude which properly accompanies an accused person, he is not entitled to unusual protection or exception.
Petitioner asserts that in order to secure the constitutional guarantee of trial by an impartial jury all Government employees must be held, in the special circumstances of this case, to be biased as a matter of law. It is not contended that bias appears as a fact from the record. As far as it appears, the court was willing to consider any evidence which would indicate that investigatory agencies of the Government had recognized in the past or would take cognizance in the future of a vote of acquittal, but no such proof was made. Nor was there evidence with respect to the existence of a climate of opinion among Government employees that they would jeopardize their tenure or provoke investigation by such a verdict. Rather petitioner asks that bias be implied from the recitation of the following circumstances: He is a Communist; the instigator of the charges is the Un-American Activities Committee which allegedly would take notice of a vote for acquittal; the issue in the case- is contempt of Congress; in contempt cases the Government’s interest is the vindication of a direct affront, as distinguished from its role in an ordinary prosecution. But petitioner primarily bases his case on a request, in effect, that judicial notice be taken of an aura of surveillance and intimidation which is said to exist in the District because of Executive Order 9835, outstanding at the time of the trial.
The "Loyalty Order,” as it is popularly known, requires the investigation of all persons entering civilian employment with the United States; as to those already in service, heads of departments and agencies are charged with the duty of making certain that disloyal persons are not retained. Petitioner maintains that because of this Order, Government employees would be hesitant to vote for acquittal because such action might be interpreted as “sympathetic association” with Communism.
Of course, the Loyalty Order could be the subject of judicial notice. Such notice, however, would give only limited illumination. It is proper to observe that the Loyalty Order is not directed solely against Communists, and that the crime of which petitioner was convicted is not a crime peculiar to Communists. Further, the Loyalty Order preceded the instant trial only by about three months. It was promulgated by the President on March 21, 1947. This trial began on June 23, 1947, and was concluded on June 26, 1947. On May 9, 1947, the President submitted to Congress a request for an appropriation to carry out the Loyalty Order, which was not enacted into law until July 31, 1947. It was not until August 18, 1947, that Standard Form 84, requesting certain pertinent information from each federal employee, was made available.
The administrative implementation of Executive Order 9835, which was yet to come, was apparently not the subject of anticipatory fear by these jurors. Their answers to interrogatories on the influence of the Loyalty Order were categorically to the contrary. We must credit these representations, and this is particularly so in the absence of any evidence which would indicate an opposite opinion among Government employees. One may not know or altogether understand the imponderables which cause one to think what he thinks, but surely one who is trying as an honest man to live up to the sanctity of his oath is well qualified to say whether he has an unbiased mind in a certain matter.
Ultimately, petitioner’s contentions amount to this: Since he is a Communist, in view of all the surrounding circumstances an exception must be carved out of the rule laid down in the statute, and construed in Wood and Frazier, that there is no implied bias by reason of Government employment. Thus the rule would apply to anyone but a Communist tried for contempt of a congressional committee, but not to a Communist. We think the rule in Wood and Frazier should be uniformly applied. A holding of implied bias to disqualify jurors because of their relationship with the Government is no longer permissible. The Act makes no exception for distinctive circumstances. It states that: “All . . . persons . . . whether employed in the service of the Government of the United States or of the District of Columbia . . . shall be qualified to serve as jurors in the District of Columbia and shall not be exempt from such service . . . .” Preservation of the opportunity to prove actual bias is a guarantee of a defendant’s right to an impartial jury. We adhere to our holding that the enactment of the statute is within the power of Congress, and that therefore employees of the Federal Government are not challengeable solely by reason of their employment.
It follows that we are unable to conclude that the failure to sustain the challenge for cause denied petitioner an “impartial jury.” “Impartiality is not a technical conception. It is a state of mind. For the ascertainment of this mental attitude of appropriate indifference, the Constitution lays down no particular tests and procedure is not chained to any ancient and artificial formula.” United States v. Wood, supra, 145-146. In this case, no more than the trial court can we without injustice take judicial notice of a miasma of fear to which Government employees are claimed to be peculiarly vulnerable— and from which other citizens are by implication immune. Vague conjecture does not convince that Government employees are so intimidated that they cringe before their Government in fear of investigation and loss of employment if they do their duty as jurors, which duty this same Government has imposed upon them. There is no disclosure in this record that these jurors did not bring to bear, as is particularly the custom when personal liberty hinges on the determination, the sense of responsibility and the individual integrity by which men judge men.
The judgment is
Affirmed.
Mr. .Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
H. R. Doc. No. 242, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947); 93 Cong. Rec. 4977 (1947).
61 Stat. 696, 700. See Investigations Subcommittee on Expenditures, Investigation of Federal Employees Loyalty Program, S. Rep. No. 1775, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. (1948).
Federal Personnel Manual 12-4. In a press release dated November 7, 1947, the Civil Service Commission announced the appointment of the Loyalty Review Board. A statement of the Board with respect to its regulations was published on January 20, 1948. 13 Fed. Reg. 253.
“Mr. McCabe: You are familiar with the Government loyalty oath investigation?
“Juror Holford: I believe I am. I have heard something of it.
“Mr. McCabe: Do you feel that rendering a verdict of not guilty in this case, if you come to that conclusion, it would stop you, any criticism or embarrassment among your fellow employees?
“Juror Holford: None whatsoever.
“Mr. McCabe: Or by your superiors?
“Juror Holford: No.
* “Mr. McCabe: You would not have any thought that would be taken as evidence of friendliness to communism?
“Juror Holford: No; I am not worried about my job that way.”
“Mr. McCabe: Now, Mr. Jones, you have heard, have you, of the loyalty test or loyalty investigation which is going on to test the loyalty of Government employees? Have you heard of that?
“Mr. Jones: Yes, I have.
“Mr. McCabe: Are you aware of the fact that one of the tests that might disqualify or prevent you from Government employment is friendly association with any Communist person or any Communist organizations?
“Mr. Jones: That would not. I am a Civil Service employee. I have taken an examination for my job.
“Mr. McCabe: Yes. Are you aware of the fact that, despite any Civil Service protection, still a finding that you were in friendly association with any Communist or Communist organization would render you ineligible to continue in your Government position?
“Mr. Jones: It would not.
“Mr. McCabe: What?
“Mr. Jones: It would not.”
The replies of the other jurors were in a similar vein.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the court.
As a result of a labor dispute between respondent union and the H. J. High Construction Company (High), the union passed out handbills urging consumers not to trade with a group of employers who had no business relationship of any kind with High. The question presented is whether that handbilling is exempted from the prohibition against secondary boycotts contained in § 8(b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 158(b)(4), by what is known as the “publicity proviso” to that section.
High is a general building contractor retained by the H. J. Wilson Company (Wilson) to construct a department store in a shopping center in Tampa, Fla. Petitioner, the Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation (DeBartolo), owns and operates the center. Most of the 85 tenants in the mall signed a standard lease with DeBartolo providing for a minimum rent (which increases whenever a large new department store opens for business) plus a percentage of gross sales, and requiring the tenant to pay a proportionate share of the costs of maintaining the mall’s common areas, to pay dues to a merchants’ association, and to take part in four joint advertising brochures. Wilson signed a slightly different land lease agreement, but it also promised to pay dues to the merchants’ association and to share in the costs of maintaining the common areas. Under the terms of Wilson’s lease, neither DeBartolo nor any of the other tenants had any right to control the manner in which High discharged its contractual obligation to Wilson.
The union conducted its handbilling at all four entrances to the shopping center for about three weeks, while the new Wilson store was under construction. Without identifying High by name, the handbill stated that the contractors building Wilson’s Department Store were paying substandard wages, and asked the readers not to patronize any of the stores in the mall until DeBartolo publicly promised that all construction at the mall would be done by contractors who pay their employees fair wages and fringe benefits. The handbilling was conducted in an orderly manner, and was not accompanied by any picketing or patrolling. DeBartolo advised the union that it would not oppose this handbilling if the union modified its message to make clear that the dispute did not involve DeBartolo or any of Wilson’s cotenants, and if it limited its activities to the immediate vicinity of Wilson’s. When the union persisted in distributing handbills to all patrons of the shopping center, DeBartolo filed a trespass action in the state court and an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. The Board’s General Counsel issued a complaint.
The complaint recited the dispute between the union and High, and noted the absence of any labor dispute between the union and DeBartolo, Wilson, or any of the other tenants of the East Lake Mall. The complaint then alleged that in furtherance of its primary dispute with High, the union “has threatened, coerced or restrained, and is threatening, coercing or restraining, various tenant Employers who are engaged in business at East Lake Square Mall, and who lease space from DeBartolo in East Lake Square Mall, by handbill-ing the general public not to do business with the above-described tenant Employers . . . .” Complaint ¶ 8(a). The complaint alleged that the object of the handbilling “was and is, to force or require the aforesaid tenant Employers in East Lake Square Mall... to cease using, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in products and/or services of, and to cease doing business with DeBartolo, in order to force DeBartolo and/or Wilson’s not to do business with High.” Complaint ¶ 8(b).
After the union filed its answer, the parties stipulated to the relevant facts and submitted the matter to the Board for decision. Without deciding whether the handbilling constituted a form of “coercion” or “restraint” proscribed by § 8(b)(4), the Board concluded that it was exempted from the Act by the “publicity proviso” and dismissed the complaint. Florida Gulf Coast Building Trades Council, AFL-CIO (Edward J. DeBartolo Corp.), 252 N. L. R. B. 702 (1980). The Board reasoned that there was a “symbiotic” relationship between DeBartolo and its tenants, including Wilson, and that they all would derive a substantial benefit from the “product” that High was constructing, namely Wilson’s new store. The Board did not expressly state that DeBartolo and the other tenants could be said to be distributors of that product, but concluded that High’s status as a producer brought a total consumer boycott of the shopping center within the publicity proviso.
The Court of Appeals agreed. 662 F. 2d 264 (CA4 1981). It observed that our decision in NLRB v. Servette, Inc., 377 U. S. 46 (1964), had rejected a narrow reading of the proviso and that the Board had consistently construed it in an expansive manner. Finding the Board’s interpretation consistent with the rationale of the National Labor Relations Act, it held that High was a producer and that DeBartolo and the other tenants were distributors within the meaning of the proviso. This holding reflected the court’s belief that in response to the union’s consumer handbilling, DeBartolo and the storekeepers would be able “in turn, to apply pressure on Wilson’s and High.” 662 F. 2d, at 271. Because the decision conflicts with that of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Pet, Inc. v. NLRB, 641 F. 2d 545 (1981), we granted certiorari. 459 U. S. 904 (1982).
The Board and the union correctly point out that DeBartolo cannot obtain relief in this proceeding unless it prevails on three separate issues. It must prove that the union did “threaten, coerce, or restrain” a person engaged in commerce, with the object of “forcing or requiring” someone to cease doing business with someone else — that is to say, it must prove a violation of § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B). It must also overcome both the union’s defense based on the publicity proviso and the union’s claim that its conduct was protected by the First Amendment. Neither the Board nor the Court of Appeals considered whether the handbilling in this case was covered by § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) or protected by the First Amendment, because both found that it fell within the proviso. We therefore limit our attention to that issue.
The publicity proviso applies to communications “other than picketing,” that are “truthful,” and that do not produce either an interference with deliveries or a work stoppage by employees of any person other than the firm engaged in the primary labor dispute. The Board and the Court of Appeals found that these three conditions were met, and these findings are not now challenged. The only question is whether the handbilling “advis[ed] the public . . . that a product or products are produced by an employer with whom the labor organization has a primary dispute and are distributed by another employer.” The parties agree that this language limits the proviso’s protection to publicity that is designed to create consumer pressure on secondary employers who distribute the primary employer’s products. They do not agree, however, on what constitutes a producer-distributor relationship.
We have analyzed the producer-distributor requirement in only one case, NLRB v. Servette, Inc., supra. Servette involved a primary dispute between a union and a wholesale distributor of candy and certain other specialty items sold to the public by supermarkets. The union passed out handbills in front of some of the chainstores urging consumers not to buy any products purchased by the store from Servette. We held that even though Servette did not actually manufacture the items that it distributed, it should still be regarded as a “producer” within the meaning of the proviso. We thus concluded that the handbills advised the public that the products were produced by an employer with whom the union had a primary dispute (Servette) and were being distributed by another employer (the supermarket).
In reaching that conclusion, we looked to the legislative history of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, Pub. L. 86-257, 73 Stat. 519, which had simultaneously strengthened the secondary boycott prohibition and added the publicity proviso. We noted that a principal source of congressional concern had been the secondary boycott activities of the Teamsters Union, which for the most part represented employees of motor carriers who did not “produce” goods in the technical sense of the verb. The Teamsters’ activities were plainly intended to be covered by the new prohibitions in § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B), and we declined to hold that Congress, in using the word “produced,” had intended to exclude the Teamsters entirely from the offsetting protections of the proviso. “There is nothing in the legislative history which suggests that the protection of the proviso was intended to be any narrower in coverage than the prohibition to which it is an exception, and we see no basis for attributing such an incongruous purpose to Congress.” 377 U. S., at 55.
The focus of the analysis in Servette was on the meaning of the term “producer.” In this case, DeBartolo is willing to concede that Wilson distributes products that are “produced” by High within the meaning of the statute. This would mean that construction workers, like truckdrivers, may perform services that are essential to the production and distribution of consumer goods. We may therefore assume in this case that High, the primary employer, is a producer within the meaning of the proviso. Indeed, we may assume here that the proviso’s “coverage” — the types of primary disputes it allows to be publicized — is broad enough to include almost any primary dispute that might result in prohibited secondary activity.
We reject, however, the Board’s interpretation of the extent of the secondary activity that the proviso permits. The only publicity exempted from the prohibition is publicity intended to inform the public that the primary employer’s product is “distributed by” the secondary employer. We are persuaded that Congress included that requirement to reflect the concern that motivates all of § 8(b)(4): “shielding unof-fending employers and others from pressures in controversies not their own.” NLRB v. Denver Building & Construction Trades Council, 341 U. S. 675, 692 (1951). In this case, the Board did not find that any product produced by High was being distributed by DeBartolo or any of Wilson’s cotenants. Instead, it relied on the theory that there was a symbiotic relationship between them and Wilson, and that DeBartolo and Wilson’s cotenants would derive substantial benefit from High’s work. That form of analysis would almost strip the distribution requirement of its limiting effect. It diverts the inquiry away from the relationship between the primary and secondary employers and toward the relationship between two secondary employers. It then tests that relationship by a standard so generous that it will be satisfied by virtually any secondary employer that a union might want consumers to boycott. Yet if Congress had intended all peaceful, truthful handbilling that informs the public of a primary dispute to fall within the proviso, the statute would not have contained a distribution requirement.
In this case, DeBartolo is willing to assume that Wilson distributes products that are “produced” by High within the meaning of the statute. Wilson contracted with High to receive the construction services that are the subject of the primary dispute, and the cost of those services will presumably be reflected in the prices of the products sold by Wilson. But the handbills at issue in this case did not merely call for a boycott of Wilson’s products; they also called for a boycott of the products being sold by Wilson’s cotenants. Neither DeBartolo nor any of the cotenants has any business relationship with High. Nor do they sell any products whose chain of production can reasonably be said to include High. Since there is no justification for treating the products that the cotenants distribute to the public as products produced by High, the Board erred in concluding that the handbills came within the protection of the publicity proviso.
Stressing the fact that this case arises out of an entirely peaceful and orderly distribution of a written message, rather than picketing, the union argues that its handbilling is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. The Board, without completely endorsing the union’s constitutional argument, contends that it has sufficient force to invoke the Court’s prudential policy of construing Acts of Congress so as to avoid the unnecessary decision of serious constitutional questions. See NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490, 500-501 (1979). That doctrine, however, serves only to authorize the construction of a statute in a manner that is “fairly possible.” Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932). We do not believe that the Board’s expansive reading of the proviso meets that standard.
Nevertheless, we do not reach the constitutional issue in this case. For, as we noted at the outset, the Board has not yet decided whether the handbilling in this case was proscribed by the Act. It rested its decision entirely on the publicity proviso and never considered whether, apart from that proviso, the union’s conduct fell within the terms of §8(b)(4)(ii)(B). Until the statutory question is decided, review of the constitutional issue is premature.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
That section makes it an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents
“(ii) to threaten, coerce, or restrain any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where in either case an object thereof is:
“(B) forcing or requiring any person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person _” 61 Stat. 140, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 158(b)(4).
That proviso reads as follows:
“Provided further, That for the purposes of this paragraph (4) only, nothing contained in such paragraph shall be construed to prohibit publicity, other than picketing, for the purpose of truthfully advising the public, including consumers and members of a labor organization, that a product or products are produced by an employer with whom the labor organization has a primary dispute and are distributed by another employer, as long as such publicity does not have an effect of inducing any individual employed by any person other than the primary employer in the course of his employment to refuse to pick up, deliver, or transport any goods, or not to perform any services, at the establishment of the employer engaged in such distribution.” 73 Stat. 543, 29 U. S. C. § 158(b)(4).
The handbills read:
“PLEASE DON’T SHOP AT EAST LAKE SQUARE MALL PLEASE
“The FLA. GULF COAST BUILDING TRADES COUNCIL, AFL-CIO is requesting that you do not shop at the stores in the East Lake Square Mall because of The Mall ownership’s contribution to substandard wages. “The Wilson’s Department Store under construction on these premises is being built by contractors who pay substandard wages and fringe benefits. In the past, the Mall’s owner, The Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation, has supported labor and our local economy by insuring that the Mall and its stores be built by contractors who pay fair wages and fringe benefits. Now, however, and for no apparent reason, the Mall owners have taken a giant step backwards by permitting our standards to be torn down. The payment of substandard wages not only diminishes the working person’s ability to purchase with earned, rather than borrowed, dollars, but it also undercuts the wage standard of the entire community. Since low construction wages at this time of inflation means decreased purchasing power, do the owners of East Lake Mall intend to compensate for the decreased purchasing power of workers of the community by encouraging the stores in East Lake Mall to cut their prices and lower their profits? “CUT-RATE WAGES ARE NOT FAIR UNLESS MERCHANDISE PRICES ARE ALSO CUT-RATE.
“We ask for your support in our protest against substandard wages. Please do not patronize the stores in the East Lake Square Mall until the Mali’s owner publicly promises that all construction at the Mall will be done using contractors who pay their employees fair wages and fringe benefits.
“IF YOU MUST ENTER THE MALL TO DO BUSINESS, please express to the store managers your concern over substandard wages and your support of our efforts.
“We are appealing only to the public — the consumer. We are not seeking to induce any person to cease work or to refuse to make deliveries.”
The Board concluded:
“In sum, we find that the mutual obligations between the parties and the benefits derived from participation in the mall enterprise reflect the symbiotic nature of the relationship between DeBartolo and its tenants, not unlike the relationship between the operations of a diversified corporation. High’s contribution to this enterprise is as an employer which applies its labor to a product, i. e., the Wilson’s store, from which DeBartolo and its tenants will derive substantial benefit. Consequently, we find as a result of its relationship with Wilson’s and the shopping center enterprise that High applies capital, enterprise, and service to that enterprise, and thus that it is a ‘producer’ in the sense that that term is used in the publicity proviso as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Servette, [377 U. S. 46 (1964)], and by this Board in Pet, [244 N. L. R. B. 96 (1979)].
“Having found High to be a producer within the meaning of Section 8(b)(4), we find that Respondent’s handbilling urging a total consumer boycott of DeBartolo and its tenants other than Wilson’s is protected by the publicity proviso of that section of the Act.” 252 N. L. R. B., at 705.
DeBartolo was successful in its trespass action in the state court. The handbilling at the East Lake Mall was enjoined and ceased on January 4, 1980. The parties agree, however, that the case is not moot. DeBartolo operates a number of shopping centers at various locations throughout the United States, and the union maintains that it has a right to engage in comparable handbilling in the future if a similar problem should again arise. That possibility, together with the fact that a cease-and-desist order would protect DeBartolo from a recurrence in the future, provides a sufficient basis for concluding that the case is not moot.
Cf. Local 712, IBEW (Golden Dawn Foods), 134 N. L. R. B. 812 (1961) (electrical and refrigeration work); Plumbers & Pipefitters, Local 1A2 (Shop-Rite Foods), 133 N. L. R. B. 307 (1961) (refrigeration work).
As the Board stated in International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 537 (Lohman Sales Co.), 132 N. L. R. B. 901, 907 (1961), “there is no suggestion either in the statute itself or in the legislative history that Congress intended the words ‘product’ and ‘produced’ to be words of special limitation.”
See also Longshoremen v. Allied International, Inc., 456 U. S. 212, 223 (1982); Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93, 100 (1958); H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 24 (1947), 1 NLRB, Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, p. 315 (1948).
The Board concedes in its brief that Congress intended this language to restrict the scope of the proviso. It acknowledges that the product must be “in some manner distributed by the employers at whose customers the nonpicketing publicity is immediately directed.” Brief for Respondent NLRB 9.
Concededly, “[t]he proviso was the outgrowth of a profound Senate concern that the unions’ freedom to appeal to the public for support of their case be adequately safeguarded.” NLRB v. Servette, Inc., 377 U. S. 46, 55 (1964). Indeed, several legislators referred to the First Amendment explicitly during the debates. E. g., 105 Cong. Rec. 6232 (1959), 2 NLRB, Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, p. 1037 (1959) (Sen. Humphrey); 105 Cong. Rec., at 18135, 2 NLRB Legislative History, at 1722 (Rep. Udall). That fact, however, merely confirms in this case the presumption that underlies Catholic Bishop and Crowell: when Congress legislates in a fashion that restricts communicative activity, it expects the statutory language to be construed narrowly. See Catholic Bishop, 440 U. S., at 507. It does not, however, expect the statutory language to be deprived of substantial practical effect.
Cf. NLRB v. Retail Store Employees, 447 U. S. 607 (1980) (picket line advocating boycott of substantial portion of secondary employer’s business is proscribed); NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58 (1964) (“Tree Fruits”) (picket line advocating boycott of insubstantial portion of secondary employer’s business is not proscribed).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Bankruptcy Code prohibits debtors from discharging debts for money, property, services, or credit obtained by "false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud," 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2)(A), or, if made in writing, by a materially false "statement ... respecting the debtor's ... financial condition," § 523(a)(2)(B).
This case is about what constitutes a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition." Does a statement about a single asset qualify, or must the statement be about the debtor's overall financial status? The answer matters to the parties because the false statements at issue concerned a single asset and were made orally. So, if the single-asset statements here qualify as "respecting the debtor's financial condition," § 523(a)(2)(B) poses no bar to discharge because they were not made in writing. If, however, the statements fall into the more general category of "false pretenses, ... false representation, or actual fraud," § 523(a)(2)(A), for which there is no writing requirement, the associated debt will be deemed nondischargeable.
The statutory language makes plain that a statement about a single asset can be a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition." If that statement is not in writing, then, the associated debt may be discharged, even if the statement was false.
I
Respondent R. Scott Appling hired petitioner Lamar, Archer & Cofrin, LLP (Lamar), a law firm, to represent him in a business litigation. Appling fell behind on his legal bills, and by March 2005, he owed Lamar more than $60,000. Lamar informed Appling that if he did not pay the outstanding amount, the firm would withdraw from representation and place a lien on its work product until the bill was paid. The parties met in person that month, and Appling told his attorneys that he was expecting a tax refund of " 'approximately $100,000,' " enough to cover his owed and future legal fees. App. to Pet. for Cert. 3a. Lamar relied on this statement and continued to represent Appling without initiating collection of the overdue amount.
When Appling and his wife filed their tax return, however, the refund they requested was of just $60,718, and they ultimately received $59,851 in October 2005. Rather than paying Lamar, they spent the money on their business.
Appling and his attorneys met again in November 2005, and Appling told them that he had not yet received the refund. Lamar relied on that statement and agreed to complete the pending litigation and delay collection of the outstanding fees.
In March 2006, Lamar sent Appling its final invoice. Five years later, Appling still had not paid, so Lamar filed suit in Georgia state court and obtained a judgment for $104,179.60. Shortly thereafter, Appling and his wife filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Lamar initiated an adversary proceeding against Appling in Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Georgia. The firm argued that because Appling made fraudulent statements about his tax refund at the March and November 2005 meetings, his debt to Lamar was nondischargeable pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2)(A), which governs debts arising from "false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud, other than a statement respecting the debtor's ... financial condition." Appling, in turn, moved to dismiss, contending that his alleged misrepresentations were "statement[s] ... respecting [his] financial condition" and were therefore governed by § 523(a)(2)(B), such that Lamar could not block discharge of the debt because the statements were not "in writing" as required for nondischargeability under that provision.
The Bankruptcy Court held that a statement regarding a single asset is not a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" and denied Appling's motion to dismiss. 500 B.R. 246, 252 (Bkrtcy.M.D.Ga.2013). After a trial, the Bankruptcy Court found that Appling knowingly made two false representations on which Lamar justifiably relied and that Lamar incurred damages as a result. It thus concluded that Appling's debt to Lamar was nondischargeable under § 523(a)(2)(A). 527 B.R. 545, 550-556 (M.D.Ga.2015). The District Court affirmed. 2016 WL 1183128 (M.D.Ga., Mar. 28, 2016).
The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed. It held that " 'statement[s] respecting the debtor's ... financial condition' may include a statement about a single asset." In re Appling, 848 F.3d 953, 960 (2017). Because Appling's statements about his expected tax refund were not in writing, the Court of Appeals held that § 523(a)(2)(B) did not bar Appling from discharging his debt to Lamar. Id., at 961.
The Court granted certiorari, 583 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 734, 199 L.Ed.2d 601 (2018), to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals as to whether a statement about a single asset can be a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition." We agree with the Eleventh Circuit's conclusion and affirm.
II
A
One of the "main purpose[s]" of the federal bankruptcy system is "to aid the unfortunate debtor by giving him a fresh start in life, free from debts, except of a certain character." Stellwagen v. Clum, 245 U.S. 605, 617, 38 S.Ct. 215, 62 L.Ed. 507 (1918). To that end, the Bankruptcy Code contains broad provisions for the discharge of debts, subject to exceptions. One such exception is found in 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2), which provides that a discharge under Chapter 7, 11, 12, or 13 of the Bankruptcy Code "does not discharge an individual debtor from any debt ... for money, property, services, or an extension, renewal, or refinancing of credit, to the extent obtained by" fraud. This exception is in keeping with the "basic policy animating the Code of affording relief only to an 'honest but unfortunate debtor.' " Cohen v. de la Cruz, 523 U.S. 213, 217, 118 S.Ct. 1212, 140 L.Ed.2d 341 (1998).
More specifically, § 523(a)(2) excepts from discharge debts arising from various forms of fraud. Subparagraph (A) bars discharge of debts arising from "false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud, other than a statement respecting the debtor's ... financial condition." Subparagraph (B), in turn, bars discharge of debts arising from a materially false "statement ... respecting the debtor's ... financial condition" if that statement is "in writing."
B
1
"Our interpretation of the Bankruptcy Code starts 'where all such inquiries must begin: with the language of the statute itself.' " Ransom v. FIA Card Services, N. A., 562 U.S. 61, 69, 131 S.Ct. 716, 178 L.Ed.2d 603 (2011). As noted, the relevant statutory text is the phrase "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition." Because the Bankruptcy Code does not define the words "statement," "financial condition," or "respecting," we look to their ordinary meanings. See ibid.
There is no dispute as to the meaning of the first two terms. A "statement" is "the act or process of stating, reciting, or presenting orally or on paper; something stated as a report or narrative; a single declaration or remark." Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2229 (1976) (Webster's). As to "financial condition," the parties agree, as does the United States, that the term means one's overall financial status. See Brief for Petitioner 23; Brief for Respondent 25; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 12.
For our purposes, then, the key word in the statutory phrase is the preposition "respecting," which joins together "statement" and "financial condition." As a matter of ordinary usage, "respecting" means "in view of: considering; with regard or relation to: regarding; concerning." Webster's 1934; see also American Heritage Dictionary 1107 (1969) ("[i]n relation to; concerning"); Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1221 (1966) ( "regarding; concerning"); Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary 1542 (2d ed. 1967) ("concerning; about; regarding; in regard to; relating to").
According to Lamar, these definitions reveal that " 'respecting' can be 'defined broadly,' " but that the word "isn't always used that way." Brief for Petitioner 27. The firm contends that " 'about,' " " 'concerning,' " " 'with reference to,' " and " 'as regards' " denote a more limited scope than " 'related to.' " Brief for Petitioner 3, 18, 27. When "respecting" is understood to have one of these more limited meanings, Lamar asserts, a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" is "a statement that is 'about,' or that makes 'reference to,' the debtor's overall financial state or well-being." Id., at 27-28. Under that formulation, a formal financial statement providing a detailed accounting of one's assets and liabilities would qualify, as would statements like " 'Don't worry, I am above water,' " and " 'I am in good financial shape.' " Id., at 19, 28. A statement about a single asset would not.
The Court finds no basis to conclude, however, at least in this context, that "related to" has a materially different meaning than "about," "concerning," "with reference to," and "as regards." The definitions of these words are overlapping and circular, with each one pointing to another in the group. "Relate" means "to be in relationship: have reference," and, in the context of the phrase "in relation to," "reference, respect." Webster's 1916; see also id., at 18a (Explanatory Note 16.2). "About" means "with regard to," and is the equivalent of "concerning." Id., at 5. "Concerning" means "relating to," and is the equivalent of "regarding, respecting, about." Id., at 470. "Reference" means "the capability or character of alluding to or bearing on or directing attention to something," and is the equivalent of "relation" and "respect."
Id., at 1907. And "regard" means "to have relation to or bearing upon: relate to," and is the equivalent of "relation" and "respect." Id., at 1911. The interconnected web formed by these words belies the clear distinction Lamar attempts to impose. Lamar also fails to put forth an example of a phrase in a legal context similar to the one at issue here in which toggling between "related to" and "about" has any pertinent significance.
Use of the word "respecting" in a legal context generally has a broadening effect, ensuring that the scope of a provision covers not only its subject but also matters relating to that subject. Cf. Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529, 539, 96 S.Ct. 2285, 49 L.Ed.2d 34 (1976) (explaining that the Property Clause, "in broad terms, gives Congress the power to determine what are 'needful' rules 'respecting' the public lands," and should receive an "expansive reading").
Indeed, when asked to interpret statutory language including the phrase "relating to," which is one of the meanings of "respecting," this Court has typically read the relevant text expansively. See, e.g., Coventry Health Care of Mo., Inc. v. Nevils, 581 U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 1190, 1197, 197 L.Ed.2d 572 (2017) (describing " 'relate to' " as "expansive" and noting that "Congress characteristically employs the phrase to reach any subject that has 'a connection with, or reference to,' the topics the statute enumerates"); Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U.S. 374, 378-390, 112 S.Ct. 2031, 119 L.Ed.2d 157 (1992) (explaining that " 'relating to' " has a "broad" ordinary meaning and accordingly holding that the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 provision prohibiting the States from enforcing any law " 'relating to rates, routes, or services' " of any air carrier pre-empted any fare advertising guidelines that "would have a significant impact upon the airlines' ability to market their product, and hence a significant impact upon the fares they charge"); Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U.S. 133, 139, 111 S.Ct. 478, 112 L.Ed.2d 474 (1990) (" 'A law "relates to" an employee benefit plan, in the normal sense of the phrase, if it has a connection with or reference to such a plan.' Under this 'broad common-sense meaning,' a state law may 'relate to' a benefit plan ... even if the law is not specifically designed to affect such plans, or the effect is only indirect" (citation omitted)).
Advancing that same expansive approach here, Appling contends that a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" is "a statement that has a direct relation to, or impact on the balance of all of the debtor's assets and liabilities or the debtor's overall financial status." Brief for Respondent 17 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). "A debtor's statement describing an individual asset or liability necessarily qualifies," Appling explains, because it "has a direct impact on the sum of his assets and liabilities." Ibid. "Put differently, a debtor's statement that describes the existence or value of a constituent element of the debtor's balance sheet or income statement qualifies as a 'statement respecting financial condition.' " Ibid.
The United States as amicus curiae supporting Appling offers a slightly different formulation. In its view, a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" includes "a representation about a debtor's asset that is offered as evidence of ability to pay." Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 11. Although Appling does not include "ability to pay" in his proffered definition, he and the United States agree that their respective formulations are functionally the same and lead to the same results. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 50-52, 58. That is so because to establish the requisite materiality and reliance, a creditor opposing discharge must explain why it viewed the debtor's false representation as relevant to the decision to extend money, property, services, or credit. If a given statement did not actually serve as evidence of ability to pay, the creditor's explanation will not suffice to bar discharge. But if the creditor proves materiality and reliance, it will be clear the statement was one "respecting the debtor's financial condition." Whether a statement about a single asset served as evidence of ability to pay thus ultimately always factors into the § 523(a)(2) inquiry at some point.
We agree with both Appling and the United States that, given the ordinary meaning of "respecting," Lamar's preferred statutory construction-that a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" means only a statement that captures the debtor's overall financial status-must be rejected, for it reads "respecting" out of the statute. See TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19, 31, 122 S.Ct. 441, 151 L.Ed.2d 339 (2001) ("[A] statute ought ... to be so construed that ... no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant" (internal quotation marks omitted)). Had Congress intended § 523(a)(2)(B) to encompass only statements expressing the balance of a debtor's assets and liabilities, there are several ways in which it could have so specified, e.g., "statement disclosing the debtor's financial condition" or "statement of the debtor's financial condition." But Congress did not use such narrow language.
We also agree that a statement is "respecting" a debtor's financial condition if it has a direct relation to or impact on the debtor's overall financial status. A single asset has a direct relation to and impact on aggregate financial condition, so a statement about a single asset bears on a debtor's overall financial condition and can help indicate whether a debtor is solvent or insolvent, able to repay a given debt or not. Naturally, then, a statement about a single asset can be a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition."
2
Further supporting the Court's conclusion is that Lamar's interpretation would yield incoherent results. On Lamar's view, the following would obtain: A misrepresentation about a single asset made in the context of a formal financial statement or balance sheet would constitute a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" and trigger § 523(a)(2)(B)'s heightened nondischargeability requirements, but the exact same misrepresentation made on its own, or in the context of a list of some but not all of the debtor's assets and liabilities, would not. Lamar does not explain why Congress would draw such seemingly arbitrary distinctions, where the ability to discharge a debt turns on the superficial packaging of a statement rather than its substantive content.
In addition, a highly general statement like, "I am above water," would need to be in writing to foreclose discharge, whereas a highly specific statement like, "I have $200,000 of equity in my house," would not. This, too, is inexplicably bizarre.
3
Lastly, the statutory history of the phrase "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" corroborates our reading of the text. That language can be traced back to a 1926 amendment to the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 that prohibited discharge entirely to a debtor who had "obtained money or property on credit, or obtained an extension or renewal of credit, by making or publishing, or causing to be made or published, in any manner whatsoever, a materially false statement in writing respecting his financial condition." Act of May 27, 1926, § 6, 44 Stat. 663-664.
When Congress again amended this provision in 1960, it retained the "statement in writing respecting ... financial condition" language. See Act of July 12, 1960, Pub. L. 86-621, § 2, 74 Stat. 409. Congress then once more preserved that language when it rewrote and recodified the provision in the modern Bankruptcy Code as § 523(a)(2)(B).
Given the historical presence of the phrase "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition," lower courts had ample opportunity to weigh in on its meaning. Between 1926, when the phrase was introduced, and 1978, when Congress enacted the Bankruptcy Code, Courts of Appeals consistently construed the phrase to encompass statements addressing just one or some of a debtor's assets or liabilities. When Congress used the materially same language in § 523(a)(2), it presumptively was aware of the longstanding judicial interpretation of the phrase and intended for it to retain its established meaning. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 575, 580, 98 S.Ct. 866, 55 L.Ed.2d 40 (1978) ("Congress is presumed to be aware of an administrative or judicial interpretation of a statute and to adopt that interpretation when it re-enacts a statute without change"); Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U.S. 624, 645, 118 S.Ct. 2196, 141 L.Ed.2d 540 (1998) ("When administrative and judicial interpretations have settled the meaning of an existing statutory provision, repetition of the same language in a new statute indicates, as a general matter, the intent to incorporate its administrative and judicial interpretations as well").
III
In addition to its plain-text arguments discussed and rejected above, see supra, at 1759 - 1760, Lamar contends that Appling's rule undermines the purpose of § 523(a)(2) in two ways. Neither argument is persuasive.
A
First, Lamar contends that Appling's construction gives § 523(a)(2)(B) an implausibly broad reach, such that little would be covered by § 523(a)(2)(A)'s general rule rendering nondischargeable debts arising from "false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud." That is not so. Decisions from this Court and several lower courts considering the application of § 523(a)(2)(A) demonstrate that the provision still retains significant function when the phrase "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" is interpreted to encompass a statement about a single asset.
Section 523(a)(2)(A) has been applied when a debt arises from "forms of fraud, like fraudulent conveyance schemes, that can be effected without a false representation." Husky Int'l Electronics, Inc. v. Ritz, 578 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 1581, 1586, 194 L.Ed.2d 655 (2016). It also has been used to bar the discharge of debts resulting from misrepresentations about the value of goods, property, and services.
B
Second, Lamar asserts that Appling's interpretation is inconsistent with the overall principle that the Bankruptcy Code exists to afford relief only to the " 'honest but unfortunate debtor,' " Cohen, 523 U.S., at 217, 118 S.Ct. 1212, because it leaves "fraudsters" free to "swindle innocent victims for money, property or services by lying about their finances, then discharge the resulting debt in bankruptcy, just so long as they do so orally." Brief for Petitioner 35.
This general maxim, however, provides little support for Lamar's interpretation. The text of § 523(a)(2) plainly heightens the bar to discharge when the fraud at issue was effectuated via a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition." The heightened requirements, moreover, are not a shield for dishonest debtors. Rather, they reflect Congress' effort to balance the potential misuse of such statements by both debtors and creditors. As the Court has explained previously:
"The House Report on the [Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978] suggests that Congress wanted to moderate the burden on individuals who submitted false financial statements, not because lies about financial condition are less blameworthy than others, but because the relative equities might be affected by practices of consumer finance companies, which sometimes have encouraged such falsity by their borrowers for the very purpose of insulating their own claims from discharge." Field v. Mans, 516 U.S. 59, 76-77, 116 S.Ct. 437, 133 L.Ed.2d 351 (1995).
Specifically, as detailed in Field, the House Report noted that consumer finance companies frequently collected information from loan applicants in ways designed to permit the companies to later use those statements as the basis for an exception to discharge. Commonly, a loan officer would instruct a loan applicant " 'to list only a few or only the most important of his debts' " on a form with too little space to supply a complete list of debts, even though the phrase, " 'I have no other debts,' " would be printed at the bottom of the form or the applicant would be " 'instructed to write the phrase in his own handwriting.' " Id., at 77, n. 13, 116 S.Ct. 437. If the debtor later filed for bankruptcy, the creditor would contend that the debtor had made misrepresentations in his loan application and the creditor would threaten litigation over excepting the debt from discharge. That threat was "often enough to induce the debtor to settle for a reduced sum," even where the merits of the nondischargeability claim were weak. H.R. Rep. No. 95-595, p. 131 (1977).
Notably, Lamar's interpretation of "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" would not bring within § 523(a)(2)(B)'s reach the very types of statements the House Report described, because those debts-only statements said nothing about assets and thus did not communicate fully the debtor's overall financial status. Yet in Field, the Court explained that the heightened requirements for nondischargeability under § 523(a)(2)(B) were intended to address creditor abuse involving such statements. 516 U.S., at 76-77, 116 S.Ct. 437. Lamar's construction also would render § 523(a)(2)(B) subject to manipulation by creditors, frustrating the very end Congress sought to avoid when it set forth heightened requirements for rendering nondischargeable "statements respecting the debtor's financial condition." Ibid .
Finally, although Lamar tries to paint a picture of defenseless creditors swindled by lying debtors careful to make their financial representations orally, creditors are not powerless. They can still benefit from the protection of § 523(a)(2)(B) so long as they insist that the representations respecting the debtor's financial condition on which they rely in extending money, property, services, or credit are made in writing. Doing so will likely redound to their benefit, as such writings can foster accuracy at the outset of a transaction, reduce the incidence of fraud, and facilitate the more predictable, fair, and efficient resolution of any subsequent dispute.
IV
For the foregoing reasons, the Court holds that a statement about a single asset can be a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" under § 523(a)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice THOMAS, Justice ALITO, and Justice GORSUCH join all but Part III-B of this opinion.
Compare In re Bandi, 683 F.3d 671, 676 (C.A.5 2012) (a statement about a single asset is not a statement respecting the debtor's financial condition); In re Joelson, 427 F.3d 700, 714 (C.A.10 2005) (same), with In re Appling, 848 F.3d 953, 960 (C.A.11 2017) (a statement about a single asset can be a statement respecting the debtor's financial condition); Engler v. Van Steinburg, 744 F.2d 1060, 1061 (C.A.4 1984) (same).
Congress in fact used just such "statement of" language elsewhere in the Bankruptcy Code. See, e.g., 11 U.S.C. § 329(a) ( "statement of the compensation paid"); § 521(a)(1)(B)(iii) ("statement of the debtor's financial affairs"); § 707(b)(2)(C) ("statement of the debtor's current monthly income").
See, e.g., Tenn v. First Hawaiian Bank, 549 F.2d 1356, 1358 (C.A.9 1977) (per curiam ) ("[A]ppellants' recordation of the deed which they knew was false for the purpose of obtaining an extension of credit on the basis of an asset that they did not own was a false statement of financial condition" (citing Scott v. Smith, 232 F.2d 188, 190 (C.A.9 1956) )); In re Butler, 425 F.2d 47, 49, 52 (C.A.3 1970) (affirming holding that a corporation's false statements as to select accounts receivable qualified as statements respecting financial condition); Shainman v. Shear's of Affton, Inc., 387 F.2d 33, 38 (C.A.8 1967) ("A written statement purporting to set forth the true value of a major asset of a corporation, its inventory, is a statement respecting the financial condition of that corporation.... There is nothing in the language or legislative history of this section of the [Bankruptcy] Act to indicate that it was intended to apply only to complete financial statements in the accounting sense"); Albinak v. Kuhn, 149 F.2d 108, 110 (C.A.6 1945) ("No cases have been cited to us, and none has been found by careful examination, which confines a statement respecting one's financial condition as limited to a detailed statement of assets and liabilities"); In re Weiner, 103 F.2d 421, 423 (C.A.2 1939) (holding that a debtor's false statement about "an asset" that was pledged as collateral was a statement respecting financial condition).
See also, e.g., In re Tucker, 539 B.R. 861, 868 (Bkrtcy.Ct.D.Idaho 2015) (holding nondischargeable under § 523(a)(2)(A) a debt arising from the overpayment of social security disability benefits to an individual who failed to report changes to his employment despite a legal duty to do so); In re Drummond, 530 B.R. 707, 710, and n. 3 (Bkrtcy.Ct.E.D.Ark.2015) (same, and concluding that "the requirement of the debtor to notify [the Social Security Administration] if she returns to work is not a statement that respects the debtor's financial condition").
See, e.g., In re Bocchino, 794 F.3d 376, 380-383 (C.A.3 2015) (holding nondischargeable under § 523(a)(2)(A) civil judgment debts against a debtor-stockbroker who made misrepresentations about investments); In re Cohen, 106 F.3d 52, 54-55 (C.A.3 1997) (holding that a landlord's misrepresentations about the rent that legally could be charged for an apartment constituted fraud under § 523(a)(2)(A) ); United States v. Spicer, 57 F.3d 1152, 1154, 1161 (C.A.D.C.1995) (holding nondischargeable under § 523(a)(2)(A) a settlement agreement owed to the Government based on an investor's misrepresentations of downpayment amounts in mortgage applications).
In addition to the writing requirement, § 523(a)(2)(B) requires a creditor to show reasonable reliance. 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2)(B)(iii). Section 523(a)(2)(A), by contrast, requires only the lesser showing of "justifiable reliance." Field v. Mans, 516 U.S. 59, 61, 70-75, 116 S.Ct. 437, 133 L.Ed.2d 351 (1995).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
By reason of a divorce in an Illinois state court, with a judgment for monthly installments of alimony until remarriage, petitioner asserts that her divorced husband, the respondent Leib, is liable for unpaid installments of alimony. Asserting diversity jurisdiction, petitioner, a divorcee, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. Claim for recovery is made, notwithstanding a later marriage by petitioner to another in Nevada, subsequently annulled in New York, for the period from the Nevada remarriage to her third presumably valid marriage in New York to a third man. .Jo respondent’s plea that the Illinois alimony obligation was finally ended by the Nevada remarriage of petitioner, Mrs. Sutton relied upon the' New . York annulment decree as determining that her Nevada marriage was void. ■ She contends that the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Federal Constitution requires that Illinois hold her Nevada marriage void ab initio by virtue of the New York annulment; that as the annulment decree obliterates the existence of her Nevada marriage respondent is liable for unpaid alimony until her New York marriage to Sutton.
The trial court rendered summary judgment for respondent and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. 188 F. 2d 766. The affirmance was bottomed on the conclusion that, as the Nevada’marriáge of petitioner was valid in Nevada, it terminated the liability for alimony under the Illinois judgment of divorce. The court thus gave full faith and credit to the Nevada marriage rather than the New York annulment. Because disposition of this case required treatment of an important question of federal law, review was granted on a writ of certiorari. 342 U. S. 846.
Facts. Petitioner, Verna Sutton, divorced respondent, Leib, in Illinois in 1939, and under the terms of the decree of divorce was awarded $125 “on or before the first day of each calendar month . '. . for so long as the plaintiff shall remain unmarried, or for so long as this decree remains in full force and effect.” On July 3, 1944, in Reno, Nevada, petitioner married Walter Henzel who had that day obtained a Nevada divorce from Dorothy Henzel, a resident of New York who had not been served in Nevada and who made no appearance there. One month later, August 3,1944, Dorothy Henzel brought a separate maintenance proceeding in the courts of New York. Walter Henzel defended this suit. The proceeding resulted in a decree in Dorothy Henzel’s favor, declaring Walter Henzel’s Nevada divorce from her “null and void.” With the service of Dorothy’s process on Walter, petitioner ceased living with him, and in January 1945 filed suit in New York for annulment of her marriage to him. In this proceeding Walter Henzel also appeared. On June 6, 1947, the New. York court entered an interlocutory decrée after trial which became final three months thereafter. This judgment declared that petitioner’s marriage to Henzel Was. “null and void” for the reason that he “had another wife living at the time-of said marriage.”
There was no appeal in Nevada from the Nevada divorce of the Henzels. No further action was taken in Nevada concerning the marriage of Henzel and petitioner, and no. appeal taken in New York from the judgnient holding the Henzels’ Nevada divorce null and void or from the judgment annulling the Nevada marriage of Henzel and petitioner. The jurisdiction of the New York courts to enter the judgments is unquestioned.
Analysis of Issues. Collection of alimony is sought against respondent who was not a party to any of the judicial proceedings in Nevada or New York and appears in none of the records from either state. Illinois law as to respondent’s liability governs the federal court’s decision of this case. But the responsibility for the decision of federal constitutional issues involved rests finally on this Court. This controversy presents, fundamentally, a problem of Illinois law, to wit, the Illinois rule as to thé effect of a subsequently annulled second marriage on the alimony provisions of an Illinois divorce awarding support until remarriage.
As the Full Faith and Credit Clause requires Illinois to recognize the validity of records and judicial proceedings of sister states, the conclusion will not vary because the post-divorce recorded events underlying this litigation took place in other states than Illinois. This is not an alleged conflict of decisions between states such as existed in certain tax and estate cases. Rather the situation -more nearly approaches Barber v. Barber, 323 U. S. 77. There Tennessee refused full faith and credit to a North Carolina judgment for arrears of alimony on the ground of its lack of finality in North Carolina. We reversed Tennessee’s decision, not on the ground of error in Tennessee rules of law but on our determination that the North Carolina judgment was final and therefore enforceable as a matter of federal law in Tennessee under the Full Faith and Credit Clause. So in this case, Illinois’ conclusion as to this claim for alimony must be reached under Illinois law on the basis of giving the various proceedings the effect to which the Constitution entitles them. In this way the Full Faith and Credit Clause performs its intended function of avoiding relitigation in other states of adjudicated issues, while leaving to the law of the forum state the application of the predetermined facts to the new problem. Riley v. New York Trust Co., 315 U. S. 343, 348-349.
Legal Effect of Nevada and New York Events. Petitioner and Henzel were married in Nevada. Thereafter petitioner, brought her putative husband before the New York court. Petitioner and Henzel subjected themselves to the jurisdiction of the New York court and its decree annulling their Nevada marriage was entered with jurisdiction, so far as this record shows, of the parties and the subject matter. The burden is upon one attacking the validity of a judgment to demonstrate its invalidity. That judgment is res judicata between the parties and is unassailable collaterally. As both parties were before the New York court, its decree of annulment of their Nevada marriage ceremony is effective to determine that the. marriage relationship of petitioner and Henzel did not exist at the time of filing the present complaint in Illinois for unpaid alimony. The effect in Illinois of the New York declaration of nullity on the obligation for alimony is a matter of Illinois law hereinafter treated. The New York annulment determines the marriage relationship that is the marital status of petitioner and Henzel, just as any divorce judgment determines such relationship. If the Nevada court had had jurisdiction by personal service in the state or appearance in the case of Henzel and the first Mrs. Henzel, its decree of divorce would have been unassailable in other states. So as to the New York decree annulling the marriage, New York had such jurisdiction of the parties and its decree is entitled to full faith throughout the Nation, in Nevada as well as ip Illinois.
The New York invalidation of the Nevada divorce of the Henzels stands in the same position. As Mrs. Henzel was neither personally served in Nevada nor entered her appearance, the Nevada divorce decree was subject to attack and nullification in New York for lack of jurisdiction over the parties in a. contested action.
This leads us to hold that the conclusion of the Court of Appeals quoted in note 2, supra, is incorrect under the facts of this case. The marriage ceremony performed for petitioner and Henzel in Nevada must be held invalid because then Henzel had a living wife. The NeV York annulment held the Nevada marriage void. Nevada declares bigamous marriages void.
.Conclusion. The determination that the New York’adjudications must be given full faith and credit in Illinois, however, does not decide this controversy. Although the federal courts must give the same force and effect to the New York decrees as Illinois does, a question of state law remains. Does Illinois give the marriage ceremony of an annulled marriage sufficient vitality to release Leib, the respondent, from his obligation to pay alimony subse-quently due?
Full faith to the New York annulment, which is conclusive everywhere as to the marriage status of petitioner and Henzel, compels Illinois to treat their Neváda marriage ceremony as void. The force of that rule, however, does not require that the effect of the New York annulment on rights incident to this declaration of the invalidity of the Nevada marriage ceremony shall be the same in all states; Annulment is, in respect to its effect, analogous to divorce. A valid divorce, one. spouse appearing only by constructive service, that frees the parties from the bonds of matrimony throughout the United States does not require a second state to accord its terms the same result in litigation over separable legal rights as the decree would have in the courts of the state entering the decree. Without reference to the effect of a divorce on incidents of the márriage relation where both spouses are actually before the court, we think it equally clear, as a matter of constitutional law, that Illinois is free to decide for itself the effect of New York’s declaration of annulment on the obligations of respondent, a stranger to that decree.
Although the present proceeding necessarily presents questions of state law, resting as it does upon diversity jurisdiction, the case does not present any non-federal issue suitable for separation and determination in the state courts. The remaining matters of state law are for the decision of the federal courts.
It is frequently said, as a legal fiction, that annulment makes the annulled marriage ceremony as though it had never occurred. That fiction is variously treated in different jurisdictions. For example in New York, the petitioner apparently would recover alimony, after annulment but not for the period between the remarriage ceremony and the annulment.
The Court of Appeals of the Seventh Circuit has declared on an issue'as to whether the petitioner’s claim for alimony bad been adjusted that there has been in this controversy no compromise of a disputed claim. See note 15, supra. We accept that ruling. That court has not had occasion to consider the effect of the annulment under the law of Illinois on the respondent’s alimony obligation.
Where there had been a valid foreign marriage, followed by an annulment, based partly on issues not here involved, Illinois has held that the obligation of a former husband to pay alimony until the wife “remarry” is terminated by the remarriage. What the Illinois rule is when the foreign (Nevada) marriage is judicially declared invalid, under present circumstances, or whether respondent, if liable at all, is liable for the period during which Henzel may have owed support under a rule such as that of Sleicher v. Sleicher, 251 N. Y. 366, 167 N. E. 501, has not, so far as we know, been determined.
■ The judgment of the Court of Appeals' should be reversed and the cause remanded to the Court of. Appeals for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Black agrees with the Court of Appeals and would affirm its judgment.
“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be iproved, and the Effect thereof.” U. S. Constitution, Art. IV, § 1.
Pursuant to the section,. Congress early prescribed the effect substantially in- the words now used:
“Such Acts, records and judicial proceedings or copies thereof, so authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which.they are taken.” 28 U. S. C. § 1738.
“We have' searched the numerous cases decid' ' by the Supreme Court of the United States on the subject of migratory divorce for a definitive holding as to thé judicial status of such divorce in the state that decreed it.- It appears to be assumed that the decree is valid and binding in the state where it is rendered. Thus Mr. Justice Frankfurter remarks in his concurring opinion, Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, 307, . . . ‘It is indisputable that the Nevada decrees here, like the Connecticut decree in the Haddock . . . case, . . . were valid and binding in the state where they were.rendered.’ And Mr. Justice Murphy, concurring in Williams v. State of North Carolina, 325 U. S. 226, 239, . . . states that ‘The State of Nevada has unquestioned authority, consistent with procedural due process, to grant divorces on whatever basis it sees fit to all who meet its statutory requirements. It is entitled, moreover, to give to its divorce decrees absolute and binding finality within the confines of its borders.’ And Mr. Justice Rutledge, dissenting in the same case, 325 U. S. at page 244, . . . comments on the fact that the Nevada judgment was not voided by the decision. ‘It could not be, if the same test applies to sustain it as upholds the North Carolina convictions. It stands, with the marriages founded upon it, unimpeached.’ He and Mr. Justice Black, also dissenting, both call attention to the fact that the Court, in its decision, does not hold that the Nevada judgment is invalid in Nevada. Hence, in spite of the absence of a clear-cut statement in any of the main opinions of the Court as to the status of the Nevada decree in Nevada after a successful extraterritorial challenge of it, we think we may spell out authority for our assumption that it survives, such challenge and remains in full force and effect within the confines of the state of Nevada until and unless it is set aside upon review in that state.
“Assuming the validity of the divorce in Nevada, then the party or parties thereto resumed full marital capacity in that state. It follows that, so far as the state of .Nevada is concerned, there was no inhibition against the remarriage of Walter Henzel in that state, and no reason appears for challenging his marriage there to plaintiff immediately after the decree of divorce was rendered. Under the terms .of the Illinois decree of divorce of plaintiff and defendant, such marriage immediately terminated the obligation of the latter to continue the alimony payménts required thereby. We think that obligation was not reinstated and revived by the subsequent annulment of the Nevada marriage in New York.” 188 F. 2d at 768.
Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64; Angel v. Bullington, 330 U. S. 183.
Barber v. Barber, 323 U. S. 77, 81.
Worcester County Co. v. Riley. 302 U. S. 292, and cases cited. In this case this Court held, p. 299, as a basis that the action was against a state without its consent, that the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not require uniformity of decision as to domicile between the courts of different states. Cf. Texas v. Florida, 306 U. S. 398, 410.
Riley v. New York Trust Co., 315 U. S. 343. In this case Georgia had .determined that decedent’s domicile was Georgia. New York had determined the domicile was New York. In an interpleader suit in Delaware, involving the transfer of stock of a Delaware corporation to one of the two personal representatives of decedent appointed by the respective states, this Court held, where neither personal representative had been a party to the determination of domicile in the state of the other, Delaware was free to determine the question of domicile and require delivery of the stock to that representative.
Barber v. Barber, supra, 86; Cook v. Cook, 342 U. S. 126, 128.
Treinies v. Sunshine Mining Co., 308 U. S. 66, 76-78.
Sherrer v. Sherrer, 334 U. S. 343.
Treinies v. Sunshine Mining Co., supra; Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457, 462.
Cook v. Cook, supra, citing Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U. S. 226; Rice v. Rice, 336 U. S. 674. Cf. Sherrer v. Sherrer, supra.
Nev. Comp. Laws, 1929, § 4066; Poupart v. District Court, 34 Nev. 336, 123 P. 769.
See note 1, and Union & Planters’ Bank v. Memphis, 189 U. S. 71, 75.
Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, 291-304.
Estin v. Estin, 334 U. S. 541. See MacKay v. Mackay, 279 App. Div. 350, 110 N. Y. S. 2d 82.
Propper v. Clark, 337 U. S. 472, 489, et seq., and cases cited.
Furthermore the Court of Appeals has already determined that certain payments of alimony made to petitioner by respondent in settlement of installments accruing prior to the Nevada marriage do not amount to a compromise of the disputed claim. 188 F. 2d at 767-768. Cf. Moore v. Shook, 276 Ill. 47, 55, 114 N. E. 592; Darst v. Lang, 367 Ill. 119, 10 N. E. 2d 659.
Meredith v. Winter Haven, 320 U. S. 228; Propper v. Clark, supra, 486.
In re Wombwell’s Settlement, [1922] 2 Ch. 298. Here a.marriage settlement was in trust for the settlor “until the said intended marriage” and thereafter on declared trusts for the spouses. The marriage was annulled.. The settlor was held entitled to the funds as a /valid marriage was intended and this .one was void ab initio. Likewise Chapman v. Bradley, 33 L. J. Ch. 139. Cf. In re Garnett. 74 L. J. Ch. 570; Bishop v. Smith, 1 Vict. L. R. 313; P. v. P., [1916] 2 I.R. 400.
See Vernier, American Family Laws, § 53, Suits to Annul — Effect of Judgment, and § 48, Issue of Prohibited Marriages (this includes annulment).
New York declares some marriages void from the time their nullity is declared. McKinney’s Consolidated Laws of New York, Book 14, Domestic Relations Law, § 7.
For effect on different incidents, see Henneger v. Lomas, 145 Ind. 287, 44 N. E. 462 (seduction, tort); Burney v. State, 111 Tex. Cr. R. 599, 13 S. W. 2d 375 (seduction, criminal); Miller v. Wall, 216 Ala. 448, 113 So. 501 (marriage, later annulled, held annulment did not postpone distribution of estate, distributable marriage); Deeds v. Strode, 6 Idaho 317, 55 P. 656 (civil action); Figoni v. Figoni, 211 Cal. 354, 295 P. 2d 339 (distribution of community property).
This avoids double support to the wife. Sleicher v. Sleicher, 251 N. Y. 366, 167 N. E. 501. See Frank v. Carter, 219 N. Y. 35, 113 N. E. 549 (husband liable for necessaries pridr to annulment); In the Matter of Moncrief, 235 N. Y. 390, 139 N. E. 550 (child of annulled marriage, illegitimate).
The Sleicher case called forth many comments when it was handed down. See 43 Harv. L. Rev. 109; 30 Col. L. Rev. 877; 25 Ill. L. Rev. 99; 14 Minn. L. Rev. 93; 39 Yale L. J. 133.
Lehmann v. Lehmann, 225 Ill. App. 513, saying:
"We think that said-words as so used were intended by the parties to refer to the ceremony or act of marriage as distinguished from the status or relation thereafter.” P. 522.
“Even though it be considered that such marriage was not a valid one in Illinois, it was valid in New Jersey, where performed, and also valid in their subsequent successive domiciles, and we think that under all the facts disclosed it should be held, contrary to the finding of the chancellor in the decree appealed from, that she remarried within the meaning of. the words contained in said divorce decree of April 1, 1915, and in the written agreement entered into between the parties about that time, and that she thereby elected to forfeit, and did forfeit, her right to receive alimony for her own support thereafter from respondent.” P. 526.
The Illinois court was influenced by the practical construction given to the alimony decree by the parties. Pp. 516, 527. See Wilson v. Cook 256 Ill. 460, 100 N. E. 222.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | K | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner union (IUE) and respondent employer (Westinghouse) entered into a collective bargaining agreement covering workers at several plants including one where the present dispute occurred. The agreement states that Westinghouse recognizes IUE and its locals as exclusive bargaining representatives for each of those units for which IUE or its locals have been certified by the National Labor Relations Board as the exclusive bargaining representative; and the agreement lists among those units for which IUE has been certified a unit of “all production and maintenance employees” at the plant where the controversy arose, “but excluding all salaried technical . . . employees.” The agreement also contains a grievance procedure for the use of arbitration in case of unresolved disputes, including those involving the “interpretation, application or claimed violation” of the agreement.
IUE filed a grievance asserting that certain employees in the engineering laboratory at the plant in question, represented by another union, Federation, which had been certified as the exclusive bargaining representative for a unit of “all salaried, technical” employees, excluding “all production and maintenance” employees, were performing production and maintenance work. Westinghouse refused to arbitrate on the ground that the controversy presented a representation matter for the National Labor Relations Board. IUE petitioned the Supreme Court of New York for an order compelling arbitration. That court refused. The Appellate Division affirmed, one judge dissenting, 15 App. Div. 2d 7, 221 N. Y. S. 2d 303. The Court of Appeals affirmed, one judge dissenting, holding that the matter was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Board since it involved a definition of bargaining units. 11 N. Y. 2d 452, 230 N. Y. S. 2d 703. The case is here on certiorari. 372 U. S. 957.
We have here a so-called “jurisdictional” dispute involving two unions and the employer. But the term “jurisdictional” is not a word of a single meaning. In the setting of the present case this “jurisdictional” dispute could be one of two different, though related, species: either — (1) a controversy as to whether certain work should be performed by workers in one bargaining unit or those in another; or (2) a controversy as to which union should represent the employees doing particular work. If this controversy is considered to be the former, the National Labor Relations Act (61 Stat. 136, 73 Stat. 519, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq.) does not purport to cover all phases and stages of it. While § 8 (b) (4) (D) makes it an unfair labor practice for a union to strike to get an employer to assign work to a particular group of employees rather than to another, the Act does not deal with the controversy anterior to a strike nor provide any machinery for resolving such a dispute absent a strike. The Act and its remedies for “jurisdictional” controversies of that nature come into play only by a strike or a threat of a strike. Such conduct gives the Board authority under § 10 (k) to resolve the dispute.
Are we to assume that the regulatory scheme contains a hiatus, allowing no recourse to arbitration over work assignments between two unions but forcing the controversy into the strike stage before a remedy before the Board is available? The Board, as admonished by § 10 (k), has often given effect to private agreements to settle disputes of this character; and that is in accord with the purpose as stated even by the minority spokesman in Congress — “that full opportunity is given the parties to reach a voluntary accommodation without governmental intervention if they so desire.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4035 ; 2 Leg. Hist. L. M. R. A. (1947) 1046. And see Labor Board v. Radio Engineers, 364 U. S. 573, 577.
As Judge Fuld, dissenting below, said: “The underlying objective of the national labor laws is to promote collective bargaining agreements and to help give substance to such agreements through the arbitration process.” 11 N. Y. 2d 452, 458, 230 N. Y. S. 2d 703, 706.
Grievance arbitration is one method of settling disputes over work assignments; and it is commonly used, we are told. To be sure, only one of the two unions involved in the controversy has moved the state courts to compel arbitration. So unless the other union intervenes, an adjudication of the arbiter might not put an end to the dispute. Yet the arbitration may as a practical matter end the controversy or put into movement forces that will resolve it. The case in its present posture is analogous to Whitehouse v. Illinois Central R. Co., 349 U. S. 366, where a railroad and two unions were disputing a jurisdictional matter, when the National Railroad Adjustment Board served notice on the railroad and one union of its assumption of jurisdiction. The railroad, not being able to have notice served on the other union, sued in the courts for relief. We adopted a hands-off policy, saying, “Railroad’s resort to the courts has preceded any award, and one may be rendered which could occasion no possible injury to it.” Id., at 373.
Since § 10 (k) not only tolerates but actively encourages voluntary settlements of work assignment controversies between unions, we conclude that grievance procedures pursued to arbitration further the policies of the Act.
What we have said so far treats the case as if the grievance involves only a work assignment dispute. If, however, the controversy be a representational one, involving the duty of an employer to bargain collectively with the representative of the employees as provided in §8 (a)(5), further considerations are necessary. Such a charge, made by a union against the employer, would, if proved, be an unfair labor practice, as § 8 (a) (5) expressly states. Or the unions instead of filing such a charge might petition the Board under § 9 (c)(1) to obtain a clarification of the certificates they already have from the Board; and the employer might do the same.
Thus in Kennametal, Inc., 132 N. L. R. B. 194, a union was certified to represent “production and maintenance employees” excluding, among others, “technical” and “laboratory” employees. It filed a motion for clarification of its certificates, contending that certain employees in the laboratory were “an accretion to the existing certified production and maintenance unit and are not embraced in the classification of laboratory employees excluded from the established unit.” Id., at 196-197. The employer contended that the laboratory operation in question was still in the research and development stage. The Board found that some of the employees in question were performing production rather than experimental laboratory work and constituted an accretion to the existing unit; and it clarified the certification by specifically including those employees in the production and maintenance unit. What a union can do, an employer can do, as evidenced by numerous Board decisions. See Western Cartridge Co., 134 N. L. R. B. 67; Blaw-Knox Co., 135 N. L. R. B. 862; Lumber & Millwork Industry Labor Committee, 136 N. L. R. B. 1083.
If this is truly a representation case, either IUE or Westinghouse can move to have the certificate clarified. But the existence of a remedy before the Board for an unfair labor practice does not bar individual employees from seeking damages for breach of a collective bargaining agreement in a state court, as we held in Smith v. Evening News Assn., 371 U. S. 195. We think the same policy considerations are applicable here; and that a suit either in the federal courts, as provided by § 301 (a) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (61 Stat. 156, 29 U. S. C. § 185 (a); Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448), or before such state tribunals as are authorized to act (Charles Dowd Box Co. v. Courtney, 368 U. S. 502; Teamsters Local v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U. S. 95) is proper, even though an alternative remedy before the Board is available, which, if invoked by the employer, will protect him.
The policy considerations behind Smith v. Evening News Assn., supra, are highlighted here by reason of the blurred line that often exists between work assignment disputes and controversies over which of two or more unions is the appropriate bargaining unit. It may be claimed that A and B, to whom work is assigned as “technical” employees, are in fact “production and maintenance” employees; and if that charge is made and sustained the Board, under the decisions already noted, clarifies the certificate. But IUE may claim that when the work was assigned to A and B, the collective agreement was violated because “production and maintenance” employees, not “technical” employees, were entitled to it. As noted, the Board clarifies certificates where a certified union seeks to represent additional employees; but it will not entertain a motion to clarify a certificate where the union merely seeks additional work for employees already within its unit. See General Aniline & Film Corp., 89 N. L. R. B. 467; American Broadcasting Co., 112 N. L. R. B. 605; Employing Plasterers Assn., 118 N. L. R. B. 17. The Board’s description of the line between the two types of cases is as follows:
“... a Board certification in a representation proceeding is not a jurisdictional award; it is merely a determination that a majority of the employees in an appropriate unit have selected a particular labor organization as their representative for purposes of collective bargaining. It is true that such certification presupposes a determination that the group of employees involved constitute an appropriate unit for collective bargaining purposes, and that in making such determination the Board considers the general nature of the duties and work tasks of such employees. However, unlike a jurisdictional award, this determination by the Board does not freeze the duties or work tasks of the employees in the unit found appropriate. Thus, the Board’s unit finding does not per se preclude the employer from adding to, or subtracting from, the employees’ work assignments. While that finding may be determined by, it does not determine, job content; nor does it signify approval, in any respect, of any work task claims which the certified union may have made before this Board or elsewhere.” Plumbing Contractors Assn., 93 N. L. R. B. 1081, 1087.
As the Board’s decisions indicate, disputes are often difficult to classify. In the present case the Solicitor General, who appears amicus, believes the controversy is essentially a representational one. So does Westinghouse. IUE on the other hand claims it is a work assignment dispute. Even if it is in form a representation problem, in substance it may involve problems of seniority when layoffs occur (see Sovern, Section 301 and the Primary Jurisdiction of the NLRB, 76 Harv. L. Rev. 529, 574-575 (1963)) or other aspects of work assignment disputes. If that is true, there is work for the arbiter whatever the Board may decide.
If by the time the dispute reaches the Board, arbitration has already taken place, the Board shows deference to the arbitral award, provided the procedure was a fair one and the results were not repugnant to the Act. As the Board recently stated:
“There is no question that the Board is not precluded from adjudicating unfair labor practice charges even though they might have been the subject of an arbitration proceeding and award. Section 10 (a) of the Act expressly makes this plain, and the courts have uniformly so held. However, it is equally well established that the Board has considerable discretion to respect an arbitration award and decline to exercise its authority over alleged unfair labor practices if to do so will serve the fundamental aims of the Act.
“The Act, as has repeatedly been stated, is primarily designed to promote industrial peace and stability by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining. Experience has demonstrated that collective-bargaining agreements that provide for final and binding arbitration of grievance and disputes arising thereunder, 'as a substitute for industrial strife,’ contribute significantly to the attainment of this statutory objective.” International Harvester Co., 138 N. L. R. B. 923, 925-926.
Thus the weight of the arbitration award is likely to be considerable, if the Board is later required to rule on phases of the same dispute. The Board’s action and the awards of arbiters are at times closely brigaded. Thus where grievance proceedings are pending before an arbiter, the Board defers decision on the eligibility of discharged employees to vote in a representation case, until the awards are made. See Pacific Tile & Porcelain Co., 137 N. L. R. B. 1358, 1365-1367, overruling Dura Steel Products Co., 111 N. L. R. B. 590. See 137 N. L. R. B., p. 1365, n. 11.
Should the Board disagree with the arbiter, by ruling, for example, that the employees involved in the controversy are members of one bargaining unit or another, the Board’s ruling would, of course, take precedence; and if the employer’s action had been in accord with that ruling, it would not be liable for damages under § 301. But that is not peculiar to the present type of controversy. Arbitral awards construing a seniority provision (Carey v. General Electric Co., 315 F. 2d 499, 509-510), or awards concerning unfair labor practices, may later end up in conflict with Board rulings. See International Association of Machinists, 116 N. L. R. B. 645; Monsanto Chemical Co., 97 N. L. R. B. 517. Yet, as we held in Smith v. Evening News Assn., swpra, the possibility of conflict is no barrier to resort to a tribunal other than the Board.
However the dispute be considered — whether one involving work assignment or one concerning representation — -we see no barrier to use of the arbitration procedure. If it is a work assignment dispute, arbitration conveniently fills a gap and avoids the necessity of a strike to bring the matter to the Board. If it is a representation matter, resort to arbitration may have a pervasive, curative effect even though one union is not a party.
By allowing the dispute to go to arbitration its fragmentation is avoided to a substantial extent; and those conciliatory measures which Congress deemed vital to “industrial peace” (Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, supra, at 455) and which may be dispositive of the entire dispute, are encouraged. The superior authority of the Board may be invoked at any time. Meanwhile the therapy of arbitration is brought to bear in a complicated and troubled area.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Goldberg took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
§8 (b)(4)(D):
“It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
“(4)(i) to engage in, or to induce or encourage any individual employed by any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce to engage in, a strike or a refusal in the course of his employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services; or (ii) to threaten, coerce, or restrain any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where in either case an object thereof is—
“(D) forcing or requiring any employer to assign particular work to employees in a particular labor organization or in a particular trade, craft, or class rather than to employees in another labor organization or in another trade, craft, or class, unless such employer is failing to conform to an order or certification of the Board determining the bargaining representative for employees performing such work.” 29 U. S. C. (Supp. IV) § 158 (b) (4) (D).
Section 10 (k) provides:
“Whenever it is charged that any person has engaged in an unfair labor practice within the meaning of paragraph (4) (D) of section 8 (b), the Board is empowered and directed to hear and determine the dispute out of which such unfair labor practice shall have arisen, unless, within ten days after notice that such charge has been filed, the parties to such dispute submit to the Board satisfactory evidence that they have adjusted, or agreed upon methods for the voluntary adjustment of, the dispute. Upon compliance by the parties to the dispute with the decision of the Board or upon such voluntary adjustment of the dispute, such charge shall be dismissed.” 29 U. S. C. §160 (k).
Section 10 (k), supra, note 2, provides that the Board shall determine the dispute, “. . . unless . . . the parties to such dispute submit to the Board satisfactory evidence that they have adjusted, or agreed upon methods for the voluntary adjustment of, the dispute.”
See United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 96 N. L. R. B. 1045; Wood, Wire & Metal Lathers Union, 119 N. L. R. B. 1345; Millwrights Local 1102, 121 N. L. R. B. 101, 106-107; Ironworkers Local No. 708, 137 N. L. R. B. 1753, 1757. Section 201 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 declares the national policy to be the use of governmental facilities for conciliation, mediation, and voluntary arbitration of disputes between employers and employees. 61 Stat. 152, 29 U. S. C. § 171 (b). Section 203 (d) provides:
“Final adjustment by a method agreed upon by the parties is hereby declared to be the desirable method for settlement of grievance disputes arising over the application or interpretation of an existing collective-bargaining agreement. The Service is directed to make its conciliation and mediation services available in the settlement of such grievance disputes only as a last resort and in exceptional cases.” 61 Stat. 154, 29 U. S. C. § 173 (d).
Senator Murray of Montana. And see S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 27, 1 Leg. Hist. L. M. R. A. (1947) 433.
Section 8 (a) (5) provides, “It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer— ... to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section 9 (a).” 29 U. S. C. §158 (a)(5).
Section 9 (a) provides that the representatives shall be chosen by the majority of employees “in a unit appropriate” for collective bargaining. 29 U. S. C. § 159 (a). Section 9 (b) gives the Board authority to determine what unit is the appropriate one — “the employer unit, craft unit, plant unit, or subdivision thereof.” 29 U. S. C. §159 (b).
Section 9 (c)(1) provides:
“Whenever a petition shall have been filed, in accordance with such regulations as may be prescribed by the Board—
“(A) by an employee or group of employees or any individual or labor organization acting in their behalf alleging that a substantial number of employees (i) wish to be represented for collective bargaining and that their employer declines to recognize their representative as the representative defined in section 9 (a), or (ii) assert that the individual or labor organization, which has been certified or is being currently recognized by their employer as the bargaining representative, is no longer a representative as defined in section 9 (a); or
“(B) by an employer, alleging that one or more individuals or labor organizations have presented to him a claim to be recognized as the representative defined in section 9 (a); the Board shall investigate such petition and if it has reasonable cause to believe that a question of representation affecting commerce exists shall provide for an appropriate hearing upon due notice. Such hearing may be conducted by an officer or employee of the regional office, who shall not make any recommendations with respect thereto. If the Board finds upon the record of such hearing that such a question of representation exists, it shall direct an election by secret ballot and shall certify the results thereof.” 29 U. S. C. § 159 (c) (1).
See, e. g., Raley’s, Inc., 143 N. L. R. B. 256, 258-259:
“In the recently decided International Harvester Company case, a majority of the Board indicated that it would give ‘hospitable acceptance to the arbitral process’ in order 'to promote industrial peace and stability by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining.’ Relying on various statutory provisions, particularly Section 203(d) of the Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947, and on decisions of the United States Supreme Court which recognize arbitration as ‘an instrument of national labor policy for composing contractual differences,’ the Board concluded that it would withhold its undoubted authority to adjudicate unfair labor practice charges and give effect to arbitration awards involving the same subject matter ‘unless it clearly appears that the arbitration proceedings were tainted by fraud, collusion, or serious procedural irregularities or that the award was clearly repugnant to the purposes and policies of the Act.’ While it is true that International Harvester, as well as other cases in which the Board honored arbitration awards, involved unfair labor practice proceedings, we believe that the same considerations which moved the Board to honor arbitration awards in unfair labor practice cases are equally persuasive to a similar acceptance of the arbitral process in a representation proceeding such as the instant one. Thus, where, as here, a question of contract interpretation is in issue, and the parties thereto have set up in their agreement arbitration machinery for the settlement of disputes arising under the contract, and an award has already been rendered which meets Board requirements applicable to arbitration awards, we think that it would further the underlying objectives of the Act to promote industrial peace and stability to give effect thereto. It is true, of course, that under Section 9 of the Act the Board is empowered to decide questions concerning representation. However, this authority to decide questions concerning representation does not preclude the Board in a proper case from considering an arbitration award in determining whether such a question exists.”
Monsanto Chemical Co., 97 N. L. R. B. 517; Wertheimer Stores Corp., 107 N. L. R. B. 1434.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner brought this suit under the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C.- § 688, and recovered judgment after a jury trial. He was employed as mate on respondent’s barge. On the day prior to the injury the barge came to respondent’s repair yard to have a cargo pump fixed. At this repair yard respondent maintained' a covered lighter, known as the Winisook, which was used as a work barge. Its inshore side was connected with the dock by a plank runway. Between the Winisook and the dock was a raft used for chipping, painting, and welding on such barges as might need that service. The barge on which petitioner worked was not at this time being serviced by the raft. But the raft had been used in repair work on thé barge at other times and now needed new decking.
The barge was moored to adjoin the open water side of the Winisook, the crew of the barge using a catwalk around the sides of the Winisook whenever they left or boarded the barge. The morning after the barge was moored, petitioner’s supervisor ordered him to lay some decking on the raft, as petitioner had experience as a carpenter. Petitioner accordingly prepared to go to work on this new job assignment. As he was standing on the catwalk, preparatory to starting his work, releasing a line on the raft to permit him to maneuver it into place so he could board it, the catwalk gave way, causing the injury. The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment for - petitioner. 263 F. 2d 147. We granted the petition for certiorari because that decision seemed to be out of line with the authorities. 359 U. S. 952.
In O’Donnell v. Great Lakes Co., 318 U. S. 36, a seaman was allowed to recover under the Jones Act even though he was injured on shore. The seaman was a deckhand. The ship was discharging her cargo through a conduit that was connected at its outer end to a land pipe by means of a gasket. • The seaman in question' was ordered by the master to go ashore to assist in repairing the gasket. While so engaged, he was injured by reason of the negligence of a fellow employee. We held that the words “in the course of his employment”, as used in the Jones Act were not restricted to injuries occurring on navigable waters, that they were broadly used by Congress in support of “all .the constitutional power it possessed,” id., at 39, and that it was constitutionally permissible for Congress to supplement the remedy of maintenance and cure by extending a right of recovery in trial by jury to a seaman injured “while in the service of his vessel by negligence.” Id., at 43.
The test, as the O’Donnell case holds, is not whether the injury occurred on navigable waters, for that had been applied by the lower court, id., at 38, which we reversed. Rather it is whether the seaman was injured by negligence while “in the course of his employment.”
The injured party must of course have “status as a member of the vessel” for it is seamen, not others who may work on the vessel (Swanson v. Marra Bros., 328 U. S. 1, 4), to whom Congress extended the protection of the Jones Act. Niee questions often arise concerning the status of particular workmen and whether their duties give them the status óf “seamen” as that word is used in the Act. Desper v. Starved Rock Ferry Co., 342 U. S. 187. And see Gianfala v. Texas Co., 350 U. S. 879, reversing 222 F. 2d 382; Senko v. LaCrosse Dredging Corp., 352 U. S. 370; Butler v. Whiteman, 356 U. S. 271. The court below apparently thought that at the moment petitioner was injured he was not a “seaman”; and that conclusion apparently turned on its view that to be such he had to be engaged at the time of the injury in work which was in furtherance of the navigation of the vessel. The court, indeed, held it error not to have given instructions to that effect.
At times the work done by an employee will be crucial in determining what his status is for purposes of recovery. South Chicago Co. v. Bassett, 309 U. S. 251, 260; Swanson v. Marra Bros., supra; Desper v. Starved Rock Ferry Co., supra; Pennsylvania R. Co. v. O’Rourke, 344 U. S. 334; Grimes v. Raymond Concrete Pile Co., 356 U. S. 252; Butler v. Whiteman, supra. Those cases, however, are not relevant to our present''problem since the question whether petitioner’s duties on the.raft assignment were of the . type to bring one not otherwise a member of a ship’s crew within the scope of the Act is not presented in this case. Here we start with an employee who had the status of mate. The issue is whether petitioner, a mate and therefore a “seaman,” was injured “in the course of his employment.” We conclude that he was.
The fact that the injury did not occur on the vessel is not controlling, as Senko v. LaCrosse Dredging Corp., supra, 373, holds. A “seaman” may often be sent off ship to perform duties of his employment. O’Donnell v. Great Lakes Co., supra. In Marceau v. Great Lakes Transit Corp., 146 F. 2d 416, a ship’s cook was allowed to recover under the Jones Act when, pursuant to duty, he was returning to the ship and was injured on the dock while approaching a ladder used as ingress to the vessel.
We held that a seaman who was injured on the dock while departing from the ship on shore leave was in the service óf the vessel and was entitled to recover for maintenance and curé in Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co., 318 U. S. 724. It was there recognized that a seaman is as much in the service of his ship when boarding it on first reporting for duty, quitting it on being discharged, or going to and from the ship while on shore leave, as he is while on board at high sea. Id., at 736-737. We also held that a seaman injured in a dance hall while on shore leave was in the service of his ship in Warren v. United States, 340 U. S. 523, 529. These two cases were not brought under the Jones Act but involved maintenance and cure. Yet they make clear that the scope of a seaman’s employment or the activities which are related to the furtherance of the vessel are not measured by the standard's applied to land-based employment relationships. They also supply relevant guides to the meaning of the term “course of employment” .'under the Act since it is the equivalent of the “service of the ship” formula used in maintenance and cure cases. See Gilmore and Black, The Law of Admiralty, p. 284, And see O’Donnell v. Great Lakes, Co., supra, at 43; Marceau v. Great Lakes Transit Corp., supra.
Petitioner in the present case was ordered by a superior to perform some carpentry work on a raft which lay between the lighter and the dock. Petitioner was injured, as we have said, while on- the catwalk attempting to move the’raft into position for boarding. ■ The raft was used to facilitate chipping, painting and welding on respondent’s vessels. Cf. Grant Smith-Porter Co. v. Rohde, 257 U. S. 469. New decking was to be installed on the raft. The fact that the raft was not presently being used, to repair respondent’s barge is in our view immaterial. Petitioner- was acting “in the course of his employment” at the time of the injury, for at that moment he was doing the work of his employer pursuant to his employer’s orders. No more is required by the Jones Act, as the O’Donnell case indicates, petitioner being a seaman who was injured as' a consequence of the negligence of his employer.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the judgment of the District Court is reinstated.
So ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to decide whether § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 61 Stat. 158, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 187, authorizes the recovery of attorney’s fees incurred in prior proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board (Board). 454 U. S. 1079 (1981). The Courts of Appeals have divided on this issue. In this case, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that attorney’s fees may not be recovered. We affirm.
r — i
Petitioner Summit Valley Industries, Inc. (Summit Valley), manufactures prefabricated modular homes. These homes are completed at petitioner’s plant and sold directly to home buyers. The buyer then independently obtains the services of a local contractor to install the completed home and to attach ancillary structures. In June 1972, Summit Valley opened a plant in the Butte, Mont., area. Rather than utilizing skilled union carpenters at this plant, petitioner hired unskilled workers. These workers were represented by Butte Teamsters Union, Local No. 2 (Teamsters), under a collective-bargaining agreement between the Teamsters and Summit Valley.
Upon learning that Summit Valley employed no skilled carpenters, respondent Local 112 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (Union) filed unfair labor practice charges against Summit Valley. The Union claimed that Summit Valley had violated a valid work-preservation agreement between the Union and area contractor associations. Although the Union withdrew these charges when it realized that Summit Valley was not a signatory to the agreement, it ordered its members not to work on the installation of petitioner’s homes. On at least two occasions, Summit Valley sent its own employees to complete the installation work that would otherwise have been done by the Union. As a result, respondent began picketing petitioner’s plant.
Summit Valley filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Union, alleging that respondent’s work stoppage and picketing violated the secondary boycott and jurisdictional picketing prohibitions of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and (D) of the NLRA, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158(b)(4)(B) and (D). The Regional Director of the Board initiated a § 10(l) proceeding, 29 U. S. C. § 160(l), in the United States District Court for the District of Montana. The District Court imposed a temporary restraining order pending the outcome of the proceeding before the Board. Henderson v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local 112, Civ. Nos. 2235 & 2239 (1972). The Union ceased picketing in November 1972, and its members resumed the installation of Summit Valley’s homes.
Summit Valley then initiated a § 10(k) proceeding, 29 U. S. C. §160(k), seeking resolution of its claim that the Union had engaged in illegal jurisdictional picketing, prohibited by § 8(b)(4)(D). After a 2-day hearing, the Board found against the Union, holding that Summit Valley had validly assigned the work in question to the Teamsters. Carpenters, Local 112 (Summit Valley Industries), 202 N. L. R. B. 974, 83 LRRM 1013 (1973). The Union agreed not to pressure Summit Valley to reassign work in violation of its collective-bargaining agreement with the Teamsters. However, the Union maintained that it had the right to truthfully advise the public that petitioner did not employ its members in the construction of modular homes.
After the § 10(k) proceeding, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) conducted 15 days of hearings on the unfair labor practice charges. The ALJ concluded that the Union had violated §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and (D), but that the Union had sought to enforce the work-preservation clause on the good-faith belief that its actions were lawful. The Board adopted the findings of the ALJ, and it ordered the Union to cease and desist from these unfair labor practices, and to fully comply with the Board’s order obtained as a result of the § 10(k) proceeding. Carpenters, Local 112 (Summit Valley Industries), 217 N. L. R. B. 902, 89 LRRM 1799 (1975). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit enforced the Board’s order. Chamber of Commerce of United States v. NLRB, 574 F. 2d 457 (1978).
This action was filed pursuant to § 303 of the LMR A in the United States District Court for the District of Montana. Summit Valley sought damages resulting from the Union’s illegal secondary and jurisdictional activity in the amount of $17,279.33: $3,675.00 in business losses, and $13,604.33 in attorney’s fees incurred during the Board proceedings. The District Court found that the Board’s decision that the Union had committed unfair labor practices collaterally estopped the Union from relitigating this issue in the §303 action. Relying on Mead v. Retail Clerks International Assn., 523 F. 2d 1371 (CA9 1975), the District Court concluded that Summit Valley was not entitled to recover attorney’s fees as part of its damages. The court entered judgment for Summit Valley, awarding it an amount that represented its business losses. 475 F. Supp. 665 (1979). The Court of Appeals affirmed in an unpublished per curiam. Civ. No. 79-4663 (CA9 1981); 652 F. 2d 65 (1981) (affirmance order).
r-H HH
Under the American Rule it is well established that attorney’s fees “are not ordinarily recoverable in the absence of a statute or enforceable contract providing therefor.” Fleischmann Distilling Corp. v. Maier Brewing Co., 386 U. S. 714, 717 (1967). This Court has endorsed certain exceptions to this rule where necessary to further the interests of justice. See, e. g., Vaughan v. Atkinson, 369 U. S. 527 (1962) (bad faith); Toledo Scale Co. v. Computing Scale Co., 261 U. S. 399 (1923) (willful disobedience of a court order); Central Railroad & Banking Co. v. Pettus, 113 U. S. 116 (1885) (common fund). In the absence of one of these equitable exceptions, however, the rule has been consistently followed for almost 200 years. See Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240, 249-250 (1975); Arcambel v. Wiseman, 3 Dall. 306 (1796). Recognizing this consistent adherence to the American Rule, petitioner contends that § 303 provides express statutory authorization for the recovery of attorney’s fees incurred in prior Board proceedings. We find this contention unsupported by either the language or the legislative history of § 303.
Section 303 authorizes a private damages action for an employer who has been injured by a union’s unfair labor practice. Section 303(a), 29 U. S. C. § 187(a), makes it unlawful for a labor organization to engage in conduct defined as an unfair labor practice under § 8(b)(4) of the NLRA. As a remedy for this conduct § 303(b) provides that “[wjhoever shall be injured in his business or property by reason of any violation of subsection (a) of this section may sue therefor in any district court of the United States . . . and shall recover the damages by him sustained and the cost of the suit.” 29 U. S. C. § 187(b).
Section 303 does not expressly provide for the recovery of attorney’s fees, so we are not presented with a situation where Congress has made “specific and explicit provisions for the allowance of” such fees. Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, supra, at 260, and n. 33 (collecting statutes). Nonetheless, Summit Valley argues that § 303 does specifically authorize a district court to award attorney’s fees incurred for the purpose of terminating the Union’s illegal secondary activity by providing for the recovery of “damages” resulting from this activity. Because attorney’s fees expended to compel “‘resumption of work in effect take the place of other compensable damages which would continue to be suffered if work were not resumed,’” petitioner asserts that such fees are part of the damages caused by the Union’s illegal activity. Brief for Petitioner 13, quoting Associated General Contractors v. Construction and General Laborers Local 563, 612 F. 2d 1060, 1064 (CA8 1979).
In assessing petitioner’s interpretation of the word “damages” in § 303(b), we begin with the “fundamental canon of statutory construction . . . that, unless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” Perrin v. United States, 444 U. S. 37, 42 (1979); Burns v. Alcala, 420 U. S. 575, 580-581 (1975). Ordinarily a statutory right to “damages” does not include an implicit authorization to award attorney’s fees. Indeed, the American Rule presumes that the word “damages” means damages exclusive of fees. See, e. g., Arcambel v. Wiseman, supra; Day v. Woodworth, 13 How. 363 (1852); cf. Teamsters v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252, 260, n. 15 (1964). Thus, petitioner’s claim can succeed only if an examination of the relevant legislative history demonstrates that Congress intended to give a broader than normal scope to the term “damages.”
Our review of the legislative history of §303 reveals no such intention. To the contrary, the little discussion pertaining to the scope of an employer’s recovery under § 303(b) indicates that Congress did not intend to expand the term “damages” to include attorney’s fees. The following colloquy between Senator Taft and Senator Morse is particularly instructive. In response to Senator Morse’s suggestion that § 303(b) would impose virtually unlimited liability on unions, Senator Taft stated: “Under the Sherman Act the same question of boycott damage is subject to a suit for damages and attorneys’ fees. In this case we simply provide for the amount of the actual damages.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4872-4873 (1947) (emphasis added). We find these remarks persuasive evidence that Congress did not intend attorney’s fees which were expended to stop a union from engaging in illegal activity to be recovered as “damages” under § 303(b).
In this respect, petitioner’s claim is analogous to that presented in Teamsters v. Morton, supra. In Teamsters, this Court reviewed the history and policies underlying § 303 in order to determine whether that provision authorized an award of punitive damages. Relying on the same colloquy quoted above, we concluded that “recovery for an employer’s business losses caused by a union’s peaceful secondary activity proscribed by § 303 should be limited to actual, compensatory damages.” Id., at 260. As we have often noted, one of the primary justifications for the American Rule is that “one should not be penalized for merely defending or prosecuting a lawsuit.” Fleischmann Distilling Corp. v. Maier Brewing Co., 386 U. S., at 718 (emphasis added). See also, F. D. Rich Co. v. United States ex rel. Industrial Lumber Co., 417 U. S. 116, 129 (1974); Farmer v. Arabian American Oil Co., 379 U. S. 227, 235 (1964). The congressional intention discerned in Teamsters to limit recovery to actual, compensatory damages, counsels against reading the word “damages” to include attorney’s fees incurred during prior Board proceedings.
Nevertheless Summit Valley contends that allowing it to recover reasonable attorney’s fees incurred during Board proceedings furthers the statutory intent to protect employers from the adverse effects of a union’s illegal secondary activity. We agree that Congress was concerned about protecting employers from injury arising out of this type of activity when it enacted §303. See generally S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 54-55 (1947), 1 Legislative History of the LMRA 460-461 (1974) (Leg. Hist.); 93 Cong. Rec. 5060 (1947), 2 Leg. Hist. 1371 (remarks of Sen. Taft). However, we fail to see why this interest cannot be adequately protected by the award of compensatory damages for the business losses resulting from the Union’s prohibited conduct.
Ultimately, petitioner’s argument rests on the assumption that “Congress plainly intended Section 303 to be fully remedial and to restore to the victimized employer all . . . losses caused by the illegal activity.” Brief for Petitioner 23 (emphasis added). Even assuming that attorney’s fees are necessary to achieve full compensation, this justification alone is not sufficient to create an exception to the American Rule in the absence of express congressional authority. See F. D. Rich Co. v. United States ex rel. Industrial Lumber Co., supra, at 128-129. In F. D. Rich, this Court rejected the argument that attorney’s fees should be awarded under the Miller Act, 49 Stat. 793, as amended, 80 Stat. 1139, 40 U. S. C. § 270a et seq., because the Act provided for recovery of “sums justly due,” 40 U. S. C. § 270b(a), and, unless fees were awarded, the legislative intent in favor of full compensation would be frustrated. 417 U. S., at 128.
In squarely rejecting this claim, we found it to be nothing more than a “restate[ment] of one of the oft-repeated criticisms of the American Rule.” Ibid. Although this Court acknowledged that “there is some force to the argument that a party who must bear the cost of his attorneys’ fees out of his recovery is not made whole,” we concluded that the countervailing considerations which support the American Rule argue against placing exclusive reliance on the need to provide full compensation. Id., at 129. These considerations include the possible deterrent effect that fee shifting would have on poor litigants with meritorious claims, the time, expense, and difficulty of litigating the fee question, and the possibility that the principle of independent advocacy might be threatened by having “the earnings of the attorney flow from the pen of the judge before whom he argues.” Ibid. These same considerations persuade us not to infer that Congress intended to authorize fee shifting in §303 actions in order to fully compensate an employer for the “damages sustained by him” as a result of a union’s illegal activity.
Furthermore, petitioner’s analysis would authorize the recovery of attorney’s fees in every case where the plaintiff has prevailed against the defendant in prior litigation involving the same issues. See Mead v. Retail Clerks International Assn., 523 F. 2d, at 1380. Quite simply, anytime a plaintiff must resort to litigation to enjoin the defendant from engaging in illegal conduct, arguably the plaintiff has been injured in the amount of its attorney’s fees spent to obtain the injunction. Under petitioner’s analysis, each plaintiff could recover the costs of this prior litigation as part of its damages in any subsequent action involving the same conduct. Such a result, however, is clearly barred by our prior decisions. The American Rule precludes courts from awarding attorney’s fees incurred during prior proceedings in the same case. See Fleischmann Distilling Corp. v. Maier Brewing Co., supra. Similarly, courts have uniformly concluded that “where an action based on the same wrongful act has been prosecuted by the plaintiff against the defendant to a successful issue, he can not in a subsequent action recover, as damages, his costs and expenses in the former action.” Ritter v. Ritter, 381 Ill. 549, 555, 46 N. E. 2d 41, 44 (1943). See also Flanders v. Tweed, 15 Wall. 450 (1873); Mead v. Retail Clerks International Assn., supra, at 1380-1381; Ritter v. Ritter, 381 Ill., at 557, 46 N. E. 2d, at 45 (collecting cases).
This rule is universally followed in order to avoid the endless stream of litigation that might ensue if successful litigants could recover their attorney’s fees in subsequent actions: “immediately upon the entry of judgment the plaintiff would start another action against the defendant for his attorney fees and expenses incurred in obtaining the preceding judgment.” Id., at 555, 46 N. E. 2d, at 44. Under petitioner’s construction of § 303(b) the word “damages” would always encompass attorney’s fees expended in prior litigation. In the absence of clear support for this construction in the language or the legislative history of § 303 we decline to adopt such a broad exception to the American Rule.
) — I HH I — I
Attorney’s fees incurred during prior Board proceedings are not a proper element of damages under § 303(b) of the LMRA. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is
Affirmed.
The Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Circuits have held that attorney’s fees may be recovered. See Texas Distributors, Inc. v. Local Union No. 100, 598 F. 2d 393 (CA5 1979); Local Union No. 984, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. Humko Co., 287 F. 2d 231 (CA6), cert. denied, 366 U. S. 962 (1961); Associated General Contractors of Minnesota v. Construction and General Laborers Local No. 563, 612 F. 2d 1060 (CA8 1979). The First Circuit has expressed approval of this rule in dicta. See F. F. Instrument Corp. v. Union de Tronquistas de Puerto Rico, 558 F. 2d 607, 611 (1977). The Ninth Circuit alone has reached a contrary conclusion. See Mead v. Retail Clerks International Assn., 523 F. 2d 1371 (1975).
Of course, these remarks are not conclusive. It is possible that Senator Taft’s remarks may have been confined to a rejection of the recovery of attorney’s fees expended during the § 303 proceeding itself. See Mead v. Retail Clerks International Assn., 523 F. 2d, at 1380.
The rationale of petitioner’s position would seem to require that fees be awarded whenever a defendant’s wrongful conduct requires a plaintiff to incur more litigation expenses, even if those expenses are incurred in the same action. Furthermore, because the District Court gave the Board’s findings collateral-estoppel effect in the § 303 action, petitioner did not have to relitigate the question whether the Union had committed an unfair labor practice. In effect, Summit Valley is therefore asking for fees that it would have incurred in the § 303 action had it not first litigated the issues before the Board.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | F | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 781-b of the New York Penal Law makes it a crime to distribute in quantity, among other things, any handbill for another which contains any statement concerning any candidate in connection with any election of public officers, without also printing thereon the name and post office address of the printer thereof and of the person at whose instance such handbill is so distributed. Appellant was convicted of violating the statute by distributing anonymous handbills critical of the record of a United States Congressman seeking re-election at the 1964 elections. The conviction was reversed, on state law grounds, by the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Term, and the New York Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion, 16 N. Y. 2d 1069, 266 N. Y. S. 2d 140, 213 N. E. 2d 467. Thereafter appellant, invoking the District Court’s jurisdiction under the Civil Rights Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1343, and the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2201, sought declaratory and injunctive relief in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York on the ground that, on its face, the statute was repugnant to the guarantees of free expression secured by the Federal Constitution. His contention, below and in this Court, is that the statute suffers from impermissible “overbreadth” in that its sweep embraces anonymous handbills both within and outside the protection of the First Amendment. Cf. Talley v. California, 362 U. S. 60. A three-judge court, one judge dissenting, applied the doctrine of abstention and dismissed the complaint, remitting appellant to the New York courts to assert his constitutional challenge in defense of any criminal prosecution for any future violations of the statute or, short of this, to the institution of “an action in the state court for a declaratory judgment.” 261 F. Supp. 985, 993. Because appellant’s appeal presents an important question of the scope of the discretion of the district courts to abstain from deciding the merits of a challenge that a state statute on its face violates the Federal Constitution, we noted probable jurisdiction. 386 U. S. 906. We reverse.
We shall consider first whether abstention from the declaratory judgment sought by appellant would have been appropriate in the absence of his request for injunc-tive relief, and second, if not, whether abstention was nevertheless justified because appellant also sought an injunction against future criminal prosecutions for violation of § 781-b.
I.
During most of the Nation’s first century, Congress relied on the state courts to vindicate essential rights arising under the Constitution and federal laws. The only exception was the 25th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 85, providing for review in this Court when a claim of federal right was denied by a state court. But that policy was completely altered after the Civil War when nationalism dominated political thought and brought with it congressional investiture of the federal judiciary with enormously increased powers. The Act of March 3, 1875, was the principal . . measure of the broadening federal domain in the area of individual rights,” McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U. S. 668, 673. By that statute . . Congress gave the federal courts the vast range of power which had lain dormant in the Constitution since 1789. These courts ceased to be restricted tribunals of fair dealing between citizens of different states and became the primary and powerful reli-ances for vindicating every right given by the Constitution, the laws, and treaties of the Untied States.” (Emphasis added.) Frankfurter & Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court: A Study in the Federal Judicial System 65. Indeed, even before the 1875 Act, Congress, in the Civil Rights Act of 1871, subjected to suit, “[e]very person who, under color of any statute . . . subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person ... to the deprivation of any rights . . . secured by the Constitution and laws . . . ,” 42 U. S. C. § 1983; and gave the district courts “original jurisdiction” of actions “[t]o redress the deprivation, under color of any State law ... of any right . . . secured by the Constitution . . . .” 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3).
In thus expanding federal judicial power, Congress imposed the duty upon all levels of the federal judiciary to give due respect to a suitor’s choice of a federal forum for the hearing and decision of his federal constitutional claims. Plainly, escape from that duty is not permissible merely because state courts also have the solemn responsibility, equally with the federal courts, “. . . to guard, enforce, and protect every right granted or secured by the Constitution of the United States . . . ,” Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624, 637. “We yet like to believe that wherever the Federal courts sit, human rights under the Federal Constitution are always a proper subject for adjudication, and that we have not the right to decline the exercise of that jurisdiction simply because the rights asserted may be adjudicated in some other forum.” Stapleton v. Mitchell, 60 F. Supp. 51, 55; see McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U. S., at 674, n. 6. Cf. Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 404. The judge-made doctrine of abstention, first fashioned in 1941 in Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496, sanctions such escape only in narrowly limited “special circumstances.” Propper v. Clark, 337 U. S. 472, 492. One of the “special circumstances” — that thought by the District Court to be present in this case— is the susceptibility of a state statute of a construction by the state courts that would avoid or modify the constitutional question. Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U. S. 167. Compare Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360.
But we have here no question of a construction of § 781-b that would “avoid or modify the constitutional question.” Appellant’s challenge is not that the statute is void for “vagueness,” that is, that it is a statute “which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application . . . .” Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U. S. 385, 391. Rather his constitutional attack is that the statute, although lacking neither clarity nor precision, is void for “overbreadth,” that is, that it offends the constitutional principle that “a governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms.” NAACP v. Alabama, 377 U. S. 288, 307. See Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 508-509; NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 438; Louisiana ex rel. Gremillion v. NAACP, 366 U. S. 293; Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 488; Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232, 246; Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U. S. 141, 146-149; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 304-307; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 161, 165. Ap-pellee does not contest appellant’s suggestion that § 781-b is both clear and precise; indeed, appellee concedes that state court construction cannot narrow its allegedly indiscriminate cast and render unnecessary a decision of appellant’s constitutional challenge. See Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500.
The analysis in United States v. Livingston, 179 F. Supp. 9, 12-13, aff’d, Livingston v. United States, 364 U. S. 281, is the guide to decision here:
“Regard for the interest and sovereignty of the state and reluctance needlessly to adjudicate constitutional issues may require a federal District Court to abstain from adjudication if the parties may avail themselves of an appropriate procedure to obtain state interpretation of state laws requiring construction. Harrison v. N. A. A. C. P., 360 IT. S. 167. The decision in Harrison, however, is not a broad encyclical commanding automatic remission to the state courts of all federal constitutional questions arising in the application of state statutes. N. A. A. C. P. v. Bennett, 360 U. S. 471. Though never interpreted by a state court, if a state statute is not fairly subject to an interpretation which will avoid or modify the federal constitutional question, it is the duty of a federal court to decide the federal question when presented to it. Any other course would impose expense and long delay upon the litigants without hope of its bearing fruit.”
In Turner v. City of Memphis, 369 U. S. 350 (per curiam), we vacated an abstention order which had been granted on the sole ground that a declaratory judgment action ought to have been brought in the state court before the federal court was called upon to consider the constitutionality of a statute alleged to be violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. In McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U. S. 668, we again emphasized that abstention cannot be ordered simply to give state courts the first opportunity to vindicate the federal claim. After examining the purposes of the Civil Rights Act, under which that action was brought, we concluded that “[w]e would defeat those purposes if we held that assertion of a federal claim in a federal court must await an attempt to vindicate the same claim in a state court.” 373 U. S., at 672. For the “recognition of the role of state courts as the final expositors of state law implies no disregard for the primacy of the federal judiciary in deciding questions of federal law.” England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 375 U. S. 411, 415-416.
These principles have particular significance when, as in this case, the attack upon the statute on its face is for repugnancy to the First Amendment. In such case to force the plaintiff who has commenced a federal action to suffer the delay of state court proceedings might itself effect the impermissible chilling of the very constitutional right he seeks to protect. See Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 486-487; Baggett v. Bullitt, supra, at 378-379; NAACP v. Button, supra, at 433; cf. Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 74-75; Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147.
It follows that unless appellant’s addition of a prayer for injunctive relief supplies one, no “special circumstance” prerequisite to application of the doctrine of abstention is present here, Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360, 375-379, and it was error to refuse to pass on appellant’s claim for a declaratory judgment.
HH I — I
In support of his prayer for an injunction against further prosecutions for violation of § 781-b, appellant’s amended complaint alleges that he desires to continue to distribute anonymous handbills in quantity “in connection with any election of party officials, nomination for public office and party position that may occur subsequent to said election campaign of 1966.” He further alleges that “[b]ecause of the previous prosecution of plaintiff for making the distribution of the leaflet . . . plaintiff is in fear of exercising his right to make distribution as aforesaid and is in danger of again being prosecuted therefor, unless his right of expression is declared by this court, without submitting himself to the penalties of the statute.”
The majority below was of the view that, in light of this prayer, abstention from deciding the declaratory judgment issue was justified because appellant had made no showing of “special circumstances” entitling him to an injunction against criminal prosecution. Appellee supports this holding by reliance upon the maxim that a federal district court should be slow to act “where its powers are invoked to interfere by injunction with threatened criminal prosecutions in a state court.” Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157, 162. We have recently recognized the continuing validity of that pronouncement. Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 483-485. However, appellant here did not, as did the plaintiffs in Douglas, 319 U. S., at 159, seek solely to “restrain threatened criminal prosecution of [him] in the state courts . . . .” Rather, he also requested a declaratory judgment that the state statute underlying the apprehended criminal prosecution was unconstitutional.
The majority below, although recognizing that Douglas might be inapposite to this case, 261 F. Supp., at 990, read Dombrowski v. Pfister as requiring abstention from considering appellant’s request for a declaratory judgment in the absence of a showing by appellant of “special circumstances to justify the exercise of federal court jurisdiction . . .” to grant injunctive relief. 261 F. Supp., at 991. Since the majority found no “special circumstances” justifying that relief, the majority concluded that it was also required to abstain from considering the request for declaratory relief.
This conclusion was error. Dombrowski teaches that the questions of abstention and of injunctive relief are not the same. The question of the propriety of the action of the District Court in abstaining was discussed as an independent issue governed by different considerations. We squarely held that “the abstention doctrine is inappropriate for cases such as the present one where . . . statutes are justifiably attacked on their face as abridging free expression . . . .” 380 U. S., at 489-490. This view was reaffirmed in Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S. 589, 601, n. 9, when a statute was attacked as unconstitutional on its face and we said, citing Dombrowski and Baggett v. Bullitt, supra, “[t]his is not a case where abstention pending state court interpretation would be appropriate . . . .”
It follows that the District Court’s views on the question of injunctive relief are irrelevant to the question of abstention here. For a request for a declaratory judgment that a state statute is overbroad on its face must be considered independently of any request for injunctive relief against the enforcement of that statute. We hold that a federal district court has the duty to decide the appropriateness and the merits of the declaratory request irrespective of its conclusion as to the propriety of the issuance of the injunction. Douglas v. City of Jeannette, supra, is not contrary. That case involved only the request for injunctive relief. The Court refused to enjoin prosecution under an ordinance declared unconstitutional the same day in Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105. Comity between the federal and Pennsylvania courts was deemed sufficient reason to justify the holding that “in view of the decision rendered today in Murdock ... we find no ground for supposing that the intervention of a federal court, in order to secure petitioners’ constitutional rights, will be either necessary or appropriate.” 319 U. S., at 165. It will be the task of the District Court on the remand to decide whether an injunction will be “necessary or appropriate” should appellant’s prayer for declaratory relief prevail. We express no view whatever with respect to the appropriateness of declaratory relief in the circumstances of this case or the constitutional validity of the law.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. * s0 „.dered,
N. Y. Penal Law § 781-b (now superseded in identical language by N. Y. Election Law § 457, see Laws 1965, c. 1031, at 1782-1783):
“No person shall print, publish, reproduce or distribute in quantity, nor order to be printed, published, reproduced or distributed by any method any handbill, pamphlet, circular, post card, placard or letter for another, which contains any statement, notice, information, allegation or other material concerning any political party, candidate, committee, person, proposition or amendment to the state constitution, whether in favor of or against a political party, candidate, committee, person, proposition or amendment to the state constitution, in connection with any election of public officers, party officials, candidates for nomination for public office, party position, proposition or amendment to the state constitution without also printing or reproducing thereon legibly and in the English language the name and post-office address of the printer thereof and of the person or committee at whose instance or request such handbill, pamphlet, circular, post card, placard or letter is so printed, published, reproduced or distributed, and of the person who ordered such printing, publishing, reproduction or distribution, and no person nor committee shall so print, publish, reproduce or distribute or order to be printed, published, reproduced or distributed any such handbill, pamphlet, circular, post card, placard or letter without also printing, publishing, or reproducing his or its name and post-office address thereon. A violation of the provisions of this section shall constitute a misdemeanor.
“The term ‘printer’ as used in this section means the principal who or which by independent contractual relationship is responsible directly to the person or committee at whose instance or request a handbill, pamphlet, circular, post card, placard or letter is printed, published, reproduced or distributed by such principal, and does not include a person working for or employed by such a principal.”
“In our opinion, the People failed to establish that defendant distributed anonymous literature ‘in quantity’ in violation of the provisions of Section 781 (b) [sic] of the Penal Law. We do not reach the question of the constitutionality of the statute involved.” People v. Zwickler, Sup. Ct., App. Term, Kings County, April 23, 1965 (unreported), as quoted in Zwickler v. Koota, 261 F. Supp. 985, 987.
Appellee questions the statement of the majority below that “[t]he complaint. . . alleges a case or controversy which is within the adjudicatory power of this court. Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157, 162.” 261 F. Supp., at 989. Notwithstanding this statement, we are not persuaded, in light of its decision to abstain, that the majority below considered the prerequisites to a declaratory judgment or that these issues were in fact adjudicated. “Basically, the question in each case is whether the facts alleged, under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.” Maryland Cas. Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U. S. 270, 273. It will be for the District Court on the remand to decide whether appellant’s allegations entitle him to a declaratory judgment on the constitutional question.
It is better practice, in a case raising a federal constitutional or statutory claim, to retain jurisdiction, rather than to dismiss, see Note, Federal-Question Abstention: Justice Frankfurter’s Doctrine in an Activist Era, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 604 (1967), but other courts have also ordered dismissal. Compare Government & Civic Employees Organizing Committee, CIO v. Windsor, 353 U. S. 364; Shipman v. DuPre, 339 U. S. 321, with Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U. S. 368; Local SSSB, United Marine Div., Int'l Long shoremen’s Assn. v. Battle, 101 F. Supp. 650 (D. C. E. D. Va.), aff’d per curiam, 342 U. S. 880. See generally Note, Judicial Abstention From the Exercise of Federal Jurisdiction, 59 Col. L. Rev. 749, 772-774 (1959).
New York provides a Declaratory Judgment remedy, N. Y. Civ. Prac. § 3001. See De Veau v. Braisted, 5 App. Div. 2d 603, 174 N. Y. S. 2d 596 (2d Dept.), aff’d, 5 N. Y. 2d 236, 183 N. Y. S. 2d 793, 157 N. E. 2d 165, aff’d, 363 U. S. 144.
Thus Congress did not exercise the grant under Art. Ill, § 2, cl. 1, of the Constitution: “The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority Original “arising under” jurisdiction was vested in the federal courts by § 11 of the Act of February 13, 1801, c. 4, 2 Stat. 92, but it was repealed only a year later by § 1 of the Act of March 8, 1802, c. 8, 2 Stat. 132. An earlier version of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which died in committee, provided for jurisdiction in the federal courts “ ‘of all cases of federal jurisdiction, whether in law or equity above the value of five hundred dollars’...” Warren, New Light on the History of the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789, 37 Harv. L. Rev. 49, 61 (1923). See generally Frankfurter & Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court: A Study in the Federal Judicial System, c. 1.
“The history of the federal courts is woven into the history of the times. The factors in our national life which came in with reconstruction are the same factors which increased the business of the federal courts, enlarged their jurisdiction, modified and expanded their structure.” Frankfurter & Landis, supra, at 59; see also Frankfurter, Distribution of Judicial Power Between United States and State Courts, 13 Cornell L. Q. 499, 507-511 (1928).
The statute granted the district courts “original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States, of all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of five hundred dollars, and arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, or treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority ...” Act of March 3, 1875, § 1, 18 Stat. 470. See generally Hart & Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System 727-733; Wright, Federal Courts § 17; Chadboum & Levin, Original Jurisdiction of Federal Questions, 90 U. Pa. L. Rev. 639 (1942); Forrester, Federal Question Jurisdiction and Section 5, 18 Tulane L. Rev. 263 (1943); Forrester, The Nature of a “Federal Question,” 16 Tulane L. Rev. 362 (1942); Mishkin, The Federal “Question” in the District Courts, 53 Col. L. Rev. 157 (1953).
“This development in the federal judiciary, which in the retrospect seems revolutionary, received hardly a contemporary comment.” Frankfurter & Landis, supra, at 65. While there is practically no legislative history of the Act, see id., at 65-69, for a summary of what history is available, commentators are generally agreed that a broad grant of jurisdiction was intended. See, e. g., Forrester, The Nature of a “Federal Question,” 16 Tulane L. Rev. 362, 374-385 (1942); Mishkin, The Federal “Question” in the District Courts, 53 Col. L. Rev. 157, 160 (1953). This is not to say that this Court has read the congressional grant of power in the Act of 1875 as equated with the potential for federal jurisdiction found in Article III of the Constitution. See, e. g., National Mut. Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Transfer Co., 337 U. S. 582, 613-615 (opinion of Rutledge, J.); Shoshone Mining Co. v. Rutter, 177 U. S. 505.
Five Civil Rights Acts were passed between 1866 and 1875. See 14 Stat. 27 (1866), 16 Stat. 140 (1870), 16 Stat. 433 (1871), 17 Stat. 13 (1871), 18 Stat. 335 (1875). Only § 1 of the Act of April 20, 1871, 17 Stat. 13, presently codified as 42 U. S. C. § 1983, achieved measurable success in later years. See generally Note, The Civil Rights Act of 1871: Continuing Vitality, 40 Notre Dame Law. 70 (1964).
See, e. g., City of Meridian v. Southern Bell Tel. & Tel. Co., 358 U. S. 639; Government & Civic Employees Organizing Committee, CIO v. Windsor, 353 U. S. 364; Leiter Minerals, Inc. v. United States, 352 U. S. 220; Albertson v. Millard, 345 U. S. 242; Shipman v. DuPre, 339 U. S. 321; Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U. S. 368; American Federation of Labor v. Watson, 327 U. S. 582; Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450; Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101; Chicago v. Fieldcrest Dairies, Inc., 316 U. S. 168. See,generally Wright, The Abstention Doctrine Reconsidered, 37 Tex. L. Rev. 815 (1959); Note, Judicial Abstention From the Exercise of Federal Jurisdiction, 59 Col. L. Rev. 749 (1959); Note, Federal-Question Abstention: Justice Frankfurter’s Doctrine in an Activist Era, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 604 (1967); Note, Doctrine of Abstention: Need of Reappraisal, 40 Notre Dame Law. 101 (1964). Even when parties are sent to state court for clarification of state law, the federal question may be reserved for decision by the district court. England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 375 U. S. 411.
Other “special circumstances” have been found in diversity cases, see, e. g., Clay v. Sun Insurance Ltd., 363 U. S. 207; Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux, 360 U. S. 25; Meredith v. Winter Haven, 320 U. S. 228; but see County of Allegheny v. Frank Mashuda Co., 360 U. S. 185; cf. Note, Abstention and Certification in Diversity Suits: “Perfection of Means and Confusion of Goals,” 73 Yale L. J. 850, and cases cited therein; and in cases involving possible disruption of complex state administrative processes, see, e. g., Alabama Public Serv. Comm’n v. Southern R. Co., 341 U. S. 341; Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315; cf. County of Allegheny v. Frank Mashuda Co., 360 U. S. 185; Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux, 360 U. S. 25. See generally Wright, Federal Courts § 52; Note, 59 Col. L. Rev., supra, at 757-762.
A lower court held “void for indefiniteness” a predecessor statute of § 781-b. People v. Clampitt, 34 Misc. 2d 766, 222 N. Y. S. 2d 23 (Ct. Spec. Sess., N. Y. City, 1961). Thereupon the legislature amended the statute to its present form, providing that an offense could not be made out under it until whatever literature might be “printed”’ or “reproduced” might also be “distributed.” The constitutionality of the amended statute has not been determined in the New York courts.
For the different constitutional considerations involved in attacks for “vagueness” and for “overbreadth” see Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S. 589, 603-604, 608-610.
We have frequently emphasized that abstention is not to be ordered unless the state statute is of an uncertain nature, and is obviously susceptible of a limiting construction. Harman v. Forssenius, 380 U. S. 528, 534; Davis v. Mann, 377 U. S. 678, 690; Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360, 375-379; England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 375 U. S. 411, 415-416; McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U. S. 668, 673, 674; NAACP v. Bennett, 360 U. S. 471; City of Chicago v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 357 U. S. 77, 84; Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101, 105; Note, 80 Harv. L. Rev., supra, at 605; Note, 40 Notre Dame Law., supra, n. 10, at 102.
Of course appellant must establish the elements governing the issuance of a declaratory judgment. See n. 3, supra.
Appellant urges that these allegations refute appellee’s suggestion in his Motion to Dismiss that “[s]ince the political literature appellant intended to distribute all related to the 1966 congressional candidacy of Abraham Multer . . . , this matter now might be properly dismissed for mootness.” This dispute will be part of the issues to be decided by the District Court on the remand. See n. 3, supra. Multer has since been elected to the Supreme Court of New York and will take office on January 1, 1968. New York Times, p. 31, col. 2, November 8, 1967.
Our discussion of the issue of injunctive relief in Dombrowski is at 380 U. S., at 483-489, and our discussion of the issue of abstention is at 489-492.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
After a trial without a jury in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, petitioner was found guilty of various violations of the federal liquor laws, stemming from and including the possession of an unregistered still. See 26 U. S. C. (Supp. Y) §§ 5601, 5216, 5008, 5681. His claim is that some of the evidence used against him at the trial should have been suppressed because it was obtained by an unlawful search and seizure by federal officers, and that its admission vitiates his conviction. The importance of maintaining strict standards for the admissibility of evidence so challenged in the federal courts led us to grant certiorari. 355 U. S. 810.
Federal alcohol agents received information on April 30, 1956, that petitioner’s farmhouse near Dawsonville, Georgia, was the site of an illicit distillery in current operation. Investigating this lead, the agents discovered spent mash, a product resulting from the distilling of alcohol out of mash, in a hollow behind petitioner’s house. The running mash emerged from a concealed rubber hose which, when traced as far as was consistent with caution, led close to petitioner’s home. On May 1, four federal agents and one state officer returned to this vicinity. The officers observed mash still emerging from the hose, detected the distinctive odor of hot mash from the direction of the house, and heard coming from within the house the sounds of voices and of a blower burner, commonly used in that area to heat distilleries.
At 2 a. m. on May 2, the officers abandoned their watch and returned to the nearby city of Gainesville. During the day, Federal Agent Langford obtained from the United States Commissioner there a daytime search warrant for petitioner’s house on the basis of an affidavit describing what had been discovered and asserting the officer’s belief that the house sheltered an illicit distillery. Late that afternoon, but still in daylight, the five officers resumed their surveillance of the house. Rather than execute the daytime warrant at once, they decided to make further observations to determine which parties were implicated in the operations and whether any vehicles were being used.
About 9 p. m., after darkness had set in, a truck entered petitioner’s yard and retreated out of the officers’ sight behind the house. Loud noises were heard, and when the truck shortly thereafter sought to regain the public road in front of the house, it became stuck in petitioner’s driveway. The officers arrested the two men in the truck and seized what turned out to be 413 gallons of nontaxpaid liquor. At that time a passenger car carrying petitioner’s wife and children drove into the yard. The wife rushed to the house and reached the doorway before the federal officers who were then advancing towards it. She sought to block entry by placing her arms across the door, and when informed by Langford of his identity as a federal officer, she demanded to see his search warrant. Langford said that a warrant was not required, and the officers brushed past Mrs. Jones into the house, seizing from the hands of her young boy a shotgun which he was brandishing in an apparent effort to prevent entry.
In the house at that time, in addition to Mrs. Jones and the children, were petitioner’s father and brother. The officers did not arrest any of them, but immediately engaged in a general search of the house. The evidence later admitted against petitioner at the trial, including a boiler, fuel burner, and 15 barrels, was seized in rear rooms and in the attic. Petitioner was arrested when he returned to his house about one hour after the search had been completed.
Petitioner moved before trial to suppress the use in evidence of the articles seized in his home. During the hearing on this motion, the Government conceded that by the time petitioner’s house was searched the daytime search warrant had expired, and it disclaimed any intention on the part of the federal officers to execute it. Rather it urged that “. . . it is the reasonableness of the search which is under question.” Federal Agent Evans testified that he thought a nighttime search warrant could be dispensed with because “. . . the crime was being committed in our presence, at least I assumed we had probable cause for that.” And Agent Langford explained his position by stating: . . I thought we had sufficient evidence to go in the premises without a search warrant.” The court, in denying the motion to suppress, entered findings of fact and conclusions of law wherein it stated:
“The court finds that the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the officers were sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense was being committed and therefore the Court finds that probable cause for the search existed at the time the search was made.”
Since this was so, and since “. . . a cautious man [would have been warranted] in the belief that [petitioner] was guilty of the offense of operating an illicit distillery in his home . . . the court deemed the search reasonable, and hence justified, despite the failure of the officers to obtain a nighttime warrant, and despite their ability, under the circumstances, to have sought such a warrant before entering the house. In so holding, the District Court relied upon United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the basis of the findings of the district judge. 245 F. 2d 32.
Although it must be recognized that the basis of the two lower court decisions is not wholly free from ambiguity, a careful consideration of the record satisfies us that the search and seizure were considered to have been justified because the officers had probable cause to believe that petitioner’s house contained contraband materials which were being utilized in the commission of a crime, and not because the search and seizure were incident to petitioner’s arrest. So viewed the judgments below cannot be squared with the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and with the past decisions of this Court.
It is settled doctrine that probable cause for belief that certain articles subject to seizure are in a dwelling cannot of itself justify a search without a warrant. Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 33; Taylor v. United States, 286 U. S. 1, 6. The decisions of this Court have time and again underscored the essential purpose of the Fourth Amendment to shield the citizen from unwarranted intrusions into his privacy. See, e. g., Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 14; McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 455; cf. Giordenello v. United States, decided today, ante, p. 480. This purpose is realized by Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which implements the Fourth Amendment by requiring that an impartial magistrate determine from an affidavit showing probable cause whether information possessed by law-enforcement officers justifies the issuance of a search warrant. Were federal officers free to search without a warrant merely upon probable cause to believe that certain articles were within a home, the provisions of the Fourth Amendment would become empty phrases, and the protection it affords largely nullified.
The facts of this case impressively bear out these observations, for it is difficult to imagine a more severe invasion of privacy than the nighttime intrusion into a private home that occurred in this instance. The Criminal Rules specifically deal with searches of this character by restricting nighttime warrants to situations where the affidavits upon which they are issued “. . . are positive that the property is ... in the place to be searched . . . Rule 41 (c). (Italics added.) This Rule is hardly compatible with a principle that a search without a warrant can be based merely upon probable cause.
The case of United States v. Rabinowitz, supra, upon which the District Court relied, has no application here. There federal agents, without a search warrant, explored the office of the defendant and thereby obtained evidence used against him at trial. But immediately after entering the office and before their search, the agents executed a warrant they had previously obtained for the defendant’s arrest. The Court stressed that the legality of the search was entirely dependent upon an initial valid arrest. 339 U. S., at 60. The exceptions to the rule that a search must rest upon a search warrant have been jealously and carefully drawn, and search incident to a valid arrest is among them. See, e. g., United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48, 51; Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160; Johnson v. United States, supra, at 14-15. None of these exceptions obtains in this case.
The Government, however, for the first time now maintains that the search and seizure were justifiable as incident to petitioner’s lawful arrest. Its argument is: The federal agents involved in this search had authority under federal law to arrest without a warrant upon probable cause to believe that a person had committed a felony. From the record it is “rational” to infer that the federal agents entered petitioner’s house with the purpose of arresting him, upon probable cause to believe that he was guilty of a felony and that he was then in the house. Consequently, the agents’ entry was justified and, once in the, house, while searching for petitioner, they could properly seize all contraband material in plain sight. The fact that petitioner was not found should not vitiate the legality of the seizures.
These contentions, if open to the Government here, would confront us with a grave constitutional question, namely, whether the forceful nighttime entry into a dwelling to arrest a person reasonably believed within, upon probable cause that he had committed a felony, under circumstances where no reason appears why an arrest warrant could not have been sought, is consistent with the Fourth Amendment. But we do not consider this issue fairly presented by this case, for the record fails to support the theory now advanced by the Government. The testimony of the federal officers makes clear beyond dispute that their purpose in entering was to search for distilling equipment, and not to arrest petitioner. See notes 1 and 2, supra, p. 496.
Since the evidence obtained through this unlawful search was admitted at the trial, the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Black concurs in the result.
This witness further testified: “Q. What crime did you see committed inside the house before you went inside to search the place? A. I didn’t see any crime. Q. What crime did j^ou say was committed in your presence? A. The one I saw was the transporting of the whiskey out through his yard. Q. Through his yard ? A. Yes, sir. Q. You stopped that truck, didn’t you? A. Yes, sir. Q. You arrested the occupants of that truck, did you not? A. Yes, sir. Q. Neither one of the occupants of that truck fled into that house, did they? A. No, sir. Q. So you had no knowledge that anyone else was even in the house, had you? A. If you mean by ‘knowledge,’ did I see anyone else inside the house, no, sir.”
On cross-examination, Langford testified: “Q. Mrs. Jones did ask you not to come in, did she not? A. That is correct. Q. Mrs. Jones asked you, did she or not ask you to wait until her husband got there? A. I believe she did, yes.” These answers amplified his earlier testimony: “Q. . . . Then you didn’t wait until Mr. Jones, himself, came home, did you? A. I did not. Q. Yet they were his premises? A. That is correct.”
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
In Agnello the Court said: “Save in certain cases as incident to arrest, there is no sanction in the decisions of the courts, federal or state, for the search of a private dwelling house without a warrant. Absence of any judicial approval is persuasive authority that it is unlawful. . . . Belief, however well founded, that an article sought is concealed in a dwelling house furnishes no justification for a search of that place without a warrant. And such searches are held unlawful notwithstanding facts unquestionably showing probable cause.” 269 U. S., at 33.
We cannot accept the suggestion that the entry was justified since it was made to disarm petitioner’s young son of the shotgun. The record plainly enough reveals that this was but a passing episode in the course of the entry, and that the officers immediately proceeded to a search of the entire house.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases were brought here on appeal, prior to the revision of Title 28, United States Code, under what was § 345 and since September 1 has become § 2101 of that Title, to review final decrees of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana in a suit in equity brought by the United States under § 4 of the Sherman Law, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 36 Stat. 1167, 15 U. S. C. § 4. The cases present another phase of a multifarious litigation which has been occupying the attention of the federal judicial system for more than a decade. United States v. General Motors Corp., 26 F. Supp. 353 (N. D. Ind.); United States v. General Motors Corp., 121 F. 2d 376 (C. A. 7th Cir.), cert. denied, 314 U. S. 618, rehearing denied, 314 U. S. 710; United States v. General Motors Corp., 2 F. R. D. 346 (N. D. Ill.); United States v. General Motors Corp., 2 F. R. D. 528 (N. D. Ill.); Chrysler Corp. v. United States, 314 U. S. 583, rehearing denied, 314 U. S. 716; Chrysler Corp. v. United States, 316 U. S. 556. An analytical summary of this litigation will make clear the immediate issues before us and, indeed, largely dispose of them.
On May 27, 1938, indictments were returned in the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division, against the three leading automobile manufacturers and the companies which financed the sale of their automobiles. One indictment was against the present appellants, Ford Motor Company, and Commercial Investment Trust Corporation, Commercial Investment Trust, Inc., and Universal Credit Corporation, these three referred to collectively as CIT; another against Chrysler Corporation and Commercial Credit Company; a third against General Motors Corporation and its subsidiary, General Motors Acceptance Corporation, to be abbreviated as GMAC. The indictments charged the automobile manufacturers and the jointly named finance companies with violations of the Sherman Law by influencing dealers who sold the automobiles of the respective manufacturers to give the finance companies the business of financing the dealers’ wholesale purchases and retail sales of automobiles.
Following these charges, negotiations were set afoot to secure the elimination through consent decrees of the practices described in the indictments. As to the Ford and Chrysler groups, the Government, on November 7, 1938, filed suits in equity and arranged for the dismissal of their indictments. (For present purposes we are not further concerned with Chrysler.) Although Ford and CIT formally resisted the complaint, denying its allegations and pleading affirmative defenses, negotiations for a consent decree proceeded. Efforts toward an.amicable settlement with General Motors and GMAC failed. The Government therefore pressed the criminal charges against them. In view of the competitive conditions in the automobile industry it obviously became of crucial importance to Ford not to consent to any restraints beyond those which would fall upon General Motors through the contingencies of litigation against it. But it would not have been enough merely to provide that restraints which Ford accepted should eventually be lifted to the extent not imposed upon General Motors at some remote time defined merely by the vicissitudes of litigation. Protection against competitive disadvantage, the appropriateness of which the Government recognized, required a time certain at the end of which the restraints against Ford would expire if General Motors were still free of them.
Accordingly, the consent decree, entered on November 15, 1938, assured Ford essential equality of position with the unconsenting General Motors by two explicit conditions. Their terms are fully set out in the margin; their essence can be briefly summarized. Paragraph 12 forbids Ford from acquiring control of any finance company. After enumerating various forbidden forms of financial interest, the paragraph provides that, if the Government should not have obtained a final decree against General Motors by January 1, 1941, requiring it to divest itself of all interest in GMAC, its affiliated finance company, the prohibition against Ford would cease. The second express condition, designed to relieve from restraints imposed by earlier paragraphs in the decree against various means of influencing dealers to patronize CIT, is found in paragraph 12a. That paragraph addressed itself to the possible eventualities of the criminal proceeding against General Motors and GMAC: (1) its termination with a result other than a judgment of conviction; (2) a general verdict of guilty; (3) a special verdict of guilty; (4) a plea of guilty or nolo contendere. Upon the first contingency all restrictive terms of the decree against Ford would be suspended until similar restraints were imposed upon General Motors and GMAC. The second was to be “deemed to be a determination of the illegality of any agreement, act or practice of General Motors Corporation which is held by the trial court, in its instructions to the jury, to constitute a proper basis for the return of a general verdict of guilty.” The third and fourth were, respectively, to be deemed determinations of the illegality of “any agreement, act or practice” which was their subject matter.
These provisions furnish a litmus-paper test for determining what restraints survive the result of the proceeding against General Motors and GMAC. What was not illegal for General Motors was not longer to be prohibited to Ford. The sword of justice was to strike both alike. Paragraph 12a further defines how and when the restraints were to be relaxed. Sub-paragraph (3) provides that after the entry of a decree against General Motors, or after the entry of a judgment of conviction in the pending criminal proceedings “or after January 1, 1940 (whichever date is earliest), the court upon application of any respondent from time to time will enter orders” suspending any restraint against it (with exceptions not now relevant) “to the extent that it is not then imposed, and until it shall be imposed, in substantially identical terms” upon General Motors or GMAC.
On November 17, 1939, the jury returned a general verdict of guilty against General Motors, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the judgment upon that verdict, 121 F. 2d 376, and this Court denied further review. 314 U. S. 618; id. at 710.
On October 4, 1940, the Government finally brought a suit in equity against General Motors seeking divestiture of its control of GMAC. But it was then too late for a decree to be entered before the lapse of Ford’s agreement not to become affiliated with a finance company. On December 21, 1940, therefore, the Government made a motion asking to have paragraph 12 modified by moving forward the date when the prohibition against affiliation would expire if a decree against General Motors had not then been entered. Each year after that, as the new deadline came near, the Government made a new motion to have it extended, and year after year Ford consented to the extension. On December 31, 1945, the Government again moved to have the prohibition against affiliation extended, this time to January 1, 1947. Ford now resisted the motion, and on May 4, 1946, both Ford and CIT filed motions of their own. They asked the District Court to suspend sub-paragraphs (i) and (k) of paragraph 6 and sub-paragraph (d) of paragraph 7 and to modify sub-paragraph (e) of paragraph 6 on the ground that the practices enjoined by these provisions of the decree were not “held by the trial court, in its instructions to the jury, to constitute a proper basis for the return of a general verdict of guilty.” Ford also moved that “an order be entered pursuant to paragraph 12 . . . that nothing therein shall preclude the Manufacturer from acquiring and retaining ownership of and/or control over or interest in any finance company . . . .” The District Court denied the motions by Ford and CIT and granted the Government’s motion for extension of the prohibition against affiliation to January 1, 1947. The present appeals followed. Although the particular extension of paragraph 12 appealed from has expired, the equity suit against General Motors has not yet been set down for trial and the Government’s motion for a further extension has been held in abeyance pending the outcome of these appeals. It is not a moot question therefore whether the District Court properly granted the extension to January 1, 1947. See Southern Pacific Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 219 U. S. 433, 452; Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 219 U. S. 498, 514-16.
The restraints imposed against Ford by sub-paragraphs 6 (e), 6 (i), 6 (k) and 7 (d) must survive the outcome of the conviction against General Motors if the language of the trial judge’s charge to the jury in the criminal prosecution of General Motors can fairly be equated with the language of those sub-paragraphs. If, on the other hand, the judge’s charge falls short of holding illegal what those sub-paragraphs proscribed, appellants are entitled to a suspension of sub-paragraphs 6 (i), 6 (k) and 6 (d) and a modification of sub-paragraph 6 (e).
First, then, to summarize the contents of these provisions of the decree. Sub-paragraph 6 (i) precludes Ford from arranging with CIT or any other finance company “that an agent of the Manufacturer and an agent of the finance company shall together be present with any dealer or prospective dealer for the purpose of influencing the dealer to patronize” the finance company. Sub-paragraph 6 (k) provides that “the Manufacturer shall not recommend, endorse or advertise the Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company or companies to any dealer or to the public . . . .” Sub-paragraph 7 (d), the counterpart of 6 (i), is directed against CIT. Sub-paragraph 6 (e) restrains Ford from establishing “any practice, procedure or plan for the retail or wholesale financing of automobiles for the purpose of enabling Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company or companies to enjoy a competitive advantage in obtaining the patronage of dealers” not equally available to any other finance company. Modification of this sub-paragraph is asked only to the extent necessary to permit them freedom to act in a manner otherwise permissible, if suspension of sub-paragraphs 6 (i), 6 (k) and 7 (d) is granted.
This brings us to the trial judge’s instructions, which, insofar as relevant, are fully set forth below. Their plain effect is to draw a line between such practices as cancellation of a dealer’s contract, or refusal to renew it, or discrimination in the shipment of automobiles, as a means of influencing dealers to use GMAC, all of which fall within the common understanding of “coercion,” and other practices for which “persuasion,” “exposition” or “argument” are fair characterizations. As a mere matter of interpreting language, the Government hardly challenges the fitness of the terms “persuasion,” “exposition” or “argument,” which the jury was charged were open to General Motors, to cover acts such as arranging for the presence of agents of both Ford and CIT with a view to putting the claims of CIT to a dealer or recommending, endorsing, and advertising CIT to a dealer. But all these acts were specifically forbidden Ford by the consent decree. The Government’s insistence is that since the indictment charged that advertising, endorsement and recommendation violated the Sherman Law and since evidence was introduced to support the charge, the jury might have found General Motors and GMAC guilty of “coercion” at least partly on the basis of that evidence. But sub-paragraph 12 (a) (2) was not designed to authorize speculative reconstruction of the jury’s process in reaching its verdict. It provided a definite standard for ascertaining what rules of law were at a future date to be made binding on a competitor of Ford. The rules which the trial judge formulated against General Motors were thereafter to be the rules of law against Ford. The trial judge used the word “coercion” to summarize practices which, if the jury found them to exist, would call for a verdict against General Motors. He used the words “persuasion,” “exposition” and “argument” to describe conduct which, in common usage, is not “coercion” and therefore would not support such a verdict. Nothing in other portions of the judge’s charge erases or blurs this line of distinction. The restraints imposed by the paragraphs appellants seek to have suspended are properly described by the terms “exposition,” “persuasion” and “argument.” So long as these paragraphs remain in effect and so long as there is no comparable decree enjoining their substance against General Motors and GMAC, Ford and CIT cannot do without risk of violating the consent decree that which General Motors and GMAC are free to do. Only a lawyer who is obtuse or reckless would advise Ford and CIT that they could subject a dealer to “persuasion,” “exposition” or “argument” without the hazard of contempt of the paragraphs under discussion. Thus the conditions have been fulfilled which entitled Ford and CIT to suspension of the restraints imposed by those terms of the decree.
Quite apart from Ford’s and CIT’s consent to forego the opportunities outlawed by sub-paragraphs 6 (e), (i), (k) and 7 (d), the Government urges that a court of equity should refuse to suspend or modify them by claiming that the practices restrained by those paragraphs are in any event illegal under the Sherman Law. But since this has neither been admitted nor proven, and since ascertainment of illegality under the Sherman Law normally depends on the circumstances of a particular situation and the inferences they yield, the appellants have a right to insist that, so long as interdiction of these practices has not been decreed against General Motors, the Government be put to its proof. The lifting of the restraints imposed by the consent decree does not, of course, affect the liability of Ford for any violations of the Sherman Law that the Government may establish in court. Moreover, to the extent that such restraints may at some future date be imposed on General Motors, they will, by sub-paragraph 12a (3), equally fetter Ford.
There remains for consideration the question whether the District Court properly extended the prohibition against affiliation between Ford and a finance company. This was the sixth time that the Government had applied for extension. The equity suit begun more than six years earlier had not yet been brought to trial. The court was faced at the same time with a motion for suspension of the prohibition against affiliation which was made by appellants under the express provision of paragraph 12 reserving the right to such a motion. The court denied the appellant’s motion and granted the Government’s on the ground, (1) that the “time clause” of paragraph 12 was subsidiary to the “main purpose” of paragraph 12 which was “to provide that the test of the permanency of the bar against affiliation was to abide the outcome of the civil antitrust suit against General Motors Corporation,” and (2) “That the purpose and intent of the decree will be carried out if Ford Motor Company is given the opportunity at any future time to propose a plan for the acquisition of a finance company, and to make a showing that such plan is necessary to prevent Ford Motor Company from being placed at a competitive disadvantage . . . .”
The Government seeks to support these conclusions by insisting on a mechanical application of the decision in Chrysler Corp. v. United States, 316 U. S. 556, involving a parallel prohibition against Chrysler. The Chrysler case was decided on June 1, 1942. In the intervening years the factors of the problem have drastically changed. More than nine years have elapsed since the criminal prosecution against General Motors was concluded; what was at the time of the Chrysler decision a two-year delay in obtaining a civil decree against General Motors has now stretched into a ten-year delay. Even then, six and a half years ago, this Court characterized the District Court’s finding that the Government had proceeded “diligently and expeditiously” as “markedly generous.” 316 U. S. at 563. At that time the Court also found support for the District Court in the fact that “the complete cessation of the manufacture of new automobiles and light trucks has drastically minimized the significance of the competitive factor.” Id. at 564. But circumstances that were found extenuating on behalf of the Government two years after the entry of the decree are hardly compelling ten years afterward. While a showing that continuance of the bar against affiliation would cause competitive disadvantage may not, as a practical matter, unreasonably have been called for at a time when competition in the industry was completely suspended during the indeterminate period of war, the resumption of full-scale competition makes such a showing unnecessary. And this is unaffected by the fact that automobiles are still in short supply. The appellants agreed for a limited term to refrain from pursuing conduct which, in the absence of an adjudication that it was illegal, they were otherwise free to pursue and which General Motors has always been free to pursue. There has been no such adjudication and successive extensions of the term have expired. The crucial fact now is not the degree of actual disadvantage but the persistence of an inequality against which the appellants had secured the Government’s protection. Yet the Government seeks a change in the express terms of the decree which would perpetuate that inequality. The Government has not sustained the burden of showing good cause why a court of equity should grant relief from an undertaking well understood and carefully formulated. If the Government seeks to outlaw possible arrangements by Ford with a finance corporation, it must establish its case in court against Ford as against General Motors and not draw on a consent which by its very terms is not available.
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Murphy and Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
“12. The Respondent Finance Company shall not pay to any automobile manufacturing company and the Manufacturer shall not obtain from any finance company any money or other thing of value as a bonus or commission on account of retail time sales paper acquired by the finance company from dealers of the Manufacturer. The Manufacturer shall not make any loan to or purchase the securities of Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company, and if it shall pay any money to Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company with the purpose or effect of inducing or enabling such finance company to offer to the dealers of the Manufacturer a lower finance charge than it would offer in the absence of such payment, it shall offer in writing to make, and if such offer is accepted it shall make, payment upon substantially similar bases, terms and conditions to every other finance company offering such lower finance charge; provided, however, that nothing in this paragraph contained shall be construed to prohibit the Manufacturer from acquiring notes, bonds, commercial paper, or other evidence of indebtedness of Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company in the open market.
“It is an express condition of this decree that notwithstanding the provisions of the preceding paragraph of this paragraph 12 and of any other provisions of this decree, if an effective final order or decree not subject to further review shall not have been entered on or before January 1, 1941, requiring General Motors Corporation permanently to divest itself of all ownership and control of General Motors Acceptance Corporation and of all interest therein, then and in that event, nothing in this decree shall preclude the Manufacturer from acquiring and retaining ownership of and/or control over or interest in any finance company, or from dealing with such finance company and with the dealers in.the manner provided in this decree or in any order of modification or suspension thereof entered pursuant to paragraph 12a. The court, upon application of the respondents or any of them, will enter an order or decree to that effect at the foot of this decree, and the right of any respondent herein to make the application and to obtain such order or decree is expressly conceded and granted.
“12a. It is a further express condition of this decree that:
“(1) If the proceeding now pending in this court against General Motors Corporation instituted by the filing of an indictment by the Grand Jury on May 27, 1938, No. 1039, or any further proceeding initiated by reindictment of General Motors Corporation for the same alleged acts, is finally terminated in any manner or with any result except by a judgment of conviction against General Motors Corporation and General Motors Acceptance Corporation therein, then and in that event every provision of this decree except those contained in this sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph 12a of this decree, shall forthwith become inoperative and be suspended, until such time as restraints and requirements in terms substantially identical with those imposed herein shall be imposed upon General Motors Corporation and General Motors Acceptance Corporation and their subsidiaries either (a) by consent decree, or (b) by final decree of a court of competent jurisdiction not subject to further review, or (c) by decree of such court which although subject to further review continues effective. The court reserves jurisdiction upon application of any party to enter orders at the foot of this decree in accordance with the provisions of this paragraph.
“(2) A general verdict of guilty returned against General Motors Corporation in said proceeding, followed by the entry of judgment thereon, shall be deemed to be a determination of the illegality of any agreement, act or practice of General Motors Corporation which is held by the trial court, in its instructions to the jury, to constitute a proper basis for the return of a general verdict of guilty. A special verdict of guilty returned against General Motors Corporation in said proceeding, followed by the entry of judgment thereon, shall be deemed to constitute a determination of the illegality of any agreement, act or practice of General Motors Corporation which is the subject of such special verdict of guilty. A plea of guilty or nolo contendere by General Motors Corporation, followed by the entry of judgment of conviction thereon, shall be deemed to be a determination of the illegality of any agreement, act or practice which is the subject matter of such plea. The determination, in the manner provided in this clause, of the illegality of any agreement, act or practice of General Motors Corporation shall (for the purposes of clause (3) of this paragraph) be considered as the equivalent of a decree restraining the performance by General Motors Corporation of such agreement, act or practice, unless or until such judgment is reversed, or unless such determination is based, in whole or in part, (a) upon the ownership by General Motors Corporation of General Motors Acceptance Corporation, or (b) upon the performance by General Motors Corporation of such agreement, act or practice in combination with some other agreement, act or practice with which the respondents are not charged in the indictment heretofore filed against them by the Grand Jury on May 27, 1938, No. 1041;
"(3) After the entry of a consent decree against General Motors Corporation, or after the entry of a litigated decree, not subject to further review, against General Motors Corporation by a court of the United States of competent jurisdiction, or after the entry of a judgment of conviction against General Motors Corporation in the proceeding hereinbefore referred to, or after January 1, 1940 (whichever date is earliest), the court upon application of any respondent from time to time will enter orders:
“(i) suspending each of the restraints and requirements contained ■in sub-paragraphs (d) to (f) and (h) to (1), inclusive, of paragraph 6 •of this decree to the extent that it is not then imposed, and until it shall be imposed, in substantially identical terms, upon General Motors Corporation and its subsidiaries, and suspending each of the restraints and requirements contained in sub-paragraphs (a), (c) and (d) of paragraph 7 of this decree to the extent that it is not imposed and until it shall be imposed in substantially identical terms, upon General Motors Acceptance Corporation and its subsidiaries, either (w) by consent decree, or (x) by final decree of a court of competent jurisdiction not subject to further review, or (y) by decree of such court which, although subject to further review, continues effective, or (z) by the equivalent of such a decree as defined in clause (2) of this paragraph; provided, however, that if the provisions of a consent or litigated decree against General Motors Corporation and its subsidiaries corresponding to sub-paragraphs (j) and (k) of paragraph 6 of this decree are different from said sub-paragraphs of this decree, then upon application of the respondents any provision or provisions of said sub-paragraphs will be modified so as to conform to the corresponding provisions of such General Motors Corporation decree ;
“(ii) suspending each of the restraints and requirements contained in the remaining sub-paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (g) of paragraph 6 to the extent that it is not then imposed, and until it shall be imposed, upon General Motors Corporation and its subsidiaries in any manner specified in the foregoing sub-clause (i) of clause (3), if any respondent shall show to the satisfaction of the court that General Motors Corporation or its subsidiaries is performing any agreement, act or practice prohibited to the Manufacturer by said remaining sub-paragraphs, and suspending each of the restraints and requirements contained in sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph 7 of this decree to the extent that it is not imposed, and until it shall be imposed, upon General Motors Acceptance Corporation and its subsidiaries in any said manner, if any respondent shall show to the satisfaction of the court that General Motors Acceptance Corporation is performing ,any agreement, act or practice prohibited to Respondent Finance Company by said sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph 7;
“(iii) Suspending the restraints of sub-paragraph (d) of paragraph 7 of this decree as to Respondent Finance Company, in the event that the restraints of sub-paragraph (i) of paragraph 6 of this decree are suspended as to the Manufacturer.
“(4) The right of the respondents or any of them to make any application for suspension of any provision of this decree in accordance with the provisions of this paragraph and to obtain such relief is hereby expressly granted.
“In the event that at any time prior to the date when General Motors Corporation has permanently divested itself of all ownership and control of and interest in General Motors Acceptance Corporation, General Motors Acceptance Corporation shall make available to dealers of General Motors Corporation in any area a finance charge, on all or any class of automobiles sold by dealers of General Motors Corporation, less than the finance charge then generally available to dealers of the Manufacturer within such area, nothing in this decree shall prevent the Manufacturer from making, and the Manufacturer may make, adjustments, allowances or payments to or with all of its dealers in such area who agree to reduce to an amount approved by the Manufacturer (but not less than that then made available by General Motors Acceptance Corporation) the finance charges which such dealers of the Manufacturer in such area receive from any class of retail purchasers of automobiles, provided that such adjustments, allowances or payments shall not discriminate among such dealers in such area.”
Their full text is as follows:
“[6.] (e) Except as provided by sub-paragraphs (j) and (k) of this paragraph 6,
“(i) the Manufacturer shall not establish any practice, procedure or plan for the retail or wholesale financing of automobiles for the purpose of enabling Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company or companies to enjoy a competitive advantage in obtaining the patronage of dealers through any service, facility or privilege extended by the Manufacturer pursuant to such practice, procedure or plan if such service, facility or privilege or a service, facility or privilege corresponding thereto, is not made available upon its written request to any other finance company upon substantially similar terms“ and conditions; and
“(ii) so long as the Manufacturer shall continue to afford any service, facility or privilege not otherwise specifically referred to in this decree to Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company or companies, it shall not refuse to afford similar or corresponding services, facilities or privileges upon substantially similar terms and conditions and upon written request to any other finance company for the purpose of giving Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company or companies a competitive advantage in obtaining the patronage of dealers; provided that it shall not be a violation of this decree for the Manufacturer to afford such service, facility or privilege only to registered finance companies as defined in sub-paragraph (j) of this paragraph 6 or only to a finance company designated in writing to the Manufacturer by the dealer or prospective dealer ;
“the written request shall specify in each instance the particular service, facility or privilege desired;
“[6.] (i) The Manufacturer shall not, except in each instance upon written request of the dealer or prospective dealer, arrange or agree with Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company that an agent of the Manufacturer and an agent of the finance company shall together be present with any dealer or prospective dealer for the purpose of influencing the dealer to patronize Respondent Finance Company or such other finance company; provided, however, that it shall not be a violation of this decree for the Manufacturer to assist any dealer or prospective dealer, because of said dealer’s or prospective dealer’s financial situation or requirements, by joint conference with him and a representative of a particular finance company, to obtain special facilities or services (such term not including only the financing of the shipment or delivery of automobiles to such dealer or prospective dealer and/or only the purchase or acquisition of retail time sales paper from him in the regular course of business) from the particular finance company and, in part consideration of such special facilities or services, for such dealer or prospective dealer to arrange to do business with such finance company on an exclusive basis for a reasonable period of time as may be agreed between them;
“[6.] (k) The Manufacturer shall not recommend, endorse or advertise the Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company or companies to any dealer or to the public; provided, however, that nothing in this decree contained shall prevent the Manufacturer in good faith:
“(1) From adopting from time to time a plan or plans of financing retail sales of new automobiles made by the Manufacturer or from time to time withdrawing or modifying the same;
“(2) From recommending to its dealers the use of such plans;
“(3) From advertising to the public and recommending the use of such plans.
“7. The Respondent Finance Company:
“(d) Shall not, except upon written request of the dealer or prospective dealer, arrange or agree with the Manufacturer that an agent of the Manufacturer and an agent of Respondent Finance Company shall together be present with any dealer or prospective dealer for the purpose of influencing the dealer or prospective dealer to patronize Respondent Finance Company; provided, however, that it shall not be a violation of this decree for Respondent Finance Company by joint conference with a dealer or prospective dealer and a representative of the Manufacturer to agree to furnish to such dealer or prospective dealer, because of his financial situation or requirements, special facilities or services (such term not including only the financing of the shipment or delivery of automobiles to such dealer or prospective dealer and/or only the purchase or acquisition of retail time sales paper from him in the regular course of business) and in part consideration of such special facilities or services to arrange for the dealer or prospective dealer to do business with Respondent Finance Company on an exclusive basis for such reasonable period of time as may be agreed between them.”
“It is not unreasonable for the General Motors Company to have a finance company. It is not unreasonable for the General Motors Company to have contracts with its dealers for a year or to have a cancellation clause in them. They have a perfect right to have a finance company and to recommend its use. They have a perfect right to cancel a contract from their dealer as long as they are not performing any unreasonable act.
“They have a right to determine whom they will sell their cars to, and they have a right to determine whom they will not sell their cars to because cars are their product and they are their property and no law compels them to sell them to any man they don’t want to sell them to; but that is not the charge in this ease. The charge is not that by having difficulty in contracts in itself, these defendants did anything wrong; it is not charged here that to recommend the use of GMAC there is anything wrong; it is not charged here that cancellation for cause is anything wrongful; but the Government’s theory in this case is irrespective of these contracts and independent of them and outside of them the conditions have been asserted that they, under the designation of those to the grand jurors unknown, the actions have been such that the possibility, the ability to cancel, the ability to refuse to renew a contract, have been used as clubs upon the dealers to force them to use GMAC and that these acts that are complained of were acts that were used to force the dealers to use GMAC, the Government insists that these acts inspired by that motive have been such as to result in cancellations that otherwise would not have occurred; in discriminations that would not otherwise have occurred in the shipment of cars in interstate commerce and in refusals to renew that would not otherwise have occurred, and in the use of GMAC when it otherwise would not have been used.
“In other words, the Government has no right to complain, and it may not complain of the defendants’ right to limit its sales of cars to persons whom it may select, its right to determine who it shall sell to, its rights to determine upon what terms it will sell, its right to pick its own dealers.
“It can only complain if the defendants do sufficient of these acts charged in the indictment as constitute duress upon the dealer to accomplish a result that would have otherwise not have been accomplished, and to make a dealer do something that he would not have done of his own free will.
“That, almost, is the question in this case — whether the dealer could act as a free man; whether he could act of his own free will.
“The defendants say:
“ ‘We never imposed any restrictions upon that freedom of action.’
“The Government says it did and there is that question. If it did — if the defendants did that sort of thing — and if it resulted in an unreasonable restriction and unreasonable restraint of interstate commerce, then you would have a right to find them guilty.
“If they did not do it, this lawsuit is at an end, and that is a question which you have got to decide.
“You know, you have heard of the terms:
“Exposition;
“Persuasion;
“Argument;
“Coercion.
“They are different steps. They are graduated steps that I suppose every salesman goes through, except perhaps the last.
“In Exposition one may expound the merits of that which he has to sell; he may explain its nature and by his exposition make a clear picture of what he has.
“By persuasion he may endeavor to persuade the person to whom he is talking to accept that which he has to offer.
“There is little advancement in his further progress, to argue.
“Persuasion means something softer than argument, perhaps, but he may argue with him, and argue with him the respective merits of his product and other products being offered to the person to whom he makes his offer.
“All of these are proper.
“He may not go beyond that and use something that is within his power to use as a club to coerce the person to accept that which he has to offer.
“You must remember that, after all, this coercion, if you find that coercion exists, then the ultimate question is; Has that resulted in unreasonable restraint of interstate commerce? And that is a question for you to determine from all of the evidence.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Ordered:
A. Paragraph 3 of the Decree entered by the Court herein on June 12, 1967, is amended to read as follows:
3. For the purpose of determining whether the total amount of water diverted from Lake Michigan by the State of Illinois and its municipalities, political sub-divisions, agencies and instrumentalities is not in excess of the maximum amount permitted by this decree, the amounts of domestic pumpage from the lake by the State and its municipalities, political sub-divisions, agencies and instrumentalities the sewage and sewage effluent derived from which reaches the Illinois waterway, either above or below Lockport, shall be added to the amount of direct diversion into the canal from the lake and storm runoff reaching the canal' from the Lake Michigan watershed computed as provided in Paragraph 2 of this decree. The annual accounting period shall consist of twelve months terminating on the last day of September. A period of forty (40) years, consisting of the current annual accounting period and the previous thirty-nine (39) such periods (all after the effective date of this decree), shall be permitted, when necessary, for achieving an average diversion which is not in excess of the maximum permitted amount; provided, however, that the average diversion in any annual accounting period shall not exceed 3680 cubic feet per second, except that in any two (2) annual accounting periods within a forty (40) year period, the average annual diversion may not exceed 3840 cubic feet per second as a result of extreme hydrologic conditions; and, that for the first thirty-nine (39) years the cumulative algebraic sum of each annual accounting period’s average diversion minus 3200 cubic feet per second shall not exceed 2000 cubic feet per second-years. All measurements and computations required by this decree shall be made by the appropriate officers, agencies or instrumentalities of the State of Illinois, or the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army subject to agreement with and cost-sharing by the State of Illinois for all reasonable costs including equipment, using the best current engineering practice and scientific knowledge. If made by the State of Illinois, the measurements and computations shall be conducted under the continuous supervision and direction of the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army in cooperation and consultation with the United States Geological Survey, including but not limited to periodic field investigation of measuring device calibration and data gathering. All measurements and computations made by the State of Illinois shall be subject to periodic audit by the Corps of Engineers. An annual report on the measurements and computations required by this decree shall be issued by the Corps of Engineers. Best current engineering practice and scientific knowledge shall be determined within six (6) months after implementation of the decree based upon a recommendation from a majority of the members of a three-member committee. The members of this committee shall be appointed by the Chief of Engineers of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The members shall be selected on the basis of recognized experience and technical expertise in flow measurement or hydrology. None of the committee members shall be employees of the Corps of Engineers or employees or paid consultants of any of the parties to these proceedings other than the United States. The Corps of Engineers shall convene such a committee upon implementation of this decree and at least each five (5) years after implementation of this decree to review and report to the Corps of Engineers and the parties on the method of accounting and the operation of the accounting procedure. Reasonable notice of these meetings must be given to each of the parties. Each party to these proceedings shall have the right to attend committee meetings, inspect any and all measurement facilities and structures, have access to any data and reports and be permitted to take its own measurements.
B. Paragraph 5 of the said Decree entered by the Court herein is amended by adding thereto an additional sentence to read as follows:
The amendment to Paragraph 3 of this decree shall take effect on the first day of October following the passage into law by the General Assembly of the State of Illinois of an amendment to the Level of Lake Michigan Act providing that the amount used for dilution in the Sanitary and Ship Canal for water quality purposes shall not be increased above three hundred twenty (320) cubic feet per second, and that in allocations to new users of Lake Michigan water, allocations for domestic purposes be given priority and to the extent practicable allocations to new users of Lake Michigan water shall be made with the goal of reducing withdrawals from the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer.
C. A certified copy of the above legislation shall be served upon the parties and filed with the Clerk of the Supreme Court by the State of Illinois. If no party raises an objection to the adequacy of the legislation within 30 days of service, Illinois will have complied with the requirements of the amendment made by this Order to paragraph 5 of the Decree entered by the Court herein on June 12, 1967. Any such objection shall be raised in the manner set forth in Paragraph 7 of said Decree.
It is Further Ordered that:
Each of the parties to this proceeding shall bear its own costs. The expenses of the Special Master shall be borne by the State of Illinois and the Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago, three-fifths thereof by the State of Illinois and two-fifths thereof by the Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago.
Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this order.
STATEMENT OF INTENT AND TECHNICAL BASIS FOR PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO 1967 DECREE
This statement sets forth the intent of the parties and the technical basis for the revisions to certain of the provisions of paragraphs 3 and 5 of the 1967 Decree.
The proposed change in the 1967 Decree has been designed to alter in part the provisions of the existing Decree that prevent Illinois from effectively utilizing and managing the 3200 cubic feet per second (cfs) of Lake Michigan water which Illinois was allocated.
Under the existing system, increasing amounts of impervious areas and increasing demand by domestic users elevate the risk that the language of the decree will be violated in any one or five year period if additional allocations are made by the State to domestic users for a period of years consistent with good management practice.
The proposed change accomplishes the following:
1. Increases the period for determining compliance with the 3200 cfs limit from a five year running average to a forty year running average;
2. During the first thirty-nine years of the decree, allows Illinois to exceed the 3200 cfs limit by 2000 cfs-years in the aggregate (one cfs-year is the volume of water resulting from an average flow of one cfs for a period of one year);
3. Limits the average diversion in any one accounting period to 115% of 3200 cfs, but in two years of any forty year period permits the average diversion to reach 120% of 3200 cfs, to allow for extreme hydro-logic conditions.
The lengthening of the averaging period from five to forty years reduces the variability of the averaged figure, thus decreasing the amount of water that needs to be held in reserve for storm water runoff and increasing the amount of water that may be allocated for domestic purposes to reduce in part the pumpage from the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer.
The lengthening of the averaging period also allows an increase in the planning period to a period of time that is more compatible with the life of certain types of water supply facilities, thus permitting more efficient use of the available diversion without increasing the total allowable diversion, and permitting better management of all the water resources of the region.
In establishing the limits of paragraph three of the amended decree, the available data and uncertainties as to the behavior of and interactions between the various elements of the hydrologic regime under current and future conditions were limiting factors.
To estimate maximum hydrologic variations that must be considered in the allocation accounting process, the forty-four year precipitation and runoff data contained in “Water Yield, Urbanization, and the North Branch of the Chicago River/’ a report by the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission and Hydroeomp, Inc., dated October 14, 1976, were used. These data assumed a 30% imperviousness factor and were used by the parties to approximate the conditions of the entire Lake Michigan diversion watershed at the present time.
These data indicate that the maximum departure above the mean annual stormwater flow is 59%. Assuming, therefore, that the mean annual stormwater flow is 683 cfs, the maximum departure is 405 cfs. This could result in a diversion of 13% above the allowable 3200 cfs maximum. Given the relatively short period of record and the likelihood of increased runoff resulting from urbanization, it was agreed that a 15% exceedance, to a maximum of 3680 cfs, would be allowed in any year to accommodate high stormflows and that in any two years of the 40 year accounting period the diversion may be increased by 20%, to a maximum of 3840 cfs, to accommodate extraordinary hydrologic conditions.
Because of year-to-year variations in storm runoff there will be series of years when the average annual diversion will need to exceed 3200 cfs for best management, and some years when the diversion will be less than the 3200 cfs average. Calculations of the cumulative sum of the annual departures show that the maximum cumulative exceedance of 3200 cfs would be slightly below 1500 cfs-years as indicated by the forty-four years of data that were used. The possibility exists that in the initial forty year period the cumulative exceedance may be greater than 1500 cfs-years. Since the record used is relatively short and urbanization is likely to increase runoff, the maximum cumulative exceedance has been established at 2000 cfs-years.
The goal of this amended Decree is to maintain the long-term average annual diversion of water from Lake Michigan at or below 3200 cfs.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | K | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The respondent company employs at its refinery in East Chicago, Indiana, approximately 1,700 men, for whom the petitioning international union and its local are bargaining agents, and 24 of whom are also petitioners here. In early February 1959, the respondent company docked three of its employees at the East Chicago refinery a total of $2.19. On February 13 and 14, 999 of the 1,700 employees participated in a strike or work stoppage, or so the complaint alleges. On March 12, the company filed this suit for damages and an injunction, naming the international and its local as defendants, together with 24 individual union member-employees.
Count I of the complaint, which was in three counts, stated a cause of action under § 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act (29 U. S. C. § 185) against the international and its local. It alleged an existing collective bargaining agreement between the international and the company containing, among other matters, a promise by the union not to strike over any cause which could be the subject of a grievance under other provisions of the contract. It was alleged that the international and the local caused the strike or work stoppage occurring on February 13 and 14 and that the strike was over the pay claims of three employees in the amount of $2.19, which claims were properly subject to the grievance procedure provided by the contract. The complaint asked for damages in the amount of $12,500 from the international and the local.
Count II of the complaint purported to invoke the diversity jurisdiction of the District Court. It asked judgment in the same amount against 24 individual employees, each of whom was alleged to be a committeeman of the local union and an agent of the international, and responsible for representing the international, the local, and their members. The complaint asserted that on February 13 and 14, the individuals, “contrary to their duty to plaintiff to abide by said contract, and maliciously confederating and conspiring together to cause the plaintiff expense and damage, and to induce breaches of the said contract, and to interfere with performance thereof by the said labor organizations and the affected employees, and to cause breaches thereof, individually and as officers, committeemen and agents of the said labor organizations, fomented, assisted and participated in a strike or work stoppage . . . .”
Count.Ill of the complaint asked for an injunction but that matter need not concern us here since it is disposed of in Sinclair Refining Co. v. Atkinson, ante, p. 195, decided this day.
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on various grounds and a motion to stay the action for the reasons (1) that all of the issues in the suit were referable to arbitration under the collective bargaining contract and (2) that important issues in the suit were also involved in certain grievances filed by employees and said to be in arbitration under the contract. The District Court denied the motion to dismiss Count I, dismissed Count II, and denied the motion to stay (187 F. Supp. 225). The Court of Appeals upheld the refusal to dismiss or stay Count I, but reversed the dismissal of Count II (290 F. 2d 312), and this Court granted certiorari (368 U.S. 937).
I.
We have concluded that Count I should not be dismissed or stayed. Count I properly states a cause of action under § 301 and is to be governed by federal law. Local 174 v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U. S. 95, 102-104; Textile Workers Union v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448. Under our decisions, whether or not the company was bound to arbitrate, as well as what issues it must arbitrate, is a matter to be determined by the Court on the basis of the contract entered into by the parties. “The Congress . . . has by § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, assigned the courts the duty of determining whether the reluctant party has breached his promise to arbitrate. For arbitration is a matter of contract and a party cannot be required to submit to arbitration any dispute which he has not agreed so to submit.” United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 363 U. S. 574, 582. See also United Steelworkers v. American Mfg. Co., 363 U. S. 564, 570-571 (concurring opinion). We think it unquestionably clear that'the contract here involved is not susceptible to a construction that the company was bound to arbitrate its claim for damages against the union for breach of the undertaking not to strike.
While it is quite obvious from other provisions of the contract that the parties did not intend to commit all of their possible disputes and the whole scope of their relationship to the grievance and arbitration procedures established in Article XXVI, that article itself is determinative of the issue in this case since it precludes arbitration boards from considering any matters other than employee grievances. After defining a grievance as “any difference regarding wages, hours or working conditions between the parties hereto or between the Employer and an employee covered by this working agreement,” Article XXVI provides that the parties desire to settle employee grievances fairly and quickly and that therefore a stated procedure “must be followed.” The individual employee is required to present his grievance to his foreman, and if not satisfied there, he may take his grievance to the plant superintendent who is to render a written decision. There is also provision for so-called Workmen's Committees to present grievances to the local management. If the local superintendent’s decision is not acceptable, the matter is to be referred for discussion between the President of the International and the Director of Industrial Relations for the company (or their representatives), and for decision by the Director alone. If the Director's decision is disputed, then “upon request of the President or any District Director” of the international, a local arbitration board may be convened and the matter finally decided by this board.
Article XXVI then imposes the critical limitation. It is provided that local arbitration boards “shall consider only individual or local employee or local committee grievances arising under the application of the currently existing agreement.” There is not a word in the grievance and arbitration article providing for the submission of grievances by the company. Instead, there is the express, flat limitation that arbitration boards should consider only employee grievances. Furthermore, the article expressly provides that arbitration may be invoked only at the option of the union. At no place in the contract does the union agree to arbitrate at the behest of the company. The company is to take its claims elsewhere, which it has now done.
The union makes a further argument for a stay. Following the strike, and both before and after the company filed its suit, 14 of the 24 individual defendants filed grievances claiming reimbursement for pay withheld by the employer. The union argues that even though the company need not arbitrate its claim for damages, it is bound to arbitrate these grievances; and the arbitrator, in the process of determining the grievants’ right to reimbursement, will consider and determine issues which also underlie the company’s claim for damages. Therefore, it is said that a stay of the court action is appropriate.
We are not satisfied from the record now before us, however, that any significant issue in the damage suit will be presented to and decided by an arbitrator. The grievances filed simply claimed reimbursement for pay due employees for time spent at regular work or processing grievances. Although the record is a good deal less than clear and although no answer has been filed in this case, it would appear from the affidavits of the parties presented in connection with the motion to stay that the grievants claimed to have been disciplined as a result of the work stoppage and that they were challenging this disciplinary action. The company sharply denies in its brief in this Court that any employee was disciplined. In any event, precisely what discipline was imposed, upon what grounds it is being attacked by the grievants, and the circumstances surrounding the withholding of pay from the employees are unexplained in the record. The union’s brief here states that the important issue underlying the arbitration and the suit for damages is whether the grievants instigated or participated in a work stoppage contrary to the collective bargaining contract. This the company denies and it asserts that no issue in the damage suit will be settled by arbitrating the grievances.
The District Court must decide whether the company is entitled to damages from the union for breach of contract. The arbitrator, if arbitration occurs, must award or deny reimbursement in whole or in part to all or some of the 14 employees. His award, standing alone, obviously would determine no issue in the damage suit. If he awarded reimbursement to the employees and if it could be ascertained with any assurance that one of his subsidiary findings was that the 14 men had not participated in a forbidden work stoppage — the critical issue according to the union’s brief — the company would nevertheless not be foreclosed in court since, even if it were bound by such a subsidiary finding made by the arbitrator, it would be free to prove its case in court through the conduct of other agents of the union. In this state of the record, the union has not made out its case for a stay.
For the foregoing reasons, the lower courts properly denied the union’s motion to dismiss Count I or stay it pending arbitration of the employer’s damage claim.
II.
We turn now to Count II of the complaint, which charged 24 individual officers and agents of the union with breach of the collective bargaining contract and tortious interference with contractual relations. The District Court held that under § 301 union officers or members cannot be held personally liable for union actions, and that therefore “suits of the nature alleged in Count II are no longer cognizable in state or federal courts.” The Court of Appeals reversed, however, ruling that “Count II stated a cause of action cognizable in the courts of Indiana and, by diversity, maintainable in the District Court.”
We are unable to agree with the Court of Appeals, for we are convinced that Count II is controlled by federal law and that it must be dismissed on the merits for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
Under § 301 a suit for violation of the collective bargaining contract in either a federal or state court is governed by federal law (Local 174 v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U. S. 95, 102-104; Textile Workers Union v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448), and Count II on its face charges the individual defendants with a violation of the no-strike clause. After quoting verbatim the no-strike clause, Count II alleges that the 24 individual defendants “contrary to their duty to plaintiff to abide by” the contract fomented and participated in a work stoppage in violation of the no-strike clause. The union itself does not quarrel with the proposition that the relationship of the members of the bargaining unit to the employer is “governed by” the bargaining agreement entered into on their behalf by the union. It is universally accepted that the no-strike clause in a collective agreement at, the very least establishes a rule of conduct or condition of employment the violation of which by employees justifies discipline or discharge (Mastro Plastics Corp. v. Labor Board, 350 U. S. 270, 280 & n. 10; Labor Board v. Rockaway News Co., 345 U. S. 71, 80; Labor Board v. Sands Mfg. Co., 306 U. S. 332; Labor Board v. Draper Corp., 145 F. 2d 199 (C. A. 4th Cir.); United Biscuit Co. v. Labor Board, 128 F. 2d 771 (C. A. 7th Cir.); see R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 5 Lab. Arb. 16; Ford Motor Co., 1 Lab. Arb. 439). The conduct charged in Count II is therefore within the scope of a “violation” of the collective agreement.
As well as charging a violation of the no-strike clause by the individual defendants, Count II necessarily charges a violation of the clause by the union itself. The work stoppage alleged is the identical work stoppage for which the union is sued under Count I and the same damage is alleged as is alleged in Count I. Count II states that the individual defendants acted “as officers, committeemen and agents of the said labor organizations” in breaching and inducing others to breach the collective bargaining contract. Count I charges the principal, and Count II charges the agents for acting on behalf of the principal. Whatever individual liability Count II alleges for the 24 individual defendants, it necessarily restates the liability of the union which is charged under Count I, since under § 301 (b) the union is liable for the acts of its agents, under familiar principles of the law of agency (see also §301 (e)). Proof of the allegations of Count II in its present form would inevitably prove a violation of the no-strike clause by the union itself. Count II, like Count I, is thus a suit based on the union’s breach of its collective bargaining contract with the employer, and therefore comes within § 301 (a). When a union breach of contract is alleged, that the plaintiff seeks to hold the agents liable instead of the principal does not bring the action outside the scope of § 301.
Under any theory, therefore, the company’s action is governed by the national labor relations law which Congress commanded this Court to fashion under § 301 (a). We hold that this law requires the dismissal of Count II for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted — whether the contract violation charged is that of the union or that of the union plus the union officers and agents.
When Congress passed § 301, it declared its view that only the union was to be made to respond for union wrongs, and that the union members were not to be subject to levy. Section 301 (b) has three clauses. One makes unions suable in the courts of the United States. Another makes unions bound by the acts of their agents according to Conventional principles of agency law (cf. §301 (e)). At the same time, however, the remaining clause exempts agents and members from personal liability for judgments against the union (apparently even when the union is without assets to pay the judgment). The legislative history of § 301 (b) makes it clear that this third clause was a deeply felt congressional reaction against the Danbury Hatters case (Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U. S. 274; Lawlor v. Loewe, 235 U. S. 522), and an expression of legislative determination that the aftermath (Loewe v. Savings Bank of Danbury, 236 F. 444 (C. A. 2d Cir.)) of that decision was not to be permitted to recur. In that case, an antitrust treble damage action was brought against a large number of union members, including union officers and agents, to recover from them the employer’s losses in a nationwide, union-directed boycott of his hats. The union was not named as a party, nor was judgment entered against it. A large money judgment was entered, instead, against the individual defendants for participating in the plan “emanating from headquarters” (235 U. S., at 534), by knowingly authorizing and delegating authority to the union officers to do the acts involved. In the debates, Senator Ball, one of the Act’s sponsors, declared that § 301, “by providing that the union may sue and be sued as a legal entity, for a violation of contract, and that liability for damages will lie against union assets only, will prevent a repetition of the Danbury Hatters case, in which many members lost their homes” (93 Cong. Rec. 5014). See also 93 Cong. Rec. 3839, 6283; S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 16.
Consequently, in discharging the duty Congress imposed on us to formulate the federal law to govern § 301 (a) suits, we are strongly guided by and do not give a niggardly reading to § 301 (b). “We would undercut the Act and defeat its policy if we read § 301 narrowly” (Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S., at 456). We have already said in another context that § 301 (b) at least evidences “a congressional intention that the union as an entity, like a corporation, should in the absence of agreement be the sole source of recovery for injury inflicted by it” (Lewis v. Benedict Coal Corp., 361 U. S. 459, 470). This policy cannot be evaded or truncated by the simple device of suing union agents or members, whether in contract or tort, or both, in a separate count or in a separate action for damages for violation of a collective bargaining contract for which damages the union itself is liable. The national labor policy requires and we hold that when a union is liable for damages for violation of the no-strike clause, its officers and members are not liable for these damages. Here, Count II, as we have said, necessarily alleges union liability but prays for damages from th'e union agents. Where the union has inflicted the injury it alone must pay. Count II must be dismissed.
The case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.
Article XXVI provides:
“GRIEVANCE AND ARBITRATION PROCEDURE
“Definition
"1. A grievance is defined to be any difference regarding wages, hours or working conditions between the parties hereto or between the Employer and an employee covered by this working agreement which might arise within any plant or within any region of operations.
“Grievance Procedure
“It is the sincere desire of both parties that employee grievances be settled as fairly and as quickly as possible. Therefore, when a grievance arises, the following procedure must be followed:
“2. For the purpose of adjusting employee grievances and disputes as defined above, it is agreed that an}'- employee, individually or accompanied by his committeeman, if desired shall:
“(a) Seek direct adjustment of any grievance or dispute with the foreman under whom he is employed. Such meeting will be without loss of time to the employee and/or his committeeman during regular working hours for time spent in conference with the foreman. The foreman shall reply to said employee within three (3) working days (Saturday, Sunday and Holidays excluded) from the date on which the grievance was first presented to him;
“(b) If the question is not then settled, the employee may submit his grievance in writing, on forms supplied by Union, to a committee selected as hereinafter provided for the particular plant or region in which such employee is employed. Such committee shall investigate said complaint and if in its’ opinion the grievance has merit it shall have the right to meet with'■ the local company superintendent or his representative, who shall receive the committee for this purpose. Written decisions shall be made by the local superintendent or his representative within ten (10) days after meeting with the committee, provided that prior to the time of or at the meeting with the committee such complaint or grievance has been submitted in writing to the local superintendent or his representative.
“(c) In exceptional cases, Workmen’s Committees shall have the right to institute grievances concerning any alleged violation of this Agreement, by filing written complaint with the official locally in charge.
“(d) Any grievance filed with or by the local Workmen’s Committee can only be withdrawn with the Workmen’s Committee’s consent.
“3. No complaint or grievance shall be considered hereunder unless it is presented to the superintendent or official locally in charge within sixty (60) days from the date on which the complaint or grievance arose, or from the date on which the employee or employees concerned first learned of the cause of complaint.
“4. The committee above mentioned shall be selected from among and by employees of the Employer who are members of the Union. No official, foreman, or employee having authority to hire or discharge men shall serve on the committee.
“5. In case of discharge or lay-off, employees who may desire to file complaints must present such complaints within one (1) week after the effective date of discharge or lay-off to the committee mentioned in this Article. Before any such employee is to be discharged for cause, other than flagrant violation of rules, or is to be laid off, he shall be given a written notice, dated and signed by his foreman or other representative of the Employer, setting forth the reason for such discharge or lay-off. In the event an employee has been discharged for a flagrant violation of a company rule, he shall subsequently, upon request, be given a written notice, dated and signed by his foreman or other representative of the Employer setting forth the reason for such discharge. The Workmen’s Committee will be furnished with a copy of the statement furnished to the employee, both where the discharge or lay-off is for cause or for flagrant violation of a Company rule. Any grievance to be filed under this section must be filed within forty (40) days from the effective date of the discharge or lay-off.
"6. In the event the decision of the superintendent or his representative shall not be satisfactory to the committee, it is agreed that the President of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, or someone designated by him, shall, not later than forty-five (45) days after such decision, have the right to confer with the Director of Industrial Relations for the Sinclair Companies, or someone designated by him, for the purpose of discussing grievances or disputes and of obtaining decisions thereon. It is agreed that the Director of Industrial Relations for the Sinclair Companies, or someone designated by him, shall render a decision to the President of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, AFL-CJO, within twenty (20) days after grievances or disputes have been so submitted to him in writing.
“7. If such decision is not satisfactory, then, upon request of the President or any District Director of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, AFL-CIO and within sixty (60) days from the posting date of the final appeal answer, there shall be set up a local Arbitration Board, and such grievances and disputes submitted to it within ten (10) days after formation of such Board. Such local boards may be set up at each refinery to deal with cases arising therefrom; cases arising from Sinclair Oil & Gas Company shall be heard and determined at Tulsa, Oklahoma; Fort Worth, Texas; Midland, Texas; or Casper, Wyoming; cases arising from Sinclair Pipe Line Company shall be heard and determined at the cities previously named or at Kansas City, Missouri; Toledo, Ohio; Houston, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; or Independence, Kansas. These local Arbitration Boards shall consider only individual or local employee or local committee grievances arising under the application of the currently existing agreement, or supplements thereto, and local wage and classification disputes submitted on the initiative of the President or any District Director of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, AFL-CIO. In this connection, Employer agrees to give consideration to local classification rate inequity complaints existing by reason of a comparison with the average of competitive rates of pay for like jobs having comparable duties and responsibilities being paid by agreed-upon major competitive companies in the local area. Such requests for adjustments of classification rate inequities, if any, shall be made not more frequently than twice annually, to be effective on February 1st and August 1st. Such requests to be submitted at least thirty (30) days prior to such semi-annual dates.
''8. The above mentioned local Arbitration Board shall be composed of one person designated by Employer and one designated by the President or District Director of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, AFL-CIO. The board shall be requested by both parties to render a decision within seven (7) days from date of submission. Should the two members of the board selected as above provided, be unable to agree within seven (7) days, or to mutually agree upon an impartial third arbitrator, an impartial third member shall be selected within seven (7) days thereafter by the employer or employee member of the Arbitration Board, or such two parties jointly, requesting the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to submit a panel of arbitrators from which the third member of the board will be selected in accordance with the procedure of such Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
“9. The decision of the Board aforesaid, as provided in Section 8 hereof, shall be final. However, if the rules and conditions existing at the time a given case originated are subsequently changed, it is understood that the arbitration award rendered under former rules and conditions shall not act to prohibit consideration of a complaint originating under the changed rules and conditions.
“10. Cases arising from the Gasoline Plants shall be considered as coming within the Producing Division in which they are located.
“11. The fee and expense of the impartial arbitrator selected as above provided shall be divided equally between the parties to such arbitration. The Parties agree to attempt to hold the arbitrator’s fees to a reasonable basis.”
The no-strike clause (Article III) provides that “[T]here shall be no strikes . . . (1) For any cause which is or may be the subject of a grievance ... or (2) For any other cause, except upon written notice by Union to Employer . . . .” Article XXVII, covering “general disputes,” provides that disputes which are general in character or which affect a large number of employees are to be negotiated between the parties; there is no provision for arbitration. Moreover, the management-prerogative clause (Article XXXI) recognizes that “operation of the Employer’s facilities and the direction of the working forces, including the right to hire, suspend or discharge for good and sufficient cause and pursuant to the seniority Article of this agreement, the right to relieve employees from duties because of lack of work, are among the sole prerogatives of the Employer; provided, however, that . . . such suspensions and discharges shall be subject to the grievance and arbitration clause . . . .”
Article XXVI is set out in full injra, at p. 250, as an Appendix.
We do not need to reach, therefore, the question of whether, under the contract involved here, breaches of the no-strike clause are "grievances,” i. e., “difference[s] regarding wages, hours or working conditions,” or are “grievances” in the more general sense of the term. See Hoover Express Co. v. Teamsters Local, No. 327, 217 F. 2d 49 (C. A. 6th Cir.). The present decision does not approve or disapprove the doctrine of the Hoover case or the Sixth Circuit cases following it (e. g., Vulcan-Cincinnati, Inc., v. United Steelworkers, 289 F. 2d 103; United Auto Workers v. Benton Harbor Indus., 242 F. 2d 536). See also cases collected in Yale & Towne Mfg. Co. v. Local Lodge No. 1717, 299 F. 2d 882, 883-884 n. 5, 6 (C. A. 3d Cir.). In Drake Bakeries, Inc., v. Local 50, post, p. 254, decided this day, the question of arbitrability of a damages claim for breach of a no-strike clause is considered and resolved in favor of arbitration in the presence of an agreement to arbitrate “all complaints, disputes or grievances arising between them [i. e., the parties] involving . . . any act or conduct or relation between the parties.”
Arbitrators generally have no obligation to give their reasons for an award. United Steelworkers v. Enterprise Corp., 363 U. S. 593, 598; Bernhardt v. Polygraphic Co., 350 U. S. 198, 203. The record of their proceedings is not as complete as it is in a court trial. Ibid.
The union also argues that the preemptive doctrine of cases such as San Diego Bldg. Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, is applicable and prevents the courts from asserting jurisdiction. Since this is a § 301 suit, that doctrine is inapplicable. Local 174 v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U. S. 95, 101 n. 9.
We put aside, since it is unnecessary to reach them, the questions of whether the employer was excused from arbitrating the damage claim because it was over breach of the no-strike clause (see Drake Bakeries, Inc., v. Local 50, post, p. 254, decided this day) and whether the underlying factual or legal determination, made by an arbitrator in the process of awarding or denying reimbursement to 14 employees, would bind either the union or the company in the latter’s action for damages against the union in the District Court.
Swift & Co. v. United Packinghouse Workers, 177 F. Supp. 511 (D. Colo.). Contra, Square D Co. v. United E., R. & M. Wkrs., 123 F. Supp. 776, 779-781 (E. D. Mich.). See also Morgan Drive Away, Inc., v. Teamsters Union, 166 F. Supp. 885 (S. D. Ind.), concluding, as we do, that the complaint should be dismissed because of §§ 301 (b) and 301 (e), but for want of jurisdiction rather than on the merits. Our holding, however, is that the suit is a § 301 suit; whether there is a claim upon which relief can be granted is a separate question. See Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678. '
In reaching this conclusion, we have not ignored the argument that Count II was drafted in order to anticipate the possible union defense under Count I that the work stoppage was unauthorized by the union, and was a wildcat strike led by the 24 individual defendants acting not in behalf of the union but in their personal and nonunion capacity. The language of Count II contradicts the argument, however, and we therefore do not reach the question of whether the count would state a proper § 301 (a) claim if it charged unauthorized, individual action.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, the Government failed to object to a jury instruction that erroneously added an element that it had to prove, and petitioner failed to press a statute-of-limitations defense until his appeal. We address two questions arising from the parties' failures to raise timely challenges. We first consider how a court should assess a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence in a criminal case when a jury instruction adds an element to the charged crime and the Government fails to object. We conclude that the sufficiency of the evidence should be assessed against the elements of the charged crime. We next consider whether the statute-of-limitations defense contained in 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a) (the general federal criminal statute of limitations) may be successfully raised for the first time on appeal. We conclude that it may not be.
I
Petitioner Michael Musacchio served as president of a logistics company, Exel Transportation Services (ETS), until his resignation in 2004. In 2005, he formed a rival company, Total Transportation Services (TTS). Musacchio was soon joined there by Roy Brown, who previously headed ETS's information-technology department. At TTS, Brown, using a password, continued to access ETS's computer system without ETS's authorization. Brown also gave Musacchio access to ETS's system. This improper access of ETS's system kept on until early 2006.
In November 2010, a grand jury indicted Musacchio under 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C). Under that provision, a person commits a crime when he "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access," and in doing so "obtains ... information from any protected computer." (Emphasis added.) The statute thus provides two ways of committing the crime of improperly accessing a protected computer: (1) obtaining access without authorization; and (2) obtaining access with authorization but then using that access improperly. See ibid. ; § 1030(e)(6) (defining "exceeds authorized access"). Count 1 of the indictment charged Musacchio with conspiring to commit both types of improper access. Count 23 charged him with making unauthorized access to ETS's e-mail server "[o]n or about" November 24, 2005. App. 70-71.
In 2012, the Government filed a superseding indictment amending those charges. Count 1 dropped the charge of conspiracy to exceed authorized access, limiting that charge to conspiracy to make unauthorized access. Count 2 amended the allegations originally contained in count 23 by alleging that Musacchio accessed specific ETS e-mail accounts "[o]n or about" November 23-25, 2005. Id., at 83-84. The Government later filed a second superseding indictment that made no changes relevant here.
Musacchio proceeded to a jury trial. At no time before or during trial did he argue that his prosecution violated the 5-year statute of limitations applicable to count 2. See 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a) (providing general 5-year statute of limitations).
For the Government's part, it submitted proposed jury instructions on the conspiracy count before and during the trial. Each set of proposed instructions identified that count as involving "Unauthorized Access to Protected Computer[s]," and none required the jury additionally to find that Musacchio conspired to exceed authorized access to protected computers. Musacchio did not propose instructions on the conspiracy count.
Diverging from the indictment and the proposed instructions, the District Court instructed the jury on count 1 that § 1030(a)(2)(C)"makes it a crime for a person to intentionally access a computer without authorization and exceed authorized access." App. 168 (emphasis added). The parties agree that this instruction was erroneous: By using the conjunction "and" when referring to both ways of violating § 1030(a)(2)(C), the instruction required the Government to prove an additional element. Yet the Government did not object to this error in the instructions.
The jury found Musacchio guilty on both counts 1 and 2. The District Court sentenced him to 60 months' imprisonment. Musacchio appealed, making the two challenges that he again advances in this Court. First, he challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conspiracy conviction on count 1. He maintained, moreover, that the sufficiency of the evidence should be assessed against the erroneous jury instruction that included the additional element. Second, he argued, for the first time, that his prosecution on count 2-for unauthorized access-was barred by the 5-year statute of limitations because the superseding indictment was filed seven years after the crime and did not relate back to the timely original indictment.
The Fifth Circuit rejected both challenges and affirmed Musacchio's conviction. 590 Fed.Appx. 359 (2014) (per curiam ). First, the Court of Appeals concluded that it should assess Musacchio's sufficiency challenge against the charged elements of the conspiracy count, not against the erroneous jury instruction. See id., at 362-363. Under Fifth Circuit precedent, the court explained, erroneously heightened jury instructions generally become the binding "law of the case" on appeal. Id., at 362 (internal quotation marks omitted). Circuit precedent supplies an exception, however, when (1) the jury instruction is " 'patently erroneous,' " and (2) " 'the issue is not misstated in the indictment.' " Ibid. (quoting United States v. Guevara, 408 F.3d 252, 258 (C.A.5 2005) ). The Fifth Circuit concluded that those conditions for applying the exception were satisfied. See 590 Fed. Appx., at 362-363. The court explained that the instruction's requirement of an additional element was "an obvious clerical error," and that the indictment correctly charged Musacchio only with "Conspiracy To Make Unauthorized Access to [a] Protected Computer." Id., at 362. Therefore, the Fifth Circuit did not assess Musacchio's sufficiency challenge under the heightened jury instruction. Id., at 362-363. Because Musacchio did not dispute that the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction under the elements set out in the indictment, the Fifth Circuit rejected his challenge. Id., at 363.
Second, the Fifth Circuit rejected Musacchio's statute-of-limitations defense, concluding that he had "waived" the defense by failing to raise it at trial. Id., at 363, 364.
We granted certiorari to resolve two questions that have divided the lower courts. 576 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 2889, 192 L.Ed.2d 923 (2015). The first question is whether the sufficiency of the evidence in a criminal case should be measured against the elements described in the jury instructions where those instructions, without objection, require the Government to prove more elements than do the statute and indictment. Compare, e.g., United States v. Romero, 136 F.3d 1268, 1272-1273 (C.A.10 1998) (explaining that sufficiency is measured against heightened jury instructions), with Guevara, supra, at 258 (C.A.5) (adopting an exception to that rule). The second question is whether a statute-of-limitations defense not raised at or before trial is reviewable on appeal. Compare, e.g., United States v. Franco-Santiago, 681 F.3d 1, 12, and n. 18 (C.A.1 2012) (limitations defense not raised and preserved before or at trial is reviewable on appeal for plain error), with United States v. Walsh, 700 F.2d 846, 855-856 (C.A.2 1983) (limitations defense not properly raised below is not reviewable on appeal).
II
We first address how a court should assess a sufficiency challenge when a jury instruction adds an element to the charged crime and the Government fails to object. We hold that, when a jury instruction sets forth all the elements of the charged crime but incorrectly adds one more element, a sufficiency challenge should be assessed against the elements of the charged crime, not against the erroneously heightened command in the jury instruction.
That conclusion flows from the nature of a court's task in evaluating a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge. Sufficiency review essentially addresses whether "the government's case was so lacking that it should not have even been submitted to the jury." Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 16, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978) (emphasis deleted). On sufficiency review, a reviewing court makes a limited inquiry tailored to ensure that a defendant receives the minimum that due process requires: a "meaningful opportunity to defend" against the charge against him and a jury finding of guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt." Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 314-315, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). The reviewing court considers only the "legal" question "whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Id., at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781 (emphasis in original). That limited review does not intrude on the jury's role "to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts." Ibid.
A reviewing court's limited determination on sufficiency review thus does not rest on how the jury was instructed. When a jury finds guilt after being instructed on all elements of the charged crime plus one more element, the jury has made all the findings that due process requires. If a jury instruction requires the jury to find guilt on the elements of the charged crime, a defendant will have had a "meaningful opportunity to defend" against the charge. Id., at 314, 99 S.Ct. 2781. And if the jury instruction requires the jury to find those elements "beyond a reasonable doubt," the defendant has been accorded the procedure that this Court has required to protect the presumption of innocence. Id., at 314-315, 99 S.Ct. 2781. The Government's failure to introduce evidence of an additional element does not implicate the principles that sufficiency review protects. All that a defendant is entitled to on a sufficiency challenge is for the court to make a "legal" determination whether the evidence was strong enough to reach a jury at all. Id., at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781. The Government's failure to object to the heightened jury instruction thus does not affect the court's review for sufficiency of the evidence.
Musacchio does not contest that the indictment here properly charged him with the statutory elements for conspiracy to obtain unauthorized access. The jury instructions required the jury to find all of the elements of that charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Nor does he dispute that the evidence was sufficient to convict him of the crime charged in the indictment-of conspiring to make unauthorized access. Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit correctly rejected his sufficiency challenge.
The Fifth Circuit erred, however, in basing that conclusion on the law-of-the-case doctrine. See 590 Fed.Appx., at 362-363. That doctrine does not apply here. The law-of-the-case doctrine generally provides that " 'when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case.' " Pepper v. United States, 562 U.S. 476, 506, 131 S.Ct. 1229, 179 L.Ed.2d 196 (2011) (quoting Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618, 103 S.Ct. 1382, 75 L.Ed.2d 318 (1983) ). The doctrine "expresses the practice of courts generally to refuse to reopen what has been decided," but it does not "limit [courts'] power." Messenger v. Anderson, 225 U.S. 436, 444, 32 S.Ct. 739, 56 L.Ed. 1152 (1912). Thus, the doctrine may describe an appellate court's decision not to depart from a ruling that it made in a prior appeal in the same case. See C. Wright et al., 18B Federal Practice and Procedure § 4478, p. 646, and n. 16 (2d ed. 2002) (collecting cases). But the doctrine is "something of a misnomer" when used to describe how an appellate court assesses a lower court's rulings. United States v. Wells, 519 U.S. 482, 487, n. 4, 117 S.Ct. 921, 137 L.Ed.2d 107 (1997). An appellate court's function is to revisit matters decided in the trial court. When an appellate court reviews a matter on which a party failed to object below, its review may well be constrained by other doctrines such as waiver, forfeiture, and estoppel, as well as by the type of challenge that it is evaluating. But it is not bound by district court rulings under the law-of-the-case doctrine. That doctrine does not bear on how to assess a sufficiency challenge when a jury convicts a defendant after being instructed-without an objection by the Government-on all charged elements of a crime plus an additional element.
III
We now consider whether a defendant may successfully raise the statute-of-limitations bar in 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a) for the first time on appeal. Musacchio argues that he may do so, either because § 3282(a) imposes a nonwaivable limit on federal courts' subject-matter jurisdiction or because a previously unraised limitations claim may constitute plain error that can be noticed on appeal. We disagree with both points, and hold that a defendant cannot successfully raise this statute-of-limitations bar for the first time on appeal.
A
Statutes of limitations and other filing deadlines "ordinarily are not jurisdictional."
Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center, 568 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 817, 825, 184 L.Ed.2d 627 (2013). We treat a time bar as jurisdictional only if Congress has "clearly stated" that it is. Id., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 824 ; (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted); see, e.g., Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428, 436, 439, 131 S.Ct. 1197, 179 L.Ed.2d 159 (2011) (requiring a "clear indication" that a statute is jurisdictional (internal quotation marks omitted)). To determine whether Congress has made the necessary clear statement, we examine the "text, context, and relevant historical treatment" of the provision at issue. Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154, 166, 130 S.Ct. 1237, 176 L.Ed.2d 18 (2010).
Congress has not made such a clear statement here. Rather, the statutory text, context, and history establish that § 3282(a) imposes a nonjurisdictional defense that becomes part of a case only if a defendant raises it in the district court.
The statutory text suggests that § 3282(a) does not impose a jurisdictional limit. Section 3282(a) provides:
"Except as otherwise expressly provided by law, no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or the information is instituted within five years next after such offense shall have been committed."
Although § 3282(a) uses mandatory language, it does not expressly refer to subject-matter jurisdiction or speak in jurisdictional terms. The text of § 3282(a) does not, therefore, provide a "clear indication that Congress wanted that provision to be treated as having jurisdictional attributes." Henderson, supra, at 439, 131 S.Ct. 1197.
Context confirms that § 3282(a) does not impose a jurisdictional limit. Federal courts' general criminal subject-matter jurisdiction comes from 18 U.S.C. § 3231, which states: "The district courts ... shall have original jurisdiction ... of all offenses against the laws of the United States." Section 3231 speaks squarely to federal courts' "jurisdiction," in marked contrast to § 3282(a), which does not mention "jurisdiction" or a variant of that term. And, nothing in § 3231"conditions its jurisdictional grant on" compliance with § 3282(a)'s statute of limitations. Reed Elsevier, supra, at 165, 130 S.Ct. 1237. This context supports the conclusion that § 3282(a) is not jurisdictional.
The history of the limitations bar in § 3282(a) demonstrates that it is a defense that becomes part of a case only if the defendant presses it in the district court. This Court held in United States v. Cook, 17 Wall. 168, 21 L.Ed. 538 (1872), that a statute of limitations-identical in all relevant respects to § 3282(a) -was "a matter of defence and must be pleaded or given in evidence by the accused." Id., at 181 ; see § 32, 1 Stat. 119 (statute of limitations); see also Cook, supra, at 173, and n. * (citing and describing statute of limitations). When a defendant introduces the limitations defense into the case, the Government then has "the right to reply or give evidence" on the limitations claim. 17 Wall., at 179.
Cook was decided more than 140 years ago, and we have adhered to its holding. Just three Terms ago, we reaffirmed that "[c]ommission of [a federal] crime within the statute-of-limitations period is not an element of the ... offense," and "it is up to the defendant to raise the limitations defense." Smith v. United States, 568 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 714, 720, 184 L.Ed.2d 570 (2013) (citing Cook ; emphasis deleted); see also Biddinger v. Commissioner of Police of City of New York, 245 U.S. 128, 135, 38 S.Ct. 41, 62 L.Ed. 193 (1917) ("The statute of limitations is a defense and must be asserted on the trial by the defendant in criminal cases ..." (citing Cook )). There is, in sum, a long history of treating the operative language in § 3282(a) as providing a nonjurisdictional defense that a defendant must press at trial to insert into the case.
In keeping with § 3282(a)'s text, context, and history, we conclude that § 3282(a) provides a nonjurisdictional defense, not a jurisdictional limit.
B
Because § 3282(a) does not impose a jurisdictional limit, the failure to raise it at or before trial means that it is reviewable on appeal-if at all-only for plain error. See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 52(b) (providing for consideration of "[a] plain error that affects substantial rights" even though the error "was not brought to the court's attention"). We conclude, however, that a district court's failure to enforce an unraised limitations defense under § 3282(a) cannot be a plain error.
As explained above, a statute-of-limitations defense becomes part of a case only if the defendant puts the defense in issue. When a defendant presses a limitations defense, the Government then bears the burden of establishing compliance with the statute of limitations by presenting evidence that the crime was committed within the limitations period or by establishing an exception to the limitations period. See Cook, supra, at 179. When a defendant fails to press a limitations defense, the defense does not become part of the case and the Government does not otherwise have the burden of proving that it filed a timely indictment. When a defendant does not press the defense, then, there is no error for an appellate court to correct-and certainly no plain error.
A defendant thus cannot successfully raise the statute-of-limitations defense in § 3282(a) for the first time on appeal. The Fifth Circuit correctly refused to consider Musacchio's limitations defense here.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the Fifth Circuit.
It is so ordered.
Counts 2 through 22 charged other defendants with exceeding authorized access to specific e-mail accounts. App. 68-70. Those defendants pleaded guilty, and later indictments dropped those counts.
In resolving the first question presented, we leave open several matters. First, we express no view on the question whether sufficiency of the evidence at trial must be judged by reference to the elements charged in the indictment, even if the indictment charges one or more elements not required by statute. Second, we do not suggest that the Government adds an element to a crime for purposes of sufficiency review when the indictment charges different means of committing a crime in the conjunctive. Third, we also do not suggest that an erroneous jury instruction cannot result in reversible error just because the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction.
Because we conclude that the failure to enforce § 3282(a)'s limitations defense cannot be plain error, we do not resolve whether the failure to raise that defense in the District Court amounts to waiver (which some courts have held to preclude all appellate review of the defense) or forfeiture (which some courts have held to allow at least plain-error review). See United States v. Franco-Santiago, 681 F.3d 1, 12, n. 18 (C.A.1 2012) (collecting cases).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Vinson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was convicted on sixteen counts of an indictment charging the unlawful possession, concealment and alteration of certain Notice of Classification Cards and Registration Certificates in violation of § 11 of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, and of § 48 of the Criminal Code. Prior to the trial, petitioner moved to suppress the evidence, which served as the basis for the conviction, on the grounds that it had been obtained by means of an unreasonable search and seizure contrary to the provisions of the Fourth Amendment and that to permit the introduction of that evidence would be to violate the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment. The motion to suppress was denied, and petitioner’s numerous objections to the evidence at the trial were overruled. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. 151 F. 2d 837. Certiorari was granted because of the importance of the questions presented.
Two valid warrants of arrest were issued. One charged that petitioner and one Moffett had violated the Mail Fraud Statute by causing a letter addressed to the Guaranty Trust Company of New York to be placed in the mails for the purpose of cashing a forged check for $25,000.00 drawn on the Mudge Oil Company in pursuance of a scheme to defraud. The second warrant charged that petitioner and Moffett, with intent to defraud certain banks and the Mudge Oil Company, had caused a $25,000.00 forged check to be transported in interstate commerce, in violation of § 3 of the National Stolen Property Act.
Five agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, acting under the authority of the two warrants, went to the apartment of petitioner in Oklahoma City and there arrested him. The apartment consisted of a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Following the arrest, which took place in the living room, petitioner was handcuffed and a search of the entire apartment was undertaken. The agents stated that the object of the search was to find two $10,000.00 canceled checks of the Mudge Oil Company which had been stolen from that company’s office and which were thought to have been used in effecting the forgery. There was evidence connecting petitioner with that theft. In addition, the search was said to be for the purpose of locating “any means that might have been used to commit these two crimes, such as burglar tools, pens, or anything that could be used in a confidence game of this type.”
One agent was assigned to each room of the apartment and, over petitioner’s protest, a careful and thorough search proceeded for approximately five hours. As the search neared its end, one of the agents discovered in a bedroom bureau drawer a sealed envelope marked “George Harris, personal papers.” The envelope was torn open and on the inside a smaller envelope was found containing eight Notice of Classification cards and eleven Registration Certificates bearing the stamp of Local Board No. 7 of Oklahoma County. It was this evidence upon which the conviction in the District Court was based and against which the motion to suppress was directed. It is conceded that the evidence is in no way related to the crimes for which petitioner was initially arrested and that the search which led to its discovery was not conducted under the authority of a search warrant.
In denying the motion to suppress, the District Court wrote no opinion. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, finding that the search was carried on in good faith by the federal agents for the purposes expressed, that it was not a general exploratory search for merely evidentiary materials, and that the search and seizure were a reasonable incident to petitioner’s arrest.
If it is true, as petitioner contends, that the draft cards were seized in violation of petitioner’s rights under the Fourth Amendment, the conviction based upon evidence so obtained cannot be sustained. Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616 (1886); Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 (1914); Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20 (1925); Segurola v. United States, 275 U. S. 106 (1927). This Court has consistently asserted that the rights of privacy and personal security protected by the Fourth Amendment “. . . are to be regarded as of the very essence of constitutional liberty; and that the guaranty of them is as important and as imperative as are the guaranties of the other fundamental rights of the individual citizen . . .” Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298, 304 (1921).
This Court has also pointed out that it is only unreasonable searches and seizures which come within the constitutional interdict. The test of reasonableness cannot be stated in rigid and absolute terms. “Each case is to be decided on its own facts and circumstances.” Go-Bart Importing Company v. United States, 282 U. S. 344, 357 (1931).
The Fourth Amendment has never been held to require that every valid search and seizure be effected under the authority of a search warrant. Search and seizure incident to lawful arrest is a practice of ancient origin and has long been an integral part of the law-enforcement procedures of the United States and of the individual states.
The opinions of this Court have clearly recognized that the search incident to arrest may, under appropriate circumstances, extend beyond the person of the one arrested to include the premises under his immediate control. Thus in Agnello v. United States, supra, at 30, it was said “The right without a search warrant contemporaneously to search persons lawfully arrested while committing crime and to search the place where the arrest is made in order to find and seize things connected with the crime as its fruits or as the means by which it was committed, as well as weapons and other things to effect an escape from custody, is not to be doubted.” It is equally clear that a search incident to arrest, which is otherwise reasonable, is not automatically rendered invalid by the fact that a dwelling place, as contrasted to a business premises, is subjected to search.
Nor can support be found for the suggestion that the search could not validly extend beyond the room in which petitioner was arrested. Petitioner was in exclusive possession of a four-room apartment. His control extended quite as much to the bedroom in which the draft cards were found as to the living room in which he was arrested. The canceled checks and other instrumentalities of the crimes charged in the warrants could easily have been concealed in any of the four rooms of the apartment. Other situations may arise in which the nature and size of the object sought or the lack of effective control over the premises on the part of the persons arrested may require that the searches be less extensive. But the area which reasonably may be subjected to search is not to be determined by the fortuitous circumstance that the arrest took place in the living room as contrasted to some other room of the apartment.
Similar considerations are applicable in evaluating petitioner’s contention that the search was, in any event, too intensive. Here again we must look to the particular circumstances of the particular case. As was observed by the Circuit Court of Appeals: “It is not likely that the checks would be visibly accessible. By their very nature they would have been kept in some secluded spot . . . .” The same meticulous investigation which would be appropriate in a search for two small canceled checks could not be considered reasonable where agents are seeking a stolen automobile or an illegal still. We do not believe that the search in this case went beyond that which the situation reasonably demanded.
This is not a case in which law enforcement officials have invaded a private dwelling without authority and seized evidence of crime. Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313 (1921); Byars v. United States, 273 U. S. 28 (1927); Nueslein v. District of Columbia, 73 App. D. C. 85, 115 F. 2d 690 (1940). Here the agents entered the apartment under the authority of lawful warrants of arrest. Neither was the entry tortious nor was the arrest which followed in any sense illegal.
Nor is this a case in which law-enforcement officers have entered premises ostensibly for the purpose of making an arrest but in reality for the purpose of conducting a general exploratory search for merely eviden-tiary materials tending to connect the accused with some crime. Go-Bart Company v. United States, supra; United States v. Lefkowitz, supra. In the present case the agents were in possession of facts indicating petitioner’s probable guilt of the crimes for which the warrants of arrest were issued. The search was not a general exploration but was specifically directed to the means and instrumentalities by which the crimes charged had been committed, particularly the two canceled checks of the Mudge Oil Company. The Circuit Court of Appeals found and the District Court acted on the assumption that the agents conducted their search in good faith for the purpose of discovering the objects specified. That determination is supported by the record. The two canceled checks were stolen from the offices of the Mudge Oil Company. There was evidence connecting petitioner with that theft. The search which followed the arrest was appropriate for the discovery of such objects. Nothing in the agents’ conduct was inconsistent with their declared purpose.
Furthermore, the objects sought for and those actually discovered were properly subject to seizure. This Court has frequently recognized the distinction between merely evidentiary materials, on the one hand, which may not be seized either under the authority of a search warrant or during the course of a search incident to arrest, and on the other hand, those objects which may validly be seized including the instrumentalities and means by which a crime is committed, the fruits of crime such as stolen property, weapons by which escape of the person arrested might be effected, and property the possession of which is a crime. Clearly the checks and other means and instrumentalities of the crimes charged in the warrants toward which the search was directed as well as the draft cards which were in fact seized fall within that class of objects properly subject to seizure. Certainly this is not a case of search for or seizure of an individual’s private papers, nor does it involve a prosecution based upon the expression of political or religious views in such papers.
Nor is it a significant consideration that the draft cards which were seized were not related to the crimes for which petitioner was arrested. Here during the course of a valid search the agents came upon property of the United States in the illegal custody of the petitioner. It was property of which the Government was entitled to possession. In keeping the draft cards in his custody petitioner was guilty of a serious and continuing offense against the laws of the United States. A crime was thus being committed in the very presence of the agents conducting the search. Nothing in the decisions of this Court gives support to the suggestion that under such circumstances the law-enforcement officials must impotently stand aside and refrain from seizing such contraband material. If entry upon the premises be authorized and the search which follows be valid, there is nothing in the Fourth Amendment which inhibits the seizure by law-enforcement agents of government property the possession of which is a crime, even though the officers are not aware that such property is on the premises when the search, is initiated.
The dangers to fundamental personal rights and interests resulting from excesses of law-enforcement officials committed during the course of criminal investigations are not illusory. This Court has always been alert to protect against such abuse. But we should not permit our knowledge that abuses sometimes occur to give sinister coloration to procedures which are basically reasonable. We conclude that in this case the evidence which formed the basis of petitioner’s conviction was obtained without violation of petitioner’s rights under the Constitution.
Affirmed.
The indictment contained nineteen counts. Petitioner was convicted on the second, which charged the fraudulent concealment of 8 Notice of Classification Cards, DSS Form 57, and 11 Registration Certificates, DSS Form 2; the third, which charged fraudulent possession with intent to convert to his own use the above-mentioned property; the fourth through tenth, charging the unlawful alteration of a Notice of Classification card; the twelfth and fourteenth through nineteenth, charging the unlawful possession of an altered Notice of Classification Card. Petitioner was acquitted on the first count, which charged theft of government property. Count 11, which charged alteration of a Notice of Classification card, and count 13, which charged possession of an altered card, were dismissed. Petitioner was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of five years on each of the sixteen counts indicated, the sentences to run concurrently.
54 Stat. 885, 894-895, 50 U. S. C. App. § 311. Section 623.61-2 of the Selective Service Regulations states that “It shall be a violation of these regulations for any person to have in his possession” a Notice of Classification not regularly issued to him or to alter or forge any Notice of Classification. Section 11 of the Act makes the failure to perform any duty required by the Regulations punishable by imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine of not more than $10,000.00 or both.
35 Stat. 1098, 18 U. S. C. § 101. Insofar as pertinent, the section provides: “Whoever shall receive, conceal, or aid in concealing, or shall have or retain in his possession with intent to convert to his own use or gain, any . . . property of the United States, which has theretofore been embezzled, stolen, or purloined by any other person, knowing the same to have been so embezzled, stolen, or purloined, shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both; . . .”
The Fourth Amendment provides: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Insofar as pertinent, the Fifth Amendment provides: “No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, . . .”
35 Stat. 1130-1131, 18 U. S. C. § 338.
53 Stat. 1178-1179,18 U. S. C. § 413 et seq.
The agents who testified in the proceedings in the trial court clearly stated that the object of the search was the means employed in committing the crimes charged in the warrants of arrest. None of the subsequent statements of the agents, if read in their context, are in conflict with that assertion.
It appears that the checks were never found. Respondent concedes that, in addition to the draft cards, seven pens and a quantity of tissue paper capable of being employed as instruments of forgery were seized. Also taken were twenty-seven pieces of celluloid which at the trial were demonstrated to be useful in picking a lock. It was respondent’s theory that petitioner had obtained the canceled checks by theft from the offices of the Mudge Oil Company and that entry into the offices had been achieved in that manner. Petitioner alleged in his motion to suppress that various other items were taken, including sheets of blank paper, expense bills and receipts, personal mail, letters, etc.
151 F. 2d 837.
See opinion of Cardozo, J., in People v. Chiagles, 237 N. Y. 193, 142 N. E. 583 (1923); Trial of Henry and John Sheares, 27 How. St. Tr. 255, 321 (1798).
Examples of the practice are to be found in numerous eases in this Court and in the lower federal courts. Weeks v. United States, supra; Agnello v. United States, supra; Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 (1925); United States v. Lee, 274 U. S. 559 (1927); Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192 (1927); Go-Bart Importing Company v. United States, supra; United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U. S. 452 (1932); Parks v. United States, 76 F. 2d 709 (1935); United States v. 7141 Ounces Gold, 94 F. 2d 17 (1938); Matthews v. Correa, 135 F. 2d 534 (1943).
Argetakis v. State, 24 Ariz. 599, 212 Pac. 372 (1923); Commonwealth v. Phillips, 224 Ky. 117, 5 S. W. 2d 887 (1928); Banks v. Farwell, 21 Pick. (Mass.) 156 (1839). And see cases cited in 32 A. L. R.697; 51 A.L.R. 434.
Similar expressions may be found in the cases cited in notes 12 and 13. There is nothing in the Go-Bárt and Lefkowitz cases, supra, which casts doubt on this proposition.
Stricter requirements of reasonableness may apply where a dwelling is being searched. Davis v. United States, 328 U. S. 582 (1946) ; Matthews v. Correa, supra, at 537.
Searches going beyond the room of arrest were upheld in the Agnello and Marrón cases, supra. The searches found to be invalid in the Go-Bart and Lejkowitz cases were so held for reasons other than the areas covered by the searches. It has not been the understanding of the lower federal courts that the search in every case must be so confined. See, for example: United States v. Lindenfeld, 142 F. 2d 829 (1944); Matthews v. Correa, supra; United States v. 71.41 Ounces Gold, supra.
Boyd v. United States, supra, at 623-624; Weeks v. United States, supra, at 392-393; Gouled v. United States, supra, at 309; Carroll v. United States, supra, at 149-150; Aquello v. United States, supra, at 30; Marron v. United States, supra, at 199; United States v. Lefkowitz, supra, at 465-466. The same distinction is drawn in numerous cases in the lower federal courts: Matthews v. Correa, supra, at 537; United States v. Lindenfeld, supra, at 832; In re Ginsburg, 147 F. 2d 749, 751 (1945).
Entick v. Carrington, 19 How. St. Tr. 1030, 1073-1074 (1765).
Davis v. United States, supra at 590. And see Boyd v. United States, supra, 623-624; Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361, 380 (1911).
Milam v. United States, 296 F. 629 (1924); United States v. Old Dominion Warehouse, 10 F. 2d 736 (1926); United States v. Two Soaking Units, 48 F. 2d 107 (1931); Paper v. United States, 53 F. 2d 184 (1931); Benton v. United States, 70 F. 2d 24 (1934); Matthews v. Correa, supra.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was convicted by a jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on two counts. Count I charged a conspiracy to obstruct commerce by extorting money, and Count II charged the substantive offense of obstructing commerce by extortion, both crimes made punishable by the Hobbs Anti-Racketeering Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1951. Petitioner was sentenced to consecutive terms of twelve years on each count, but the sentence on Count II was suspended and replaced with a five-year probation to commence at the expiration of his sentence under Count I. On appeal, the conviction was affirmed, 223 F. 2d 171.
Petitioner thereafter sought a correction of his sentence, invoking Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure as well as 28 U. S. C. § 2255. He claimed that the maximum penalty for obstructing interstate commerce under the Act by any means is twenty years and that Congress did not intend to subject individuals to two penalties. The District Court denied relief, holding that the Hobbs Act gave no indication of a departure from the usual rule that a conspiracy and the substantive crime which was its object may be cumulatively punished. 173 P. Supp. 98. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed this judgment, 274 F. 2d 601. Deeming the question raised by petitioner of sufficient importance, we brought the case here. 362 U. S. 939.
Under the early common law, a conspiracy — which constituted a misdemeanor — was said to merge with the completed felony which was its object. See Commonwealth v. Kingsbury, 5 Mass. 106. This rule, however, was based upon significant procedural distinctions between misdemeanors and felonies. The defendant in a misdemeanor trial was entitled to counsel and a copy of the indictment; these advantages were unavailable on trial for a felony. King v. Westbeer, 1 Leach 12, 15, 168 Eng. Rep. 108, 110 (1739); see Clark and Marshall, Crimes, §2.03, n. 96 (6th ed.). Therefore no conviction was permitted of a constituent misdemeanor upon an indictment for the felony. When the substantive crime was also a misdemeanor, People v. Mather, 4 Wend. 229, 265 (N. Y.), or when the conspiracy was defined by statute as a felony, State v. Mayberry, 48 Me. 218, 238, merger did not obtain. As these common-law procedural niceties disappeared, the merger concept lost significance, and today it has been abandoned. Queen v. Button, 11 Q. B. 929, 116 Eng. Rep. 720; Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640.
Petitioner does not draw on this archaic law of merger. He argues that Congress by combining the conspiracy and the substantive offense in one provision, § 1951, manifested an intent not to punish commission of two offenses cumulatively. ■ Unlike the merger doctrine, petitioner’s position does not question that the Government could charge a conspiracy even when the substantive crime that was its object had been completed. His concern is with the punitive consequences of the choice thus open to the Government; it can indict for both or either offense, but, petitioner contends, it can punish only for one.
The present Hobbs Act had as its antecedent the Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934. In view of this Court’s restrictive decision in United States v. Local 807, 315 U. S. 521 (1942), Congress, under the leadership of Representative Hobbs, sought to stiffen the 1934 legislation. After several unsuccessful attempts over a period of four years, a bill was passed in 1946 which deleted any reference to wages paid by an employer to an employee, on which the decision in Local 807 had relied. The 1934 Act was further invigorated by increasing the maximum penalty from ten to twenty years.
Petitioner relies on numerous statements by members of Congress concerning the severity of the twenty-year penalty to illustrate that cumulative sentences were not contemplated. But the legislative history sheds no light whatever on whether the Congressmen were discussing the question of potential sentences under the whole bill or merely defending the maximum punishment under its specific sections. All the legislative talk only reiterates what the statute itself says — that the maximum penalty is twenty years.
The distinctiveness between a substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit is a postulate of our law. “It has been long and consistently recognized by the Court that the commission of the substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct offenses.” Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640, 643. See also Pereira v. United States, 347 U. S. 1, 11. Over the years, this distinction has been applied in various situations. For example, in Clune v. United States, 159 U. S. 590, the Court upheld a two-year sentence for conspiracy over the objection that the crime which was the object of the unlawful agreement could only be punished by a $100 fine. The same result was reached when, as in the present case, both offenses were described within the same statute. In Carter v. McClaughry, 183 U. S. 365, cumulative sentences for conspiracy to defraud and fraud were upheld. “Cumulative sentences,” the Court pronounced, “are not cumulative punishments, and a single sentence for several offences, in excess of that prescribed for one offence, may be authorized by statute.” 183 U. S., at 394.
This settled principle derives from the reason of things in dealing with socially reprehensible conduct: collective criminal agreement — partnership in crime — presents a greater potential threat to the public than individual delicts. Concerted action both increases the likelihood that the criminal object will be successfully attained and decreases the probability that the individuals involved will depart from their path of criminality. Group association for criminal purposes often, if not normally, makes possible the attainment of ends more complex than those which one criminal could accomplish. Nor is the danger of a conspiratorial group limited to the particular end toward which it has embarked. Combination in crime makes more likely the commission of crimes unrelated to' the original purpose for which the group was formed. In sum, the danger which a conspiracy generates is not confined to the substantive offense which is the immediate aim of the enterprise.
These considerations are the presuppositions of the separately defined crimes in § 1951. The punitive consequences that presumably flow from them must be placed in such context. Congress is, after all, not a body of laymen unfamiliar with the commonplaces of our law. This legislation was the formulation of the two Judiciary Committees, all of whom are lawyers, and the Congress is predominately a lawyers’ body. We attribute “to Congress a tacit purpose — in the absence of any inconsistent expression — to maintain a long-established distinction between offenses essentially different; a distinction whose practical importance in the criminal law is not easily overestimated.” United States v. Rabinowich, 238 U. S. 78, 88.
These considerations are reinforced by a prior interpretation of the Sherman Act whose minor penalties influenced the enactment of the 1934 anti-racketeering legislation. In American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U. S. 781, individual and corporate defendants were convicted, inter alia, of conspiracy to monopolize and monopolization, both made criminal by § 2. They were sentenced to a fine of $5,000, the maximum statutory penalty, on each of the counts. We affirmed these convictions on the basis of our past decisions in this field of law. 328 U. S., at 788-789. To dislodge such conventional consequences in the outlawing of two disparate offenses, conspiracy and substantive conduct, and effectuate a reversal of the settled interpretation we pronounced in American Tobacco would require specific language to the contrary. See also Albrecht v. United States, 273 U. S. 1, 11; Burton v. United States, 202 U. S. 344, 377.
Petitioner argues that some of the other provisions of § 1951 seem to overlap and would not justify cumulative punishment for separate crimes. From this he deduces a congressional intent that the statute allows punishment for only one crime no matter how many separately outlawed offenses have been committed. These contentions raise problems of statutory interpretation not now here. That some of the substantive sections may be repetitive as being variants in phrasing of the same delict, or that petitioner could not be cumulatively punished for both an attempt to extort and a completed act of extortion, has no relevance to the legal consequences of two incontestably distinctive offenses, conspiracy and the completed crime that is its object. In the American Tobacco litigation it was decided that the attempt to monopolize, described in § 2 of the Sherman Act, merged with the completed monopolization, but this result did not qualify the holding that cumulative sentences for the conspiracy and the substantive crime, also contained within § 2, were demanded by the governing precepts of our law.
Petitioner invokes “the rule of lenity” for decision in this case. But that “rule,” as is true of any guide to statutory construction, only serves as an aid for resolving an ambiguity; it is not to be used to beget one. “To rest upon a formula' is a slumber that, prolonged, means death.” Mr. Justice Holmes in Collected Legal Papers, p. 306. The rule comes into operation at the end of the process of construing what Congress has expressed, not at the beginning as an overriding consideration of being lenient to wrongdoers. That is not the function of the judiciary. In United States v. Universal C. I. T. Credit Corp., 344 U. S. 218; Bell v. United States, supra, and Ladner v. United States, 358 U. S. 169, the applicable statutory provisions were found to be unclear as to the appropriate unit of prosecution; accordingly, the rule of lenity was utilized, in javorem libertatis, to resolve the ambiguity. In Prince v. United States, 352 U. S. 322, and Heflin v. United States, 358 U. S. 415, the Court had to meet the problem whether various subsidiary provisions of the Federal Bank Robbery Act, 18 U. S. C. § 2113, which - punished entering with intent to commit robbery and possessing stolen property, merged when applied to a defendant who was also being prosecuted for the robbery itself. Again the rule of lenity served to resolve the doubt with which Congress faced the Court.
Here we have no such dubieties within the statute itself. Unlike all of these cases, the problem before us does not involve the appropriate unit of prosecution— whether conduct constitutes one or several violations of a single statutory provision — nor is it an open question whether conspiracy and its substantive aim merge into a single offense. This is an ordinary case of a defendant convicted of violating two separate provisions of a statute, whereby Congress defined two historically distinctive crimes composed of differing components. If petitioner had committed two separate acts of extortion, no one would question that the crimes could be punished by consecutive sentences; the result seems no less clear in the present case. It was therefore within the discretion of the trial judge to fix separate sentences, even though Congress has seen fit to authorize for each of these two offenses what may seem to some to be harsh punishment.
Affirmed.
Section 1951 (a) is as follows:
“Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”
The pertinent parts of the Hobbs Act Amendments of 1946, 60 Stat. 420, from which the 1948 codification was compiled, were as follows:
“Sec. 2. Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce, or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion, shall be guilty of a felony.
"Sec. 3. Whoever conspires with another or with others, or acts in concert with another or with others to do anything in violation of section 2 shall be guilty of a felony.
“Sec. 4. Whoever attempts or participates in an attempt to do anything in violation of section 2 shall be guilty of a felony.
“Sec. 5. Whoever commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of section 2 shall be guilty of a felony.
“Sec. 6. Whoever violates any section of this title shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment for not more than twenty years or by a fine of not more than $10,000, or both.”
The Reviser’s Note to the 1948 Code states that “The words ‘attempts or conspires so to do’ were substituted for sections 3 and 4 of the 1946 act, ...”
Petitioner was released from imprisonment in April 1960 and currently is on parole. Both parties and the courts below apparently have interpreted the probationary period for Count II to commence at the expiration of petitioner’s parole for Count I.
Both courts below ruled that 28 U. S. C. § 2255 was not available since it would be premature to claim the “right to be released” from a sentence not yet served. Since, as the Government concedes, Rule 35 is available to correct an illegal sentence when the claim is based on the face of the indictment even if such claim had not been raised on direct appeal, Heflin v. United States, 358 U. S. 415, 418, 422, the applicability of § 2255 need not be considered.
The original bill, S. 2248, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., did not contain any provision concerning conspiracy. (Of course, the general conspiracy statute, R-. S. § 5440, now 18 U. S. C. § 371, which then provided for a maximum two-year sentence, was available.) The bill made punishable by imprisonment from one to ninety-nine years acts of violence, extortion, and coercion which interfered with interstate commerce. 78 Cong. Rec. 11403. The purpose of the legislation was to provide for direct prosecution of large-scale racketeering, which formerly had been ineffectively attempted through the Sherman Act, which had a maximum penalty of one-year imprisonment or $5,000 fine. S. Rep. No. 532, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. p. 1. After the bill had passed the Senate, 78 Cong. Rec. 5735, some question was raised as to whether legitimate labor activity was not threatened by the statutory phraseology, 78 Cong. Rec. 5859, 10867, and provisos were suggested by the House Judiciary Committee in reporting the measure to the full body. H. R. Rep. No. 1833, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. The Committee, upon the suggestion of the Attorney General, further added a section making conspiracy to comipit any of the designated substantive violations punishable. Ibid. The amended bill was passed by the House substantially as reported except that the penalty was decreased to ten years or $10,000. 78 Cong. Rec. 11403. The House bill was summarily approved by the Senate. 78 Cong. Rec. 11482,
A little over two months after the decision, H. R. 7067 was introduced by Representative Hobbs in the House of Representatives, 88 Cong. Rec. 4080, following Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. The bill was reported favorably out of committee, the only major change being the reduction of the proposed twenty-year maximum sentence to ten years. In discussing the various provisions, the report stated: “The objective of Title I is to prevent anyone from obstructing, delaying, or affecting commerce, or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce by robbery or extortion as defined in the bill. A conspiracy or attempt to do anything in violation of section 2 is likewise made punishable . . . .” H. R. Rep. No. 2176, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 9. No further congressional action was taken on the bill.
The following year, Representative Hobbs introduced H. R. 653 which was identical with his prior bill. This time the Committee did not amend the twenty-year penalty. H. R. Rep. No. 66, 78th Cong., 1st Sess. The measure passed the House, 89 Cong. Rec. 3230, but no action was taken in the Senate.
In 1945 Representative Hobbs again introduced his amendment. H. R. 32, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. The measure was passed by both bodies, 91 Cong. Rec. 11922, 92 Cong. Rec. 7308. Both Committee reports again stated that “A conspiracy or attempt to do anything in violation of section 2 is likewise made punishable.” S. Rep. No. 1516, 79th Cong., 2d Sess.; H. R. Rep. No. 238, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 9.
The pertinent parts of the amendment, 60 Stat. 420, are set out in n. 1, supra.
Typical excerpts on which petitioner relies are:
“Mr. DelaNey. The fact of the matter is that this committee report was not unanimous. Also, in the committee it was indicated by those who favor this legislation that the legislation is too drastic, that the $10,000 fine and 20 years in jail is too drastic. They think a modified bill might be more in consonance with present-day thinking.” (89 Cong. Rec. 3162.)
“Mr. Fish. ... I want to refer likewise to some of the excessive penalties. The penalties in this bill in my opinion are too severe — 20 years and $10,000 fine. When we reach this section of the bill there should be very careful consideration given to reducing both the extent of the imprisonment and fines.” (89 Cong. Rec. 3194.)
“Mr. SPRINGER. May I ask my distinguished colleague on the Committee on the Judiciary if it is not a fact that under the provisions of this bill the question of penalty is left entirely discretionary with the court trying the case ? Under the provisions of this bill a person could be penalized to the extent of 1 year or less than 1 year or up to 20 years, all in the discretion of the court.
“Mr. Celler. Or his sentence might be suspended. I agree with the gentleman. But why do we single out labor and impose even a possible penalty of 20 years?” (89 Cong. Rec. 3201.)
“Mr. RoBsroN. . . . There is some objection to the penalties pre scribed in this bill for robbery and extortion. It has gone forth to the country that the penalty is 20 years. That is not a correct statement. The penalties range from 1 hour up to 20 years, according to the offense, and fines of $1 to $10,000. In other words, the 20 years and the $10,000 fine are the maximum.” (89 Cong. Rec. 3226.)
“Mr. Fish. . . . When the bill was before the Rules Committee it seemed to me at that time that these penalties were excessive. Twenty years is just about as bad as a life sentence, and I want to give the House the opportunity to reduce it by cutting it in half. This applies to threats. A man may be sent to jail for 20 years merely for threatening extortion.” (89 Cong. Rec. 3229.)
For a discussion of these problems of the law of conspiracy see Developments in the Law — Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv. L. Rev. 920, 922-925, 968-971.
The Senate Report which accompanied the original 1934 legislation described the purpose of the Act by setting forth a memorandum received from the Justice Department:
". . . The nearest approach to prosecution of racketeers as such has been under the Sherman Antitrust Act. This act, however, was designed primarily to prevent and punish capitalistic combinations and monopolies, and because of the many limitations engrafted upon the act by interpretations of the courts, the act is not well suited for prosecution of persons who commit acts of violence, intimidation, and extortion. . . . Moreover, a violation of the Sherman Act is merely a misdemeanor, punishable by 1 year in jail plus $5,000 fine, which is not a sufficient penalty for the usual acts of violence and intimidation affecting interstate commerce.” S. Rep. No. 532, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 1.
Representative Céller, in arguing for a less severe penalty during the 1945 debates, said:
“If you look at the antitrust penalties against employers you find that they are only $5,000 or 1 year in jail. This bill has direct relation to the antitrust laws, the Clayton Act.” 91 Cong. Rec. 11902.
See also Representative Celler’s remarks during the 1943 debates, 89 Cong. Rec. 3201.
“When Congress leaves to the Judiciary the task of imputing to Congress an undeclared will, the ambiguity should be resolved in favor of lenity.” Bell v. United States, 349 U. S. 81, 83.
The most notable illustration of this is the General Conspiracy Statute, 18 U. S. C. § 371.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner, who is confined in a California state prison, sought to file a petition in forma pauperis for a writ of injunction in the District Court below. That court denied leave to proceed in forma pauperis, holding that petitioner was not entitled to the benefits of 28 U. S. C. § 1915 because he was no longer a “citizen” as required by that section. The District Court reached that decision in reliance on California Penal Code § 2600, which provides that one sentenced to imprisonment for a term of years is deprived of his civil rights for the period of imprisonment. The decision of the District Court is in error. Citizenship for the purpose of in forma pauperis proceedings in the federal courts is solely a matter of federal law. Congress has not specified criminal convictions, except for desertion and treason, as grounds for loss of citizenship. 8 U. S. C. § 801.
Petitioner thereafter filed a motion in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for allowance of an appeal from the order of the District Court. The denial by a District Judge of a motion to proceed in forma pauperis is an appealable order. 28 U. S. C. § 1291; see Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 (1949). The Court of Appeals, however, held that it had “no power to grant an application for allowance of an appeal,” and dismissed the petition.
Finally, petitioner filed in this Court a motion for leave to file a petition for a writ of mandamus to the District Court. Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy, available only in rare cases. Ex parte Collett, 337 U. S. 55, 72 (1949), and cases there cited. Because of the ambiguous state of this record, and the fact that a denial of this motion will not prejudice petitioner in further attempts to proceed in forma pauperis, the motion must be denied.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Pee Curiam.
Yesterday, July 6, 1972, the petitioners filed petitions for writs of certiorari to review judgments of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in actions challenging the recommendations of the Credentials Committee of the 1972 Democratic National Convention regarding the seating of certain delegates to the convention that will meet three days hence.
In No. 72-35, the Credentials Committee recommended unseating 59 uncommitted delegates from Illinois on the ground, among others, that they had been elected in violation of the “slate-making” guideline adopted by the Democratic Party in 1971. A complaint challenging the Credentials Committee action was dismissed by the District Court. The Court of Appeals on review rejected the contentions of the unseated delegates that the action of the Committee violated their rights under the Constition of the United States.
In No. 72-34, the Credentials Committee recommended unseating 151 of 271 delegates from California committed by California law to Senator George McGovern under that State’s “winner-take-all” primary system. The Committee concluded that the winner-take-all system violated the mandate- of the 1968 Democratic National Convention calling for reform in the party delegate selection process, even though such primaries had not been explicitly prohibited by the rules adopted by the party in 1971 to implement that mandate. A complaint challenging the Credentials Committee action was dismissed by the District Court. On review the Court of Appeals concluded that the action of the Credentials Committee in this case violated the Constitution of the United States.
Accompanying the petitions for certiorari were applications to stay the judgments of the Court of Appeals pending disposition of the petitions.
The petitions for certiorari present novel questions of importance to the litigants and to the political system under which national political parties nominate candidates for office and vote on their policies and programs. The particular actions of the Credentials Committee on which the Court of Appeals ruled are recommendations that have yet to be submitted to the National Convention of the Democratic Party. Absent judicial intervention, the Convention could decide to accept or reject, or accept with modification, the proposals of its Credentials Committee.
This Court is now asked to review these novel and important questions and to resolve them within the remaining days prior to the opening sessions of the convention now scheduled to be convened Monday, July 10, 1972.
The Court concludes it cannot in this limited time give to these issues the consideration warranted for final decision on the merits; we therefore take no action on the petitions for certiorari at this time.
The applications to stay the judgments of the Court of Appeals call for a weighing of three basic factors: (a) whether irreparable injury may occur absent a stay; (b) the probability that the Court of Appeals was in error in holding that the merits of these controversies were appropriate for decision by federal courts; and (c) the public interests that may be affected by the operation of the judgments of the Court of Appeals.
Absent a stay, the mandate of the Court of Appeals denies to the Democratic National Convention its traditional power to pass on the credentials of the California delegates in question. The grant of a stay, on the other hand, will not foreclose the Convention’s giving the respective litigants in both cases the relief they sought in federal courts.
We must also consider the absence of authority supporting the action of the Court of Appeals in intervening in the internal determinations of a national political party, on the eve of its convention, regarding the seating of delegates. No case is cited to us in which any federal court has undertaken to interject itself into the deliberative processes of a national political convention; no holding of this Court up to now gives support for judicial intervention in the circumstances presented here, involving as they do relationships of great delicacy that are essentially political in nature. Cf. Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1 (1849). Judicial intervention in this area traditionally has been approached with great caution and restraint. See Irish v. Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, 399 F. 2d 119 (CA8 1968), affirming 287 F. Supp. 794 (Minn. 1968), and cases cited; Lynch v. Torquato, 343 F. 2d 370 (CA3 1965); Smith v. State Exec. Comm. of Dem. Party of Ga., 288 F. Supp. 371 (ND Ga. 1968). Cf. Ray v. Blair, 343 U. S. 214 (1952). It has been understood since our national political parties first came into being as voluntary associations of individuals that the convention itself is the proper forum for determining intra-party disputes as to which delegates shall be seated. Thus, these cases involve claims of the power of the federal judiciary to review actions heretofore thought to lie in the control of political parties. Highly important questions are presented concerning justiciability, whether the action of the Credentials Committee is state action and, if so, the reach of the Due Process Clause in this unique context. Vital rights of association guaranteed by the Constitution are also involved. While the Court is unwilling to undertake final resolution of the important constitutional questions presented without full briefing and argument and adequate opportunity for deliberation, we entertain grave doubts as to the action taken by the Court of Appeals.
In light of the availability of the convention as a forum to review the recommendations of the Credentials Committee, in which process the complaining parties might obtain the relief they have sought from the federal courts, the lack of precedent to support the extraordinary relief granted by the Court of Appeals, and the large public interest in allowing the political processes to function free from judicial supervision, we conclude the judgments of the Court of Appeals must be stayed.
We recognize that a stay of the Court of Appeals’ judgments may well preclude any judicial review of the final action of the Democratic National Convention on the recommendation of its Credentials Committee. But, for nearly a century and a half the national political parties themselves have determined controversies regarding the seating of delegates to their conventions. If this system is to be altered by federal courts in the exercise of their extraordinary equity powers, it should not be done under the circumstances and time pressures surrounding the actions brought in the District Court, and the expedited review in the Court of Appeals and in this Court.
The applications for stays of the judgments of the Court of Appeals are granted.
Mr. Justice Brennan is of the view that in the limited time available the Court cannot give these difficult and important questions consideration adequate for their proper resolution. He therefore concurs in the grant of the stays pending action by the Court on the petitions for certiorari.
Mr. Justice White would deny the applications for stays.
This is not a case in which claims are made that injury arises from invidious discrimination based on race in a primary contest within a single State. Cf. Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461 (1953); Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649 (1944).
Argument was had and the ease decided in the District Court on July 3; the Court of Appeals entered its judgment July 5. Papers were filed here July 6.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under § 5(b) of the Longshore and. Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. § 905(b), a shipowner must exercise ordinary care to maintain the ship and its equipment in a condition so that an expert and experienced stevedore can load and unload cargo with reasonable safety. As a corollary to this duty, the shipowner must warn the stevedore of latent hazards, as the term is defined in maritime law, that are known or should be known to the shipowner. This case requires us to define the circumstances under which a shipowner must warn of latent hazards in the cargo stow or cargo area.
I
The case arrives after a grant of summary judgment to respondent Birkdale Shipping Co., S. A., so we consider the facts in the light most favorable to petitioner Albert Howlett. Howlett, a longshoreman employed in the Port of Philadelphia by stevedore Northern Shipping Co., was injured while discharging bags of cocoa beans from a cargo hold on the MV Presidente Ibanez, a ship owned and operated by Birkdale. During the unloading operation, Howlett and three other longshoremen hooked up a draft, or load, of bags stowed on the tween deck of the hold. When the ship’s boom lifted the draft out of the hold, an 8-square-foot area of the tween deck was exposed. Howlett, who was standing on surrounding bags, jumped down about three feet to the deck, where he slipped and fell on a sheet of clear plastic that had been placed under the cargo. As a result of his fall, Howlett sustained serious injuries that have disabled him from returning to work as a longshoreman.
Howlett brought suit against Birkdale under § 5(b) of the Act. Both parties agreed that it is customary to lay paper and plywood on a steel deck to protect a stow of cocoa beans against condensation damage. They also agreed that, for purposes of protecting the beans, it was improper to use plastic, which tends to aggravate condensation damage rather than prevent it. Evidence adduced during pretrial proceedings suggested that the independent stevedore engaged by Birkdale to load the beans in Guayaquil, Ecuador, had placed the plastic on the tween deck. Further evidence showed that the vessel had supplied the Guayaquil stevedore with the plastic, along with other material used in stowing cargo, including paper, plywood, and dunnage. Howlett claimed that before jumping to the deck he did not see the plastic, which was covered by dirt and debris. He charged that Birkdale was negligent in failing to warn Northern and its longshoremen-employees of this dangerous condition.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted summary judgment in favor of Birkdale. Relying upon Derr v. Kawasaki Kisen K. K., 835 F. 2d 490 (CA3 1987), cert. denied, 486 U. S. 1007 (1988), the court held that Howlett, to prevail on his failure-to-warn claim, had to demonstrate that Birkdale had actual knowledge of the hazardous condition and that the condition was not open and obvious. After reviewing the record, the court concluded that Howlett had failed to present evidence sufficient to sustain his claim. The court declined to infer that Birkdale had actual knowledge of the condition from the fact that it had supplied the Guayaquil stevedore with the plastic, reasoning that “being the supplier of equipment does not necessarily imply knowledge of its intended purpose.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 4a. The court further declined to infer actual knowledge from the fact that the members of the vessel’s crew were present on the top deck during the loading operation. And even if the Guayaquil stevedore’s improper use of plastic had been apparent to the crew, the court continued, “then it readily transpires that this was an open and obvious condition” for which Howlett could not recover. Ibid. The Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion, judgt. order reported at 998 F. 2d 1003 (CA3 1993).
We granted certiorari, 510 U. S. 1039 (1994), to resolve a conflict among the Circuits regarding the scope of the shipowners’ duty to warn of latent hazards in the cargo stow, an inquiry that depends in large part upon the nature of the shipowners’ duty to inspect for such defects. Compare Derr v. Kawasaki Kisen K. K., supra (vessel need hot inspect or supervise the loading stevedore’s cargo operations for the benefit of longshoremen in later ports), with Turner v. Japan Lines, Ltd., 651 F. 2d 1300 (CA9 1981) (vessel must supervise a foreign stevedore’s loading operations), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 967 (1982).
II
The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 44 Stat. 1424, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq., establishes a comprehensive federal workers’ compensation program that provides longshoremen and their families with medical, disability, and survivor benefits for work-related injuries and death. See generally T. Schoenbaum, Admiralty and Maritime Law § 6-6 (1987); M. Norris, Law of Maritime Personal Injuries §§4:11, 4:22-4:29 (4th ed. 1990). The injured longshoreman’s employer — in most instances, an independent stevedore, see Edmonds v. Compagnie Generate Transatlantique, 443 U. S. 256, 263-264 (1979) — must pay the statutory benefits regardless of fault, but is shielded from any further liability to the longshoreman. See 33 U. S. C. §§ 904, 905(a); Norris, supra, §§4:7-4:10.
The longshoreman also may seek damages in a third-party negligence action against the owner of the vessel on which he was injured, and may do so without forgoing statutory compensation if he follows certain procedures. See Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U. S. 469 (1992). Section 5(b) provides in relevant part:
“In the event of injury to a person covered under this Act caused by the negligence of a vessel, then such person . . . may bring an action against such vessel as a third party ..., and the employer shall not be liable to the vessel for such damages directly or indirectly and any agreements or warranties to the contrary shall be void.... The liability of the vessel under this subsection shall not be based upon the warranty of seaworthiness or a breach thereof at the time the injury occurred.” 33 U. S. C. § 905(b).
This provision, enacted as part of the extensive 1972 amendments to the Act, effected fundamental changes in the nature of the third-party action. First, it abolished the longshoreman’s pre-existing right to sue a shipowner based upon the warranty of seaworthiness, a right that had been established in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85 (1946). Section 5(b) also eliminated the stevedore’s obligation, imposed by Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp., 350 U. S. 124 (1956), to indemnify a shipowner, if held liable to a longshoreman, for breach of the stevedore’s express or implied warranty to conduct cargo operations with reasonable safety. See generally Scindia Steam Nav. Co. v. De los Santos, 451 U. S. 156, 165 (1981); G. Gilmore & C. Black, Law of Admiralty §6-57, pp. 449-455 (2d ed. 1975) (hereinafter Gilmore & Black). Other sections of the 1972 amendments provided for a substantial increase in the statutory benefits injured longshoremen are entitled to receive from their stevedore-employers. See Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U. S. 249, 261-262 (1977); Gilmore & Black §6-46, at 411; Note, 13 Tulane Mar. L. J. 163, 163-164 (1988). The design of these changes was to shift more of the responsibility for compensating injured longshoremen to the party best able to prevent injuries: the stevedore-employer. See Scindia Steam, 451 U. S., at 171. Subjecting vessels to suit for injuries that could be anticipated and prevented by a competent stevedore would threaten to upset the balance Congress was careful to strike in enacting the 1972 amendments.
The question whether Howlett produced evidence sufficient to hold Birkdale liable for his injuries turns on the meaning of the term “negligence” in §5(b). Because Congress did not “specify the acts or omissions of the vessel that would constitute negligence,” the contours of a vessel’s duty to longshoremen are “left to be resolved through the ‘application of accepted principles of tort law and the ordinary process of litigation.’” Id., at 165-166.
The starting point in this regard must be our decision in Scindia Steam, which outlined the three general duties shipowners owe to longshoremen. The first, which courts have come to call the “turnover duty,” relates to the condition of the ship upon the commencement of stevedoring operations. See id., at 167. The second duty, applicable once stevedoring operations have begun, provides that a shipowner must exercise reasonable care to prevent injuries to longshoremen in areas that remain under the “active control of the vessel.” Ibid. The third duty, called the “duty to intervene,” concerns the vessel’s obligations with regard to cargo operations in areas under the principal control of the independent stevedore. See id., at 167-178.
The allegations of Howlett’s complaint, and the facts adduced during pretrial proceedings, implicate only the vessel’s turnover duty. We provided a brief statement of the turnover duty in Federal Marine Terminals, Inc. v. Burnside Shipping Co., 394 U. S. 404 (1969): A vessel must “exercise ordinary care under the circumstances” to turn over the ship and its equipment and appliances “in such condition that an expert and experienced stevedoring contractor, mindful of the dangers he should reasonably expect to encounter, arising from the hazards of the ship’s service or otherwise, will be able by the exercise of ordinary care” to carry on cargo operations “with reasonable safety to persons and property.” Id., at 416-417, n. 18 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Scindia Steam, 451 U. S., at 167. A corollary to the turnover duty requires the vessel to warn the stevedore “of any hazards on the ship or with respect to its equipment,” so long as the hazards “are known to the vessel or should be known to it in the exercise of reasonable care,” and “would likely be encountered by the stevedore in the course of his cargo operations^] are not known by the stevedore[,] and would not be obvious to or anticipated by him if reasonably competent in the performance of his work.” Ibid., citing Marine Terminals, supra, at 416, n. 18. Although both components of the turnover duty are related in various respects, Howlett confines his case to an allegation that Birkdale failed to warn that the tween deck was covered with plastic rather than (as is ordinarily the case) paper and plywood.
Most turnover cases brought under § 5(b) concern the condition of the ship itself or of equipment on the ship used in stevedoring operations. See, e. g., Bjaranson v. Botelho Shipping Corp., Manila, 873 F. 2d 1204 (CA9 1989) (no handhold on coaming ladder); Griffith v. Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp., 610 F. 2d 116 (CA3 1979) (defective hatch covers), remanded, 451 U. S. 965, reinstated, 657 F. 2d 25 (CA3 1981), cert. denied, 456 U. S. 914 (1982); Scalafani v. Moore McCormack Lines, Inc., 388 F. Supp. 897 (EDNY) (no handrail on platform linking gangway and deck), aff’d without opinion, 535 F. 2d 1243 (CA2 1975). The turnover duty to warn, however, may extend to certain latent hazards in the cargo stow. This is so because an improper stow can cause injuries to longshoremen, see, e. g., Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc. v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd., 369 U. S. 355 (1962); Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp., 350 U. S. 124 (1956); Clay v. Lykes Bros. S. S. Co., 525 F. Supp. 306 (ED La. 1981); The Etna, 43 F. Supp. 303 (ED Pa. 1942), and thus is among the “hazards on the ship” to which the duty to warn attaches. Scindia Steam, 451 U. S., at 167.
The precise contours of the duty to warn of latent hazards in the cargo stow must be defined with due regard to the concurrent duties of the stevedore and to the statutory scheme as a whole. It bears repeating that the duty attaches only to latent hazards, defined in this context as hazards that would be neither obvious to nor anticipated by a competent stevedore in the ordinary course of cargo operations. In addition, the vessel’s duty to warn is confined to latent hazards that “are known to the vessel or should be known to it in the exercise of reasonable care.” Ibid. Absent actual knowledge of a hazard, then, the duty to warn may attach only if the exercise of reasonable care would place upon the shipowner an obligation to inspect for, or discover, the hazard’s existence. See Kirsch v. Plovidba, 971 F. 2d 1026, 1029 (CA3 1992) (“[T]he shipowner’s duty to warn the stevedore of hidden dangers necessarily implies a duty to inspect to discover those dangers”).
Howlett, relying upon the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 412 (1965), maintains that a vessel’s obligations in this regard are broad. Section 412 provides that an owner of land or chattels who hires an independent contractor must take reasonable steps to “ascertain whether the land or chattel is in reasonably safe condition after the contractor’s work is completed.” In light of this provision, Howlett argues that “a shipowner, who has hired an independent contractor stevedore to perform the work of loading cargo aboard its ship, has a duty to make ‘reasonable’ (not continuous) inspections” during and after cargo operations to discover dangerous conditions in the stow. Brief for Petitioner 27.
We decline to adopt Howlett’s proposal. As an initial matter, we repeat our caveat that the Restatement’s land-based principles, “while not irrelevant, do not furnish sure guidance” in maritime cases brought under §5(b). Scindia Steam, 451 U. S., at 168, n. 14. On a more fundamental level, Howlett’s contention that a vessel must make reasonable inspections, both during and after stevedoring operations, to discover defects in the stow contradicts the principles underlying our decision in Scindia Steam. The plaintiff longshoreman in Scindia Steam, injured by cargo that fell from a defective winch, alleged that the shipowner should have intervened in the stevedoring operations and repaired the winch before permitting operations to continue. The case thus turned not upon the turnover duty but upon the scope of the vessel’s duty to intervene once cargo operations have begun. We held that the duty to intervene, in the event the vessel has no knowledge of the hazardous condition, is limited: “[Ajbsent contract provision, positive law, or custom to the contrary,” a vessel “has no general duty by way of supervision or inspection to exercise reasonable care to discover dangerous conditions that develop within the confines of the cargo operations that are assigned to the stevedore.” Id., at 172.
The rule relieving vessels from this general duty rests upon “the justifiable expectations of the vessel that the stevedore would perform with reasonable competence and see to the safety of the cargo operations.” Ibid.; see also Hugev v. Dampskisaktieselskabet Int’l, 170 F. Supp. 601, 609-610 (SD Cal. 1959), aff’d sub nom. Metropolitan Stevedore Co. v. Dampskisaktieselskabet Int’l, 274 F. 2d 875 (CA9), cert. denied, 363 U. S. 803 (1960). These expectations derive in part from §41 of the Act, 33 U. S. C. §941, which requires the stevedore, as the longshoreman’s employer, to provide a “reasonably safe” place to work and to take safeguards necessary to avoid injuries. Scindia Steam, 451 U. S., at 170. The expectations also derive from indemnity cases decided prior to the 1972 Act, which teach that “the stevedore [is] in the best position to avoid accidents during cargo operations” and that “the shipowner [can] rely on the stevedore’s warranty to perform competently.” Id., at 171, citing Italia Societa per Azioni di Navigazione v. Oregon Stevedoring Co., 376 U. S. 315 (1964); see also 451 U. S., at 175 (safety is “a matter of judgment committed to the stevedore in the first instance”). The stevedore’s obligations in this regard may not be diminished by transferring them to the vessel.
Given the legal and practical realities of the maritime trade, we concluded in Scindia Steam that imposing a duty upon vessels to supervise and inspect cargo operations for the benefit of longshoremen then on board would undermine Congress’ intent in §5(b) to terminate the vessel’s “automatic, faultless responsibility for conditions caused by the negligence or other defaults of the stevedore,” id., at 168, and to foreclose liability “based on a theory of unseaworthiness or nondelegable duty,” id., at 172. Agreeing with the Court, Justice Powell further observed that imposing such a duty — in light of the stevedore-employer’s right to receive reimbursement for its payment of statutory compensation if a longshoreman prevails in a § 5(b) action against a vessel, see Edmonds v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 443 U. S., at 269-270— would “decrease significantly the incentives toward safety of the party in the best position to prevent injuries.” Scindia Steam, supra, at 181 (concurring opinion); see also Edmonds, supra, at 274 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). It is also worth noting that an injured longshoreman’s acceptance of statutory compensation operates as an assignment to the stevedore-employer of the longshoreman’s right to bring suit against the vessel, so long as the longshoreman does not sue within six months of accepting compensation. 33 U. S. C. § 933(b). Were we to have accepted the longshoreman’s contentions in Scindia Steam, we would have run the risk of promoting the kind of collateral litigation between stevedores and vessels (albeit in a different guise) that had consumed an intolerable amount of litigation costs prior to the 1972 Amendments. See Gilmore & Black §6-46, at 411.
The foregoing principles, while taken from Scindia Steam’s examination of the vessel’s duty to intervene, bear as well on the nature of the vessel’s turnover duty, and hence on the case before us. We consider first Hewlett's view that a vessel must make reasonable inspections during stevedoring operations to ensure a proper stow and to detect any hazards or defects before they become hidden. The beneficiaries of this proposed duty would be longshoremen who unload or otherwise deal with the cargo at later ports. But if, as we held in Scindia Steam, a vessel need not supervise or inspect ongoing cargo operations for the benefit of longshoremen then on board, it would make little sense to impose the same obligation for the benefit of longshoremen at subsequent ports. In practical effect, then, adopting Howlett’s proposal would impose inconsistent standards upon shipowners as to different sets of longshoremen, and would render much of our holding in Scindia Steam an empty gesture.
These concerns are mitigated somewhat when a longshoreman, such as Howlett, works on cargo stowed in a foreign port and undisturbed by longshoremen in a prior American port of call. Foreign longshoremen are not covered by the Act, so requiring vessels to supervise and inspect a foreign stevedore’s ongoing operations would not be inconsistent with the precise rule laid down in Scindia Steam. This consideration, however, does not support imposing broader duties upon vessels to inspect cargo loading operations in foreign ports. It is settled maritime custom and practice that the stevedore exercises primary control over the details of a cargo operation, see Oregon Stevedoring, supra, at 322-323, and we are given no reason to believe that this is any less true in foreign ports than in domestic ports.
That is not to say, of course, that the vessel and its crew remain detached from cargo operations altogether. Most vessels take responsibility, for instance, for preparing a stowage plan, which governs where each cargo will be stowed on the ship. See generally C. Sauerbier & R. Meurn, Marine Cargo Operations 217-239 (2d ed. 1985). But it is the stevedore, an independent contractor hired for its expertise in the stowage and handling of cargo, that is charged with actual implementation of the plan. To impose a duty upon vessels to exercise scrutiny over a cargo loading operation to discover defects that may become hidden when the stow is complete would require vessels to inject themselves into matters beyond their ordinary province. See Williams, Shipowner Liability for Improperly Stowed Cargo: Federal Courts at Sea on the Standard of Care Owed to Off-Loading Longshoremen, 17 Tulane Mar. L. J. 185,198-199 (1993); contra Turner v. Japan Lines, Ltd., 651 F. 2d, at 1304 (vessel “can ensure safety by choosing a reliable foreign stevedore [and] supervising its work when necessary”). The proposed rule would undermine Congress’ intent in § 5(b) to eliminate the vessel’s nondelegable duty to protect longshoremen from the negligence of others. See Scindia Steam, 451 U. S., at 168-169.
We next consider Howlett’s view that a vessel must make reasonable inspections after the completion of stevedoring operations to discover hazards in the stow. There is good reason to doubt that adopting this rule would have much practical import. Any hazard uncovered by a shipowner who inspects a completed stow would, as a matter of course, be discovered in a subsequent port by a stevedore “reasonably competent in the performance of his work.” Id., at 167. As discussed above, shipowners engage a stevedore for its expertise in cargo operations and are entitled to assume that a competent stevedore will be able to identify and cope with defects in the stow. See id., at 171; Hugev v. Dampskisaktieselskabet Int’l, 170 F. Supp., at 609-610. Once loading operations are complete, it follows that any dangers arising from an improper stow would be “at least as apparent to the [stevedore] as to the [shipowner].” Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc. v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd., 369 U. S., at 366 (Stewart, J., dissenting). Because there can be no recovery under § 5(b) for a vessel’s failure to warn of dangers that would be apparent to a longshoreman of reasonable competence, Scindia Steam, supra, at 167, nothing would be accomplished by imposing a duty upon vessels to inspect the stow upon completion of cargo operations. That is reason enough to reject it.
For the purposes of delineating the scope of a shipowner’s turnover duty, then, the cargo stow is separate and distinct from other aspects of the ship. When between ports, the vessel and its crew have direct access to (and control over) the ship itself and its gear, equipment, and tools. The vessel’s responsibilities to inspect these areas of the ship are commensurate with its access and control, bearing in mind, of course, that negligence, rather than unseaworthiness, is the controlling standard where longshoremen are concerned. Because the vessel does not exercise the same degree of operational control over, and does not have the same access to, the cargo stow, its duties with respect to the stow are limited by comparison. See Robertson v. Tokai Shosen K. K., 655 F. Supp. 152, 154 (ED Pa.), aff’d, 835 F. 2d 490 (CA3 1987), cert. denied, 486 U. S. 1007 (1988).
In sum, the vessel’s turnover duty to warn of latent defects in the cargo stow and cargo area is a narrow one. The duty attaches only to latent hazards, defined as hazards that are not known to the stevedore and that would be neither obvious to nor anticipated by a skilled stevedore in the competent performance of its work. Scindia Steam, 451 U. S., at 167. Furthermore, the duty encompasses only those hazards that “are known to the vessel or should be known to it in the exercise of reasonable care.” Ibid. Contrary to Howlett’s submission, however, the exercise of reasonable care does not require the shipowner to supervise the ongoing operations of the loading stevedore (or other stevedores who handle the cargo before its arrival in port) or to inspect the completed stow.
Ill
We turn to the proper disposition of this case. As the Court of Appeals did not issue an opinion, we have before us only the District Court’s statement of its reasons for granting summary judgment in favor of Birkdale. The vessel having been under no obligation to supervise and inspect the cargo loading operations, and no other theory for charging the vessel with constructive knowledge having been advanced, the District Court was correct to inquire whether the vessel had actual knowledge of the tween deck’s condition. The District Court found it undisputed that there was no actual knowledge. At this stage of the proceedings, however, we cannot conclude that summary judgment can rest on this ground. There is sufficient evidence in the record to support a permissible inference that, during the loading process, some crew members, who might have held positions such that their knowledge should be attributed to the vessel, did in fact observe the plastic on the tween deck. And the District Court’s alternative theory that even if some crew members were aware of the condition during loading operations, then the condition also would have been open and obvious to a stevedore during unloading operations, may prove faulty as well, being premised on the state of affairs when the vessel took on cargo, not during discharge at the port where Howlett was injured.
All this does not mean that the vessel is not entitled to summary judgment. Howlett’s own witnesses stated that the plastic was visible, even from the top deck, during unloading operations. Howlett must overcome these submissions, for even assuming the vessel had knowledge of the tween deck’s condition, he must further demonstrate that the alleged hazard would have been neither obvious to nor anticipated by a skilled and competent stevedore at the discharge port. This contention, however, was not addressed by the District Court and was not explored in detail here. We think it the better course to remand the case to the Court of Appeals so that it, or the District Court, can address in the first instance these and other relevant points upon a review of the entire record made in support of the vessel’s motion for summary judgment.
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The National Firearms Act makes it unlawful for any person to possess a machinegun that is not properly registered with the Federal Government. Petitioner contends that, to convict him under the Act, the Government should have been required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew the weapon he possessed had the characteristics that brought it within the statutory definition of a machinegun. We agree and accordingly reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
The National Firearms Act (Act), 26 U. S. C. §§5801-5872, imposes strict registration requirements on statutorily defined “firearms.” The Act includes within the term “firearm” a machinegun, § 5845(a)(6), and further defines a machinegun as “any weapon which shoots,... or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger,” § 5845(b). Thus, any fully automatic weapon is a “firearm” within the meaning of the Act. Under the Act, all firearms must be registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record maintained by the Secretary of the Treasury. § 5841. Section 5861(d) makes it a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, see § 5871, for any person to possess a firearm that is not properly registered.
Upon executing a search warrant at petitioner’s home, local police and agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) recovered, among other things, an AR-15 rifle. The AR-15 is the civilian version of the military’s M-16 rifle, and is, unless modified, a semiautomatic weapon. The M-16, in contrast, is a selective fire rifle that allows the operator, by rotating a selector switch, to choose semiautomatic or automatic fire. Many M-16 parts are interchangeable with those in the AR-15 and can be used to convert the AR-15 into an automatic weapon. No doubt to inhibit such conversions, the AR-15 is manufactured with a metal stop on its receiver that will prevent an M-16 selector switch, if installed, from rotating to the fully automatic position. The metal stop on petitioner’s rifle, however, had been filed away, and the rifle had been assembled with an M-16 selector switch and several other M-16 internal parts, including a hammer, disconnector, and trigger. Suspecting that the AR-15 had been modified to be capable of fully automatic fire, BATF agents seized the weapon. Petitioner subsequently was indicted for unlawful possession of an unregistered machinegun in violation of § 5861(d).
At trial, BATF agents testified that when the AR-15 was tested, it fired more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger. It was undisputed that the weapon was not registered as required by § 5861(d). Petitioner testified that the rifle had never fired automatically when it was in his possession. He insisted that the AR-15 had operated only semiautomatically, and even then imperfectly, often requiring manual ejection of the spent casing and chambering of the next round. • According to petitioner, his alleged ignorance of any automatic firing capability should have shielded him from criminal liability for his failure to register the weapon. He requested the District Court to instruct the jury that, to establish a violation of § 5861(d), the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant “knew that the gun would fire fully automatically.” 1 App. to Brief for Appellant in No. 91-5033 (CA10), p. 42.
The District Court rejected petitioner’s proposed instruction and instead charged the jury as follows:
“The Government need not prove the defendant knows he’s dealing with a weapon possessing every last characteristic [which subjects it] to the regulation. It would be enough to prove he knows that he is dealing with a dangerous device of a type as would alert one to the likelihood of regulation.” Tr. 465.
Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to five years’ probation and a $5,000 fine.
The Court of Appeals affirmed. Relying on its decision in United States v. Mittleider, 835 F. 2d 769 (CA10 1987), cert. denied, 485 U. S. 980 (1988), the court concluded that the Government need not prove a defendant’s knowledge of a weapon’s physical properties to obtain a conviction under § 5861(d). 971 F. 2d 608, 612-613 (CA10 1992). We granted certiorari, 508 U. S. 939 (1993), to resolve a conflict in the Courts of Appeals concerning the mens rea required under § 5861(d).
II
A
Whether or not § 5861(d) requires proof that a defendant knew of the characteristics of his weapon that made it a “firearm” under the Act is a question of statutory construction; As we observed in Liparota v. United States, 471 U. S. 419 (1985), “[t]he definition of the elements of a criminal offense is entrusted to the legislature, particularly in the case of federal crimes, which are solely creatures of statute.” Id., at 424 (citing United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch 32 (1812)). Thus, we have long recognized that determining the mental state required for commission of a federal crime requires “construction of the statute and... inference of the intent of Congress.” United States v. Balint, 258 U. S. 250, 253 (1922). See also Liparota, supra, at 423.
The language of the statute, the starting place in our inquiry, see Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U. S. 249, 253-254 (1992), provides little explicit guidance in this case. Section 5861(d) is silent concerning the mens rea required for a violation. It states simply that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person... to receive or possess a firearm which is not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.” 26 U. S. C. § 5861(d). Nevertheless, silence on this point by itself does not necessarily suggest that Congress intended to dispense with a conventional mens rea element, which would require that the defendant know the facts that make his conduct illegal. See Balint, supra, at 251 (stating that traditionally, “scienter” was a necessary element in every crime). See also n. 3, infra. On the contrary, we must construe the statute in light of the background rules of the common law, see United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U. S. 422, 436-437 (1978), in which the requirement of some mens rea for a crime is firmly embedded. As we have observed, “[t]he existence of a mens rea is the rule of, rather than the exception to, the principles of Anglo-American criminal jurisprudence.” Id., at 436 (internal quotation marks omitted). See also Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 250 (1952) (“The contention that an injury can amount to a crime only when inflicted by intention is no provincial or transient notion. It is as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil”).
There can be no doubt that this established concept has influenced our interpretation of criminal statutes. Indeed, we have noted that the common-law rule requiring mens rea has been “followed in regard to statutory crimes even where the statutory definition did not in terms include it.” Balint, supra, at 251-252. Relying on the strength of the traditional rule, we have stated that offenses that require no mens rea generally are disfavored, Liparota, supra, at 426, and have suggested that some indication of congressional intent, express or implied, is required to dispense with mens rea as an element of a crime. Cf. United States Gypsum, supra, at 438; Morissette, supra, at 263.
According to the Government, however, the nature and purpose of the Act suggest that the presumption favoring mens rea does not apply to this case. The Government argues that Congress intended the Act to regulate and restrict the circulation of dangerous weapons. Consequently, in the Government’s view, this case fits in a line of precedent concerning what we have termed “public welfare” or “regulatory” offenses, in which we have understood Congress to impose a form of strict criminal liability through statutes that do not require the defendant to know the facts that make his conduct illegal. In construing such statutes, we have inferred from silence that Congress did not intend to require proof of mens rea to establish an offense.
For example, in Balint, we concluded that the Narcotic Act of 1914, which was intended in part to minimize the spread of addictive drugs by criminalizing undocumented sales of certain narcotics, required proof only that the defendant knew that he was selling drugs, not that he knew the specific items he had sold were “narcotics” within the ambit of the statute. See Balint, supra, at 254. Cf. United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U. S. 277, 281 (1943) (stating in dicta that a statute criminalizing the shipment of adulterated or misbranded drugs did not require knowledge that the items were misbranded or adulterated). As we explained in Dotterweich, Balint dealt with “a now familiar type of legislation whereby penalties serve as effective means of regulation. Such legislation dispenses with the conventional requirement for criminal conduct — awareness of some wrongdoing.” 320 U. S., at 280-281. See also Morissette, supra, at 252-256.
Such public welfare offenses have been created by Congress, and recognized by this Court, in “limited circumstances.” United States Gypsum, supra, at 487. Typically, our cases recognizing such offenses involve statutes that regulate potentially harmful or injurious items. Cf. United States v. International Minerals & Chemical Corp., 402 U. S. 558, 564-565 (1971) (characterizing Balint and similar cases as involving statutes regulating “dangerous or deleterious devices or products or obnoxious waste materials”). In such situations, we have reasoned that as long as a defendant knows that he is dealing with a dangerous device of a character that places him “in responsible relation to a public danger,” Dotterweich, supra, at 281, he should be alerted to the probability of strict regulation, and we have assumed that in such cases Congress intended to place the burden on the defendant to “ascertain at his peril whether [his conduct] comes within the inhibition of the statute.” Balint, supra, at 254. Thus, we essentially have relied on the nature of the statute and the particular character of the items regulated to determine whether congressional silence concerning the mental element of the offense should be interpreted as dispensing with conventional mens rea requirements. See generally Morissette, supra, at 252-260.
B
The Government argues that § 5861(d) defines precisely the sort of regulatory offense described in Balint. In this view, all guns, whether or not they are statutory “firearms,” are dangerous devices that put gun owners on notice that they must determine at their hazard whether their weapons come within the scope of the Act. On this understanding, the District Court’s instruction in this case was correct, because a conviction can rest simply on proof that a defendant knew he possessed a “firearm” in the ordinary sense of the term.
The Government seeks support for its position from our decision in United States v. Freed, 401 U. S. 601 (1971), which involved a prosecution for possession of unregistered grenades under § 5861(d). The defendant knew that the items in his possession were grenades, and we concluded that § 5861(d) did not require the Government to prove the defendant also knew that the grenades were unregistered. Id., at 609. To be sure, in deciding that mens rea was not required with respect to that element of the offense, we suggested that the Act “is a regulatory measure in the interest of the public safety, which may well be premised on the theory that one would hardly be surprised to learn that possession of hand grenades is not an innocent act.” Ibid. Grenades, we explained, “are highly dangerous offensive weapons, no less dangerous than the narcotics involved in United States v. Balint.” Ibid. But that reasoning provides little support for dispensing with mens rea in this case.
As the Government concedes, Freed did not address the issue presented here. In Freed, we decided only that § 5861(d) does not require proof of knowledge that a firearm is unregistered. The question presented by a defendant who possesses a weapon that is a “firearm” for purposes of the Act, but who knows only that he has a “firearm” in the general sense of the term, was not raised or considered. And our determination that a defendant need not know that his weapon is unregistered suggests no conclusion concerning whether § 5861(d) requires the defendant to know of the features that make his weapon a statutory “firearm”; different elements of the same offense can require different mental states. See Liparota, 471 U. S., at 428, n. 5; United States v. Bailey, 444 U. S. 394, 405-406 (1980). See also W. La-Fave & A. Scott, Handbook on Criminal Law 194-195 (1972). Moreover, our analysis in Freed likening the Act to the public welfare statute in Balint rested entirely on the assumption that the defendant knew that he was dealing with hand grenades — that is, that he knew he possessed a particularly dangerous type of weapon (one within the statutory definition of a “firearm”), possession of which was not entirely “innocent” in and of itself. 401 U. S., at 609. The predicate for that analysis is eliminated when, as in this case, the very question to be decided is whether the defendant must know of the particular characteristics that make his weapon a statutory firearm.
Notwithstanding these distinctions, the Government urges that Freed’s logic applies because guns, no less than grenades, are highly dangerous devices that should alert their owners to the probability of regulation. But the gap between Freed and this case is too wide to bridge. In glossing over the distinction between grenades and guns, the. Government ignores the particular care we have taken to avoid construing a statute to dispense with mens rea where doing so would “criminalize a broad range of apparently innocent conduct.” Liparota, 471 U. S., at 426. In Liparota, we considered a statute that made unlawful the unauthorized acquisition or possession of food stamps. We determined that the statute required proof that the defendant knew his possession of food stamps was unauthorized, largely because dispensing with such a mens rea requirement would have resulted in reading the statute to outlaw a number of apparently innocent acts. Ibid. Our conclusion that the statute should not be treated as defining a public welfare offense rested on the commonsense distinction that a “food stamp can hardly be compared to a hand grenade.” Id., at 433.
Neither, in our view, can all guns be compared to hand grenades. Although the contrast is certainly not as stark as that presented in Liparota, the fact remains that there is a long tradition of widespread lawful gun ownership by private individuals in this country. Such a tradition did not apply to the possession of hand grenades in Freed or to the selling of dangerous drugs that we considered in Balint. See also International Minerals, 402 U. S., at 563-565; Balint, 258 U. S., at 254. In fact, in Freed we construed § 5861(d) under the assumption that “one would hardly be surprised to learn that possession of hand grenades is not an innocent act.” Freed, supra, at 609. Here, the Government essentially suggests that we should interpret the section under the altogether different assumption that “one would hardly be surprised to learn that owning a gun is not an innocent act.” That proposition is simply not supported by common experience. Guns in general are not “deleterious devices or products or obnoxious waste materials,” International Minerals, supra, at 565, that put their owners on notice that they stand “in responsible relation to a public danger,” Dotterweich, 320 U. S., at 281.
The Government protests that guns, unlike food stamps, but like grenades and narcotics, are potentially harmful devices. Under this view, it seems that Liparota’s concern for criminalizing ostensibly innocuous conduct is inapplicable whenever an item is sufficiently dangerous — that is, dangerousness alone should alert an individual to probable regulation and justify treating a statute that regulates the dangerous device as dispensing with mens rea. But that an item is “dangerous,” in some general sense, does not necessarily suggest, as the Government seems to assume, that it is not also entirely innocent. Even dangerous items can, in some cases, be so commonplace and generally available that we would not consider them to alert individuals to the likelihood of strict regulation. As suggested above, despite their potential for harm, guns generally can be owned in perfect innocence. Of course, we might surely classify certain categories of guns — no doubt including the machineguns, sawed-off shotguns, and artillery pieces that Congress has subjected to regulation — as items the ownership of which would have the same quasi-suspect character we attributed to owning hand grenades in Freed. But precisely because guns falling outside those categories traditionally have been widely accepted as lawful possessions, their destructive potential, while perhaps even greater than that of some items we would classify along with narcotics and hand grenades, cannot be said to put gun owners sufficiently on notice of the likelihood of regulation to justify interpreting § 5861(d) as not requiring proof of knowledge of a weapon’s characteristics.
On a slightly different tack, the Government suggests that guns are subject to an array of regulations at the federal, state, and local levels that put gun owners on notice that they must determine the characteristics of their weapons and comply with all legal requirements. But regulation in itself is not sufficient to place gun ownership in the category of the sale of narcotics in Balint. The food stamps at issue in Liparota were subject to comprehensive regulations, yet we did not understand the statute there to dispense with a mens rea requirement. Moreover, despite the overlay of legal restrictions on gun ownership, we question whether regulations on guns are sufficiently intrusive that they im-. pinge upon the common experience that owning a gun is usually licit and blameless conduct. Roughly 50 percent of American homes contain at least one firearm of some sort, and in the vast majority of States, buying a shotgun or rifle is a simple transaction that would not alert a person to regulation any more than would buying a car.
If we were to accept as a general rule the Government’s suggestion that dangerous and regulated items place their owners under an obligation to inquire at their peril into compliance with regulations, we would undoubtedly reach some untoward results. Automobiles, for example, might also be termed “dangerous” devices and are highly regulated at both the state and federal levels. Congress might see fit to criminalize the violation of certain regulations concerning automobiles, and thus might make it a crime to operate a vehicle without a properly functioning emission control system. But we probably would hesitate to conclude on the basis of silence that Congress intended a prison term to apply to a car owner whose vehicle’s emissions levels, wholly unbeknownst to him, began to exceed legal limits between regular inspection dates.
Here, there can be little doubt that, as in Liparota, the Government’s construction of the statute potentially would impose criminal sanctions on a class of persons whose mental state — ignorance of the characteristics of weapons in their possession — makes their actions entirely innocent. The Government does not dispute the contention that virtually any semiautomatic weapon may be converted, either by internal modification or, in some cases, simply by wear and tear, into a machinegun within the meaning of the Act. Cf. United States v. Anderson, 885 F. 2d 1248, 1251, 1253-1254 (CA5 1989) (en banc). Such a gun may give no externally visible indication that it is fully automatic. See United States v. Herbert, 698 F. 2d 981, 986 (CA9), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 821 (1983). But in the Government’s view, any person who has purchased what he believes to be a semiautomatic rifle or handgun, or who simply has inherited a gun from a relative and left it untouched in an attic or basement, can be subject to imprisonment, despite absolute ignorance of the gun’s firing capabilities, if the gun turns out to be an automatic.
We concur in the Fifth Circuit’s conclusion on this point: “It is unthinkable to us that Congress intended to subject such law-abiding, well-intentioned citizens to a possible ten-year term of imprisonment if... what they genuinely and reasonably believed was a conventional semi-automatic [weapon] turns out to have worn down into or been secretly modified to be a fully automatic weapon.” Anderson, supra, at 1254. As we noted in Morissette, the “purpose and obvious effect of doing away with the requirement of a guilty intent is to ease the prosecution’s path to conviction.” 342 U. S., at 263. We are reluctant to impute that purpose to Congress where, as here, it would mean easing the path to convicting persons whose conduct would not even alert them to the probability of strict regulation in the form of a statute such as § 5861(d).
C
The potentially harsh penalty attached to violation of § 5861(d) — up to 10 years’ imprisonment — confirms our reading of the Act. Historically, the penalty imposed under a statute has been a significant consideration in determining whether the statute should be construed as dispensing with mens rea. Certainly, the cases that first defined the concept of the public welfare offense almost uniformly involved statutes that provided for only light penalties such as fines or short jail sentences, not imprisonment in the state penitentiary. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Raymond, 97 Mass. 567 (1867) (fine of up to $200 or six months in jail, or both); Commonwealth v. Fatten, 91 Mass. 489 (1864) (fine); People v. Snowburger, 113 Mich. 86, 71 N. W. 497 (1897) (fine of up to $500 or incarceration in county jail).
As commentators have pointed out, the small penalties attached to such offenses logically complemented the absence of a mens tea requirement: In a system that generally requires a “vicious will” to establish a crime, 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *21, imposing severe punishments for offenses that require no mens rea would seem incongruous. See Sayre, Public Welfare Offenses, 33 Colum. L. Rev. 55, 70 (1933). Indeed, some courts justified the absence of mens rea in part on the basis that the offenses did not bear the same punishments as “infamous crimes,” Tenement House Dept. v. McDevitt, 215 N. Y. 160, 168, 109 N. E. 88, 90 (1915) (Cardozo, J.), and questioned whether imprisonment was compatible with the reduced culpability required for such regulatory offenses. See, e. g., People ex rel. Price v. Sheffield Farms-Slawson-Decker Co., 225 N. Y. 25, 32-33, 121 N. E. 474, 477 (1918) (Cardozo, J.); id., at 35, 121 N. E., at 478 (Crane, J., concurring) (arguing that imprisonment for a crime that requires no mens rea would stretch the law regarding acts mala prohibita beyond its limitations). Similarly, commentators collecting the early cases have argued that offenses punishable by imprisonment cannot be understood to be public welfare offenses, but must require mens rea. See R. Perkins, Criminal Law 793-798 (2d ed. 1969) (suggesting that the penalty should be the starting point in determining whether a statute describes a public welfare offense); Sayre, supra, at 72 (“Crimes punishable with prison sentences... ordinarily require proof of a guilty intent”).
In rehearsing the characteristics of the public welfare offense, we, too, have included in our consideration the punishments imposed and have noted that “penalties commonly are relatively small, and conviction does no grave damage to an offender’s reputation.” Morissette, 342 U. S., at 256. We have even recognized that it was “[u]nder such considerations” that courts have construed statutes to dispense with mens rea. Ibid.
Our characterization of the public welfare offense in Morissette hárdly seems apt, however, for a crime that is a felony, as is violation of § 5861(d). After all, “felony” is, as we noted in distinguishing certain common-law crimes from public welfare offenses, “ ‘as bad a word as you can give to man or thing.’” Id., at 260 (quoting 2 F. Pollock & F. Maitland, History of English Law 465 (2d ed. 1899)). Close adherence to the early cases described above might suggest that punishing a violation as a felony is simply incompatible with the theory of the public welfare offense. In this view, absent a clear statement from Congress that mens rea is not required, we should not apply the public welfare offense rationale to interpret any statute defining a felony offense as dispensing with mens rea. But see United States v. Balint, 258 U. S. 250 (1922).
We need not adopt such a definitive rule of construction to decide this case, however. Instead, we note only that where, as here, dispensing with mens rea would require the defendant to have knowledge only of traditionally lawful conduct, a severe penalty is a further factor tending to suggest that Congress did not intend to eliminate a mens rea requirement. In such a case, the usual presumption that a defendant must know the facts that make his conduct illegal should apply.
Ill
In short, we conclude that the background rule of the common law favoring mens rea should govern interpretation of § 5861(d) in this case. Silence does not suggest that Congress dispensed with mens rea for the element of § 5861(d) at issue here. Thus, to obtain a conviction, the Government should have been required to prove that petitioner knew of the features of his AR-15 that brought it within the scope of the Act.
We emphasize that our holding is a narrow one. As in our prior cases, our reasoning depends upon a commonsense evaluation of the nature of the particular device or substance Congress has subjected to regulation and the expectations that individuals may legitimately have in dealing with the regulated items. In addition, we think that the penalty attached to § 5861(d) suggests that Congress did not intend to eliminate a mens rea requirement for violation of the section. As we noted in Morissette: “Neither this Court nor, so far as we are aware, any other has undertaken to delineate a precise line or set forth comprehensive criteria for distinguishing between crimes that require a mental element and crimes that do not.” 342 U. S., at 260. We attempt no definition here, either. We note only that our holding depends critically on our view that if Congress had intended to make outlaws of gun owners who were wholly ignorant of the offending characteristics of their weapons, and to subject them to lengthy prison terms, it would have spoken more clearly to that effect. Cf. United States v. Harris, 959 F. 2d 246, 261 (CADC), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 932 (1992).
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
As used here, the terms “automatic” and “fully automatic” refer to a weapon that fires repeatedly with a single pull of the trigger. That is, once its trigger is depressed, the weapon will automatically continue to fire until its trigger is released or the ammunition is exhausted. Such weapons are “machineguns” within the meaning of the Act. We use the term “semiautomatic” to designate a weapon that fires only one shot with each pull of the trigger, and which requires no manual manipulation by the operator to place another round in the chamber after each round is fired.
In what the parties regard as a mistranscription, the transcript contains the word “suggested” instead of “which subjects it.”
By interpreting such public welfare offenses to require at least that the defendant know that he is dealing with some dangerous or deleterious substance, we have avoided construing criminal statutes to impose a rigorous form of strict liability. See, e. g., United, States v. International Minerals & Chemical Corp., 402 U. S. 558, 563-564 (1971) (suggesting that if a person shipping add mistakenly thought that he was shipping distilled water, he would not violate a statute criminalizing undocumented shipping of adds). True strict liability might suggest that the defendant need not know even that he was dealing with a dangerous item. Nevertheless, we have referred to public welfare offenses as “dispensing with” or “eliminating” a mens rea requirement or “mental element,” see, e. g., Morissette, 342 U. S., at 260, 263; United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U. S. 277, 281 (1943), and have described them as strict liability crimes, United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U. S. 422, 437 (1978). While use of the term “strict liability” is really a misnomer, we have interpreted statutes defining public welfare offenses to eliminate the requirement of mens rea; that is, the requirement of a “guilty mind” with respect to an element of a crime. Under such statutes we have not required that the defendant know the facts that make his conduct fit the definition of the offense. Generally speaking, such knowledge is necessary to establish mens rea, as is reflected in the maxim ignorantia facti excusat. See generally J. Hawley & M. McGregor, Criminal Law 26-30 (1899); R. Perkins, Criminal Law 786-786 (2d ed. 1969); G. Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part 113— 174 (1963).' Cf. Queen v. Tolson, 23 Q. B. 168, 187 (1889) (Stephen, J.) (“[I]t may, I think, be maintained that in every case knowledge of fact [when not appearing in the statute] is to some extent an element of criminality as much as competent age and sanity”).
A grenade is a “firearm” under the Act. 26 U. S. C. §§ 5845(a)(8), 5845(f)(1)(B).
The dissent’s assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, the Government’s position, “[accurately identified,” post, at 632, is precisely that “guns in general” are dangerous items. The. Government, like the dissent, cites Sipes v. United States, 321 F. 2d 174,179 (CA8), cert. denied, 375 U. S. 913 (1963), for the proposition that a defendant’s knowledge that the item he possessed “was a gun” is sufficient for a conviction under § 5861(d). Brief for United States 21. Indeed, the Government argues that “guns” should be placed in the same category as the misbranded drugs in Dotterweich and the narcotics in Balint because “‘one would hardly be surprised to learn’ (Freed, 401 U. S. at 609) that there are laws that affect one’s rights of gun ownership.” Brief for United States 22. The dissent relies upon the Government’s repeated contention that the statute requires knowledge that “the item at issue was highly dangerous and of a type likely to be subject to regulation.” Id., at 9. But that assertion merely patterns the general language we have used to describe the mens rea requirement in public welfare offenses and amounts to no more than an assertion that the statute should be treated as defining a public welfare offense.
The dissent asserts that the question is not whether all guns are deleterious devices, but whether a gun “such as the one possessed by petitioner,” post, at 632 (which the dissent characterizes as a “semiautomatic weapon that [is] readily convertible into a machinegun,” post, at 624, 633, 640), is such a device. If the dissent intends to suggest that the category of readily convertible semiautomatics provides the benchmark for defining the knowledge requirement for § 5861(d), it is difficult to see how it derives that class of weapons as a standard. As explained above, see n. 5, supra, the Government’s argument has nothing to do with this ad hoc category of weapons. And the statute certainly does not suggest that any significance should attach to readily convertible semiautomatics, for that class bears no relation to the definitions in the Act. Indeed, in the absence of any definition, it is not at all clear what the contours of this category would be. The parties assume that virtually all semiautomatics may be converted into automatics, and limiting the class to those “readily” convertible provides no real guidance concerning the required mens rea. In short, every owner of a semiautomatic rifle or handgun would potentially meet such a mens rea test.
But the dissent apparently does not conceive of the mens rea requirement in terms of specific categories of weapons at all, and rather views it as a more fluid concept that does not require delineation of any concrete elements of knowledge that will apply consistently from case to case. The dissent sees no need to define a class of items the knowing possession of which satisfies the mens rea element of the offense, for in the dissent’s view the exact content of the knowledge requirement can be left to the jury in each case. As long as the jury concludes that the item in a given case is “sufficiently dangerous to alert [the defendant] to the likelihood of regulation,” post, at 637, the knowledge requirement is satisfied. See also post, at 624, 639, 640. But the mens rea requirement under a criminal statute is a question of law, to be determined by the court. Our decisions suggesting that public welfare offenses require that the defendant know that he stands in “responsible relation to a public danger,” Dotterweich, 320 U. S., at 281, in no way suggest that what constitutes a public danger is a jury question. It is for courts, through interpretation of the statute, to define the mens rea required for a conviction. That task cannot be reduced to setting a general “standard,” post, at 637, that leaves» it to the jury to determine, based presumably on the jurors’ personal opinions,, whether the items involved in a particular prosecution are sufficiently dangerous to place a person on notice of regulation.
Moreover, as our discussion above should make clear, to determine as a threshold matter whether a particular statute defines a public welfare offense, a court must have in view some category of dangerous and deleterious devices that will be assumed to alert an individual that he stands in “responsible relation to a public danger.” Dotterweich, supra, at 281. The truncated mens rea requirement we have described applies precisely because the court has determined that the statute regulates in a field where knowing possession of some general class of items should alert individuals to probable regulation. Under the dissent’s
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion,
in which The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join.
Los Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(C) (1983), as amended, prohibits “the establishment or maintenance of more than one adult entertainment business in the same building, structure or portion thereof.” Respondents, two adult establishments that each operated an adult bookstore and an adult video arcade in the same building, filed a suit under Rev. Stat. § 1979,42 U. S. C. § 1983 (1994 ed., Supp. V), alleging that § 12.70(C) violates the First Amendment and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The District Court granted summary judgment to respondents, finding that the city of Los Angeles’ prohibition was a content-based regulation of speech that failed strict scrutiny. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, but on different grounds. It held that, even if § 12.70(C) were a content-neutral regulation, the city failed to demonstrate that the prohibition was designed to serve a substantial government interest. Specifically, the Court of Appeals found that the city failed to present evidence upon which it could reasonably rely to demonstrate a link between multiple-use adult establishments and negative secondary effects. Therefore, the Court of Appeals held the Los Angeles prohibition on such establishments invalid under Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41 (1986), and its precedents interpreting that case. 222 F. 3d 719, 723-728 (2000). We reverse and remand. The city of Los Angeles may reasonably rely on a study it conducted some years before enacting the present version of § 12.70(C) to demonstrate that its ban on multiple-use adult establishments serves its interest in reducing crime.
I
In 1977, the city of Los Angeles conducted a comprehensive study of adult establishments and concluded that concentrations of adult businesses are associated with higher rates of prostitution, robbery, assaults, and thefts in surrounding communities. See App. 35-162 (Los Angeles Dept. of City Planning, Study of the Effects of the Concentration of Adult Entertainment Establishments in the City of Los Angeles (City Plan Case No. 26475, City Council File No. 74-4521-S.3, June 1977)). Accordingly, the city enacted an ordinance prohibiting the establishment, substantial enlargement, or transfer of ownership of an adult arcade, bookstore, cabaret, motel, theater, or massage parlor or a place for sexual encounters within 1,000 feet of another such enterprise or within 500 feet of any religious institution, school, or public park. See Los Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(C) (1978).
There is evidence that the intent of the city council when enacting this prohibition was not only to disperse distinct adult establishments housed in separate buildings, but also to disperse distinct adult businesses operated under common ownership and housed in a single structure. See App. 29 (Los Angeles Dept, of City Planning, Amendment — Proposed Ordinance to Prohibit the Establishment of More than One Adult Entertainment Business at a Single Location (City Plan Case No. 26475, City Council File No. 82-0155, Jan. 18, 1983)). The ordinance the city enacted, however, directed that “[t]he distance between any two adult entertainment businesses shall be measured in a straight line . . . from the closest exterior structural wall of each business.” Los Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(D) (1978). Subsequent to enactment, the city realized that this method of calculating distances created a loophole permitting the concentration of multiple adult enterprises in a single structure.
Concerned that allowing an adult-oriented department store to replace a strip of adult establishments could defeat the goal of the original ordinance, the city council amended § 12.70(C) by adding a prohibition on “the establishment or maintenance of more than one adult entertainment business in the same building, structure or portion thereof.” Los Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(C) (1983). The amended ordinance defines an “Adult Entertainment Business” as an adult arcade, bookstore, cabaret, motel, theater, or massage parlor or a place for sexual encounters, and notes that each of these enterprises “shall constitute a separate adult entertainment business even if operated in conjunction with another adult entertainment business at the same establishment.” § 12.70(B)(17). The ordinance uses the term “business” to refer to certain types of goods or services sold in adult establishments, rather than the establishment itself. Relevant for purposes of this case are also the ordinance’s definitions of adult bookstores and arcades. An “Adult Bookstore” is an operation that “has as a substantial portion of its stock-in-trade and offers for sale” printed matter and videocassettes that emphasize the depiction of specified sexual activities. § 12.70(B)(2)(a). An adult arcade is an operation where, “for any form of consideration,” five or fewer patrons together may view films or videocassettes that emphasize the depiction of specified sexual activities. § 12.70(B)(1).
Respondents, Alameda Books, Inc., and Highland Books, Inc., are two adult establishments operating in Los Angeles. Neither is located within 1,000 feet of another adult establishment or 500 feet of any religious institution, public park, or school. Each establishment occupies less than 3,000 square feet. Both respondents rent and sell sexually oriented products, including videocassettes. Additionally, both provide booths where patrons can view videoeassettes for a fee. Although respondents are located in different buildings, each operates its retail sales and rental operations in the same commercial space in which its video booths are located. There are no physical distinctions between the different operations within each establishment and each establishment has only one entrance. 222 F. 3d, at 721. Respondents concede they are openly operating in violation of § 12.70(C) of the city’s code, as amended. Brief for Respondents 7; Brief for Petitioner 9.
After a city building inspector found in 1995 that Alameda Books, Inc., was operating both as an adult bookstore and an adult arcade in violation of the city’s adult zoning regulations, respondents joined as plaintiffs and sued under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent enforcement of the ordinance. 222 F. 3d, at 721. At issue in this case is count I of the complaint, which alleges a facial violation of the First Amendment. Both the city and respondents filed cross-motions for summary judgment.
The District Court for the Central District of California initially denied both motions on the First Amendment issues in count I, concluding that there was “a genuine issue of fact whether the operation of a combination video rental and video viewing business leads to the harmful secondary effects associated with a concentration of separate businesses in a single urban area.” App. 255. After respondents filed a motion for reconsideration, however, the District Court found that Los Angeles’ prohibition on multiple-use adult establishments was not a content-neutral regulation of speech. App. to Pet. for Cert. 51. It reasoned that neither the city’s 1977 study nor a report cited in Hart Book Stores v. Edmisten, 612 F. 2d 821 (CA4 1979) (upholding a North Carolina statute that also banned multiple-use adult establishments), supported a reasonable belief that multiple-use adult establishments produced the secondary effects the city asserted as content-neutral justifications for its prohibition. App. to Pet. for Cert. 34-47. Therefore, the District Court proceeded to subject the Los Angeles ordinance to strict scrutiny. Because it felt that the city did not offer evidence to demonstrate that its prohibition is necessary to serve a compelling government interest, the District Court granted summary judgment for respondents and issued a permanent injunction enjoining the enforcement of the ordinance against respondents. Id., at 51.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, although on different grounds. The Court of Appeals determined that it did not have to reach the District Court’s decision that the Los Angeles ordinance was content based because, even if the ordinance were content neutral, the city failed to present evidence upon which it could reasonably rely to demonstrate that its regulation of multiple-use establishments is “designed to serve” the city’s substantial interest in reducing crime. The challenged ordinance was therefore invalid under Renton, 475 U. S. 41. 222 F. 3d, at 723-724. We granted certiorari, 532 U. S. 902 (2001), to clarify the standard for determining whether an ordinance serves a substantial government interest under Renton, supra.
II
In Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., supra, this Court considered the validity of a municipal ordinance that prohibited any adult movie theater from locating within 1,000 feet of any residential zone, family dwelling, church, park, or school. Our analysis of the ordinance proceeded in three steps. First, we found that the ordinance did not ban adult theaters altogether, but merely required that they be distanced from certain sensitive locations. The ordinance was properly analyzed, therefore, as a time, place, and manner regulation. Id., at 46. We next considered whether the ordinance was content neutral or content based. If the regulation were content based, it would be considered presumptively invalid and subject to strict scrutiny. Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U. S. 105, 115, 1x 18 (1991); Arkansas Writers’ Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S. 221, 230-231 (1987). We held, however, that the Renton ordinance was aimed not at the content of the films shown at adult theaters, but rather at the secondary effects of such theaters on the surrounding community, namely, at crime rates, property values, and the quality of the city’s neighborhoods. Therefore, the ordinance was deemed content neutral. Renton, supra, at 47-49. Finally, given this finding, we stated that the ordinance would be upheld so long as the city of Renton showed that its ordinance was designed to serve a substantial government interest and that reasonable alternative avenues of communication remained available. 475 U. S., at 50. We concluded that Renton had met this burden, and we upheld its ordinance. Id., at 51-54.
The Court of Appeals applied the same analysis to evaluate the Los Angeles ordinance challenged in this case. First, the Court of Appeals found that the Los Angeles ordinance was not a complete ban on adult entertainment establishments, but rather a sort of adult zoning regulation, which Renton considered a time, place, and manner regulation. 222 F. 3d, at 723. The Court of Appeals turned to the second step of the Renton analysis, but did not draw any conclusions about whether the Los Angeles ordinance was content based. It explained that, even if the Los Angeles ordinance were content neutral, the city had failed to demonstrate, as required by the third step of the Renton analysis, that its prohibition on multiple-use adult establishments was designed to serve its substantial interest in reducing crime. The Court of Appeals noted that the primary evidence relied upon by Los Angeles to demonstrate a link between combination adult businesses and harmful secondary effects was the 1977 study conducted by the city’s planning department. The Court of Appeals found, however, that the city could not rely on that study because it did not “ ‘supporft] a reasonable belief that [the] combination [of] businesses . . . produced harmful secondary effects of the type asserted.’ ” 222 F. 3d, at 724. For similar reasons, the Court of Appeals also rejected the city’s attempt to rely on a report on health conditions inside adult video arcades described in Hart Book Stores, supra, a case that upheld a North Carolina statute similar to the Los Angeles ordinance challenged in this case.
The central component of the 1977 study is a report on city crime patterns provided by the Los Angeles Police Department. That report indicated that, during the period from 1965 to 1975, certain crime rates grew much faster in Hollywood, which had the largest concentration of adult establishments in the city, than in the city of Los Angeles as a whole. For example, robberies increased 3 times faster and prostitution 15 times faster in Hollywood than citywide. App. 124-125.
The 1977 study also contains reports conducted directly by the staff of the Los Angeles Planning Department that examine the relationship between adult establishments and property values. These staff reports, however, are inconclusive. Not surprisingly, the parties focus their dispute before this Court on the report by the Los Angeles Police Department. Because we find that reducing crime is a substantial government interest and that the police department report’s conclusions regarding crime patterns may reasonably be relied upon to overcome summary judgment against the city, we also focus on the portion of the 1977 study drawn from the police department report.
The Court of Appeals found that the 1977 study did not reasonably support the inference that a concentration of adult operations within a single adult establishment produced greater levels of criminal activity because the study focused on the effect that a concentration of establishments — not a concentration of operations within a single establishment — had on crime rates. The Court of Appeals pointed out that the study treated combination adult bookstore/arcades as single establishments and did not study the effect of any separate-standing adult bookstore or arcade. 222 F. 3d, at 724.
The Court of Appeals misunderstood the implications of the 1977 study. While the study reveals that areas with high concentrations of adult establishments are associated with high crime rates, areas with high concentrations of adult establishments are also areas with high concentrations of adult operations, albeit each in separate establishments. It was therefore consistent with the findings of the 1977 study, and thus reasonable, for Los Angeles to suppose that a concentration of adult establishments is correlated with high crime rates because a concentration of operations in one locale draws, for example, a greater concentration of adult consumers to the neighborhood, and a high density of such consumers either attracts or generates criminal activity. The assumption behind this theory is that having a number of adult operations in one single adult establishment draws the same dense foot traffic as having a number of distinct adult establishments in close proximity, much as minimalls and department stores similarly attract the crowds of consumers. Brief for Petitioner 28. Under this view, it is rational for the city to infer that reducing the concentration of adult operations in a neighborhood, whether within separate establishments or in one large establishment, will reduce crime rates.
Neither the Court of Appeals, nor respondents, nor the dissent provides any reason to question the city’s theory. In particular, they do not offer a competing theory, let alone data, that explains why the elevated crime rates in neighborhoods with a concentration of adult establishments can be attributed entirely to the presence of permanent walls between, and separate entrances to, each individual adult operation. While the city certainly bears the burden of providing evidence that supports a link between concentrations of adult operations and asserted secondary effects, it does not bear the burden of providing evidence that rules out every theory for the link between concentrations of adult establishments that is inconsistent with its own.
The error that the Court of Appeals made is that it required the city to prove that its theory about a concentration of adult operations attracting crowds of customers, much like a minimall or department store does, is a necessary consequence of the 1977 study. For example, the Court of Appeals refused to allow the city to draw the inference that “the expansion of an adult bookstore to include an adult arcade would increase” business activity and “produce the harmful secondary effects identified in the Study.” 222 F. 3d, at 726. It reasoned that such an inference would justify limits on the inventory of an adult bookstore, not a ban on the combination of an adult bookstore and an adult arcade. The Court of Appeals simply replaced the city’s theory — that having many different operations in close proximity attracts crowds — with its own — that the size of an operation attracts crowds. If the Court of Appeals’ theory is correct, then inventory limits make more sense. If the city’s theory is correct, then a prohibition on the combination of businesses makes more sense. Both theories are consistent with the data in the 1977 study. The Court of Appeals’ analysis, however, implicitly requires the city to prove that its theory is the only one that can plausibly explain the data because only in this manner can the city refute the Court of Appeals’ logic.
Respondents make the same logical error as the Court of Appeals when they suggest that the city’s prohibition on multiuse establishments will raise crime rates in certain neighborhoods because it will force certain adult businesses to relocate to areas without any other adult businesses. Respondents’ claim assumes that the 1977 study proves that all adult businesses, whether or not they are located near other adult businesses, generate crime. This is a plausible reading of the results from the 1977 study, but respondents do not demonstrate that it is a compelled reading. Nor do they provide evidence that refutes the city’s interpretation of the study, under which the city’s prohibition should on balance reduce crime. If this Court were nevertheless to accept respondents’ speculation, it would effectively require that the city provide evidence that not only supports the claim that its ordinance serves an important government interest, but also does not provide support for any other approach to serve that interest.
In Renton, we specifically refused to set such a high bar for municipalities that want to address merely the secondary effects of protected speech. We held that a municipality may rely on any evidence that is “reasonably believed to be relevant” for demonstrating a connection between speech and a substantial, independent government interest. 475 U. S., at 51-52; see also, e. g., Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U. S. 560, 584 (1991) (Souter, J., concurring in judgment) (permitting municipality to use evidence that adult theaters are correlated with harmful secondary effects to support its claim that nude dancing is likely to produce the same effects). This is not to say that a municipality can get away with shoddy data or reasoning. The municipality’s evidence must fairly support the municipality’s rationale for its ordinance. If plaintiffs fail to cast direct doubt on this rationale, either by demonstrating that the municipality’s evidence does not support its rationale or by furnishing evidence that disputes the municipality’s factual findings, the municipality meets the standard set forth in Renton. If plaintiffs succeed in casting doubt on a municipality’s rationale in either manner, the burden shifts back to the municipality to supplement the record with evidence renewing support for a theory that justifies its ordinance. See, e. g., Erie v. Pap’s A. M., 529 U. S. 277, 298 (2000) (plurality opinion). This case is at a very early stage in this process. It arrives on a summary judgment motion by respondents defended only by complaints that the 1977 study fails to prove that the city’s justification for its ordinance is necessarily correct. Therefore, we conclude that the city, at this stage of the litigation, has complied with the evidentiary requirement in Renton.
Justice Souter faults the city for relying on the 1977 study not because the study fails to support the city’s theory that adult department stores, like adult minimalls, attract customers and thus crime, but because the city does not demonstrate that freestanding single-use adult establishments reduce crime. See post, at 460-462 (dissenting opinion). In effect, Justice ¿outer asks the city to demonstrate, not merely by appeal to common sense, but also with empirical data, that its ordinance will successfully lower crime. Our cases have never required-that municipalities make such a showing, certainly not without actual and convincing evidence from plaintiffs to the contrary. See, e. g., Barnes, supra, at 583-584 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment). Such a requirement would go too far in undermining our settled position that municipalities must be given a “ ‘reasonable opportunity to experiment with solutions’ ” to address the secondary effects of protected speech. Renton, supra, at 52 (quoting Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 71 (1976) (plurality opinion)). A municipality considering an innovative solution may not have data that could demonstrate the efficacy of its proposal because the solution would, by definition, not have been implemented previously. The city’s ordinance banning multiple-use adult establishments is such a solution. Respondents contend that there are no adult video arcades in Los Angeles County that operate independently of adult bookstores. See Brief for Respondents 41. But without such arcades, the city does not have a treatment group to compare with the control group of multiple-use adult establishments, and without such a comparison Justice Souter would strike down the city’s ordinance. This leaves the city with no means to address the secondary effects with which it is concerned.
Our deference to the evidence presented by the city of Los Angeles is the product of a careful balance between competing interests. On the one hand, we have an “obligation to exercise independent judgment when First Amendment rights are implicated.” Turner Broadcasting System,, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 666 (1994) (plurality opinion); see also Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U. S. 829, 843-844 (1978). On the other hand, we must acknowledge that the Los Angeles City Council is in a better position than the Judiciary to gather and evaluate data on local problems. See Turner, supra, at 665-666; Erie, supra, at 297-298 (plurality opinion). We are also guided by the fact that Renton requires that municipal ordinances receive only intermediate scrutiny if they are content neutral. 475 U. S., at 48-50. There is less reason to be concerned that municipalities will use these ordinances to discriminate against unpopular speech. See Erie, supra, at 298-299.
Justice Souter would have us rethink this balance, and indeed the entire Renton framework. In Renton, the Court distinguished the inquiry into whether a municipal ordinance is content neutral from the inquiry into whether it is “designed to serve a substantial government interest and do not unreasonably limit alternative avenues of communication.” 475 U. S., at 47-54. The former requires courts to verify that the “predominate concerns” motivating the ordinance “were with the secondary effects of adult [speech], and not with the content of adult [speech].” Id., at 47 (emphasis deleted). The latter inquiry goes one step further and asks whether the municipality can demonstrate a connection between the speech regulated by the ordinance and the secondary effects that motivated the adoption of the ordinance. Only at this stage did Renton contemplate that courts would examine evidence concerning regulated speech and secondary effects. Id., at 50-52. Justice Souter would either merge these two inquiries or move the eviden-tiary analysis into the inquiry on content neutrality, and raise the evidentiary bar that a municipality must pass. His logic is that verifying that the ordinance actually reduces the secondary effects asserted would ensure that zoning regulations are not merely content-based regulations in disguise. See post, at 457-458.
We think this proposal unwise. First, none of the parties request the Court to depart from the Renton framework. Nor is the proposal fairly encompassed in the question presented, which focuses on the sorts of evidence upon which the city may rely to demonstrate that its ordinance is designed to serve a substantial governmental interest. Pet. for Cert. i. Second, there is no evidence suggesting that courts have difficulty determining whether municipal ordinances are motivated primarily by the content of adult speech or by its secondary effects without looking to evidence connecting such speech to the asserted secondary effects. In this case, the Court of Appeals has not yet had an opportunity to address the issue, having assumed for the sake of argument that the city’s ordinance is content neutral. 222 F. 3d, at 723. It would be inappropriate for this Court to reach the question of content neutrality before permitting the lower court to pass upon it. Finally, Justice Souter does not clarify the sort of evidence upon which municipalities may rely to meet the evidentiary burden he would require. It is easy to say that courts must demand evidence when “common experience” or “common assumptions” are incorrect, see post, at 459, but it is difficult for courts to know ahead of time whether that condition is met. Municipalities will, in general, have greater experience with and understanding of the secondary effects that follow certain protected speech than will the courts. See Erie, 529 U. S., at 297-298 (plurality opinion). For this reason our cases require only that municipalities rely upon evidence that is “‘reasonably believed to be relevant’” to the secondary effects that they seek to address. Id., at 296.
Ill
The city of Los Angeles argues that its prohibition on multiuse establishments draws further support from a study of the poor health conditions in adult video arcades described in Hart Book Stores, a case that upheld a North Carolina ordinance similar to that challenged here. See 612 F. 2d, at 828-829, n. 9. Respondents argue that the city cannot rely on evidence from Hart Book Stores because the city cannot prove it examined that evidence before it enacted the current version of § 12.70(C). Brief for Respondents 21. Respondents note, moreover, that unsanitary conditions in adult video arcades would persist regardless of whether arcades were operated in the same buildings as, say, adult bookstores. Ibid.
We do not, however, need to resolve the parties’ dispute over evidence cited in Hart Book Stores. Unlike the city of Renton, the city of Los Angeles conducted its own study of adult businesses. We have concluded that the Los Angeles study provides evidence to support the city’s theory that a concentration of adult operations in one locale attracts crime, and can be reasonably relied upon to demonstrate that Los Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(C) (1988) is designed to promote the city’s interest in reducing crime. Therefore, the city need not present foreign studies to overcome the summary judgment against it.
Before concluding, it should be noted that respondents argue, as an alternative basis to sustain the Court of Appeals’ judgment, that the Los Angeles ordinance is not a typical zoning regulation. Rather, respondents explain, the prohibition on multiuse adult establishments is effectively a ban on adult video arcades because no such business exists independently of an adult bookstore. Brief for Respondents 12-13. Respondents request that the Court hold that the Los Angeles ordinance is not a time, place, and manner regulation, and that the Court subject the ordinance to strict scrutiny. This also appears to be the theme of Justice Kennedy’s concurrence. He contends that “[a] city may not assert that it will reduce secondary effects by reducing speech in the same proportion.” Post, at 449 (opinion concurring in judgment). We consider that unobjectionable proposition as simply a reformulation of the requirement that an ordinance warrants intermediate scrutiny only if it is a time, place, and manner regulation and not a ban. The Court of Appeals held, however, that the city’s prohibition on the combination of adult bookstores and arcades is not a ban and respondents did not petition for review of that determination.
Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ judgment granting summary judgment to respondents and remand the case for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
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Justice Stevens
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, VII, and VIII, an opinion with respect to Parts III and V, in which Justice Kennedy, Justice Souter, and Justice Ginsburg join, an opinion with respect to Part VI, in which Justice Kennedy, Justice Thomas, and Justice Ginsburg join, and an opinion with respect to Part IV, in which Justice Kennedy and Justice Ginsburg join.
Last Term we held that a federal law abridging a brewer’s right to provide the public with accurate information about the alcoholic content of malt beverages is unconstitutional. Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U. S. 476, 491 (1995). We now hold that Rhode Island’s statutory prohibition against advertisements that provide the public with accurate information about retail prices of alcoholic beverages is also invalid. Our holding rests on the conclusion that such an advertising ban is an abridgment of speech protected by the First Amendment and that it is not shielded from constitutional scrutiny by the Twenty-first Amendment.
I
In 1956, the Rhode Island Legislature enacted two separate prohibitions against advertising the retail price of alcoholic beverages. The first applies to vendors licensed in Rhode Island as well as to out-of-state manufacturers, wholesalers, and shippers. It prohibits them from “advertising in any manner whatsoever” the price of any alcoholic beverage offered for sale in the State; the only exception is for price tags or signs displayed with the merchandise within licensed premises and not visible from the street. The second statute applies to the Rhode Island news media. It contains a categorical prohibition against the publication or broadcast of any advertisements — even those referring to sales in other States — that “make reference to the price of any alcoholic beverages.”
In two cases decided in 1985, the Rhode Island Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of these two statutes. In S&S Liquor Mart, Inc. v. Pastore, 497 A. 2d 729, a liquor retailer located in Westerly, Rhode Island, a town that borders the State of Connecticut, having been advised that his license would be revoked if he advertised his prices in a Connecticut paper, sought to enjoin enforcement of the first statute. Over the dissent of one justice, the court upheld the statute. It concluded that the statute served the substantial state interest in “‘the promotion of temperance.’” Id., at 737. Because the plaintiff failed to prove that the statute did not serve that interest, the court held that he had not carried his burden of establishing a violation of the First Amendment. In response to the dissent’s argument that the court had placed the burden on the wrong party, the majority reasoned that the Twenty-first Amendment gave the statute “‘an added presumption [of] validity.’” Id., at 732. Although that presumption had not been overcome in that case, the State Supreme Court assumed that in a future case the record might “support the proposition that these advertising restrictions do not further temperance objectives.” Id., at 734.
In Rhode Island Liquor Stores Assn. v. Evening Call Pub. Co., 497 A. 2d 331, the plaintiff association sought to enjoin the publisher of the local newspaper in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, from accepting advertisements disclosing the retail price of alcoholic beverages being sold across the state line in Millville, Massachusetts. In upholding the injunction, the State Supreme Court adhered to its reasoning in the Pastore case and rejected the argument that the statute neither “directly advanced” the state interest in promoting temperance, nor was “more extensive than necessary to serve that interest” as required by this Court’s decision in Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 557, 563 (1980). It assumed the existence of other, “perhaps more effective means” of achieving the State’s “goal of temperance,” but concluded that it was “not unreasonable for the State of Rhode Island to believe that price advertising will result in increased sales of alcoholic beverages generally.” Rhode Island Liquor Stores Assn. v. Evening Call Pub. Co., 497 A. 2d, at 336.
II
Petitioners 44 Liquormart, Inc. (44 Liquormart), and Peoples Super Liquor Stores, Inc. (Peoples), are licensed retailers of alcoholic beverages. Petitioner 44 Liquormart operates a store in Rhode Island and petitioner Peoples operates several stores in Massachusetts that are patronized by Rhode Island residents. Peoples uses alcohol price advertising extensively in Massachusetts, where such advertising is permitted, but Rhode Island newspapers and other media outlets have refused to accept such ads.
Complaints from competitors about an advertisement placed by 44 Liquormart in a Rhode Island newspaper in 1991 generated enforcement proceedings that in turn led to the initiation of this litigation. The advertisement did not state the price of any alcoholic beverages. Indeed, it noted that “State law prohibits advertising liquor prices.” The ad did, however, state the low prices at which peanuts, potato chips, and Schweppes mixers were being offered, identify various brands of packaged liquor, and include the word “WOW” in large letters next to pictures of vodka and rum bottles. Based on the conclusion that the implied reference to bargain prices for liquor violated the statutory ban on price advertising, the Rhode Island Liquor Control Administrator assessed a $400 fine.
After paying the fine, 44 Liquormart, joined by Peoples, filed this action against the administrator in the Federal District Court seeking a declaratory judgment that the two statutes and the administrator’s implementing regulations violate the First Amendment and other provisions of federal law. The Rhode Island Liquor Stores Association was allowed to intervene as a defendant and in due course the State of Rhode Island replaced the administrator as the principal defendant. The parties stipulated that the price advertising ban is vigorously enforced, that Rhode Island permits “all advertising of alcoholic beverages excepting references to price outside the licensed premises,” and that petitioners’ proposed ads do not concern an illegal activity and presumably would not be false or misleading. 44 Liquor Mart, Inc. v. Racine, 829 F. Supp. 543, 545 (RI 1993). The parties disagreed, however, about the impact of the ban on the promotion of temperance in Rhode Island. On that question the District Court heard conflicting expert testimony and reviewed a number of studies.
In his findings of fact, the District Judge first noted that there was a pronounced lack of unanimity among researchers who have studied the impact of advertising on the level of consumption of alcoholic beverages. He referred to a 1985 Federal Trade Commission study that found no evidence that alcohol advertising significantly affects alcohol abuse. Another study indicated that Rhode Island ranks in the upper 30% of States in per capita consumption of alcoholic beverages; alcohol consumption is lower in other States that allow price advertising. After summarizing the testimony of the expert witnesses for both parties, he found “as a fact that Rhode Island’s off-premises liquor price advertising ban has no significant impact on levels of alcohol consumption in Rhode Island.” Id., at 549.
As a matter of law, he concluded that the price advertising ban was unconstitutional because it did not “directly advance” the State’s interest in reducing alcohol consumption and was “more extensive than necessary to serve that interest.” Id., at 555. He reasoned that the party seeking to uphold a restriction on commercial speech carries the burden of justifying it and that the Twenty-first Amendment did not shift or diminish that burden. Acknowledging that it might have been reasonable for the state legislature to “assume a correlation between the price advertising ban and reduced consumption,” he held that more than a rational basis was required to justify the speech restriction, and that the State had failed to demonstrate a reasonable “‘fit’” between its policy objectives and its chosen means. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals reversed. 39 F. 3d 5 (CA1 1994). It found “inherent merit” in the State’s submission that competitive price advertising would lower prices and that lower prices would produce more sales. Id., at 7. Moreover, it agreed with the reasoning of the Rhode Island Supreme Court that the Twenty-first Amendment gave the statutes an added presumption of validity. Id., at 8. Alternatively, it concluded that reversal was compelled by this Court’s summary action in Queensgate Investment Co. v. Liquor Control Comm’n of Ohio, 459 U. S. 807 (1982). See 39 F. 3d, at 8. In that case the Court dismissed the appeal from a decision of the Ohio Supreme Court upholding a prohibition against off-premises advertising of the prices of alcoholic beverages sold by the drink. See Queensgate Investment Co. v. Liquor Control Comm’n of Ohio, 69 Ohio St. 2d 361, 433 N. E. 2d 138 (1982).
Queensgate has been both followed and distinguished in subsequent cases reviewing the validity of similar advertising bans. We are now persuaded that the importance of the First Amendment issue, as well the suggested relevance of the Twenty-first Amendment, merits more thorough analysis than it received when we refused to accept jurisdiction of the Queensgate appeal. We therefore granted certiorari. 514 U. S. 1095 (1995).
Ill
Advertising has been a part of our culture throughout our history. Even in colonial days, the public relied on “commercial speech” for vital information about the market. Early newspapers displayed advertisements for goods and services on their front pages, and town criers called out prices in public squares. See J. Wood, The Story of Advertising 21, 45-69, 85 (1958); J. Smith, Printers and Press Freedom 49 (1988). Indeed, commercial messages played such a central role in public life prior to the founding that Benjamin Franklin authored his early defense of a free press in support of his decision to print, of all things, an advertisement for voyages to Barbados. Franklin, An Apology for Printers, June 10, 1731, reprinted in 2 Writings of Benjamin Franklin 172 (1907).
In accord with the role that commercial messages have long played, the law has developed to ensure that advertising provides consumers with accurate information about the availability of goods and services. In the early years, the common law, and later, statutes, served the consumers’ interest in the receipt of accurate information in the commercial market by prohibiting fraudulent and misleading advertising. It was not until the 1970’s, however, that this Court held that the First Amendment protected the dissemination of truthful and nonmisleading commercial messages about lawful products and services. See generally Kozinski & Banner, The Anti-History and Pre-History of Commercial Speech, 71 Texas L. Rev. 747 (1993).
In Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U. S. 809 (1975), we held that it was error to assume that commercial speech was entitled to no First Amendment protection or that it was without value in the marketplace of ideas. Id., at 825-826. The following Term in Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S. 748 (1976), we expanded on our holding in Bigelow and held that the State’s blanket ban on advertising the price of prescription drugs violated the First Amendment.
Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy reflected the conclusion that the same interest that supports regulation of potentially misleading advertising, namely, the public’s interest in receiving accurate commercial information, also supports an interpretation of the First Amendment that provides constitutional protection for the dissemination of accurate and nonmis-leading commercial messages. We explained:
“Advertising, however tasteless and excessive it sometimes may seem, is nonetheless dissemination of information as to who is producing and selling what product, for what reason, and at what price. So long as we preserve a predominantly free enterprise economy, the allocation of our resources in large measure will be made through numerous private economic decisions. It is a matter of public interest that those decisions, in the aggregate, be intelligent and well informed. To this end, the free flow of commercial information is indispensable.” 425 U. S., at 765.
The opinion further explained that a State’s paternalistic assumption that the public will use truthful, nonmisleading commercial information unwisely cannot justify a decision to suppress it:
“There is, of course, an alternative to this highly paternalistic approach. That alternative is to assume that this information is not in itself harmful, that people will perceive their own best interests if only they are well enough informed, and that the best means to that end is to open the channels of communication rather than to close them. If they are truly open, nothing prevents the ‘professional’ pharmacist from marketing his own as-sertedly superior product, and contrasting it with that of the low-cost, high-volume prescription drug retailer. But the choice among these alternative approaches is not ours to make or the Virginia General Assembly’s. It is precisely this kind of choice, between the dangers of suppressing information, and the dangers of its misuse if it is freely available, that the. First Amendment makes for us.” Id., at 770.
On the basis of these principles, our early cases uniformly struck down several broadly based bans on truthful, nonmis-leading commercial speech, each of which served ends unrelated to consumer protection. Indeed, one of those cases expressly likened the rationale that Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy employed to the one that Justice Brandeis adopted in his concurrence in Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357 (1927). See Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro, 431 U. S. 85, 97 (1977). There, Justice Brandéis wrote, in explaining his objection to a prohibition of political speech, that “the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression.” Whitney, 274 U. S., at 377; see also Carey v. Population Services Int’l, 431 U. S. 678, 701 (1977) (applying test for suppressing political speech set forth in Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 447 (1969)).
At the same time, our early cases recognized that the State may regulate some types of commercial advertising more freely than other forms of protected speech. Specifically, we explained that the State may require commercial messages to “appear in such a form, or include such additional information, warnings, and disclaimers, as are necessary to prevent its being deceptive,” Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy, 425 U. S., at 772, n. 24, and that it may restrict some forms of aggressive sales practices that have the potential to exert “undue influence” over consumers, see Bates v. State Bar of Aria., 433 U. S. 350, 366 (1977).
Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy attributed the State’s authority to impose these regulations in part to certain “commonsense differences” that exist between commercial messages and other types of protected expression. 425 U. S., at 771, n. 24. Our opinion noted that the greater “objectivity” of commercial speech justifies affording the State more freedom to distinguish false commercial advertisements from true ones, ibid., and that the greater “hardiness” of commercial speech, inspired as it is by the profit motive, likely diminishes the chilling effect that may attend its regulation, ibid.
Subsequent cases explained that the State’s power to regulate commercial transactions justifies its concomitant power to regulate commercial speech that is “linked inextricably” to those transactions. Friedman v. Rogers, 440 U. S. 1, 10, n. 9 (1979); Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U. S. 447, 456 (1978) (commercial speech “occurs in an area traditionally subject to government regulation”). As one commentator has explained: “The entire commercial speech doctrine, after all, represents an accommodation between the right to speak and hear expression about goods and services and the right of government to regulate the sales of such goods and services.” L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 12-15, p. 903 (2d ed. 1988). Nevertheless, as we explained in Lin-mark, the State retains less regulatory authority when its commercial speech restrictions strike at “the substance of the information communicated” rather than the “commercial aspect of [it] — with offerors communicating offers to offer-ees.” 431 U. S., at 96; Carey v. Population Services Int’l, 431 U. S., at 701, n. 28.
In Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 557 (1980), we took stock of our developing commercial speech jurisprudence. In that case, we considered a regulation “completely” banning all promotional advertising by electric utilities. Ibid. Our decision acknowledged the special features of commercial speech but identified the serious First Amendment concerns that attend blanket advertising prohibitions that do not protect consumers from commercial harms.
Five Members of the Court recognized that the state interest in the conservation of energy was substantial, and that there was “an immediate connection between advertising and demand for electricity.” Id., at 569. Nevertheless, they concluded that the regulation was invalid because respondent commission had failed to make a showing that a more limited speech regulation would not have adequately served the State’s interest. Id., at 571.
In reaching its conclusion, the majority explained that although the special nature of commercial speech may require less than strict review of its regulation, special concerns arise from “regulations that entirely suppress commercial speech in order to pursue a nonspeech-related policy.” Id., at 566, n. 9. In those circumstances, “a ban on speech could screen from public view the underlying governmental policy.” Ibid. As a result, the Court concluded that “special care” should attend the review of such blanket bans, and it pointedly remarked that “in recent years this Court has not approved a blanket ban on commercial speech unless the expression itself was flawed in some way, either because it was deceptive or related to unlawful activity.” Ibid.
> HH
As our review of the case law reveals, Rhode Island errs in concluding that all commercial speech regulations are subject to a similar form of constitutional review simply because they target a similar category of expression. The mere fact that messages propose commercial transactions does not in and of itself dictate the constitutional analysis that should apply to decisions to suppress them. See Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U. S., at 491-494 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment).
When a State regulates commercial messages to protect consumers from misleading, deceptive, or aggressive sales practices, or requires the disclosure of beneficial consumer information, the purpose of its regulation is consistent with the reasons for according constitutional protection to commercial speech and therefore justifies less than strict review. However, when a State entirely prohibits the dissemination of truthful, nonmisleading commercial messages for reasons unrelated to the preservation of a fair bargaining process, there is far less reason to depart from the rigorous review that the First Amendment generally demands.
Sound reasons justify reviewing the latter type of commercial speech regulation more carefully. Most obviously, complete speech bans, unlike content-neutral restrictions on the time, place, or manner of expression, see Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 89 (1949), are particularly dangerous because they all but foreclose alternative means of disseminating certain information.
Our commercial speech cases have recognized the dangers that attend governmental attempts to single out certain messages for suppression. For example, in Linmark, 431 U. S., at 92-94, we concluded that a ban on “For Sale” signs was “content based” and failed to leave open “satisfactory” alternative channels of communication; see also Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy, 425 U. S., at 771. Moreover, last Term we upheld a 30-day prohibition against a certain form of legal solicitation largely because it left so many channels of communication open to Florida lawyers. Florida Bar v. Went For It, Inc., 515 U. S. 618, 633-634 (1995).
The special dangers that attend complete bans on truthful, nonmisleading commercial speech cannot be explained away by appeals to the “commonsense distinctions” that exist between commercial and noncommercial speech. Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy, 425 U. S., at 771, n. 24. Regulations that suppress the truth are no less troubling because they target objectively verifiable information, nor are they less effective because they aim at durable messages. As a result, neither the “greater objectivity” nor the “greater hardiness” of truthful, nonmisleading commercial speech justifies reviewing its complete suppression with added deference. Ibid.
It is the State’s interest in protecting consumers from “commercial harms” that provides “the typical reason why commercial speech can be subject to greater governmental regulation than noncommercial speech.” Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, Inc., 507 U. S. 410, 426 (1993). Yet bans that target truthful, nonmisleading commercial messages rarely protect consumers from such harms. Instead, such bans often serve only to obscure an “underlying governmental policy” that could be implemented without regulating speech. Central Hudson, 447 U. S., at 566, n. 9. In this way, these commercial speech bans not only hinder consumer choice, but also impede debate over central issues of public policy. See id., at 575 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment).
Precisely because bans against truthful, nonmisleading commercial speech rarely seek to protect consumers from either deception or overreaching, they usually rest solely on the offensive assumption that the public will respond “irrationally” to the truth. Linmark, 431 U. S., at 96. The First Amendment directs us to be especially skeptical of regulations that seek to keep people in the dark for what the government perceives to be their own good. That teaching applies equally to state attempts to deprive consumers of accurate information about their chosen products:
“The commercial marketplace, like other spheres of our social and cultural life, provides a forum where ideas and information flourish. Some of the ideas and information are vital, some of slight worth. But the general rule is that the speaker and the audience, not the government, assess the value of the information presented. Thus, even a communication that does no more than propose a commercial transaction is entitled to the coverage of the First Amendment. See Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy, supra, at 762.” Edenfield v. Fane, 507 U. S. 761, 767 (1993).
See also Linmark, 431 U. S., at 96 (1977); Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U. S., at 497-498 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment); Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 12-2, at 790, and n. 11.
V
In this- case, there is no question that Rhode Island’s price advertising ban constitutes a blanket prohibition against truthful, nonmisleading speech about a lawful product. There is also no question that the ban serves an end unrelated to consumer protection. Accordingly, we must review the price advertising ban with “special care,” Central Hudson, 447 U. S., at 566, n. 9, mindful that speech prohibitions of this type rarely survive constitutional review, ibid.
The State argues that the price advertising prohibition should nevertheless be upheld because it directly advances the State’s substantial interest in promoting temperance, and because it is no more extensive than necessary. Cf. id., at 566. Although there is some confusion as to what Rhode Island means by temperance, we assume that the State asserts an interest in reducing alcohol consumption.
In evaluating the ban’s effectiveness in advancing the State’s interest, we note that a commercial speech regulation “may not be sustained if it provides only ineffective or remote support for the government’s purpose.” Id., at 564. For that reason, the State bears the burden of showing not merely that its regulation will advance its interest, but also that it will do so “to a material degree.” Edenfield, 507 U. S., at 771; see also Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U. S., at 486-488. The need for the State to make such a showing is particularly great given the drastic nature of its chosen means — the wholesale suppression of truthful, non-misleading information. Accordingly, we must determine whether the State has shown that the price advertising ban will significantly reduce alcohol consumption.
We can agree that common sense supports the conclusion that a prohibition against price advertising, like a collusive agreement among competitors to refrain from such advertising, will tend to mitigate competition and maintain prices at a higher level than would prevail in a completely free market. Despite the absence of proof on the point, we can even agree with the State’s contention that it is reasonable to assume that demand, and hence consumption throughout the market, is somewhat lower whenever a higher, noncompetitive price level prevails. However, without any findings of fact, or indeed any evidentiary support whatsoever, we cannot agree with the assertion that the price advertising ban will significantly advance the State’s interest in promoting temperance.
Although the record suggests that the price advertising ban may have some impact on the purchasing patterns of temperate drinkers of modest means, 829 F. Supp., at 546, the State has presented no evidence to suggest that its speech prohibition will significantly reduce marketwide consumption. Indeed, the District Court’s considered and un-contradicted finding on this point is directly to the contrary. Id., at 549. Moreover, the evidence suggests that the abusive drinker will probably not be deterred by a marginal price increase, and that the true alcoholic may simply reduce his purchases of other necessities.
In addition, as the District Court noted, the State has not identified what price level would lead to a significant reduction in alcohol consumption, nor has it identified the amount that it believes prices would decrease without the ban. Ibid. Thus, the State’s own showing reveals that any connection between the ban and a significant change in alcohol consumption would be purely fortuitous.
As is evident, any conclusion that elimination of the ban would significantly increase alcohol consumption would require us to engage in the sort of “speculation or conjecture” that is an unacceptable means of demonstrating that a restriction on commercial speech directly advances the State’s asserted interest. Edenfield, 507 U. S., at 770. Such speculation certainly does not suffice when the State takes aim at accurate commercial information for paternalistic ends.
The State also cannot satisfy the requirement that its restriction on speech be no more extensive than necessary. It is perfectly obvious that alternative forms of regulation that would not involve any restriction on speech would be more likely to achieve the State’s goal of promoting temperance. As the State’s own expert conceded, higher prices can be maintained either by direct regulation or by increased taxation. 829 F. Supp., at 549. Per capita purchases could be limited as is the case with prescription drugs. Even educational campaigns focused on the problems of excessive, or even moderate, drinking might prove to be more effective.
As a result, even under the less than strict standard that generally applies in commercial speech cases, the State has failed to establish a “reasonable fit” between its abridgment of speech and its temperance goal. Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N. Y. v. Fox, 492 U. S. 469, 480 (1989); see also Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U. S., at 491 (explaining that defects in a federal ban on alcohol advertising are “further highlighted by the availability of alternatives that would prove less intrusive to the First Amendment’s protections for commercial speech”); Linmark, 431 U. S., at 97 (suggesting that the State use financial incentives or counterspeech, rather than speech restrictions, to advance its interests). It necessarily follows that the price advertising ban cannot survive the more stringent constitutional review that Central Hudson itself concluded was appropriate for the complete suppression of truthful, nonmisleading commercial speech. 447 U. S., at 566, n. 9.
VI
The State responds by arguing that it merely exercised appropriate “legislative judgment” in determining that a price advertising ban would best promote temperance. Relying on the Central Hudson analysis set forth in Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism Co. of P. R., 478 U. S. 328 (1986), and United States v. Edge Broadcasting Co., 509 U. S. 418 (1993), Rhode Island first argues that, because expert opinions as to the effectiveness of the price advertising ban “go both ways,” the Court of Appeals correctly concluded that the ban constituted a “reasonable choice” by the legislature. 39 F. 3d, at 7. The State next contends that precedent requires us to give particular deference to that legislative choice because the State could, if it chose, ban the sale of alcoholic beverages outright. See Posadas, 478 U. S., at 345-346. Finally, the State argues that deference is appropriate because alcoholic beverages are so-called “vice” products. See Edge, 509 U. S., at 426; Posadas, 478 U. S., at 346-347. We consider each of these contentions in turn.
The State’s first argument fails to justify the speech prohibition at issue. Our commercial speech cases recognize some room for the exercise of legislative judgment. See Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U. S. 490, 507-508 (1981). However, Rhode Island errs in concluding that Edge and Posadas establish the degree of deference that its decision to impose a price advertising ban warrants.
In Edge, we upheld a federal statute that permitted only those broadcasters located in States that had legalized lotteries to air lottery advertising. The statute was designed to regulate advertising about an activity that had been deemed illegal in the jurisdiction in which the broadcaster was located. 509 U. S., at 433-434. Here, by contrast, the commercial speech ban targets information about entirely lawful behavior.
Posadas is more directly relevant. There, a flve-Member majority held that, under the Central Hudson test, it was “up to the legislature” to choose to reduce gambling by suppressing in-state casino advertising rather than engaging in educational speech. Posadas, 478 U. S., at 344. Rhode Island argues that this logic demonstrates the constitutionality of its own decision to ban price advertising in lieu of raising-taxes or employing some other less speech-restrictive means of promoting temperance.
The reasoning in Posadas does support the State’s argument, but, on reflection, we are now persuaded that Posadas erroneously performed the First Amendment analysis. The casino advertising ban was designed to keep truthful, non-misleading speech from members of the public for fear that they would be more likely to gamble if they received it. As a result, the advertising ban served to shield the State’s anti-gambling policy from the public scrutiny that more direct, nonspeech regulation would draw. See id., at 351 (Brennan, J., dissenting).
Given our longstanding hostility to commercial speech regulation of this type, Posadas clearly erred in concluding that it was “up to the legislature” to choose suppression over a less speech-restrictive policy. The Posadas majority’s conclusion on that point cannot be reconciled with the unbroken line of prior eases striking down similarly broad regulations on truthful, nonmisleading advertising when non-speech-related alternatives were available. See id., at 350 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (listing cases); Kurland, Posadas de Puerto Rico v. Tourism Company: “‘Twas Strange, ‘Twas Passing Strange; ‘Twas Pitiful, ‘Twas Wondrous Pitiful,” 1986 S. Ct. Rev. 1, 12-15.
Because the 5-to-4 decision in Posadas marked such a sharp break from our prior precedent, and because it concerned a constitutional question about which this Court is the final arbiter, we decline to give force to its highly deferential approach. Instead, in keeping with our prior holdings, we conclude that a state legislature does not have the broad discretion to suppress truthful, nonmisleading information for paternalistic purposes that the Posadas majority was willing to tolerate. As we explained in Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy, “[i]t is precisely this kind of choice, between the dangers of suppressing information, and the dangers of its misuse if it is freely available, that the First Amendment makes for us.” 425 U. S., at 770.
We also cannot accept the State’s second contention, which is premised entirely on the “greater-includes-the-lesser” reasoning endorsed toward the end of the majority’s opinion in Posadas. There, the majority stated that “the greater power to completely ban casino gambling necessarily includes the lesser power to ban advertising of casino gambling.” 478 U. S., at 345-346. It went on to state that “because the government could have enacted a wholesale prohibition of [casino gambling] it is permissible for the government to take the less intrusive step of allowing the conduct, but reducing the demand through restrictions on advertising.” Id., at 346. The majority concluded that it would “surely be a strange constitutional doctrine which would concede to the legislature the authority to totally ban a product or activity, but deny to the legislature the authority to forbid the stimulation of demand for the product or activity through advertising on behalf of those who would profit from such increased demand.” Ibid. On the basis of these statements, the State reasons that its undisputed authority to ban alcoholic beverages must include the power to restrict advertisements offering them for sale.
In Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U. S. 476 (1995), the United States advanced a similar argument as a basis for supporting a statutory prohibition against revealing the alcoholic content of malt beverages on product labels. We rejected the argument, noting that the statement in the Posa-das opinion was made only after the majority had concluded that the Puerto Rican regulation “survived the Central Hudson test.” 514 U. S., at 483, n. 2. Further consideration persuades us that the “greater-includes-the-lesser” argument should be rejected for the additional and more important reason that it is inconsistent with both logic and well-settled doctrine.
Although we do not dispute the proposition that greater powers include lesser ones, we fail to see how that syllogism requires the conclusion that the State’s power to regulate commercial activity is “greater” than its power to ban truthful, nonmisleading commercial speech. Contrary to the assumption made in Posadas, we think it quite clear that banning speech may sometimes prove far more intrusive than banning conduct. As a venerable proverb teaches, it may prove more injurious to prevent people from teaching others how to fish than to prevent fish from being sold. Similarly, a local ordinance banning bicycle lessons may curtail freedom far more than one that prohibits bicycle riding within city limits. In short, we reject the assumption that words are necessarily less vital to freedom than actions, or that logic somehow proves that the power to prohibit an activity is necessarily “greater” than the power to suppress speech about it.
As a matter of First Amendment doctrine, the Posadas syllogism is even less defensible. The text of the First Amendment makes clear that the Constitution presumes that attempts to regulate speech are more dangerous than attempts to regulate conduct. That presumption accords with the essential role that the free flow of information plays in a democratic society. As a result, the First Amendment directs that government may not suppress speech as easily as it may suppress conduct, and that speech restrictions cannot be treated as simply another means that the government may use to achieve its ends.
These basic First Amendment principles clearly apply to commercial speech; indeed, the Posadas majority impliedly conceded as much by applying the Central Hudson test. Thus, it is no answer that commercial speech concerns products and services that the government may freely regulate. Our decisions from Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy on have made plain that a State’s regulation of the sale of goods differs in kind from a State’s regulation of accurate information about those goods. The distinction that our cases have consistently drawn between these two types of governmental action is fundamentally incompatible with the absolutist view that
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States, appellant here, brought this civil action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania under § 4 of the Sherman' Act, 15 U. S. C. § 4, and § 15 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 25, to enjoin a proposed merger of The Philadelphia National Bank (PNB) and Girard Trust Corn Exchange Bank (Girard), appellees here. The complaint charged violations of § 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1, and § 7 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 18. From a judgment for appellees after trial, see 201 F. Supp. 348, the United States appealed to this Court under.§ 2 of the Expediting Act, 15 U. S. C. § 29. Probable jurisdiction was noted. 369 U. S. 883. We reverse the judgment of the District Court. We hold that the merger of appellees is forbidden by § 7 of the Clayton Act and so must be enjoined; we need not, and therefore do not, reach the further question of alleged violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act.
I. The Facts and Proceedings Below.
A. The Background: Commercial Banking in the United States.
Because this is the first case which has required this Court to consider the application of the antitrust laws to the commercial banking industry, and because aspects of the industry and of the degree of governmental regulation of it will recur throughout our discussion, we 'deem it appropriate to begin with a brief background description.
Commercial banking in this country is primarily unit banking. That is, control of commercial banking is diffused throughout a very large number of independent, local banks — 13,460 of them in 1960 — rather than concentrated in a handful of nationwide banks, as, for example, in England and Germany. There are, to be sure, in addition to the independent banks, some 10,000 branch banks; but branching, which is controlled largely by state law — and prohibited altogether by some States — enables a bank to extend itself only to state lines and often not that far. It is also the case, of course, that many banks place loans and solicit deposits outside their home area. But with these qualifications, it remains true that ours is essentially a decentralized system of community banks-. Recent years, however, have witnessed a definite trend toward concentration. Thus, during the decade ending in 1960 the number of commercial banks in the United States declined by 714, despite the chartering of 887 new banks and a very substantial increase in the Nation’s credit needs during the period. Of the 1,601 independent banks which thus disappeared, 1,503, with combined total resources of well over $25,000,000,000, disappeared as the result of mergers.
Commercial banks are unique among financial institutions in that they alone are permitted by law to accept demand deposits. This distinctive power gives commercial banking a key role in the national economy. For banks do not merely deal in, but are actually a source of, money and credit; when a bank makes a loan by crediting the borrower’s demand deposit account, it augments the Nation’s credit supply. Furthermore, the power to accept demand deposits makes banks the intermediaries in most financial transactions (since transfers of substantial moneys are almost always by check rather than by cash) and, concomitantly, the repositories of very substantial individual and corporate funds. The banks’ use of these funds is conditioned by the fact that their working capital consists very largely of demand deposits, which makes liquidity the guiding principle of bank lending and investing policies; thus it is that banks are the chief source of the country’s short-term business credit.
Banking operations are varied and complex; “commercial banking” describes a congeries of services and credit devices. But among them the creation of additional money and credit, the management of the checking-account system, and the furnishing of short-term business loans would appear to be the most important. For the proper discharge of these functions is indispensable to a healthy national economy, as the role of bank failures in depression periods attests. It is therefore not surprising that commercial banking in the United States is subject to a variety of governmental controls', state and federal. Federal regulation is the more extensive, and our focus will be upon it. It. extends not only to the national banks, i. e., banks chartered under federal law and supervised by the Comptroller of the Currency, see 12 U. S. C. § 21 et seq. For many state banks, see 12 U. S. C. § 321, as well as - virtually all the national banks, 12 U. S. C. § 222, are members of the Federal Reserve System (FRS), and more than 95% of all banks, see 12 U. S. C. § 1815, are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). State member and nonmember insured banks are subject to a federal'regulatory scheme almost as elaborate as that which governs the national banks.
The governmental controls of American banking are manifold. First, the Federal Reserve System, through its open-market operations, see 12 U. S. C. §§ 263 (c), 353-359, control of the rediscount rate, see 12 U. S. C. § 357, and modifications of reserve requirements, see 12 U.’ S. C. §§462; 462b, regulates the supply of money and credit in the economy and thereby indirectly regulates the interest rates of bank loans. This is not, however; rate regulation. The Reserve System’s activities are only designed to influence the prime, i. e., minimum, bank interest rate. There is no federal control of the maximum, although all banks, state and national, are subject to state usury laws where applicable. See 12 U. S. C. § 85. In the range between the maximum fixed by state usury laws and the practical minimum set by federal fiscal policies (there is no law against undercutting the prime rate but bankers seldom do), bankers are free to price their loans as they choose. Moreover, charges for other banking services, such as service charges for checking privileges, are free of governmental regulation, state or federal.
Entry, branching, and acquisitions are covered by a network of state and federal statutes. A charter for a new bank, state or national, will not be granted unless the invested capital and management of the applicant, and its prospects for doing sufficient business to operate at a reasonable profit, give adequate protection against undue competition and possible failure. See, e. g., 12 U. S. C. §§ 26, 27, 51; 12 CFR § 4.1 (b); Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 7, § 819-306. Failure to meet these standards may cause the FDIC to refuse an application for insurance, 12 U. S. C. §§ 1815, 1816, and may cause the FDIC, Federal Reserve Board (FRB), and Comptroller to refuse permission to branch to insured, member, and national banks, respectively. 12 U. S. C. §§ 36, 321, 1828 (d). Permission to merge, consolidate, acquire assets, or assume liabilities may be refused by the agencies on the same grounds. 12 U. S. C. (1958 ed., Supp. IV) § 1828 (c), note 8, infra. Furthermore, national banks appear to be subject to state geographical limitations on branching. See 12 IT. S. C. § 36(c).
Banks are also subject to a number of specific provisions aimed at ensuring sound banking practices. For example, member banks of the Federal Reserve System may not pay interest on demand deposits, 12 U. S. C. § 371a, may not invest in common stocks or hold for heir own account investment securities of any one obligor in excess of 10% of the bank’s unimpaired capital and surplus, see 12 U. S. C. §§ 24 Seventh, 335, and may not pay interest on time or savings deposits above the rate fixed by the FRB, 12 U. S. C. § 371b. The payment of interest on deposits by nonmember insured banks is also federally regulated. 12 U. S. C. (1958 ed., Supp. IV) § 1828 (g); 12 CFR, 1962 Supp., Part 329. In the case of national banks, the 10% limit on the obligations of a single obligor includes loans as well as investment securities. See 12 U. S. C. § 84. Pennsylvania imposes the same limitation upon banks chartered under its laws, such as Girard. Pa. Stat. Ann. (1961 Supp.), Tit. 7, § 819-1006.
But perhaps the most effective weapon of federal regulation of banking is the broad visitatorial power of federal bank examiners. Whenever the agencies deem it necessary, they may order “a thorough examination of all the affairs of the bank,” whether it be a member of the FRS or a nonmember insured bank..12 U. S. C. §§.325, 481, 483, 1820 (b); 12 CFR §4.2.- Such examinations are frequent and intensive. In addition, the banks are required to furnish detailed periodic reports of their operations to the supervisory agencies. 12 U. S. C. §§ 161, 324, 1820 (e). In this way the agencies maintain virtually a day-to-day surveillance of the American banking system. And should they discover unsound banking practices, they are equipped with a formidable array of sanctions. If in the judgment of the FRB a member bank is making “undue use of bank credit,” the Board may suspend the bank from the use of the credit facilities of the FRS. 12 U. S. C. § 301. The FDIC has an even more formidable power: If it finds “unsafe or unsound practices” in the conduct of the business of any insured bank, it may terminate the bank’s insured status. 12 U. S. C. § 1818 (a). Such involuntary termination severs the bank’s membership in the FRS, if it is a state bank, and throws it into receivership if it is a national bank.. 12 TJ. S. C. § 1818 (b). Lesser, but nevertheless drastic, sanctions include publication of the results of bank examinations. 12 U. S. C. §§ 481, 1828 (f). As a result of the existence of this panoply of sanctions, recommendations by the agencies concerning banking practices tend to be followed by bankers without the necessity of formal compliance proceedings. 1 Davis, Administrative Law (1958), § 4.04.
Federal supervision of banking has been called “[p]rob-ably the outstanding example in the federal government of regulation of an entire industry through methods of supervision..... Thé system may be one of the most successful [systems of economic regulation], if not the most successful.” Id., § 4.04, at 247. To the efficacy of this system we may owe, in part, the virtual disappearance of bank failures from the American economic scene.
B. The Proposed Merger of PNB and Girard.
The Philadelphia National Bank and Girard Trust Corn Exchange Bank are, respectively, the second and third largest of the 42 commercial banks with head offices in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, which consists of the City of Philadelphia and its three contiguous counties in Pennsylvania. The home county of both banks is the city itself; Pennsylvania law, however, permits branching into the counties contiguous to the home county, Pa. Stat. Ann. (1961 Supp.), Tit. 7, §819-204.1, and both banks, have offices throughout the four-county area. PNB, a national bank, has assets of over $1,000,000,000, making it (as of 1959) the twenty-first largest bank in the Nation. Girard, a state bank, is a member of the. PRS and is insured by the FDIC; it has assets of about $750,000,000. Were the proposed merger to be consummated, the resulting bank would be the largest in the four-county area, with (approximately) 36% of the area banks’ total assets, 36% of deposits, and 34% of net loans. It and the second largest (First Pennsylvania Bank and Trust Company, now the largest) would have between them 59% of the total assets, 58% of deposits, and 58% of the net loans, while after the merger the four largest banks in the area would have 78% of total assets, 77% of deposits, and 78% of net loans.
The present size of both PNB and Girard is in part the result of mergers. Indeed, the trend toward concentration is noticeable in the Philadelphia area generally, in which the number of commercial banks has declined from 108 in 1947 to the present 42. Since 1950, PNB has acquired nine formerly independent banks and Girard six; and these acquisitions have accounted for 59% and 85% of the respective banks’ asset growth during the period, 63% and 91% of their deposit growth, and'12% and 37% of their loan growth. During this period, the seven largest banks in the area increased their combined share of the area’s total commercial bank resources from about 61% to about 90%.
In November 1960 the boards of directors of the two banks approved a proposed agreement for their consolidation under the PNB charter. By the terms of the agreement, PNB’s stockholders were to retain their share certificates, which would be deemed to represent an equal number of shares in the consolidated bank, while Girard’s stockholders would surrender their shares in exchange for shares in the consolidated bank, receiving 1.2875 such shares for each Girard share. Such a consolidation is authorized, subject to the approval of the Comptroller of the Currency, by 12 U. S. C. (1958 ed., Supp. IV) § 215. But under the Bank Merger Act of 1960,12 U. S. C. (1963 ed., Supp. IV) § 1828 (c), the Comptroller may not give his approval until he has received reports from the other two banking agencieslund the Attorney General respecting the probable effects of- the proposed transaction on competition. All three reports advised that the proposed merger would have substantial anticompetitive effects in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. However, on February 24, 1961, the Comptroller approved the merger. No opinion was rendered at that time. • But as required by § 1828 (c), the Comptroller explained the basis for his decision to approve the merger in a statement to be included in his annual report to Congress. As to effect upon competition, he reasoned that “[s]ince there will remain an adequate number of alternative sources of banking service in Philadelphia, and in view of the beneficial effects of this consolidation upon international and national competition it wás concluded that the over-all effect upon competition would not be unfavorable.” He also stated that the consolidated bank “would be far better ablé to serve the convenience and needs of its community by being of material assistance to its city and state in their efforts to attract new industry and to retain existing industry.” The day after the Comptroller approved the merge, the United States commenced the present áction. No steps have been taken to consummate the merger pending the outcome of this litigation.
C. The Trial'and the District Court’s Decision.
The Government’s case in the District Court relied chiefly on statistical evidence bearing upon market structure and on testimony by economists and bankers to the effect that, notwithstanding the intensive governmental regulation of banking"there was a substantial area for the free" play of competitive forces; that concentration of commercial banking, which the proposed merger would increase, was inimical to that free play; that the principal anticompetitive effect of the merger would be felt in the area in which the banks had their offices, thus making the four-county metropolitan area the relevant geographical market; and that commercial banking was the relevant product market. The defendants, in addition to offering contrary evidence on these points, attempted to show business justifications for the merger. They conceded that both banks were economically strong and had sound management, but offered the testimony of bankers’to show that the resulting bank, with its greater prestige and increased lending limit, would be better able to compete with large out-of-state (particularly New York) banks, would attract new business to Philadelphia, and. in general would promote the economic development of the metropolitan area.
Upon this record, the District Court held that:. (1) the passage of the Bank Merger Act of 1960 did not repeal by implication the antitrust laws insofar as they may-apply to bank mergers; (2) § 7 of the Clayton Act is inapplicable, to bank mergers because banks are not corporations “subject to.the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission”-; (3) but assuming that § 7 is applicable, the four-county Philadelphia metropolitan area is not the relevant geographical market because PNB and Girard actively compete with other banks for bank business throughout the greater part of the northeastern United States; (4) but even assuming that § 7 is applicable-and that the four-county area is the relevant market, there is no reasonable probability that competition among commercial banks in the area will be substantially les ened as the result of the merger; (5) since the merger does not violate § 7 of the Clayton Act, a fortiori. it does not violate § 1 of the Sherman Act; (6) the merger will benefit the Philadelphia metropolitan area economically.' The District Court also ruled that for the purposes of § 7, commercial banking is a line of commerce; the appellees do not contest this ruling.
II. The Applicability op Section 7 op the Clayton Act to Bank Mergers.
A. The Original Section and the 1950 Amendmen-t.
By its terms, the present § 7 reaches acquisitions of corporate stock or share capital by any corporation engaged in commerce, but it reaches acquisitions of corporate assets only by corporations “subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission.” The FTC, under § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, has no jurisdiction over banks. 15 U. S. C. § 45 (a) (6). Therefore, if the proposed merger be deemed an assets acquisition, it is not within § 7. Appellant argues vigorously that a merger is crucially different from a pure assets acquisition, and appellees argue with equal vigor that it is crucially different from a pure stock acquisition. Both positions, we think, have merit; a merger fits neither category neatly. Since the literal terms of § 7 thus do not dispose of our question, we must determine whether a congressional design to embrace bank mergérs is revealed in the history of the statute. The question appears to be one of first impression; we have been directed to no previous case in which a merger or consolidation was challenged under § 7 of the Clayton Act, as amended, where the acquiring corporation was not subject to the FTC’s jurisdiction.
When it was first enacted in 1914, § 7 referred only to corporate acquisitions of stock and share capital; it was silent as to assets ¿cquisitions and as to mergers and consolidations. Act of October 15, 1914, c. 323, § 7, 38 Stat. 731-732, note 18, infra. It is true that the omission may not have been an oversight. Congress’ principal concern was with the activities of holding companies, and specifically with the practice whereby corporations secretly acquired control of their competitors by purchasing the stock of those companies. Although assets acquisitions and mergers were known forms of corporate amalgamation at the time, their no less dangerously anticompetitive effects may not have been fully apparent to the Congress. Still, the statutory language, read in the light of the overriding congressional purpose to control corporate concentrations tending to monopoly, lent itself to a construction whereby § 7 would have reached at least mergers and consolidations. It would- hardly have done violence to the language so to have interpreted the vague term “share capital,” see, 30 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1024, 1027-1028 (1962), or to have adopted the view that-: “where the assets are exchanged for the stock of the purchasing company, assuming that the two companies were previously in competition, it is apparent that the seller has acquired stock in a competing company... [and] therefore, that in effecting the merger section 7 was violated and hence the distribution of the stock received by the selling company to its shareholders and its subsequent dissolution are no bar to proceedings by the government to set aside the purchase.” Handler, Industrial Mergers and the AntiTrust Laws, 32 Col. L. Rev. 179, 266 (1932).
But the courts found mergers to be beyond the reach of § 7, even when the merger technique had supplanted stock acquisitions as the prevalent mode of corporate amalgamation. United States v. Celanese Corp. of America, 91 F. Supp. 14 (D. C. S. D. N. Y. 1950); see Thatcher Mfg. Co. v. Federal Trade Comm’n and Swift & Co. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, decided together with Federal Trade Comm’n v. Western Meat Co., 272 U. S. 554; Arrow-Hart & Hegeman Elec. Co. v. Federal. Trade Comm’n, 291 U. S. 587. As a result, § 7 became largely a dead letter. Comment, 68 Yale L. J. 1627, 1629-1630 (1959); see Federal Trade Commission, The Merger Movement: A Summary Report (1948), 1, 3-6; Henderson, The Federal Trade Commission (1924), 40. Meanwhile, this Court’s decision in United States v. Columbia Steel Co., 334 U. S. 495, stirred concern whether the Sherman Act alone was a check against corporate acquisitions. Note, 52 Col. L. Rev. 766, 768 (1952).
It was against this background that Congress in 1950 amended § 7 to include an assets-acquisition provision. Act of December 29, 1950 (Celler-Kefauver Antimerger Act), c. 1184, 64 Stat. 1125-1126, 15 U. S. C. § 18. The legislative history is. silent on the specific questions why the amendment made no explicit reference to mergers, why assets acquisitions by corporations not subject to FTC jurisdiction were not included, and'what these omissions signify. Nevertheless, the basic congressional design clearly emerges and from that design the answers, to these questions may be inferred. Congress primarily sought to bring mergers within § 7 and thereby close what it regarded as a loophole in the section. But, in addition, it sought to reach transactions such as that involved in Columbia Steel, which was a simple purchase of assets and not a merger. In other words, Congress contemplated that the 1950 amendment would give § 7 a reach which would bring the entire range of corporate amalgamations, from pure stock- acquisitions to pure assets acquisitions, within the scope of § 7. Thus, the stock-acquisition and assets-acquisition provisions, read together, reach mergers, which fit neither category perfectly but lie somewhere between the two ends of the spectrum. See pp. 336-337, and notes 13, 14, supra. So construed, the specific exception for acquiring corporations not subject to the FTC’s jurisdiction excludes from the coverage of § 7 only assets acquisitions by such corporations when not accomplished'by merger.
This construction is supported- by a number of specific considerations.
First. Any other construction would be illogical and disrespectful of the plain congressional purpose in amending § 7, because it would create a large loophole in a statute designed to close a loophole. It is unquestioned that the stock-acquisition provision of § 7 embraces every corporation engaged in commerce, including banks. And it is plain that Congress, in amending § 7, considered a distinction for antitrust purposes between acquisition of corporate control by-purchase of stock and acquisition by merger unsupportable in reason, and sought to overrule the decisions of this Court which had recognized such a distinction. If, therefore, mergers in industries outside the FTC’s jurisdiction were deemed.beyond the reach of § 7, the result would be precisely that difference in treatment which Congress rejected. On the other hand, excluding from the section assets acquisitions not by merger in those industries does' not appear to create a lacuna of practical importance.
Second. The Congress which debated the bill to amend § 7 was fully aware of the important differences between a merger and a pure purchase of assets. For example, Senator Kilgore remarked:
“When you talk about mergers, you are talking about a stock transaction....
....
“... [A]ctually what you do is merge the stock-holdings of both corporations, and instead of that— I am thinking in practical terms — you merge the corporate entities of the two corporations and you, get one corporation out of it, and you issue stock in the one corporation in lieu of the stock in the other corporation, whereupon the stock of the corporation which had been merged is canceled by the new corporation, and you have one corporation handling the operation of two. So it really is a stock transaction in the final wind-up, regardless of what you call it. But what I call a purchase of assets is where you purchase physical assets, things upon which you could lay your hand, either in the records ob on the ground.....” Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions, 81st Cong., 1st and 2d Sess. 176; to the same effect, see, e. g.,id., at 100, 139, 320-325.
Plainly, acquisition of “assets” as used in amended § 7 was not meant to be a simple equivalent of acquisition by merger, but was intended rather to ensure against the blunting of the antimerger thrust of the section by evasive transactions such as had rendered the original section ineffectual. Thus, the stock-acquisition provision of' § 7, though reenacted in haec verba by the 1950 amendment, must be deemed expanded in its new context to include, at the very least, acquisitions by merger or consolidation, transactions which entail a transfer of stock of the parties, while the assets-acquisition provision clearly reaches corporate acquisitions involving-no such transfer. And see note 22, supra. This seems to be the point of Congressman Patman’s remark, typical of many, that: “What this bill does is to put all corporate mergers on the same footing, whether the result of the acquisitions of stock or the acquisition of physical assets.” Hearings, supra, at 126. To the same effect is the House Report on the bill to amend § 7: “The bill retains language of the present statute which is broad enough to prevent evasion of the. central purpose. It covers not only purchase of assets or stock but also any other method of. acquisition.... It forbids not only direct acquisitions but also indirect acquisitions....” H. R. Rep. No. 1191, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. 8-9.
Third. The legislative history shows that the objective of including the phrase.“corporation subject to the'jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission” in § 7 was not to limit the amalgamations to be covered by the amended statute but to make explicit the role of the FTC in administering the section. The predominant focus of. the hearings, debates, and committee reports was upon the powers of the FTC. The decisions of this Court which had uncovered the loophole in the original § 7 — Thatcher, Swift, and Arrow-Hart — had not rested directly upon the substantive coverage of § 7, but rather upon the limited scope of the FTC’s divestiture powers under § 11. See note 17, supra. There were intimations that the courts’ power to enforce § 7 might be far. greater. See Thatcher Mfg. Co.v. Federal Trade Comm’n, supra, at 561; Swift & Co. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, supra, at 563; Federal Trade Comm’n v. Eastman Kodak Co., 274 U. S. 619, 624 Arrow-Hart & Hegeman Elec. Co. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, supra, at 598-599; Irvine, The Uncertainties of Section 7 of the Clayton Act, 14 Cornell L. Q. 28 (1928). Thus, the loophole was sometimes viewed as primarily a gap in the FTC’s jurisdiction. Furthermore, although the Clayton Act has always provided for dual enforcement by court and agency, see 15 U. S. C. § 25; United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629; United States Alkali Export Assn. v. United States, 325 U. S. 196, 208, prior to the 1950 amendment enforcement of § 7 was left largely to the FTC. Martin, Mergers and the Clayton Act (1959), 205, 219; Montague, The Celler Anti-Merger Act: An Administrative Problem in an Economic Crisis, 37 A. B. A. J. 253 (1951). And the-impetus to amend § 7 came in large part from the FTC. See, e. g., Martin, supra, 187-194; Federal Trade Commission, Annual Reports, 1928, pp. 18-19; 1940, pp. 12-13; 1948, pp. 11-22; The Merger Movement: A Summary Report (1948). Congress in 1950 clearly intended to remove all question concerning the FTC’s remedial power over corporate acquisitions, and therefore explicitly enlarged the FTC’s jurisdiction. Congress’ choice of this means of underscoring the FTC’s role in enforcing § 7 provides no basis for a construction which would undercut the dominant congressional purpose of eliminating the difference in treatment accorded stock acquisitions and mergers by the original § 7 as construed.
Fourth. It is settled law that “[i]mmunity from the antitrust laws is not lightly implied.” California v. Federal Power Comm’n, 369 U. S. 482, 485. Cf. United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188, 198-199; United States v. Southern Pac. Co., 259 U. S. 214, 239-240. This canon, of construction, which reflects the felt indispensable role of antitrust policy in the maintenance of a free economy, is controlling here. For there is no indication in the legislative history to the 1950 amendment of § 7 that Congress wished to confer a special dispensation upon the banking industry; if Congress had so wished, moreover, surely it would have exempted the industry from the stock-acquisition as well as the assets-acquisition provision.
Of course, our construction of the amended § 7 is not foreclosed because, after the passage of the amendment, some members of Congress, and for a time the Justice Department, voiced the view that bank mergers were still beyond the reach of the section. “[T]he views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of.an earlier one.” United States v. Price, 361 U. S. 304, 313; see Rainwater v. United States, 356 U. S. 590, 593; United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 282; cf. United States v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 353 U. S. 586, 590. This holds true even though misunderstanding of the scope of § 7 may have played some part in the passage of the Bank Merger Act of 1960. There is a question, to which we shall shortly turn, whether there exists such inconsistency between the Bank Merger Act and § 7, as we now construe it, as to require a holding that § 7 must be deemed repealed pro tanto; but that is a different question from whether misunderstanding of the scope of § 7 is relevant to our task of defining what scope Congress gave the section in 1950. When Congress enacted the Bank Merger Act, the applicability of § 7 to bank.mergers was still to be authoritatively determined; it was a subject of speculation. Thus, this is not a case in which our “earlier decisions are part of the arch on which the new structure rests, [and] we [must] refrain from disturbing them lest we change the design that Congress fashioned.” State Board of Ins. v. Todd Shipyards Corp., 370 U. S. 451; 458. Cf. note 17, supra. The design fashioned in the Bank Merger Act was predicated upon uncertainty as to the scope of § 7, and we do no violence to that design, by dispelling the uncertainty.
B. The Effect of the Bank Merger Act of 1960.
Appellees contended below that the Bank Merger Act, by directing the banking agencies to consider competitive factors before approving mergers, 12 U. S. C. (1958 ed., Supp. IV) § 1828 (c), note 8, supra, immunizes approved mergers from challenge under the federal antitrust laws. We think the District Court was correct in rejecting this contention. No express immunity is conferred by the- Act. Repeals of the antitrust laws by implication from a regulatory statute are strongly disfavored, and have only been found in cases of plain repugnancy between the antitrust and regulatory provisions. Two recent cases, Pan American World Airways v. United States, 371 U. S. 296, and California v. Federal Power Comm’n, 369 U. S. 482, illustrate this principle. In Pan American, the Court held' that because the Civil Aeronautics Board had been given broad powers to enforce the competitive standard clearly delineated by the Civil Aeronautics Act, and to immunize a variety of transactions from the operation of the antitrust laws, the Sherman Act could not be applied to facts composing the precise ingredients of a case subject to the Board’s broad regulatory and remedial powers; in contrast, the banking agen-, cies.have authority neither to enforce the antitrust laws against mergers, cf. note 22, supra, nor to grant immunity from those laws.
In the California case, on the other hand, the Court held that the FPC’s approval of a merger did not confer immunity from § 7 of the Clayton Act, even though, as in the instant case, the agency had taken the competitive factor into account in passing upon the merger application. See 369 U. S., at 484-485, 487-488. We think California is"controlling here. Although the Comptroller was required to consider effect upon competition in passing upon appellees’ merger application, he was not required to give this factor any particular weight; he was not even required to (and did not) hold a hearing before approving the application; and there is no specific provision for judicial review of his decision. Plainly, the range and scope of administrative powers under the Bank Merger Act bear little resemblance to those involved in Pan American.
Nor did Congress, in passing the Bank Mer
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
Mr. Justice White dissents. He would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Thé question before us is whether an employer commits an unfair labor practice under § 8 (a) of the National Labor Relations Act, 61 Stat. 136, 29 U. S. C. § 158' when he extends a 20-year seniority credit to strike replacements and strikers who leave the strike and return to work. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in this case joined the Ninth Circuit, Labor Board v. Potlatch Forests, Inc., 189 F. 2d 82 (and see Labor Board v. Lewin-Mathes, 285 F. 2d 329, from the Seventh Circuit), to hold that such super-seniority awards are not unlawful absent a showing of an illegal motive on the part of the employer. 303 F. 2d 359. The Sixth Circuit, Swarco, Inc., v. Labor Board, 303 F. 2d 668, and the National Labor Relations Board are of the opinion that such conduct can be unlawful even when the employer asserts that these additional benefits are necessary to continue his operations during a strike. To resolve these conflicting views upon an important question in the administration of the National Labor Relations Act, we brought the case here. 371 U. S. 810.
Erie Resistor Corporation and Local 613 of the Inter-, national Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers were bound by a collective bargaining agreement which was due to expire on March 31, 1959. In January 1959, both parties met to negotiate new terms but, after extensive bargaining, they were unable to reach agreement. Upon expiration of the contract, the union-, in support of its contract demands, called a strike which was joined by all of the 478 employees in the unit.
The company, under intense competition and subject to insistent demands from its customers to maintain deliveries, decided to continue production operations. Transferring clerks, engineers and other nonunit employees to production jobs, the company managed to keep production at about 15% to 30% of normal during the month of April. . On May 3, however, the company notified the union members that it intended to begin hiring replacements and that strikers would retain their jobs until replaced. The plant was located in an area classified by the United States Department of Labor as one of severe unemployment and the company had in fact received applications for .employment as early as a week or two after the strike began.
Replacements were to.ld that they would not be laid off or discharged at the end of the strike. To implement that assurance, particularly in view of the 450 employees already laid off on March 31, the company .notified the union that it intended to accord the replacements some form of super-seniority. At regular bargaining sessions between the company and union,, the union made it clear that, in its view, no matter what form the super-seniority plan might take, it would necessarily work an illegal discrimination against the strikers. As negotiations •advanced on other issues, it became evident that super-seniority was fast becoming the focal point of disagreement. On May 28, the company informed the union that it had decided to award 20 years’ additional seniority both to replacements and to strikers who returned to work, which would be available only for credit against future layoffs and which could not be used for other employee benefits based on years of service. The strikers, at a union meeting the next day, unanimously resolved to continue striking now in protest against the proposed plan as well.
The company made its first official announcement of the super-seniority plan on June 10, and by June 14, 34 new employees, 47 employees recalled from layoff status and 23 returning strikers had accepted production jobs. The union, now under great pressure, offered to give up some of its contract demands if the company would abandon super-seniority or go to arbitration on the question, but the company refused. In the following week, 64 strikers returned to work and 21 replacements took jobs, bringing the total to 102- replacements and recalled workers and 87 returned strikers. When the number of returning strikers went up to 125 during the following week, the union capitulated. A new labor agreement on the remaining economic issues was executed on July 17, and an accompanying settlement agreement was signed providing that the company’s replacement and job assurance policy should be resolved by the National Labor Relations Board and the federal courts but was to remain in effect pending final disposition.
Following the strike’s termination, the company reinstated those strikers whose jobs had not been filled (all but 129 were returned to their jobs). At about the same time,' the union received some 173 resignations from membership. By September of 1959, the production unit work force had reached a high of 442 employees, but by May of 1960, the work force had gradually slipped back to 240. Many employees laid off during this cutback period were reinstated strikers whose seniority was insufficient to retain their jobs as a consequence of the company’s super-seniority policy.
The union filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board alleging.that awarding super-seniority during the course of the strike constituted an unfair labor practice and that the subsequent layoff of the recalled strikers pursuant to such a plan was unlawful. The Trial Examiner found that the policy was promulgated for legitimate economic reasons; not for illegal or discriminatory purposes, and recommended that the union’s complaint be dismissed. The Board could not agree with the Trial Examiner’s conclusion that specific evidence of subjective intent to discriminate against the union was necessary to finding that super-seniority granted during a strike is an unfair labor practice. Its consistent view, the Board said, had always been that super-seniority, in circumstances such as these, was an unfair labor practice. The Board rejected the argument that super-seniority granted during a strike is a legitimate corollary of the employer’s right of replacement under Labor Board v. Mackay Radio & Tel. Co., 304 U. S. 333, and detailed at some length the factors which to it indicated that “superseniority is a form of discrimination extending far beyond the employer’s right of replacement sanctioned by Mackay, and is, moreover, in- direct conflict with the express provisions of the Act prohibiting discrimination.” Having put aside Mackay, the Board went on to deny “that specific evidence of Respondent’s discriminatory motivation is required to establish the alleged violations of the Act,” relying upon Radio Officers v. Labor Board, 347 U. S. 17, Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U. S. 793, and Teamsters Local v. Labor Board, 365 U. S. 667. Moreover, in the Board’s judgment, the employer’s insistence that its overriding purpose in granting super-seniority was to keep its plant open and that business necessity justified its conduct was unacceptable since “to excuse such conduct would greatly diminish, if not déstroy, the right to strike guaranteed by the Act, and would run directly counter to. the guarantees of Sections 8 (a)(1) and (3) that employees shall not be discriminated against for engaging in protected concerted activities.” Accordingly, the Board declined , to make findings as to the specific motivation of the plan or its business necessity in the circumstances here'.
The Court of Appeals rejected as unsupportable the rationale of the Board that a preferential seniority policy is illegal however motivated.
“We are of the opinion that inherent in the right of an employer to replace strikers during a strike is the concomitant right to adopt a preferential seniority policy which will assure the replacements some form of tenure, provided the policy is adopted Solely to protect and continue the business of the employer. We find nothing in the Act which proscribes such a policy. Whether the policy adopted by the Company in the instant case was illegally motivated we do not decide. The question is one of fact for decision by the Board.” 303 F. 2d, at 364.
It consequently denied the Board’s petition for enforcement and remanded the case for further findings.
We think the Court of Appeals erred in holding that, in the absence of a finding of specific illegal intent, a legitimate business purpose is always' a defense to an unfair labor practice charge. Cases in- this Court dealing with unfair labor practices have recognized the relevance and importance of showing the employer’s intent or motive to discriminate or to interfere with union rights. But specific evidence of such subjective intent is “not an indispensable element of proof of violation.” Radio Officers v. Labor Board, 347 U. S. 17, 44. “Some conduct may by its very nature contain the implications of the required intent; the natural foreseeable consequences of certain action may warrant the inference. . . . The existence of discrimination may at times be inferred by the Board, for ‘it is permissible to draw on experience in factual inquiries.’ ” Teamsters Local v. Labor Board, 365 U. S. 667, 675.
Though the intent necessary for an unfair labor practice may be shown in different ways, proving it in one manner may have far different weight and far different consequences than proving it in another. When specific evidence of a subjective intent to discriminate or to encourage or discourage union membership is shown, and found, many otherwise innocent or ambiguous • actions which are normally incident to the conduct of a’business may, without more, be converted into unfair labor practices. Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 46 (discharging employees); Associated Press v. Labor Board, 301 U. S. 103, 132 (discharging employees); Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177 (hiring employees). Compare Labor Board v. Brown-Dunkin Co., 287 F. 2d 17, with Labor Board v. Houston Chronicle Publishing Co., 211 F. 2d 848 (subcontracting union work); and Fiss Corp., 43 N. L. R. B. 125, with Jacob H. Klotz, 13 N. L. R. B. 746 (movement of plant to another town). Such proof itself is normally sufficient to destroy the employer’s claim of a legitimate business purpose, if one is made, and provides strong support to a finding that there is interference with union rights or that union membership will be discouraged. Conduct which on its face appears to serve legitimate business ends in these cases is wholly impeached by the showing of an intent to encroach upon protected rights. The employer’s claim of legitimacy is totally dispelled.
The outcome may well be the same when intent is founded upon the inherently discriminatory or destructive nature of the conduct itself. The employer in such cases must be held to intend the very consequences which fore-seeably and inescapably flow from his actions and if he fails to explain away, to justify or to characterize his actions as something different than they appear on their face, an unfair labor practice charge is made out. Radio Officers v. Labor Board, supra. But, as often happens, the employer may counter by claiming that his actions were taken in the pursuit of legitimate business ends and that his dominant purpose was not to discriminate or to invade union rights but to accomplish business objectives acceptable under the Act. Nevertheless, his conduct does speak for itself — it is discriminatory and it does discourage union membership and whatever the claimed overriding justification may be, it carries with it unavoidable consequences which the employer not only foresaw but which he must have intended. . As is not uncommon in human experience, such situations present a complex of motives and preferring one motive to another is in reality the far more delicate task, reflected in part in decisions of this Court, of weighing the interests of employees in concerted activity against the interest of the employer in. operating his business in a particular manner and of balancing in the light of the Act and its policy the intended consequences upon employee rights against the business ends to be served by the employer’s conduct. This essentially is the teaching of the Court’s prior cases dealing with this problem and, in our view, the Board did not depart from it.
The Board made a detailed assessment of super-seniority and, to its experienced eye, such a plan had the following characteristics:
(1) Super-seniority affects the tenure of all strikers whereas permanent replacement, proper under Mackay, affects only those who are, in actuality, replaced. It is one thing to say that a striker is subject to loss of his job at the strike’s end but quite another to hold that in addition to the threat of replacement, all strikers will at best return to their jobs with seniority inferior to that of the replacements and of those who left the strike.
(2) A super-seniority award necessarily operates to the detriment of those who participated in the strike as compared to nonstrikers.
(3) Super-seniority made available to striking bargaining unit employees as well as to new employees is in effect offering individual benefits to the strikers to induce them to abandon the strike.
(4) Extending the benefits of super-seniority to striking bargaining unit employees as well as to new replacements deals a crippling blow to the strike effort. At one stroke, those with low seniority have the opportunity to obtain the job security which ordinarily only long years of service can bring, while conversely, the accumulated’ seniority of older employees is seriously diluted. This combination of threat and promise couM be expected to undermine the strikers’ mutual interest and place the entire strike effort in. jeopardy. The history of this strike and its virtual collapse following the announcement of the plan emphasize the grave repercussions of super-seniority.
(5) Super-seniority renders future bargaining difficult, if not impossible, for the.collective bargaining representative. Unlike the replacement granted in Mackay which ceases to be an issue once the strike is over, the plan here creates a cleavage in the plant continuing long after the strike is ended. Employees are henceforth divided into two camps: those who stayed with the union and those who returned before the end of the strike and thereby gained extra seniority. This breach is re-emphasized with each subsequent layoff and stands as an ever-present reminder of the dangers connected with striking and with union activities in general.
In the light of this analysis, super-seniority by its very terms operates to discriminate between strikers and non-strikers, both during and after a strike, and its destructive impact upon the strike and union activity cannot be doubted. The origin of the plan, as respondent insists, may have been to keep production going and it may have been necessary to offer super-seniority to attract replacements and induce union members to leave the strike. But if this is true, accomplishment of respondent’s business purpose inexorably was contingent upon attracting sufficient replacements and strikers by offering preferential inducements to those who worked as opposed to those who struck: We think the Board was entitled to treat this case as involving conduct which carried its own indicia of intent and which is barred by the Act unless saved from illegality by an overriding business purpose justifying the invasion of union rights. The Board concluded that the business purpose asserted was insufficient to insulate the super-seniority plan from the reach of §8 (a)(1) and § 8 (a)(3), and we turn now to a review of that conclusion.
The Court of Appeals and respondent rely upon Mac-kay as precluding the result reached by the Board but we are not persuaded. .Under the decision in that case an employer may operate his plant during a strike and at its conclusion need not discharge those who worked during the strike in order to make way for returning strikers. It may be, as the Court of Appeals said, that “such a replacement policy is obviously discriminatory and may tend to discourage union membership.” But Mackay did not deal with super-seniority, with its effects upon all strikers, whether replaced or not, or with its powerful impact upon a strike itself. Because the employer’s interest must be deemed to outweigh the damage to concerted activities caused by permanently replacing strikers does not mean it also outweighs the far greater • encroachment resulting from super-seniority in addition to permanent replacement.
We have no intention of questioning the continuing vitality of the Mackay rule, but we are not prepared to extend it to the situation we have here. To do so would require us to set aside the Board’s considered judgment that the Act and its underlying policy require, in the present context, giving more weight to the harm wrought by super-seniority than to the interest of the employer in operating its plant during the strike by utilizing this particular means of attracting replacements. We find nothing in the Act or its legislative history to indicate that super-seniority is necessarily an acceptable method of resisting the économic impact of a strike, nor do we find anything inconsistent with the result which the Board reached. On the contrary, these sources are wholly consistent with, and lend full support to, the conclusion of the Board.
Section 7 guarantees, and §8 (a)(1) protects from employer interference the rights of employees to engage in concerted activities, which, as Congress has indicated, H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 26, include the right to strike.- Under § 8 (a)(3), it is unlawful for an employer by discrimination in terms of employment to discourage “membership in any labor organization,” which includes discouraging participation in concerted activities, Radio Officers v. Labor Board, 347 U. S. 17, 39-40, such as a legitimate strike. Labor Board v. Wheeling Pipe Line, Inc., 229 F. 2d 391; Republic Steel Corp. v. Labor Board, 114 F. 2d 820. Section 13 makes clear that although the strike weapon is not an unqualified right, nothing in the Act except as specifically provided is to be construed to interfere with this means of redress, H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 59, and § 2 (3) pieserves to strikers their unfilled positions and status as employees during the pendency of a strike. S. Rep. No. 573, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. 6. This repeated solicitude for the right to strike is predicated upon the conclusion that a strike when legitimately employed is . an economic weapon which in great measure implements and supports the principles of the collective bargaining system.
While Congress has from .time to time revamped and redirected national labor policy, its concern for the integrity of the strike weapon has remained constant. Thus when Congress chose to qualify the use of the strike, it did so by prescribing the limits and conditions of the abridgment in exacting detail, e. g., §§ 8 (b)(4), 8 (d), by indicating the precise procedures to be followed in effecting the interference, e. g., § 10 (j), (k), (1); §§ 206-210, Labor Management Relations Act, and by preserving the positive command of § 13 that the right to strike is to be given a generous interpretation within the scope of the labor Act. The courts have likewise repeatedly recognized and effectuated the strong interest of federal labor policy in the legitimate use of the strike. Automobile Workers v. O’Brien, 339 U. S. 454; Amalgamated Assn. of Elec. Ry. Employees v. Wisconsin Employment Rel. Bd., 340 U. S. 383; Labor Board v. Remington Rand, Inc., 130 P. 2d 919; Gusano v. Labor Board, 190 F. 2d 898; cf. Sinclair Ref. Co. v. Atkinson, 370 U. S. 195.
Accordingly, in view of the deference paid the strike weapon by the federal labor laws and the devastating consequences upon it which the Board found was and would be precipitated by respondent’s inherently discriminatory super-seniority plan, we cannot say the Board erred in the balance which it struck here. Although the Board’s decisions are by no means immune from attack in the courts as cases in this Court amply illustrate, e. g., Labor Board v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U. S. 105; Labor Board v. United Steelworkers, 357 U. S. 357; Labor Board v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, its findings here are supported by substantial evidence, Universal Camera Corp. v. Labor Board, 340 U. S. 474, its explication is not inadequate, irrational or arbitrary, compare Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177, 196-197; Labor Board v. United Steeworkers, supra, and it did not.exceed its powers or venture into an area barred by the statute. Compare Labor Board v. Insurance Agents, supra. The matter before the Board lay well within the mainstream of its duties. It was attempting to deal with an issue which Congress had placéd in its hands and “where Congress has in the statute given the Board a question to answer, .the courts will give respect to that answer.” Labor Board v. Insurance Agents, supra, at 499. Here, as in other cases, we must recognize the Board’s special function of applying the general provisions of the Act to the complexities of industrial life, Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U. S. 793, 798; Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, supra, at 194, and of “[appraising] carefully the interests of both sides of any labor-management controversy in the diverse circumstances of particular cases” from its special understanding of “the actualities of industrial relations.” Labor Board v. United Steelworkers, supra, at 362-363. “The ultimate problem is the balancing of the conflicting legitimate interests. The function of striking that balance to effectuate national labor policy is often a difficult and delicate responsibility, which the Congress committed primarily to the National Labor Relations Board, subject to limited judicial review.” Labor Board v. Truck Drivers Union, 353 U. S. 87, 96.
Consequently, because the Board’s judgment was that ■ the claimed business purpose, would not outweigh the necessary harm to employee rights: — & judgment which we sustain — it could properly put aside evidence of respondent’s motive and decline to find whether the conduct was or was not prompted by the claimed business purpose. We reverse the judgment of the Court , of Appeals and remand the case to that court since its review was a limited one and it must now reach the remaining questions before it, including the propriety of the remedy which at least in part turns upon the Board’s construction of the settlement agreement as being no barrier to an award not only of reinstatement but of back pay as well.
Reversed and remanded.
“Sec. 8 (a). It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7;
“(3) by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization; . . .
“(5) to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section 9 (a)
In addition to these employees, 450 employees in the unit were on layoff status.
The figure of 20 years was developed from a projection, on the basis of expected orders, of what the company’s work force would be following the strike. As of March 31, the beginning of the strike, a male employee. needed seven years’ seniority-.to avoid layoff and a female employee nine years’.
The Examiner had relied upon the company’s employment records for his conclusion that the replacement program was ineffective until the announcement of the super-seniority awards. The General Counsel, to show that such a plan was not necessary for that purpose,'pointed to the facts that the company had 300 unprocessed job applications when the strike ended, that the company declared to the union that it could have replaced all the strikers and that the company did not communicate its otherwise well-publicized policy to replacements before they were hired but only after they accepted jobs.
In addition, the Board held that continued insistence on this or a similar- proposal as a condition to negotiating an agreement constituted .a refusal to bargain in good faith under §8 (a)(5). See Labor Board v. Wooster Division of Borg-Warner, 356 U. S. 342.
. The Board also concluded that on May 29, when the union voted to continue striking in protest against the super-seniority plan, the strike wás converted into an unfair labor practice strike. All strikers not replaced at that date, the Board held, were entitled to reinstatement as of the date of their unconditional abandonment of the strike regardless of replacements. See Labor Board v. Pecheur Lozenge Co., 209 F. 2d 393.
Accordingly, those cases holding unlawful a super-seniority plan prompted by a desire on the part of the employer to penalize or discriminate against striking employees, Ballas Egg Products v. Labor Board, 283 F. 2d 871; Labor Board v. California Date Growers Assn., 259 F. 2d 587; Olin Mathieson Chem. Corp. v. Labor Board, 232 F. 2d 158, aff’d per curiam, 352 U. S. 1020, are explainable without reaching the considerations present here.
See, e. g., Labor Board v. Mackay Radio & Tel. Co., 304 U. S. 333; Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U. S. 793; Labor Board v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U. S. 105; Labor Board v. Truck Drivers Union, 353 U. S. 87.
In a variety of situations, the lower courts have dealt with and rejected the approach urged here that conduct otherwise unlawful is automatically excused upon a showing that it was motivated by business exigencies. Thus, it has been held that an employer cannot justify the discriminatory discharge of union members upon the ground that such conduct is the only way to induce a rival union to remove a picket line and permit the resumption of business, Labor Board v. Star Publishing Co., 97 F. 2d 465, or rearrange the bargaining unit because of an expected adverse effect on production, Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co. v. Labor Board, 162 F. 2d 435, or defend a refusal to bargain in good faith on the ground that unless the employer’s view prevails dire consequences to the business will follow, Labor Board v. Harris, 200 F. 2d 656, or refuse exclusive recognition to a union for fear that such recognition will bring reprisals from rival unions, McQuay-Norris Mfg. Co. v. Labor Board, 116 F. 2d 748, cert. denied, 313 U. S. 565; Labor Board v. National Broadcasting Co., 150 F. 2d 895, or discriminate in his business operations against employees of rival unions or without union affiliation solely in order to keep peace in the plant and avoid disruption of business, Wilson & Co., Inc., v. Labor Board, 123 F. 2d 411; Labor Board v. Hudson Motor Car Co., 128 F. 2d 528; Labor Board v. Gluek Brewing Co., 144 F. 2d 847; Labor Board v. Oertel Brewing Co., 197 F. 2d 59; Labor Board v. McCatron, 216 F. 2d 212, cert. denied, 348 U. S. 943; Labor Board v. Richards, 265 F. 2d 855. See also Idaho Potato Growers v. Labor Board, 144 F. 2d 295; Cusano v. Labor Board, 190 F. 2d 898; Labor Board v. Industrial Cotton Mills, 208 F. 2d 87, cert. denied, 347 U. S. 935. Indeed, many employers doubtless could conscientiously assert that their unfair labor practices were not malicious but were prompted by their best judgment as to the interests of their business. Such good-faith motive itself, however, has not been deemed an absolute defense to an unfair labor practice charge.
“Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of- collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 8 (a) (3).”
“Nothing in this Act, except as specifically provided for herein, shall be construed so as either to interfere with or impede or diminish in any way the right to strike, or to affect the limitations or qualifications on that right.”.
“The term 'employee’. . . shall include any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment . . . .”
This concern for the maintenance of the status prevailing before the strike has had its most recent manifestation in the 1959 amendments to the National Labor Relations Act. Congress there withdrew the ban inserted- by the Taft-Hartley amendment disqualifying replaced strikers from voting in union elections. Now, employees not entitled to reinstatement can, under regulations promulgated by the Board, exercise their pre-strike voting rights. See § 9 (c) (3); S. R,ep. No. 187, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. 32-33.
“Labor unions . . .' were organized out of the necessities of the situation. A single employee was helpless in dealing with' an employer. He was dependent ordinarily on his daily wage for the maintenance of himself and family. If the employer refused to pay him the wages that he thought fair, he was nevertheless unable to leave the employ and to resist arbitrary and unfair treatment. Union was essential to give laborers opportunity to deal on equality with their employer. They united to exert influence upon him and to leave him in a body in order by this inconvenience to induce him to make better terms with them. They were withholding their labor of economic value to make him pay' what they thought it was worth. The right to combine for such a lawful purpose has in many years not been denied by any court. The strike became a lawful instrument in a lawful economic struggle or competition between employer and employees as to the share or division between them of the joint product of labor and capital.”
American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Council, 257 U. S. 184, 209, quoted in Staff Report of Senate Committee on Education and Labor, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., Comparison of S. 2926 (73d Cong.) and S. 1958 (74th Cong.) 20. See also, Remarks of Senator Wagner before Senate Committee on Education and Labor, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., Hearings on S. 2926, 10-11:
“It has been urged .that the bill places a premium on discord by declaring that none of its provisions shall impair the right to strike. On the contrary, nothing would do more to alienate employee cooperation and to promote unrest than a law which did not make it clear that employees could refrain from working if that should become their only redress.”
Remarks of Senator Taft, 93 Cong. Rec. 3835 (1947):
“That means that we recognize freedom to strike when the question involved is the improvement of wages, hours, and working conditions, when a contract has expired and neither side is bound by a contract. We recognize that right in spite of the inconvenience, and in some cases perhaps danger, to the people of the United States which may result from the exercise of such right. . . . We have considered the question whether the right to strike can be modified. I think it can be modified in cases which do not involve the basic question of wages, prices, and working conditions. ... So far as the bill is concerned, we have proceeded on the theory that there is a right to strike and that labor peace must be based on free collective bargaining. We have done nothing to outlaw strikes for basic wages, hours, and working conditions after proper opportunity for mediation.”
‘‘We do not agree with Respondent’s CQntention that the Union in its strike settlement .agreement of July 17 waived' ajl rights for these employees. The settlement agreement provided, inter alia: ‘The Company’s replacement and job assurance policy to be resolved by the NLRB and the Federal Courts and to remain in effect pending final disposition.’ It is clear that this agreement was intended merely as an interim settlement pending legal determination of the employees’ rights. In any event, we would not in our discretion honor a private settlement which purported to deny to employees the rights guaranteed them by the Act. Cf. Wooster Division of Borg-Warner Corporation, 121 NLRB 1492, 1495.” Erie Resistor Corp., 132 N. L. R. B. 621, 631 n. 31.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
As part of a comprehensive program to recoup the costs of federal aviation programs from those who use the national airsystem, Congress in 1970 imposed an annual registration tax on all civil aircraft that fly in the navigable airspace of the United States. 26 U. S. C. § 4491, The constitutional question presented in this case is whether this tax, as applied to an aircraft owned by a State and used by it exclusively for police functions, violates the implied immunity of a state government from federal taxation. We hold that it does not.
I
Since the passage of the Air Commerce Act of 1926, 44 Stat. 568, the Federal Government has expended significant amounts of' federal funds to develop and strengthen an integrated national airsystem and to make civil air transportation safe and practical. It has established, developed, and improved a wide array of air navigational facilities and services that benefit all aircraft flying in the Nation’s navigable airspace, and it has also made substantial grants to state and local governments to assist in planning and developing airports.
In 1970, after an extended study of the national airsystem, Congress concluded that the level of annual federal outlays on aviation, while significant, had not been sufficient to permit the national airsystem to develop the capacity to cope satisfactorily with the current and projected growth in air transportation. To remedy this situation, Congress enacted two laws, the Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970 (Development Act), 84 Stat. 219, and the Airport and Airway Revenue Act of 1970 (Revenue Act), 84 Stat. 236, which together constitute a comprehensive program substantially to expand and improve the national airport and airway system over the decade beginning July 1, 1970. In the Development Act, Congress provided for vastly increased federal expenditures both for airport planning and development and for the further expansion of federal navigational services. More importantly for present purposes, the Revenue Act adopted several measures to ensure that federal outlays that benefited the civil users of the airways would, to a substantial extent, be financed by taxing measures imposed on those civil users. The Revenue Act, therefore, enacted for the first time, or increased, several taxes on civil aviation. Congress conceived of each of these revenue measures as user fees and calculated that they would produce revenues that would defray a significant and increasing percentage of the civil share of the annual total federal airport and airway expenditures for the fiscal years 1970 to 1979. To assure that the revenues from these user taxes would be expended only for the expansion, improvement, and maintenance of the air transportation system, an Airport and Airway Trust Fund was created, and Congress provided that the amount of revenue generated by the aviation user charges would, during the 1970’s, be paid into this trust fund, as would any money appropriated from general revenues for aviation purposes. Revenue Act, § 208, 84 Stat. 250, 49 U. S. C. § 1742; see H. R. Rep. No. 91-601, p. 41 (1969) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.); S. Rep. No. 91-706, pp. 23-25 (1970) (hereinafter S. Rep.).
The financing measures in the Revenue Act are intended to promote two purposes. First, they are designed to serve the congressional policy of having those who especially benefit from Government activity help bear the cost. See H. R. Rep. 38; S. Rep. 5. Second, the financing provisions are intended to ensure that the capacity of the national air system would not again be found to be insufficient to meet the demands of increasing use. Congress believed that the inadequacy in past levels of investment in aviation had been due to the substantial competition from nonaviation budgetary requests. See H. R. Rep. 3. The trust fund and the user fees were, therefore, established to provide funding for aviation that would “generally match and grow with the demand” for use of the airways. Id., at 8.
The tax challenged in this case is one of several adopted in the Revenue Act, the annual aircraft registration tax. Revenue Act, § 206, 26 U. S. C. § 4491. It imposes an annual “flat fee” tax on all civil aircraft — including those owned by State and National Governments — that fly in the navigable
airspace of the United States. The amount of the annual charge depends upon the type and weight of the aircraft: those with piston-driven engines pay $25 plus 2 cents per pound of the maximum certificated takeoff weight in excess of 2,500 pounds whereas turbine-powered aircraft pay $25 plus 3% cents per pound of the maximum certificated takeoff weight. See n. 1, supra.
As is apparent from both the rate of tax in § 4491 and the legislative history of the Revenue Act, Congress did not contemplate that the annual registration tax would generate significant amounts of revenue, but rather that the bulk of the funds generated by the system would come from other user taxes, each of which is related more directly to the level of use of the navigable airspace. Thus, commercial aviation’s share of the cost of the federal activities would be raised primarily through an 8% tax on the price of domestic air passenger tickets, see Revenue Act, § 203, 26 U. S. C. § 4261; a $3 “head tax” on international flights originating in the United States, ibid.; and a 5% tax on the cost of transporting property by air, Revenue Act, § 204, 26 U. S. C. § 4271. Noncommercial general aviation — the generic category that includes state police aircraft — would pay most of its share through a 7-cent-per-gallon tax on aircraft fuel. See Revenue Act, § 202, 26 U. S. C. § 4041.
But while the registration tax was expected to produce only modest revenues and was understood to be only indirectly related to system use, Congress regarded it as an integral and essential part of the network of user charges. Moreover, it is the only tax imposed on those general noncommercial aircraft owned and operated by States. Although Congress was generally of the view that the States should be required to pay aviation user charges since “there would appear to be no reason why [they] should not pay for their fair share of the use of the airway facilities,” H. R. Rep. 46; see S. Rep. 17-18, and in fact made the States subject to all the other user charges, it retained a statutory exemption for the States from the aircraft fuel, tire, and tube taxes. See 68A Stat. 480, as amended, 26 U. S. C. §4041 (g) (1976 ed.); 26 U. S. C. §4221.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts owns several aircraft that are subject to the tax imposed by § 4491, including a helicopter which the Commonwealth uses exclusively for patrolling highways and other police functions. In 1973 the United States notified the Commonwealth that it had been assessed for a tax of $131.43 on this state police helicopter for the period from July 1, 1970, to June 30, 1971. The Commonwealth refused to pay and the United States thereafter levied on one of the Commonwealth’s bank accounts and collected this tax, plus interest and penalties.
Pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1346 (1970 ed. and Supp. V), the Commonwealth then instituted this action for a refund of the money collected, contending that the United States may not constitutionally impose a tax that directly affects the essential and traditional state function of operating a police force. The District Court dismissed the complaint in an unreported decision. It first indicated its view that the most recent decisions of this Court had so limited a State’s constitutional immunity from federal taxation that a constitutional challenge could not succeed unless the tax was discriminatory or the State showed that the tax actually impaired a State function. Because the Commonwealth had not alleged that this nondiscriminatory annual fee had in fact impaired the operations of its police force, the District Court concluded dismissal was mandatory. In the alternative, the District Court held that the tax in question is a user fee and that, whatever the present scope of the constitutional principle of implied immunity of a state government from federal taxes, a user fee does not implicate the doctrine. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed, solely on the latter ground. 548 F. 2d 33 (1977). We granted certiorari, 432 U. S. 905 (1977), to resolve a conflict between this decision and Georgia Dept. of Transp. v. United States, 430 F. Supp. 823 (ND Ga. 1976), appeal docketed, No. 77-16. See also City of New York v. United States, 394 F. Supp. 641 (SDNY 1975), affirmance order, 538 F. 2d 308 (CA2 1976); Texas v. United States, 72-2 USTC ¶ 16.048 (WD Tex. 1972), aff’d, 73-1 USTC ¶ 16,085 (CA5 1973) (holding that 8% air passenger tax may constitutionally be applied to state employees traveling on official state business). We affirm.
II
A review of the development of the constitutional doctrine of state immunity from federal taxation is a necessary preface to decision of this case. For while the Commonwealth concedes that certain types of user fees may constitutionally be applied to its essential activities, it urges that the decisions of this Court teach that the validity of any impost levied against a State must be judged by a “bright-line” test: If the measure is labeled a tax and/or imposed or collected pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code, it is unconstitutional as applied to an essential state function even if the revenue measure operates as a user fee. See Brief for Petitioner 1A-28. And the Commonwealth maintains that § 4491 is invalid for the additional reason that the values furthered by this constitutional doctrine necessarily require the invalidation of a levy such as that under § 4491 which, as an annual fee, is not directly related to use. See Brief for Petitioner 28-41. Neither contention has merit. The principles that have animated the development of the doctrine of state tax immunity and the decisions of this Court in analogous contexts persuade us that a State enjoys no constitutional immunity from a nondiscriminatory revenue measure, like § 4491, which operates only to ensure that each member of a class of special beneficiaries of a federal program pay a reasonable approximation of its fair share of the cost of the program to the National Government. Like the Court of Appeals, we have no occasion to decide either the present vitality of the doctrine of state tax immunity or the conditions under which it might be invoked.
A
That the existence of the States implies some restriction on the national taxing power was first decided in Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113 (1871). There this Court held that the immunity that federal instrumentalities and employees then enjoyed from state taxation, see Dobbins v. Commissioners, 16 Pet. 435 (1842); McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), was to some extent reciprocal and that the salaries paid state judges were immune from a nondiscriminatory federal tax. This immunity of State and Federal Governments from taxation by each other was expanded in decisions over the last third of the 19th century and the first third of this century, see, e. g., Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U. S. 218 (1928); Indian Motorcycle Co. v. United States, 283 U. S. 570 (1931) (sales from a private person to one sovereign may not be taxed by the other), but more recent decisions of this Court have confined the scope of the doctrine.
The immunity of the Federal Government from state taxation is bottomed on the Supremacy Clause, but the States’ immunity from federal taxes was judicially implied from the States’ role in the constitutional scheme. Collector v. Day, supra, emphasized that the States had been in existence as independent sovereigns when the Constitution was adopted, and that the Constitution presupposes and guarantees the continued existence of the States as governmental bodies performing traditional sovereign functions. 11 Wall., at 125-126. To implement this aspect of the constitutional plan, Collector v. Day concluded that it was imperative absolutely to prohibit any fed’eral taxation that directly affected a traditional state function, quoting Mr. Chief Justice Marshall’s aphorisms that “ 'the power of taxing... may be exercised so far as to destroy,’ ” id., at 123, quoting McCulloch v. Maryland, supra, at 427, and '"a' right [to tax], in its nature, acknowledges no limits.’ ” 11 Wall., at 123, quoting Weston v. Charleston, 2 Pet. 449, 466 (1829). The Court has more recently remarked that these maxims refer primarily to two attributes of the taxing power. First, in imposing, a tax to support the services a government provides to the public at large, a legislature need not consider the value of particular benefits to a taxpayer, but may assess the tax solely on the basis of taxpayers’ ability to pay. Second (of perhaps greater concern in the present context), a tax is a powerful regulatory device; a legislature can discourage or eliminate a particular activity that is within its regulatory jurisdiction simply by imposing a heavy tax on its exercise. See National Cable Television Assn. v. United States, 415 U. S. 336, 340-341 (1974). Collector v. Day, like the earlier McCulloch v. Maryland, reflected the view that the awesomeness of the taxing power required a flat and absolute prohibition against a tax implicating an essential state function because the ability of the federal courts to determine whether particular revenue measures would or would not destroy such an essential function was to be doubted.
As the contours of the principle evolved in later decisions, “cogent reasons” were recognized for narrowly limiting the immunity of the States from federal imposts. See Helvering v. Gerhardt, 304 U. S. 405, 416 (1938). The first is that any immunity for the protection of state sovereignty is at the expense of the sovereign power of the National Government to tax. Therefore, when the scope of the States’ constitutional immunity is enlarged beyond that necessary to- protect the continued ability of the States to deliver traditional governmental services, the burden of the immunity is thrown upon the National Government without any corresponding promotion of the constitutionally protected values. See, id., at 416-417; Helvering v. Mountain Producers Corp., 303 U. S. 376, 384-385 (1938); Willcuts v. Bunn, 282 U. S. 216, 225 (1931). The second, also recognized by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland, supra, at 435-A36, is that the political process is uniquely adapted to accommodating the competing demands “for national revenue, on the one hand, and for reasonable scope for the independence of state action, on the other,” Helvering v. Gerhardt, supra, at 416: The Congress, composed as it is of members chosen by state constituencies, constitutes an inherent check against the possibility of abusive taxing of the States by the National Government.
In tacit, and at times explicit, recognition of these considerations, decisions of the Court either have declined to enlarge the scope of state immunity or have in fact restricted its reach. Typical of this trend are decisions holding that the National Government may tax revenue-generating activities of the States that are of the same nature as those traditionally engaged in by private persons. See, e. g., New York v. United States, 326 U. S. 572 (1946) (tax; on water bottled and sold by State upheld); Allen v. Regents, 304 U. S. 430 (1938) (tax on admissions to state athletic events approved notwithstanding use of proceeds for essential state functions); Helvering v. Powers, 293 U. S. 214 (1934) (tax on operations of railroad by State); Ohio v. Helvering, 292 U. S. 360 (1934) (tax on state liquor operation); South Carolina v. United States, 199 U. S. 437 (1905) (tax on state-run liquor business). It is true that some of the opinions speak of the state activity taxed as “proprietary” and thus not an immune essential governmental activity, but the opinions of the Members of the Court in New York v. United States, supra, the most recent decision, rejected the governmental-proprietary distinction as untenable. Rather the majority reasoned that a nondiscriminatory tax may be applied to a state business activity where, as was the case there, the recognition of immunity would “accomplish a withdrawal from the taxing power of the nation a subject of taxation of a nature which has been traditionally within that power from the beginning. Its exercise... by a nondiscriminatory tax, does not curtail the business of the state government more than it does the like business of the citizen.” 326 U. S., at 588-589 (Stone, C. J., concurring).
Illustrative of decisions actually restricting the scope of the immunity is the line of cases that culminated in the overruling of Collector v. Day in Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, 306 U. S. 466 (1939). See, e. g., Helvering v. Gerhardt, supra; Helvering v. Mountain Producers Corp., supra; Metcalf & Eddy v. Mitchell, 269 U. S. 514 (1926). Collector v. Day, of course, involved a nondiscriminatory tax that was imposed not directly on the State but rather on the salary earned by a judicial officer. Neither Collector v. Day itself nor its progeny or precursors made clear how such a taxing measure could be employed to preclude the States from performing essential functions. In any case, in the line of decisions that culminated in Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, supra, the Court demonstrated that an immunity for the salaries paid key state officials is not justifiable. Although key state officials are agents of the State, they are also citizens of the United States, so their income is a natural subject for income taxation. See Helvering v. Gerhardt, supra, at 420 and 422.
More significantly, because the taxes imposed were nondiscriminatory and thus also applicable to income earned by persons in private employment, the risk was virtually nonexistent that such revenue provisions could significantly impede a State’s ability to hire able persons to perform its essential functions. See Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, supra, at 484-485; Helvering v. Gerhardt, supra, at 420-421. The only advantage conceivably to be lost by denying the States such an immunity is that essential state functions might be obtained at a lesser cost because employees exempt from taxation might be willing to work for smaller salaries. See 304 U. S., at 420-421. But that was regarded as an inadequate ground for sustaining the immunity and preventing the National Government from requiring these citizens to support its activities. See Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, supra, at 483 and cases cited in n. 3. The purpose of the implied constitutional restriction on the national taxing power is not to give an advantage to the States by enabling them to engage employees at a lower charge than those paid by private entities, see Helvering v. Gerhardt, supra, at 421-422, but rather is solely to protect the States from undue interference with their traditional governmental functions. While a tax on the salary paid key state officers may increase the cost of government, it will no more preclude the States from performing traditional functions than it will prevent private entities from performing their missions. See Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, supra, at 484-485; Helvering v. Gerhardt, supra, at 420-421.
These two lines of decisions illustrate the “practical construction” that the Court now gives the limitation the existence of the States constitutionally imposes on the national taxing power; “that limitation cannot be so varied or extended as seriously to impair either the taxing power of the government imposing the tax... or the appropriate exercise of the functions of the government affected by it.” New York v. United States, 326 U. S., at 589-590 (Stone, C. J., concurring) quoting Metcalf & Eddy v. Mitchell, supra, at 523-524. Where the subject of tax is a natural and traditional source of federal revenue and where it is inconceivable that such a revenue measure could ever operate to preclude traditional state activities, the tax is valid. While the Court has by no means abandoned its doubts concerning its ability to make particularized assessments of the impact of revenue measures on essential state operations, compare New York v. United States, supra, at 581 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.) with 326 U. S., at 500 (Stone, C. J., concurring), it has recognized that some generic types of revenue measures could never seriously threaten the continued functioning of the States and hence are outside the scope of the implied tax immunity.
B
A nondiscriminatory taxing measure that operates to defray the cost of a federal program by recovering a fair approximation of each beneficiary’s share of the cost is surely no more offensive to the constitutional scheme than is either a tax on the income earned by state employees or a tax on a State’s sale of bottled water. The National Government’s interest in being compensated for its expenditures is only too apparent. More significantly perhaps, such revenue measures by their very nature cannot possess the attributes that led Mr. Chief Justice Marshall to proclaim that the power to tax is the power to destroy. There is no danger that such measures will not be based on benefits conferred or that they will function as regulatory devices unduly burdening essential state activities. It is, of course, the case that a revenue provision that forces a State to pay its own way when performing an essential function will increase the cost of the state activity. But Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, and its precursors, see 306 U. S., at 483 and the cases cited in n. 3, teach that an economic burden on traditional state functions without more is not a sufficient basis for sustaining a claim of immunity. Indeed, since the Constitution explicitly requires States to bear similar economic burdens when engaged in essential operations, see U. S. Const., Amdts. 5, 14; Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393 (1922) (State must pay just compensation when it “takes” private property for a public purpose); U. S. Const., Art. I, § 10, cl. 1; United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey, 431 U. S. 1 (1977) (even when burdensome, a State often must comply with the obligations of its contracts), it cannot be seriously contended that federal exactions from the States of their fair share of the cost of specific benefits they receive from federal programs offend the constitutional scheme.
Our decisions in analogous contexts support this conclusion. We have repeatedly held that the Federal Government may impose appropriate conditions on the use of federal property or privileges and may require that state instrumentalities comply with conditions that are reasonably related to the federal interest in particular national projects or programs. See, e. g., Ivanhoe Irrigation Dist. v. McCracken, 357 U. S. 275, 294-296 (1958); Oklahoma v. Civil Service Comm’n, 330 U. S. 127, 142-144 (1947); United States v. San Francisco, 310 U. S. 16 (1940); cf. National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S. 833, 853 (1976); Fry v. United States, 421 U. S. 542 (1975). Á requirement that States, like all other users, pay a portion of the costs of the benefits they enjoy from federal programs is surely permissible since it is closely related to the federal interest in recovering costs from those who benefit and since it effects no greater interference with state sovereignty than do the restrictions which this Court has approved.
A clearly analogous line of decisions is that interpreting provisions in the Constitution that also place limitations on the taxing power of government. See, e. g., U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3 (restricting power of States to tax interstate commerce); § 10, cl. 3 (prohibiting any state tax that operates "to impose a charge for the privilege of entering, trading in, or lying in a port.” Clyde Mallory Lines v. Alabama ex rel. State Docks Comm’n, 296 U. S. 261, 265-266 (1935)). These restrictions, like the implied state tax immunity, exist to protect constitutionally valued activity from the undue and perhaps destructive interference that could result from certain taxing measures. The restriction implicit in the Commerce Clause is designed to prohibit States from burdening the free flow of commerce, see generally Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U. S. 274 (1977), whereas the prohibition against duties on the privilege of entering ports is intended specifically to guard against local hindrances to trade and commerce by vessels. See Packet Co. v. Keokuk, 95 U. S. 80, 85 (1877).
Our decisions implementing these constitutional provisions have consistently recognized that the interests protected by these Clauses are not offended by revenue measures that operate only to compensate a government for benefits supplied. See, e. g., Clyde Mallory Lines v. Alabama, supra (flat fee charged each vessel entering port upheld because charge operated to defray cost of harbor policing); Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 405 U. S. 707 (1972) ($1 head tax on enplaning commercial air passengers upheld under the Commerce Clause because designed to recoup cost of airport facilities). A governmental body has an obvious interest in making those who specifically benefit from its services pay the cost and, provided that the charge is structured to compensate the government for the benefit conferred, there can be no danger of the kind of interference with constitutionally valued activity that the Clauses were designed to prohibit.
C
Having established that taxes that operate as user fees may constitutionally be applied to the States, we turn to consider the Commonwealth’s argument that § 4491 should not be treated as a user fee because the amount of the tax is a flat annual fee and hence is not directly related to the degree of use of the airways. This argument has been confronted and rejected in analogous contexts. Capitol Greyhound Lines v. Brice, 339 U. S. 542 (1950), is illustrative. There the Court rejected an attack under the Commerce Clause on an annual Maryland highway tax of “2% upon the fair market value of motor vehicles used in interstate commerce.” The carrier argued that the correlation between the tax and use was not sufficiently precise to sustain the tax as a valid user charge. Noting that the tax “should be judged by its result, not its formula, and must stand unless proven to be unreasonable in amount for the privilege granted,” id., at 545, the Court rejected the carrier’s argument:
“Complete fairness would require that a state tax formula vary with every factor affecting appropriate compensation for road use. These factors, like those relevant in considering the constitutionality of other state taxes, are so countless that we must be content with ‘rough approximation rather than precision.’... Each additional factor adds to administrative burdens of enforcement, which fall alike on taxpayers and government. We have recognized that such burdens may be sufficient to justify states in ignoring even such a key factor as mileage, although the result may be a tax which on its face appears to bear with unequal weight upon different carriers.... Upon this type of reasoning rests our general rule that taxes like that of Maryland here are valid unless the amount is shown to be in excess of fair compensation for the privilege of using state roads.” Id., at 546-547. (Citations and footnotes omitted.)
See also Aero Mayflower Transit Co. v. Board of Railroad Comm’rs, 332 U. S. 495 (1947) (taxes of $10 and $15 per vehicle sustained against Commerce Clause challenges); Clyde Mallory Lines v. Alabama ex rel. State Docks Comm’n, supra (flat fee designed to defray cost of policing port upheld against claim it was constitutionally prohibited tax on privilege of entering harbor). This Court recently relied upon this reasoning to uphold a tax on commercial aviation activity. In Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority v. Delta Airlines, Inc., supra, we sustained against claims based on the Commerce Clause and on the right-to travel a $1 head tax on commercial airline passengers. We held that such taxes are valid so long as they (1) do not discriminate against interstate commerce, (2) are based upon some fair approximation of use, and (3) are not shown to be excessive in relation to the cost to the government of the benefits conferred. 405 U. S., at 716-720.
The Commonwealth, of course, recognizes that flat fees, and even flat annual fees, have been held constitutionally permissible in these contexts. It urges, however, that such “rough approximations of cost,” while appropriate compensatory measures in other settings, should not be permissible here. It maintains that the values protected by the doctrine of state tax immunity require that any user tax be closely calibrated to the amount of any taxpayer’s actual use, and it suggests that we — for purposes of the state tax immunity doctrine only — define user fees as charges for measurable amounts of use of government facilities.
We note first that it is doubtful that the National Government could recover the costs of its aviation activities from those direct beneficiaries without making at least some use of annual flat fees. In arguing that the Revenue Act provisions are not sufficiently user related, the Commonwealth places extensive reliance iipon the DOT Study, prepared at the direction of Congress, of the best way to recoup the costs of the federal aviation activities from its beneficiaries. While the report recognized that it would be generally possible, albeit costly in the case of general aviation, to tie the charges to specific measurable benefits received, see DOT Study 61, it indicated that certain costs imposed by general aviation could only be recovered through flat fees. Id., at 61 n. 2.
But even if it were feasible to recover all costs through charges for measurable amounts of use of Government facilities, we fail to see how such a requirement would appreciably advance the policies embodied in the doctrine of state tax immunity. Since a State has no constitutional complaint when it is required to pay the cost of benefits received, the Commonwealth’s only legitimate fear is that the flat-fee requirement may result in the collection from it of more than its actual “fair share.” We observe first that where the charges imposed by the Federal Government apply to large numbers of private parties as well as to state activities, it is as likely as not that the user fee will result in exacting less money from the State than it would have to pay under a perfect user-fee system. More fundamentally, even when an annual flat fee results in some overcharges, the Commonwealth’s solution would often increase the fiscal burden on the States. If the National Government were required more precisely to calibrate the amount of the fee to the extent of the actual use of the airways, administrative costs would increase and so would the amount of revenue needed to operate the system. The resulting increment in a State’s actual fair share might well be greater than any overcharge resulting from the present fee system. But the complete answer to the Commonwealth’s concern is that even if the flat fee does cost it somewhat more than it would have to pay under a perfect user-fee system, there is still no interference with the values protected by the implied constitutional tax immunity of the States. The possibility of a slight overcharge is no more offensive to the constitutional structure than is the increase in the cost of essential operations that results either from the fact that those who deal with the State may be required to pay nondiseriminatory taxes on the money they receive or from the fact a jury may award an eminent domain claimant an amount in excess of what would be “just compensation” in an ideal system of justice.
Whatever the present scope of the principle of state tax immunity, a State can have no constitutional objection to a revenue measure that satisfies the three-prong test of Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority v. Delta Airlines, Inc.— substituting “state function” for “interstate commerce” in that test. So long as the charges do not discriminate against state functions, are based on a fair approximation of use of the system, and are structured to produce revenues that will not exceed the total cost to the Federal Government of the benefits to be supplied, there can be no substantial basis for a claim that the National Government will -be using its taxing powers to control, unduly interfere with, or destroy a State’s ability to perform essential services. The requirement that total revenues not exceed expenditures places a natural ceiling on the total amount that such charges may generate and the further requirement that the measure be reasonable and nondiscriminatory precludes the adoption of a charge that will unduly burden state activities.
Ill
Applying these principles to this case demonstrates that the Commonwealth’s claim of constitutional immunity is particularly insubstantial. First, there is no question but that the tax imposed by § 4491 is nondiscriminatory. It applies not only to private users of the airways but also to civil aircraft operated by the United States — facts which minimize, if not eliminate entirely, the basis for a conclusion that § 4491 might be an abusive exercise of the taxing power. Indeed, the Revenue Act discriminates in favor of the States since it retains the States’ exemption from the 7-cent-per-gallon fuel tax that applies to private noncommercial general aviation — a fact that illustrates the manner in which the political process is peculiarly adapted to the protection of state interests.
Second, the tax satisfies the requirement that it be a fair approximation of the cost of the benefits civil aircraft receive from the federal activities. As we have indicated, the legislative background and terms of the Revenue Act indicate that Congress believed that four measures, taken together, would fairly reflect some of the cost of the benefits that redound to the noncommercial general aircraft that fly in the navigable airspace of the United States: a 7-cent-per-gallon fuel tax, a 5-cent-per-pound tax on aircraft tires, a 10-cent-per-pound tax on tubes, see 26 U. S. C. § 4071, and the annual aircraft registration tax. See nn. 4 and 8, supra. The formula contained in these four measures taken together does not, of course, give weight to every factor affecting appropriate compensation for airport and airway use. A probable deficiency in the formula arises because not all aircraft make equal use of the federal navigational facilities or of the airports that have been planned or constructed with federal assistance. But the present scheme nevertheless is a fair approximation of the cost of the benefits each aircraft receives. Every aircraft that flies in the navigable airspace of the United States has available to it the navigational assistance and other special services supplied by the United States. And even those aircraft, if there are any, that have never received specific services from the National Government benefit from them in the sense that the services are available for their use if needed and in that the provision of the services makes the airways safer for all users. The four taxes, taken together, fairly reflect the benefits received, since three are geared directly to use, whereas the fourth, the aircraft registration tax, is designed to give
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | J | sc_issuearea |
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Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (Reform Act) constituted a major statutory response to the vast tide of illegal immigration that had produced a “shadow population” of literally millions of undocumented aliens in the United States. On the one hand, Congress sought to stem the tide by making the plight of the undocumented alien even more onerous in the future than it had been in the past; thus, the Reform Act imposed criminal sanctions on employers who hired undocumented workers and made a number of federally funded welfare benefits unavailable to these aliens. On the other hand, in recognition that a large segment of the shadow population played a useful and constructive role in the American economy, but continued to reside in perpetual fear, the Reform Act established two broad amnesty programs to allow existing undocumented aliens to emerge from the shadows.
The first amnesty program permitted any alien who had resided in the United States continuously and unlawfully since January 1, 1982, to qualify for an adjustment of his or her status to that of a lawful permanent resident. See 100 Stat. 3394, as amended, 8 U. S. C. § 1255a. The second program required the Attorney General to adjust the status of any alien farmworker who could establish that he or she had resided in the United States and performed at least 90 days of qualifying agricultural work during the 12-month period prior to May 1, 1986, provided that the alien could also establish his or her admissibility in the United States as an immigrant. The Reform Act required the Attorney General first to adjust the status of these aliens to “[sjpecial agricultural workers” (SAW’s) lawfully admitted for temporary residence, see 100 Stat. 3417, as amended, 8 U. S. C. § 1160(a) (1), and then eventually to aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, see § 1160(a)(2).
This case relates only to the SAW amnesty program. Although additional issues were resolved by the District Court and the Court of Appeals, the only question presented to us is whether § 210(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which was added by § 302(a) of the Reform Act and sets forth the administrative and judicial review provisions of the SAW program, see 8 U. S. C. § 1160(e), precludes a federal district court from exercising general federal-question jurisdiction over an action alleging a pattern or practice of procedural due process violations by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in its administration of the SAW program. We hold that given the absence of clear congressional language mandating preclusion of federal jurisdiction and the nature of respondents’ requested relief, the District Court had jurisdiction to hear respondents’ constitutional and statutory challenges to INS procedures. Were we to hold otherwise and instead require respondents to avail themselves of the limited judicial review procedures set forth in § 210(e) of the INA, meaningful judicial review of their statutory and constitutional claims would be foreclosed.
I
The Reform Act provided three important benefits to an applicant for SAW status. First, the mere filing of a “non-frivolous application” entitled the alien to a work authorization that would remain valid during the entire period that the application was being processed. See 8 U. S. C. § 1160(d)(2)(B). Second, regardless of the disposition of the application, the Reform Act expressly prohibited the Government from using any information in the application for enforcement purposes. Thus, the application process could not be used as a means of identifying deportable aliens; rather, the initiation of a deportation proceeding had to be based on evidence obtained from an independent source. See § 1160(b)(6). Third, if SAW status was granted, the alien became a lawful temporary resident, see § 1160(a)(1), and, in due course, could obtain the status of a permanent resident, see § 1160(a)(2).
In recognition that the fear of prosecution or deportation would cause many undocumented aliens to be reluctant to come forward and disclose their illegal status, the Reform Act directed the Attorney General to enlist the assistance of a variety of nonfederal organizations to encourage aliens to apply and to provide them with counsel and assistance during the application process. These “qualified... designated entities” (QDE’s), which included private entities such as farm labor organizations and associations of agricultural employers as well as qualified state, local, and community groups, were not allowed to forward applications for SAW status to the Attorney General unless the applicant consented. See §§ 1160(b)(2), (b)(4).
The Reform Act provided that SAW status applications could be filed with a specially created legalization office (LO), or with a QDE, which would forward applications to the appropriate LO, during an 18-month period commencing on June 1, 1987. See § 1160(b)(1)(A). Regulations adopted by the INS to administer the program provided for' a personal interview of each applicant at an LO. See 8 CFR § 210.2(c) (2)(iv) (1990). In the application, the alien had to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he or she worked the requisite 90 days of qualifying seasonal agricultural services. See §§ 210.3(a), (b)(1). To meet the burden of proof, the applicant was required to present evidence of eligibility independent of his or her own testimony. See § 210.3(b)(2). The applicant could meet this burden through production of his or her employer’s payroll records, see 8 U. S. C. § 1160(b) (3)(B)(ii), or through submission of affidavits “by agricultural producers, foremen, farm labor contractors, union officials, fellow employees, or other persons with specific knowledge of the applicant’s employment,” see 8 CFR §210.3(c)(3) (1990). At the conclusion of the interview and of the review of the application materials, the LO could deny the application or make a recommendation to a regional processing facility that the application be either granted or denied. See §210.1(q). A denial, whether at the regional or local level, could be appealed to the legalization appeals unit, which was authorized to make the final administrative decision in each individual case. See § 103.3(a)(2)(iii).
The Reform Act expressly prohibited judicial review of such a final administrative determination of SAW status except as authorized by § 210(e)(3)(A) of the amended INA. That subsection permitted “judicial review of such a denial only in the judicial review of an order of exclusion or deportation.” In view of the fact that the courts of appeals constitute the only fora for judicial review of deportation orders, see 75 Stat. 651, as amended, 8 U. S. C. § 1105a, the statute plainly foreclosed any review in the district courts of individual denials of SAW status applications. Moreover, absent initiation of a deportation proceeding against an unsuccessful applicant, judicial review of such individual determinations was completely foreclosed.
r-H I — I
This action was filed in the District Court for the Southern District of Florida by the Haitian Refugee Center, the Migration and Refugee Services of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Palm Beach, and 17 unsuccessful individual SAW applicants. The plaintiffs sought relief on behalf of a class of alien farmworkers who either had been or would be injured by unlawful practices and policies adopted by the INS in its administration of the SAW program. The complaint alleged that the interview process was conducted in an arbitrary fashion that deprived applicants of the due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Among other charges, the plaintiffs alleged that INS procedures did not allow SAW applicants to be apprised of or to be given opportunity to challenge adverse evidence on which denials were predicated, that applicants were denied the opportunity to present witnesses on their own behalf, that non-English speaking Haitian applicants were unable to communicate effectively with LO’s because competent interpreters were not provided, and that no verbatim recording of the interview was made, thus inhibiting even any meaningful administrative review of application denials by LO’s or regional processing facilities. See App. 44-45; Haitian Refugee Center, Inc. v. Nelson, 694 F. Supp. 864, 867 (SD Fla. 1988).
After an evidentiary hearing, the District Court ruled that it had jurisdiction, that the case should proceed as a class action, and that a preliminary injunction should issue. The court recognized that individual aliens could not contest the denial of their SAW applications “unless and until the INS in-stitut[ed] deportation proceedings against them,” but accepted jurisdiction because the complaint “does not challenge any individual determination of any application for SAW status but rather attacks the manner in which the entire program is being implemented, allegations beyond the scope of administrative review.” On the merits, the District Court found that a number of INS practices violated the Reform Act and were unconstitutional, and entered an injunction requiring the INS to vacate large categories of denials, and to modify its practices in certain respects.
The Court of Appeals affirmed. On the merits, it upheld all of the findings and conclusions of the District Court, and it also rejected each of the Government’s jurisdictional arguments. Relying on earlier Circuit precedent, it held that the statutory bar to judicial review of individual determinations was inapplicable:
“In Jean v. Nelson, 727 F. 2d 957 (11th Cir. 1984) (in banc), aff’d, 472 U. S. 846... (1985), we reaffirmed that section 106 of the INA (Codified at 8 U. S. C. § 1105a) does not deprive district courts of jurisdiction to review allegations of systematic abuses by INS officials. Jean, 727 F. 2d at 980. We explained that to postpone ‘judicial resolution of a disputed issue that affects an entire class of aliens until an individual petitioner has an opportunity to litigate it on habeas corpus would foster the very delay and procedural redundancy that Congress sought to eliminate in passing § 1105a.’ Id. In this action, appellees do not challenge the merits of any individual status determination; rather... they contend that defendants’ policies and practices in processing SAW applications deprive them of their statutory and constitutional rights.” Haitian Refugee Center, Inc. v. Nelson, 872 F. 2d 1555, 1560 (CA11 1989).
In their certiorari petition, petitioners did not seek review of the District Court’s rulings on the merits or the form of its injunctive relief. Our grant of certiorari is therefore limited to the jurisdictional question.
h — I I — I
We preface our analysis of petitioners position with an identification of matters that are not in issue. First, it is undisputed that SAW status is an important benefit for a previously undocumented alien. This status not only protects the alien from deportation; it also creates job opportunities that are not available to an alien whose application is denied. Indeed, the denial of SAW status places the alien in an even worse position than he or she was in before the Reform Act was passed because lawful employment opportunities are no longer available to such persons. Thus, the successful applicant for SAW status acquires a measure of freedom to work and to live openly without fear of deportation or arrest that is markedly different from that of the unsuccessful applicant. Even disregarding the risk of deportation, the impact of a denial on the opportunity to obtain gainful employment is plainly sufficient to mandate constitutionally fair procedures in the application process. At no time in this litigation have petitioners asserted a right to employ arbitrary procedures, or questioned their obligation to afford SAW status applicants due process of law.
Nor, at this stage of the litigation, is there any dispute that the INS routinely and persistently violated the Constitution and statutes in processing SAW applications. Petitioners do not deny that those violations caused injury in fact to the two organizational plaintiffs as well as to the individual members of the plaintiff class. Although it does not do so explicitly, petitioners’ argument assumes that the District Court would have federal-question jurisdiction over the entire case if Congress had not, through the Reform Act, added § 210(e) to the INA. The narrow issue, therefore, is whether § 210(e), which bars judicial review of individual determinations except in deportation proceedings, also forecloses this general challenge to the INS’ unconstitutional practices.
IV
Petitioners’ entire jurisdictional argument rests on their view that respondents’ constitutional challenge is an action seeking “judicial review of a determination respecting an application for adjustment of status” and that district court jurisdiction over the action is therefore barred by the plain language of § 210(e)(1) of the amended INA. See 8 U. S. C. § 1160(e)(1). The critical words in § 210(e)(1), however, describe the provision as referring only to review “of a determination respecting an application” for SAW status (emphasis added). Significantly, the reference to “a determination” describes a single act rather than a group of decisions or a practice or procedure employed in making decisions. Moreover, when § 210(e)(3), see 8 U. S. C. § 1160(e)(3), further clarifies that the only judicial review permitted is in the context of a deportation proceeding, it refers to “judicial review of such a denial” — again referring to a single act, and again making clear that the earlier reference to “a determination respecting an application” describes the denial of an individual application. We therefore agree with the District Court’s and the Court of Appeals’ reading of this language as describing the process of direct review of individual denials of SAW status, rather than as referring to general collateral challenges to unconstitutional practices and policies used by the agency in processing applications.
This reading of the Reform Act’s review provision is supported by the language in § 210(e)(3)(B) of the INA, which provides that judicial review “shall be based solely upon the administrative record established at the time of the review by the appellate authority and the findings of fact and determinations contained in such record shall be conclusive unless the applicant can establish abuse of discretion or that the findings are directly contrary to clear and convincing facts contained in the record considered as a whole.” 8 U. S. C. § 1160(e)(3)(B). This provision incorporates an assumption that the limited review provisions of § 210(e) apply only to claims that have been subjected to administrative consideration and that have resulted in the creation of an adequate administrative record. However, the record created during the SAW administrative review process consists solely of a completed application form, a report of medical examination, any documents or affidavits that evidence an applicant’s agricultural employment and residence, and notes, if any, from an LO interview — all relating to a single SAW applicant. Because the administrative appeals process does not address the kind of procedural and constitutional claims respondents bring in this action, limiting judicial review of these claims to the procedures set forth in § 210(e) is not contemplated by the language of that provision.
Moreover, the “abuse-of-discretion” standard of judicial review under § 210(e)(3)(B) would make no sense if we were to read the Reform Act as requiring constitutional and statutory challenges to INS procedures to be subject to its specialized review provision. Although the abuse-of-discretion standard is appropriate for judicial review of an administrative adjudication of the facts of an individual application for SAW status, such a standard does not apply to constitutional or statutory claims, which are reviewed de novo by the courts.' The language of § 210(e)(3)(B) thus lends substantial credence to the conclusion that the Reform Act’s review provision does not apply to challenges to INS' practices and procedures in administering the SAW program.
Finally, we note that had Congress intended the limited review provisions of § 210(e) of the INA to encompass challenges to INS procedures and practices, it could easily have used broader statutory language. Congréss could, for example, have modeled § 210(e) on the more expansive language in the general grant of district court jurisdiction under Title II of the INA by channeling into the Reform Act’s special review procedures “all causes... arising under any of the provisions” of the legalization program. 66 Stat. 230, 8 U. S. C. § 1329. It moreover could have modeled § 210(e) on 38 U. S. C. § 211(a), which governs review of veterans’ benefits claims, by referring to review “on all questions of law and fact” under the SAW legalization program.
Given Congress’ choice of statutory language, we conclude that challenges to the procedures used by INS do not fall within the scope of § 210(e). Rather, we hold that § 210(e) applies only to review of denials of individual SAW applications. Because respondents’ action does not seek review on the merits of a denial of a particular application, the District Court’s general federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. §1331 to hear this action remains unimpaired by § 210(e).
V
Petitioners place their principal reliance on our decision in Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U. S. 602 (1984). The four respondents in Ringer wanted to establish a right to reimbursement under the Medicare Act for a particular form of surgery that three of them had undergone and the fourth allegedly needed. They sought review of the Secretary’s policy of refusing reimbursement for that surgery in an original action filed in the District Court, without exhausting the procedures specified in the statute for processing reimbursement claims. The District Court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction because the essence of the complaint was a claim of entitlement to payment for the surgical procedure. With respect to the three respondents who had had the surgery, we concluded that “it makes no sense” to construe their claims “as anything more than, at bottom, a claim that they should be paid for their BCBR [bilateral carotid body resection] surgery,” id., at 614, since success in their challenge of the Secretary’s policy denying reimbursement would have the practical effect of also deciding their claims for benefits on the merits. “Indeed,” we noted, “the relief that respondents seek to redress their supposed ‘procedural’ objections is the invalidation of the Secretary’s current policy and a ‘substantive.’ declaration from her that the expenses of BCBR surgery are reimbursable under the Medicare Act.” Ibid. Concluding that respondents’ judicial action was not “collateral” to their claims for benefits, we thus required respondents first to pursue their administrative remedies. In so doing, we found it significant that respondents, even if unsuccessful before the agency, “clearly have an adequate remedy in § 405(g) for challenging [in the courts] all aspects of the Secretary’s denial of their claims for payment for the BCBR surgery.” Id., at 617.
Unlike the situation in Heckler, the individual respondents in this action do not seek a substantive declaration that they are entitled to SAW status. Nor would the fact that they prevail on the merits of their purportedly procedural objections have the effect of establishing their entitlement to SAW status. Rather, if allowed to prevail in this action, respondents would only be entitled to have their case files reopened and their applications reconsidered in light of the newly prescribed INS procedures.
Moreover, unlike in Heckler, if not allowed to pursue their claims in the District Court, respondents would not as a practical matter be able to obtain meaningful judicial review of their application denials or of their objections to INS procedures notwithstanding the review provisions of § 210(e) of the amended IN A. It is presumable that Congress legislates with knowledge of our basic rules of statutory construction, and given our well-settled presumption favoring interpretations of statutes that allow judicial review of administrative action, see Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, 476 U. S. 667, 670 (1986), coupled with the limited review provisions of § 210(e), it is most unlikely that Congress intended to foreclose all forms of meaningful judicial review.
Several aspects of this statutory scheme would preclude review of respondents’ application denials if we were to hold that the District Court lacked jurisdiction to hear this challenge. Initially, administrative or judicial review of an agency decision is almost always confined to the record made in the proceeding at the initial decisionmaking level, and one of the central attacks on INS procedures in this litigation is based on the claim that such procedures do not allow applicants to assemble adequate records. As the District Court found, because of the lack of recordings or transcripts of LO interviews and the inadequate opportunity for SAW applicants to call witnesses or present other evidence on their behalf, the administrative appeals unit of the INS, in reviewing the decisions of LO's and regional processing facilities, and the courts of appeals, in reviewing SAW denials in the context of deportation proceedings, have no complete or meaningful basis upon which to review application determinations.
Additionally, because there is no provision for direct judicial review of the denial of SAW status unless the alien is later apprehended and deportation proceedings are initiated, most aliens denied SAW status can ensure themselves review in courts of appeals only if they voluntarily surrender themselves for deportation. Quite obviously, that price is tantamount to a complete denial of judicial review for most undocumented aliens.
Finally, even in the context of a deportation proceeding, it is unlikely that a court of appeals would be in a position to provide meaningful review of the type of claims raised in this litigation. To establish the unfairness of the INS practices, respondents in this case adduced a substantial amount of evidence, most of which would have been irrelevant in the processing of a particular individual application. Not only would a court of appeals reviewing an individual SAW determination therefore most likely not have an adequate record as to the pattern of INS’ allegedly unconstitutional practices, but it also would lack the factfinding and record-developing capabilities of a federal district court. As the American Bar Association as amicus points out, statutes that provide for only a single level of judicial review in the courts of appeals “are traditionally viewed as warranted only in circumstances where district court factfinding would unnecessarily duplicate an adequate administrative record — circumstances that are not present in ‘pattern and practice’ cases where district court factfinding is essential [given the inadequate administrative record].” Brief for American Bar Association as Amicus Curiae 7. It therefore seems plain to us, as it did to the District Court and the Court of Appeals, that restricting judicial review to the courts of appeals as a component of the review of an individual deportation order is the practical equivalent of a total denial of judicial review of generic constitutional and statutory claims.
Decision in this case is therefore supported by our unanimous holding in Bowen, supra. In that case we rejected the Government’s contention that two sections of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. §301 et seq. (1982 ed.), barred judicial review of the validity of a regulation governing the payment of Medicare benefits. We recognized that review of individual determinations of the amount due on particular claims was foreclosed, but upheld the collateral attack on the regulation itself, emphasizing the critical difference between an individual “amount determination” and a challenge to the procedures for making such determinations:
“The reticulated statutory scheme, which carefully details the forum and limits of review of ‘any determination... of... the amount of benefits under part A,’ 42 U. S. C. § 1395ff(b)(l)(C) (1982 ed., Supp. II), and of the ‘amount of... payment’ of benefits under Part B, 42 U. S. C. § 1395u(b)(3)(C), simply does not speak to challenges mounted against the method by which such amounts are to be determined rather than the determinations themselves. As the Secretary has made clear, ‘the legality, constitutional or otherwise, of any provision of the Act or regulations relevant to the Medicare Program’ is not considered in a ‘fair hearing’ held by a carrier to resolve a grievance related to a determination of the amount of a Part B award. As a result, an attack on the validity of a regulation is not the kind of administrative action that we described in Erika as an ‘amount determination’ which decides ‘the amount of the Medicare payment to be made on a particular claim’ and with respect to which the Act impliedly denies judicial review. 456 U. S., at 208.” 476 U. S., at 675-676 (emphasis in original).
Inherent in our analysis was the concern that absent such a construction of the judicial review provisions of the Medicare statute, there would be “no review at all of substantial statutory and constitutional challenges to the Secretary’s administration of Part B of the Medicare program.” Id., at 680.
As we read the Reform Act and the findings of the District Court, therefore, this case is controlled by Bowen rather than by Heckler. The strong presumption in favor of judicial review of administrative action is not overcome either by the language or the purpose of the relevant provisions of the Reform Act.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Chief Justice Rehnquist,
with whom Justice Scalia joins, dissenting.
Congress has carefully limited the judicial review available under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (Reform Act) in language which “he who runs may read.” The Court, with considerable and obvious effort, finds a way to avoid this limitation, because to apply the statute as written could bar judicial review of respondents’ constitutional claims. The statute as written is, in my view, constitutional, and there is therefore no need to rewrite it.
I — I
The relevant provisions of the Reform Act dealing with administrative and judicial review are found in 8 U. S. C. § 1160(e):
“(1) Administrative and judicial review
“There shall be no administrative or judicial review of a determination respecting an application for adjustment of status under this section except in accordance with this subsection.
“(2) Administrative review
“(A) Single level of administrative appellate review
“The Attorney General shall establish an appellate authority to provide for a single level of administrative appellate review of such a determination
“(3) Judicial review
“(A) Limitation to review of exclusion or deportation
“There shall be judicial review of such a denial only in the judicial review of an order of exclusion or deportation under section 1105a of this title.”
The first of the quoted sentences states, as clearly as any language can, that judicial review of a “determination respecting an application for adjustment of status under this section” may not be had except in accordance with the provisions of the subsection. The plain language of subsection (3)(A) provides that judicial review of a denial may be had only in connection with review of an order of exclusion or deportation. The Court chooses to read this language as dealing only with “direct review of individual denials of SAW status, rather than as referring to general collateral challenges to unconstitutional practices and policies used by the agency in processing applications.” Ante, at 492. But the accepted view of judicial review of administrative action generally— even when there is no express preclusion provision as there is in the present statute — is that only “final actions” are reviewable in court. The Administrative Procedure Act provides:
“[Fjinal agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court [is] subject to judicial review. A preliminary, procedural, or intermediate agency action or ruling not directly re viewable is subject to review on the review of the final agency action.” 5 U. S. C. §704.
The Court’s reasoning is thus a classic non sequitur. It reasons that because Congress limited judicial review only of what were in effect final administrative decisions, it must not have intended to preclude separate challenges to procedures used by the agency before it issued any final decision. But the type of judicial review of agency action which the Court finds that Congress failed to preclude is a type not generally available even without preclusion. In the light of this settled rule, the natural reading of “determination respecting an application” in § 1160(e) encompasses both final decisions and procedures used to reach those decisions. Each of respondents’ claims attacks the process used by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to make a determination respecting an application.
We have on several occasions rejected the argument advanced by respondents that individual plaintiffs can bypass restrictions on judicial review by purporting to attack general policies rather than individual results. For instance, in United States v. Erika, Inc., 456 U. S. 201 (1982), we found that in the context of the “precisely drawn provisions” of the Medicare statute, the provision of judicial review for awards made under Part A of the statute, coupled with the omission of judicial review for awards under Part B, “provides persuasive evidence that Congress deliberately intended to foreclose further review of such claims.” Id., at 208 (citations omitted). Similarly, in Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U. S. 602 (1984), we addressed a challenge to a ruling issued by the Secretary of Health and Human Services that precluded payment under Medicare for a particular medical procedure. The Medicare Act permits judicial review of “any claim arising under” the Act, 42 U. S. C. §§405(g), (h), only after a claimant seeks payment and exhausts administrative remedies. The plaintiffs contended that their lawsuits challenging the Secretary’s refusal to reimburse the procedure at issue were permissible without exhausting administrative remedies because they challenged only the Secretary’s “ ‘procedure’ for reaching her decision,” not the underlying decision on their particular claims. 466 U. S., at 614. We rejected this distinction, finding that “it makes no sense to construe the claims... as anything more than, at bottom, a claim that they should be paid for their... surgery.” Ibid. This holding was based on the recognition that a contrary result would allow claimants “to bypass the exhaustion requirements of the Medicare Act by simply bringing declaratory judgment actions in federal court before they undergo the medical procedure in question.” Id., at 621. We expressly rejected the contention — also urged by the respondents here — that “simply because a claim somehow can be construed as ‘procedural,’ it is cognizable in federal district court by way of federal-question jurisdiction.” Id., at 614.
It is well settled that when Congress has established a particular review mechanism, courts are not free to fashion alternatives to the specified scheme. See United States v. Fausto, 484 U. S. 439, 448-449 (1988); Whitney National Bank v. Bank of New Orleans & Trust Co., 379 U. S. 411, 419-422 (1965). In creating the Reform Act and the SAW program, Congress balanced the goals of the unprecedented amnesty programs with the need “to insure reasonably prompt determinations” in light of the incentives and opportunity for ineligible applicants to delay the disposition of their cases and derail the program. The Court’s ponderously reasoned gloss on the statute’s plain language sanctions an unwarranted intrusion into a carefully drafted congressional program, a program which placed great emphasis on a minimal amount of paperwork and procedure in an effort to speed the process of adjusting the status of those aliens who demonstrated their entitlement to adjustment. “If the balance is to be struck anew, the decision must come from Congress and not from this Court. ” Ringer, supra, at 627.
II
The Court bases its conclusion that district courts have jurisdiction to entertain respondents’ pattern and practice allegations in part out of respect for the “strong presumption” that Congress intends judicial review of administrative action. Ante, at 498. This presumption, however, comes into play only where there is a genuine ambiguity as to whether Congress intended to preclude judicial review of administrative action. In this case two things are evident: First, in drafting the Reform Act, Congress did not preclude all judicial review of administrative action; as detailed earlier, Congress provided for judicial review of INS action in the courts of appeals in deportation proceedings, and in the district courts in orders of exclusion. Second, by enacting such a scheme, Congress intended to foreclose all other avenues of relief. Therefore, since the statute is not ambiguous, the presumption has no force here.
The Court indicates that this presumption of judicial review is particularly applicable in cases raising constitutional challenges to agency action. Ante, at 496-499. I believe that Congress intended to preclude judicial review of such claims in this instance, and that in this context it is permissible for it to do so.
In the Reform Act, Congress enacted a one-time amnesty program to process claims of illegal aliens allowing them to obtain status as lawful residents. Congress intended aliens to come forward during the limited, 12-month eligibility period because “[t]his is the first call and the last call, a one-shot deal.” 132 Cong. Rec. 33217 (1986) (remarks of Sen. Simpson). If an alien failed to file a legalization application within the 12-month period, the opportunity was lost forever. To further expedite this unique and unprecedented amnesty program and to minimize the burden on the federal courts, Congress provided for limited judicial review.
Given the structure of the Act, and the status of these alien respondents, it is extremely doubtful that the operation of the administrative process in their cases would give rise to any colorable constitutional claims. ‘“An alien who seeks political rights as a member of this Nation can rightfully obtain them only upon terms and conditions specified by Congress. Courts are without authority to sanction changes or modifications; their duty is rigidly to enforce the legislative will in respect of a matter so vital to the public welfare.’” INS v. Pangilinan, 486 U. S. 875, 884 (1988) (quoting United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U. S. 472, 474 (1917)).
Respondents are undoubtedly entitled to the benefit of those procedures which Congress has accorded them in the Reform Act. But there is no reason to believe that administrative appeals as provided in the Act — which simply have not been resorted to by these respondents before suing in the District Court — would not have assured them compliance with statutory procedures. The Court never mentions what colorable constitutional claims these aliens, illegally present in the United States, could have had that demand judicial review. The most that can be said for respondents’ case in this regard is that it is conceivable, though not likely, that the administrative processing of their claims could be handled in such a way as to deny them some constitutional right, and that the remedy of requesting deportation in order to obtain judicial review is a burdensome one. We have never held, however, that Congress may not, by explicit language, preclude judicial review of constitutional claims, and here, where that body was obviously interested in expeditiously processing an avalanche of claims from noncitizens upon whom it was conferring a substantial benefit, I think it may do so.
JusTiCE White joins only Parts I, II, III, and IV of this opinion.
Pub. L. 99-603, 100 Stat. 3359.
Prior to November 6, 1986, the enactment date of the Reform Act, the employment of undocumented aliens did not violate federal law. See 66 Stat. 228, as amended, 8 U. S. C. § 1324(a) (1982 ed.) (providing that “for the purposes of this section [criminalizing the bringing in and harboring of aliens not lawfully entitled to enter and reside in the United States], employment (including the usual and normal practices incident to employment) shall not be deemed to constitute harboring”). Section 101 of the Reform Act, however, authorized both civil and criminal penalties against employers who hire unauthorized aliens either knowingly or without complying with specified verification requirements. See 8 U. S. C. § 1324a.
Section 121 of the Reform Act amended several federal programs to deny benefits to aliens who could not verify their lawful status. See Pub. L. 99-603, 100 Stat. 3384-3394.
The House Committee noted the purpose behind the legalization programs in the Reform Act:
“The United States has a large undocumented alien population living and working within its borders. Many of these people have been here for a number of years and have become a part of their
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted.
In this case, the court below held in effect that in a criminal trial, the jury may be instructed to ignore defense testimony unless it believes beyond a reasonable doubt that the testimony is true. That holding is fundamentally inconsistent with our prior decisions in In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970), and Washington v. Texas, 388 U. S. 14 (1967), and must therefore be reversed.
After a jury trial, petitioner was found guilty of possessing and concealing, with intent to defraud, counterfeit obligations of the United States. The evidence showed that on June 2, 1970, petitioner, her husband, and one Robert E. Voyles were traveling together by car between St. Louis, Missouri, and Brazil, Indiana. Upon reaching Brazil, Voyles left petitioner and her husband and passed two counterfeit bills at a local store. He was then arrested shortly after he entered the car in which petitioner and her husband were waiting.
After his arrest, Voyles was placed in the police car and taken to the station house. Petitioner and her husband were told to follow in their own car. A Mr. Baumunk testified that he saw petitioner throw a paper sack out of the car window as petitioner was following the police car. The bag was subsequently found to contain counterfeit bills. Police also found three counterfeit bills crumpled up under the right seat of petitioner's car.
Although petitioner testified in her own defense, she relied primarily on the testimony of Voyles. Voyles freely admitted his own guilt, but steadfastly insisted that neither petitioner nor her husband had anything to do with the crime. He testified that petitioner had merely agreed to give him a ride and knew nothing about the counterfeit bills that he carried with him. When the car stopped in Brazil, Voyles allegedly removed some of the counterfeit bills from his satchel which he kept in petitioner's trunk, and concealed the rest of the bills in a sack which he placed under the front bumper by the headlight. The defense argued that it was this sack that Baumunk saw fall to the ground as petitioner drove to the police station. Voyles also stated that after he had rejoined petitioner, he saw police approaching the car and threw the remaining bills on his person onto the car floor, again without the knowledge of petitioner. Petitioner thus asserts that she was not in knowing possession of the bills on the car floor.
With the case in this posture, the Government's position clearly depended upon its ability to discredit Voyles, since his testimony was completely exculpatory. Over strenuous defense objection, the trial judge gave the jury a lengthy “accomplice instruction” to be used in evaluating Voyles’ testimony. After first defining the word “accomplice” and warning that an accomplice’s testimony is “open to suspicion,” the judge made the following statement: “However, I charge you that the testimony of an accomplice is competent evidence and it is for you to pass upon the credibility thereof. If the testimony carries conviction and you are convinced it is true beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury should give it the same effect as you would to a witness not in any respect implicated in the alleged crime and you are not only justified, but it is your duty, not to throw this testimony out because it comes from a tainted source.” (Emphasis added.)
The clear implication of this instruction was that the jury should disregard Voyles’ testimony unless it was “convinced it is true beyond a reasonable doubt.” Such an instruction places an improper burden on the defense and allows the jury to convict despite its failure to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Accomplice instructions have long been in use and have been repeatedly approved. See, e. g., Holmgren v. United States, 217 U. S. 509, 523-524 (1910). In most instances, they represent no more than a commonsense recognition that an accomplice may have a special interest in testifying, thus casting doubt upon his veracity. See, e. g., Crawford v. United States, 212 U. S. 183, 204 (1909). But in most of the recorded cases, the instruction has been used when the accomplice turned State’s evidence and testified against the defendant. See generally McMillen v. United States, 386 F. 2d 29 (CA1 1967), and cases cited therein. No constitutional problem is posed when the judge instructs a jury to receive the prosecution’s accomplice testimony “with care and caution.” See, e. g., United States v. George, 319 F. 2d 77, 80 (CA6 1963). Cf. United States v. Nolte, 440 F. 2d 1124 (CA5 1971).
But there is an essential difference between instructing a jury on the care with which it should scrutinize certain evidence in determining how much weight to accord it and instructing a jury, as the judge did here, that as a predicate to the consideration of certain evidence, it must find it true beyond a reasonable doubt.
In Washington v. Texas, supra, we held that a criminal defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to present to the jury exculpatory testimony of an accomplice. The instruction given below impermissibly obstructs the exercise of that right by totally excluding relevant evidence unless the jury makes a preliminary determination that it is extremely reliable.
Moreover, the instruction also has the effect of substantially reducing the Government’s burden of proof. We held in In re Winship, supra, that the Constitution requires proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It is possible that Voy les’ testimony would have created a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury, but that it was not considered because the testimony itself was not believable beyond a reasonable doubt. By creating an artificial barrier to the consideration of relevant defense testimony putatively credible by a preponderance of the evidence, the trial judge reduced the level of proof necessary for the Government to carry its burden. Indeed, where, as here, the defendant’s case rests almost entirely on accomplice testimony, the effect of the judge’s instructions is to require the defendant to establish his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.
Because such a requirement is plainly inconsistent with the constitutionally rooted presumption of innocence, the conviction must be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
At the time of his testimony, Voyles had already pleaded guilty to a charge of complicity in the possession and concealment of counterfeit notes.
The dissent suggests that the defendant objected to the accomplice instruction solely on the ground that use of the word “accomplice” suggested that the defendant was guilty. Although the defense objection was not a model of clarity, it seems apparent that it was grounded more broadly on the trial judge’s decision to give the standard accomplice instruction despite the fact that the accomplice was a defense witness. The defense attorney stated: ‘T take exception to Instruction No. 16, as it’s misleading. 7 don’t think it belongs in this cause. There was no accomplice testified [sic] for the Government, and this could mislead them as to' the person who was accused of this crime and has already pled guilty, as making an accomplice of him, when actually he is not an accomplice, because they are not involved in the crime.” (Emphasis added.) Certainly, the trial judge understood this objection to be directed to his decision to give the standard cautionary instruction even though the alleged accomplice was called by the defendant. In colloquy with the defense attorney, the judge stated: “The next, ‘accomplice,’ the evidence of both the Government and the defendants may be considered by the jury in determining the guilt or innocence, no matter who produces the witness. . . . Now there’s a lot of inferences can be drawn from one item of evidence or another, and that’s for the jury to decide. So long as there is some evidence, the instruction must be given. It hits both ways on that point.” (Emphasis added.) Nor did the Court of Appeals indicate any doubt that defendant’s objection was sufficient to preserve the point on appeal.
True, the instruction was couched in positive terms. It told the jury to consider the evidence if it believed it true beyond a reasonable doubt. But the statement contained a negative pregnant as well. There is an unacceptable risk that jurors might have thought they were to reject the evidence — “throw [it] out,” in the words of the trial judge — if they had a reasonable doubt as to its veracity.
In the next paragraph of his instruction, the judge stated: “I further instruct you that testimony of an accomplice may alone and uncorroborated support your verdict of guilty of the charges in the Indictment if believed by you to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of the charges in the Indictment against the defendants.” In light of the fact that the only accomplice testimony in the case was exculpatory, this instruction was confusing to say the least. But even if it is assumed that Voyles’ testimony was to some extent inculpatory, the instruction was still fundamentally unfair in that it told the jury that it could convict solely on the basis of accomplice testimony without telling it that it could acquit on this basis. Even had there been no other error, the conviction would have to be reversed on the basis of this instruction alone.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Opinion of the Court by
Mr. Justice Black,
announced by Mr. Chief Justice Warren.
Appellees, a group of interstate railroads operating in Arkansas,, brought this action in a United States District Court asking that court to declare two Arkansas statutes unconstitutional and to enjoin two Arkansas Prosecuting Attorneys, appellants here, from enforcing or attempting to enforce the two state statutes. The railroad brotherhoods, also appellants here, were allowed to intervene in the District Court in order to defend the validity of the state statutes. One of those statutes, enacted in 1907, makes it an offense for a railroad operating a line of more than 50 miles to haul freight trains consisting of more than 25 cars without having a train crew consisting of not “less than an engineer, a fireman, a conductor and three brakemen . . . .” The second statute challenged by the railroads, enacted in 1913, makes it an offense for any railroad operating with lines 100 miles or more in length to engage in switching activities in cities of designated populations, with “less than one [1] engineer, a fireman, a foreman and three [3] helpers. ...” The complaint charged that, as applied to the plaintiff railroads, both statutes (1) operate in an “arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory and unreasonable” manner in violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment; (2) unduly interfere with, burden and needlessly increase the cost of interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause, Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, of the Constitution, and contrary to the National Transportation Policy expressed in the Interstate Commerce Act; (3) discriminate against interstate commerce in favor of local or intrastate commerce; and (4) by seeking to regulate and control the number of persons working on interstate railroad locomotives and cars invade a field of legislation pre-empted by the Federal Government primarily through federal enactment of Public Law 88-108 passed by Congress in 1963. This law was passed to avert a nationwide railroad strike threatened by a labor dispute between the national railroads and the brotherhoods over the number of employees that should be used on trains.
In their complaint the railroads admitted that this Court had on three separate occasions, in 1911, in 1916, and again in 1931, sustained the constitutionality of both state statutes against the same Fourteenth Amendment and Commerce Clause challenges made in the present action. The complaint alleged, however, that improvements have now been so great in locomotives, freight cars, couplers, brakes, trackage, roadbeds, and operating methods that the facts on which the prior holdings rested no longer exist. The brotherhoods and the two defendant Prosecuting Attorneys answered the complaint asserting the ■ constitutionality of the Acts and denying that there had been a change in conditions so significant as to justify any departure from this Court’s prior decisions. The brotherhoods’ answer alleged that modern developments had actually multiplied the dangers of railroading thus making the Arkansas statutes more necessary than ever. The pleadings therefore, at least to some extent, presented factual issues calling for the introduction and determination of evidence under prior holdings of this Court. See, e. g., Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona, 325 U. S. 761. At this stage of the trial, however, the railroads, claiming there was no substantial dispute in the evidence with reference to any relevant issues, filed a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56, Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. alleging that: (1) Both state statutes are “pre-empted by federal legislation in conflict therewith, to-wit: Public Law 88-108 and the award of Arbitration Board No. 282 pursuant thereto; the Railway Labor Act . . . ; and the Interstate Commerce Act . . . particularly the preamble thereto”; (2) the state statutes constitute discriminatory legislation against interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause; and (3) the state statutes deny the railroads equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Without hearing any evidence the three-judge court convened to consider the case sustained the railroads’ motion for summary judgment, holding, one judge dissenting, that the Arkansas statutes are “in substantial conflict with Public Law 88-108 . . . and the proceedings thereunder, and are therefore unenforceable against the plaintiffs . . . 239 F. Supp. 1, 29. The District Court did not purport to rule on the other questions presented in the motion for summary judgment and the complaint. We noted probable jurisdiction, 381 TJ. S. 949.
A few weeks ago this Court held in Swift & Co. v. Wickham, ante, p. 111, that an allegation that a state statute is pre-empted by a federal statute does not allege the unconstitutionality of the state statute so as to call for the convening of a three-judge court under 28 U. S. C. § 2281 (1964 ed.). Thus, under Swift, the pre-emption issue in this case standing alone would not have justified a three-judge court, and hence would not have justified direct appeal to us under 28 U. S. C. § 1253 (1964 ed.). The complaint here, however, also challenged the Arkansas statutes as being in violation of the Commerce, Due Process, and Equal Protection Clauses. In briefs submitted to us after oral argument the appellants have argued that all these constitutional challenges are so insubstantial as a matter of law that they are insufficient to make this an appropriate case for a three-judge court. We cannot accept that argument. Whatever the ultimate holdings on the questions may be we cannot dismiss them as insubstantial on their face. Nor does the fact that the pre-emption issue alone was passed on by the District Court keep this from being a three-judge case. Had all the issues been tried by the District Court and had that court enjoined enforcement of the state laws on pre-emption alone, we would have had jurisdiction of a direct appeal to us under 28 U. S. C. § 1253 (1964 ed.). Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Jacobsen, 362 U. S. 73. The same is true here where the state laws were enjoined on the basis of pre-emption but the other constitutional challenges were left undecided. Thus we have jurisdiction and so proceed to the merits.
I.
We first consider the question of pre-emption. Congress unquestionably has power under the Commerce Clause to regulate the number of employees who shall be used to man trains used in interstate commerce. In the absence of congressional legislation on that subject, however, the States have extensive power of their own to regulate in this field, particularly to protect the safety of railroad employees and the public. This Court said in Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Norwood, one of the previous decisions upholding the constitutionality of these Arkansas statutes, that:
“In the absence of a clearly expressed purpose so to do Congress will not be held to have intended to prevent the exertion of the police power of the States for the regulation of the number of men to be employed in such crews.” 283 U. S., at 256.
See also the same case, 290 U. S. 600.
In view of Norwood and the two preceding cases, all of which sustained the constitutionality of the Arkansas statutes over charges of federal pre-emption, the question' presented to this Court is whether in adding the 1963 compulsory arbitration Act to previous federal legislation, Congress intended to pre-empt this field and supersede state legislation like that of Arkansas, or, stated another way, whether application of the Arkansas law “would operate to frustrate the purpose of the [1963] federal legislation.” Teamsters Union v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252, 258.
Since the railroad unions first gained strength in this country the problem of manning trains has presented an issue of constant dispute between the railroads and the unions. Some States, such as Arkansas, believing perhaps that many railroads might not voluntarily assume the expense necessary to hire enough workers for their trains to make the operations as safe as they could and should be, passed laws providing for the minimum size of the train crews. Where these laws were not in effect the question of the size of the crews was settled by collective bargaining, though not without great difficulty. It was this sensitive and touchy problem which brought on the explosive collective bargaining impasse that triggered the 1963 Act which the railroads now contend was intended to permanently supersede the 1907 and 1913 Arkansas statutes. Such a permanent supersession would, of course, amount to an outright repeal of the statutes by Congress.
The particular dispute which eventually led to the enactment of Public Law 88-108 began in 1959 when the Nation’s major railroads notified the brotherhoods that they considered it to be the right of management to have the unrestricted discretion to decide how many employees should be used to man trains, and that they did not intend to submit that subject to collective bargaining in the future. The brotherhoods protested, serving counter-proposals on the railroads. As a result the representatives of each side met to try to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. On the question of the size of the crews the negotiators stuck and would not budge. The railroad negotiators insisted that changed conditions, particularly the substitution of diesel and electrically propelled engines for steam engines, had made firemen completely unnecessary employees. They continued to insist that the railroads should be left free to decide for themselves when and how many firemen should be used, if any at all. Throughout all negotiations, and up to now, the brotherhoods have insisted that a fireman is needed even on a diesel engine, particularly to aid the engineer as a lookout for safety purposes, and to help make needed repairs and adjustments while the train is moving, should the engine for any reason fail to function. Agreement on this question proving impossible in the 1959 negotiations, President Eisenhower, acting at the request of both sides, appointed a Presidential Commission to try to adjust the dispute. After long investigation and consideration the Commission reported. Its report was unsatisfactory to the brotherhoods, not wholly satisfactory to the railroads, and did not result in any settlement. The dispute dragged on. Another report was made by the President’s Advisory Committee on Labor-Management Policy but it also failed to bring about an agreement.
All efforts at agreement having failed, President Kennedy, on July 22, 1963, reported to Congress that on July 29 the railroads “can be expected to initiate work rules changes .... And the brotherhoods thereupon can be expected to strike.” “This Nation,” he said, “stands on the brink of a nationwide rail strike that would, in very short order, create widespread economic chaos and distress.” Pointing out the disastrous consequences that might occur to the country should a strike take place, the President recommended legislation to provide “for an interim remedy while awaiting the results of further bargaining by the parties.” He recommended that “for a 2-year period during which both the parties and the public can better inform themselves on this problem . . . interim work rules changes proposed by either party to which both parties cannot agree should be submitted for approval, disapproval or modification to the Interstate Commerce Commission in accordance with the procedures and provisions of section 5 of the Interstate Commerce Act . . . .” President Kennedy repeatedly emphasized to the Congress his hope that the dispute could eventually be settled by collective bargaining. He stated his belief that advances in railroad technology had made it necessary to reduce the railroad labor force, but he insisted that the public should help bear the burden of this reduction in order that it not fall entirely on those employees who would lose their jobs. He warned the Congress that it was highly necessary “ Tor workers to enjoy reasonable protection against the harsh effects of too sudden change.’ ” In his message the President expressed no desire to have Congress pass a law that would finally and completely dispose of the problem of the number of men who should man the crew of a train, but instead warned that “It would be wholly inappropriate to make general and permanent changes in our labor relations statutes on this basis” and that any “ ‘revolutionary changes even for the better carry a high price in disruption . . . (that) might exceed the value of the improvements.’ ” Thus the President’s message did not in any way indicate a purpose on his part to disturb the existing pattern of full-crew laws by supersession of them, either temporarily or permanently.
Congress enacted the bill proposed by the President with one significant change. He had recommended that a binding determination of the issues not resolved by collective bargaining be made by the Interstate Commerce Commission. At least one brotherhood witness testified before the Senate Commerce Committee to an apprehension. that the Interstate Commerce Commission if given the power requested would declare States’ full-crew laws superseded by orders of the Commission. Subsequent to this both the House and Senate Committees dropped a section of the proposed bill that would have vested power in the Commission to make binding settlements. Instead of that section the Act passed by Congress provided for establishment of an arbitration board to consist of seven members, two appointed by the railroads, two by the únions and three to be appointéd by the President should the four members named by the railroads and unions fail to agree among themselves on an additional three. The arbitration board was given power to resolve the dispute over the firemen and full-crew questions. Their award was to be a complete and final disposition of these issues for a period not exceeding two years from the date the awards would take effect. Awards were made by such a board which the railroads now claim call for supersession of the state laws. We hold that neither the Act itself nor the awards made under it can have such an effect.
The text of the Act and the awards made under it contain no section specifically pre-empting the States’ full-crew laws nor is there any specific saving clause indicating lack of intent to pre-empt them. Appellees argue, however, that the terms of the Act and the awards are inconsistent with the operation of the state laws and thus the laws are no longer valid. But Congress wanted to do as little as possible in solving the dispute which was before it, and we note that this dispute was not over the size of crews in States which had full-crew laws, for there the size of crews was regulated by statute and not by collective bargaining agreements. The railroads made this very point before the Senate Commerce Committee when a spokesman for three railroads, in commenting on the few jobs that would be lost if the brotherhoods accepted the railroads’ proposal, said, “25.9 percent of the firemen positions in freight and yard service must be maintained because of the provisions of so-called full-crew laws of the States of [listing 13 States including Arkansas].” It appears, therefore, that Congress did not need to pre-empt the state laws in order to eliminate this collective bargaining impasse, and further examination of the legislative history of Public Law 88-108 confirms our view that Congress had no intention of superseding the state full-crew laws by passage of that Act.
The President’s proposal was interpreted and explained to the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce by the Secretary of Labor. On the subject of state full-crew laws he told that Committee:
“I call attention to such statements as those of the Missouri Railroad Company v. Norwood, the Supreme Court case in 1930 in which the Court said, 'In the absence of a clearly stated purpose so to do Congress will not be held to have intended to prevent the assertion of the police power of the States for the regulation of the number of men to be employed in such crews.’ It would be the intention reflected here that the issuance of an interim ruling, subject to termination in a time period or at the agreement of the parties, would not have the effect of affecting any State full crew law.”
The Chairman of the House Committee on several occasions emphatically stated both in the hearings and on the House floor that the bill was not intended, either as proposed or as passed, to supersede state laws. On one occasion he said:
“This issue was raised in the course of the hearings before the committee. Questions were asked of the various people representing management and the labor industry and witnesses representing the labor brotherhoods, the employees’ representatives, and the Secretary of Labor. It was made rather clear in the course of the hearings that it would in no way affect the provisions of State laws. The committee in executive session discussed the question and concluded that it was not the intent of the committee in any way to affect State laws. On page 14 of the committee report we included, in order that this history might be made, this language: 'The committee does not intend that any award made under this section may supersede or modify any State law relating to the manning of trains.’ ”
The Chairman of the Committee then went on to tell the House, after referring td'this Court’s holding in Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Norwood,
“Therefore, since this bill does not mention the subject of State laws, and since, as the committee report shows, we do not intend to affect these laws, I am confident they are not affected by the bill.
“I think that is about as clear as we can make it.”
Many statements like those quoted above point to the fact that both the Senate and the House members did not intend by enacting Public Law 88-108 to supersede state laws. This sentiment was voiced by witnesses representing both labor and railroads as well as by public officials of the Nation. The railroads seek to offset these carefully considered expressions by reference to a single incident. On one of the occasions when Representative Harris, Chairman of the House Committee reporting the bill, had stated that the Act would not supersede the state law, Representative Smith of Virginia, Chairman of the Rules Committee of the House, interrupted Representative Harris to make the statement set out below. This single statement by Congressman Smith was hardly enough to cast doubt in the minds of the members of the House as to the accuracy of the statement made by Congressman Harris, Chairman of the Committee which reported the bill. The substance of Congressman Smith’s statement was:
“I think the provisions of the Constitution are such and the decisions of the courts are such that there is no way in which a State can overcome the power of the Federal Government under the interstate commerce clause.”
This statement was, of course, correct but it has little relevance as to whether the bill was intended to exercise the power of the Federal Government to supersede state laws.
In the face of the clear congressional history of this Act we could not hold that either the Act itself or the arbitration awards made under it supersede the Arkansas state laws.
II.
The railroads contend that the District Court would have been justified in holding the two Arkansas Acts unconstitutional on the second ground of their motion for summary judgment which is that the two Acts “constitute discriminatory legislation against interstate commerce in favor of intrastate commerce.” Aside from the fact that such an argument was apparently rejected in the prior cases upholding the constitutionality of the Arkansas statutes we think it is wholly without merit. The argument is based on the fact that the 1907 state law exempts railroads with less than 50 miles of track and the 1913 law exempts railroads with less than 100 miles of track. None of the State’s 17 intrastate railroads have more than 50 miles of track. It turns out that none of them are subject to either of the two state laws while 10 of the 11 interstate railroads are subject to the 1907 Act and eight of them are subject to the 1913 Act. It is impossible for us to say as a matter of law that this difference in treatment by the State, based on the differing mileage of railroads, is without any rational basis as the railroads contend. Certainly some regulations based on different mileage of railroads might be wholly rational, reasonable, and desirable. We cannot say on the record now before us that classification according to the length of mileage in these two statutes constitutes discrimination against interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause or the Equal Protection Clause. See Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 137.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the cause is remanded to that court for consideration of the constitutional issues left undecided by its previous judgment.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Fortas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Ark. Laws 1907, Act 116, Ark. Stat. Ann. §§73-720 through 73-722 (1957).
Ark. Act 67 of 1913, Ark. Stat. Ann. §§73-726 through 73-729 (1957).
77 Stat. 132, 45 U. S. C. following § 157 (1964 ed.).
Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. Arkansas, 219 U. S. 453.
St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Arkansas, 240 U. S. 518.
Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Norwood, 283 U. S. 249, 290 U. S. 600. See also latter case below, 13 F. Supp. 24.
Hearings before Senate Committee on Commerce on S. J. Res. No. 102, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 629.
S. Rep. No. 459, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 9.
Hearings before the Senate Committee on Commerce on S. J. Res. No. 102, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 707.
Hearings before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on H. J. Res. No. 565, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 78.
109 Cong. Rec. 16122 (1963). See also the Committee Report referred to by Chairman Harris, H. R. Rep. No. 713, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 14.
“Mr. SMITH of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, the colloquy between the gentleman from California [Mr. Sisk], and the chairman of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. HaRris], raises a question that has not previously been discussed on the floor of the House. It was discussed in the committee yesterday before the Committee on Rules. I do not like to remain silent in view of the statement that a State law can overcome the constitutional provision which gives exclusive jurisdiction to the Federal Government in matters of interstate commerce. I do not know what precedents may have been found with reference to this question, but of course, in the matter of purely intrastate commerce under our Constitution the State, of course, would have authority, but when it comes to dealing with interstate commerce I think the provisions of the Constitution are such and the decisions of the courts are such that, there is no way in which a State can overcome the power of the Federal Government under the interstate commerce clause.
“I simply wanted to make my own position clear with reference to that question, for whatever it may be worth.
“Mr. EDMONDSON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
“Mr. SMITH of Virginia. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.
“Mr. EDMONDSON. I thank the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules for yielding to me at this point. Would this not mean in effect that about the only kind of train operation in which State laws would prevail would be in the switching of cars involving switch engine operations?
“Mr. SMITH of Virginia. Of course, it is just a question of what is or what constitutes interstate commerce. Now, as you know, the decisions of the courts and the actions of the Congress have gone a long way in putting almost everything under interstate commerce.” 109 Cong. Rec. 16122 (1963).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent New England Electric System (NEES), a holding company registered under § 5 of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, controls both an integrated electric utility system and an integrated gas utility system. Section 11 (b) of the Act requires the Securities and Exchange Commission to limit the operations of a holding company system to a single integrated public utility system, except the Commission may permit the holding company to continue control of any additional integrated utility system that the Commission determines, among other things, “cannot be operated as an independent system without the loss of substantial economies which can be secured by the retention of control by such holding company of such system . ...” In 1957 the Securities and Exchange Commission instituted proceedings to determine whether NEES should be permitted to retain control of both the electric and gas systems. The Commission initially found that the electric companies constituted a single integrated electric utility system, 38 S. E. C. 193 (1958), and NEES elected to retain those companies as its principal system. NEES urged, however, that it should also be permitted to retain the gas system. After extensive hearings, the Commission refused respondent permission to do so, and ordered the gas system divested. 41 S. E. C. 888 (1964).
In reaching its conclusion the Commission construed the statutory phrase “loss of substantial economies” in Clause A of § 11 (b)(1) to require a showing that the “additional system cannot be operated under separate ownership without the loss of economies so important as to cause a serious impairment of that system.” In its first review of the Commission’s order, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that the Commission had erroneously construed the statute; in the court’s view, “loss of substantial economies” merely “called for a business judgment of what would be a significant loss . . . .” The court therefore set aside the Commission’s order and remanded for reconsideration in light of that test. 346 F. 2d 399, 406. We reversed, approving the Commission’s construction, and remanded to the Court of Appeals for review of the challenged order in light of the proper meaning of the statutory term. SEC v. New England Electric System, 384 U. S. 176 (NEES I). On remand, the Court of Appeals again set aside the Commission’s order. 376 F. 2d 107. That court, “after a fresh review of all the evidence,” concluded “that the Commission’s opinion does not reveal that application of both reason and experience to facts which merits endorsement as the responsible exercise of expertise.” Id., at 111. We granted certiorari. 389 U. S. 816. We reverse and remand to the Court of Appeals with direction to enter a judgment affirming the Commission’s order.
The question for our decision is whether the Court of Appeals properly held that, on the record, the Commission erred in finding that NEES failed to prove a case for retention of the integrated gas utility system. We address that question against the background of a congressional objective to protect consumer interests through the “elimination of 'restraint of free and independent competition.’ . . . One of the evils that had resulted from control of utilities by holding companies was the retention in one system of both gas and electric properties and the favoring of one of these competing forms of energy over the other.” NEES I, 384 U. S., at 183. Congress therefore ordained separate ownership — and divestiture where necessary to reduce holdings to one system — as the “ 'very heart’ of the Act.” Id., at 180. Although Congress was aware that some economic loss might be suffered by the parent holding company or the separated integrated utility, Congress relented only to the extent of authorizing the Commission to permit retention of an additional integrated utility if that permission might be granted under the narrow exception provided by § 11 (b)(1). But “retention of an 'additional’ integrated system is decidely the exception,” and the burden is on the holding company to satisfy the “stringent test” set by the statute. Id., at 180, 182; cf. United States v. First City Nat. Bank, 386 U. S. 361, 366.
Congress committed to the Commission the task of determining whether a holding company has met the burden of showing that its situation falls within the narrow exception under § 11 (b)(1). The Clause A determination whether separation entails a loss of economies likely to cause a serious impairment of the system involves an element of prediction which necessarily calls for difficult and expert judgment. That judgment requires the assessment of many subtle and often intangible factors not easily expressed in precise or quantifiable terms. This is the very nature of economic forecasting. The task calls for expertise and is not simply “an exercise in counting commonplaces.” United States v. Drum, 368 U. S. 370, 384; see NEES I, 384 U. S., at 184 — 185. Judicial review of that expert judgment is necessarily a limited one. See Gray v. Powell, 314 U. S. 402, 412-413; NLRB v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S. 111, 131; Atlantic Ref. Co. v. FTC, 381 U. S. 357, 367-368; United States v. Drum, supra, at 375-376. Congress expressly provided that “[t]he findings of the Commission as to the facts, if supported by substantial evidence, shall be conclusive.” 15 U. S. C. § 79x (a); see Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U. S. 474; cf. NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, 236. In our view, the Court of Appeals in this case indulged in an unwarranted incursion into the administrative domain. The Commission’s order has adequate support in the record and should have been affirmed.
As of 1958, the test year selected for purposes of these proceedings, NEES’ eight gas subsidiaries provided retail service to some 237,000 customers in a relatively compact 660-square-mile franchise area in Massachusetts. NEES’ electric companies also served 75% of this area and about 78% of the gas customers were also electric customers. NEES’ gross investment in gas plant and equipment was about $56,300,000 and gross gas revenues for 1958 were about $22,700,000. The eight gas companies were organized administratively as a Gas Division with centralized management, marketing and supply, operations, and merchandising departments. The chief executive of the Gas Division was also president of each gas company and ultimately responsible to NEES’ vice president in charge of management; in short, top management rested with executives having joint control over both electric and gas operations.
The Commission had before it a “severance study,” a cost analysis and projection prepared for NEES by a professional public utilities management consulting firm, Ebasco Services, Inc. This study projected a loss of economies of approximately $1,100,000 annually for the gas system as the result of its separation from NEES. The Commission dealt with this study in alternative ways. It analyzed the study and concluded that “[t]he Ebasco estimate is inadequately supported in a number of important aspects and leaves considerable doubts which [NEES has] not satisfactorily overcome in the record.” Then it went on to find that even if the estimated $1,100,000 in loss of economies were accepted as accurate “it would not lead us to conclude that such a loss is so substantial, when compared with the loss of economies involved in prior divestment cases and viewed in light of the objectives of the Act, as to warrant retention of the gas properties . . . .” 41 S. E. C., at 895, 897. Because we conclude that the record supports the Commission’s decision on the latter ground, we have no occasion to consider whether the Commission’s strictures on the reliability of the Ebasco study are well founded.
The Commission’s ultimate finding that the projected $1,100,000 loss of economies annually did not constitute a loss of “substantial” economies within Clause A of § 11 (b)(1) was reached primarily upon the basis of its subsidiary findings upon three matters: (1) That NEES’ estimated losses were not significantly out of line with those found insubstantial in previous cases; (2) that other nonaffiliated Massachusetts gas companies, all but one of them smaller than the NEES gas system, are apparently able to operate successfully without electric utility affiliations; (3) that NEES did not establish that independent management devoted solely to promoting gas sales would not result in benefits to offset some of the projected losses. The Court of Appeals held that none of the three subsidiary findings was supported by substantial evidence. We disagree.
I.
The Commission, consistent with its practice in prior cases, weighed NEES’ estimated $1,100,000 losses in relative rather than absolute terms, calculating the losses as a percentage of NEES’ 1958 revenues, expenses, and income. It found these loss ratios to be “lower or not significantly higher than corresponding ratios of gas systems whose divestment we have required on the ground that the estimated loss of economies was not substantial within the meaning of clause A.” 41 S. E. C., at 898. The cases with which these particular comparisons were made involved companies outside Massachusetts. The Court of Appeals held that the comparisons with the loss ratios of companies involved in prior cases were “largely irrelevant” because “. . . these ratios are significant only as they affect the investment structure of the companies in the particular case, and different companies may be compared only on the assumption that both operate at the same level.” 376 F. 2d, at 113, 115. The court’s ultimate conclusion was that only close analysis of NEES’ own “particular circumstances” was relevant to the Commission’s inquiry.
It is significant, however, that the Court of Appeals’ criticism of the Commission’s use of ratios relied heavily on the court’s reading of the statistical data in evidence as showing that the projected loss of economies “would decrease [NEES’] rate of return from 6.4 per cent in 1959 to 4.1 per cent on the projected basis,” or some 30% below, “an average rate of 5.9 per cent for the non-affiliated Massachusetts gas companies . . . .” 376 F. 2d, at 114. But, as the Commission has noted, the court’s computation that the separated companies would realize a return of only 4.1%. contained a serious error, for it overlooked the allowance to be made for income tax deductions generated by the projected losses. The actual rate of return taking such deductions into account would be a significantly higher 5.2%.
In any event, we may agree that the ratios of losses of revenues, expenses, and income are necessarily affected by differences in capital structure, management, market position, and other factors. But it by no means follows that the Commission’s comparisons are for that reason irrelevant to the determination whether a projected loss of economies is so important as to cause a serious impairment of the separated system. It was well within the' range of the Commission’s administrative discretion to use the loss ratios, as it did, “as a guide in adjudicating the pending case.” Philadelphia Co., 28 S. E. C. 36, 50, n. 24. The Commission in its expert judgment may so employ evaluative factors it considers relevant.
Indeed, NEES apparently recognized that its burden to establish that its situation comes within Clause A included the burden of showing that the projected loss of economies would be more serious for its separated system than the comparable level of losses in the other cases already decided by the Commission. Respondent attempted to prove that the gas system’s distance from sources of supply gives it only a very narrow competitive advantage over oil as a fuel, and, further, that the system’s growth potential is more limited by a lack of new housing expansion in the area serviced by the gas companies. As we shall see below, the Commission found that NEES had not made a case in either respect insofar as those matters bore on whether the projected loss of economies threatened serious impairment of the separated system.
II.
The Commission’s resort to data concerning the operations of the nonaffiliated Massachusetts gas companies was a response to NEES’ argument, supported by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, that the projected loss of economies from separation of the gas system would require the gas companies to seek rate increases which might seriously impair or destroy any hope of a successful operation. Natural gas in 1959 enjoyed in New England the smallest price advantage over oil of any section of the country. The annual differential was $7 over oil for a typical New England house compared with $27 to $118 in favor of gas in the rest of the country. NEES contended that the predicted rate increase would substantially or entirely eliminate the gas system’s already narrow price advantage over oil competitors. The Commission’s answer was to inquire about the economic health of the already nonaffiliated Massachusetts gas companies. The Commission found that these companies were apparently able to earn a fair return although not enjoying the supposed advantages of affiliation with electric utilities; and it could find no evidence that they did not face the same competitive conditions as NEES. The Commission found further that, despite NEES’ insistence that its market conditions differed from the nonaffiliated companies because of relatively stagnant franchise areas offering less sales growth, there was no evidence that this would prevent the separated gas system — which would emerge as the second largest independent in the State — from competing as effectively as the smaller independents who had long held their own. Finally, the Commission noted that after severance the gas system’s operating ratio would be more favorable or only slightly higher than the ratios of nine independents and therefore concluded that it “would be entering the realm of speculation at this time to assume that rate increases would ensue from severance.” 41 S. E. C., at 899.
The Court of Appeals rejected the comparison of these operating ratios, again on the ground that such ratios fail to take account of special characteristics of individual companies. The court observed that since all New England gas companies operated on a “small cushion . . . [t]he significance of this is not negated by observing that non-NEES companies in Massachusetts seem to be surviving, for the focus must be on the specific characteristics of the NEES companies, the only ones affected by the Commission’s order.” 376 F. 2d, at 113. The court further held “irrelevant the comparison of operating ratios, since a business may operate relatively efficiently, yet at a level too low to attract investors.” 376 F. 2d, at 114, n. 6. For the reasons already stated for our disagreement with the Court of Appeals’ view of the Commission’s use of other ratios, we disagree that this comparison was either irrelevant or outside the limits of the Commission’s administrative discretion. The dissection and evaluation of an economic projection is a function Congress committed to the Commission, not the courts. A court may believe it would have done the job differently and better; but judicial inquiry must be addressed to whether what the Commission did is fatal to its ultimate conclusion that the holding company failed to carry its burden of showing a loss of “substantial” economies within the meaning of Clause A. In assessing NEES’ forecast of the need for rate increases because of the projected loss of economies, it was proper for the Commission to consider the performance of other Massachusetts gas companies which were already operating independently. NEES was afforded every opportunity to sustain its burden of showing that the separated gas system would wither into critical health despite the contrary inferences suggested by the comparison made by the Commission. It cannot be a basis for finding error that the Commission found the attempt unpersuasive, given the gas system’s size, and the prognosis of efficiencies comparable to those achieved by the independents.
III.
The Commission conceived that the projected loss of economies would in some measure be offset by advantages realized by the separated system under the direction of “a management solely interested in and devoted to the gas operations . . . .” 41 S. E. C., at 901. NEES, again supported by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, took the position that its operation of the companies had already achieved all possible benefits of interservice competition. The Commission found the argument unpersuasive, relying again on a comparison with the nonaffiliated Massachusetts gas companies. This was a comparison of the sales performance of the gas companies under NEES management with the sales performances of the independents. All seven of the comparable independents showed substantially higher gas sales and revenues per customer and lower costs to customers. The Commission found unpersuasive NEES’ explanation that this was accounted for by the greater residential growth potential of the areas serviced by the independents.
The Court of Appeals held that the test of “serious impairment” under Clause A already took account of offsetting benefits to be realized from separation and therefore “that done, the general judgment has no independent significance in an individual case.” 376 F. 2d, at 115-116. Whatever the merit of the general premise, see NEES I, 384 U. S., at 184-185, we understand the Commission’s finding to have been simply that the projected $1,100,000 loss of economies did not in fact take into account any offsetting benefits on the assumption that joint operation had already achieved the advantages of independence. See 41 S. E. C., at 900-901. The Commission’s conclusion that NEES’ assumption was not proved has support in the record and the Court of Appeals was not justified in rejecting it.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded to that court with direction to enter a judgment affirming the Commission’s order.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
49 Stat. 812, 15 U. S. C. § 79e.
At the time of this proceeding, the integrated electric utility system consisted of seven electric utility companies serving parts of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The integrated gas utility system consisted of eight Massachusetts gas companies. NEES also controlled a service company which provided services for the whole NEES operation.
Section 11 (b) of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 820, 15 U. S. C. § 79k (b), provides in pertinent part: “It shall be the duty of the Commission, as soon as practicable after January 1, 1938:
“(1) To require by order, after notice and opportunity for hearing, that each registered holding company, and each subsidiary company thereof, shall take such action as the Commission shall find necessary to limit the operations of the holding-company system of which such company is a part to a single integrated public-utility system . . . : Provided, however, That the Commission shall permit a registered holding company to continue to control one or more additional integrated public-utility systems, if, after notice and opportunity for hearing, it finds that—
“(A) Each of such additional systems cannot be operated as an independent system without the loss of substantial economies which can be secured by the retention of control by such holding company of such system . . . .”
On remand, the Court of Appeals interpreted the “serious impairment” standard as requiring proof only of “a condition allowing survival but not on a sound or 'healthful continuing’ basis,” rather than proof that severance "will result in imminent bankruptcy . . . .” 376 F. 2d, at 109. The Commission has not contested this interpretation in this Court.
“By fostering competition between gas and electric utility companies, the Act promotes what has been described as ‘variegated competition.’” NEES I, 384 U. S., at 184, n. 15.
The following passage is from the court’s opinion on remand:
“Even without the burden of proving likely demise, [NEES’] burden is, as the Court said, to meet 'a much more stringent test’ than that of a probable significant loss. But, if the standard to be applied to [NEES] is stringent, so is the level of analysis and expertise to be exercised by the Commission. We have, only after a fresh review of all the evidence in the light of this most stringent practical standard, concluded that the Commission’s opinion does not reveal that application of both reason and experience to facts which merits endorsement as the responsible exercise of expertise.” 376 F. 2d, at 111.
This was the latest year for which audited financial statements were available at the time of the hearing before the Commission. 41 S. E. C., at 889, n. 3.
All but one of the eight companies are located within 48 miles of the division headquarters; one is 80 miles away.
“Nonaffiliated” or “independent” refers to gas companies not having any electric affiliations and gas companies not jointly operated with electric companies serving the same franchise area.
E. g., Philadelphia Co., 28 S. E. C. 35, 50-52 (1948); General Pub. Util. Corp., 32 S. E. C. 807, 837 (1951).
The losses would amount to: 4.8% of operating revenues; 6.0% of operating revenue deductions (excluding federal income taxes); 23.3% of gross income (before federal income taxes); 29.9% of net income (before taxes).
See Engineers Pub. Service Co., 12 S. E. C. 41, 55-61, 78-81 (1942); North Amer. Co., 18 S. E. C. 611 (1945); Philadelphia Co., 28 S. E. C. 35, 45-53 (1948); General Pub. Util. Corp., 32 S. E. C. 807, 814-815, 823-839 (1951); Middle So. Util., Inc., 35 S. E. C. 1 (1953), 36 S. E. C. 383 (1955). The relevant financial data for each case are summarized in an appendix to the Commission’s opinion. 41 S. E. C., at 905.
Rate of retum is the percentage of net operating income to the rate base, which is fixed by a formula tied generally to the value of capital assets. The source of the 4.1% figure appears to have been the Court of Appeals. The 4.1% was apparently derived as follows:
(a) $ 3,050,988 (1959 net oper. income after taxes) $47,723,162 (rate base) =6.4% rate of retum
(b) $ 3,050,988 1,098,600 (projected losses) $ 1,952,388 (est. net oper. income)
(c) $ 1,952,388 $47,723,162 =4-1% mte °f retum
However, the $1,100,000 projected loss would generate income tax deductions of roughly 50%, increasing the numerator of fraction (c) from $1,952,388 to $2,501,688, and the rate of retum to 5.2%. The NEES brief relies on the 4.1% figure, but NEES has not challenged the Commission’s recalculation.
The 1959 rates of retum for the comparable nonaffiliated Massachusetts companies were as follows:
Percent
Berkshire Gas . 5.2
Brockton-Taunton Gas . 6.1
Fall River Gas. 6.2
Haverhill Gas . 6.8
Lowell Gas . 7.9
Springfield Gas . 6.4
Worcester Gas . 4.5
(Resp. Ex. 117; R. 1436.)
Although the parties are in dispute as to the validity of some of the data drawn from the previous cases, we do not consider it necessary to become involved in that controversy. Suffice it to say that we do not think the Commission in looking to the data for guidance exceeded the bounds of reason or administrative discretion.
Gas to New England was piped all the way from Texas, whereas oil was shipped in by tanker. NEES estimated the average home heating cost to be $166 for gas, $173 for oil; and it was in residential space heating that NEES found its chief market.
NEES calculated the composite rate of return for its gas system at 6.6% for 1958 and 6.4% for 1959. (Resp. Ex. 114; R. 1431.) The average for seven comparable independents was 6.3% in 1958 and 5.9% in 1959. (Resp. Ex. 117; R. 1436.)
NEES cites as prime evidence in this regard the testimony of Robert Cahal, an Ebasco marketing consultant who had to some extent analyzed the marketing conditions NEES faced. The substance of his testimony was that (a) gas and oil are highly competitive in the State, with oil being well entrenched in many areas so that the major source of growth has to be in new residence construction; (b) in Massachusetts growth is in the suburbs with towns proper being relatively stagnant; (c) gas companies are limited by their franchise area, prisoners of the characteristics of their particular communities; (d) the independents are not necessarily comparable with NEES because they may be in areas of higher growth; (e) independents having such areas are Haverhill, Lowell, Springfield, Worcester, Brockton-Taunton; all of them having growth greater (but unspecified as to degree) than any NEES gas company except Norwood.
The Commission noted, without comment, that the population increase in NEES’ franchise areas between 1950 and 1960 was only 11% as compared with 18% in the areas of seven independents. 41 S. E. C., at 899, n. 23.
The operating ratio is “the percentage of total operating revenue deductions (other than depreciation, amortization of conversion costs, and Federal income taxes) to total operating revenues.” 41 S. E. C., at 899, n. 25. The ratio “affords a measure for determining the efficiency with which the enterprise is conducted and while its value is greater in comparing the year to year trend it has a limited use in comparing very similar enterprises.” Moody’s Public Utility Manual ix (1967). NEES’ ratio was fixed at 76.41% and compared with the composite ratio of nine independents of 79.14%, as well as their median and mean ratios of 74.87% and 76.35% respectively. Individual ratios are cited at 41 S. E. C., at 899, n. 26.
The Commission may properly regard size of operation to be a relevant factor. One of Congress’ concerns in providing the exception involved here was to protect small companies likely to fail if separated from the parent holding company. Cf. NEES I, 384 U. S., at 181; North Amer. Co. v. SEC, 327 U. S. 686, 697. See also H. R. Rep. No. 1903, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 68-71; S. Doc. No. 92, 70th Cong., 1st Sess., Pt. 72-A, at 831, 835. And size, especially given its relatively compact franchise area, indication of its competitive position. NEES’ is some
See n. 18, supra, and accompanying text.
The breakdown was as follows:
1958— NEES Indep.
Sales, mcf/cust. 44.2 78.8
Revenues, cust. $95.44 $135.19
Cost to customers, mcf. $2.16 $1.72
1959-
Sales, mcf/cust. 51.5 83.7
Revenues, cust. $104.49 $142.10
Cost to customers, mcf. $2.03 $1.70
Equivalent data for the Norwood Gas Company, the NEES subsidiary asserted to have growth potential comparable to the independents, see n. 17, supra, were as follows (1958 and 1959 figures): Sales — 51.8 and 60.4 mcf/customer; Revenues — $112.59 and $125.66/customer; Cost to customers — $2.17 and $2.08/mcf. 41 S. E. C., at 901, nn. 29-30. See R. 1446-1447, 1449-1450.
“[N]o specific demonstration of the existence or extent of such a causal relation was presented.” 41 S. E. C., at 901. See also n. 21, supra.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner, a railroad switchman, was injured while performing duties as an employee of respondents in their railroad coach yard at Denver, Colorado. He brought this action for damages under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.
The complaint alleged that in the performance of his duties in the railroad yard it became necessary for him to walk over a wheel-pit on a narrow boardway, and that due to negligence of respondents, petitioner fell into the pit and suffered grievous personal injuries. The complaint further alleged that respondents had failed to furnish him a safe place to work in several detailed particulars, namely, that the pit boardway (1) was not firmly set, (2) was not securely attached, and (3) although only about 20 inches wide, the boardway had been permitted to become greasy, oily, and slippery, thereby causing petitioner to lose his balance, slip, and fall into the pit.
The respondents in their answer to this complaint admitted the existence of the pit and petitioner’s injuries as a result of falling into it. They denied, however, that the injury resulted from the railroad’s negligence, charging that plaintiff’s own negligence was the sole proximate cause of his injuries. On motion of the railroad the trial judge directed the jury to return a verdict in its favor. The Supreme Court of Utah affirmed, one judge dissenting. -Utah-, 187 P. 2d 188.
The opinion of the Utah Supreme Court strongly indicated, as the dissenting judge pointed out, that its finding of an absence of negligence on the part of the railroad rested on that court’s independent resolution of conflicting testimony. This Court has previously held in many cases that where jury trials are required, courts must submit the issues of negligence to a jury if evidence might justify a finding either way on those issues. See, e. g., Lavender v. Kurn, 327 U. S. 645, 652-653; Bailey v. Central Vermont R. Co., 319 U. S. 350, 354; Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 318 U. S. 54, 68; and see Brady v. Southern R. Co., 320 U. S. 476, 479. It was because of the importance of preserving for litigants in FELA cases their right to a jury trial that we granted certiorari in this case.
The evidence showed the following facts without dispute:
Petitioner fell into the pit July 26, 1945. The pit, constructed in 1942, ran approximately 40 feet east and west underneath three or more parallel tracks which crossed the pit from north to south. The pit was 11 feet deep and 4 feet 2y2 inches wide with cement walls and floor. Car wheels in need of repair were brought to the pit, lowered into it, there repaired, and then lifted from the pit for return to use. When not in use the pit was kept solidly covered with heavy boards. These boards were used as a walkway by all employees. When the pit was in use the cover boards were removed except one 75 pound “permanent board” 22 inches wide and 4 feet 2% inches long. While the solid covering was off, this “permanent board,” built to fit snugly and firmly, was unquestionably used as a walkway by all employees up to about May 1, 1945.
On this latter date, the railroad put up “safety chains” fastened to guard posts, inclosing 16% feet of the pit, on its north, south and west sides. The posts, 42 inches high, fitted into tubes imbedded in the ground, the tubes being larger than the posts — enough larger to allow the posts to work freely. The chains, attached 2 inches from the top of the posts, were to be kept up while the pit was in use and taken down when the pit was not in use. They were up when plaintiff slipped from the “permanent board” into the pit. At that time a tourist car was standing over the pit on track “23%.” This track “23%” was east of the two east chain posts, its west rail being about 36 inches, and the tourist car overhang about 7 inches from the two east chain supporting posts. The floor of the “overhang” was about 51 inches above the ground, or 9 inches above the top of the posts, thus allowing an unobstructed clearance of 51 inches under the overhang. The “permanent board” was inside the chain enclosure, the board’s east side being about 9% inches from the two eastern chain posts. Despite the proximity of the tourist car to the posts there was sufficient space east of each chain post so that pit workers had access to and used the board as a walkway. One of the defendant’s witnesses, a very large man weighing 250 pounds, passed through it, though according to his testimony, with “very bad discomfort.” Petitioner was a much smaller man, weighing 145 pounds, and it was by passing between one of these posts and the tourist car that petitioner reached the “permanent board” which bridged the pit. Oil from wheels would sometimes accumulate at the bottom of the pit, and as stated by the Utah Supreme Court the “permanent board” was “almost certain to become greasy or oily” from use by the pit-men.
Neither before nor after the chains were put up had the railroad ever forbidden pit workers or any other workers to walk across the pit on the “permanent board.” Neither written rules nor spoken instructions had forbidden any employees to use the board. And witnesses for both sides testified that pit workers were supposed to, and did, continue to use the board as a walkway after the chains and posts were installed. The Utah Supreme Court nevertheless held that erection of the chain and post enclosure was itself the equivalent of company orders that no employees other than pit workers should walk across the permanent board when the chains were up. And the Utah Supreme Court also concluded that there was insufficient evidence to authorize a jury finding that employees generally, as well as pit workers, had continued their long-standing and open practice of crossing the pit on the permanent board between the time the chains were put up and the time petitioner was injured.
It is the established rule that in passing upon whether there is sufficient evidence to submit an issue to the jury we need look only to the evidence and reasonable inferences which tend to support the case of a litigant against whom a peremptory instruction has been given. Viewing the evidence here in that way it was sufficient to show the following:
Switchmen and other employees, just as pit workers, continued to use the permanent board to walk across the pit after the chains were put up as they had used it before. Petitioner and another witness employed on work around the pit, testified positively that such practice continued. It is true that witnesses for the respondents testified that after the chains were put up, only the car men in removing and applying wheels used the board “to walk from one side of the pit to the other . . . .” Thus the conflict as to continued use of the board as a walkway after erection of the chains was whether the pit workers alone continued to use it as a walkway, or whether employees generally so used it. While this left only a very narrow conflict in the evidence, it was for the jury, not the court, to resolve the conflict.
It was only as a result of its inappropriate resolution of this conflicting evidence that the State Supreme Court affirmed the action of the trial court in directing the verdict. Following its determination of fact, the Utah Supreme Court acted on the assumption that the respondents “had no knowledge, actual or constructive, that switchmen were using the plank to carry out their tasks,” and the railroad had “no reason to suspect” that employees generally would so use the walkway. From this, the Court went on to say that respondents “were only required to keep the board safe for the purposes of the pit crewmen . . . and not for all the employees in the yard.” But the court emphasized that under different facts, maintenance of “a 22-inch board for a walkway, which is almost certain to become greasy or oily, constitutes negligence.” And under the evidence in this case as to the board, grease and oil, the court added: “It must be conceded that if defendants knew or were charged with knowledge that switchmen and other workmen generally in the yard were habitually using the plank as a walkway in the manner claimed by plaintiff, then the safety enclosure might be entirely inadequate, and a jury question would have been presented on the condition of the board and the adequacy of the enclosure.”
We agree with this last quoted statement of the Utah court, and since there was evidence to support a jury finding that employees generally had habitually used the board as a walkway, it was error for the trial judge to direct a verdict in favor of respondents.
There was, as the state court pointed out, evidence to show that petitioner could have taken a slightly longer route and walked around the pit, thus avoiding the use of the board. This fact, however, under the terms of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, would not completely immunize the respondents from liability if the injury was “in part” the result of respondents’ negligence. For while petitioner’s failure to use a safer method of crossing might be found by the jury to be contributory negligence, the Act provides that “contributory negligence shall not bar a recovery, but the damages shall be diminished by the jury in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to such employee . . . .”
Much of respondents’ argument here is devoted to the proposition that the Federal Act does not make the railroad an absolute insurer against personal injury damages suffered by its employees. That proposition is correct, since the Act imposes liability only for negligent injuries. Cf. Coray v. Southern Pac. Co., 335 U. S. 520. But the issue of negligence is one for juries to determine according to their finding of whether an employer’s conduct measures up to what a reasonable and prudent person would have done under the same circumstances. And a jury should hold a master “liable for injuries attributable to conditions under his control when they are not such as a reasonable man ought to maintain in the circumstances,” bearing in mind that “the standard of care must be commensurate to the dangers of the business.” Tiller v. Atlantic C. L. R. Co., 318 U. S. 54, 67.
There are some who think that recent decisions of this Court which have required submission of negligence questions to a jury make, “for all practical purposes, a railroad an insurer of its employees.” See individual opinion of Judge Major, Griswold v. Gardner, 155 F. 2d 333, 334. But see Judge Kerner’s dissent from this view at p. 337 and Judge. Lindley’s dissenting opinion, pp. 337-338. This assumption, that railroads are made insurers where the issue of negligence is left to the jury, is inadmissible. It rests on another assumption, this one unarticulated, that juries will invariably decide negligence questions against railroads. This is contrary to fact, as shown for illustration by other Federal Employers’ Liability cases, Barry v. Reading Co., 147 F. 2d 129, cert. denied, 324 U. S. 867; Benton v. St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., 182 S. W. 2d 61, cert. denied, 324 U. S. 843. And cf. Bruner v. McCarthy, 105 Utah 399, 142 P. 2d 649, cert. dismissed for reasons stated, 323 U. S. 673. Moreover, this Court stated some sixty years ago when considering the proper tribunal for determining questions of negligence: “We see no reason, so long as the jury system is the law of the land, and the jury is made the tribunal to decide disputed questions of fact, why it should not decide such questions as these as well as others.” Jones v. East Tennessee R. Co., 128 U. S. 443, 445. And peremptory instructions should not be given in negligence cases “where the facts are in dispute, and the evidence in relation to them is that from which fair-minded men may draw different inferences.” Washington & G. R. Co. v. McDade, 135 U. S. 554, 572. Such has ever since been the established rule for trial and appellate courts. See Tiller v. Atlantic C. L. R. Co., 318 U. S. 54, 67, 68. Courts should not assume that in determining these questions of negligence juries will fall short of a fair performance of their constitutional function. In rejecting a contention that juries could be expected to determine certain disputed questions on whim, this Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Holmes, said: “But it must be assumed that the constitutional tribunal does its duty and finds facts only because they are proved.” Aikens v. Wisconsin, 195 U. S. 194, 206.
In reaching its conclusion as to negligence, a jury is frequently called upon to consider many separate strands of circumstances, and from these circumstances to draw its ultimate conclusion on the issue of negligence. Here there are many arguments that could have been presented to the jury in an effort to persuade it that the railroad’s conduct was not negligent, and many counter arguments which might have persuaded the jury that the railroad was negligent. The same thing is true as to whether petitioner was guilty of contributory negligence. Many of such arguments were advanced by the Utah Supreme Court to support its finding that the petitioner was negligent and that the railroad was not. But the arguments made by the State Supreme Court are relevant and appropriate only for consideration by the jury, the tribunal selected to pass on the issues. For these reasons, the trial court should have submitted the case to the jury, and it was error for the Utah Supreme Court to affirm its action in taking the case from the jury.
It is urged by petitioner that other fact issues should have been submitted to the jury in addition to those we have specifically pointed out. We need not consider these contentions now since they may not arise on another trial of the case.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Utah is reversed and the cause is remanded for further action not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
35 Stat. 65 as amended by 36 Stat. 291 and 53 Stat. 1404, 45 U. S. C. §§ 51-59.
There was evidence that other types of cars had a wider overhang thereby reducing the space available for passage between the posts and the car. This evidence bore directly on the fact question as to the practice of employees generally in using the boardway as petitioner did here.
Petitioner testified in part as follows:
“Q. Mr. Wilkerson, I will ask you to state whether or not you have ever observed other switchmen or workmen working in the yards there in passing over that pit while cars were standing on 23% since the safety chains were up ?
“A. Yes, sir, I have.
“Q. What has that practice been, the practice of crossing over the pit?
“A. Men that work around there, regardless of whether switchmen or car men that wanted to go that way went through there.
“Q. Went through — you mean over the pit?
“A. Over that pit, as I just described, from either side.
“Q. I will ask you to state whether or not you observed any practice with reference to crossing over the pit when men were working on the cars there in the daytime before these chains were installed?
“A. Walked right straight across the board.
“Q. Was there a board usually there to walk over ?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. Was there any change in that practice after the chains were installed?
“A. None, only they had to walk around the chains.
“Q. What did you observe with reference to the number of times the occasions when men would cross over the pit.
“A. Oh, I couldn’t say; I suppose maybe a hundred times; varies, men, both switchmen and car men or others working there in the yard necessary, pullman, employees and so forth.
“Q. Crossed over the pit?
“A. Yes, sir, it was a common practice for everybody to use that that way.
“Q. Did you ever see — did you ever notice the board ever being used for any other purpose except men walking across ?
“A. No, sir, I haven’t.
“Q. Ask you to state whether or not you experience any difficulty in passing between the ear and the post and onto the board and over the board and between the car and the north post at the time you passed it, the first time in the morning?
“A. No.”
Another witness testified in part as follows:
“Q. And what have you noticed with reference to the practice of men passing between the standing cars on 23% and the posts that hold the safety chains ?
“A. Well, they would walk through and get on the board and walk to and from each side, and the men that work on the pit work on that board, and sometimes set on the board next to the— in next to the car there to perform their work, you know, like where they are up under, or working on the car, they use the board over from it to work on.
“Q. What has been your practice in passing between cars that are standing on 23% and the posts that hold the stakes and chains when they have been in place ?
“A. When I have occasion to pass through there, I put my hand on the post, step over on the board, and go around the other post, and that is the way I pass to and from on the pit.
“Q. Have you observed other men passing over the pit under similar circumstances?
“A. Yes, sir, I have.
“Q. And what can you say with reference to the — such occurrences, as to how often they happen ?
“A. O, I would judge that I saw the men pass through there dozens of times. . . .
“Q. Have you seen any other switchman working there in the yards act similarly; that is, go around the post, between the post and the car and pass over the board?
“A. Yes, sir, I have saw my helpers at different times and before the chains were placed, we used the board at all times, you know, just to cross the pit. I have walked across the pit a number of times that way, and also my helpers.”
This witness later gave the names of two switchmen he had seen cross after chains were put up, but he did not thereby qualify his testimony previously given as to the practice of employees generally to use the walkway.
The state court argued that “other and safer routes were open” to the petitioner. But contributory negligence does not exempt a railroad from liability for its own negligence.
The state court also advanced the following argument: “In this particular case, the board appears adequate for the use of the pit crewmen, but entirely inadequate if intended to be a cross-walk for other employees. Employees climbing in and out of the pit approach more deliberately, use other and different hand holds, and are more careful of their footing, while employees swinging on to the plank in a hurry are apt to forget about the slippery condition of an oily board and forget about the dangers incident to crossing, as did the plaintiff, who swung himself around the chain post and onto the plank.” Aside from the apparent absence of direct evidence that pit crewmen would exercise greater care to protect themselves than would other employees, whether they would or not is patently a jury question.
The state court also said: “Had they not intended to preclude the use of the board as a walk-way, the defendants would not have installed the chain posts so as to block an open straight approach to the board.” This argument of the state court ignores the absence of any direct evidence to show that the chains were erected to keep people from walking over the old “permanent board” walkway. Petitioner testified that it was his understanding that the chains were erected “to keep people from walking directly into the open pit.”
Another argument of the State Supreme Court was: “Also, a sign not to cross would have afforded plaintiff no additional security or warning, for he disregarded the chain and he would no doubt have ignored another form of warning.” If such an inference was justifiable and was relevant at all on the question of railroad negligence, it was an inference to be drawn from facts by the jury, not by the court.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 67 Stat. 462, 43 U.S.C. § 1331 et seq. , extends federal law to the subsoil and seabed of the Outer Continental Shelf and all attachments thereon (OCS). Under the OCSLA, all law on the OCS is federal law, administered by federal officials. The OCSLA denies States any interest in or jurisdiction over the OCS, and it deems the adjacent State's laws to be federal law "[t]o the extent that they are applicable and not inconsistent with" other federal law. § 1333(a)(2)(A). The question before us is how to determine which state laws meet this requirement and therefore should be adopted as federal law. Applying familiar tools of statutory interpretation, we hold that where federal law addresses the relevant issue, state law is not adopted as surrogate federal law on the OCS.
I
Respondent Brian Newton worked for petitioner Parker Drilling Management Services on drilling platforms off the coast of California. Newton's 14-day shifts involved 12 hours per day on duty and 12 hours per day on standby, during which he could not leave the platform. He was paid well above the California and federal minimum wages for his time on duty, but he was not paid for his standby time.
Newton filed a class action in California state court alleging violations of several California wage-and-hour laws and related state-law claims. Among other things, Newton claimed that California's minimum-wage and overtime laws required Parker to compensate him for the time he spent on standby. Parker removed the action to Federal District Court. The parties agreed that Parker's platforms were subject to the OCSLA. Their disagreement centered on whether the relevant California laws were "applicable and not inconsistent" with existing federal law and thus deemed to be the applicable federal law under the OCSLA. § 1333(a)(2)(A).
The District Court applied Fifth Circuit precedent providing that under the OCSLA, "state law only applies to the extent it is necessary 'to fill a significant void or gap' in federal law." App. to Pet. for Cert. 51 (quoting Continental Oil Co. v. London Steam-Ship Owners' Mut. Ins. Assn. , 417 F. 2d 1030, 1036 (1969) ). It determined that the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. , constitutes a comprehensive federal wage-and-hour scheme and thus left no significant gap for state law to fill. Because all of Newton's claims relied on state law, the court granted Parker judgment on the pleadings.
The Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded. It first held that state law is " 'applicable' " under the OCSLA whenever it "pertain[s] to the subject matter at hand." 881 F. 3d 1078, 1090, amended and reh'g en banc denied, 888 F. 3d 1085 (2018). The court found that California wage-and-hour laws satisfied this standard and turned to "the determinative question in Newton's case": "whether California wage and hour laws are 'inconsistent with' existing federal law." 881 F. 3d at 1093. According to the Ninth Circuit, state laws are "inconsistent" with federal law under the OCSLA only "if they are mutually incompatible, incongruous, [or] inharmonious." Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Applying that standard, the court determined that no inconsistency exists between the FLSA and California wage-and-hour law because the FLSA saving clause "explicitly permits more protective state wage and hour laws." Id. , at 1097 (citing 29 U.S.C. § 218(a) ). Given the disagreement between the Fifth and Ninth Circuits, we granted certiorari. 586 U. S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 914, 202 L.Ed.2d 641 (2019).
II
Before the OCSLA, coastal States and the Federal Government disputed who had the right to lease submerged lands on the continental shelf. Some coastal States even asserted jurisdiction all the way to the outer edge of the shelf. See Shell Oil Co. v. Iowa Dept. of Revenue , 488 U. S. 19, 26, 109 S.Ct. 278, 102 L.Ed.2d 186 (1988). The disputes eventually reached this Court, which held in a series of decisions that the Federal Government has exclusive jurisdiction over the entire continental shelf. See United States v. California , 332 U. S. 19, 38-39, 67 S.Ct. 1658, 91 L.Ed. 1889 (1947) ; United States v. Louisiana , 339 U. S. 699, 705, 70 S.Ct. 914, 94 L.Ed. 1216 (1950) ; United States v. Texas , 339 U. S. 707, 717-718, 70 S.Ct. 918, 94 L.Ed. 1221 (1950).
After these decisions, Congress divided jurisdiction over the shelf. In 1953, Congress enacted the Submerged Lands Act, 67 Stat. 29, 43 U.S.C. § 1301 et seq. , which ceded to the coastal States offshore lands within a specified distance of their coasts. A few months later, Congress passed the OCSLA, which affirmed that the Federal Government exercised exclusive control over the OCS, defined as "all submerged lands" beyond the lands reserved to the States up to the edge of the United States' jurisdiction and control. § 1331(a). Specifically, the OCSLA declares that "the subsoil and seabed of the [OCS] appertain to the United States and are subject to its jurisdiction, control, and power of disposition." § 1332(1). The OCSLA then sets forth "detailed provisions for the exercise of exclusive jurisdiction in the area and for the leasing and development of the resources of the seabed." United States v. Maine , 420 U. S. 515, 527, 95 S.Ct. 1155, 43 L.Ed.2d 363 (1975) ; see §§ 1334-1354.
Of primary relevance here, the OCSLA defines the body of law that governs the OCS. First, in § 1333(a)(1), the OCSLA extends "[t]he Constitution and laws and civil and political jurisdiction of the United States" to the OCS. Section 1333(a)(1) provides that federal law applies "to the same extent as if the [OCS] were an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located within a State." Then, § 1333(a)(2)(A) provides:
"To the extent that they are applicable and not inconsistent with this subchapter or with other Federal laws and regulations of the Secretary now in effect or hereafter adopted, the civil and criminal laws of each adjacent State, now in effect or hereafter adopted, amended, or repealed are declared to be the law of the United States for that portion of the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf, and artificial islands and fixed structures erected thereon, which would be within the area of the State if its boundaries were extended seaward to the outer margin of the outer Continental Shelf ...."
Section 1333(a)(2)(A) also states that "[a]ll of such applicable laws shall be administered and enforced by the appropriate officers and courts of the United States." Finally, § 1333(a)(3) emphasizes that "[t]he provisions of this section for adoption of State law as the law of the United States shall never be interpreted as a basis for claiming any interest in or jurisdiction on behalf of any State for any purpose over" the OCS.
III
A
The question in this case is how to interpret the OCSLA's command that state laws be adopted as federal law on the OCS "[t]o the extent that they are applicable and not inconsistent" with other federal law. § 1333(a)(2)(A). Echoing the Ninth Circuit, Newton argues that state law is "applicable" on the OCS whenever it pertains to the subject matter at issue. Newton further argues that state law is only "inconsistent" with federal law if it is incompatible with the federal scheme. In essence, Newton's argument is that state law is "inconsistent" only if it would be pre-empted under our ordinary pre-emption principles.
Parker, on the other hand, argues that state law is not "applicable" on the OCS in the absence of a gap in federal law that needs to be filled. Moreover, Parker argues that state law can be "inconsistent" with federal law even if it is possible for a party to satisfy both sets of laws. Specifically, Parker contends that, although the FLSA normally accommodates more protective state wage-and-hour laws, such laws are inconsistent with the FLSA when adopting state law as surrogate federal law because federal law would then contain two different standards.
B
Although this is a close question of statutory interpretation, on the whole we find Parker's approach more persuasive because " 'the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.' " Roberts v. Sea-Land Services, Inc. , 566 U. S. 93, 101, 132 S.Ct. 1350, 182 L.Ed.2d 341 (2012). That rule is particularly relevant here, as the terms "applicable" and "not inconsistent" are susceptible of interpretations that would deprive one term or the other of meaning. If Newton is right that "applicable" merely means relevant to the subject matter, then the word adds nothing to the statute, for an irrelevant law would never be "applicable" in that sense. Cf. Ransom v. FIA Card Services, N. A. , 562 U. S. 61, 70, 131 S.Ct. 716, 178 L.Ed.2d 603 (2011) (declining to interpret the word "applicable" in such a way that Congress "could have omitted the term ... altogether"). And if Parker is right that "applicable" means "necessary to fill a gap in federal law," it is hard to imagine circumstances in which "not inconsistent" would add anything to the statute, for a state law would rarely be inconsistent with a federal law that leaves a gap that needs to be filled. Moreover, when the OCSLA was enacted, the term "inconsistent" could mean either "incompatible," as Newton contends, or merely "inharmonious," as Parker argues. Webster's New International Dictionary 1259 (2d ed. 1953); see also Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary 1245 (1957) ("logically discrepant" or "disagreeing" and "discordant"); The New Century Dictionary 811 (1953) ("self-contradictory" or "at variance"); 5 Oxford English Dictionary 173 (1933) ("incongruous" or "not agreeing in substance, spirit, or form"). In short, the two terms standing alone do not resolve the question before us. Particularly given their indeterminacy in isolation, the terms should be read together and interpreted in light of the entire statute. See Star Athletica , L . L . C . v. Varsity Brands , Inc. , 580 U. S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 1002, 1010, 197 L.Ed.2d 354 (2017) (" '[I]nterpretation of a phrase of uncertain reach is not confined to a single sentence when the text of the whole statute gives instruction as to its meaning' ").
Our pre-OCSLA decisions made clear that the Federal Government controlled the OCS in every respect, and the OCSLA reaffirmed the central role of federal law on the OCS. See supra , at 1886 - 1887. As discussed, the OCSLA gives the Federal Government complete "jurisdiction, control, and power of disposition" over the OCS, while giving the States no "interest in or jurisdiction" over it. §§ 1332(1), 1333(a)(3). The statute applies federal law to the OCS "to the same extent as if the [OCS] were an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located within a State." § 1333(a)(1). Accordingly, the only law on the OCS is federal law, and state laws are adopted as federal law only "[t]o the extent that they are applicable and not inconsistent with" federal law. § 1333(a)(2)(A).
Taken together, these provisions convince us that state laws can be "applicable and not inconsistent" with federal law under § 1333(a)(2)(A) only if federal law does not address the relevant issue. As we have said before, the OCSLA makes apparent "that federal law is 'exclusive' in its regulation of [the OCS], and that state law is adopted only as surrogate federal law." Rodrigue v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. , 395 U. S. 352, 357, 89 S.Ct. 1835, 23 L.Ed.2d 360 (1969). The OCSLA extends all federal law to the OCS, and instead of also extending state law writ large, it borrows only certain state laws. These laws, in turn, are declared to be federal law and are administered by federal officials. Given the primacy of federal law on the OCS and the limited role of state law, it would make little sense to treat the OCS as a mere extension of the adjacent State, where state law applies unless it conflicts with federal law. See PLIVA , Inc. v. Mensing , 564 U. S. 604, 617-618, 131 S.Ct. 2567, 180 L.Ed.2d 580 (2011). That type of pre-emption analysis is applicable only where the overlapping, dual jurisdiction of the Federal and State Governments makes it necessary to decide which law takes precedence. But the OCS is not, and never was, part of a State, so state law has never applied of its own force. Because federal law is the only law on the OCS, and there has never been overlapping state and federal jurisdiction there, the statute's reference to "not inconsistent" state laws does not present the ordinary question in pre-emption cases-i.e. , whether a conflict exists between federal and state law. Instead, the question is whether federal law has already addressed the relevant issue; if so, state law addressing the same issue would necessarily be inconsistent with existing federal law and cannot be adopted as surrogate federal law. Put another way, to the extent federal law applies to a particular issue, state law is inapplicable.
C
Apart from § 1333(a)(2) 's place in the overall statutory scheme, several other considerations support our interpretation, which accords with the standard long applied by the Fifth Circuit, see Continental Oil , 417 F. 2d at 1036-1037. First, if Newton were correct that the choice-of-law question on the OCS is the same as it would be in an adjacent State, much of the OCSLA would be unnecessary. Second, our interpretation is consistent with the federal-enclave model-a model that the OCSLA expressly invokes-and the historical development of the statute. And third, the Court's precedents have treated the OCSLA in accord with our interpretation.
1
Under Newton's interpretation, state law would apply unless pre-empted by federal law, meaning that the OCS would be treated essentially the same as the adjacent State. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 49. But that interpretation would render much of the OCSLA unnecessary. For example, the statute would not have needed to adopt state law as federal law or say that federal law applies on the OCS as if it "were an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located within a State." §§ 1333(a)(1)-(2). It could have simply defined which State's law applied on the OCS and given federal officials and courts the authority to enforce the law. And the statute would not have needed to limit state laws on the OCS to those "applicable and not inconsistent" with federal law (as Newton understands those words), for irrelevant laws never apply and federal law is always "supreme," U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2. Newton's interpretation deprives much of the statute of any import, violating the " 'cardinal principle' of interpretation that courts 'must give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute.' " Loughrin v. United States , 573 U. S. 351, 358, 134 S.Ct. 2384, 189 L.Ed.2d 411 (2014).
2
Further support for our interpretation comes from the statute's treatment of the OCS as "an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located within a State"-i.e. , as "an upland federal enclave." § 1333(a)(1) ; Rodrigue , supra , at 366, 89 S.Ct. 1835. It is a commonplace of statutory interpretation that "Congress legislates against the backdrop of existing law." McQuiggin v. Perkins , 569 U. S. 383, 398, n. 3, 133 S.Ct. 1924, 185 L.Ed.2d 1019 (2013). Generally, when an area in a State becomes a federal enclave, "only the [state] law in effect at the time of the transfer of jurisdiction continues in force" as surrogate federal law. James Stewart & Co. v. Sadrakula , 309 U. S. 94, 100, 60 S.Ct. 431, 84 L.Ed. 596 (1940). Existing state law typically does not continue in force, however, to the extent it conflicts with "federal policy." Paul v. United States , 371 U. S. 245, 269, 83 S.Ct. 426, 9 L.Ed.2d 292 (1963) ; see Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. McGlinn , 114 U. S. 542, 547, 5 S.Ct. 1005, 29 L.Ed. 270 (1885). And going forward, state law presumptively does not apply to the enclave. See Sadrakula , supra, at 100, 60 S.Ct. 431 ; see also Paul , supra, at 268, 83 S.Ct. 426 ; Pacific Coast Dairy, Inc. v. Department of Agriculture of Cal. , 318 U. S. 285, 294, 63 S.Ct. 628, 87 L.Ed. 761 (1943). This approach ensures "that no area however small will be without a developed legal system for private rights," while simultaneously retaining the primacy of federal law and requiring future statutory changes to be made by Congress. Sadrakula , supra , at 100, 60 S.Ct. 431 ; United States v. Tax Comm'n of Miss. , 412 U. S. 363, 370, n. 12, 93 S.Ct. 2183, 37 L.Ed.2d 1 (1973).
The original version of the OCSLA both treated the OCS as a federal enclave and adopted only the "applicable and not inconsistent" laws of the adjacent State that were in effect as of the effective date of the Act. 43 U.S.C. § 1333(a)(2) (1970 ed.) ; see § 1333(a)(1) (1970 ed.) (deeming the OCS "an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located within a State"). This textual connection between the OCSLA and the federal enclave model suggests that, like the generally applicable enclave rule, the OCSLA sought to make all OCS law federal yet also "provide a sufficiently detailed legal framework to govern life" on the OCS. Shell Oil , 488 U. S. at 27, 109 S.Ct. 278. Once that framework was established, federal law (including previously adopted state law) provided a sufficient legal structure to accomplish that purpose, eliminating the need to adopt new state laws. The federal-state balance in a typical federal enclave is quite different than in a State, and that difference is all the more striking on the OCS, which was never under state control. The text and context of the OCSLA therefore suggest that state law is not adopted to govern the OCS where federal law is on point.
Although Congress later amended the OCSLA to adopt state law on an ongoing basis, this amendment only confirms the connection between the OCSLA and the federal enclave model. Beginning in 1825, when "federal statutory law punished only a few crimes committed on federal enclaves," Congress enacted several Assimilative Crimes Acts (ACAs) that "borrow[ed] state law to fill gaps in the federal criminal law" on enclaves. Lewis v. United States , 523 U. S. 155, 160, 118 S.Ct. 1135, 140 L.Ed.2d 271 (1998) ; see 18 U.S.C. § 13(a) (criminalizing "any act or omission which, although not made punishable by any enactment of Congress, would be punishable if committed or omitted within the jurisdiction of the" relevant State or territory). Mirroring the general enclave rule discussed above, the first ACA was limited to state laws in existence when the Act was passed. United States v. Sharpnack , 355 U. S. 286, 291, 78 S.Ct. 291, 2 L.Ed.2d 282 (1958). Because of this limitation, the initial ACA "gradually lost much of its effectiveness in maintaining current conformity with state criminal laws," and Congress eventually provided for the adoption of the state laws in effect at the time of the crime. Id. , at 291-292, 78 S.Ct. 291. After this Court upheld this ongoing adoption of state criminal law against a nondelegation challenge, see id. , at 294, 78 S.Ct. 291, Congress amended the OCSLA to borrow state laws " 'in effect or hereafter adopted, amended, or repealed.' " § 19(f), 88 Stat. 2146. At the same time, Congress left unchanged the features of the OCSLA that we have emphasized above-i.e. , that the only law on the OCS is federal, and that state law is adopted only when it is "applicable and not inconsistent" with existing federal law. Thus, we do not understand the statutory amendment to alter our conclusion. If anything, this history reinforces that the OCS should be treated as an exclusive federal enclave, not an extension of a State, and that the OCSLA, like the ACAs, does not adopt state law "where there is no gap to fill." Lewis , supra , at 163, 118 S.Ct. 1135.
3
Finally, our interpretation accords with the Court's precedents construing the OCSLA. We first interpreted the OCSLA's choice-of-law provision in Rodrigue v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. , where we considered whether suits brought by the families of men killed on OCS drilling rigs could proceed under only the federal Death on the High Seas Act or also under state law. 395 U. S. at 352-353, 89 S.Ct. 1835. We emphasized that under the OCSLA, the body of law applicable to the OCS "was to be federal law of the United States, applying state law only as federal law and then only when not inconsistent with applicable federal law." Id. , at 355-356, 89 S.Ct. 1835. We explained that "federal law, because of its limited function in a federal system, might be inadequate to cope with the full range of potential legal problems," and that the OCSLA "supplemented gaps in the federal law with state law through the 'adoption of State law as the law of the United States.' " Id. , at 357, 89 S.Ct. 1835 (quoting § 1333(a)(3) ). We reiterated that the statutory language makes it "evident" "that federal law is 'exclusive' " on the OCS and that "state law could be used to fill federal voids." Id. , at 357-358, 89 S.Ct. 1835. After concluding that the Death on the High Seas Act did not apply to accidents on the OCS and thus left a gap related to wrongful deaths, we held that state law provided the rule of decision. We explained that "the inapplicability of the [federal Act] removes any obstacle to the application of state law by incorporation as federal law through" the OCSLA. Id. , at 366, 89 S.Ct. 1835.
Two years later, in Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson , 404 U. S. 97, 92 S.Ct. 349, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971), the Court again viewed the OCSLA as adopting state law to fill in federal-law gaps. In Huson , the question was whether federal admiralty law or a state statute governed a tort action arising from an injury that occurred on the OCS. Id. , at 98-99, 92 S.Ct. 349. Describing Rodrigue 's analysis, we explained that where "there exists a substantial 'gap' in federal law," "state law remedies are not 'inconsistent' with applicable federal law." 404 U. S. at 101, 92 S.Ct. 349. We highlighted that "state law was needed" as surrogate federal law because federal law alone did not provide " 'a complete body of law,' " which is why "Congress specified that a comprehensive body of state law should be adopted by the federal courts in the absence of existing federal law." Id. , at 103-104, 92 S.Ct. 349. In other words, the OCSLA "made clear provision for filling in the 'gaps' in federal law." Id. , at 104, 92 S.Ct. 349. And because Congress had decided not to apply federal admiralty law on the OCS, leaving a gap on the relevant issue, we held that it was appropriate to "absor[b]" the state law as federal law. Id. , at 104, 109, 92 S.Ct. 349.
In Gulf Offshore Co. v. Mobil Oil Corp. , 453 U. S. 473, 101 S.Ct. 2870, 69 L.Ed.2d 784 (1981), we once again emphasized that "[a]ll law applicable to the [OCS] is federal law" and that the "OCSLA borrows the 'applicable and not inconsistent' laws of the adjacent States" "to fill the substantial 'gaps' in the coverage of federal law." Id. , at 480, 101 S.Ct. 2870. We noted that under the OCSLA, the Federal Government "retain[ed] exclusive ... control of the administration of the [OCS]," and that state law is incorporated "to fill gaps in federal law." Id. , at 479-480, n. 7, 101 S.Ct. 2870.
These precedents confirm our understanding of the OCSLA. Although none decided the precise question before us, much of our prior discussion of the OCSLA would make little sense if the statute essentially treated the OCS as an extension of the adjacent State. In Rodrigue , for example, there was no question that the state law at issue pertained to the subject matter or that the relevant federal law expressly preserved state laws regulating the same subject. See 395 U. S. at 355, 89 S.Ct. 1835 ; 46 U.S.C. § 767 (1964 ed.). Under Newton's interpretation, that should have ended the case. Yet the Court instead analyzed at length whether the federal law extended to the OCS. See 395 U. S. at 359-366, 89 S.Ct. 1835. It would be odd for our decisions to focus so closely on the gap-filling role of state law under the OCSLA if, as Newton argues, the existence of a federal-law gap is irrelevant. Our consistent understanding of the OCSLA remains: All law on the OCS is federal, and state law serves a supporting role, to be adopted only where there is a gap in federal law's coverage.
In sum, the standard we adopt today is supported by the statute's text, structure, and history, as well as our precedents. Under that standard, if a federal law addresses the issue at hand, then state law is not adopted as federal law on the OCS.
IV
Applying this standard, some of Newton's present claims are readily resolvable. For instance, some of his claims are premised on the adoption of California law requiring payment for all time that Newton spent on standby. See Mendiola v. CPS Security Solutions, Inc. , 60 Cal. 4th 833, 842, 340 P. 3d 355, 361, 182 Cal.Rptr.3d 124 (2015) ; Cal. Lab. Code Ann. § 510(a) (West 2011). But federal law already addresses this issue. See 29 C.F.R. § 785.23 (2018) ("An employee who resides on his employer's premises on a permanent basis or for extended periods of time is not considered as working all the time he is on the premises"); see also 29 U.S.C. § 207(a). Therefore, this California law does not provide the rule of decision on the OCS, and to the extent Newton's OCS-based claims rely on that law, they necessarily fail.
Likewise, to the extent Newton's OCS-based claims rely on the adoption of the California minimum wage (currently $ 12), Cal. Lab. Code Ann. § 1182.12(b) (West Supp. 2019), the FLSA already provides for a minimum wage, 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1), so the California minimum wage does not apply. Newton points out that the FLSA sets a minimum wage of "not less than ... $ 7.25 an hour," ibid. (emphasis added), and does not "excuse noncompliance with any Federal or State law ... establishing a [higher] minimum wage," § 218. But whatever the import of these provisions in an ordinary pre-emption case, they do not help Newton here, for the question under the OCSLA is whether federal law addresses the minimum wage on the OCS. It does. Therefore, the California minimum wage is not adopted as federal law and does not apply on the OCS.
Newton's other claims were not analyzed by the Court of Appeals, and the parties have provided little briefing on those claims. Moreover, the Court of Appeals held that Newton should be given leave to amend his complaint. Because we cannot finally resolve whether Parker was entitled to judgment on the pleadings, we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
These general rules "may be qualified in accordance with agreements reached by the respective governments." Sadrakula , 309 U. S. at 99, 60 S.Ct. 431 ; see also Paul , 371 U. S. at 268, 83 S.Ct. 426 ("[A] State may not legislate with respect to a federal enclave unless it reserved the right to do so when it gave its consent to the purchase by the United States").
Of course, it is conceivable that state law might be "inconsistent" with federal law for purposes of § 1333(a)(2) even absent an on-point federal law. For example, federal law might contain a deliberate gap, making state law inconsistent with the federal scheme. Or, state law might be inconsistent with a federal law addressing a different issue. We do not foreclose these or other possible inconsistencies.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | J | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents two questions. The first question is whether Milford Central School violated the free speech rights of the Good News Club when it excluded the Club from meeting after hours at the school. The second question is whether any such violation is justified by Milford’s concern that permitting the Club’s activities would violate the Establishment Clause. We conclude that Milford’s restriction violates the Club’s free speech rights and that no Establishment Clause concern justifies that violation.
> — I
The State of New York authorizes local school boards to adopt regulations governing the use of their school facilities. In particular, N. Y. Educ. Law § 414 (McKinney 2000) enumerates several purposes for which local boards may open their schools to public use. In 1992, respondent Milford Central School (Milford) enacted a community use policy adopting seven of §414’s purposes for which its building could be used after school. App. to Pet. for Cert. Dl-DB. Two of the stated purposes are relevant here. First, district residents may use the school for “instruction in any branch of education, learning or the arts.” Id., at Dl. Second, the school is available for “social, civic and recreational meetings and entertainment events, and other uses pertaining to the welfare of the community, provided that such uses shall be nonexclusive and shall be opened to the general public.” Ibid.
Stephen and Darleen Fournier reside within Milford’s district and therefore are eligible to use the school’s facilities as long as their proposed use is approved by the school. Together they are sponsors of the local Good News Club, a private Christian organization for children ages 6 to 12. Pursuant to Milford’s policy, in September 1996 the Four-niers submitted a request to Dr. Robert McGruder,. interim superintendent of the district, in which they sought permission to hold the Club’s weekly afterschool meetings in the school cafeteria. App. in No. 98-9494 (CA2), p. A-81. The next month, McGruder formally denied the Fourniers’ request on the ground that the proposed use — to have “a fun time of singing songs, hearing a Bible lesson and memorizing scripture,” ibid. — was.“the equivalent of religious worship.” App. H1-H2. According to McGruder, the community use policy, which prohibits use “by any individual or organization for religious purposes,” foreclosed the Club’s activities. App. to Pet. for Cert. D2.
In response to a letter submitted by the Club’s counsel, Milford’s attorney requested information to clarify the nature of the Club’s activities. The Club sent a set of materials used or distributed at the meetings and the following description of its meeting:
“The Club opens its session with Ms. Fournier taking attendance. As she calls a child’s name, if the child recites a Bible verse the child receives a treat. After attendance, the Club sings songs. Next Club members engage in games that involve, inter alia, learning Bible verses. Ms. Fournier then relates a Bible story and explains how it applies to Club members’ lives. The Club closes with prayer. Finally, Ms. Fournier distributes treats and the Bible verses for memorization.” App. in No. 98-9494 (CA2), at A-30.
McGruder and Milford’s attorney reviewed the materials and concluded that “the kinds of activities proposed to be engaged in by the Good News Club were not a discussion of secular subjects such as child rearing, development of character and development of morals from a religious perspective, but were in fact the equivalent of religious instruction itself.” Id., at A-25. In February 1997, the Milford Board of Education adopted a resolution rejecting the Club’s request to use Milford’s facilities “for the purpose of conducting religious instruction and Bible study.” Id., at A-56.
In March 1997, petitioners, the Good News Club, Ms. Four-nier, and her daughter Andrea Fournier (collectively, the Club), filed an action under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, against Milford in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. The Club alleged that Milford’s denial of its application violated its free speech rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, its right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, and its right to religious freedom under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, 107 Stat. 1488, 42 U. S. C. § 2000bb et seq.
The Club moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent the school from enforcing its religious exclusion policy against the Club and thereby to permit the Club’s use of the school facilities. On April 14, 1997, the District Court granted the injunction. The Club then held its weekly afterschool meetings from April 1997 until June 1998 in a high school resource and middle school special education room. App. N12.
In August 1998, the District Court vacated the preliminary injunction and granted Milford’s motion for summary judgment. 21 F. Supp. 2d 147 (NDNY 1998). The court found that the Club’s “subject matter is decidedly religious in nature, and not merely a discussion of secular matters from a religious perspective that is otherwise permitted under [Milford’s] use policies.” Id., at 154. Because the school had not permitted other groups that provided religious instruction to use its limited public forum, the court held that the school could deny access to the Club without engaging in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. The court also rejected the Club’s equal protection claim.
The Club appealed, and a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. 202 F. 3d 502 (2000). First, the court rejected the Club’s contention that Milford’s restriction against allowing religious instruction in its facilities is unreasonable. Second, it held that, because the subject matter of the Club’s activities is “quintessentially religious,” id., at 510, and the activities “fall outside the bounds of pure ‘moral and character development,’” id., at 511, Milford’s policy of excluding the Club’s meetings was constitutional subject discrimination, not unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. Judge Jacobs filed a dissenting opinion in which he concluded that the school’s restriction did constitute viewpoint discrimination under Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U. S. 384 (1993).
There is a conflict among the Courts of Appeals on the question whether speech can be excluded from a limited public forum on the basis of the religious nature of the speech. Compare Gentala v. Tucson, 244 F. 3d 1065 (CA9 2001) (en banc) (holding that a city properly refused National Day of Prayer organizers’ application to the city’s civic events fund for coverage of costs for city services); Campbell v. St. Tammany’s School Bd., 206 F. 3d 482 (CA5 2000) (holding that a school’s policy against permitting religious instruction in its limited public forum did not constitute viewpoint discrimination), cert. pending, No. 00-1194; Bronx Household of Faith v. Community School Dist. No. 10, 127 F. 3d 207 (CA2 1997) (concluding that a ban on religious services and instruction in the limited public forum was constitutional), with Church on the Rock v. Albuquerque, 84 F. 3d 1273 (CA10 1996) (holding that a city’s denial of permission to show the film Jesus in a senior center was unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination); and Good News/Good Sports Club v. School Dist. of Ladue, 28 F. 3d 1501 (CA8 1994) (holding unconstitutional a school use policy that prohibited Good News Club from meeting during times when the Boy Scouts could meet). We granted certiorari to resolve this conflict. 531 U. S. 923 (2000).
II
The standards that we apply to determine whether a State has unconstitutionally excluded a private speaker from use of a public forum depend on the nature of the forum. See Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 44 (1983). If the forum is a traditional or open public forum, the State’s restrictions on speech are subject to stricter scrutiny than are restrictions in a limited public forum. Id., at 45-46. We have previously declined to decide whether a school district’s opening of its facilities pursuant to N. Y. Educ. Law § 414 creates a limited or a traditional public forum. See Lamb’s Chapel, supra, at 391-392. Because the parties have agreed that Milford created a limited public forum when it opened its facilities, in 1992, see Brief for Petitioners 15-17; Brief for Respondent 26, we need not resolve the issue here. Instead, we simply will assume that Milford operates a limited public forum.
When the State establishes a limited public forum, the State is not required to and does not allow persons to engage in every type of speech. The State may be justified “in reserving [its forum] for certain groups or for the discussion of certain topics.” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 829 (1995); see also Lamb’s Chapel, supra, at 392-393. The State’s power to restrict speech, however, is not without limits. The restriction must not discriminate against speech on the basis of viewpoint, Rosenberger, supra, at 829, and the restriction must be “reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum,” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 806 (1985).
Ill
Applying this test, we first address whether the exclusion constituted viewpoint discrimination. We are guided in our analysis by two of our prior opinions, Lamb’s Chapel and Rosenberger. In Lamb’s Chapel, we held that a school district violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment when it excluded a private group from presenting films at the school based solely on the films’ discussions of family values from a religious perspective. Likewise, in Rosen-berger, we held that a university’s refusal to fund a student publication because the publication addressed issues from a religious perspective violated the Free Speech Clause. Concluding that Milford’s exclusion of the Good News Club based on its religious nature is indistinguishable from the exclusions in these cases, we hold that the exclusion constitutes viéwpoint discrimination. Because the restriction is viewpoint discriminatory, we need not decide whether it is unreasonable in light of the purposes served by the forum.
Milford has opened its limited public forum to activities that serve a variety of purposes, including events “pertaining to the welfare of the community.” App. to Pet. for Cert. Dl. Milford interprets its policy to permit discussions of subjects such as child rearing, and of “the development of character and morals from a religious perspective.” Brief for Appellee in No. 98-9494 (CA2), p. 6. For example, this policy would allow someone to use Aesop’s Fables to teach children moral values. App. Nil. Additionally, a group could sponsor a debate on whether there should be a constitutional amendment to permit prayer in public schools, id., at N6, and the Boy Scouts could meet “to influence a boy’s character, development and spiritual growth,” id., at N10-N11. In short, any group that “pro-motets] the moral and character development of children” is eligible to use the school building. Brief for Appellee in No. 98-9494 (CA2), at 9.
Just as there is no question that teaching morals and character development to children is a permissible purpose under Milford’s policy, it is clear that the Club teaches morals and character development to children. For example, no one disputes that the Club instructs children to overcome feelings of jealousy, to treat others well regardless of how they treat the children, and to be obedient, even if it does so in a nonsecular way. Nonetheless, because Milford found the Club’s activities to be religious in nature— “the equivalent of religious instruction itself,” 202 F. 3d, at 507 — it excluded the Club from use of its facilities.
Applying Lamb’s Chapel, we find it quite clear that Milford engaged in viewpoint discrimination when it excluded the Club from the afterschool forum. In Lamb’s Chapel, the local New York school district similarly had adopted §414’s “social, civic or recreational use” category as a permitted use in its limited public forum. The district also prohibited use “by any group for religious purposes.” 508 U. S., at 387. Citing this prohibition, the school district excluded a church that wanted to present films teaching family values from a Christian perspective. We held that, because the films “no doubt dealt with a subject otherwise permissible” under the rule, the teaching of family values, the district’s exclusion of the church was unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. Id., at 394.
Like the church in Lamb’s Chapel, the Club seeks to address a subject otherwise permitted under the rule, the teaching of morals and character, from a religious standpoint. Certainly, one could have characterized the film presentations in Lamb’s Chapel as a religious use, as the Court of Appeals did, Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 959 F. 2d 381, 388-389 (CA2 1992). And one easily could conclude that the films’ purpose to instruct that “‘society’s slide toward humanism... can only be counterbalanced by a loving home where Christian values are instilled from an early age,’ ” id., at 384, was “quintessentially religious,” 202 F. 3d, at 510. The only apparent difference between the activity of Lamb’s Chapel and the activities of the Good News Club is that the Club chooses to teach moral lessons from a Christian perspective through live storytelling and prayer, whereas Lamb’s Chapel taught lessons through films. This distinction is inconsequential. Both modes of speech use a religious viewpoint. Thus, the exclusion of the Good News Club’s activities, like the exclusion of Lamb’s Chapel’s films, constitutes unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
Our opinion in Rosenberger also is dispositive. In Rosen-berger, a student organization at the University of Virginia was denied funding for printing expenses because its publication, Wide Awake, offered a Christian viewpoint. Just as the Club emphasizes the role of Christianity in students’ morals and character, Wide Awake “ ‘challenged] Christians to live, in word and deed, according to the faith they proclaim and... encouraged] students to consider what a personal relationship with Jesus Christ means.’ ”'515 U. S., at 826. Because the university “selected] for disfavored treatment those student journalistic efforts with religious editorial viewpoints,” we held that the denial of funding was unconstitutional. Id., at 831. Although in Rosenberger there was no prohibition on religion as a subject matter, our holding did not rely on this factor. Instead, we concluded simply that the university’s denial of funding to print Wide Awake was viewpoint discrimination, just as the school district’s refusal to allow Lamb’s Chapel to show its films was viewpoint discrimination. Ibid. Given the obvious religious content of Wide Awake, we cannot say that the Club’s activities are any more “religious” or deserve any less First Amendment protection than did the publication of Wide Awake in Rosenberger.
Despite our holdings in Lamb’s Chapel and Rosenberger, the Court of Appeals, like Milford, believed that its characterization of the Club’s activities as religious in nature warranted treating the Club’s activities as different in kind from the other activities permitted by the school. See 202 F. 3d, at 510 (the Club “is doing something other than simply teaching moral values”). The “Christian viewpoint” is unique, according to the court, because it contains an “additional layer” that other kinds of viewpoints do not. Id., at 509. That is, the Club “is focused on, teaching children how to cultivate their relationship with God through Jesus. Christ,” which it characterized as “quintessentially religious.” Id., at 510. With these observations, the court concluded that, because the Club’s activities “fall outside the bounds of pure ‘moral and character development,’ ” the exclusion did not constitute viewpoint discrimination. Id., at 511.
We disagree that something that is “quintessentially religious” or “decidedly religious in nature” cannot also be characterized properly as the teaching of morals and character development from a particular viewpoint. See 202 F. 3d, at 512 (Jacobs, J., dissenting) (“[W]hen the subject matter is morals and character, it is quixotic to attempt a distinction between religious viewpoints and religious subject matters”). What matters for purposes of the Free Speech Clause is that we can see no logical difference in kind between the invocation of Christianity by the Club and the invocation of teamwork, loyalty, or patriotism by other associations to provide a foundation for their lessons. It is apparent that the unstated principle of the Court of Appeals’ reasoning is its conclusion that any time religious instruction and prayer are used to discuss morals and character, the discussion is simply not a “pure” discussion of those issues. According to the Court' of Appeals, reliance on Christian principles taints moral and character instruction in a way that other foundations for thought or viewpoints do not. We, however, have never reached such a conclusion. Instead, we reaffirm our holdings in Lamb’s Chapel and Rosen- berger that speech discussing otherwise permissible subjects cannot be excluded from a limited public forum on the ground that the subject is discussed from a religious viewpoint. Thus, we conclude that Milford’s exclusion of the Club from use of the school, pursuant to its community use policy, constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination.
IV
Milford argues that, even if its restriction constitutes viewpoint discrimination, its interest in not violating the Establishment Clause outweighs the Club’s interest in gaining equal access to the school’s facilities. In other words, according to Milford, its restriction was required to avoid violating the Establishment Clause. We disagree.
We have said that a state interest in avoiding an Establishment Clause violation “may be characterized as compelling,” and therefore may justify content-based discrimination. Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 271 (1981). However, it is not clear whether a State’s interest in avoiding an Establishment Clause violation would justify viewpoint discrimination. See Lamb's Chapel, 508 U. S., at 394-395 (noting the suggestion in Widmar but ultimately not finding an Establishment Clause problem). We need not, however, confront the issue in this case, because we conclude that the school has no valid Establishment Clause interest.
We rejected Establishment Clause defenses similar to Milford’s in two previous free speech cases, Lamb’s Chapel and Widmar. In particular, in Lamb’s Chapel, we explained that “[t]he showing of th[e] film series would not have been during school hours, would not have been sponsored by the school, and would have been open to the public, not just to church members.” 508 U. S., at 395. Accordingly, we found that “there would have been no realistic danger that the community would think that the District was endorsing religion or any particular creed.” Ibid. Likewise, in Widmar, where the university’s forum was already available to other groups, this Court concluded that there was no Establishment Clause problem. 454 U. S., at 272-273, and n. 13.
The Establishment Clause defense fares no better in this case. As in Lamb’s Chapel, the Club’s meetings were held after school hours, not sponsored by the school, and open to any student who obtained parental consent, not just to Club members. As in Widmar, Milford made its forum available to other organizations. The Club’s activities are materially indistinguishable from those in Lamb’s Chapel and Widmar. Thus, Milford’s reliance on the Establishment Clause is unavailing.
Milford attempts to distinguish Lamb’s Chapel and Wid-mar by emphasizing that Milford’s policy involves elementary school children. According to Milford, children will perceive that the school is endorsing the Club and will feel coercive pressure to participate, because the Club’s activities take place on school grounds, even though they occur during nonschool hours. This argument is unpersuasive.
First, we have held that “a significant factor in upholding governmental programs in the face of Establishment Clause attack is their neutrality towards religion.” Rosenberger, 515 U. S., at 839 (emphasis added). See also Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U. S. 793, 809 (2000) (plurality opinion) (“In distinguishing between indoctrination that is attributable to the State and indoctrination that is not, [the Court has] consistently turned to the principle of neutrality, upholding aid that is offered to a broad range of groups or persons without regard to their religion” (emphasis added)); id., at 838 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (“[Neutrality is an important reason for upholding government-aid programs against Establishment Clause challenges”). Milford’s implication that granting access to the Club would do damage to the neutrality principle defies logic. For the “guarantee of neutrality is respected, not offended, when the government, following neutral criteria and evenhanded policies, extends benefits to recipients whose ideologies and viewpoints, including religious ones, are broad and diverse.” Rosen-berger, swpra, at 839. The Good News Club seeks nothing more than to be treated neutrally and given access to speak about the same topics as are other groups. Because allowing the Club to speak on school grounds would ensure neutrality, not threaten it, Milford faces an uphill battle in arguing that the Establishment Clause compels it to exclude the Good News Club.
Second, to the extent we consider whether the community would feel coercive pressure to engage in the Club’s activities, cf. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 592-593 (1992), the relevant community would be the parents, not the elementary school children. It is the parents who choose whether their children will attend the Good News Club meetings. Because the children cannot attend without their parents’ permission, they cannot be coerced into engaging in the Good News Club’s religious activities. Milford does not suggest that the parents of elementary school children would be confused about whether the school was endorsing religion. Nor do we believe that such an argument could be reasonably advanced.
Third, whatever significance we may have assigned in the Establishment Clause context to the suggestion that elementary school children are more impressionable than adults, cf., e. g., id., at 592; School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373, 390 (1985) (stating that “symbolism of a union between church and state is most likely to influence children of tender years, whose experience is limited and whose beliefs consequently are the function of environment as much as of free and voluntary choice”), we have never extended our Establishment Clause jurisprudence to foreclose private religious conduct during nonschool hours merely because it takes place on school premises where elementary school children may be present.
None of the cases discussed by Milford persuades us that our Establishment Clause jurisprudence has gone this far. For example, Milford cites Lee v. Weisman for the proposition that “there are heightened concerns with protecting freedom of conscience from subtle coercive pressure in the elementary and secondary public schools,” 505 U. S., at 592. In Lee, however, we concluded that attendance at the graduation exercise was obligatory. Id., at 586. See also Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 530 U. S. 290 (2000) (holding the school’s policy of permitting prayer at football games unconstitutional where the activity took place during a school-sponsored event and not in a public forum). We did not place independent significance on the fact that the graduation exercise might take place on school premises, Lee, supra, at 583. Here, where the school facilities are being used for a nonschool function and there is no government sponsorship of the Club’s activities, Lee is inapposite.
Equally unsupportive is Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U. S. 578 (1987), in which we held that a Louisiana law that proscribed the teaching of evolution as part of the public school curriculum, unless accompanied by a lesson on creationism, violated the Establishment Clause. In Edwards, we mentioned that students are susceptible to pressure in the classroom, particularly given their possible reliance on teachers as role models. See id., at 584. But we did not discuss this concern in our application of the law to the facts. Moreover, we did note that mandatory attendance requirements meant that state advancement of religion in a school would be particularly harshly felt by impressionable students. But we did not suggest that, when the school was not actually advancing religion, the impressionability of students would be relevant to the Establishment Clause issue. Even if Edwards had articulated the principle Milford believes it did, the facts in Edwards are simply too remote from those here to give the principle any weight. Edwards involved the content of the curriculum taught by state teachers during the schoolday to children required to attend. Obviously, when individuals who are not schoolteachers are giving lessons after school to children permitted to attend only with parental consent, the concerns expressed in Edwards are not present.
Fourth, even if we were to consider the possible mis-perceptions by schoolchildren in deciding whether Milford’s permitting the Club’s activities would violate the Establishment Clause, the facts of this case simply do not support Milford’s conclusion. There is no evidence that young children are permitted to loiter outside classrooms after the schoolday has ended. Surely even young children are aware of events for which their parents must sign permission forms. The meetings were held in a combined high school resource room and middle school special education room, not in an elementary school classroom. The instructors are not schoolteachers. And the children in the group are not all the same age as in the normal classroom setting; their ages range from 6 to 12. In sum, these circumstances simply do not support the theory that small children would perceive endorsement here.
Finally, even if we were to inquire into the minds of schoolchildren in this case, we cannot say the danger that children would misperceive the endorsement gf religion is any greater than the danger that they would perceive a hostility toward the religious viewpoint if the Club were excluded from the public forum. This concern is particularly acute given the reality that Milford’s building is not used only for elementary school children. Students, from kindergarten through the 12th grade, all attend school in the same building. There may be as many, if not more, upperclassmen as elementary school children who occupy the school after hours. For that matter, members of the public writ large are permitted in the school after hours pursuant to the community use policy. Any bystander could conceivably be aware of the school’s use policy and its exclusion of the Good News Club, and could suffer as much from viewpoint discrimination as elementary school children could suffer from perceived endorsement. Cf. Rosenberger, 515 U. S., at 835-836 (expressing the concern that viewpoint discrimination can chill individual thought and expression).
We cannot operate, as Milford would have us do, under the assumption that any risk that small children would perceive endorsement should counsel in favor of excluding the Club’s religious activity. We decline to employ Establishment Clause jurisprudence using a modified heckler’s veto, in which a group’s religious activity can be proscribed on the basis of what the youngest members of the audience might misperceive. Cf. Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U. S. 753, 779-780 (1995) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“[Bjecause our concern is with the political community writ large, the endorsement inquiry is not about the perceptions of particular individuals or saving isolated nonadherents from... discomfort.'... It is for this reason that the reasonable observer in the endorsement inquiry must be deemed aware of the history and context of the community and forum in which the religious [speech takes place]” (emphasis added)). There are countervailing constitutional concerns related to rights of other individuals in the community. In this case, those countervailing concerns are the free speech rights of the Club and its members. Cf. Rosenberger, supra, at 835 (“Vital First Amendment speech principles are at stake here”). And, we have already found that those rights have been violated, not merely perceived to have been violated, by the school’s actions toward the Club.
We are not convinced that there is any significance in this case to the possibility that elementary school children may witness the Good News Club’s activities on school premises, and therefore we can find no reason to depart from our holdings in Lamb’s Chapel and Widmar. Accordingly, we conclude that permitting the Club to meet on the school’s premises would not have violated the Establishment Clause.
V
When Milford denied the Good News Club access to the school’s limited public forum on the ground that the Club was religious in nature, it discriminated against the Club because of its religious viewpoint in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Because Milford has not raised a valid Establishment Clause claim, we do not address the question whether such a claim could excuse Milford’s viewpoint discrimination.
* * *
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.
The District Court dismissed the Club’s claim under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because we held the Act to be unconstitutional in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507 (1997). See 21 F. Supp. 2d 147, 150, n. 4 (NDNY 1998).
Although Milford argued below that, under §414, it could not permit its property to be used for the purpose of religious activity, see Brief for Appellee in No. 98-9494 (CA2), p. 12, here it merely asserts in one sentence that it has, “in accordance with state law, closed [its] limited open forum to purely religious instruction and services,” Brief for Respondent 27. Because Milford does not elaborate, it is difficult to discern whether it is arguing that it is required by state law to exclude the Club’s activities.
Before the Court of Appeals, Milford cited Trietley v. Board of Ed. of Buffalo, 65 App. Div. 2d 1, 409 N. Y. S.. 2d 912 (1978), in which a New York court held that a local school district could not permit a student Bible club to meet on school property because “[r]eligious purposes are not included in the enumerated purposes for which a school may be used under section 414 of the Education Law.” Id., at 5-6, 409 N. Y. S. 2d, at 915. Although the court conceded that the Bible clubs might provide incidental secular benefits, it nonetheless concluded that the school would have violated the Establishment Clause had it permitted the club’s activities on campus. Because we hold that the exclusion of the Club on the basis of its religious perspective constitutes unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, it is no defense for Milford that purely religious purposes can be excluded under state law.
We find it remarkable that the Court of Appeals majority did not cite Lamb’s Chapel, despite its obvious relevance to the case. We do not necessarily expect a court of appeals to catalog every opinion that reverses one of its precedents. Nonetheless, this oversight is particularly incredible because the majority’s attention was directed to it at every turn. See, e. g., 202 F. 3d 502, 513 (CA2 2000) (Jacobs, J., dissenting) (“I cannot square the majority’s analysis in this case with Lamb’s Chapel”); 21 F. Supp. 2d, at 150; App. 09-011 (District Court stating “that Lamb’s Chapel and Rosenberger pinpoint the critical issue in this case”); Brief for Appel-lee in No. 98-9494 (CA2), at 36-39; Brief for Appellants in No. 98-9494 (CA2), pp. 15, 36.
Despite Milford’s insistence that the Club’s activities constitute “religious worship,” the Court of Appeals made no such determination. It did compare the Club’s activities to “religious worship,” 202 F. 3d, at 510, but ultimately it concluded merely that the Club’s activities “fall outside the bounds of pure ‘moral and character development,’ ” id., at 511. In any event, we conclude that the Club’s activities do not constitute mere religious worship, divorced from any teaching of moral values.
Justice Souter’s recitation of the Club’s activities is accurate. See post, at 137-138 (dissenting opinion). But in our view, religion is used by the Club in the same fashion that it was used by Lamb’s Chapel and by the students in Rosenberger: Religion is the viewpoint from which ideas are conveyed. We did not find the Rosenberger students’ attempt to cultivate a personal relationship with Christ to bar their claim that religion was a viewpoint. And we see no reason to treat the Club’s use of religion as something other than a viewpoint merely because of any evangelical message it conveys. According to Justice Souter, the Club’s activities constitute “an evangelical service of worship.” Post, at 138. Regardless of the label Justice Souter wishes to use, what matters is the substance of the Club’s activities, which we conclude are materially indistinguishable from the activities in Lamb’s Chapel and Rosenberger.
It is worth noting that, although Milford repeatedly has argued that the Club’s meeting time directly after the s.choolday is relevant to its Establishment Clause concerns, the record does not reflect any offer by the school district to permit the Club to use the facilities at a different time of day. The superintendent’s stated reason for denying the applications was simply that the Club’s activities were “religious instruction.” 202 F. 3d, at 507. In any event, consistent with Lamb’s Chapel and Widmar, the school could not deny equal access to the Club for any time that is generally available for public use.
Milford also cites Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Ed. of School Dist. No. 71, Champaign Cty., 333 U. S. 203 (1948), for its position that the Club’s religious element would be advanced by the State through compulsory attendance laws. In McCollum, the school district excused students from their normal classroom study during the regular schoolday to attend classes taught by sectarian religious teachers, who were subject to approval by the school superintendent. Under these circumstances, this Court found it relevant that “[t]he operation of the State's compulsory education system... assisted] and [wa]s integrated with the program of religious instruction carried on by separate religious sects.” Id., at 209. In the present case, there is simply no integration and cooperation between the school district and the Club. The Club’s activities take place after the time when the children are compelled by state law to be at the school.
Milford also refers to Board of Ed. ofWestside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226 (1990), to support its view that “assumptions about the ability of students to make... subtle distinctions [between schoolteachers during the schoolday and Reverend Fournier after school] are less valid for elementary age children who tend to be less informed, more impressionable, and more subject to peer pressure than average adults.” Brief for Respondent 19. Four Justices in Mergens believed that high school
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether a union violated § 8 (b) (4) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U. S. C. § 151, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, under the following circumstances: Although not certified or recognized as the representative of the employees of a certain mill engaged in interstate commerce, the agents of the union picketed the mill with the object of securing recognition of the unión as the collective bargaining representative of the mill employees. In the course of their picketing, the agents sought to influence, or in the language of the statute they “encouraged,” two men in charge of a truck of a neutral customer of the mill to refuse, in the course of their employment, to go to the mill for an order of goods. For the reasons hereinafter stated, we hold that such conduct did not violate § 8 (bj (4).
This case was heard here with No. 393, Labor Board v. Denver Building Trades Council, post, p. 675; No. 108, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. Labor Board, post, p. 694; and No. 85, Local 74, United Brotherhood of Carpenters v. Labor Board, post, p. 707. Its facts, however, distinguish it from those cases.
This review is confined to the single incident described in the complaint issued by the Acting Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, Local 201, A. F. L., herein called the union. The complaint originally was based upon four charges made against the union by several rice mills engaged in interstate commerce near the center of the Louisiana rice industry. The mills included the International Rice Milling Company, Inc., which gives its name to this proceeding, and the Kaplan Rice Mills, Inc., a Louisiana corporation, which operated the mill at Kaplan, Louisiana, where the incident now before us occurred. The complaint charged that the union or its agents, by their conduct toward two employees of a neutral customer of the Kaplan Rice Mills, engaged in an unfair labor practice contrary to § 8 (b) (4). The Board, with one member not participating, adopted the findings and conclusions of its trial examiner as to the facts but disagreed with his recommendation that those facts constituted a violation of § 8 (b) (4) (A) or (B). The Board dismissed the complaint but attached the trial examiner’s intermediate report to its decision. 84 N. L. R. B. 360. The Court of Appeals set aside the dismissal and remanded the case for further proceedings. 183 F. 2d 21. We granted certiorari because of the importance of the principle involved and because of the conflicting views of several circuits as to the meaning of § 8 (b) (4). 340 U. S. 902.
The findings adopted by the Board show that the incident before us occurred at the union’s picket line near the Kaplan Mill in October, 1947. The pickets generally carried signs, one being “This job is unfair to” the union. The goal of the pickets was recognition of the union as the collective bargaining representative of the mill employees, but none of those employees took part in the picketing. Late one afternoon two employees of The Sales and Service House, which was a customer of the mill, came in a truck to the Kaplan Mill to obtain rice or bran for their employer. The union had no grievance against the customer and the latter was a neutral in the dispute between the union and the mill. The pickets formed a line across the road and walked toward the truck. When the truck stopped, the pickets told its occupants there was a strike on and that the truck would have to go back. Those on the truck agreed, went back to the highway and stopped. There one got out and went to the mill across the street. At that time a vice president of the Kaplan Mill came out and asked whether the truck was on its way to the mill and whether its occupants wanted to get the order they came for. The man on the truck explained that he was not the driver and that he would have to see the driver. On the driver’s return, the truck proceeded, with the vice president, to the mill by a short detour. The pickets ran toward the truck and threw stones at it. The truck entered the mill, but the findings do not disclose whether the articles sought there were obtained. The Board adopted the finding that “the stopping of the Sales House truck drivers and the use of force in connection with the stoppage were within the 'scope of the employment’ of the pickets as agents of the respondent [union] and that such activities are attributable to the respondent.” 84 N. L. R. B. 360, 372.
The most that can be concluded from the foregoing, to establish a violation of § 8 (b) (4), is that the union, in the course of picketing the Kaplan Mill, did encourage two employees of a neutral customer to turn back from an intended trip to the mill and thus to refuse, in the course of their employment, to transport articles or perform certain services for their employer. We may assume, without the necessity of adopting the Board’s findings to that effect, that the objects of such conduct on the part of the union and its agents were (1) to force Kaplan’s customer to cease handling, transporting or otherwise dealing in products of the mill or to cease doing business with Kaplan, at that time and place, and (2) to add to the pressure on Kaplan to recognize the union as the bargaining representative of the mill employees.
A sufficient answer to this claimed violation of the section is that the union’s picketing and its encouragement of the men on the truck did not amount to such an inducement or encouragement to “concerted” activity as the section proscribes. While each case must be considered in the light of its surrounding circumstances, yet the applicable proscriptions of § 8 (b) (4) are expressly limited to the inducement or encouragement of concerted conduct by the employees of the neutral employer. That language contemplates inducement or encouragement to some concert of action greater than is evidenced by the pickets’ request to a driver of a single truck to discontinue a pending trip to a picketed mill. There was no attempt by the union to induce any action by the employees of the neutral customer which would be more widespread than that already described. There were no inducements or encouragements applied elsewhere than on the picket line. The limitation of the complaint to an incident in the geographically restricted area near the mill is significant, although not necessarily conclusive. The picketing was directed at the Kaplan employees and at their employer in a manner traditional in labor disputes. Clearly, that, in itself, was not proscribed by § 8 (b) (4). Insofar as the union’s efforts were directed beyond that and toward the employees of anyone other than Kaplan, there is no suggestion that the union sought concerted conduct by such other employees. Such efforts also fall short of the proscriptions in § 8 (b) (4). In this case, therefore, we need not determine the specific objects toward which a union’s encouragement of concerted conduct must be directed in order to amount to an unfair labor practice under subsection (A) or (B) of § 8 (b) (4). A union’s inducements or encouragements reaching individual employees of neutral employers only as they happen to approach the picketed place of business generally are not aimed at concerted, as distinguished from individual, conduct by such employees. Generally, therefore, such actions do not come within the proscription of § 8 (b) (4), and they do not here.
In the instant case the violence on the picket line is not material. The complaint was not based upon that violence, as such. To reach it, the complaint more properly would have relied upon § 8 (b) (1) (A) or would have addressed itself to local authorities. The substitution of violent coercion in place of peaceful persuasion would not in itself bring the complained-of conduct into conflict with § 8 (b) (4). It is the object of union encouragement that is proscribed by that section, rather than the means adopted to make it felt.
That Congress did not seek, by § 8 (b) (4), to interfere with the ordinary strike has been indicated recently by this Court. This is emphasized in § 13 as follows:
“Nothing in this Act, except as specifically provided for herein, shall be construed so as either to interfere with or impede or diminish in any way the right to strike, or to affect the limitations or qualifications on that right.” 61 Stat. 151, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. III) § 163.
By § 13, Congress has made it clear that § 8 (b) (4), and all other parts of the Act which otherwise might be read so as to interfere with, impede or diminish the union’s traditional right to strike, may be so read only if such interference, impediment or diminution is “specifically provided for” in the Act. No such specific provision in § 8 (b) (4) reaches the incident here. The material legislative history supports this view.
On the single issue before us, we sustain the action of the Board and the judgment of the Court of Appeals, accordingly, is
Reversed.
“Sec. 8. . . .
“(b) It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
“ (4) to engage in, or to induce or encourage the employees of any employer to engage in, a strike or a concerted refusal in the course of their employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services, where an object thereof is: (A) forcing or requiring any employer or self-employed person to join any labor or employer organization or any employer or other person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person; (B) forcing or requiring any other employer to recognize or bargain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees unless such labor organization has been certified as the representative of such employees under the provisions of section 9; (C) forcing or requiring any employer to recognize or bargain with a particular labor organization as the representative of his employees if another labor organization has been certified as the representative of such employees under the provisions of section 9; (D) forcing or requiring any employer to assign particular work to employees in a particular labor organization or in a particular trade, craft, or class rather than to employees in another labor organization or in another trade, craft, or class, unless such employer is failing to conform to an order or certification of the Board determining the bargaining representative for employees performing such work: Provided, That nothing contained in this subsection (b) shall be construed to make unlawful a refusal by any person to enter upon the premises of any employer (other than his own employer), if the employees of such employer are engaged in a strike ratified or approved by a representative of such employees whom such employer is required to recognize under this Act; . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) 61 Stat. 140-142, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 158(b) (4).
The above provisions, together with those of § 303, 61 Stat. 158, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 187, have been referred to by Congress and the courts as the “secondary boycott sections” of the Act.
While the complaint charged no unfair labor practice on the part of the union in its relations with employees of the Kaplan Mill, it did charge that the union also violated § 8 (b) (4) (A) by its conduct in inducing and encouraging employees of two neutral railroads to engage in a concerted refusal, in the course of their employment, to transport or otherwise handle articles shipped to or from some of the respective mills, including the Kaplan Mill. Not only did the encouragement of concerted action which was alleged in that charge differ substantially from the conduct which is before us but the Board found that the railroad employees were not employees within the meaning of § 8 (b) (4). 84 N. L. R. B. 360. The Court of Appeals held to the contrary and remanded the charge for further proceedings. 183 F. 2d 21, 24-26. The Board, however, does not seek a review of that order.
It is not charged here that the union or its agents themselves engaged in a strike or concerted activity for an object proscribed by §8 (b) (4).
“Sec. 8. . . .
“(b) It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
“(1) to restrain or coerce (A) employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7: 61 Stat. 140-141, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 158 (b) (1) (A).
“Sec. 7. Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities . . . .” 61 Stat. 140, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 157.
“. . . The Labor Management Relations Act declared it to be an unfair labor practice for a union to induce or engage in a strike or concerted refusal to work where an object thereof is any of certain enumerated ones. § 8 (b) (4) .... While the Federal Board is empowered to forbid a strike, when and because its purpose is one that the Federal Act made illegal, it has been given no power to forbid one because its method is illegal — even if the illegality were to consist of actual or threatened violence to persons or destruction of property.” International Union v. Wisconsin Board, 336 U. S. 245, 253.
In this Act “Congress safeguarded the exercise by employees of 'concerted activities’ and expressly recognized the right to strike.” International Union v. O’Brien, 339 U. S. 454, 457; see also, Amal gamated Assn. of Employees v. Wisconsin Board, 340 U. S. 383, 389, 404; United Electrical & Machine Workers, 85 N. L. R. B. 417, 418; Oil Workers International Union, 84 N. L. R. B. 315, 318-320.
See also, the protection given to the right to engage in concerted activities by § 7 of the Act, note 4, supra. As to both §§13 and 7, see International Union v. Wisconsin Board, supra, at 258-264.
The character of the problem of reconciliation of the right to strike with the limitations expressed in § 8 (b) (4) is not unlike that which confronted the Court in Allen Bradley Co. v. Local Union No. 3, 325 U. S. 797, 806:
“The result of all this is that we have two declared congressional policies which it is our responsibility to try to reconcile. The one seeks to preserve a competitive business economy; the other to preserve the rights of labor to organize to better its conditions through the agency of collective bargaining. We must determine here how far Congress intended activities under one of these policies to neutralize the results envisioned by the other.”
Senator Taft, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, and floor manager for the bill in the Senate, said: “So far as the bill is concerned, we have proceeded on the theory that there is a right to strike and that labor peace must be based on free collective bargaining. We have done nothing to outlaw strikes for basic wages, hours, and working conditions after proper opportunity for mediation.” 93 Cong. Rec. 3835. Similar statements by Senator Taft appear at 93 Cong. Rec. 3838, 4198, 4867, 6446, 7537. Several other members of the Committee expressed like views: Senator Ellender at -93 Cong. Rec. 4131-4132; Senator Ball at 4834, 4838, 7529-7530; Senator Aiken at 4860; and Senator Morse at 4864,4871-4873.
See also, “the primary strike for recognition (without a Board certification) is not proscribed.” S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (Pt. 1) 22, and see H. R. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 43.
In discussing the effect of § 8 (b) (4), and in showing its application only to circumstances other than those involved in this case, Senator Taft said further:
“The Senator will find a great many decisions . . . which hold that under the common law a secondary boycott is unlawful. . . . under the provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, it became impossible to stop a secondary boycott or any other kind of a strike, no matter how unlawful it may have been at common law. All this provision of the bill [§8 (b) (4)] does is to reverse the effect of the law as to secondary boycotts.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4198.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner and two codefendants were tried in a state court for prison breach and holding hostages in a penal institution. While they had appointed' counsel as advisers, they represented themselves. The trial ended with a jury verdict of guilty of both charges on the 21st day, which was a Friday. The defendants were brought in for sentencing on the following Monday. Before imposing sentence on the verdicts the judge pronounced them guilty of criminal contempt. He found that petitioner had committed one or more contempts on 11 of the 21 days of trial and sentenced him to not less than one nor more than two years for each of the II contempts ór a total of 11 to 22 years.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed by a divided vote. 434 Pa. 478, 255 A. 2d 131. The case is here on a petition for writ of certiorari. 397 U. S. 1020.
Petitioner’s, conduct at the trial comes as a shock to those raised in the Western tradition that considers a courtroom a hallowed place of quiet dignity as far removed as possible from the emotions of the street.
(1) On the first day of the trial petitioner came to the side bar to make suggestions and obtain rulings on trial procedures. Petitioner said: “It seems like the court has the'intentions of railroading us” and moved to disqualify the judge. The motion was denied. Petitioner’s other motions, including his request that the deputy sheriffs in the courtroom be dressed as civilians, were also denied. Then came the' following colloquy:
“Mr. Mayberry: I would like to have a fair trial of this case and like to be granted a fair trial under the Sixth Amendment.
“The Court: You will get a fair trial.
“Mr. Mayberry: It doesn’t appear that I am going to get one the way you are overruling, all our motions and that, and being like a hatchet man for the State.
“The Court: This side bar is over.
“Mr. Mayberry: Wait a minute, Your Honor.
“The Court: It is over.
“Mr. Mayberry: You dirty sonofabitch.”
(2) The second episode took place on the eighth day of the trial. A codefendant was cross-examining a prison guard and the court sustained objections to certain questions:
“Mr. Codispoti: Are you trying to protect the prison authorities, Your Honor? Is that your reason?
“The Court: You are out of order, Mr. Codispoti. I don’t want any outbursts like that again. This is á court of justice. You don’t know how to ask questions.
“Mr. Mayberry: Possibly Your. Honor doesn’t know how to rule on them..
“The Court: You keep quiet.
“Mr, Mayberry: You ought to be Gilbert and Sullivan the way you sustain the district attorney every time he objects to the questions.
“The Court: Are you through? When your time comes you can ask questions and not make speeches.”
(3) The next charge stemmed from the examination of an inmate about a riot in prison in which petitioner apparently was implicated. There were many questions asked and many objections sustained. At one point the following outburst occurred:
“Mr. Mayberry rTSTow, I’m going to produce my defense in this case and not be railroaded into any life sentence by any dirty, tyrannical old dog like yourself.
“The Court: You may proceed with your questioning, Mr. Mayberry.”
(4) The fourth charge grew out of an examination of another defense witness:
“By Mr. Mayberry:
“Q. I ask you, Mr. Nardi, is that area, the hand-, ball court, is it open to any prisoner who wants to play handball, who cares to go to that area to play • handball?'
“A. Yes..
“Q. Did you understand the prior question when I asked you if it was freely open and accessible area?
“The Court: He answered your qúestion. Let’s go on.
“Mr. Mayberry: I am asking Jiim now if he understands-
“The Court: He answered it. Now, let’s go on.
“Mr. Mayberry: I ask Your Honor to keep your mouth shut while I’m questioning my own witness. Will you do that for me?
“The Court: I wish you would do the same. Proceed with your questioning.”
(5) The fifth charge relates to a protest which the defendants made^that at the end of each trial day they were denied access to their legal documents — a condition which the trial judge shortly remedied. The following ensued:
“Mr. Mayberry: You’re a judge first. What are you working for? The prison authorities, you bum?
“Mr. Livingston: I have a motion pending before Your Honor.
“The Court: I would suggest-
“Mr. Mayberry: Go to hell. I don’t give a good God damn what you suggest, you stumbling dog.’-’
Meanwhile one. defendant told the judge if he did not get access to his papers at night he’d “blow • your' head off.” Another defendant said he would not sit still and be “kowtowed and be railroaded into a life imprisonment.” Then the following transpired:
“Mr. Mayberry: You started all this bullshit in the beginning.
“The Court: You keep quiet.
“Mr. Mayberry: Wait a minute.
“The Court: You keep quiet.
“Mr. Mayberry: I am my own counsel.
“The Court: You keep quiet.
“Mr. Mayberry. Are you going to gag me?
“The Court: Take these prisoners out of here. We will take a ten minute recess, members of the jury.”
(6) The sixth episode happened when two of the defendants wanted to have some time to-talk to a witness whom they had called. The two of them had had a heated exchange with the judge when the following happened:
“Mr. Mayberry: Just one moment, Your Honor.
“The Court: This is not your witness, Mr. May-berry. Keep quiet.
“Mr. Mayberry: Oh, yes, he is my witness, too. He is my witness, also. Now, we are at the penitentiary and in seclusion. We can’t talk to any of our witnesses prior to putting them on the stand like the District Attorney obviously has the opportunity, and as he obviously made use of the opportunity to talk to his witnesses. Now-
“The Court: Now, I have ruled, Mr. Mayberry.
“Mr. Mayberry: I don’t care what you ruled. That is unimportant. The fact is-
“The Court: You will remain quiet, sir, and finish the examination of this witness.'
“Mr. Mayberry: No, I won’t be quiet while you try .to deny me the right to a fair trial. The only way I will be quiet is if you have me gagged. Now, if you want to do that, that is up to you; but in the meantime I am going to say what I have to say. Now, we have the right to speak to our witnesses prior to putting them on the stand. This is an accepted fact of law. It is nothing new or unusual. Now, you are going to try to force us to have our witness testify to facts that he has only a hazy recollection of that happened back in 1965. Now, I believe we have the right to confer with our witness prior to putting him on the stand.
“The Court: Are you finished?
“Mr. Mayberry: I am finished.
“The Court: Proceed with your examination.”
(7) The seventh charge grew out of an examination of a codefendant by petitioner. The following outburst took place:
“By Mr. Mayberry:
“Q. No. Don’t state a conclusion because Gilbert is going to object and Sullivan will sustain. Give me facts. What leads you to say that?”
Later petitioner said:
“Mr. Mayberry: My witness isn’t being in' an inquisition, you know. This isn’t the Spanish Inquisition.”
Following other exchanges with the court, petitioner said:
“Mr. Mayberry: Now, just what' do you calí proper? I have asked questions, numerous questions and everyone you said is improper. Í have asked questions that my adviser has given me, and I have repeated these questions verbatim as they came out of my adviser’s mouth, and you said they are improper. Now just what do you consider proper?
“The Court: I am not here to educate you, Mr. Mayberry.
“Mr. Mayberry: No. I know you are not. But you’re not here to railroad me into no life bit, either.
“Mr. CodispOti: To protect the record-
“The Court: Do you have any other questions to ask this witness?
“Mr. Mayberry: You need to have some kind of psychiatric treatment, I think. You’re some kind of a nut. I know you’re trying to do a good job for that Warden Maroney back there, but let’s keep it looking decent anyway, you know. Don’t make it so obvious, Your Honor.” '
(8) A codefendant was removed from the courtroom and when he returned petitioner asked for a severance.
“Mr. Mayberry: I have to ask for a severance.
“The Court: I have heard that before. It is denied again. Let’s go on.”
(Exception noted.)
“Mr. Mayberry: This is the craziest trial I have ever seen.
“The Court: You may call your next witness, Mr. Mayberry.”
Petitioner wanted to call witnesses-from the penitentiary whose' names had not been' submitted earlier and for whom no subpoenas were issued. The court restricted the witnesses to the list of those subpoenaed:
“Mr. Mayberry: Before I get to that I wish to have a ruling, and I don’t care if it is contempt or whatever you want to call it, but I want a ruling for the record that I am being denied these witnesses ’ that I asked for months before this trial ever began.”
(9) The ninth charge arose out of a ruling by the court on a question concerning the availability of tools to prisoners in their cells.
“The Court: I have ruled on that, Mr. Mayberry. Now proceed with your questioning, and don’t argue.
“Mr. Mayberry: You’re arguing. I’m not arguing, not arguing with fools.”
(10) The court near the end of the trial had petitioner ejected from the courtroom several times. The contempt charge was phrased as follows by the court:
“On December 7, 1966, you have created a despicable scene in refusing to continue calling your witnesses and in creating such consternation and uproar as to cause a termination of theArial.”
(1.1) As the court prepared to charge the jury, petitioner said:
“Before Your Honor begins the charge to the jury defendant Mayberry wishes to place his objection on the record to the charge and to the whole proceedings from now on, and he wishes to make it known to the Court now that he has no intention of remaining silent while the Court charges the jury, and that he is going to continually object to the charge of the Court to the jury throughout the entire charge, and he is not going to remain silent. He is going to disrupt the proceedings verbally throughout the entire charge of the Court, and also he is going to be objecting to being forced to terminate his defense before he was finished.”
The court thereupon had petitioner removed from the courtroom and later returned gagged. But petitioner caused such a commotion under gag that the court had him removed to an adjacent room where a loudspeaker system made the courtroom proceedings audible. The court phrased this contempt charge as follows:
“On December 9, 1966, you have constantly, boisterously, and insolently interrupted the Court during its attempts to charge the jury, thereby creating an atmosphere of utter confusion and chaos.”
These brazen efforts to denounce, insult, and slander the court and to paralyze the trial are at war with the concept of justice under law. Laymen, foolishly trying to defend themselves, may understandably create awkward and embarrassing scenes. Yet that is not the character of the record revealed here. We have here downright insults of a trial judge, and tactics taken from street brawls and transported to the courtroom. This is conduct not “befitting an American courtroom,” as we said in Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337, 346; and criminal contempt is one appropriate remedy. Id., at 344-345.
As these separate acts or outbursts took place, the • arsenal of authority described in Allen was available to the trial judge to keep order in the courtroom. He could, with propriety, have instantly acted, holding petitioner in contempt, or excluding him from the courtroom, or otherwise insulating his vulgarity from the courtroom. . The Court noted in Sacher v. United States, 343 U. S. 1, 10, that, while instant action may be taken against a lawyer who is guilty of contempt, to. pronounce him guilty of contempt is “not unlikely to prejudice his client.” Those considerations are not pertinent here where petitioner undertook to represent himself. In Sacher. the "trial judge waited until the end of the trial to impose.punishment for contempt, the Court saying:
“If we were to hold that summary punishment can be imposed only instantly upon the event, it would be an incentive to pronounce, while smarting under the irritation of the contemptuous act, what should bé a well-considered judgment. We think it less likely that unfair condemnation of counsel will occur if the more deliberate course be permitted.” Id., at 11.
Generalizations are difficult. Instant treatment of contempt where lawyers are involved may greatly prejudice their clients but it may be the only wise course where others are involved. .Moreover, we do not say that the more vicious the attack on the judge the less qualified he is to act. A judge cannot be driven out of a- case. Where, however, he does not act the instant the contempt is committed, but waits until the end of the trial, on balance, it is generally wise where the marks of the unseemly conduct have left personal stings to ask a fellow judge to take his place. What Chief Justice-Taft said in Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517, 539, is relevant here:
“The power of contémpt which a judge must have and exercise in protecting the due and orderly administration of justice and in maintaining the authority and dignity of the court is most important and indispensable. But its exercise is a delicate one and care is needed to avoid arbitrary or oppressive conclusions. This rule of caution is more mandatory where the contempt charged has in it the element of personal criticism or attack upon the judge. The judge must banish the slightest personal impulse to reprisal, but he should not bend backward and injure the authority of the court by too great leniency. The substitution of another judge would avoid either tendency but it is not always possible. Of course where acts of contempt are palpably aggravated by a personal attack upon the judge in order to drive the judge out of the case for ulterior reasons, the scheme should not be permitted to succeed. But attempts of this kind are rare. All of such cases, however, present difficult questions for the judge. All we can say upon the whole-matter is that where conditions do not make it impracticable, or where the delay may not injure public or private right, a judge called upon to act in a case of contempt by personal attack upon him, may, without flinching from his duty, properly ask that one of his fellow judges take his place.”
We conclude that that course should have been followed here, as marked personal feelings were present on both sides.
Whether the trial be federal or state, the concern of due process is with the fair administration of justice. At times a judge has not been the image of “the impersonal authority of law” (Offutt v. United States, 348 U. S. 11, 17) but has become so “personally embroiled” with a lawyer in the trial as to make the judge unfit to sit in judgment on the contempt charge.
“The vital point is that in sitting in judgment on such a misbehaving lawyer the judge should not himself give vent to personal spleen or respond to a personal grievance. These are subtle matters, for they concern the ingredients of what constitutes justice. Therefore, justice must satisfy the appearance of justice.” Id.,, at 14.
Offutt does not fit this case, for the state judge in the instant controversy was not an activist seeking combat. Rather, he was the target of petitioner’s insolence. Yet a judge, vilified as was this Pennsylvania judge, necessarily becomes embroiled in a running, bitter controversy. Ño one so cruelly slandered is likely to maintain that calm detachment necessary for fair adjudication. In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133, was a case where a judge acted under state law as a one-man grand jury and later tried witnesses for contempt who refused, to. answer questions propounded by the “judge-grand jury.” We held that since the judge who sat as a one-man grand jury was part of the accusatory process he “cannot be, in the very nature of things, wholly disinterested in the conviction or acquittal of those. accused.” Id., at 137. “Fair trials are too important a part of our free society to, let prosecuting judges be trial judges of the charges they prefer.” Ibid.
It is, of course, not every attack on a judge that disqualifies him from sitting. In Ungar v. Sarafite, 376 U. S. 575, we ruled that a lawyer’s challenge, though “disruptive, recalcitrant and disagreeable commentary,’’ was still not “an insulting attack upon the integrity of the judge carrying such potential for bias as to require disqualification.” Id., at 584. Many of the words leveled at the judge in the instant case were highly personal aspersions, even “fighting words” — “dirty sonofabitch,” “dirty tyrannical old dog,” “stumbling dog,” and “fool.” He was charged with running a Spanish Inquisition and told to “Go to hell” and “Keep your mouth shut.” Insults of that kind are apt to strike “at the most vulnerable and human qualities of a judge’s temperament.” Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 194, 202.
Our conclusion is that by reason of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment a defendant in criminal contempt proceedings should be given a public trial before a judge other than the one reviled by the contemnor. See In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257. In the present case that requirement can be satisfied only if the judgment of contempt is vacated so that on remand another judge, not bearing the sting of these slanderous remarks and having the impersonal authority of the law, sits in judgment on the conduct of petitioner as shown by the record.
Vacated and remanded.
Me. Justice Black concurs in the judgment and with all the opinion except that part which indicates that the judge without a jury could have convicted Mayberry of contempt instantaneously with the outburst.
Petitioner was sentenced for contempt December 12, 1966. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed on April 23, 1969. Wé decided Illinois v. Allen on March 31, 1970.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case and consolidated it for argument with No. 73-2066, National Independent Coal Operators’ Assn. v. Kleppe, ante, p. 388, decided today, to resolve an apparent conflict between the two Circuits.
In 1971 and January 1972 inspectors from the Bureau of Mines entered and inspected the coal mines owned respectively by Delta Mining, Inc., G. M. W. Coal Co., Inc., and a partnership of Edward Mears and others known as the M. Y. Coal Co. The inspectors detected a number of violations of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, 83 Stat. 742, 30 U. S. C. § 801 et seg., or regulations and served each mine operator with notices of the infractions. Each notice stated that the violations were to be abated by a specified date. The inspectors returned on that date and furnished the mine operators with a notice that the violations had been abated. The local office of the Bureau of Mines sent copies of the notice of violation and abatement to the Bureau’s central office. There an assessment officer reviewed the notices and sent proposed penalty assessment orders to the mine operators. The orders contained a list of the violations, the dates of their occurrence, the regulations violated, and the amounts of the proposed penalties.
The proposed order of assessment to Delta was issued on April 11, 1972. It referred to six violations with civil penalties for each ranging from $30 to $90 for a total of $375. In December 1971, and January and May 1972, G. M. W. was issued proposed assessment orders for violations occurring from May to December 1971. Ten of the violations were assessed civil penalties from $25 to $100, totaling $525. G. M. W. also received an imminent-danger withdrawal order on November 24, 1971, identified as a fire hazard from loose coal in excess of three feet deep and was assessed a fine of $5,000. For violations occurring in 1971 and 1972 Mears received assessments with fines for 16 violations ranging from $25 to $100 and a 17th at $200 for a total of $1,000. It also received a withdrawal order for failure to abate a violation of the respirable-dust-concentration standard with a fine of $1,000.
Each of the operators protested the proposed assessments. Delta argued, among other things, that it was a newly opened, small mine and the fines would affect its ability to stay in business. G. M. W. protested that the loose coal was wet and therefore not a fire hazard. Without explanation as to how, if at all, the information in the protest letters was considered, the assessment officer reissued the proposed orders. One of G. M. W.’s penalties was reduced from $100 to $50. The operators were again informed that they had 15 working days from the receipt of the reissued proposed order “to accept the amended or reissued order, whereupon it shall become the final assessment order of the Secretary, or to request formal adjudication with opportunity for hearing.” None of the operators requested formal adjudication.
The mine operators did not pay the assessments. The Secretary filed complaints against each of them in October and November 1972, seeking enforcement of the assessments. Attached to the complaints were the proposed orders of assessment and preprinted forms reciting that the assessment officer found in fact that the violations had occurred. These forms were dated several months after the proposed assessment orders. The mine operators each answered, denying liability.
While the cases were awaiting trial, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia enjoined the Secretary from utilizing or enforcing the assessment procedures of 30 CFR pt. 100 (1972), concluding that § 109 (a)(3) of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, 30 U. S. C. § 819 (a) (3), requires the Secretary to prepare a decision incorporating findings of fact in all penalty assessment determinations, whether or not a hearing is requested. National Independent Coal Operators’ Assn. v. Morton, 357 F. Supp. 509 (1973).
On the basis of that decision G. M. W. moved for summary judgment, contending that the Secretary’s assessment orders were unenforceable since there had been no “decision incorporating . . . findings of fact.” The District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, relying on the National Independent decision, decided that the penalty assessments sought to be enforced by the Secretary did not meet the requirements of § 109 (a) (3) of the Act because they were not supported by adequate findings of fact. The court entered judgment in favor of the respondent mine operators in all three cases.
While the cases were pending on appeal, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the decisions on which the trial court here relied. National Independent Coal Operators’ Assn. v. Morton, 161 U. S. App. D. C. 68, 494 F. 2d 987 (1974). The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, however, declined to follow the District of Columbia Circuit decision, and held that § 109 (a) (3) compels the Secretary to support each assessment order with express findings of fact concerning the violation and the amount of the penalty, without regard to whether or not the operator requests a hearing. 495 F. 2d 38 (1974). We have today affirmed National Independent, which holding governs this case. Two remaining issues raised by the Third Circuit holding require discussion.
The Court of Appeals first distinguished the District of Columbia Circuit holding on the ground that the “operators’ failure to request a hearing in no way suggests that the appropriateness of the penalty amount went undisputed. In each instance, the operators lodged protests. . . .” 495 F. 2d, at 44. This overlooks the fact that while a protest does not necessarily trigger administrative review, a request for a hearing does. Here the party against whom a penalty is assessed has deliberately forgone the opportunity for a full, public, administrative hearing from which findings of fact can be made. Here, too, the amount of the penalty is subject to de novo review in the district court whether or not a hearing was held.
The Court of Appeals next distinguished the holding of the District of Columbia Circuit on the ground that the proposed assessment orders at issue “contained no 'information’ other than pro forma recitations that the six criteria [of § 109 (a)(1) of the Act] had been considered.” (Emphasis in original.) Ibid. The court was concerned that the proposed assessment orders were on “preprinted forms which recited, in some instances, that the six factors set out in the statute had been considered” and that the final orders of the Secretary did not mention the six criteria but “merely set forth the Secretary’s finding that a violation 'did, in fact, occur.’ ” Id., at 40. The court then held that “each final decision of the Secretary must be accompanied by findings of fact, concerning both the fact of violation and the magnitude of the penalty.” Id., at 44.
The court noted the general proposition that judicial “review of a final administrative determination ... is rendered practically impossible, or at least vastly more difficult, where the agency's decision is not accompanied by express findings.” Id., at 42. We agree with the general proposition when judicial review is based on a substantial-evidence test. Here, however, if an operator wishes to contest the amount of the penalty without a hearing, that can be done by refusing to pay the penalty, thus invoking the right to a de novo trial in the district court, with a jury if desired. When a violation is noticed the operator- is informed as to the details of the nature and location of that violation; the administrative procedures of § 105 of the Act, 30 U. S. C. § 815, with provision for a public hearing on request, come into play and appellate review is available.
In light of our holding in National Independent Coal Operators’ Assn. v. Kleppe, ante, p. 388, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent herewith.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The operators protest that these notices are not part of the record below. Since the issue before this Court is the validity of the regulations, not whether the regulations were properly complied with, for purposes of. this ease we will assume the notices were properly served. We note, however, that the mine operators do not contend that they were not given ample notice of the violations charged by the mine inspectors.
The Third Circuit found support for its concern in a Comptroller General’s report which stated that the Comptroller was “ ‘unable to' determine the adequacy of the consideration given to the six factors [of §109 (a)(1)] and the basis for the penalties assessed in [400] sample cases.’ ” 495 F. 2d, at 43. However, the Secretary’s method of assessing penalties has been changed in a way that largely meets this objection. The regulations now in force contain formulas to be used by the assessment officers in considering the six § 109 (a) (1) criteria. 30 CFR § 100.3 (1975). The Secretary represented to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the assessment formula is to be retained. National Coal Operators’ Assn. v. Morton, 161 U. S. App. D. C. 68, 70 n. 12, 494 F. 2d 987, 989 n. 12 (1974). These regulations were not in effect when the penalties at issue here were levied. Use of the current regulations is preferable to the apparent ad hoc consideration given the criteria in this case. But a trial de novo is available to the mine operators on the amount of the penalty, so the Secretary’s failure to promulgate the best regulations in the first instance does not render all penalties assessed under the prior regulations unenforceable. Although explication by the assessment officer and an examiner might be of some aid to the district judge who is called upon to consider the penalty, the provision for a de novo trial on the amount of the penalty places squarely on the court the task of evaluating the penalty. The six criteria of §109 (a)(1) can be argued to the district court. The Third Circuit is undoubtedly correct that the more information a mine operator has, the better the operator will be able to determine whether to challenge the penalty. The issue, however, was whether the new procedures were mandated by the statute.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to determine whether the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit properly enjoined the public disclosure of Connecticut’s sex offender registry. The Court of Appeals concluded that such disclosure both deprived registered sex offenders of a “liberty interest,” and violated the Due Process Clause because officials did not afford registrants a predeprivation hearing to determine whether they are likely to be “currently dangerous.” Doe v. Department of Public Safety ex rel. Lee, 271 F. 3d 38, 44, 46 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). Connecticut, however, has decided that the registry requirement shall be based on the fact of previous conviction, not the fact of current dangerousness. Indeed, the public registry explicitly states that officials have not determined that any registrant is currently dangerous. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals because due process does not require the opportunity to prove a fact that is not material to the State’s statutory scheme.
“Sex offenders are a serious threat in this Nation.” McKune v. Lile, 536 U. S. 24, 32 (2002) (plurality opinion). “[T]he victims of sex assault are most often juveniles,” and “[w]hen convicted sex offenders reenter society, they are much more likely than any other type of offender to be rearrested for a new rape or sexual assault.” Id., at 32-33. Connecticut, like every other State, has responded to these facts by enacting a statute designed to protect its communities from sex offenders and to help apprehend repeat sex offenders. Connecticut’s “Megan’s Law” applies to all persons convicted of criminal offenses against a minor, violent and nonviolent sexual offenses, and felonies committed for a sexual purpose. Covered offenders must register with the Connecticut Department of Public Safety (DPS) upon their release into the community. Each must provide personal information (including his name, address, photograph, and DNA sample); notify DPS of any change in residence; and periodically submit an updated photograph. The registration requirement runs for 10 years in most cases; those convicted of sexually violent offenses must register for life. Conn. Gen. Stat. §§54-251, 54-252, 54-254 (2001).
The statute requires DPS to compile the information gathered from registrants and publicize it. In particular, the law requires DPS to post a sex offender registry on an Internet Website and to make the registry available to the public in certain state offices. §§ 54-257, 54-258. Whether made available in an office or via the Internet, the registry must be accompanied by the following warning: “ ‘Any person who uses information in this registry to injure, harass or commit a criminal act against any person included in the registry or any other person is subject to criminal prosecution.”’ § 54-258a.
Before the District Court enjoined its operation, the State’s Website enabled citizens to obtain the name, address, photograph, and description of any registered sex offender by entering a zip code or town name. The following disclaimer appeared on the first page of the Website:
“‘The registry is based on the legislature’s decision to facilitate access to publicly-available information about persons convicted of sexual offenses. [DPS] has not considered or assessed the specific risk of reoffense with regard to any individual prior to his or her inelusion within this registry, and has made no determination that any individual included in the registry is currently dangerous. Individuals included within the registry are included solely by virtue of their conviction record and state law. The main purpose of providing this data on the Internet is to make the information more easily available and accessible, not to warn about any specific individual.’” 271 F. 3d, at 44.
Petitioners include the state agencies and officials charged with compiling the sex offender registry and posting it on the Internet. Respondent Doe (hereinafter respondent) is a convicted sex offender who is subject to Connecticut’s Megan’s Law. He filed this aetion pursuant to Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, on behalf of himself and similarly situated sex offenders, claiming that the law violates, inter alia, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, respondent alleged that he is not a “ ‘dangerous sexual offender,’ ” and that the Connecticut law “deprives him of a liberty interest — his reputation combined with the alteration of his status under state law — without notice or a meaningful opportunity to be heard.” 271 F. 3d, at 45-46. The District Court granted summary judgment for respondent on his due process claim. 132 F. Supp. 2d 57 (Conn. 2001). The court then certified a class of individuals subject to the Connecticut law, and permanently enjoined the law’s public disclosure provisions.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, 271 F. 3d 38 (CA2 2001), holding that the Due Process Clause entitles class members to a hearing “to determine whether or not they are particularly likely to be currently dangerous before being labeled as such by their inclusion in a publicly disseminated registry.” Id., at 62. Because Connecticut had not provided such a hearing, the Court of Appeals enjoined petitioners from “ ‘disclosing or disseminating to the public, either in printed or electronic form (a) the Registry or (b) Registry information concerning [class members]’” and from “‘identifying [them] as being included in the Registry.’” Ibid. The Court of Appeals reasoned that the Connecticut law implicated a “liberty interest” because of: (1) the law’s stigmatization of respondent by “implying” that he is “currently dangerous,” and (2) its imposition of “extensive and onerous” registration obligations on respondent. Id., at 57. From this liberty interest arose an obligation, in the Court of Appeals’ view, to give respondent an opportunity to demonstrate that he was not “likely to be currently dangerous.” Id., at 62. We granted certiorari, 535 U. S. 1077 (2002).
In Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693 (1976), we held that mere injury to reputation, even if defamatory, does not constitute the deprivation of a liberty interest. Petitioners urge us to reverse the Court of Appeals on the ground that, under Paul v. Davis, respondent has failed to establish that petitioners have deprived him of a liberty interest. We find it unnecessary to reach this question, however, because even assuming, arguendo, that respondent has been deprived of a liberty interest, due process does not entitle him to a hearing to establish a fact that is not material under the Connecticut statute.
In cases such as Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433 (1971), and Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975), we held that due process required the government to accord the plaintiff a hearing to prove or disprove a particular fact or set of facts. But in each of these cases, the fact in question was concededly relevant to the inquiry at hand. Here, however, the fact that respondent seeks to prove — that he is not currently dangerous — is of no consequence under Connecticut’s Megan’s Law. As the DPS Website explains, the law’s requirements turn on an offender’s conviction alone — a fact that a convicted offender has already had a procedurally safeguarded opportunity to contest. 271 F. 3d, at 44 (“ ‘Individuals included within the registry are included solely by virtue of their conviction record and state law’ ” (emphasis added)). No other fact is relevant to the disclosure of registrants’ information. Conn. Gen. Stat. §§54-257, 54-258 (2001). Indeed, the disclaimer on the Website explicitly states that respondent’s alleged nondangerousness simply does not matter. 271 F. 3d, at 44 (“ ‘[DPS] has made no determination that any individual included in the registry is currently dangerous’ ”).
In short, even if respondent could prove that he is not likely to be currently dangerous, Connecticut has decided that the registry information of all sex offenders — currently dangerous or not — must be publicly disclosed. Unless respondent can show that that substantive rule of law is defective (by conflicting with a provision of the Constitution), any hearing on current dangerousness is a bootless exercise. It may be that respondent’s claim is actually a substantive challenge to Connecticut’s statute “recast in ‘procedural due process’ terms.” Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 308 (1993). Nonetheless, respondent expressly disavows any reliance on the substantive component of the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections, Brief for Respondents 44-45, and maintains, as he did below, that his challenge is strictly a procedural one. But States are not barred by principles of “procedural due process” from drawing such classifications. Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110, 120 (1989) (plurality opinion) (emphasis in original). See also id., at 132 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). Such claims “must ultimately be analyzed” in terms of substantive, not procedural, due process. Id., at 121. Because the question is not properly before us, we express no opinion as to whether Connecticut’s Megan’s Law violates principles of substantive due process.
Plaintiffs who assert a right to a hearing under the Due Process Clause must show that the facts they seek to establish in that hearing are relevant under the statutory scheme. Respondent cannot make that showing here. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Reversed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this case is whether the transfer of a prisoner from a state prison in Hawaii to one in California implicates a liberty interest within the meaning of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
I
A
Respondent Delbert Kaahanui Wakinekona is serving a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole as a result of his murder conviction in a Hawaii state court. He also is serving sentences for various other crimes, including rape, robbery, and escape. At the Hawaii State Prison outside Honolulu, respondent was classified as a maximum security risk and placed in the maximum control unit.
Petitioner Antone Olim is the Administrator of the Hawaii State Prison. The other petitioners constituted a prison “Program Committee.” On August 2, 1976, the Committee held hearings to determine the reasons for a breakdown in discipline and the failure of certain programs within the prison’s maximum control unit. Inmates of the unit appeared at these hearings. The Committee singled out respondent and another inmate as troublemakers. On August 5, respondent received notice that the Committee, at a hearing to be held on August 10, would review his correctional program to determine whether his classification within the system should be changed and whether he should be transferred to another Hawaii facility or to a mainland institution.
The August 10 hearing was conducted by the same persons who had presided over the hearings on August 2. Respondent retained counsel to represent him. The Committee recommended that respondent’s classification as a maximum security risk be continued and that he be transferred to a prison on the mainland. He received the following explanation from the Committee:
“The Program Committee, having reviewed your entire file, your testimony and arguments by your counsel, concluded that your control classification remains at Maximum. You are still considered a security risk in view of your escapes and subsequent convictions for serious felonies. The Committee noted the progress you made in vocational training and your expressed desire to continue in this endeavor. However your relationship with staff, who reported that you threaten and intimidate them, raises grave concerns regarding your potential for further disruptive and violent behavior. Since there is no other Maximum security prison in Hawaii which can offer you the correctional programs you require and you cannot remain at [the maximum control unit] because of impending construction of a new facility, the Program Committee recommends your transfer to an institution on the mainland.” App. 7-8.
Petitioner Olim, as Administrator, accepted the Committee’s recommendation, and a few days later respondent was transferred to Folsom State Prison in California.
B
Rule IV of the Supplementary Rules and Regulations of the Corrections Division, Department of Social Services and Housing, State of Hawaii, approved in June 1976, recites that the inmate classification process is not concerned with punishment. Rather, it is intended to promote the best interests of the inmate, the State, and the prison community. Paragraph 3 of Rule IV requires a hearing prior to a prison transfer involving “a grievous loss to the inmate,” which the Rule defines “generally” as “a serious loss to a reasonable man.” App. 21. The Administrator, under ¶ 2 of the Rule, is required to establish “an impartial Program Committee” to conduct such a hearing, the Committee to be “composed of at least three members who were not actively involved in the process by which the inmate . . . was brought before the Committee.” App. 20. Under ¶3, the Committee must give the inmate written notice of the hearing, permit him, with certain stated exceptions, to confront and cross-examine witnesses, afford him an opportunity to be heard, and apprise him of the Committee’s findings. App. 21-24.
The Committee is directed to make a recommendation to the Administrator, who then decides what action to take:
“[The Administrator] may, as the final decisionmaker:
“(a) Affirm or reverse, in whole or in part, the recommendation; or
“(b) hold in abeyance any action he believes jeopardizes the safety, security, or welfare of the staff, inmate . . . , other inmates . . . , institution, or community and refer the matter back to the Program Committee for further study and recommendation.” Rule IV, ¶ 3d(3), App. 24.
The regulations contain no standards governing the Administrator’s exercise of his discretion. See Lono v. Ariyoshi, 63 Haw. 138, 144-145, 621 P. 2d 976, 980-981 (1981).
C
Respondent filed suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against petitioners as the state officials who caused his transfer. He alleged that he had been denied procedural due process because the Committee that recommended his transfer consisted of the same persons who had initiated the hearing, this being in specific violation of Rule IV, ¶ 2, and because the Committee was biased against him. The United States District Court for the District of Hawaii dismissed the complaint, holding that the Hawaii regulations governing prison transfers do not create a substantive liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. 459 F. Supp. 473 (1978).
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, by a divided vote, reversed. 664 F. 2d 708 (1981). It held that Hawaii had created a constitutionally protected liberty interest by promulgating Rule IV. In so doing, the court declined to follow cases from other Courts of Appeals holding that certain procedures mandated by prison transfer regulations do not create a liberty interest. See, e. g., Cofone v. Manson, 594 F. 2d 934 (CA2 1979); Lombardo v. Meachum, 548 F. 2d 13 (CA1 1977). The court reasoned that Rule IV gives Hawaii prisoners a justifiable expectation that they will not be transferred to the mainland absent a hearing, before an impartial committee, concerning the facts alleged in the prehearing notice. Because the Court of Appeals’ decision created a conflict among the Circuits, and because the case presents the further question whether the Due Process Clause in and of itself protects against interstate prison transfers, we granted certiorari. 456 U. S. 1005 (1982).
II
In Meachum v. Fano, 427 U. S. 215 (1976), and Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U. S. 236 (1976), this Court held that an intrastate prison transfer does not directly implicate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Meachum, inmates at a Massachusetts medium security prison had been transferred to a maximum security prison in that Commonwealth. In Montanye, a companion case, an inmate had been transferred from one maximum security New York prison to another as punishment for a breach of prison rules. This Court rejected “the notion that any grievous loss visited upon a person by the State is sufficient to invoke the procedural protections of the Due Process Clause.” Meachum, 427 ,U. S., at 224 (emphasis in original). It went on to state:
“The initial decision to assign the convict to a particular institution is not subject to audit under the Due Process Clause, although the degree of confinement in one prison may be quite different from that in another. The conviction has sufficiently extinguished the defendant’s liberty interest to empower the State to confine him in any of its prisons.
“Neither, in our view, does the Due Process Clause in and of itself protect a duly convicted prisoner against transfer from one institution to another within the state prison system. Confinement in any of the State’s institutions is within the normal limits or range of custody which the conviction has authorized the State to impose.” Id., at 224-225 (emphasis in original).
The Court observed that, although prisoners retain a residuum of liberty, see Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 555-556 (1974), a holding that “any substantial deprivation imposed by prison authorities triggers the procedural protections of the Due Process Clause would subject to judicial review a wide spectrum of discretionary actions that traditionally have been the business of prison administrators rather than of the federal courts.” 427 U. S., at 225 (emphasis in original).
Applying the Meachum, and Montanye principles in Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480 (1980), this Court held that the transfer of an inmate from a prison to a mental hospital did implicate a liberty interest. Placement in the mental hospital was “not within the range of conditions of confinement to which a prison sentence subjects an individual,” because it brought about “consequences . . . qualitatively different from the punishment characteristically suffered by a person convicted of crime.” Id., at 493. Respondent argues that the same is true of confinement of a Hawaii prisoner on the mainland, and that Vitek therefore controls.
We do not agree. Just as an inmate has no justifiable expectation that he will be incarcerated in any particular prison within a State, he has no justifiable expectation that he will be incarcerated in any particular State. Often, confinement in the inmate’s home State will not be possible. A person convicted of a federal crime in a State without a federal correctional facility usually will serve his sentence in another State. Overcrowding and the need to separate particular prisoners may necessitate interstate transfers. For any number of reasons, a State may lack prison facilities capable of providing appropriate correctional programs for all offenders.
Statutes and interstate agreements recognize that, from time to time, it is necessary to transfer inmates to prisons in other States. On the federal level, 18 U. S. C. § 5003(a) authorizes the Attorney General to contract with a State for the transfer of a state prisoner to a federal prison, whether in that State or another. See Howe v. Smith, 452 U. S. 473 (1981). Title 18 U. S. C. §4002 (1976 ed. and Supp. V) permits the Attorney General to contract with any State for the placement of a federal prisoner in state custody for up to three years. Neither statute requires that the prisoner remain in the State in which he was convicted and sentenced.
On the state level, many States have statutes providing for the transfer of a state prisoner to a federal prison, e. g., Haw. Rev. Stat. §353-18 (1976), or another State’s prison, e. g., Alaska Stat. Ann. §33.30.100 (1982). Corrections compacts between States, implemented by statutes, authorize incarceration of a prisoner of one State in another State’s prison. See, e. g., Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 11189 (West 1982) (codifying Interstate Corrections Compact); § 11190 (codifying Western Interstate Corrections Compact); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 18-102 (1981) (codifying New England Interstate Corrections Compact); § 18-106 (codifying Interstate Corrections Compact); Haw. Rev. Stat. § 355-1 (1976) (codifying Western Interstate Corrections Compact); Idaho Code § 20-701 (1979) (codifying Interstate Corrections Compact); Ky. Rev. Stat. § 196.610 (1982) (same). And prison regulations such as Hawaii’s Rule IV anticipate that inmates sometimes will be transferred to prisons in other States.
In short, it is neither unreasonable nor unusual for an inmate to serve practically his entire sentence in a State other than the one in which he was convicted and sentenced, or to be transferred to an out-of-state prison after serving a portion of his sentence in his home State. Confinement in another State, unlike confinement in a mental institution, is “within the normal limits or range of custody which the conviction has authorized the State to impose.” Meachum, 427 U. S., at 225. Even when, as here, the transfer involves long distances and an ocean crossing, the confinement remains within constitutional limits. The difference between such a transfer and an intrastate or interstate transfer of shorter distance is a matter of degree, not of kind, and Meachum instructs that “the determining factor is the nature of the interest involved rather than its weight.” 427 U. S., at 224. The reasoning of Meachum and Montanye compels the conclusion that an interstate prison transfer, including one from Hawaii to California, does not deprive an inmate of any liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause in and of itself.
III
The Court of Appeals held that Hawaii’s prison regulations create a constitutionally protected liberty interest. In Meachum, however, the State had “conferred no right on the prisoner to remain in the prison to which he was initially assigned, defeasible only upon proof of specific acts of misconduct,” 427 U. S., at 226, and “ha[d] not represented that transfers [would] occur only on the occurrence of certain events,” id., at 228. Because the State had retained “discretion to transfer [the prisoner] for whatever reason or for no reason at all,” ibid., the Court found that the State had not created a constitutionally protected liberty interest. Similarly, because the state law at issue in Montanye “impose[d] no conditions on the discretionary power to transfer,” 427 U. S., at 243, there was no basis for invoking the protections of the Due Process Clause.
These cases demonstrate that a State creates a protected liberty interest by placing substantive limitations on official discretion. An inmate must show “that particularized standards or criteria guide the State’s decisionmakers.” Connecticut Board of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U. S. 458, 467 (1981) (Brennan, J., concurring). If the decisionmaker is not “required to base its decisions on objective and defined criteria,” but instead “can deny the requested relief for any constitutionally permissible reason or for no reason at all,” ibid., the State has not created a constitutionally protected liberty interest. See id., at 466-467 (opinion of the Court); see also Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S., at 488-491 (summarizing cases).
Hawaii’s prison regulations place no substantive limitations on official discretion and thus create no liberty interest entitled to protection under the Due Process Clause. As Rule IV itself makes clear, and as the Supreme Court of Hawaii has held in Lono v. Ariyoshi, 63 Haw., at 144-145, 621 P. 2d, at 980-981, the prison Administrator’s discretion to transfer an inmate is completely unfettered. No standards govern or restrict the Administrator’s determination. Because the Administrator is the only decisionmaker under Rule IV, we need not decide whether the introductory paragraph of Rule IV, see n. 1, supra, places any substantive limitations on the purely advisory Program Committee.
The Court of Appeals thus erred in attributing significance to the fact that the prison regulations require a particular kind of hearing before the Administrator can exercise his unfettered discretion. As the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently stated in Shango v. Jurich, 681 F. 2d 1091, 1100-1101 (1982), “[a] liberty interest is of course a substantive interest of an individual; it cannot be the right to demand needless formality.” Process is not an end in itself. Its constitutional purpose is to protect a substantive interest to which the individual has a legitimate claim of entitlement. See generally Simon, Liberty and Property in the Supreme Court: A Defense of Roth and Perry, 71 Calif. L. Rev. 146, 186 (1983). If officials may transfer a prisoner “for whatever reason or for no reason at all,” Meachum, 427 U. S., at 228, there is no such interest for process to protect. The State may choose to require procedures for reasons other than protection against deprivation of substantive rights, of course, but in making that choice the State does not create an independent substantive right. See Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460, 471 (1983).
IV
In sum, we hold that the transfer of respondent from Hawaii to California did not implicate the Due Process Clause directly, and that Hawaii’s prison regulations do not create a protected liberty interest. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Paragraph 1 of Rule IV states:
“An inmate’s . . . classification determines where he is best situated within the Corrections Division. Rather than being concerned with isolated aspects of the individual or punishment (as is the adjustment process), classification is a dynamic process which considers the individual, his history, his changing needs, the resources and facilities available to the Corrections Division, the other inmates . . . , the exigencies of the community, and any other relevant factors. It never inflicts punishment; on the contrary, even the imposition of a stricter classification is intended to be in the best interests of the individual, the State, and the community. In short, classification is a continuing evaluation of each individual to ensure that he is given the optimum placement within the Corrections Division.” App. 20.
Petitioners concede, “for purposes of the argument,” that respondent suffered a “grievous loss” within the meaning of Rule IV when he was transferred from Hawaii to the mainland. Tr. of Oral Arg. 9, 25.
Rule V provides that an inmate may retain legal counsel if his hearing concerns a “potential Interstate transfer.” App. 25.
Respondent also had alleged that the transfer violated the Hawaii Constitution and state regulations and statutes. In light of its dismissal of respondent’s federal claims, the District Court declined to exercise pendent jurisdiction over these state-law claims. 459 F. Supp., at 476.
Several months before the Court of Appeals handed down its decision, the Supreme Court of Hawaii had held that because Hawaii’s prison regulations do not limit the Administrator’s discretion to transfer prisoners to the mainland, they do not create any liberty interest. Lono v. Ariyoshi, 63 Haw. 138, 621 P. 2d 976 (1981). In a petition for rehearing in the present case, petitioners directed the Ninth Circuit’s attention to the Lono decision. See 664 F. 2d, at 714. The Court of Appeals, however, concluded that the Hawaii court’s interpretation of the regulations was not different from its own; the Hawaii court merely had reached a different result on the “federal question.” The Court of Appeals thus adhered to its resolution of the case. Id., at 714-716.
Indeed, in Vitek itself the Court did not read Meachum and Montanye as stating a rule applicable only to intrastate transfers. The Court stated: “In Meachum v. Fano . . . and Montanye v. Haymes ... we held that the transfer of a prisoner from one prison to another does not infringe a protected liberty interest.” 445 U. S., at 489 (emphasis added). The Court’s other cases describing Meachum and Montanye also have eschewed the narrow reading respondent now proposes. See Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460, 467-468 (1983); Moody v. Daggett, 429 U. S. 78, 88, n. 9 (1976).
This statute has been invoked to transfer prisoners from Hawaii state facilities to federal prisons on the mainland. See Anthony v. Wilkinson, 637 F. 2d 1130 (CA7 1980), vacated and remanded sub nom. Hawaii v. Mederios, 453 U. S. 902 (1981).
After the decisions in Meachum and Montanye, courts almost uniformly have held that an inmate has no entitlement to remain in a prison in his home State. See Beshaw v. Fenton, 635 F. 2d 239, 246-247 (CA3 1980), cert. denied, 453 U. S. 912 (1981); Cofone v. Manson, 594 F. 2d 934, 937, n. 4 (CA2 1979); Sisbarro v. Warden, 592 F. 2d 1, 3 (CA1), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 849 (1979); Fletcher v. Warden, 467 F. Supp. 777, 779-780 (Kan. 1979); Curry-Bey v. Jackson, 422 F. Supp. 926, 931-933 (DC 1976); McDonnell v. United States Attorney General, 420 F. Supp. 217, 220 (ED Ill. 1976); Goodnow v. Perrin, 120 N. H. 669, 671, 421 A. 2d 1008, 1010 (1980); Girouard v. Hogan, 135 Vt. 448, 449-450, 378 A. 2d 105, 106-107 (1977); In re Young, 95 Wash. 2d 216, 227-228, 622 P. 2d 373, 379 (1980); cf. Fajeriak v. McGinnis, 493 F. 2d 468 (CA9 1974) (pre-Meachum, transfers from Alaska to other States); Hillen v. Director of Department of Social Services, 455 F. 2d 510 (CA9), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 989 (1972) (pre-Meachum transfer from Hawaii to California). But see In re Young, 95 Wash. 2d, at 233, 622 P. 2d, at 382 (concurring opinion); State ex rel. Olson v. Maxwell, 259 N. W. 2d 621 (N. D. 1977); cf. Tai v. Thompson, 387 F. Supp. 912 (Haw. 1975) (pre-Meachum transfer).
Respondent’s argument to the contrary is unpersuasive. The Court in Montanye took note that among the hardships that may result from a prison transfer are separation of the inmate from home and family, separation from inmate friends, placement in a new and possibly hostile environment, difficulty in making contact with counsel, and interruption of educational and rehabilitative programs. 427 U. S., at 241, n. 4. These are the same hardships respondent faces as a result of his transfer from Hawaii to California.
Respondent attempts to analogize his transfer to banishment in the English sense of “beyond the seas,” arguing that banishment surely is not within the range of confinement justified by his sentence. But respondent in no sense has been banished; his conviction, not the transfer, deprived him of his right freely to inhabit the State. The fact that his confinement takes place outside Hawaii is merely a fortuitous consequence of the fact that he must be confined, not an additional element of his punishment. See Girouard v. Hogan, 135 Vt., at 449-450, 378 A. 2d, at 106-107. Moreover, respondent has not been exiled; he remains within the United States.
In essence, respondent’s banishment argument simply restates his claim that a transfer from Hawaii to the mainland is different in kind from other transfers. As has been shown in the text, however, respondent’s transfer was authorized by his conviction. A conviction, whether in Hawaii, Alaska, or one of the contiguous 48 States, empowers the State to confine the inmate in any penal institution in any State unless there is state law to the contrary or the reason for confining the inmate in a particular institution is itself constitutionally impermissible. See Montanye, 427 U. S., at 242; id., at 244 (dissenting opinion); Cruz v. Beto, 405 U. S. 319 (1972); Fajeriak v. McGinnis, 493 F. 2d, at 470.
In Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 (1983), unlike this case, state law limited the decisionmakers’ discretion. To the extent the dissent doubts that the Administrator’s discretion under Rule IV is truly unfettered, post, at 258, and n. 11, it doubts the ability or authority of the Hawaii Supreme Court to construe state law.
In Meachum itself, the Court of Appeals had interpreted the applicable regulations as entitling inmates to a pretransfer hearing, see Fano v. Meachum, 520 F. 2d 374, 379-380 (CA1 1975), but this Court held that state law created no liberty interest.
Other courts agree that an expectation of receiving process is not, without more, a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. See, e. g., United States v. Jiles, 658 F. 2d 194, 200 (CA3 1981), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 923 (1982); Bills v. Henderson, 631 F. 2d 1287, 1298-1299 (CA6 1980); Pugliese v. Nelson, 617 F. 2d 916, 924-925 (CA2 1980); Cofone v. Manson, 594 F. 2d, at 938; Lombardo v. Meachum, 548 F. 2d 13, 14-16 (CA1 1977); Adams v. Wainwright, 512 F. Supp. 948, 953 (ND Fla. 1981); Lono v. Ariyoshi, 63 Haw., at 144-145, 621 P. 2d, at 980-981.
Petitioners assert that the hearings required by Rule IV not only enable the officials to gather information and thereby to exercise their discretion intelligently, but also have a therapeutic purpose: inmate participation in the decisionmaking process, it is hoped, reduces tension in the prison. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 52-53.
In light of this conclusion, respondent’s claim of bias in the composition of the prison Program Committee becomes irrelevant.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA or Act), 7 U. S. C. §1 et seq., empowers the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC or Commission) to entertain state law counterclaims in reparation proceedings and, if so, whether that grant of authority violates Article III of the Constitution.
I
The CEA broadly prohibits fraudulent and manipulative conduct in connection with commodity futures transactions. In 1974, Congress “overhauled]” the Act in order to institute a more “comprehensive regulatory structure to oversee the volatile and esoteric futures trading complex.” H. R. Rep. No. 93-975, p. 1 (1974). See Pub. L. 93-463, 88 Stat. 1389. Congress also determined that the broad regulatory powers of the CEA were most appropriately vested in an agency which would be relatively immune from the “political winds that sweep Washington.” H. R. Rep. No. 93-975, at 44, 70. It therefore created an independent agency, the CFTC, and entrusted to it sweeping authority to implement the CEA.
Among the duties assigned to the CFTC was the administration of a reparations procedure through which disgruntled customers of professional commodity brokers could seek redress for the brokers’ violations of the Act or CFTC regulations. Thus, § 14 of the CEA, 7 U. S. C. § 18 (1976 ed.), provides that any person injured by such violations may apply to the Commission for an order directing the.offender to pay reparations to the complainant and may enforce that order in federal district court. Congress intended this administrative procedure to be an “inexpensive and expeditious” alternative to existing fora available to aggrieved customers, namely, the courts and arbitration. S. Rep. No. 95-850, p. 11 (1978). See also 41 Fed. Reg. 3994 (1976) (accompanying CFTC regulations promulgated pursuant to §14).
In conformance with the congressional goal of promoting efficient dispute resolution, the CFTC promulgated a regulation in 1976 which allows it to adjudicate counterclaims “arising] out of the transaction or occurrence or series of transactions or occurrences set forth in the complaint.” Id., at 3995, 4002 (codified at 17 CFR § 12.23(b)(2) (1983)). This permissive counterclaim rule leaves the respondent in a reparations proceeding free to seek relief against the reparations complainant in other fora.
The instant dispute arose in February 1980, when respondents Schor and Mortgage Services of America, Inc., invoked the CFTC’s reparations jurisdiction by filing complaints against petitioner ContiCommodity Services, Inc. (Conti), a commodity futures broker, and Richard L. Sandor, a Conti employee. Schor had an account with Conti which contained a debit balance because Schor’s net futures trading losses and expenses, such as commissions, exceeded the funds deposited in the account. Schor alleged that this debit balance was the result of Conti’s numerous violations of the CEA. See App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 85-621, p. 53a.
Before receiving notice that Schor had commenced the reparations proceeding, Conti had filed a diversity action in Federal District Court to recover the debit balance. ContiCommodity Services, Inc. v. Mortgage Services of America, Inc., No. 80-C-1089 (ND Ill., filed Mar. 4, 1980). Schor counterclaimed in this action, reiterating his charges that the debit balance was due to Conti’s violations of the CEA. Schor also moved on two separate occasions to dismiss or stay the District Court action, arguing that the continuation of the federal action would be a waste of judicial resources and an undue burden on the litigants in view of the fact that “[t]he reparations proceedings... will fully... resolve and adjudicate all the rights of the parties to this action with respect to the transactions which are the subject matter of this action.” App. 13. See also id., at 19.
Although the District Court declined to stay or dismiss the suit, see id., at 15,16, Conti voluntarily dismissed the federal court action and presented its debit balance claim by way of a counterclaim in the CFTC reparations proceeding. See id., at 29-32. Conti denied violating the CEA and instead insisted that the debit balance resulted from Schor’s trading, and was therefore a simple debt owed by Schor. Schor v. Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n, 239 U. S. App. D. C. 159, 162, 740 F. 2d 1262, 1265 (1984); App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 85-621, p. 53a.
After discovery, briefing, and a hearing, the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in Schor’s reparations proceeding ruled in Conti’s favor on both Schor’s claims and Conti’s counterclaims. After this ruling, Schor for the first time challenged the CFTC’s statutory authority to adjudicate Conti’s counterclaim. See id., at 62a. The ALJ rejected Schor’s challenge, stating himself “bound by agency regulations and published agency policies.” Id., at 62a-63a. The Commission declined to review the decision and allowed it to become final, id., at 50a-52a, at which point Schor filed a petition for review with the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Prior to oral argument, the Court of Appeals, sua sponte, raised the question whether CFTC could constitutionally adjudicate Conti’s counterclaims in light of Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U. S. 50 (1982), in which this Court held that “Congress may not vest in a non-Article III court the power to adjudicate, render final judgment, and issue binding orders in a traditional contract action arising under state law, without consent of the litigants, and subject only to ordinary appellate review.” Thomas v. Union Carbide Agricultural Products Co., 473 U. S. 568, 584 (1985).
After briefing and argument, the Court of Appeals upheld the CFTC’s decision on Schor’s claim in most respects, but ordered the dismissal of Conti’s counterclaims on the ground that “the CFTC lacks authority (subject matter competence) to adjudicate” common law counterclaims. 239 U. S. App. D. C., at 161, 740 F. 2d, at 1264. In support of this latter ruling, the Court of Appeals reasoned that the CFTC’s exercise of jurisdiction over Conti’s common law counterclaim gave rise to “[sjerious constitutional problems” under Northern Pipeline. 239 U. S. App. D. C., at 174, 740 F. 2d, at 1277. The Court of Appeals therefore concluded that, under well-established principles of statutory construction, the relevant inquiry was whether the CEA was “ ‘fairly susceptible’ of [an alternative] construction,” such that Article III objections, and thus unnecessary constitutional adjudication, could be avoided. Ibid. (quoting Ralpho v. Bell, 186 U. S. App. D. C. 368, 380, 569 F. 2d 607, 619 (1977)).
After examining the CEA and its legislative history, the court concluded that Congress had no “clearly expressed” or “explicit” intention to give the CFTC constitutionally questionable jurisdiction over state common law counterclaims. See 239 U. S. App. D. C., at 166, 178, 740 F. 2d, at 1269, 1281. The Court of Appeals therefore “adopt[ed] the construction of the Act that avoids significant constitutional questions,” reading the CEA to authorize the CFTC to adjudicate only those counterclaims alleging violations of the Act or CFTC regulations. Id., at 175, 740 F. 2d, at 1278. Because Conti’s counterclaims did not allege such violations, the Court of Appeals held that the CFTC exceeded its authority in adjudicating those claims, and ordered that the AL J’s decision on the claims be reversed and the claims dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Id., at 161, 740 F. 2d, at 1264.
The Court of Appeals denied rehearing en banc by a divided vote. In a dissenting statement, Judge Wald, joined by Judge Starr, urged that rehearing be granted because the panel’s holding would “resul[t] in a serious evisceration of a congressionally crafted scheme for compensating victims of Commodity Futures Trading Act... violations” and would in practical effect “decimat[e]” the efficacy of this “faster and less expensive alternative forum.” App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 85-621, p. 71a. This Court granted the CFTC’s petition for certiorari, vacated the Court of Appeals’ judgment, and remanded the case for further consideration in light of Thomas, supra, at 582-593. 473 U. S. 568 (1985). We had there ruled that the arbitration scheme established under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), 7 U. S. C. § 136 et seq., does not contravene Article III and, more generally, held that “Congress, acting for a valid legislative purpose pursuant to its constitutional powers under Article I, may create a seemingly ‘private’ right that is so closely integrated into a public regulatory scheme as to be a matter appropriate for agency resolution with limited involvement by the Article III judiciary.” 473 U. S., at 593.
On remand, the Court of Appeals reinstated its prior judgment. It reaffirmed its earlier view that Northern Pipeline drew into serious question the Commission’s authority to decide debit-balance counterclaims in reparations proceedings; concluded that nothing in Thomas altered that view; and again held that, in light of the constitutional problems posed by the CFTC’s adjudication of common law counterclaims, the CEA should be construed to authorize the CFTC to adjudicate only counterclaims arising from violations of the Act or CFTC regulations. See 248 U. S. App. D. C. 155, 157-158, 770 F. 2d 211, 213-214 (1985).
We again granted certiorari, 474 U. S. 1018 (1985), and now reverse.
II
The Court of Appeals was correct in its understanding that “[f]ederal statutes are to be so construed as to avoid serious doubt of their constitutionality.” Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S. 740, 749 (1961). See also NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490, 500-501 (1979). Where such “serious doubts” arise, a court should determine whether a construction of the statute is “fairly possible” by which the constitutional question can be avoided. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22 (1932). See also Machinists v. Street, supra, at 750. It is equally true, however, that this canon of construction does not give a court the prerogative to ignore the legislative will in order to avoid constitutional adjudication; “‘[although this Court will often strain to construe legislation so as to save it against constitutional attack, it must not and will not carry this to the point of perverting the purpose of a statute...’or judicially rewriting it.” Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 515 (1964) (quoting Scales v. United States, 367 U. S. 203, 211 (1961)). See also Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U. S. 728, 742-743 (1984).
Assuming that the Court of Appeals correctly discerned a “serious” constitutional problem in the CFTC’s adjudication of Conti’s counterclaim, we nevertheless believe that the court was mistaken in finding that the CEA could fairly be read to preclude the CFTC’s exercise of jurisdiction over that counterclaim. Our examination of the CEA and its legislative history and purpose reveals that Congress plainly intended the CFTC to decide counterclaims asserted by respondents in reparations proceedings, and just as plainly delegated to the CFTC the authority to fashion its counterclaim jurisdiction in the manner the CFTC determined necessary to further the purposes of the reparations program.
Congress’ assumption that the CFTC would have the authority to adjudicate counterclaims is evident on the face of the statute. See, e. g., 7 U. S. C. § 18(c) (providing that before action will be taken on complaints filed by nonresident complainants, a bond must be filed which must cover, inter alia, “any reparation award that may be issued by the Commission against the complainant on any counterclaim by respondent”) (emphasis added); § 18(d) {“any person for whose benefit [a reparation award] was made” may enforce the judgment in district court) (emphasis added). See also § 18(e) (judicial review available to “any party”). Accordingly, the court below did not seriously contest that Congress intended to authorize the CFTC to adjudicate some counterclaims in reparations proceedings. Rather, the court read into the facially unqualified reference to counterclaim jurisdiction a distinction between counterclaims arising under the Act or CFTC regulations and all other counterclaims. See 239 U. S. App. D. C., at 173, 740 F. 2d, at 1278. While the court’s reading permitted it to avoid a potential Article III problem, it did so only by doing violence to the CEA, for its distinction cannot fairly be drawn from the language or history of the CEA, nor reconciled with the congressional purposes motivating the creation of the reparations proceedings.
We can find no basis in the language of the statute or its legislative history for the distinction posited by the Court of Appeals. Congress empowered the CFTC “to make and promulgate such rules and regulations as, in the judgment of the Commission, are reasonably necessary to effectuate any of the provisions or to accomplish any of the purposes of [the CEA].” 7 U. S. C. § 12a(5) (emphasis added). The language of the congressional Report that specifically commented on the scope of the CFTC’s authority over counterclaims unambiguously demonstrates that, consistent with the sweeping authority Congress delegated to the CFTC generally, Congress intended to vest in the CFTC the power to define the scope of the counterclaims cognizable in reparations proceedings:
“Counterclaims will be recognized in the [reparations] proceedings... on such terms and under such circumstances as the Commission may prescribe by regulation. It is the intent of the Committee that the Commission will promulgate appropriate regulations to implement this section.” H. R. Rep. No. 93-975, p. 23 (1974).
Moreover, quite apart from congressional statements of intent, the broad grant of power in § 12a(5) clearly authorizes the promulgation of regulations providing for adjudication of common law counterclaims arising out of the same transaction as a reparations complaint because such jurisdiction is necessary, if not critical, to accomplish the purposes behind the reparations program.
Reference to the instant controversy illustrates the crippling effect that the Court of Appeals’ restrictive reading of the CFTC’s counterclaim jurisdiction would have on the efficacy of the reparations remedy. The dispute between Schor and Conti is typical of the disputes adjudicated in reparations proceedings: a customer and a professional commodities broker agree that there is a debit balance in the customer’s account, but the customer attributes the deficit to the broker’s alleged CEA violations and the broker attributes it to the customer’s lack of success in the market. The customer brings a reparations claim; the broker counterclaims for the amount of the debit balance. In the usual case, then, the counterclaim “arises out of precisely the same course of events” as the principal claim and requires resolution of many of the same disputed factual issues. Friedman v. Dean Witter & Co., [1980-1982 Transfer Binder] CCH Comm. Fut. L. Rep. ¶ 21,307, p. 25,538 (1981).
Under the Court of Appeals’ approach, the entire dispute may not be resolved in the administrative forum. Consequently, the entire dispute will typically end up in court, for when the broker files suit to recover the debit balance, the customer will normally be compelled either by compulsory counterclaim rules or by the expense and inconvenience of litigating the same issues in two fora to forgo his reparations remedy and to litigate his claim in court. See, e. g., App. 13 (Schor’s motion to dismiss Conti’s federal court action) (“[C]ontinuation of this action, in light of the prior filed reparations proceedings, would be unjust to [Schor] in that it would require [him], at a great cost and expense, to litigate the same issues in two forums. If this action proceeds, defendants will be required pursuant to [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 13(a)] to file a counterclaim in this action setting forth all the claims that they have already filed before the CFTC”). In sum, as Schor himself aptly summarized, to require a bifurcated examination of the single dispute “would be to emasculate if not destroy the purposes of the Commodity Exchange Act to provide an efficient and relatively inexpensive forum for the resolution of disputes in futures trading.” Ibid. See also App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 85-621, p. 71a (Wald, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing) (“To bifurcate, as the panel’s decision now requires, the main reparations proceeding from counterclaims between the same parties... will realistically mean that the courts, not the agency, will end up dealing with all of these claims. The faster and less expensive alternative forum will be decimated”).
As our discussion makes manifest, the CFTC’s long-held position that it has the power to take jurisdiction over counterclaims such as Conti’s is eminently reasonable and well within the scope of its delegated authority. Accordingly, as the CFTC’s contemporaneous interpretation of the statute it is entrusted to administer, considerable weight must be accorded the CFTC’s position. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 844-845 (1984); Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367, 380-381 (1969). The Court of Appeals declined to defer to the CFTC’s interpretation because, in its view, the Commission had not maintained a consistent position on the scope of its authority to adjudicate counterclaims and the question was not one on which a specialized administrative agency, in contrast to a court of general jurisdiction, had superior expertise. 239 U. S. App. D. C., at 176, 740 F. 2d, at 1279. We find both these reasons insubstantial.
First, the CFTC issued the counterclaim rule currently in force at the time that the reparations program first took effect and has never altered that rule. The only “inconsistency” identified by the Court of Appeals was a proposed rule, published by the Commission for notice and comment, that would have allowed a narrower class of counterclaims. 40 Fed. Reg. 55666-55667, 55672-55673 (1975). It goes without saying that a proposed regulation does not represent an agency’s considered interpretation of its statute and that an agency is entitled to consider alternative interpretations before settling on the view it considers most sound. Indeed, it would be antithetical to the purposes of the notice and comment provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 553, to tax an agency with “inconsistency” whenever it circulates a proposal that it has not firmly decided to put into effect and that it subsequently reconsiders in response to public comment.
Second, the Court of Appeals was incorrect to state on the facts of this case that the CFTC’s expertise was not deserving of deference because of the “statutory interpretation-jurisdictional” nature of the question at issue. 239 U. S. App. D. C., at 176, 740 F. 2d, at 1279. An agency’s expertise is superior to that of a court when a dispute centers on whether a particular regulation is “reasonably necessary to effectuate any of the provisions or to accomplish any of the purposes” of the Act the agency is charged with enforcing; the agency’s position, in such circumstances, is therefore due substantial deference.
Such deference is especially warranted here, for Congress has twice amended the CEA since the CFTC declared by regulation that it would exercise jurisdiction over counterclaims arising out of the same transaction as the principal reparations dispute but has not overruled the CFTC’s assertion of jurisdiction. See Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. FCC, supra, at 380-381. It is well established that when Congress revisits a statute giving rise to a longstanding administrative interpretation without pertinent change, the “congressional failure to revise or repeal the agency’s interpretation is persuasive evidence that the interpretation is the one intended by Congress.” NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U. S. 267, 274-275 (1974) (footnotes omitted). See also FDIC v. Philadelphia Gear Corp., 476 U. S. 426 (1986).
Moreover, we need not, as the Court of Appeals argued, rely simply on congressional “silence” to find approval of the CFTC’s position in the subsequent amendments to the CEA, see 239 U. S. App. D. C., at 177, 740 F. 2d, at 1280. Congress explicitly affirmed the CFTC’s authority to dictate the scope of its counterclaim jurisdiction in the 1983 amendments to the Act:
“The Commission may promulgate such rules, regulations, and orders as it deems necessary or appropriate for the efficient and expeditious administration of this section. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, such rules, regulations, and orders may prescribe, or otherwise condition, without limitation,... the nature and scope of... counterclaims,... and all other matters governing proceedings before the Commission under this section.” 7 U. S. C. § 18(b).
See also H. R. Rep. No. 97-565, pt. 1, p. 55 (1982) (“[T]he reparations program seeks to pass upon the whole controversy surrounding each claim, including counter-claims arising out of the same set of facts”). Where, as here, “Congress has not just kept its silence by refusing to overturn the administrative construction, but has ratified it with positive legislation,” we cannot but deem that construction virtually conclusive. See Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. FCC, supra, at 380-381. See also Bell v. New Jersey, 461 U. S. 773, 785, and n. 12 (1983).
In view of the abundant evidence that Congress both contemplated and authorized the CFTC’s assertion of jurisdiction over Conti’s common law counterclaim, we conclude that the Court of Appeals’ analysis is untenable. The canon of construction that requires courts to avoid unnecessary constitutional adjudication did not empower the Court of Appeals to manufacture a restriction on the CFTC’s jurisdiction that was nowhere contemplated by Congress and to reject plain evidence of congressional intent because that intent was not specifically embodied in a statutory mandate. See Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U. S., at 742-743. We therefore are squarely faced with the question whether the CFTC’s assumption of jurisdiction over common law counterclaims violates Article III of the Constitution.
1 — 1 1 — 1 H
Article III, §1, directs that the “judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish,” and provides that these federal courts shall be staffed by judges who hold office during good behavior, and whose compensation shall not be diminished during tenure in office. Schor claims that these provisions prohibit Congress from authorizing the initial adjudication of common law counterclaims by the CFTC, an administrative agency whose adjudicatory officers do not enjoy the tenure and salary protections embodied in Article III.
Although our precedents in this area do not admit of easy synthesis, they do establish that the resolution of claims such as Schor’s cannot turn on conclusory reference to the language of Article III. See, e. g., Thomas, 473 U. S., at 583. Rather, the constitutionality of a given congressional delegation of adjudicative functions to a non-Article III body must be assessed by reference to the purposes underlying the requirements of Article III. See, e. g., id., at 590; Northern Pipeline, 458 U. S., at 64. This inquiry, in turn, is guided by the principle that “practical attention to substance rather than doctrinaire reliance on formal categories should inform application of Article III.” Thomas, supra, at 587. See also Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S., at 53.
A
Article III, § 1, serves both to protect “the role of the independent judiciary within the constitutional scheme of tripartite government,” Thomas, supra, at 583, and to safeguard litigants’ “right to have claims decided before judges who are free from potential domination by other branches of government.” United States v. Will, 449 U. S. 200, 218 (1980). See also Thomas, supra, at 582-583; Northern Pipeline, 458 U. S., at 58. Although our cases have provided us with little occasion to discuss the nature or significance of this latter safeguard, our prior discussions of Article III, § 1’s guarantee of an independent and impartial adjudication by the federal judiciary of matters within the judicial power of the United States intimated that this guarantee serves to protect primarily personal, rather than structural, interests. See, e. g., id., at 90 (Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment) (noting lack of consent to non-Article III jurisdiction); id., at 95 (White, J., dissenting) (same). See also Currie, Bankruptcy Judges and the Independent Judiciary, 16 Creighton L. Rev. 441, 460, n. 108 (1983) (Article III, §1, “was designed as a protection for the parties from the risk of legislative or executive pressure on judicial decision”). Cf. Crowell v. Benson, supra, at 87 (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
Our precedents also demonstrate, however, that Article III does not confer on litigants an absolute right to the plenary consideration of every nature of claim by an Article III court. See, e. g., Thomas, supra, at 583; Crowell v. Benson, supra. Moreover, as a personal right, Article Ill’s guarantee of an impartial and independent federal adjudication is subject to waiver, just as are other personal constitutional rights that dictate the procedures by which civil and criminal matters must be tried. See, e. g., Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238 (1969) (waiver of criminal trial by guilty plea); Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 158 (1968) (waiver of right to trial by jury in criminal case); Fed. Rule of Civ. Proc. 38(d) (waiver of right to trial by jury in civil cases). Indeed, the relevance of concepts of waiver to Article III challenges is demonstrated by our decision in Northern Pipeline, in which the absence of consent to an initial adjudication before a non-Article III tribunal was relied on as a significant factor in determining that Article III forbade such adjudication. See, e. g., 458 U. S., at 80, n. 31; id., at 91 (Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 95 (White, J., dissenting). See also Thomas, supra, at 584, 591. Cf. Kimberly v. Arms, 129 U. S. 512 (1889); Heckers v. Fowler, 2 Wall. 123 (1865).
In the instant cases, Schor indisputably waived any right he may have possessed to the full trial of Conti’s counterclaim before an Article III court. Schor expressly demanded that Conti proceed on its counterclaim in the reparations proceeding rather than before the District Court, see App. 13, 19, and was content to have the entire dispute settled in the forum he had selected until the AL J ruled against him on all counts; it was only after the ALJ rendered a decision to which he objected that Schor raised any challenge to the CFTC’s consideration of Conti’s counterclaim.
Even were there no evidence of an express waiver here, Schor’s election to forgo his right to proceed in state or federal court on his claim and his decision to seek relief instead in a CFTC reparations proceeding constituted an effective waiver. Three years before Schor instituted his reparations action, a private right of action under the CEA was explicitly recognized in the Circuit in which Schor and Conti filed suit in District Court. See Hirk v. Agri-Research Council, Inc., 561 F. 2d 96, 103, n. 8 (CA7 1977). See also Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran, 456 U. S. 353 (1982) (affirming the existence of a private cause of action under the CEA). Moreover, at the time Schor decided to seek relief before the CFTC rather than in the federal courts, the CFTC’s regulations made clear that it was empowered to adjudicate all counterclaims “aris[ing] out of the same transaction or occurrence or series of transactions or occurrences set forth in the complaint.” 41 Fed. Reg. 3995 (1976) (codified in 17 CFR § 12.23(b)(2) (1983)). Thus, Schor had the option of having the common law counterclaim against him adjudicated in a federal Article III court, but, with full knowledge that the CFTC would exercise jurisdiction over that claim, chose to avail himself of the quicker and less expensive procedure Congress had provided him. In such circumstances, it is clear that Schor effectively agreed to an adjudication by the CFTC of the entire controversy by seeking relief in this alternative forum. Cf. McElrath v. United States, 102 U. S. 426, 440 (1880).
B
As noted above, our precedents establish that Article III, § 1, not only preserves to litigants their interest in an impartial and independent federal adjudication of claims within the judicial power of the United States, but also serves as “an inseparable element of the constitutional system of checks and balances.” Northern Pipeline, supra, at 58. See also United States v. Will, supra, at 217. Article III, § 1, safeguards the role of the Judicial Branch in our tripartite system by barring congressional attempts “to transfer jurisdiction [to non-Article III tribunals] for the purpose of emasculating” constitutional courts, National Insurance Co. v. Tidewater Co., 337 U. S. 582, 644 (1949) (Vinson, C. J., dissenting), and thereby preventing “the encroachment or aggrandizement of one branch at the expense of the other.” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 122 (1976) (per curiam). See Thomas, 473 U. S., at 582-583; Northern Pipeline, 458 U. S., at 57-58, 73-74, 83, 86; id., at 98, 115-116 (White, J., dissenting). To the extent that this structural principle is implicated in a given case, the parties cannot by consent cure the constitutional difficulty for the same reason that the parties by consent cannot confer on federal courts subject-matter jurisdiction beyond the limitations imposed by Article III, §2. See, e. g., United States v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 226, 229 (1938). When these Article III limitations are at issue, notions of consent and waiver cannot be dispositive because the limitations serve institutional interests that the parties cannot be expected to protect.
In determining the extent to which a given congressional decision to authorize the adjudication of Article III business in a non-Article III tribunal impermissibly threatens the institutional integrity of the Judicial Branch, the Court has declined to adopt formalistic and unbending rules. Thomas, 473 U. S., at 587. Although such rules might lend a greater degree of coherence to this area of the law, they might also unduly constrict Congress’ ability to take needed and innovative action pursuant to its Article I powers. Thus, in reviewing Article III challenges, we have weighed a number of factors, none of which has been deemed determinative, with an eye to the practical effect that the congressional action will have on the constitutionally assigned role of the federal judiciary. Id., at 590. Among the factors upon which we have focused are the extent to which the “essential attributes of judicial power” are reserved to Article III courts, and, conversely, the extent to which the non-Article III forum exercises the range of jurisdiction and powers normally vested only in Article III courts, the origins and importance of the right to be adjudicated, and the concerns that drove Congress to depart from the requirements of Article III. See, e. g., id., at 587, 589-593; Northern Pipeline, supra, at 84-86.
An examination of the relative allocation of powers between the CFTC and Article III courts in light of the considerations given prominence in our precedents demonstrates that the congressional scheme does not impermissibly intrude on the province of the judiciary. The CFTC’s adjudicatory powers depart from the traditional agency model in just one respect: the CFTC’s jurisdiction over common law counterclaims. While wholesale importation of concepts of pendent or ancillary jurisdiction into the agency context may create greater constitutional difficulties, we decline to endorse an absolute prohibition on such jurisdiction out of fear of where some hypothetical “slippery slope” may deposit us. Indeed, the CFTC’s exercise of this type of jurisdiction is not without precedent. Thus, in RFC v. Bankers Trust Co., 318 U. S. 163, 168-171 (1943), we saw no constitutional difficulty in the initial adjudication of a state law claim by a federal agency, subject to judicial review, when that claim was ancillary to a federal law dispute. Similarly, in Katchen v. Landy, 382 U. S. 323
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted petitioner’s application for a writ of habeas corpus and vacated his capital murder conviction and death sentence on the grounds that the Commonwealth had failed to disclose important exculpatory evidence and that petitioner had not, in consequence, received a fair trial. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed because petitioner had not raised his constitutional claim at his trial or in state collateral proceedings. In addition, the Fourth Circuit concluded that petitioner’s claim was, “in any event, without merit.” App. 418, n. 8. Finding the legal question presented by this case considerably more difficult than the Fourth Circuit, we granted certiorari, 525 U. S. 809 (1998), to consider (1) whether the Commonwealth violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), and its progeny; (2) whether there was an acceptable “cause” for petitioner’s failure to raise this claim in state court; and (3), if so, whether he suffered prejudice sufficient to excuse his procedural default.
I
In the early evening of January 5,1990, Leanne Whitlock, an African-American sophomore at James Madison University, was abducted from a local shopping center and robbed and murdered. In separate trials, both petitioner and Ronald Henderson were convicted of all three offenses. Henderson was convicted of first-degree murder, a noncapital offense, whereas petitioner was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.
At both trials, a woman named Anne Stoltzfus testified in vivid detail about Whitlock’s abduction. The exculpatory material that petitioner claims should have been disclosed before trial includes documents prepared by Stoltzfus, and notes of interviews with her, that impeach significant portions of her testimony. We begin, however, by noting that, even without the Stoltzfus testimony, the evidence in the record was sufficient to establish petitioner’s guilt on the murder charge. Whether petitioner would have been convicted of capital murder and received the death sentence if she had not testified, or if she had been sufficiently impeached, is less clear. To put the question in context, we review the trial testimony at some length.
The Testimony at Trial
At about 4:30 p.m. on January 5,1990, Whitlock borrowed a 1986 blue Mercury Lynx from her boyfriend, John Dean, who worked in the Valley Shopping Mall in Harrisonburg, "Virginia. At about 6:30 or 6:45 p.m., she left her apartment, intending to return the car to Dean at the mall. She did not return the ear and was not again seen alive by any of her friends or family.
Petitioner’s mother testified that she had driven petitioner and Henderson to Harrisonburg on January 5. She also testified that petitioner always carried a hunting knife that had belonged to his father. Two witnesses, a friend of Henderson’s and a security guard, saw petitioner and Henderson at the mall that afternoon. The security guard was informed around 3:30 p.m. that two men, one of whom she identified at trial as petitioner, were attempting to steal a car in the parking lot. She had them under observation during the remainder of the afternoon but lost sight of them at about 6:45.
At approximately 7:30 p.m., a witness named Kurt Massie saw the blue Lynx at a location in Augusta County about 25 miles from Harrisonburg and a short distance from the cornfield where Whitlock’s body was later found. Massie identified petitioner as the driver of the vehicle; he also saw a white woman in the front seat and another man in the back. Massie noticed that the car was muddy, and that it tinned off Route 340 onto a dirt road.
At about 8 p.m., another witness saw the Lynx at Buddy’s Market, with two men sitting in the front seat. The witness did not see anyone else in the ear. At approximately 9 p.m., petitioner and Henderson arrived at Dice’s Inn, a bar in Staunton, Virginia, where they stayed for about four or five hours. They danced with several women, including four prosecution witnesses: Donna Kay Tudor, Nancy Simmons, Debra Sievers, and Carolyn Brown. While there, Henderson gave Nancy Simmons a watch that had belonged to Whit-lock. Petitioner spent most of his time with Tudor, who was later arrested for grand larceny based on her possession of the blue Lynx.
These four women all testified that Tudor had arrived at Dice’s at about 8 p.m. Three of them noticed nothing unusual about petitioner’s appearance, but Tudor saw some blood on his jeans and a cut on his knuckle. Tudor also testified that she, Henderson, and petitioner left Dice’s together after it closed to search for marijuana. Henderson was driving the blue Lynx, and petitioner and Tudor rode in back. Tudor related that petitioner was leaning toward Henderson and talking with him; she overheard a crude conversation that could reasonably be interpreted as describing the assault and murder of a black person with a ''rock erusher.” Tudor stated that petitioner made a statement that implied that he had killed someone, so the person “wouldn’t give him no more trouble.” App. 99, Tudor testified that while she, petitioner, and Henderson were driving around, petitioner took out his knife and threatened to stab Henderson because he was driving recklessly. Petitioner then began driving.
At about 4:30 or 5 a.m. on January 6, petitioner drove Henderson to Kenneth Workman’s apartment in Timberville. Henderson went inside to get something, and petitioner and Tudor drove off without waiting for him. Workman testified that Henderson had blood on his pants and stated he had killed a black person.
Petitioner and Tudor then drove to a motel in Blue Ridge. A day or two later they went to Virginia Beach, where they spent the rest of the week. Petitioner gave Tudor pearl earrings that Whitlock had been wearing when she was last seen. Tudor saw Whitlock’s driver’s license and bank card in the glove compartment of the car. Tudor testified that petitioner unsuccessfully attempted to use Whitlock’s bank card when they were in Virginia Beach.
When petitioner and Tudor returned to Augusta County, they abandoned the blue Lynx. On January 11, the police identified the car as Dean’s, and found petitioner’s and Tudor’s fingerprints on both the inside and the outside of the ear. They also found shoe impressions that matched the soles of shoes belonging to petitioner. Inside the ear, they retrieved a jacket that contained identification papers belonging to Henderson.
The police also recovered a bag at petitioner’s mother’s house that Tudor testified she and petitioner had left when they returned from Virginia Beach. The bag contained, among other items, three identification cards belonging to Whitlock and a black “tank top” shirt that was later found to have human blood and semen stains on it. Tr. 707.
On January 13, a farmer called the police to advise them that he had found Henderson’s wallet; a search of the area led to the discovery of Whitlock’s frozen, nude, and battered body. A 69-pound rock, spotted with blood, lay nearby. Forensic evidence indicated that Whitlock’s death was caused by “multiple blunt force injuries to the head.” App. 109. The location of the rock and the human blood on the rock suggested that it had been used to inflict these injuries. Based on the contents of Whitlock’s stomach, the medical examiner determined that she died fewer than six hours after she had last eaten.
A number of Caucasian hair samples were found at the scene, three of which were probably petitioner’s. Given the weight of the rock, the prosecution argued that one of the killers must have held the victim down while the other struck her with the murder weapon.
Donna Tudor’s estranged husband, Jay Tudor, was called by the defense and testified that in March she had told him that she was present at the murder scene and that petitioner did not participate in the murder. Jay Tudor’s testimony was inconsistent in several respects with that of other witnesses. For example, he testified that several days elapsed between the time that petitioner, Henderson, and Donna Tudor picked up Whitlock and the time of Whitlock’s murder.
Anne Stoltzfus’ Testimony
Anne Stoltzfus testified that on two occasions on January 5 she saw petitioner, Henderson, and a blonde girl inside the Harrisonburg mall, and that she later witnessed their abduction of Whitlock in the parking lot. She did not call the police, but a week and a half after the incident she discussed it with classmates at James Madison University, where both she and Whitlock were students. One of them called the police. The next night a detective visited her, and the following morning she went to the police station and told her story to Detective Claytor, a member of the Harrisonburg City Police Department. Detective Claytor showed her photographs of possible suspects, and she identified petitioner and Henderson “with absolute certainty” but stated that she had a slight reservation about her identification of the blonde woman. Id., at 56.
At trial, Stoltzfus testified that, at about 6 p.m. on January 5, she and her 14-year-old daughter were in the Music Land store in the mall looking for a compact disc. While she was waiting for assistance from a clerk, petitioner, whom she described as “Mountain Man,” and the blonde girl entered. Because petitioner was “revved up” and “very impatient,” she was frightened and backed up, bumping into Henderson (whom she called “Shy Guy”), and thought she felt something hard in the pocket of his coat. Id., at 36-37.
Stoltzfus left the store, intending to return later. At about 6:45, while heading back toward Music Land, she again encountered the threesome: “Shy Guy” walking by himself, followed by the girl, and then “Mountain Man” yelling “Donna, Donna, Donna.” The girl bumped into Stoltzfus and then asked for directions to the bus stop. The three then left.
At first Stoltzfus tried to follow them because of her concern about petitioner’s behavior, but she “lost him” and then headed back to Music Land. The clerk had not returned, so she and her daughter went to their ear. While driving to another store, they saw a shiny dark blue car. The driver was “beautiful,” “well dressed and she was happy, she. was singing....” Id., at 41. "When the blue car was stopped behind a minivan at a stop sign, Stoltzfus saw petitioner for the third time.
She testified:
“Mountain Man’ came tearing out of the Mall entrance door and went up to the driver of the van and... was just really mad and ran back and banged on back of the backside of the van and then went back to the Mall entrance wall where ‘Shy Guy' and ‘Blonde Girl’ was standing.... [T]hen we left [and before the van and a white pickup truck could turn] Mountain Man’ came out again-” Id., at 42-43.
After first going to the passenger side of the pickup truck, petitioner came back to the black girl’s car, “pounded on” the passenger window, shook the ear, yanked the door open and jumped in. When he motioned for “Blonde Girl” and “Shy Guy" to get in, the driver stepped on the gas and “just laid on the horn” but she could not go because there were people walking in front of the ear. The horn “blew a long time” and petitioner
“started hitting her... on the left shoulder, her right shoulder and then it looked like to me that he started hitting her on the head and I was, I just became concerned and upset. So I beeped, honked my horn and then she stopped honking the horn and he stopped hitting her and opened the door again and the ‘Blonde Girl’ got in the back and ‘Shy Guy’ followed and got behind him.” Id., at 44-45.
Stoltzfus pulled her car up parallel to the blue car, got out for a moment, got back in, and leaned over to ask repeatedly if the other driver was “O.K.” The driver looked “frozen” and mouthed an inaudible response. Stoltzfus started to drive away and then realized “the only word that it could possibly be, was help.” Id., at 47. The blue car then drove slowly around her, went over the curb with its horn honking, and headed out of the mall. Stoltzfus briefly followed, told her daughter to write the license number on a “3x4 [inch] index card,” and then left for home because she had an empty gas tank and “three kids at home waiting for supper.” Id., at 48-49.
At trial Stoltzfus identified Whitlock from a picture as the driver of the car and pointed to petitioner as “Mountain Man.” When asked if pretrial publicity about the murder had influenced her identification, Stoltzfus replied “absolutely not.” She explained:
“[F]irst of all, I have an exceptionally good memory. I had very close contact with [petitioner] and he made an emotional impression with me because of his behavior and I, he caught my attention and I paid attention. So I have absolutely no doubt of my identification.” Id., at 58.
The Commonwealth did not produce any other witnesses to the abduction. Stoltzfus’ daughter did not testify.
The Stoltzfus Documents
The materials that provide the basis of petitioner’s Brady claim consist of notes taken by Detective Claytor during his interviews with Stoltzfus, and letters written by Stoltzfus to Claytor. They cast serious doubt on Stoltzfus’ confident assertion of her “exceptionally good memory.” Because the content of the documents is critical to petitioner’s procedural and substantive claims, we summarize their content.
Exhibit 1 is a handwritten note prepared by Detective Claytor after his first interview with Stoltzfus on January 19,1990, just two weeks after the erime. The note indicates that she could not identify the black female victim. The only person Stoltzfus apparently could identify at this time was the white female. Id., at 306.
Exhibit 2 is a document prepared by Detective Claytor some time after February 1. It contains a summary of his interviews with Stoltzfus conducted on January 19 and January 20, 1990. At that time “she was not sure whether she could identify the white males but felt sure she could identify the white female.”
Exhibit 3 is entitled “Observations” and includes a summary of the abduction.
Exhibit 4 is a letter written by Stoltzfus to Claytor three days after their first interview “to clarify some of my confusion for you.” The letter states that she had not remembered being at the mall, but that her daughter had helped jog her memory. Her description of the abduction includes the comment: “I have a very vague memory that I’m not sure of. It seems as if the wild guy that I saw had come running through the door and up to a bus as the bus was pulling off.... Then the guy I saw came running up to the black girl’s window. Were those 2 memories the same person?” Id., at 316. In a postscript she noted that her daughter “doesn’t remember seeing the 3 people get into the black girl’s ear....” Ibid.
Exhibit 5 is a note to Claytor captioned “My Impressions of ‘The Car,’ ” which contains three paragraphs describing the size of the car and comparing it with Stoltzfus’ Volkswagen Rabbit, but not mentioning the license plate number that she vividly recalled at the trial. Id., at 317-318.
Exhibit 6 is a brief note from Stoltzfus to Claytor dated January 25, 1990, stating that after spending several hours with John Dean, Whitlock’s boyfriend, “looking at current photos,” she had identified Whitlock “beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Id., at 318. The District Court noted that by the time of trial her identification had been expanded to include a description of her clothing and her appearance as a college kid who was “singing” and “happy.” Id., at 387-388.
Exhibit 7 is a letter from Stoltzfus to Detective Claytor, dated January 16, 1990, in which she thanks him for his “patience with my sometimes muddled memories.” She states that if the student at school had not called the police, “I never would have made any of the associations that you helped me make.” Id., at 321.
In Exhibit 8, which is undated and summarizes the events described in her trial testimony, Stoltzfus commented:
“So where is the 3x4 card?... It would have been very nice if I could have remembered all this at the time and had simply gone to the police with the information. But I totally wrote this off as a trivial episode of college kids carrying on and proceeded with my own full-time college load at JMU.... Monday, January 15th. I was cleaning out my car and found the 3x4 card. I tore it into little pieces and put it in the bottom of a trash bag.” Id., at 326.
There is a dispute between the parties over whether petitioner’s counsel saw Exhibits 2, 7, and 8 before trial. The prosecuting attorney conceded that he himself never saw Exhibits 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 until long after petitioner’s trial, and they were not in the file he made available to petitioner. For purposes of this case, therefore, we assume that petitioner proceeded to trial without having seen Exhibits 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
State Proceedings
Petitioner was tried in Augusta County, where Whitlock’s body was found, on charges of capital murder, robbery, and abduction. Because the prosecutor maintained an open file policy, which gave petitioner’s counsel access to all of the evidence in the Augusta Comity prosecutor’s files, petitioner’s counsel did not file a pretrial motion for discovery of possible exculpatory evidence. In closing argument, petitioner’s lawyer effectively conceded that the evidence was sufficient to support the robbery and abduction charges, as well as the lesser offense of first-degree murder, but argued that the evidence was insufficient to prove that petitioner was guilty of capital murder. Id., at 192-198.
The judge instructed the jury that petitioner could be found guilty of the capital charge if the evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt that he “jointly participated in the fatal beating” and “was an active and immediate participant in the act or acts that caused the victim’s death.” Id., at 160-161. The jury found petitioner guilty of abduction, robbery, and capital murder. Id., at 200-201. After listening to testimony and arguments presented during the sentencing phase, the jury made findings of “vileness” and “future dangerousness,” and unanimously recommended the death sentence that the judge later imposed.
The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence. Strickler v. Commonwealth, 241 Va. 482, 404 S. E. 2d 227 (1991). It held that the trial court had properly instructed the jury on the “joint perpetrator” theory of capital murder and that the evidence, viewed most favorably in support of the verdict, amply supported the prosecution’s theory that both petitioner and Henderson were active participants in the actual killing.
In December 1991, the Augusta County Circuit Court appointed new counsel to represent petitioner in state habeas corpus proceedings. State habeas counsel advanced an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim based, in part, on trial counsel’s failure to file a motion under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), “to have the Commonwealth disclose to the defense all exculpatory evidence known to it — or in its possession.” App. 205-206. In answer to that claim, the Commonwealth asserted that such a motion was unnecessary because the prosecutor had maintained an open file policy. The Circuit Court dismissed the petition, and the State Supreme Court affirmed. Strickler v. Murray, 249 Va. 120, 452 S. E. 2d 648 (1995).
Federal Habeas Corpus Proceedings
In March 1996, petitioner filed a federal habeas corpus petition in the Eastern District of Virginia. The District Court entered a sealed, ex parte order granting petitioner’s counsel the right to examine and to copy all of the police and prosecution files in the case. Record, Doe. No. 20. That order led to petitioner’s counsel’s first examination of the Stoltzfus materials, described supra, at 273-275.
Based on the discovery of those exhibits, petitioner for the first time raised a direct claim that his conviction was invalid because the prosecution had failed to comply with the rule of Brady v. Maryland. The District Court granted the Commonwealth’s motion to dismiss all claims except for petitioner’s contention that the Commonwealth violated Brady, that he received ineffective assistance of counsel, and that he was denied due process of law under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. In its order denying the Commonwealth’s motion to dismiss, the District Court found that petitioner had “demonstrated cause for his failure to raise this claim earlier [because] [d]efense counsel had no independent access to this material and the Commonwealth repeatedly withheld it throughout Petitioner’s state habeas proceeding.” App. 287.
After reviewing the Stoltzfus materials, and making the assumption that the three disputed exhibits had been available to the defense, the District Court concluded that the failure to disclose the other five was sufficiently prejudicial to undermine confidence in the jury’s verdict. Id., at 396. It granted summary judgment to petitioner and granted the writ.
The Court of Appeals vacated in part and remanded. It held that petitioner’s Brady claim was proeedurally defaulted because the factual basis for the claim was available to him at the time he filed his state habeas petition. Given that he knew that Stolt2fus had been interviewed by Harri-sonburg police officers, the court opined that “reasonably competent counsel would have sought discovery in state court” of the police files, and that in response to this “simple request, it is likely the state court would have ordered the production of the files.” App. 421. Therefore, the Court of Appeals reasoned, it could not address the Brady claim unless petitioner could demonstrate both cause and actual prejudice.
Under Fourth Circuit precedent a party “cannot establish cause to excuse his default if he should have known of such claims through the exercise of reasonable diligence.” App. 423 (citing Stockton v. Murray, 41 F. 3d 920, 925 (1994)). Having already decided that the claim was available to reasonably competent counsel, the Fourth Circuit stated that the basis for finding procedural default also foreclosed a finding of cause. Moreover, the Court of Appeals reasoned, petitioner could not fault his trial lawyers’ failure to make a Brady claim because they reasonably relied on the prosecutor’s open file policy. App. 423-424.
As an alternative basis for decision, the Court of Appeals also held that petitioner could not establish prejudice because “the Stoltzfus materials would have provided little or no help... in either the guilt or sentencing phases of the trial.” Id., at 425. With respect to guilt, the court noted that Stoltzfus’ testimony was not relevant to petitioner’s argument that he was only guilty of first-degree murder rather than capital murder because Henderson, rather than he, actually killed Whitlock. With respect to sentencing, the court concluded that her testimony “was of no import” because the findings of future dangerousness and vileness rested on other evidence. Finally, the court noted that even if it could get beyond the procedural default, the Brady claim would fail on the merits because of the absence of prejudice. App. 425, n. 11. The Court of Appeals, therefore, reversed the District Court’s judgment and remanded the ease with instructions to dismiss the petition.
II
The first question that our order granting certiorari directed the parties to address is whether the Commonwealth violated the Brady rule. We begin our analysis by identifying the essential components of a Brady violation.
In Brady, this Court held “that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.” 873 U. S., at 87. We have since held that the duty to disclose such evidence is applicable even though there has been no request by the accused, United States v. Agurs, 427 U. S. 97, 107 (1976), and that the duty encompasses impeachment evidence as well as exculpatory evidence, United States v. Bagley, 473 U. S. 667, 676 (1985). Such evidence is material “if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Id., at 682; see also Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U. S. 419, 433-434 (1995). Moreover, the rule encompasses evidence “known only to police investigators and not to the prosecutor.” Id., at 438. In order to comply with Brady, therefore, “the individual prosecutor has a duty to learn of any favorable evidence known to the others acting on the government’s behalf in this case, including the police.” Kyles, 514 U. S., at 437.
These eases, together with earlier cases condemning the knowing use of perjured testimony, illustrate the special role played by the American prosecutor in the search for truth in criminal trials. Within the federal system, for example, we have said that the United States Attorney is “the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.” Berger v. United States, 295 U. S. 78, 88 (1935).
This special status explains both the basis for the prosecution’s broad duty of disclosure and our conclusion that not every violation of that duty necessarily establishes thát the outcome was unjust. Thus the term “Brady violation” is sometimes used to refer to any breach of the broad obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence — that is, to any suppression of so-called “Brady material” — although, strictly speaking, there is never a real “Brady violation” unless the nondisclosure was so serious that there is a reasonable probability that the suppressed evidence would have produced a different verdict. There are three components of a true Brady violation: The evidence at issue must be favorable to the accused, either because it is exculpatory, or because it is impeaching; that evidence must have been suppressed by the State, either willfully or inadvertently; and prejudice must have ensued.
Two of those components are unquestionably established by the record in this case. The contrast between (a) the terrifying incident that Stoltzfus confidently described in her testimony and (b) her initial perception of that event “as a trivial episode of college kids carrying on” that her daughter did not even notice, suffices to establish the impeaching character of the undisclosed documents. Moreover, with respect to at least five of those documents, there is no dispute about the fact that they were known to the Commonwealth but not disclosed to trial counsel. It is the third component — whether petitioner has established the prejudice necessary to satisfy the "materiality" inquiry — that is the most difficult element of the claimed Brady violation in this case.
Because petitioner acknowledges that his Brady claim is procedurally defaulted, we must first decide whether that default is excused by an adequate showing of cause and prejudice. In this ease, cause and prejudice parallel two of the three components of the alleged Brady violation itself. The suppression of the Stoltzfus documents constitutes one of the causes for the failure to assert a Brady claim in the state courts, and unless those documents were “material” for Brady purposes, their suppression did not give rise to sufficient prejudice to overcome the procedural default.
III
Respondent expressly disavows any reliance on the fact that petitioner’s Brady claim was not raised at trial. Brief for Respondent 17-18, n. 6. He states that the Commonwealth has consistently argued “that the claim is defaulted because it could have been raised on state habeas corpus through the exercise of due diligence, but was not.” Ibid. Despite this concession, it is appropriate to begin the analysis of the “cause” issue by explaining why petitioner’s reasons for failing to raise his Brady claim at trial are acceptable under this Court’s cases.
Three factors explain why trial counsel did not advance this claim: The documents were suppressed by the Commonwealth; the prosecutor maintained an open file policy; and trial counsel were not aware of the factual basis for the claim. The first and second factors — i. e., the nondisclosure and the open file policy — are both fairly characterized as conduct attributable to the Commonwealth that impeded trial counsel’s access to the factual basis for making a Brady claim. As we explained in Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478, 488 (1986), it is just such factors that ordinarily establish the existence of cause for a procedural default.
If it was reasonable for trial counsel to rely on, not just the presumption that the prosecutor would fully perform his duty to disclose all exculpatory materials, but also the implicit representation that such materials would be included in the open files tendered to defense counsel for their examination, we think such reliance by counsel appointed to represent petitioner in state habeas proceedings was equally reasonable. Indeed, in Murray we expressly noted that “the standard for cause should not vary depending on the timing of a procedural default.” Id., at 491.
Respondent contends, however, that the prosecution’s maintenance of an open file policy that did not include all it was purported to contain is irrelevant because the factual basis for the assertion of a Brady claim was available to state habeas counsel. He presses two factors to support this assertion. First, he argues that an examination of Stoltzfus’ trial testimony, as well as a letter published in a local newspaper, made it clear that she had had several interviews with Detective Claytor. Second, the fact that the Federal District Court entered an order allowing discovery of the Harrisonburg police files indicates that diligent counsel could have obtained a similar order from the state court. We find neither factor persuasive.
Although it is true that petitioner’s lawyers — both at trial and in post-trial proceedings — must have known that Stoltzfus had had multiple interviews with the police, it by no means follows that they -would have known that records pertaining to those interviews, or that the notes that Stoltzfus sent to the detective, existed and had been suppressed. Indeed, if respondent is correct that Exhibits 2, 7, and 8 were in the prosecutor’s “open file,” it is especially unlikely that counsel would have suspected that additional impeaching evidence was being withheld. The prosecutor must have known about the newspaper articles and Stoltzfus’ meetings with Claytor, yet he did not believe that his prosecution file was incomplete.
Furthermore, the fact that the District Court entered a broad discovery order even before federal habeas counsel had advanced a Brady claim does not demonstrate that a state court also would have done so. Indeed, as we understand Virginia law and respondent’s position, petitioner would not have been entitled to such discovery in state ha-beas proceedings without a showing of good cause. Even pursuant to the broader discovery provisions afforded at trial, petitioner would not have had access to these materials under Virginia law, except as modified by Brady. Mere speculation that some exculpatory material may have been withheld is unlikely to establish good cause for a discovery request on collateral review. Nor, in our opinion, should such suspicion suffice to impose a duty on counsel to advance a claim for which they have no evidentiary support. Proper respect for state procedures counsels against a requirement that all possible claims be raised in state collateral proceedings, even when no known facts support them. The presumption, well established by “ ‘tradition and experience,’ ” that prosecutors have fully “‘discharged their official duties,’ ” United States v. Mezzanatto, 513 U. S. 196, 210 (1995), is inconsistent with the novel suggestion that conscientious defense counsel have a procedural obligation to assert constitutional error on the basis of mere suspicion that some prose-cutorial misstep may have occurred.
Respondent’s position on the “cause” issue is particularly weak in this case because the state habeas proceedings confirmed petitioner’s justification for his failure to raise a Brady claim. As already noted, when he alleged that trial counsel had been incompetent because they had not advanced such a claim, the warden responded by pointing out that there was no need for counsel to do so because they “were voluntarily given full disclosure of everything known to the government.” Given that representation, petitioner had no basis for believing the Commonwealth had failed to comply with Brady at trial.
Respondent also argues that our decisions in Gray v. Netherlands 518 U. S. 152 (1996), and McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467 (1991), preclude the conclusion that the cause for petitioner’s default was adequate. In both of those cases, however, the petitioner was previously aware of the factual basis for his claim but failed to raise it earlier. See Gray, 518 U. S., at 161; McCleskey, 499 U. S., at 498-499. In the context of a Brady claim, a defendant cannot conduct the “reasonable and diligent investigation” mandated by McCleskey to preclude a finding of procedural default when the evidence is in the hands of the State.
The controlling precedents on “cause” are Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S., at 488, and Amadeo v. Zant, 486 U. S. 214 (1988). As we explained in the latter case:
“If the District Attorney’s memorandum was not reasonably discoverable because it was concealed by Putnam County officials, and if that concealment, rather than tactical considerations, was the reason for the failure of petitioner’s lawyers to raise the jury challenge in the trial court, then petitioner established ample cause to excuse his procedural default under this Court’s precedents.” Id., at 222.
There is no suggestion that tactical considerations played any role in petitioner’s failure to raise his Brady claim in state court. Moreover, under Brady an inadvertent nondisclosure has the same impact on the fairness of the proceedings as deliberate concealment. “If the suppression of evidence results in constitutional error, it is because of the character of the evidence, not the character of the prosecutor.” Agurs, 427 U. S., at 110.
In summary, petitioner has established cause for failing to raise a Brady claim prior to federal habeas because (a) the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence; (b) petitioner reasonably relied on the prosecution’s open file policy as fulfilling the prosecution’s duty to disclose such evidence; and (c) the Commonwealth confirmed petitioner’s reliance on the open file policy by asserting during state habeas proceedings that petitioner had already received “everything known to the government.” We need not decide in this case whether any one or two of these factors would be sufficient to constitute cause, since the combination of all three surely suffices.
IV
The differing judgments of the District Court and the Court of Appeals attest to the difficulty of resolving the issue of prejudice. Unlike the Fourth Circuit, we do not believe that “the Stolzfus [sic] materials would have provided little or no help to Striekler in either the guilt or sentencing phases of the trial.” App. 425. Without a doubt, Stoltzfus’ testimony was prejudicial in the sense that it made petitioner’s conviction more likely than if she had not testified, and discrediting her testimony might have changed the outcome of the trial.
That, however, is not the standard that petitioner must
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed a bill, H. R. 4042, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. (1983), conditioning the continuance of United States military aid to El Salvador upon the President’s semiannual certification of El Salvador’s progress in protecting human rights. The President neither signed the bill nor returned it to the House of Representatives where it had originated, and took the position that because Congress had in the meantime adjourned at the end of its first session the bill had been subjected to a “pocket veto” under Article I, § 7, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution.
Respondents-plaintiffs in this action are 33 individual Members of the House of Representatives who filed suit in the District Court challenging the action of the President in seeking to “pocket-veto” the bill in question. The Senate and the Speaker and Bipartisan Leadership Group of the House of Representatives intervened in support of the plaintiffs and are also respondents here. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of petitioners-defendants, Barnes v. Carmen, 582 F. Supp. 163 (DC 1984), but a divided Court of Appeals reversed. Barnes v. Kline, 245 U. S. App. D. C. 1, 759 F. 2d 21 (1984). The majority concluded that respondents had standing to maintain this action, and that the bill had become a law notwithstanding the President’s effort to “pocket-veto” it. The dissenting judge took the view that respondents did not have standing to maintain the action. Petitioners Frank G. Burke, Acting Archivist of the United States, and Ronald Geisler, Executive Clerk of the White House, contend in this Court that (a) respondents lacked standing to maintain the action, (b) the Court of Appeals was incorrect in construing the “Pocket Veto” Clause of the Constitution as it did, and (c) the case is moot. We agree with this final contention of petitioners, and hold that the case is moot. We therefore do not reach either of the other contentions of petitioners.
The bill in question expired by its own terms on September 30, 1984, a few weeks after the Court of Appeals entered its judgment. Article III of the Constitution requires that there be a live case or controversy at the time that a federal court decides the case; it is not enough that there may have been a live case or controversy when the case was decided by the court whose judgment we are reviewing. Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 402 (1975); Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103, 108 (1969). We therefore analyze this case as if respondents had originally sought to litigate the validity of a statute which by its terms had already expired. In Diffenderfer v. Central Baptist Church of Miami, Florida, Inc., 404 U. S. 412 (1972) (per curiam), we stated:
“The only relief sought in the complaint was a declaratory judgment that the now repealed Fla. Stat. § 192.06 (4) is unconstitutional as applied to a church parking lot used for commercial purposes and an injunction against its application to said lot. This relief is, of course, inappropriate now that the statute has been repealed.” Id., at 414-415.
We see no reason to treat a challenge to the validity of a statute that has expired any differently from a challenge to the validity of a statute that has been repealed, and accordingly hold that any issues concerning whether H. R. 4042 became a law were mooted when that bill expired by its own terms. The failure of the bill to have any present effect does not depend on any decision as to whether the President’s action was a “pocket veto”; the bill by its own terms became a dead letter on September 30, 1984, regardless of whether it had previously been enacted into law .or not. See also Hall v. Beals, 396 U. S. 45, 48 (1969) (per curiam).
Respondents contend that other issues in the case keep it from being moot. They first assert that there remains a live controversy over the failure of petitioner Burke to publish H. R. 4042 in the Statutes at Large as a duly enacted law, in accordance with the provisions of 1 U. S. C. §§ 106a and 112 (1982 ed., Supp. III). This inaction, respondents cryptically claim, caused the “nullification of their lawmaking processes.” Brief for Respondents Speaker and Bipartisan Leadership Group 50. We fail to see how any interest in the “lawmaking process” that might be served by the publication of duly enacted statutes can survive the life of the statutes themselves.
Respondents also claim that funds expended on military aid without the certification required by H. R. 4042 might at some future date be subject to recovery under the provisions of 31 U. S. C. §§ 1341, 1349-1351, 3521. These laws relate to the auditing and account settlement of Government expenditures by the Comptroller General. But we think that this argument likewise fails to show that there is a live controversy here. There is no indication of a presently existing dispute as to the accounting obligations, and if such a dispute were to arise it would not be between the parties to this case. “[S]uch speculative contingencies afford no basis for our passing on the substantive issues [respondents] would have us decide with respect to the” now-expired provisions of H. R. 4042. Hall v. Beals, supra, at 49-50.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded to that court with instructions to remand the case to the District Court with instructions to dismiss the complaint. United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36, 39 (1950).
It is so ordered.
Justice Sc alia took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
We reject respondents’ argument that the questions of mootness and standing are necessarily intertwined. We can assume, arguendo, that a House of Congress suffers a judicially cognizable injury when the votes it has cast to pass an otherwise live statute have been nullified by action on the part of the Executive Branch. But this injury in “the nullification of [Congress’] lawmaking processes,” Brief for Respondents Speaker and Bipartisan Leadership Group 50, no longer exists when the claimed statute has ceased to be effective by its own terms.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of- the Court.
These are companion cases to Nos. 110 and 111, National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, and NLRB v. National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn., ante, p. 612. A provision of the collective bargaining agreement between the Houston Insulation Contractors Association and Local 22, International. Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, AFL-CIO, provides, in pertinent part, that the employer will not contract out work relating to “the preparation, distribution and application of pipe and boiler coverings.” In No. 206, the Contractors Association seeks review of the dismissal by the National Labor Relations Board, 148 N. L. R. B. 866, affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 357 F. 2d 182, 189, of §8 (b)(4)(B) charges brought against Local 22 because of its activities designed to enforce the agreement. National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 73 Stat. 543. In No. 413, the Board challenges the holding of the Court of Appeals, reversing the Board, that similar conduct by a sister Local 113, designed to protect the work guaranteed to Local 22 by the agreement, violated §8 (b)(4)(B). We granted both petitions and set them for argument with Nos. 110 and 111. We affirm in No. 206 and reverse in No. 413.
No. 206: Johns-Manville Company, a member of the Contractors Association, engaged in a construction project in Texas City, Texas, purchased from Techalloy Corporation, a manufacturer of insulation materials, stainless steel bands used to fasten asbestos material around pipes to be insulated. The bands had been pre-cut to specification by Tech alloy’s employees. Customarily, Johns-Manville had ordered rolls of wire which were then cut to size by members of Local 22. The cutting work was reserved for Johns-Manville employee members of Local 22 by the quoted provision of .the collective bargaining agreement between the Association an d the Local. Agents of Local 22 instructed its members on the jobsite not to install the precut bands. After the hearing on the complaint issued on the Contractors Association’s charge that this conduct violated § 8 (b)(4)(B), the Board held that “[t]he conduct complained of herein was taken to protest ... a deprivation of work, its object being to protect or preserve for employees'certain work customarily performed by them. This conduct constituted primary activity and is protected by the Act . . . .” 148 N. L. R. B., at 869. The Court of Appeals found that there was substantial evidence to support this fíñding and sustained it. The Association here attacks the substantiality of the evidence supporting the Board’s finding, but we agree with the Court of Appeals. See Universal Camera Corp. v. Labor Board, 340 U. S. 474. In that circumstance our holding today in National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, supra, requires an affirmance in No. 206.
No. 418: Armstrong Company, a member of thé Contractors Association, was engaged in a construction project in Victoria, Texas, within the jurisdiction of Local 113 of the Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers. The cutting and mitering of asbestos fittings for such jobs was customarily performed at Armstrong’s Houston shop, which was within Local 22’s jurisdiction. Armstrong purchased from Thorpe Company, a manufacturer of insulation materials, asbestos 'fittings upon which the cutting and mitering work had already been performed. Agents of Local 113 informed Armstrong that fittings would not be installed unless the cutting and mitering had been performed by its sister Local 22 as provided by Local 22’s bargaining agreement. The Board found, as it had in No. 206, that the object of this refusal was primary — the preservation of work customarily performed by Armstrong’s own employees. 148 N. L. R. B., at 869. - The Court of Appeals reversed on the ground tha,t Local 113 “had no economic interest in Local 22’s claim of breach of contract,” and that therefore “it was coercing Armstrong not for its own benefit but for the benefit of another local at the expense of a neutral employer.” 357 F. 2d, at 189. We disagree.
. National Woodwork 'Mfrs., supra, holds that collective activity by employees of the primary employer, the object of which is to affect the labor policies of that primary employer, and not engaged in for its effect elsewhere, is protected primary activity. “Congress was not concerned to protect primary employers against pressures by disinterested unions, but rather to protect disinterested employers against direct pressures by any union.” The finding of the Board, supported by substantial evidence, was that Local 113’s object was to influence Armstrong in a dispute with Armstrong employees, and not for its effect elsewhere.
Primary employees have traditionally been assured the right to take concerted action against their employer to gain the “mutual aid or protection” guaranteed by § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 140, whether or not the resolution of the particular dispute directly affects all of them. As Judge Learned Hand stated in Labor Board v. Peter Cailler Kohler Swiss Chocolates Co., 130 F. 2d 503, 505-506:
“When all the other workmen in a shop make common cause with a fellow workman over his separate grievance, and go out on strike .in his support, they engage in a ‘concerted activity’ for ‘mutual aid or protection/ although the aggrieved workman is the only one of them who has any immediate stake in the outcome. The rest know that by their action each one of them assures himself, in case his turn ever comes, of the support of the One whom they are all.then helping; and the solidarity so established is ‘mutual aid’ in the most literal sense, as nobody doubts.”
. A boycott cannot become secondary because engaged in by primary employees not directly affected by the dispute, or because only engaged in by some of the primary employees, and not the entire group. Since that situation does not involve'the employer in a. dispute not his own, his employees’ conduct in support of their fellow employees is not secondary and, therefore, not a violation ■of §8 (b)(4)(B).
The judgment of the Court of Appeals in No. 206 is affirmed and in No. 413 is reversed.
Tt. is so ordered.
Mb. Justice Black, Mb. Justice Douglas, Mb. Justice Clark, and Mb. Justice Stewart dissent for the reasons expressed in Mb. Justice Stewart’s dissenting opinion in National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn, v, NLRB, ante, p. 650.
The Association did not charge the Union with violation of §8(e) (73 Stat. 543), and the .validity of the work-preservation clause was not an issue in the hearing before the Board. But the Board appears to have assumed that the clause was valid in holding that the object of the Union’s conduct pursuant thereto was a primary one of work preservation. The Court of Appeals expressly held, as an aspect’of its finding that § 8(b)(4)(B) was not violated by Local 22’s ’ activities, that the clause was valid. 357 F. 2d, at 188-189.
A mitered fitting is described by the president of Thorpe Company as “an insulation item that is used to cover something other than a straight piece of pipe in a pipe line, and this is made by taking standard insulation pipe covering and cutting it on a bias or miter and then gluing it together or sticking it together so that it will conform to the fitting that you are trying to shape it to.”
United Association of Journeymen, Local 106 (Columbia-Southern Chemical Corporation), 110 N. L. R. B. 206, 209.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
OPINION OF THE COURT
[563 U.S. 480]
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We consider what remedy is proper when, to protect state secrets, a court dismisses a Government contractor’s prima facie valid affirmative defense to the Government’s allegations of contractual breach.
I
In 1988, the Navy awarded petitioners a $4.8 billion fixed-price contract to research and develop the A-12 Avenger carrier-based, stealth aircraft. The A-12 proved unexpectedly difficult to design and manufacture, and by December
[563 U.S. 481]
1990, petitioners were almost two years behind schedule and spending $120 to $150 million each month to develop the A-12.
Petitioners informed the Government that the cost of completing the contract would exceed the contract price by an “ ‘unacceptable’ ” amount. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 567 F.3d 1340, 1343 (CA Fed. 2009); see McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 182 F.3d 1319, 1323 (CA Fed. 1999). They proposed restructuring the contract as a cost-reimbursement agreement and offered to absorb a $1.5 billion loss. The Department of Defense had lost faith in the project, however, and Rear Admiral William Morris, the Navy’s contracting officer for the A-12 agreement, terminated the contract for default on January 7, 1991.
By that point, petitioners had spent $3.88 billion attempting to develop the A-12, and the Government had provided $2.68 billion in progress payments. A few weeks after terminating the contract, the Navy sent petitioners a letter demanding the return of approximately $1.35 billion in progress payments for work never accepted by the Government. The parties later entered into a deferred payment agreement covering this amount.
Petitioners filed suit in the Court of Federal Claims (CFC) to challenge Admiral Morris’s termination decision under the Contract Disputes Act of 1978, 92 Stat. 2388, as amended, 41 U.S.C. § 609(a)(1). The Federal Circuit has recognized a governmental obligation not to mislead contractors about, or silently withhold, its “superior knowledge” of difficult-to-discover information “vital” to contractual performance. GAF Corp. v. United States, 932 F.2d 947, 949 (1991). Petitioners asserted that the Government’s failure to share its “superior knowledge” about how to design and manufacture stealth aircraft excused their default (and also asserted other claims not relevant here).
Uncovering the extent of the Government’s prior experience with stealth technology proved difficult. The design,
[563 U.S. 482]
materials, and manufacturing process for two prior stealth aircraft operated by the Air Force— the B-2 and the F-117A—are some of the Government’s most closely guarded military secrets. “ ‘[N]eed-to-know’ or [special] access controls beyond those normally provided for access to Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret information” apply. 32 CFR § 154.3(x) (2010); see App. 384-385. The Government nevertheless granted 10 members of petitioners’ litigation team “access to the Secret/ Special Access level of the B-2 and F-117A programs.” Id., at 385. Four of those ten individuals received access to even the most sensitive aspects of the programs. See ibid.
That neither satisfied petitioners’ thirst for discovery nor prevented the unauthorized disclosure of military secrets. In March 1993, Acting Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley asserted the state-secrets privilege to bar discovery into certain aspects of stealth technology beyond petitioners’ “need-to-know” authorizations. At a deposition that month, a former Navy official’s responses to questions by petitioners and the Government revealed military secrets neither side’s litigation team was authorized to know. Copies of the unclassified deposition were widely distributed and quoted in unsealed court filings until Government security officials discovered the breach a month later. A July 1993 deposition caused further unauthorized disclosures of military secrets.
These disclosures led Acting Secretary of the Air Force Merrill McPeak to file a declaration with the CFC. He warned that further discovery into the extent of the Government’s superior knowledge “would present a continuing threat of disclosure of . . . military and state secrets” surrounding the “weight, profile or signature, and materials involved in the design and construction of ‘stealt[h]’. . . aircraft and weapons systems.” Id., at 633, 635. Even relatively straightforward and innocuous questions, in his opinion, “would pose unacceptable risks of disclosure of classified, special access information,” id., at 636, including the
[563 U.S. 483]
potential disclosure of covert Government programs, id., at 637.
The CFC took Secretary McPeak’s concerns seriously and terminated discovery relating to superior knowledge. It later decided that the extent of the Government’s superior knowledge was a nonjusticiable question. Both sides had enough evidence to “present a persuasive case” on the superior-knowledge issue, but the CFC worried that, “wit[h] numerous layers of potentially dispositive facts” hidden by the privilege, its superior-knowledge rulings “would be a sham,” McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 37 Fed. Cl. 270, 280, 284-285 (1996), and one that would threaten national security, see id., at 281-282.
In 1996, for reasons not relevant here, the CFC converted the termination into a less-Government-friendly termination for convenience and awarded petitioners $1.2 billion. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 35 Fed. Cl. 358. The Federal Circuit reversed, 182 F.3d, at 1332, and left it for the CFC to reconsider on remand whether the need to protect military secrets precluded discovery into the superior-knowledge issue, id., at 1329-1330.
After a 6-week trial, the CFC sustained the default termination, McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 50 Fed. Cl. 311, 326 (2001), and reaffirmed that the parties could not safely litigate whether the Government’s superior knowledge excused petitioners’ default, id.., at 325. The Court of Appeals reversed the default termination, but agreed that the state-secrets privilege prevented adjudicating whether the Govern-merit’s superior knowledge excused the default. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 323 F.3d 1006, 1024 (CA Fed. 2003). It rejected petitioners’ assertion that the Government could not pursue a claim against a party and then use the state-secrets privilege to completely pre-empt defenses to that claim; the Court of Appeals believed United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 12, 73 S. Ct. 528, 97 L. Ed. 727 (1953), had already “rejected” this “very argument.” 323 F.3d, at 1023. Litigants cannot complain, the Court of Appeals held,
[563 U.S. 484]
when the state-secrets privilege trumps a defense “in [a] purely civil matter, suing the sovereign on the limited terms to which it has consented.” Ibid.
On remand, the CFC again found petitioners had defaulted. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 76 Fed. Cl. 385, 430 (2007). The Court of Appeals affirmed, see 567 F.3d, at 1356, and we granted certiorari to review its state-secrets holding, 561 U.S. 1057, 131 S. Ct. 62, 177 L. Ed. 2d 1151 (2010).
II
Many of the Government’s efforts to protect our national security are well known. It publicly acknowledges the size of our military, the location of our military bases, and the names of our ambassadors to Moscow and Beijing. But protecting our national security sometimes requires keeping information about our military, intelligence, and diplomatic efforts secret. See Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 307, 101 S. Ct. 2766, 69 L. Ed. 2d 640 (1981); Martin v. Mott, 12 Wheat. 19, 30-31, 6 L. Ed. 537 (1827). We have recognized the sometimes-compelling necessity of governmental secrecy by acknowledging a Government privilege against court-ordered disclosure of state and military secrets.
In Reynolds, three civilian contractors died during a test flight of a B-29 bomber. Their widows filed wrongful-death suits against the Government and sought discovery of the Air Force’s accident-investigation report. Federal discovery rules, then as now, did not require production of documents protected by an evidentiary privilege. See 345 U.S., at 6, 73 S. Ct. 528, 97 L. Ed. 727; Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 26(b)(1). We held that documents that would disclose state secrets enjoyed such a privilege; the state-secrets privilege, we said, had a “well established” pedigree “in the law of evidence.” 345 U.S., at 6-7, 73 S. Ct. 528, 97 L. Ed. 727.
The penultimate paragraph of Reynolds rejected the widows’ assertion that if the Government invoked the state-secrets privilege it had to abandon the claim to which the thereby privileged evidence was relevant. That was, the widows observed, the price paid in criminal cases. If the
[563 U.S. 485]
Government refuses to provide state-secret information that the accused reasonably asserts is necessary to his defense, the prosecution must be dismissed. See id., at 12, 73 S. Ct. 528, 97 L. Ed. 727; Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657, 672, 77 S. Ct. 1007, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1103 (1957). The penultimate paragraph of Reynolds said that this was a false analogy. A like abandonment of the Government’s claim is not the consequence “in a civil forum where the Government is not the moving party, but is a defendant only on terms to which it has consented.” 345 U.S., at 12, 73 S. Ct. 528, 97 L. Ed. 727. Both petitioners and the Court of Appeals rely upon this statement to support their differing positions.
We think that Reynolds has less to do with these cases than the parties believe—and its dictum (of course), less still. Reynolds was about the admission of evidence. It decided a purely evidentiary dispute by applying evidentiary rules: The privileged information is excluded, and the trial goes on without it. That was to the detriment, of course, of the widows, whom the evidence would have favored. But the Court did not order judgment in favor of the Government. Here, by contrast, the CFC decreed the substantive result that since invocation of the state-secrets privilege obscured too many of the facts relevant to the superior-knowledge defense, the issue of that defense was nonjusticiable, and the defense thus not available. See 37 Fed. Cl., at 284-285. And that was so even though petitioners had brought forward enough unprivileged evidence to “make a prima facie showing.” Id., at 280.
While we disagree, for reasons set forth below, with the CFC’s disposition of the remainder of the case, its perception that in the present context the state-secrets issue raises something quite different from a mere evi-dentiary point seems to us sound. What we are called upon to exercise is not our power to determine the procedural rules of evidence, but our common-law authority to fashion contractual remedies in Government-contracting disputes. See Priebe & Sons, Inc. v. United States, 332 U.S. 407, 411, 68 S. Ct. 123, 92 L. Ed. 32 (1947). And
[563 U.S. 486]
our state-secrets jurisprudence bearing upon that authority is not Reynolds, but two cases dealing with alleged contracts to spy.
In Totten v. United States, 92 U.S. 105, 23 L. Ed. 605 (1876), the administrator of a self-styled Civil War spy’s estate brought a breach-of-contract suit against the United States. He alleged that his testator had entered into a contract with President Lincoln to spy on the Confederacy in exchange for $200 a month. After the war ended, the United States reimbursed expenses but did not pay the monthly salary. We recognized that the estate had a potentially valid breach-of-contract claim but dismissed the suit. The contract was for “a secret service,” and litigating the details of that service would risk exposing secret operations and other clandestine operatives “to the serious detriment of the public.” Id., at 106-107, 23 L. Ed. 605. “[P]ublic policy,” we held, “forbids the maintenance of any suit . . . the trial of which would inevitably lead to the disclosure of matters which the law itself regards as confidential, and respecting which it will not allow the confidence to be violated.” Id., at 107, 23 L. Ed. 605.
Six years ago, we reaffirmed that “public policy forb[ids]” suits “based on covert espionage agreements.” Tenet v. Doe, 544 U.S. 1, 3, 125 S. Ct. 1230, 161 L. Ed. 2d 82 (2005). Such suits threaten to undermine ongoing intelligence-gathering and covert operations—two vital aspects of national security—through inadvertent exposure of espionage relationships. Id., at 11, 125 S. Ct. 1230, 161 L. Ed. 2d 82. Rather than tempt fate, we leave the parties to an espionage agreement where we found them the day they filed suit.
We think a similar situation obtains here, and that the same consequence should follow. Where liability depends upon the validity of a plausible superior-knowledge defense, and when full litigation of that defense “would inevitably lead to the disclosure of’ state secrets, Totten, supra, at 107, 23 L. Ed. 605, neither party can obtain judicial relief. As the CFC concluded, that is the situation here. Disclosure of state secrets occurred twice before the CFC terminated discovery. See
[563 U.S. 487]
37 Fed. Cl., at 277-278. Every document request or question to a witness would risk further disclosure, since both sides have an incentive to probe up to the boundaries of state secrets. State secrets can also be indirectly disclosed. Each assertion of the privilege can provide another clue about the Government’s covert programs or capabilities. See Fitzgerald v. Penthouse International, Ltd., 776 F.2d 1236, 1243, and n. 10 (CA4 1985). For instance, the fact that the Government had to continue asserting the privilege after granting petitioners access to B-2 and F-117A program information suggests it had other, possibly covert, stealth programs in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.
It seems to us unrealistic to separate, as the CFC did, the claim from the defense, and to allow the former to proceed while the latter is barred. It is claims and defenses together that establish the justification, or lack of justification, for judicial relief; and when public policy precludes judicial intervention for the one it should preclude judicial intervention for the other as well. If, in Totten, it had been the Government seeking return of funds that the estate claimed had been received in payment for espionage activities, it would have been the height of injustice to deny the defense because of the Government’s invocation of state-secret protection, but to maintain jurisdiction over the Government’s claim and award it judgment. Judicial refusal to enforce promises contrary to public policy (here, the Government’s alleged promise to provide superior knowledge, which we could not determine was breached without penetrating several layers of state secrets) is not unknown to the common law, and the traditional course is to leave the parties where they stood when they knocked on the courthouse door.
[563 U.S. 488]
“In general, if a court will not, on grounds of public policy, aid a prom-isee by enforcing the promise, it will not aid him by granting him restitution for performance that he has rendered in return for the unenforceable promise. Neither will it aid the promi-sor by allowing a claim in restitution for performance that he has rendered under the unenforceable promise. It will simply leave both parties as it finds them, even though this may result in one of them retaining a benefit that he has received as a result of the transaction.” 2 Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 197, Comment a, p. 71 (1979); see, e.g., Worlton v. Davis, 73 Idaho 217, 222-223, 249 P.2d 810, 814 (1952).
These cases differ from the common-law cases that we know, in that the unenforceability did not exist at the time the contract was formed, see 2 Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 179, Comment d, at 18, but arose because of the Government’s assertion of the state-secrets privilege that rendered the promise of superior knowledge unadjudicable. We do not see why that should affect the remedy. Suit on the contract, or for performance rendered or funds paid under the contract, will not lie, and the parties will be left where they are.
The law of contracts contains another doctrine that relates to the CFC’s concern about the reliability of its judgment “without numerous layers of potentially dispositive facts,” 37 Fed. Cl., at 284-285. The Statute of Frauds, which has been with us since the 17th century, reflects concerns about the reliability of oral evidence. See Valdez Fisheries Development Assn., Inc. v. Alyeska Pipeline Serv. Co., 45 P.3d 657, 669 (Alaska 2002); 9 R. Lord, Williston on Contracts § 21:1, pp. 170-172 (4th ed. 1999 and 2010 Supp.). It assumes a valid, enforceable agreement between the parties but nevertheless leaves them without a remedy absent reliable evidence—a writing. See 1 id., § 1:21, at 82 (4th ed. 2007 and 2010 Supp.); 9 id., § 21:5, at 192. So also here, it is preferable to leave the parties without a remedy rather than risk the
[563 U.S. 489]
“potential injustice,” Valdez Fisheries, supra, at 669, of misjudging the superior-knowledge issue based on a distorted evidentiary record.
The Government suggested at oral argument that where the parties stood at the time of suit was that petitioners had been held in default, liable for the ensuing consequences. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 48-49; see also Brief for United States 32, n. 9, 34-35. That had been the declaration of the contracting officer, pursuant to Chapter 9 (entitled “Contract Disputes”) of Title 41 (entitled “Public Contracts”). See 41 U.S.C. § 605. It was “final and conclusive . . . unless an appeal or suit is timely commenced.” § 605(b). We regard that, however, as merely one step in the contractual regime to which the parties had agreed. It has no more bearing upon the question we are discussing than would a provision in a private contract that declaration of default by one of the parties is final unless contested in court. The “position of the parties” in which we will leave them is not their position with regard to legal burdens and the legal consequences of contract-related determinations, but with regard to possession of funds and property.
Ill
Neither side will be entirely happy with the resolution we reach today. General Dynamics (but not Boeing) wants us to convert the termination into one for convenience and reinstate the CFC’s $1.2 billion damages award. See Brief for Petitioner in No. 09-1298, pp. 58-61. The language of the A-12 agreement does not give us that option. It authorizes a court to convert a default termination into a termination for convenience only if it “determine[s] that the Contractor was not in default, or that the default was excusable.” 48 CFR § 52.249-9(g) (2010). Our opinion does not express a view on those issues. It holds them nonjusticiable.
Moreover, state secrets would make it impossible to calculate petitioners’ damages. A termination for convenience
[563 U.S. 490]
ordinarily entitles a contractor to recover its incurred costs of performance, reasonable termination expenses, and a reasonable profit on the work performed (or an offset to account for the contractor’s expected losses had the contract been performed to completion). See § 52.249-2(g). The CFC’s $1.2 billion award to petitioners in 1996 simply reflected their actual costs incurred minus progress payments received. The CFC decided it could not calculate petitioners’ expected losses (or profits) without deciding the extent to which the Government’s alleged failure to share its superior knowledge contributed to petitioners’ cost overruns—a nonjusti-ciable question. See 37 Fed. Cl., at 285. Absent proof of the Government’s superior knowledge, and of how the sharing of that would have made this a profitable contract, the $1.2 billion award might represent an undeserved windfall.
The Government, for its part, wants a return of the $1.35 billion it paid petitioners in progress payments for work which it says it never approved. But the validity of that claim depends upon whether petitioners are in default on their contract. If they are not, termination for convenience of the Government would entitle them to retain those progress payments (unless, of course, they would have incurred a loss on the entire contract). Neither the question whether they are in default nor the question whether performance of the entire contract would have left them with a loss can be judicially determined because of the valid assertion of the state-secrets privilege.
We leave the parties where they are. As in Totten, see 92 U.S., at 106, 23 L. Ed. 605, our refusal to enforce this contract captures what the ex ante expectations of the parties were or reasonably ought to have been. Both parties “must have understood,” ibid., that state secrets would prevent courts from resolving many possible disputes under the A-12 agreement. The Government asked petitioners to develop an aircraft the design, materials, and manufacturing process for which would be closely guarded military secrets. See Contract
[563 U.S. 491]
Schedule H-l, App. 73-75; Contract Security Classified Specification, id., at 129-135. The contract itself was a classified document at one point. See Contract Schedule H-l, ¶8, id., at 75. Both parties—the Government no less than petitioners—must have assumed the risk that state secrets would prevent the adjudication of claims of inadequate performance.
We believe, moreover, that the impact of our ruling on these particular cases (which we think produces rough, very rough, equity) is probably much more significant than its impact in future cases, except to the extent that it renders the law more predictable and hence more subject to accommodation by contracting parties. They can negotiate, for example, the timing and amount of progress payments to account for the possibility that state secrets may ultimately render the contract unenforceable. The Government’s concern that contractors will raise frivolous superior-knowledge defenses designed to goad the Government into asserting the state-secrets privilege is misplaced. To begin with, the rule we announce today applies only when the superior-knowledge defense is supported by enough evidence to make out a prima facie case. Moreover, Government contractors—especially cutting-edge defense contractors of the sort likely to operate in the state-secrets field—are repeat players. Even apart from the judicial sanctions available to punish bad conduct, see Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 11, 26(g), they have strong incentive to behave rather than risk missing out on the next multibillion-dollar defense contract. And finally, while we anticipate that the rule we set forth will ordinarily control Government-contracting disputes that become nonjusticiable because of state secrets, what we promulgate today is not a statute but a common-law opinion, which, after the fashion of the common law, is subject to further refinement where relevant factors significantly different from those before us here counsel a different outcome.
[563 U.S. 492]
The foregoing analysis assumes that the Government generally has an obligation to share its superior knowledge, see GAF Corp., 932 F.2d, at 949; the parties have not challenged that assumption. The Government argued below, however, that it does not have that obligation with respect to “highly classified information,” and does not have it when (as was the case here) the agreement specifically identifies information that must be shared. Brief for United States 52. The Court of Appeals did not address those questions (it had no reason to, given its disposition of petitioners’ appeals), and we did not grant certiorari to decide them. Those issues (and whether they can safely be litigated without endangering state secrets) therefore remain for the Court of Appeals to address on remand.
In Reynolds, we warned that the state-secrets evidentiary privilege “is not to be lightly invoked.” 345 U.S., at 7, 73 S. Ct. 528, 97 L. Ed. 727. Courts should be even more hesitant to declare a Government contract unenforceable because of state secrets. It is the option of last resort, available in a very narrow set of circumstances. Our decision today clarifies the consequences of its use only where it precludes a valid defense in Government-contracting disputes, and only where both sides have enough evidence to survive summary judgment but too many of the relevant facts remain obscured by the state-secrets privilege to enable a reliable judgment.
We vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the cases for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Of course, this does not mean the nonjusticiability of one aspect of a case will necessarily end the entire litigation. If, for example, the Government asserts two justifications for its default termination, and if state secrets deprive the contractor of a prima facie valid defense to only one of those claims, the court can still adjudicate the validity of the other.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | E | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petitioner was convicted on four counts of a five-count indictment charging offenses under the narcotics laws. 21 U. S. C. § 174. He complains of a number of alleged trial errors. In addition, he points to a series of events occurring during the course of the prosecution which, he says, operated to deprive him of constitutionally guaranteed rights. It is unnecessary to detail here the course of those proceedings, since we are advised that a change in the calendar system of the District Court for the Southern District of California insures that what occurred in this case will not occur again.
During oral argument in this Court the Solicitor General suggested that the combination of circumstances in this case, beginning with one judge’s clearly expressed intention to impose a five-year sentence, and ending with another judge’s imposition of a twenty-year sentence under the indictment, was not consistent with that regularity and fairness which should characterize the administration of criminal justice in the federal courts. In the light of the Solicitor General’s suggestion, and upon an independent examination of the record, we have concluded that a due regard for the fair administration of justice requires that the convictions under counts 3, 4, and 5 of the indictment be set aside. 28 U. S. C. § 2106; see Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board, 351 U. S. 115, 124; Mesarosh v. United States, 352 U. S. 1, 14; Marshall v. United States, 360 U. S. 310. Cf. Petite v. United States, 361 U. S. 529. The conviction under count 2, to which the petitioner originally pleaded guilty, is affirmed.
Because of this disposition of the case, we do not reach for consideration the alleged trial errors with respect to •limitation of cross-examination, sufficiency of the evidence of a “sale” under count 5, and instructions to the jury as to entrapment.
So ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Appellee instituted this suit for a declaratory judgment that a 1956 Mississippi statute imposing a charge on public utilities for the use of public streets and places does not apply to it, and, if it does, violates the Federal and State Constitutions. It was tried before a single district judge. After trial the district judge wrote an opinion (154 F. Supp. 736) and then entered a judgment which declared the statute in conflict with the State and Federal Constitutions and thus beyond the power of the Mississippi Legislature to enact. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the District Court. 256 F. 2d 83. An appeal was taken to this Court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1254 (2), providing for appeal of a decision of a Court of Appeals where appellant relies on a state statute held to be “invalid as repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States.” Appellee moved to dismiss the appeal, contending that review by appeal does not lie because the Court of Appeals decision declaring the state statute unconstitutional was based on the Constitution of Mississippi as well as the Federal Constitution. Subsequently, appellant moved the Court to vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to the District Court with instructions to vacate its judgment and convene a three-judge court under 28 U. S. C. §§ 2281 and 2284 to consider appellee’s complaint. Appellee opposed the motion. Without passing judgment on the merits of that motion (cf. Federal Housing Administration v. The Darlington, Inc., 352 U. S. 977), we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to the District Court with directions to hold the cause while the parties repair to a state tribunal for an authoritative declaration of applicable state law.
Proper exercise of federal jurisdiction requires that controversies involving unsettled questions of state law be decided in the state tribunals preliminary to a federal court’s consideration of the underlying federal constitutional questions. See Railroad Comm’n v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496. That is especially desirable where the questions of state law are enmeshed with federal questions. Spector Motor Co. v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101, 105. Here, the state law problems are delicate ones, the resolution of which is not without substantial difficulty— certainly for a federal court. Cf. Thompson v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 309 U. S. 478, 483. In such a case, when the state court’s interpretation of the statute or evaluation of its validity under the state constitution may obviate any need to consider its validity under the Federal Constitution, the federal court should hold its hand, lest it render a constitutional decision unnecessarily. Railroad Comm’n v. Pullman Co., supra; Spector Motor Co. v. McLaughlin, supra, 104-105. See Leiter Minerals, Inc., v. United States, 352 U. S. 220, 228-229.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the cause is remanded to the District Court for proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Civilian employees of the Federal Government were reassigned from Savannah to Atlanta, Georgia, and the General Services Administration sought to arrange by competitive bidding for the intrastate mass shipment of their household goods between those cities. Georgia law, however, does not permit a rate for transporting household goods of more than one family; it requires carriers to quote schedules of approved rates, the total charge to be the sum of the charges figured for individual families. Five carriers submitted bids quoting rates lower than those allowed by the Georgia tariff. After the competitive bidding was over and the contract awarded to the lowest responsible bidder, the Georgia Public Service Commission threatened these five carriers with revocation of their intrastate operating certificates should they perform at the rates quoted GSA. The successful bidder thereupon notified GSA that it was unable to perform the contract. Appellee instituted proceedings against the carrier, looking toward the revocation of its certificate. The United States sought to intervene in that proceeding but it was not allowed to do so. Appellee also refused to allow a GSA official to testify as to the circumstances of the shipping contract that the Commission claimed conflicted with Georgia law.
Thereupon the United States filed suit in the District Court and requested the convocation of a three-judge court. The complaint alleged, inter alia, that Georgia law burdened federal officers in carrying out their federal functions and conflicted with federal procurement policy. The issue as finally joined raises squarely those questions. The District Court held that there was no conflict between Georgia’s regulatory scheme and the federal one, concluding that the case is governed by Penn Dairies, Inc., v. Milk Control Comm’n, 318 U. S. 261. See 197 F. Supp. 793. The case is here on direct appeal (28 U. S. C. §§ 1253, 2101 (b)); we postponed consideration of the question of jurisdiction until a hearing on the merits. 369 U. S. 882.
We have jurisdiction of this appeal if the case was “required ... to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges.” 28 U. S. C. § 1253. The question whether the Georgia regulatory scheme is unconstitutional because it burdened the exercise by the United States of its power to maintain a civilian service and to carry out other constitutional functions is a substantial one, as our decisions in Penn Dairies, Inc., v. Milk Control Comm’n, supra; Public Utilities Comm’n of California v. United States, 355 U. S. 534, and Paul v. United States, ante, p. 245, decided this day, show, and therefore required a three-judge court to adjudicate it. 28 U. S. C. § 2281; Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp. v. Epstein, 370 U. S. 713; Florida Lime Growers v. Jacobsen, 362 U. S. 73. We have presented here more than an isolated issue whether a state law conflicts with a federal statute and therefore must give way by reason of the Supremacy Clause. Cf. Kesler v. Department of Public Safety, 369 U. S. 153. Direct conflict between a state law and federal constitutional provisions raises of course a question under the Supremacy Clause but one of a broader scope than where the alleged conflict is only between a state statute and a federal statute that might be resolved by the construction given either the state or the federal law. Id., 157. So we have a clear case for convening a three-judge court. Once convened the case can be disposed of below or here on any ground, whether or not it would have justified the calling of a three-judge court. See Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U. S. 378, 393-394; Railroad Comm’n v. Pacific Cas Co., 302 U. S. 388, 391.
The District Court, acting on motions for summary-judgment filed by each of the parties, said that were the property being transported “strictly governmental property,” the case would be governed by Public Utilities Comm’n of California v. United States, 355 U. S. 534. But since the property involved here is household goods, not military supplies, the court concluded that the case is controlled by Penn Dairies, Inc., v. Milk Control Comm’n, supra.
The distinction drawn by the District Court between this case and Public Utilities Comm’n of California v. United States, supra, is not tenable. Between 1943, when Penn Dairies was decided, and 1958, when Public Utilities Comm’n of California was decided, Congress enacted the Armed Services Procurement Act of 1947, 62 Stat. 21, later codified without substantial change, 70A Stat. 127, 10 U. S. C. § 2301 et seq., wdiich extended and elaborated the federal procurement policy of negotiated rates which, as we noted in the Public Utilities Comm’n of California case, conflicted with California’s policy of regulated rates. 355 U. S., at 544. The federal Regulation involved in that case was superseded in 1958 by the Military Traffic Management Regulation. That Regulation includes the “procedures to govern the movement of uncrated household goods.” Another Regulation provides that their transportation is authorized “by the mode of transportation . . . which results in the lowest over-all cost to the Government and which provides the required service satisfactorily.” This entails “negotiation” with carriers for “rates” on military traffic and “Special arrangements pertaining to other freight traffic.” Examples could be multiplied but enough has been said to show that the new Military Traffic Management Regulation continues in effect the provisions of the earlier regulation in force when the Public Utilities Comm’n of California case was decided.
The same policy of negotiating rates for shipment of federal property now governs nondefense agencies. The basic statute is the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, 63 Stat. 383, 40 U. S. C. § 481, 63 Stat. 393, as amended, 41 U. S. C. § 251 et seq. Its procurement provisions are substantially similar to those contained in the Armed Services Procurement Act of 1947. It was, indeed, enacted to extend to GSA “the principles of the Armed Services Procurement Act of 1947, with appropriate modifications principally designed to eliminate provisions applicable primarily to the military.” H. R. Rep. No. 670, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., p. 6. Under the regulations promulgated pursuant to this Act, procurement of transportation and improvement of transportation and traffic practices of executive agencies are entrusted to the Commissioner of the Transportation and Public Utilities Service (TPUS) He is to represent the executive agencies “in negotiations of rates and contracts for transportation.” The Commissioner in procurement and contracting
“(a) Negotiates purchases and contracts for property and services without advertising, and makes any determinations and decisions required in connection therewith ....
“(b) Makes purchases and contracts for property and services by advertising, and determines that the rejection of all bids is in the public interest.
“(c) Determines the type of negotiated contract which will promote the best interests of the Government . . . .”
The Regulation governing the Commissioner’s functions enjoins him:
“to evaluate mass movements of household goods and personal effects and, when feasible, to negotiate with carriers to effect the most economical basis for the movement of such household goods and personal effects.”
“Except when the exigency of the movement precludes such action, all requests for rates for mass movements . . . shall be made by formal advertising [for bids] . . . .”
That Regulation is plainly within, the purview of the Act, which provides in § 302, as amended, 41 U. S. C. § 252, as follows:
“All purchases and contracts for property and services shall be made by advertising, as provided in section 253 of this title, except that such purchases and contracts may be negotiated by the agency head without advertising if—
“(2) the public exigency will not admit of the delay incident to advertising;
“(10) for property or services for which it is impracticable to secure competition;
“(14) for property or services as to which the agency head determines that bid prices after advertising therefor are not reasonable ... or have not been independently arrived at in open competition: Provided, That ... (B) the negotiated price is the lowest negotiated price offered by any responsible supplier.....”
Section 253 (b) provides that awards shall be made “to that responsible bidder whose bid . . . will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered.” Moreover, 40 U. S. C. § 481 (a)(4) directs GSA to represent executive agencies “in negotiations with carriers” with respect to transportation “for the use of executive agencies.” Transfer of household goods of federal employees, whether military or civilian, has been made by Congress a charge against federal funds when employees are transferred from one official station to another.
It is said that the 1949 Act gives the Administrator power to deal only with whoever has authority to make rate decisions, whether it be the carrier on interstate shipments or the state regulatory agency on intrastate shipments. 40 U. S. C. § 481 does indeed provide:
“The Administrator shall, in respect of executive agencies, and to the extent that he determines that so doing is advantageous to the Government in terms of economy, efficiency, or service, and with due regard to the program activities of the agencies concerned—
“(4) with respect to transportation and other public utility services for the use of executive agencies, represent such agencies in negotiations with carriers and other public utilities and in proceedings involving carriers or other public utilities before Federal and State regulatory bodies . . . (Emphasis added.)
But that provision does not say that state-fixed rates govern the federal procurement official unless he can get them changed. It is comparable to § 22 of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U. S. C. § 22, which allows the United States to obtain preferred rates. “The object of the section was to settle, beyond doubt, that the preferential treatment of certain classes of shippers and travelers . . . is not necessarily prohibited.” Nashville R. Co. v. Tennessee, 262 U. S. 318, 323. And see Southern R. Co. v. United States, 322 U. S. 72; United States v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 352 U. S. 158, 174.
By § 481 (a) the Administrator is authorized to seek before state agencies preferential treatment for federal shipments. But there is not a word suggesting that, failing in that regard, he is bound to accept the state-fixed rate. The Act and the Regulation speak too clearly in terms of the “lowest over-all cost” to the Government, either through competitive bidding or negotiation with carriers, for us to conclude that the only relief against state fixed rates is an administrative remedy before the state agency either through negotiation or litigation. Congress has not tied the hands of the federal procurement officials so tightly.
We have then-a federal procurement policy of negotiated rates for transporting household goods of federal employees — a policy as clear and as explicit as the federal policy for transporting military supplies involved in Public Utilities Comm’n of California v. United States, supra. The Georgia policy, which is opposed to this federal policy, must accordingly give way. For as we noted in Public Utilities Comm’n of California v. United States, supra, at 544, a State is without power by reason of the Supremacy Clause to provide the conditions on which the Federal Government will effectuate its policies. Whether the federal policy is a wise one is for the Congress and the Chief Executive to determine. See Perkins v. Lukens Steel Co., 310 U. S. 113, 127 et seq. Once they have spoken it is our function to enforce their will.
Beversed.
See Ga. Household Goods Tariff No. 1-B, GPSC-MF No. 3, Rules 8 and 15. The latter provides in part that “Property of two or more families or establishments will not be accepted for transportation as a single shipment.’'
Promulgated March 1958, as amended to October 10,1960.
Id., c. 101, ¶ 101001.
Joint Travel Regulations, c. 8, April 1, 1959, as amended to October 1, 1961, ¶ 8001.
Military Traffic Management Regulation, amended to November 5, 1959, c. 201, ¶ 201001 (b).
Id., ¶201001 (k).
General Services Adm. Order, ADM 5450.3, change 4, ¶ 141a; TPS 7460.1, Attachment, ¶ 3, March 15, 1960.
ADM, supra, ¶ 141b; TPS 7460.1, ¶ 4.
Id., ¶ 142a.
TPS 7460.1, ¶ 3.
Id., Attachment, ¶ 7b (1).
63 Stat. 813, as amended, 37 U. S. C. §253 (c).
60 Stat. 806, as amended, 5 U. S. C. § 73b-1.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 4(a) of the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA or Act), 44 Stat. (part 2) 1426, 33 U. S. C. § 904(a), makes general contractors responsible for obtaining workers’ compensation coverage for the employees of subcontractors under certain circumstances. The question presented by this case is when, if ever, these general contractors are entitled to the immunity from tort liability provided in §5(a) of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 905(a).
Petitioner Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) is a government agency created in 1966 by the District of Columbia, the State of Maryland, and the Commonwealth of Virginia with the consent of the United States Congress. WMATA is charged with the construction and operation of a rapid transit system (Metro) for the District of Columbia and the surrounding metropolitan region. Under the interstate compact that governs its existence, WMATA is authorized to hire subcontractors to work on various aspects of the Metro construction project. Since 1966 WMATA has engaged several hundred subcontractors, who in turn have employed more than a thousand sub-subcontractors.
Of the multifarious problems WMATA faced in constructing the Metro system, one has been ensuring that workers engaged in the project in the District of Columbia are covered by workers’ compensation insurance. Under §4(a) of the LHWCA, general contractors “shall be liable for. and shall secure the payment of [workers’] compensation to employees of the subcontractor unless the subcontractor has secured such payment.” 33 U. S. C. § 904(a). A company “secures” compensation either by purchasing an insurance policy or by obtaining permission from the Secretary of Labor to self-insure and make compensation payments directly to injured workers. 33 U. S. C. § 932(a). The effect of §4(a) is to require general contractors like WMATA to obtain workers’ compensation coverage for the employees of subcontractors that have not secured their own compensation. See infra, at 938.
During the initial phase of Metro construction, which ran from 1969 to 1971, WMATA relied upon its subcontractors to purchase workers’ compensation insurance for subcontractor employees. However, when the second phase of construction began, WMATA abandoned this policy in favor of a more centralized insurance program. As a financial matter, WMATA discovered that it could reduce the cost of workers’ compensation insurance if it, rather than its numerous subcontractors, arranged for insurance. Practical considerations also influenced WMATA’s decision to change its workers’ compensation program. Requiring subcontractors to purchase their own insurance apparently hampered WMATA’s affirmative action program, because many minority subcontractors were unable to afford or lacked sufficient business experience to qualify for their own workers’ compensation insurance policies. Moreover, as the number of Metro subcontractors grew, it became increasingly burdensome for WMATA to monitor insurance coverage at every tier of the Metro hierarchy. Periodically, subcontractors’ insurance would expire or their insurance companies would go out of business without WMATA’s being informed. In such cases, a group of employees went uninsured, and WMATA technically breached its statutory duty to ensure that these employees were covered by compensation plans.
For all of these reasons, WMATA elected to assume responsibility for securing workers’ compensation insurance for all Metro construction employees. Effective July 31, 1971, WMATA purchased a comprehensive “wrap-up” policy from the Lumberman’s Mutual Casualty Co. Under the policy, WMATA paid a single premium and, in return, Lumberman’s Mutual agreed to make compensation payments for any injuries suffered by workers employed at Metro construction sites and compensable under the relevant workers’ compensation regimes. After arranging for this “wrap-up” coverage, WMATA informed potential subcontractors that WMATA would “for the benefit of contractors and others, procure and pay premiums” for workers’ compensation insurance and that the cost of securing such compensation insurance need no longer be included in bids submitted for Metro construction jobs. App. 104, 106. Subcontractors, however, were also advised that, if they deemed it necessary, they could “at their own expense and effort” obtain their own workers’ compensation insurance. Id., at 104. Once subcontractors were awarded Metro contracts, Lumberman’s Mutual issued certificates of insurance confirming that the subcontractor’s employees were covered by WMATA’s policy. On these certificates, both WMATA and the subcontractor were listed as parties to whom the insurance was issued. Id., at 225.
Respondents are employees of subcontractors engaged in the Metro project. Each respondent filed a compensation claim for work-related injuries. Most of these claims alleged respiratory injuries caused by high levels of silica dust and other industrial pollutants at Metro sites. None of respondents’ employers had secured its own workers’ compensation insurance, and respondents’ claims were therefore handled under the Lumberman’s Mutual policy purchased by WMATA. Lumberman’s Mutual paid five of the respondents lump-sum compensation awards in complete settlement of their claims. The remaining two respondents received partial awards from Lumberman’s Mutual.
The instant litigation arose when respondents attempted to supplement their workers’ compensation awards by bringing tort actions against WMATA. These suits, which were filed before five different judges in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, involved the same work-related incidents that had given rise to respondents’ LHWCA claims. In each of the actions, WMATA moved for summary judgment on the ground that it was immune from tort liability for such claims under § 5(a) of the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C. § 905(a). In all of the District Court cases, WMATA’s motions for summary judgment were granted, each judge agreeing that, by purchasing workers’ compensation insurance for the employees of its subcontractors, WMATA had earned §5(a)’s immunity from tort suits brought for work-related injuries.
In a consolidated appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed. Johnson v. Bechtel Associates Professional Corp., 230 U. S. App. D. C. 297, 717 F. 2d 574 (1983). The Court of Appeals reasoned that § 5(a) of the LHWCA grants general contractors immunity from tort actions by subcontractor employees only if the general contractor has secured compensation insurance in satisfaction of a statutory duty. According to the Court of Appeals, WMATA had not acted under such a duty in this case. Had respondents’ employers actually refused to secure the worker’s compensation insurance, then WMATA as general contractor would have had what the Court of Appeals considered a statutory duty to secure insurance for respondents. However, WMATA never gave respondents’ employers the opportunity to default on their statutory obligations to secure compensation; WMATA pre-empted its subcontractors through its unilateral decision to purchase a “wrap-up” policy covering all subcontractor employees. The Court of Appeals concluded that, by pre-empting its subcontractors, WMATA acted voluntarily, and was therefore not entitled to §5(a)’s immunity. We granted WMATA’s petition for a writ of certiorari, 464 U. S. 1068 (1984), and we now reverse.
I — I I — I
Workers compensation statutes, such as the LHWCA, “provide for compensation, in the stead of liability, for a class of employees.” S. Rep. No. 973, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., 16 (1926). These statutes reflect a legislated compromise between the interests of employees and the concerns of employers. On both sides, there is a quid pro quo. In return for the guarantee of compensation, the employees surrender common-law remedies against their employers for work-related injuries. For the employer, the reward for securing compensation is immunity from employee tort suits. See Morrison-Knudsen Construction Co. v. Director, OWCP, 461 U. S. 624, 636 (1983); Potomac Electric Power Co. v. Director, OWCP, 449 U. S. 268, 282, and n. 24 (1980); see also 2A A. Larson, Law of Workmen’s Compensation § 72.31(c) (1982).
In the case of the LHWCA, §4(a)(b) and §5(a) codify the compromise at the heart of workers’ compensation. The relevant portions of these provisions read as follows:
“Sec. 4. (a) Every employer shall be liable for and shall secure the payment to his employees of the compensation payable under sections 7, 8, 9. In the case of an employer who is a subcontractor, the contractor shall be liable for and shall secure the payment of such compensation to employees of the subcontractor unless the subcontractor has secured such payment.
“(b) Compensation shall be payable irrespective of fault as a cause for the injury.” 44 Stat. (part 2) 1426, 33 U. S. C. §§ 904(a), (b).
“Sec. 5. (a) The liability of an employer prescribed in section 4 shall be exclusive and in place of all other liability of such employer to the employee . . . , except that if an employer fails to secure payment of compensation as required by this Act, an injured employee . . . may elect to claim compensation under this Act, or to maintain an action at law or in admiralty for damages . . . .” 86 Stat. 1263, 33 U. S. C. § 905(a).
The current case stems from an ambiguity in the wording of these sections. It is unclear how §5(a)’s grant of immunity applies to the contractors mentioned in §4(a). This interpretative question divides into two distinct inquiries. First, does § 5(a)’s grant of immunity ever extend to general contractors? And second, if § 5(a) can extend to general contractors, what must a contractor do to qualify for §5(a)’s immunity? We will consider these questions in turn.
A
The language of § 5(a)’s grant of immunity does not effortlessly embrace contractors. Section 5(a) speaks in terms of “an employer” and, at least as far as the employees of subcontractors are concerned, a general contractor does not act as an employer.
A few courts have accepted a literal reading of the language of §5(a) and analogous state immunity provisions. For instance, in Fiore v. Royal Painting Co., 398 So. 2d 863, 865 (1981), a Florida appellate court concluded: “Only the actual employer . . . may get under the immunity umbrella of [33 U. S. C.] § 905.” Similarly, in interpreting an almost identical provision of New York workers’ compensation law, the New York Court of Appeals has reasoned that tort immunity should not apply to contractors because “‘[t]he word “employee” denotes a contractual relationship’” and a contractor never is contractually bound to the employees of a subcontractor. Sweezey v. Arc Electrical Construction Co., 295 N. Y. 306, 310-311, 67 N. E. 2d 369, 370-371 (1946) (quoting Passarelli Columbia Engineering and Contracting Co., 270 N. Y. 68, 75, 200 N. E. 583, 585 (1936)).
The more widely held view, however, is that the term “employer” as used in § 5(a) has a statutory definition somewhat broader than that word’s ordinary meaning. The majority of courts considering the issue, including the Court of Appeals in this case, have concluded that § 5(a)’s tort immunity can extend to general contractors, at least when the contractor has fulfilled its responsibilities to secure compensation for subcontractor employees in accordance with the requirements of §4(a). See, e. g., Johnson v. Bechtel Associates Professional Corp., supra, at 302, 717 F. 2d, at 581; Thomas v. George Hyman Construction Co., 173 F. Supp. 381, 383 (DC 1959); DiNicola v. George Hyman Construction Co., 407 A. 2d 670, 674 (D. C. 1979).
In choosing between these conflicting interpretations of § 5(a), we are predisposed in favor of the majority view that tort immunity should extend to contractors. This position is presumptively the better view because it is more consistent with the compromise underlying the LHWCA. The reward for securing compensation and assuming strict liability for worker-related injuries has traditionally been immunity from tort liability. See supra, at 931-932. “Since the general contractor is [by the operation of provisions like §4(a) of the LHWCA], in effect, made the employer for the purposes of the compensation statute, it is obvious that he should enjoy the regular immunity of an employer from third-party suit when the facts are such that he could be made liable for compensation.” 2A Larson, supra, § 72.31(a), at 14-112.
Our only difficulty in adopting the majority view is that it requires a slightly strained reading of the word “employer.” As we have repeatedly admonished courts faced with technical questions arising under the LHWCA, “the wisest course is to adhere closely to what Congress has written.” Rodriguez v. Compass Shipping Co., 451 U. S. 596, 617 (1981); see Director, OWCP v. Rasmussen, 440 U. S. 29, 47 (1979). Absent convincing evidence of contrary congressional intent, we are reluctant to depart from this sound canon of statutory construction. However, upon reviewing the use of the term “employer” elsewhere in the Act, we find ample evidence to infer that Congress intended the term “employer” to include general contractors as well as direct employers.
The second sentence of §4(a) provides that “unless the subcontractor has secured [worker’s] compensation,” the contractor “shall secure the payment of such compensation.” This section clearly assumes that contractors have the capacity to secure compensation for subcontractor employees. Securing compensation is a term of art in this area of law. Under the LHWCA, compensation can be secured only through the procedures outlined in § 32(a) of the LHWCA. See supra, at 928. However, § 32(a) speaks only of insurance being secured by an “employer.” 33 U. S. C. § 932(a). Because the LHWCA requires that contractors secure compensation for subcontractor employees under certain circumstances, the term “employer” as used in § 32(a) must be read to encompass general contractors.
Similarly, under § 4(a), contractors are made liable for payment of “compensation payable under sections 7, 8, and 9.” These three sections refer exclusively to employers’ making payments; they contain no references to contractors. See 33 U. S. C. §§ 907(a), 908(f). For purposes of these sections as well, contractors would appear to qualify as statutory employers.
Further evidence that contractors can be employers under the LHWCA is found in § 33(b), which governs the assignment of an injured worker’s right to recover damages from third parties to the worker’s “employer.” 33 U. S. C. § 933(b); see Rodriguez v. Compass Shipping Co., supra. It is difficult to believe that Congress did not intend for contractors making compensation payments under §4(a) to receive assignments under § 33(b) or that Congress wanted the assignment to run to a worker’s actual employer, who may never have secured any compensation insurance. Accordingly, it seems highly probable that “employer” as used in § 33(b) also covers contractors.
Finally, there are the enforcement provisions of § 38 of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 938. It is generally assumed that contractors who fail to comply with the requirements of § 4(a) may be liable for § 38’s criminal penalties. App. 263-265, 299. This assumption seems reasonable, for, if contractors are not covered by §38, then the LHWCA contains no apparent mechanism for enforcing the second sentence of § 4(a). But, once again, §38 refers only to “[a]ny employer required to secure the payment of compensation under this Act.” If contractors are truly liable under §38, then contractors must be considered statutory employers.
From the foregoing examples, it is clear that Congress must have meant for the term “employer” in other sections of the LHWCA to include contractors. It is reasonable to infer that Congress intended the term “employer” to have that same broad meaning in § 5(a). This is particularly so inasmuch as granting tort immunity to contractors that comply with §4(a) is consistent with the quid pro quo underlying workers’ compensation statutes. For both of these reasons, we adopt the majority view that general contractors can be embraced by the term “employer” as used in § 5(a).
B
Having concluded that § 5(a) can cover general contractors, we now consider the conditions under which contractors may qualify for § 5(a)’s immunity. The Court of Appeals took the view that to qualify for § 5(a)’s grant of immunity, “WMATA must first require its subcontractors to purchase the insurance. It is only by providing compensation insurance when the subcontractors fail to do so that WMATA obtains immunity as a statutory employer.” 230 U. S. App. D. C., at 303, 717 F. 2d, at 582 (emphasis in original). This view— that § 5(a) covers general contractors only if the contractor secures compensation after the subcontractor actually defaults — is consistent with the opinions of several other federal courts. See, e. g., Probst v. Southern Stevedoring Co., 379 F. 2d 763, 767 (CA5 1967); Thomas v. George Hyman Construction, Co., 173 F. Supp., at 383.
The Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the LHWCA rests on the notion that general contractors are entitled to the reward of tort immunity only when the contractor has been statutorily required to secure compensation. In essence, the Court of Appeals would withhold the quid of tort immunity until the contractor had been legally bound to provide the quo of securing compensation. Though plausible given the logic of workers’ compensation statutes, the Court of Appeals’ view is difficult to square with the language of the LHWCA.
Section 5(a) does not say that employers are immune from tort liability if they secure compensation in accordance with the Act. The section provides just the obverse — that employers shall be immune from liability unless the employer “fails to secure payment of compensation as required by this Act.” Immunity is not cast as a reward for employers that secure compensation; rather, loss of immunity is levied as a penalty on those that neglect to meet their statutory obligations.
Since we have already determined that contractors qualify as employers under § 5(a), the most natural reading of § 5(a) would offer general contractors tort immunity so long as they do not fail to meet their statutory obligations to secure compensation. Under § 4(a), a contractor “shall be liable for and shall secure [compensation] unless the subcontractor has secured such payment.” Contrary to the Court of Appeals’ reading of the Act, this provision contains no suggestion that the contractor must make a demand on its subcontractors before securing compensation or that the contractor should forestall securing compensation until the subcontractor has affirmatively defaulted. Rather, the section simply places on general contractors a contingent obligation to secure compensation whenever a subcontractor has failed to do so. Taken together, §§4(a) and 5(a) would appear to grant a general contractor immunity from tort suits brought by subcontractor employees unless the contractor has neglected to secure workers’ compensation coverage after the subcontractor failed to do so.
Besides being faithful to the plain language of the statute, this reading furthers the policy underlying the LHWCA, which is to ensure that workers are not deprived workers’ compensation coverage. If the benefits of securing compensation insurance — that is, tort immunity — did not accrue to contractors until subcontractors had affirmatively elected to default, then contractors would be reluctant to incur the considerable expense of securing compensation insurance until they were absolutely convinced that subcontractors were in statutory default. Inevitably, such a rule would create gaps in workers’ compensation coverage — a result Congress clearly wanted to avoid. The reason for passing the LHWCA was to bring one of the last remaining groups of uninsured workers under the umbrella of workers’ compensation.
A further argument in favor of accepting the natural reading of §§ 4(a) and 5(a) is that it saves courts from the onerous task of determining when subcontractors have defaulted on their own statutory obligations. If a contractor’s tort immunity were contingent upon an affirmative default on the part of subcontractors, then every time a subcontractor employee sued the general contractor after recovering compensation under the contractor’s compensation policy, the contractor would be forced to establish that the worker’s direct employer had been given a reasonable chance to secure compensation for itself and then had failed to respond to the opportunity. Nothing in the LHWCA or its legislative history suggests that Congress intended to unleash such a difficult set of factual inquiries. And it is unlikely that Congress would silently impose such a barrier to contractor immunity.
As the natural reading of §§ 4(a) and 5(a) comports with the policies underlying the LHWCA and is consistent with the legislative history of the Act, there is no cause not to “adhere closely to what Congress has written.” Rodriguez v. Compass Shipping Co., 451 U. S., at 617. We conclude, therefore, that §§4(a) and 5(a) of the LHWCA render a general contractor immune from tort liability provided the contractor has not failed to honor its statutory duty to secure compensation for subcontractor employees when the subcontractor itself has not secured such compensation. So long as general contractors have not defaulted on this statutory obligation to secure back-up compensation for subcontractor employees, they qualify for § 5(a)’s grant of immunity.
HH HH 1 — 1
Applying our interpretation of § 4(a) and § 5(a) to the facts of this case, we conclude that WMATA was entitled to immunity from the tort actions brought by respondents. Far from “failing] to secure payment of compensation as required by [the LHWCA],” 33 U. S. C. § 905(a), WMATA acted above and beyond its statutory obligations. In order to prevent subcontractor employees from going uninsured, WMATA went to the considerable effort and expense of purchasing “wrap-up” insurance on behalf of all of its subcontractors. Rather than waiting to secure its own compensation until subcontractors failed to secure, WMATA guaranteed that every Metro subcontractor would satisfy and keep satisfied its primary statutory obligation to obtain worker’s compensation coverage. Due to the comprehensiveness of its “wrap-up” policy, WMATA’s statutory duty to secure back-up compensation for its subcontractor employees has not been triggered since the second phase of Metro construction began, and WMATA has therefore had no opportunity to default on its statutory obligations established in § 4(a). Under these circumstances, it is clear that WMATA remains entitled to § 5(a)’s grant of tort immunity.
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.
See Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Interstate Compact, Pub. L. 89-774, 80 Stat. 1324; D. C. Code § 1-2431 (1981); 1965 Md. Laws, ch. 869; 1966 Va. Acts, eh. 2.
See 80 Stat. 1329.
For the remainder of this opinion, the term “subcontractor” will be used to include both subcontractors and sub-subcontractors.
District of Columbia Code §36-501 (1973) incorporates the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq., to cover employees “carrying on any employment in the District of Columbia.” In the other two jurisdictions in which WMATA operates, state statutes place general contractors under similar duties to ensure that subcontractor employees are covered by worker’s compensation insurance. See Md. Ann. Code, Art. 101 et seq. (1979 and Supp. 1983); Va. Code §65.1-30 et seq. (1980).
Despite contrary findings by the District Courts and Court of Appeals, respondents persist in arguing that WMATA is not a general contractor for purposes of the LHWCA. Whether WMATA serves as the general contractor for the entire Metro construction project turns on a factual inquiry into WMATA’s responsibility for supervising project construction. Because the lower courts’ findings have ample support in the record, see, e. g., App. 163-184, 276-280, we accept their conclusion that WMATA is a general contractor for purposes of § 4(a) of the LHWCA. See Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613 (1982).
As a result of its federal funding, WMATA is charged with ensuring that minority business enterprises have a full opportunity to participate in the Metro construction project. See Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, § 12, 49 U. S. C. § 1608(f); 49 CFR §23.1 et seq. (1983).
WMATA’s own employees were not covered by the Lumberman’s Mutual policy. For these employees, WMATA has qualified as a self-insurer under § 32(a)(1) of the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C. § 932(a)(1).
1922 N. Y. Laws, ch. 615, §56; see H. R. Rep. No. 1190, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1926) (“The [LHWCA] follows in the main the New York State compensation law . . .”).
As discussed below, courts have differed as to what it means for a general contractor to secure compensation in accordance with § 4(a). See infra, at 936-940.
probst v. Southern Stevedoring Co., 379 F. 2d 763, 767 (1967), the Fifth Circuit characterized a contractor’s duty to secure compensation for subcontractor employees as “secondary, guaranty-like liability.” See also Johnson v. Bechtel Associates Professional Corp., 230 U. S. App. D. C. 297, 305, 717 F. 2d 574, 582 (1983). This characterization is apt to the extent that general contractors do not have to secure compensation for these workers “unless the subcontractor” fails to provide insurance. 33 U. S. C. § 904(a). However, this description of a contractor’s duty in no way diminishes the fact that, once a statutory obligation to secure compensation attaches, the contractor must qualify as an “employer” under §§ 7, 8(f), 32(a), 33(b), and 38 in order for its obligation to make any sense under the Act.
See supra, at 931-932. In any workers’ compensation scheme, the onus of securing compensation falls in the first instance on a worker’s immediate employer, even when that employer is a subcontractor. In order to ensure that contractors do not prematurely relieve subcontractors of their responsibility for securing compensation, Congress might have tried to discourage general contractors from securing compensation unless and until a subcontractor actually defaulted on its own statutory obligation. Indeed, several States have adopted workers’ compensation statutes with such a phased obligation to secure compensation. See, e. g., Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-116 (1978); Ind. Code § 22-3-2-14 (1982). Under these regimes, it might make sense to adopt the Court of Appeals’ view that tort immunity should extend only to those general contractors that secure compensation after a subcontractor defaults on its obligation.
In endorsing the LHWCA, the House Judiciary Committee recommended that “this humanitarian legislation be speedily enacted into law so that this class of workers, practically the only class without the benefit of workmen’s compensation, may be afforded this protection, which has come to be almost universally recognized as necessary in the interest of social justice between employer and employee.” H. R. Rep. No. 1190, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1926); accord, S. Rep. No. 973, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., 16 (1926).
The absence of discussion is made more telling because of industry objections to other provisions in the original LHWCA that called for companies to monitor the insurance coverage of other firms. In § 38 of the 1927 Act, Congress required that before employing a stevedoring firm, the owner had to obtain a certificate proving that the firm was insured in compliance with the Act. 44 Stat. (part 2) 1442. The administrative ramifications of this provision sparked considerable debate during congressional hearings. See, e. g., Compensation for Employees in Certain Maritime Employments: Hearings on S. 3170 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., 48, 98, 101 (1926).
Although the Court of Appeals left the question open, see 230 U. S. App. D. C., at 306, n. 16, 717 F. 2d, at 583, n. 16, the uncontested facts of this case establish that these subcontractors fulfilled their statutory obligation to secure compensation. WMATA bought its “wrap-up” policy “for the benefit of” the contractors. See supra, at 929-930. Respondents’ employers contributed to WMATA’s “wrap-up” policy by reducing the bids they submitted for work on the Metro project. Upon being awarded their jobs, these subcontractors received a certificate of insurance, naming them as insured parties. By thus participating in WMATA's “wrap-up” program, these subcontractors “in substance if not in form” secured compensation for purposes of § 32(a)(1) of the LHWCA. 2A A. Larson, Law of Workmen’s Compensation §67.22, pp. 12-83 (1982); accord, Edwards v. Bechtel Associates Professional Corp., 466 A. 2d 436 (D. C.), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 995 (1983). Because these subcontractors are also “employers” for purposes of § 5(a) and because they have not failed to secure the compensation required by the Act, they would also appear entitled to immunity from tort liability.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The development of the automobile gave Americans unprecedented freedom to travel, but exacted a high price for enhanced mobility. Since 1929, motor vehicles have been the leading cause of accidental deaths and injuries in the United States. In 1982, 46,300 Americans died in motor vehicle accidents and hundreds of thousands more were maimed and injured. While a consensus exists that the current loss of life on our highways is unacceptably high, improving safety does not admit to easy solution. In 1966, Congress decided that at least part of the answer lies in improving the design and safety features of the vehicle itself. But much of the technology for building safer cars was undeveloped or untested. Before changes in automobile design could be mandated, the effectiveness of these changes had to be studied, their costs examined, and public acceptance considered. This task called for considerable expertise and Congress responded by enacting the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 (Act), 80 Stat. 718, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1381 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V). The Act, created for the purpose of “reducing] traffic accidents and deaths and injuries to persons resulting from traffic accidents,” 15 U. S. C. § 1381, directs the Secretary of Transportation or his delegate to issue motor vehicle safety standards that “shall be practicable, shall meet the need for motor vehicle safety, and shall be stated in objective terms.” 15 U. S. C. § 1392(a) (1976 ed., Supp. V). In issuing these standards, the Secretary is directed to consider “relevant available motor vehicle safety data,” whether the proposed standard “is reasonable, practicable and appropriate” for the particular type of motor vehicle, and the “extent to which such standards will contribute to carrying out the purposes” of the Act. 15 U. S. C. §§ 1392(f)(1), (3), (4).
The Act also authorizes judicial review under the provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. §706, of all “orders establishing, amending, or revoking a Federal motor vehicle safety standard,” 15 U. S. C. § 1392(b). Under this authority, we review today whether NHTSA acted arbitrarily and capriciously in revoking the requirement in Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 that new motor vehicles produced after September 1982 be equipped with passive restraints to protect the safety of the occupants of the vehicle in the event of a collision. Briefly summarized, we hold that the agency failed to present an adequate basis and explanation for rescinding the passive restraint requirement and that the agency must either consider the matter further or adhere to or amend Standard 208 along lines which its analysis supports. •
I
The regulation whose rescission is at issue bears a complex and convoluted history. Over the course of approximately 60 rulemaking notices, the requirement has been imposed, amended, rescinded, reimposed, and now rescinded again.
As originally issued by the Department of Transportation in 1967, Standard 208 simply required the installation of seatbelts in all automobiles. 32 Fed. Reg. 2415. It soon became apparent that the level of seatbelt use was too low to reduce traffic injuries to an acceptable level. The Department therefore began consideration of “passive occupant restraint systems” — devices that do not depend for their effectiveness upon any action taken by the occupant except that necessary to operate the vehicle. Two types of automatic crash protection emerged: automatic seatbelts and airbags. The automatic seatbelt is a traditional safety belt, which when fastened to the interior of the door remains attached without impeding entry or exit from the vehicle, and deploys automatically without any action on the part of the passenger. The airbag is an inflatable device concealed in the dashboard and steering column. It automatically inflates when a sensor indicates that deceleration forces from an accident have exceeded a preset minimum, then rapidly deflates to dissipate those forces. The lifesaving potential of these devices was immediately recognized, and in 1977, after substantial on-the-road experience with both devices, it was estimated by NHTSA that passive restraints could prevent approximately 12,000 deaths and over 100,000 serious injuries annually. 42 Fed. Reg. 34298.
In 1969, the Department formally proposed a standard requiring the installation of passive restraints, 34 Fed. Reg. 11148, thereby commencing a lengthy series of proceedings. In 1970, the agency revised Standard 208 to include passive protection requirements, 35 Fed. Reg. 16927, and in 1972, the agency amended the Standard to require full passive protection for all front seat occupants of vehicles manufactured after August 15, 1975. 37 Fed. Reg. 3911. In the interim, vehicles built between August 1973 and August 1975 were to carry either passive restraints or lap and shoulder belts coupled with an “ignition interlock” that would prevent starting the vehicle if the belts were not connected. On review, the agency’s decision to require passive restraints was found to be supported by “substantial evidence” and upheld. Chrysler Corp. v. Department of Transportation, 472 F. 2d 659 (CA6 1972).
In preparing for the upcoming model year, most car makers chose the “ignition interlock” option, a decision which was highly unpopular, and led Congress to amend the Act to prohibit a motor vehicle safety standard from requiring or permitting compliance by means of an ignition interlock or a continuous buzzer designed to indicate that safety belts were not in use. Motor Vehicle and Schoolbus Safety Amendments of 1974, Pub. L. 93-492, §109, 88 Stat. 1482, 15 U. S. C. § 1410b(b). The 1974 Amendments also provided that any safety standard that could be satisfied by a system other than seatbelts would have to be submitted to Congress where it could be vetoed by concurrent resolution of both Houses. 15 U. S. C. § 1410b(b)(2).
The effective date for mandatory passive restraint systems was extended for a year until August 31,1976. 40 Fed. Reg. 16217 (1975); id., at 33977. But in June 1976, Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman, Jr., initiated a new rulemaking on the issue, 41 Fed. Reg. 24070. After hearing testimony and reviewing written comments, Coleman extended the optional alternatives indefinitely and suspended the passive restraint requirement. Although he found passive restraints technologically and economically feasible, the Secretary based his decision on the expectation that there would be widespread public resistance to the new systems. He instead proposed a demonstration project involving up to 500,000 cars installed with passive restraints, in order to smooth the way for public acceptance of mandatory passive restraints at a later date. Department of Transportation, The Secretary’s Decision Concerning Motor Vehicle Occupant Crash Protection (Dec. 6, 1976), App. 2068.
Coleman’s successor as Secretary of Transportation disagreed. Within months of assuming office, Secretary Brock Adams decided that the demonstration project was unnecessary. He issued a new mandatory passive restraint regulation, known as Modified Standard 208. 42 Fed. Reg. 34289 (1977); 49 CFR § 571.208 (1978). The Modified Standard mandated the phasing in of passive restraints beginning with large cars in model year 1982 and extending to all cars by model year 1984. The two principal systems that would satisfy the Standard were airbags and passive belts; the choice of which system to install was left to the manufacturers. In Pacific Legal Foundation v. Department of Transportation, 193 U. S. App. D. C. 184, 593 F. 2d 1338, cert. denied, 444 U. S. 830 (1979), the Court of Appeals upheld Modified Standard 208 as a rational, nonarbitrary regulation consistent with the agency’s mandate under the Act. The Standard also survived scrutiny by Congress, which did not exercise its authority under the legislative veto provision of the 1974 Amendments.
Over the next several years, the automobile industry geared up to comply with Modified Standard 208. As late as July 1980, NHTSA reported:
“On the road experience in thousands of vehicles equipped with air bags and automatic safety belts has confirmed agency estimates of the life-saving and injury-preventing benefits of such systems. When all cars are equipped with automatic crash protection systems, each year an estimated 9,000 more lives will be saved, and tens of thousands of serious injuries will be prevented.” NHTSA, Automobile Occupant Crash Protection, Progress Report No. 3, p. 4; App. in No. 81-2220 (CADC), p. 1627 (hereinafter App.).
In February 1981, however, Secretary of Transportation Andrew Lewis reopened the rulemaking due to changed economic circumstances and, in particular, the difficulties of the automobile industry. 46 Fed. Reg. 12033. Two months later, the agency ordered a one-year delay in the application of the Standard to large cars, extending the deadline to September 1982, id., at 21172, and at the same time, proposed the possible rescission of the entire Standard. Id., at 21205. After receiving written comments and holding public hearings, NHTSA issued a final rule (Notice 25) that rescinded the passive restraint requirement contained in Modified Standard 208.
II
In a statement explaining the rescission, NHTSA maintained that it was no longer able to find, as it had in 1977, that the automatic restraint requirement would produce significant safety benefits. Notice 25, id., at 53419. This judgment reflected not a change of opinion on the effectiveness of the technology, but a change in plans by the automobile industry. In 1977, the agency had assumed that airbags would be installed in 60% of all new cars and automatic seatbelts in 40%. By 1981 it became apparent that automobile manufacturers planned to install the automatic seatbelts in approximately 99% of the new cars. For this reason, the lifesaving potential of airbags would not be realized. Moreover, it now appeared that the overwhelming majority of passive belts planned to be installed by manufacturers could be detached easily and left that way permanently. Passive belts, once detached, then required “the same type of affirmative action that is the stumbling block to obtaining high usage levels of manual belts.” Id., at 53421. For this reason, the agency concluded that there was no longer a basis for reliably predicting that the Standard would lead to any significant increased usage of restraints at all.
In view of the possibly minimal safety benefits, the automatic restraint requirement no longer was reasonable or practicable in the agency’s view. The requirement would require approximately $1 billion to implement and the agency did not believe it would be reasonable to impose such substantial costs on manufacturers and consumers without more adequate assurance that sufficient safety benefits would accrue. In addition, NHTSA concluded that automatic restraints might have an adverse effect on the public’s attitude toward safety. Given the high expense and limited benefits of detachable belts, NHTSA feared that many consumers would regard the Standard as an instance of ineffective regulation, adversely affecting the public’s view of safety regulation and, in particular, “poisoning... popular sentiment toward efforts to improve occupant restraint systems in the future.” Id., at 53424.
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. and the National Association of Independent Insurers filed petitions for review of NHTSA’s rescission of the passive restraint Standard. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the agency’s rescission of the passive restraint requirement was arbitrary and capricious. 220 U. S. App. D. C. 170, 680 F. 2d 206 (1982). While observing that rescission is not unrelated to an agency’s refusal to take action in the first instance, the court concluded that, in this case, NHTSA’s discretion to rescind the passive restraint requirement had been restricted by various forms of congressional “reaction” to the passive restraint issue. It then proceeded to find that the rescission of Standard 208 was arbitrary and capricious for three reasons. First, the court found insufficient as a basis for rescission NHTSA’s conclusion that it could not reliably predict an increase in belt usage under the Standard. The court held that there was insufficient evidence in the record to sustain NHTSA’s position on this issue, and that, “only a well justified refusal to seek more evidence could render rescission non-arbitrary.” Id., at 196, 680 F. 2d, at 232. Second, a majority of the panel concluded that NHTSA inadequately considered the possibility of requiring manufacturers to install nondetachable rather than detachable passive belts. Third, the majority found that the agency acted arbitrarily and capriciously by failing to give any consideration whatever to requiring compliance with Modified Standard 208 by the installation of airbags.
The court allowed NHTSA 30 days in which to submit a schedule for “resolving the questions raised in th[e] opinion.” Id., at 206, 680 F. 2d, at 242. Subsequently, the agency filed a Notice of Proposed Supplemental Rulemaking setting forth a schedule for complying with the court’s mandate. On August 4, 1982, the Court of Appeals issued an order staying the compliance date for the passive restraint requirement until September 1, 1983, and requested NHTSA to inform the court whether that compliance date was achievable. NHTSA informed the court on October 1,1982, that based on representations by manufacturers, it did not appear that practicable compliance could be achieved before September 1985. On November 8, 1982, we granted certiorari, 459 U. S. 987, and on November 18, the Court of Appeals entered an order recalling its mandate.
r-H h-I
Unlike the Court of Appeals, we do not find the appropriate scope of judicial review to be the “most troublesome question” in these cases. Both the Act and the 1974 Amendments concerning occupant crash protection standards indicate that motor vehicle safety standards are to be promulgated under the informal rulemaking procedures of the Administrative Procedure Act. 5 U. S. C. § 553. The agency’s action in promulgating such standards therefore may be set aside if found to be “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 5 U. S. C. § 706(2)(A); Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, 401 U. S. 402, 414 (1971); Bowman Transportation, Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 419 U. S. 281 (1974). We believe that the rescission or modification of an occupant-protection standard is subject to the same test. Section 103(b) of the Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1392(b), states that the procedural and judicial review provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act “shall apply to all orders establishing, amending, or revoking a Federal motor vehicle safety standard,” and suggests no difference in the scope of judicial review depending upon the nature of the agency’s action.
Petitioner Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association (MVMA) disagrees, contending that the rescission of an agency rule should be judged by the same standard a court would use to judge an agency’s refusal to promulgate a rule in the first place — a standard petitioner believes considerably narrower than the traditional arbitrary-and-capricious test. We reject this view. The Act expressly equates orders “revoking” and “establishing” safety standards; neither that Act nor the APA suggests that revocations are to be treated as refusals to promulgate standards. Petitioner’s view would render meaningless Congress’ authorization for judicial review of orders revoking safety rules. Moreover, the revocation of an extant regulation is substantially different than a failure to act. Revocation constitutes a reversal of the agency’s former views as to the proper course. A “settled course of behavior embodies the agency’s informed judgment that, by pursuing that course, it will carry out the policies committed to it by Congress. There is, then, at least a presumption that those policies will be carried out best if the settled rule is adhered to.” Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Wichita Bd. of Trade, 412 U. S. 800, 807-808 (1973). Accordingly, an agency changing its course by rescinding a rule is obligated to supply a reasoned analysis for the change beyond that which may be required when an agency does not act in the first instance.
In so holding, we fully recognize that “[rjegulatory agencies do not establish rules of conduct to last forever,” American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 387 U. S. 397, 416 (1967), and that an agency must be given ample latitude to “adapt their rules and policies to the demands of changing circumstances.” Permian Basin Area Rate Cases, 390 U. S. 747, 784 (1968). But the forces of change do not always or necessarily point in the direction of deregulation. In the abstract, there is no more reason to presume that changing circumstances require the rescission of prior action, instead of a revision in or even the extension of current regulation. If Congress established a presumption from which judicial review should start, that presumption — contrary to petitioners’ views — is not against safety regulation, but against changes in current policy that are not justified by the rulemaking record. While the removal of a regulation may not entail the monetary expenditures and other costs of enacting a new standard, and, accordingly, it may be easier for an agency to justify a deregulatory action, the direction in which an agency chooses to move does not alter the standard of judicial review established by law.
The Department of Transportation accepts the applicability of the “arbitrary and capricious” standard. It argues that under this standard, a reviewing court may not set aside an agency rule that is rational, based on consideration of the relevant factors, and within the scope of the authority delegated to the agency by the statute. We do not disagree with this formulation. The scope of review under the “arbitrary and capricious” standard is narrow and a court is not to substitute its judgment for that of the agency. Nevertheless, the agency must examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action including a “rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.” Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U. S. 156, 168 (1962). In reviewing that explanation, we must “consider whether the decision was based on a consideration of the relevant factors and whether there has been a clear error of judgment.” Bowman Transportation, Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., supra, at 285; Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, supra, at 416. Normally, an agency rule would be arbitrary and capricious if the agency has relied on factors which Congress has not intended it to consider, entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem, offered an explanation for its decision that runs counter to the evidence before the agency, or is so implausible that it could not be ascribed to a difference in view or the product of agency expertise. The reviewing court should not attempt itself to make up for such deficiencies; we may not supply a reasoned basis for the agency’s action that the agency itself has not given. SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U. S. 194, 196 (1947). We will, however, “uphold a decision of less than ideal clarity if the agency’s path may reasonably be discerned.” Bowman Transportation, Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., supra, at 286. See also Camp v. Pitts, 411 U. S. 138, 142-143 (1973) (per curiam). For purposes of these cases, it is also relevant that Congress required a record of the rulemaking proceedings to be compiled and submitted to a reviewing court, 15 U. S. C. § 1394, and intended that agency findings under the Act would be supported by “substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole.” S. Rep. No. 1301, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 8 (1966); H. R. Rep. No. 1776, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 21 (1966).
>
The Court of Appeals correctly found that the arbitrary- and-capricious test applied to rescissions of prior agency regulations, but then erred in intensifying the scope of its review based upon its reading of legislative events. It held that congressional reaction to various versions of Standard 208 “raise[d] doubts” that NHTSA’s rescission “necessarily demonstrates an effort to fulfill its statutory mandate,” and therefore the agency was obligated to provide “increasingly clear and convincing reasons” for its action. 220 U. S. App. D. C., at 186, 193, 680 F. 2d, at 222, 229. Specifically, the Court of Appeals found significance in three legislative occurrences:
“In 1974, Congress banned the ignition interlock but did not foreclose NHTSA’s pursuit of a passive restraint standard. In 1977, Congress allowed the standard to take effect when neither of the concurrent resolutions needed for disapproval was passed. In 1980, a majority of each house indicated support for the concept of mandatory passive restraints and a majority of each house supported the unprecedented attempt to require some installation of airbags.” Id., at 192, 680 F. 2d, at 228.
From these legislative acts and nonacts the Court of Appeals derived a “congressional commitment to the concept of automatic crash protection devices for vehicle occupants.” Ibid.
This path of analysis was misguided and the inferences it produced are questionable. It is noteworthy that in this Court respondent State Farm expressly agrees that the post-enactment legislative history of the Act does not heighten the standard of review of NHTSA’s actions. Brief for Respondent State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. 13. State Farm’s concession is well taken for this Court has never suggested that the standard of review is enlarged or diminished by subsequent congressional action. While an agency’s interpretation of a statute may be confirmed or ratified by subsequent congressional failure to change that interpretation, Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U. S. 574, 599-602 (1983); Haig v. Agee, 453 U. S. 280, 291-300 (1981), in the cases before us, even an unequivocal ratification — short of statutory incorporation — of the passive restraint standard would not connote approval or disapproval of an agency’s later decision to rescind the regulation. That decision remains subject to the arbitrary-and-capricious standard.
That we should not be so quick to infer a congressional mandate for passive restraints is confirmed by examining the postenactment legislative events cited by the Court of Appeals. Even were we inclined to rely on inchoate legislative action, the inferences to be drawn fail to suggest that NHTSA acted improperly in rescinding Standard 208. First, in 1974 a mandatory passive restraint standard was technically not in effect, see n. 6, supra; Congress had no reason to foreclose that course. Moreover, one can hardly infer support for a mandatory standard from Congress’ decision to provide that such a regulation would be subject to disapproval by resolutions of disapproval in both Houses. Similarly, no mandate can be divined from the tabling of resolutions of disapproval which were introduced in 1977. The failure of Congress to exercise its veto might reflect legislative deference to the agency’s expertise and does not indicate that Congress would disapprove of the agency’s action in 1981. And even if Congress favored the Standard in 1977, it — like NHTSA — may well reach a different judgment, given changed circumstances four years later. Finally, the Court of Appeals read too much into floor action on the 1980 authorization bill, a bill which was not enacted into law. Other contemporaneous events could be read as showing equal congressional hostility to passive restraints.
V
The ultimate question before us is whether NHTSA’s rescission of the passive restraint requirement of Standard 208 was arbitrary and capricious. We conclude, as did the Court of Appeals, that it was. We also conclude, but for somewhat different reasons, that further consideration of the issue by the agency is therefore required. We deal separately with the rescission as it applies to airbags and as it applies to seatbelts.
A
The first and most obvious reason for finding the rescission arbitrary and capricious is that NHTSA apparently gave no consideration whatever to modifying the Standard to require that airbag technology be utilized. Standard 208 sought to achieve automatic crash protection by requiring automobile manufacturers to install either of two passive restraint devices: airbags or automatic seatbelts. There was no suggestion in the long rulemaking process that led to Standard 208 that if only one of these options were feasible, no passive restraint standard should be promulgated. Indeed, the agency’s original proposed Standard contemplated the installation of inflatable restraints in all cars. Automatic belts were added as a means of complying with the Standard because they were believed to be as effective as airbags in achieving the goal of occupant crash protection. 36 Fed. Reg. 12859 (1971). At that time, the passive belt approved by the agency could not be detached. Only later, at a manufacturer’s behest, did the agency approve of the detach-ability feature — and only after assurances that the feature would not compromise the safety benefits of the restraint. Although it was then foreseen that 60% of the new cars would contain airbags and 40% would have automatic seatbelts, the ratio between the two was not significant as long as the passive belt would also assure greater passenger safety.
The agency has now determined that the detachable automatic belts will not attain anticipated safety benefits because so many individuals will detach the mechanism. Even if this conclusion were acceptable in its entirety, see infra, at 51-54, standing alone it would not justify any more than an amendment of Standard 208 to disallow compliance by means of the one technology which will not provide effective passenger protection. It does not cast doubt on the need for a passive restraint standard or upon the efficacy of airbag technology. In its most recent rulemaking, the agency again acknowledged the lifesaving potential of the airbag:
“The agency has no basis at this time for changing its earlier conclusions in 1976 and 1977 that basic air bag technology is sound and has been sufficiently demonstrated to be effective in those vehicles in current use... NHTSA Final Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) XI-4 (Oct. 1981), App. 264.
Given the effectiveness ascribed to airbag technology by the agency, the mandate of the Act to achieve traffic safety would suggest that the logical response to the faults of detachable seatbelts would be to require the installation of airbags. At the very least this alternative way of achieving the objectives of the Act should have been addressed and adequate reasons given for its abandonment. But the agency not only did not require compliance through airbags, it also did not even consider the possibility in its 1981 rulemaking. Not one sentence of its rulemaking statement discusses the airbags-only option. Because, as the Court of Appeals stated, “NHTSA’s... analysis of airbags was nonexistent,” 220 U. S. App. D. C., at 200, 680 F. 2d, at 236, what we said in Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U. S., at 167, is apropos here:
“There are no findings and no analysis here to justify the choice made, no indication of the basis on which the [agency] exercised its expert discretion. We are not prepared to and the Administrative Procedure Act will not permit us to accept such... practice.... Expert discretion is the lifeblood of the administrative process, but ‘unless we make the requirements for administrative action strict and demanding, expertise, the strength of modern government, can become a monster which rules with no practical limits on its discretion.’ New York v. United States, 342 U. S. 882, 884 (dissenting opinion)” (footnote omitted).
We have frequently reiterated that an agency must cogently explain why it has exercised its discretion in a given manner, Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Wichita Bd. of Trade, 412 U. S., at 806; FTC v. Sperry & Hutchinson Co., 405 U. S. 233, 249 (1972); NLRB v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 380 U. S. 438, 443 (1965); and we reaffirm this principle again today.
The automobile industry has opted for the passive belt over the airbag, but surely it is not enough that the regulated industry has eschewed a given safety device. For nearly a decade, the automobile industry waged the regulatory equivalent of war against the airbag and lost — the inflatable restraint was proved sufficiently effective. Now the automobile industry has decided to employ a seatbelt system which will not meet the safety objectives of Standard 208. This hardly constitutes cause to revoke the Standard itself. Indeed, the Act was necessary because the industry was not sufficiently responsive to safety concerns. The Act intended that safety standards not depend on current technology and could be “technology-forcing” in the sense of inducing the development of superior safety design. See Chrysler Corp. v. Department of Transportation, 472 F. 2d, at 672-673. If, under the statute, the agency should not defer to the industry’s failure to develop safer cars, which it surely should not do, a fortiori it may not revoke a safety standard which can be satisfied by current technology simply because the industry has opted for an ineffective seatbelt design.
Although the agency did not address the mandatory airbag option and the Court of Appeals noted that “airbags seem to have none of the problems that NHTSA identified in passive seatbelts,” 220 U. S. App. D. C., at 201, 680 F. 2d, at 237, petitioners recite a number of difficulties that they believe would be posed by a mandatory airbag standard. These range from questions concerning the installation of airbags in small cars to that of adverse public reaction. But these are not the agency’s reasons for rejecting a mandatory airbag standard. Not having discussed the possibility, the agency submitted no reasons at all. The short — and sufficient — answer to petitioners’ submission is that the courts may not accept appellate counsel’s post hoc rationalizations for agency action. Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U. S., at 168. It is well established that an agency’s action must be upheld, if at all, on the basis articulated by the agency itself. Ibid.; SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U. S., at 196; American Textile Mfrs. Institute, Inc. v. Donovan, 452 U. S. 490, 539 (1981).
Petitioners also invoke our decision in Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 435 U. S. 519 (1978), as though it were a talisman under which any agency decision is by definition unimpeachable. Specifically, it is submitted that to require an agency to consider an airbags-only alternative is, in essence, to dictate to the agency the procedures it is to follow. Petitioners both misread Vermont Yankee and misconstrue the nature of the remand that is in order. In Vermont Yankee, we held that a court may not impose additional procedural requirements upon an agency. We do not require today any specific procedures which NHTSA must follow. Nor do we broadly require an agency to consider all policy alternatives in reaching decision. It is true that rulemaking “cannot be found wanting simply because the agency failed to include every alternative device and thought conceivable by the mind of man... regardless of how uncommon or unknown that alternative may have been....” Id., at 551. But the airbag is more than a policy alternative to the passive restraint Standard; it is a technological alternative within the ambit of the existing Standard. We hold only that given the judgment made in 1977 that airbags are an effective and cost-beneficial lifesaving technology, the mandatory passive restraint rule may not be abandoned without any consideration whatsoever of an airbags-only requirement.
B
Although the issue is closer, we also find that the agency was too quick to dismiss the safety benefits of automatic seatbelts. NHTSA’s critical finding was that, in light of the industry’s plans to install readily detachable passive belts, it could not reliably predict “even a 5 percentage point increase as the minimum level of expected usage increase.” 46 Fed. Reg. 53423 (1981). The Court of Appeals rejected this finding because there is “not one iota” of evidence that Modified Standard 208 will fail to increase nationwide seatbelt use by at least 13 percentage points, the level of increased usage necessary for the Standard to justify its cost. Given the lack of probative evidence, the court held that “only a well justified refusal to seek more evidence could render rescission non-arbitrary.” 220 U. S. App. D. C., at 196, 680 F. 2d, at 232.
Petitioners object to this conclusion. In their view, “substantial uncertainty” that a regulation will accomplish its intended purpose is sufficient reason, without more, to rescind a regulation. We agree with petitioners that just as an agency reasonably may decline to issue a safety standard if it is uncertain about its efficacy, an agency may also revoke a standard on the basis of serious uncertainties if supported by the record and reasonably explained. Rescission of the passive restraint requirement would not be arbitrary and capricious simply because there was no evidence in direct support of the agency’s conclusion. It is not infrequent that the available data do not settle a regulatory issue, and the agency must then exercise its judgment in moving from the facts and probabilities on the record to a policy conclusion. Recognizing that policymaking in a complex society must account for uncertainty, however, does not imply that it is sufficient for an agency to merely recite the terms “substantial uncertainty” as a justification for its actions. As previously noted, the agency must explain the evidence which is available, and must offer a “rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.” Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, supra, at 168. Generally, one aspect of that explanation would be a justification for rescinding the regulation before engaging in a search for further evidence.
In these cases, the agency’s explanation for rescission of the passive restraint requirement is not sufficient to enable us to conclude that the rescission was the product of reasoned decisionmaking. To reach this conclusion, we do not upset the agency’s view of the facts, but we do appreciate the limitations of this record in supporting the agency’s decision. We start with the accepted ground that if used, seatbelts unquestionably would save many thousands of lives and would prevent tens of thousands of crippling injuries. Unlike recent regulatory decisions we have reviewed, Industrial Union Dept. v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U. S. 607 (1980); American Textile Mfrs. Institute, Inc. v. Donovan, 452 U. S. 490 (198
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Roberts
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice Kennedy and Justice Alito join.
Like 35 other States and the Federal Government, Kentucky has chosen to impose capital punishment for certain crimes. As is true with respect to each of these States and the Federal Government, Kentucky has altered its method of execution over time to more humane means of carrying out the sentence. That progress has led to the use of lethal injection by every jurisdiction that imposes the death penalty.
Petitioners in this case — each convicted of double homicide — acknowledge that the lethal injection procedure, if applied as intended, will result in a humane death. They nevertheless contend that the lethal injection protocol is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments,” because of the risk that the protocol’s terms might not be properly followed, resulting in significant pain. They propose an alternative protocol, one that they concede has not been adopted by any State and has never been tried.
The trial court held extensive hearings and entered detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law. It recognized that “[tjhere are no methods of legal execution that are satisfactory to those who oppose the death penalty on moral, religious, or societal grounds,” but concluded that Kentucky’s procedure “complies with the constitutional requirements against cruel and unusual punishment.” App. 769. The State Supreme Court affirmed. We too agree that petitioners have not carried their burden of showing that the risk of pain from maladministration of a concededly humane lethal injection protocol, and the failure to adopt untried and untested alternatives, constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The judgment below is affirmed.
I
A
By the middle of the 19th century, “hanging was the ‘nearly universal form of execution’ in the United States.” Campbell v. Wood, 511 U. S. 1119 (1994) (Blackmun, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari) (quoting State v. Frampton, 95 Wash. 2d 469, 492, 627 P. 2d 922, 934 (1981)); Denno, Getting to Death: Are Executions Constitutional? 82 Iowa L. Rev. 319, 364 (1997) (counting 48 States and Territories that employed hanging as a method of execution). In 1888, following the recommendation of a commission empaneled by the Governor to find “‘the most humane and practical method known to modern science of carrying into effect the sentence of death,’ ” New York became the first State to authorize electrocution as a form of capital punishment. Glass v. Louisiana, 471 U. S. 1080, 1082, and n. 4 (1985) (Brennan, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari); Denno, supra, at 373. By 1915,11 other States had followed suit, motivated by the “well-grounded belief that electrocution is less painful and more humane than hanging.” Malloy v. South Carolina, 237 U. S. 180, 185 (1915).
Electrocution remained the predominant mode of execution for nearly a century, although several methods, including hanging, firing squad, and lethal gas were in use at one time. Brief for Fordham University School of Law, Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, as Amicus Curiae 5-9 (hereinafter Fordham Brief). Following the 9-year hiatus in executions that ended with our decision in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153 (1976), however, state legislatures began responding to public calls to reexamine electrocution as a means of ensuring a humane death. See S. Banner, The Death Penalty: An American History 192-193, 296-297 (2002). In 1977, legislators in Oklahoma, after consulting with the head of the anesthesiology department at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, introduced the first bill proposing lethal injection as the State’s method of execution. See Brief for Petitioners 4; Fordham Brief 21-22. A total of 36 States have now adopted lethal injection as the exclusive or primary means of implementing the death penalty, making it by far the most prevalent method of execution in the United States. It is also the method used by the Federal Government. See 18 U. S. C. § 3591 et seq. (2000 ed. and Supp. V); App. to Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae la-6a (lethal injection protocol used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons).
Of these 36 States, at least 30 (including Kentucky) use the same combination of three drugs in their lethal injection protocols. See Workman v. Bredesen, 486 P. 3d 896, 902 (CA6 2007). The first drug, sodium thiopental (also known as Pentothol), is a fast-acting barbiturate sedative that induces a deep, comalike unconsciousness when given in the amounts used for lethal injection. App. 762-763, 631-632. The second drug, pancuronium bromide (also known as Pavulon), is a paralytic agent that inhibits all muscular-skeletal movements and, by paralyzing the diaphragm, stops respiration. Id., at 763. Potassium chloride, the third drug, interferes with the electrical signals that stimulate the contractions of the heart, inducing cardiac arrest. Ibid. The proper administration of the first drug ensures that the prisoner does not experience any pain associated with the paralysis and cardiac arrest caused by the second and third drugs. Id., at 493-494, 541, 558-559.
B
Kentucky replaced electrocution with lethal injection in 1998. 1998 Ky. Acts ch. 220, p. 777. The Kentucky statute does not specify the drugs or categories of drugs to be used during an execution, instead mandating that “every death sentence shall be executed by continuous intravenous injection of a substance or combination of substances sufficient to cause death.” Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 431.220(l)(a) (West 2006). Prisoners sentenced before 1998 have the option of electing either electrocution or lethal injection, but lethal injection is the default if — as is the case with petitioners — the prisoner refuses to make a choice at least 20 days before the scheduled execution. §431.220(l)(b). If a court invalidates Kentucky’s lethal injection method, Kentucky law provides that the method of execution will revert to electrocution. §431.223.
Shortly after the adoption of lethal injection, officials working for the Kentucky Department of Corrections set about developing a written protocol to comply with the requirements of § 431.220(l)(a). Kentucky’s protocol called for the injection of 2 grams of sodium thiopental, 50 milligrams of pancuronium bromide, and 240 milliequivalents of potassium chloride. In 2004, as a result of this litigation, the department chose to increase the amount of sodium thiopental from 2 grams to 3 grams. App. 762-763, 768. Between injections, members of the execution team flush the intravenous (IV) lines with 25 milligrams of saline to prevent clogging of the lines by precipitates that may form when residual sodium thiopental comes into contact with pancuronium bromide. Id., at 761, 763-764. The protocol reserves responsibility for inserting the IV catheters to qualified personnel having at least one year of professional experience. Id., at 984. Currently, Kentucky uses a certified phlebotomist and an emergency medical technician (EMT) to perform the venipunctures necessary for the catheters. Id., at 761-762. They have up to one hour to establish both primary and secondary peripheral IV sites in the arm, hand, leg, or foot of the inmate. Id., at 975-976. Other personnel are responsible for mixing the solutions containing the three drugs and loading them into syringes. Id., at 761.
Kentucky’s execution facilities consist of the execution chamber, a control room separated by a one-way window, and a witness room. Id., at 203. The warden and deputy warden remain in the execution chamber with the prisoner, who is strapped to a gurney. The execution team administers the drugs remotely from the control room through five feet of IV tubing. Id., at 286. If, as determined by the warden and deputy warden through visual inspection, the prisoner is not unconscious within 60 seconds following the delivery of the sodium thiopental to the primary IV site, a new 3-gram dose of thiopental is administered to the secondary site before injecting the pancuronium and potassium chloride. Id., at 978-979. In addition to ensuring that the first dose of thiopental is successfully administered, the warden and deputy warden also watch for any problems with the IV catheters and tubing.
A physician is present to assist in any effort to revive the prisoner in the event of a last-minute stay of execution. Id., at 764. By statute, however, the physician is prohibited from participating in the “conduct of an execution,” except to certify the cause of death. Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §431.220(3). An electrocardiogram (EKG) verifies the death of the prisoner. App. 764. Only one Kentucky prisoner, Eddie Lee Harper, has been executed since the Commonwealth adopted lethal injection. There were no reported problems at Harper’s execution.
C
Petitioners Ralph Baze and Thomas C. Bowling were each convicted of two counts of capital murder and sentenced to death. The Kentucky Supreme Court upheld their convictions and sentences on direct appeal. See Baze v. Commonwealth, 965 S. W. 2d 817, 819-820, 826 (1997), cert. denied, 523 U. S. 1083 (1998); Bowling v. Commonwealth, 873 S. W. 2d 175,176-177,182 (1993), cert. denied, 513 U. S. 862 (1994).
After exhausting their state and federal collateral remedies, Baze and Bowling sued three state officials in the Franklin Circuit Court for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, seeking to have Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol declared unconstitutional. After a 7-day bench trial during which the trial court received the testimony of approximately 20 witnesses, including numerous experts, the court upheld the protocol, finding there to be minimal risk of various claims of improper administration of the protocol. App. 765-769. On appeal, the Kentucky Supreme Court stated that a method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment when it “creates a substantial risk of wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain, torture or lingering death.” 217 S. W. 3d 207, 209 (2006). Applying that standard, the court affirmed. Id., at 212.
We granted certiorari to determine whether Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol satisfies the Eighth Amendment. 551 U. S. 1192, amended, 552 U. S. 945 (2007). We hold that it does.
II
The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, applicable to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, see Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660, 666 (1962), provides that “[e]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” We begin with the principle, settled by Gregg, that capital punishment is constitutional. See 428 U. S., at 177 (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). It necessarily follows that there must be a means of carrying it out. Some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution — no matter how humane — if only from the prospect of error in following the required procedure. It is clear, then, that the Constitution does not demand the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out executions.
Petitioners do not claim that it does. Rather, they contend that the Eighth Amendment prohibits procedures that create an “unnecessary risk” of pain. Brief for Petitioners 38. Specifically, they argue that courts must evaluate “(a) the severity of pain risked, (b) the likelihood of that pain occurring, and (c) the extent to which alternative means are feasible, either by modifying existing execution procedures or adopting alternative procedures.” Ibid. Petitioners envision that the quantum of risk necessary to make out an Eighth Amendment claim will vary according to the severity of the pain and the availability of alternatives, Reply Brief for Petitioners 23-24, n. 9, but that the risk must be “significant” to trigger Eighth Amendment scrutiny, see Brief for Petitioners 39-40; Reply Brief for Petitioners 25-26.
Kentucky responds that this “unnecessary risk” standard is tantamount to a requirement that States adopt the “ ‘least risk’” alternative in carrying out an execution, a standard the Commonwealth contends will cast recurring constitutional doubt on any procedure adopted by the States. Brief for Respondents 29, 35. Instead, Kentucky urges the Court to approve the “‘substantial risk’” test used by the courts below. Id., at 34-35.
A
This Court has never invalidated a State’s chosen procedure for carrying out a sentence of death as the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment. In Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U. S. 130 (1879), we upheld a sentence to death by firing squad imposed by a territorial court, rejecting the argument that such a sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Id., at 134-135. We noted there the difficulty of “defining] with exactness the extent of the constitutional provision which provides that cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted.” Id., at 135-136. Rather than undertake such an effort, the Wilkerson Court simply noted that “it is safe to affirm that punishments of torture,... and all others in the same line of unnecessary cruelty, are forbidden” by the Eighth Amendment. Id., at 136. By way of example, the Court cited cases from England in which “terror, pain, or disgrace were sometimes superadded” to the sentence, such as where the condemned was “embowelled alive, beheaded, and quartered,” or instances of “public dissection in murder, and burning alive.” Id., at 135. In contrast, we observed that the firing squad was routinely used as a method of execution for military officers. Id., at 134. What each of the forbidden punishments had in common was the deliberate infliction of pain for the sake of pain — “superaddting]” pain to the death sentence through torture and the like.
We carried these principles further in In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436 (1890). There we rejected an opportunity to incorporate the Eighth Amendment against the States in a challenge to the first execution by electrocution, to be carried out by the State of New York. Id., at 449. In passing over that question, however, we observed: “Punishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death; but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution. It implies there something inhuman and barbarous, something more than the mere extinguishment of life.” Id., at 447. We noted that the New York statute adopting electrocution as a method of execution “was passed in the effort to devise a more humane method of reaching the result.” Ibid.
B
Petitioners do not claim that lethal injection or the proper administration of the particular protocol adopted by Kentucky by themselves constitute the cruel or wanton infliction of pain. Quite the contrary, they concede that “if performed properly,” an execution carried out under Kentucky’s procedures would be “humane and constitutional.” Brief for Petitioners 31. That is because, as counsel for petitioners admitted at oral argument, proper administration of the first drug, sodium thiopental, eliminates any meaningful risk that a prisoner would experience pain from the subsequent injections of pancuronium and potassium chloride. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 5; App. 493-494 (testimony of petitioners’ expert that, if sodium thiopental is “properly administered” under the protocol, “[i]n virtually every case, then that would be a humane death”).
Instead, petitioners claim that there is a significant risk that the procedures will not be properly followed — in particular, that the sodium thiopental will not be properly administered to achieve its intended effect — resulting in severe pain when the other chemicals are administered. Our cases recognize that subjecting individuals to a risk of future harm— not simply actually inflicting pain — can qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. To establish that such exposure violates the Eighth Amendment, however, the conditions presenting the risk must be “sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering,” and give rise to “sufficiently imminent dangers.” Helling v. McKinney, 509 U. S. 25, 33, 34-35 (1993) (emphasis added). We have explained that to prevail on such a claim there must be a “substantial risk of serious harm,” an “objectively intolerable risk of harm” that prevents prison officials from pleading that they were “subjectively blameless for purposes of the Eighth Amendment.” Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U. S. 825, 842, 846, and n. 9 (1994).
Simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of “objectively intolerable risk of harm” that qualifies as cruel and unusual. In Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U. S. 459 (1947), a plurality of the Court upheld a second attempt at executing a prisoner by electrocution after a mechanical malfunction had interfered with the first attempt. The principal opinion noted that “[ajecidents happen for which no man is to blame,” id., at 462, and concluded that such “an accident, with no suggestion of malevolence,” id., at 463, did not give rise to an Eighth Amendment violation, id., at 463-464.
As Justice Frankfurter noted in a separate opinion based on the Due Process Clause, however, “a hypothetical situation” involving “a series of abortive attempts at electrocution” would present a different case. Id., at 471 (concurring opinion). In terms of our present Eighth Amendment analysis, such a situation — unlike an “innocent misadventure,” id., at 470 — would demonstrate an “objectively intolerable risk of harm” that officials may not ignore. See Farmer, 511 U. S., at 846, and n. 9. In other words, an isolated mishap alone does not give rise to an Eighth Amendment violation, precisely because such an event, while regrettable, does not suggest cruelty, or that the procedure at issue gives rise to a “substantial risk of serious harm.” Id., at 842.
C
Much of petitioners’ case rests on the contention that they have identified a significant risk of harm that can be eliminated by adopting alternative procedures, such as a one-drug protocol that dispenses with the use of pancuronium and potassium chloride, and additional monitoring by trained personnel to ensure that the first dose of sodium thiopental has been adequately delivered. Given what our cases have said about the nature of the risk of harm that is actionable under the Eighth Amendment, a condemned prisoner cannot successfully challenge a State’s method of execution merely by showing a slightly or marginally safer alternative.
Permitting an Eighth Amendment violation to be established on such a showing would threaten to transform courts into boards of inquiry charged with determining “best practices” for executions, with each ruling supplanted by another round of litigation touting a new and improved methodology. Such an approach finds no support in our cases, would embroil the courts in ongoing scientific controversies beyond their expertise, and would substantially intrude on the role of state legislatures in implementing their execution procedures — a role that by all accounts the States have fulfilled with an earnest desire to provide for a progressively more humane manner of death. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 562 (1979) (“The wide range of ‘judgment calls’ that meet constitutional and statutory requirements are confided to officials outside of the Judicial Branch of Government”). Accordingly, we reject petitioners’ proposed “unnecessary risk” standard, as well as the dissent’s “untoward” risk variation. See post, at 114,123 (opinion of Ginsburg, J.).
Instead, the proffered alternatives must effectively address a “substantial risk of serious harm.” Farmer, supra, at 842. To qualify, the alternative procedure must be feasible, readily implemented, and in fact significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain. If a State refuses to adopt such an alternative in the face of these documented advantages, without a legitimate penological justification for adhering to its current method of execution, then a State’s refusal to change its method can be viewed as “cruel and unusual” under the Eighth Amendment.
Ill
In applying these standards to the facts of this case, we note at the outset that it is difficult to regard a practice as “objectively intolerable” when it is in fact widely tolerated. Thirty-six States that sanction capital punishment have adopted lethal injection as the preferred method of execution. The Federal Government uses lethal injection as well. See supra, at 42-43, and n. 1. This broad consensus goes not just to the method of execution, but also to the specific three-drug combination used by Kentucky. Thirty States, as well as the Federal Government, use a series of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride, in varying amounts. See supra, at 44. No State uses or has ever used the alternative one-drug protocol belatedly urged by petitioners. This consensus is probative but not conclusive with respect to that aspect of the alternatives proposed by petitioners.
In order to meet their “heavy burden” of showing that Kentucky’s procedure is “cruelly inhumane,” Gregg, 428 U. S., at 175 (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.), petitioners point to numerous aspects of the protocol that they contend create opportunities for error. Their claim hinges on the improper administration of the first drug, sodium thiopental. It is uncontested that, failing a proper dose of sodium thiopental that would render the prisoner unconscious, there is a substantial, constitutionally unacceptable risk of suffocation from the administration of pancuronium bromide and pain from the injection of potassium chloride. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 27. We agree with the state trial court and State Supreme Court, however, that petitioners have not shown that the risk of an inadequate dose of the first drug is substantial. And we reject the argument that the Eighth Amendment requires Kentucky to adopt the untested alternative procedures petitioners have identified.
A
Petitioners contend that there is a risk of improper administration of thiopental because the doses are difficult to mix into solution form and load into syringes; because the protocol fails to establish a rate of injection, which could lead to a failure of the IV; because it is possible that the IV catheters will infiltrate into surrounding tissue, causing an inadequate dose to be delivered to the vein; because of inadequate facilities and training; and because Kentucky has no reliable means of monitoring the anesthetic depth of the prisoner after the sodium thiopental has been administered. Brief for Petitioners 12-20.
As for the risk that the sodium thiopental would be improperly prepared, petitioners contend that Kentucky employs untrained personnel who are unqualified to calculate and mix an adequate dose, especially in light of the omission of volume and concentration amounts from the written protocol. Id., at 45-46. The state trial court, however, specifically found that “[i]f the manufacturers’ instructions for reconstitution of Sodium Thiopental are followed,... there would be minimal risk of improper mixing, despite converse testimony that a layperson would have difficulty performing this task.” App. 761. We cannot say that this finding is clearly erroneous, see Hernandez v. New York, 500 U. S. 352, 366 (1991) (plurality opinion), particularly when that finding is substantiated by expert testimony describing the task of reconstituting powder sodium thiopental into solution form as “[n]ot difficult at all.... You take a liquid, you inject it into a vial with the powder, then you shake it up until the powder dissolves and, you’re done. The instructions are on the package insert.” 5 Tr. 695 (Apr. 19, 2005).
Likewise, the asserted problems related to the IV lines do not establish a sufficiently substantial risk of harm to meet the requirements of the Eighth Amendment. Kentucky has put in place several important safeguards to ensure that an adequate dose of sodium thiopental is delivered to the condemned prisoner. The most significant of these is the written protocol’s requirement that members of the IV team must have at least one year of professional experience as a certified medical assistant, phlebotomist, EMT, paramedic, or military corpsman. App. 984. Kentucky currently uses a phlebotomist and an EMT, personnel who have daily experience establishing IV catheters for inmates in Kentucky’s prison population. Id., at 273-274; Tr. of Oral Arg. 27-28. Moreover, these IV team members, along with the rest of the execution team, participate in at least 10 practice sessions per year. App. 984. These sessions, required by the written protocol, encompass a complete walk-through of the execution procedures, including the siting of IV catheters into volunteers. Ibid. In addition, the protocol calls for the IV team to establish both primary and backup lines and to prepare two sets of the lethal injection drugs before the execution commences. Id., at 975. These redundant measures ensure that if an insufficient dose of sodium thiopental is initially administered through the primary line, an additional dose can be given through the backup line before the last two drugs are injected. Id., at 279-280, 337-338, 978-979.
The IV team has one hour to establish both the primary and backup IVs, a length of time the trial court found to be “not excessive but rather necessary,” id., at 762, contrary to petitioners’ claim that using an IV inserted after any “more than ten or fifteen minutes of unsuccessful attempts is dangerous because the IV is almost certain to be unreliable,” Brief for Petitioners 47. And, in any event, merely because the protocol gives the IV team one hour to establish intravenous access does not mean that team members are required to spend the entire hour in a futile attempt to do so. The qualifications of the IV team also substantially reduce the risk of IV infiltration.
In addition, the presence of the warden and deputy warden in the execution chamber with the prisoner allows them to watch for signs of IV problems, including infiltration. Three of the Commonwealth’s medical experts testified that identifying signs of infiltration would be “very obvious,” even to the average person, because of the swelling that would result. App. 385-386. See id,., at 353, 600-601. Kentucky’s protocol specifically requires the warden to redirect the flow of chemicals to the backup IV site if the prisoner does not lose consciousness within 60 seconds. Id., at 978-979. In light of these safeguards, we cannot say that the risks identified by petitioners are so substantial or imminent as to amount to an Eighth Amendment violation.
B
Nor does Kentucky’s failure to adopt petitioners’ proposed alternatives demonstrate that the Commonwealth’s execution procedure is cruel and unusual.
First, petitioners contend that Kentucky could switch from a three-drug protocol to a one-drug protocol by using a single dose of sodium thiopental or other barbiturate. Brief for Petitioners 51-57. That alternative was not proposed to the state courts below. As a result, we are left without any findings on the effectiveness of petitioners’ barbiturate-only protocol, despite scattered references in the trial testimony to the sole use of sodium thiopental or pentobarbital as a preferred method of execution. See Reply Brief for Petitioners 18, n. 6.
In any event, the Commonwealth’s continued use of the three-drug protocol cannot be viewed as posing an “objectively intolerable risk” when no other State has adopted the one-drug method and petitioners proffered no study showing that it is an equally effective manner of imposing a death sentence. See App. 760-761, n. 8 (“Plaintiffs have not presented any scientific study indicating a better method of execution by lethal injection”). Indeed, the State of Tennessee, after reviewing its execution procedures, rejected a proposal to adopt a one-drug protocol using sodium thiopental. The State concluded that the one-drug alternative would take longer than the three-drug method and that the “required dosage of sodium thiopental would be less predictable and more variable when it is used as the sole mechanism for producing death....” Workman, 486 F. 3d, at 919 (Appendix A, ¶(A)(3)). We need not endorse the accuracy of those conclusions to note simply that the comparative efficacy of a one-drug method of execution is not so well established that Kentucky’s failure to adopt it constitutes a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
Petitioners also contend that Kentucky should omit the second drug, pancuronium bromide, because it serves no therapeutic purpose while suppressing muscle movements that could reveal an inadequate administration of the first drug. The state trial court, however, specifically found that pancuronium serves two purposes. First, it prevents involuntary physical movements during unconsciousness that may accompany the injection of potassium chloride. App. 763. The Commonwealth has an interest in preserving the dignity of the procedure, especially where convulsions or seizures could be misperceived as signs of consciousness or distress. Second, pancuronium stops respiration, hastening death. Ibid. Kentucky’s decision to include the drug does not offend the Eighth Amendment.
Petitioners’ barbiturate-only protocol, they contend, is not untested; it is used routinely by veterinarians in putting animals to sleep. Moreover, 28 States, including Kentucky, bar veterinarians from using a neuromuscular paralytic agent like pancuronium bromide, either expressly or, like Kentucky, by specifically directing the use of a drug like sodium pentobarbital. See Brief for Dr. Kevin Concannon et al. as Amici Curiae 18, n. 5. If pancuronium is too cruel for animals, the argument goes, then it must be too cruel for the condemned inmate. Whatever rhetorical force the argument carries, see Workman, supra, at 909 (describing the comparison to animal euthanasia as “more of a debater’s point”), it overlooks the States’ legitimate interest in providing for a quick, certain death. In the Netherlands, for example, where physician-assisted euthanasia is permitted, the Royal Dutch Society for the Advancement of Pharmacy recommends the use of a muscle relaxant (such as pancuronium dibromide) in addition to thiopental in order to prevent a prolonged, undignified death. See Kimsma, Euthanasia and Euthanizing Drugs in The Netherlands, reprinted in Drug Use in Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia 193, 200, 204 (M. Battin & A. Lipman eds. 1996). That concern may be less compelling in the veterinary context, and in any event other methods approved by veterinarians — such as stunning the animal or severing its spinal cord, see 6 Tr. 758-759 (Apr. 20, 2005) — make clear that veterinary practice for animals is not an appropriate guide to humane practices for humans.
Petitioners also fault the Kentucky protocol for lacking a systematic mechanism for monitoring the “anesthetic depth” of the prisoner. Under petitioners’ scheme, qualified personnel would employ monitoring equipment, such as a Bi-spectral Index (BIS) monitor, blood pressure cuff, or EKG to verify that a prisoner has achieved sufficient unconsciousness before injecting the final two drugs. The visual inspection performed by the warden and deputy warden, they maintain, is an inadequate substitute for the more sophisticated procedures they envision. Brief for Petitioners 19, 58.
At the outset, it is important to reemphasize that a proper dose of thiopental obviates the concern that a prisoner will not be sufficiently sedated. All the experts who testified at trial agreed on this point. The risks of failing to adopt additional monitoring procedures are thus even more “remote” and attenuated than the risks posed by the alleged inadequacies of Kentucky’s procedures designed to ensure the delivery of thiopental. See Hamilton v. Jones, 472 F. 3d 814,817 (CA10 2007) (per curiam); Taylor v. Crawford, 487 F. 3d 1072,1084 (CA8 2007).
But more than this, Kentucky’s expert testified that a blood pressure cuff would have no utility in assessing the level of the prisoner’s unconsciousness following the introduction of sodium thiopental, which depresses circulation. App. 578. Furthermore, the medical community has yet to endorse the use of a BIS monitor, which measures brain function, as an indication of anesthetic awareness. American Society of Anesthesiologists, Practice Advisory for Intraoperative Awareness and Brain Function Monitoring, 104 Anesthesiology 847, 855 (Apr. 2006); see Brown v. Beck, 445 F. 3d 752, 754-755 (CA4 2006) (Michael, J., dissenting). The asserted need for a professional anesthesiologist to interpret the BIS monitor readings is nothing more than an argument against the entire procedure, given that both Kentucky law, see Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 431.220(3), and the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ own ethical guidelines, see Brief for American Society of Anesthesiologists as Amicus Curiae 2-3, prohibit anesthesiologists from participating in capital punishment. Nor is it pertinent that the use of a blood pressure cuff and EKG is “the standard of care in surgery-requiring anesthesia,” as the dissent points out. Post, at 119. Petitioners have not shown that these supplementary procedures, drawn from a different context, are necessary to avoid a substantial risk of suffering.
The dissent believes that rough-and-ready tests for checking consciousness — calling the inmate’s name, brushing his eyelashes, or presenting him with strong, noxious odors— could materially decrease the risk of administering the second and third drugs before the sodium thiopental has taken effect. See post, at 118. Again, the risk at issue is already attenuated, given the steps Kentucky has taken to ensure the proper administration of the first drug. Moreover, the scenario the dissent posits involves a level of unconsciousness allegedly sufficient to avoid detection of improper administration of the anesthesia under Kentucky’s procedure, but not sufficient to prevent pain. See post, at 121-122. There is no indication that the basic tests the dissent advocates can make such fine distinctions. If these tests are effective only in determining whether the sodium thiopental has entered the inmate’s bloodstream, see post, at 118-119, the record confirms that the visual inspection of the IV site under Kentucky’s procedure achieves that objective. See supra, at 56.
The dissent would continue the stay of these executions (and presumably the many others held in abeyance pending decision in this case) and send the case back to the lower courts to determine whether such added measures redress an “untoward” risk of pain
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Respondent Ronald Heller sued petitioners, city of Los Angeles and individual members of the Los Angeles Police Commission, and two Los Angeles police officers in the United States District Court for the Central District of California under the provisions of 42 U. S. C. § 1983. He claimed damages by reason of having been arrested without probable cause and having been the victim of excessive force in the making of the arrest. The incident arose as a result of the two Los Angeles police officers stopping him because of a suspicion that he was driving while intoxicated. In the words of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit:
“The officers administered a series of field sobriety tests. Apparently dissatisfied with the results, the officers decided to take Heller to the station to undergo a breath test. When notified that he was under arrest, however, Heller became belligerent. One of the defendants, Officer Bushey, attempted to handcuff him. An altercation ensued. In the course of the struggle, Heller fell through a plate glass window.” Heller v. Bushey, 759 F. 2d 1371, 1372-1373 (1985).
The District Court held a bifurcated trial, and first heard respondent’s claims against one of the individual police officers. The jury was instructed that Heller would make out his constitutional claim if he were arrested without reasonable cause, or if he were arrested with “unreasonable force” that exceeded the force necessary under the circumstances to effect arrest. Id., at 1374. The jury was not instructed on any affirmative defenses that might have been asserted by the individual police officer. Tr. in No. 80-2643 (CD Cal.), pp. 808-822, 843. The jury returned a verdict for the defendant police officer and against respondent. The District Court.then dismissed the action against petitioners, concluding that if the police officer had been exonerated by the jury there could be no basis for assertion of liability against the city or the persons constituting its Police Commission.
Respondent appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and that court reversed the judgment of the District Court dismissing respondent’s case against petitioners even though it did not disturb the verdict for the defendant police officer. Respondent urged, and the Court of Appeals apparently agreed, that “the jury could have believed that Bushey, having followed Police Department regulations, was entitled in substance to a defense of good faith. Such a belief would not negate the existence of a constitutional injury” (footnote omitted). 759 F. 2d, at 1373-1374.
The difficulty with this position is that the jury was not charged on any affirmative defense such as good faith which might have been availed of by the individual police officer. Respondent contends in his brief in opposition to certiorari that even though no issue of qualified immunity was presented to the jury, the jury might nonetheless have considered evidence which would have supported a finding of such immunity. But the theory under which jury instructions are given by trial courts and reviewed on appeal is that juries act in accordance with the instructions given them, see Aspen Skiing Co. v. Aspen Highlands Skiing Corp., 472 U. S. 585, 604 (1985), and that they do not consider and base their decisions on legal questions with respect to which they are not charged. We think that the Court of Appeals’ search for ambiguity in the verdict was unavailing; as that court itself noted later in its opinion, “[bjecause the instructions required a verdict for [respondent] if either the due process or the excessive force claim was found, the jury’s verdict for the defendant required a negative finding on both claims.” 759 F. 2d, at 1374, n. 3. This negative, it seems to us, was conclusive not only as to Officer Bushey, but also as to the city and its Police Commission. They were sued only because they were thought legally responsible for Bushey’s actions; if the latter inflicted no constitutional injury on respondent, it is inconceivable that petitioners could be liable to respondent.
The Court of Appeals also stated:
“We must conclude that the general verdict does not foreclose a finding that Heller suffered a constitutional deprivation. Heller’s Monell claim survived the general verdict. . . . The jury verdict, of course, conclusively determined that there was probable cause to arrest Heller. On the other hand, it is equally clear that whether the application of force in accordance with Police Department regulations in this case exceeded constitutional limits has not been determined.” Id., at 1374-1375.
But this was an action for damages, and neither Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), nor any other of our cases authorizes the award of damages against a municipal corporation based on the actions of one of its officers when in fact the jury has concluded that the officer inflicted no constitutional harm. If a person has suffered no constitutional injury at the hands of the individual police officer, the fact that the departmental regulations might have authorized the use of constitutionally excessive force is quite beside the point.
The petition for certiorari is granted, 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 Brennan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The second of the two police officers named as defendants was granted summary judgment by the District Court.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Federal Magistrates Act grants district courts authority to assign magistrates certain described functions as well as “such additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.” In Gomez v. United States, 490 U. S. 858 (1989), we held that those “additional duties” do not encompass the selection of a jury in a felony trial without the defendant’s consent. In this case, we consider whether the defendant’s consent warrants a different result.
I
Petitioner and a codefendant were charged with importing four kilograms of heroin. At a pretrial conference attended by both petitioner and his counsel, the District Judge asked if there was “[a]ny objection to picking the jury before a magistrate?” App. 2. Petitioner’s counsel responded: “I would love the opportunity.” Ibid. Immediately before the jury selection commenced, the Magistrate asked for, and received, assurances from counsel for petitioner and from counsel for his codefendant that she had their clients’ consent to proceed with the jury selection. She then proceeded to conduct the voir dire and to supervise the selection of the jury. Neither defendant asked the District Court to review any ruling made by the Magistrate.
The District Judge presided at the jury trial, which resulted in the conviction of petitioner and the acquittal of his codefendant. In the District Court, petitioner raised no objection to the fact that the Magistrate had conducted the voir dire. On appeal, however, he contended that it was error to assign the jury selection to the Magistrate and that our decision in Gomez required reversal. The Court of Appeals disagreed. Relying on its earlier decision in United States v. Musacchia, 900 F. 2d 493 (CA2 1990), it held “that explicit consent by a defendant to magistrate-supervised voir dire waives any subsequent challenge on those grounds,” and affirmed petitioner’s conviction. App. to Pet. for Cert. 2a; 904 F. 2d 34 (1990) (affirmance order).
In Musacchia, the Second Circuit had affirmed a conviction in a case in which the defendant had not objected to jury selection by the Magistrate. The Court of Appeals concluded that our holding in Gomez applied only to cases in which the magistrate had acted without the defendant’s consent. The court explained:
“Appellants additionally claim that Gomez states that a magistrate is without jurisdiction under the Federal Magistrates Act to conduct voir dire. We disagree. Since Gomez was decided we and other circuits have focused on the ‘without defendant’s consent’ language and generally ruled that where there is either consent or a failure to object a magistrate may conduct the jury voir dire in a felony case. See [United States v. Vanwort, 887 F. 2d 375, 382-383 (CA2 1989), cert. denied sub nom. Chapoteau v. United States, 495 U. S. 906 (1990); United States v. Mang Sun Wong, 884 F. 2d 1537, 1544 (CA2 1989), cert. denied, 493 U. S. 1082 (1990); United States v. Lopez-Pena, 912 F. 2d 1542, 1545-1548 (CA1 1989)] (not plain error to permit magistrate to preside since objection to magistrate must be raised or it is waived); Government of the Virgin Islands v. Williams, 892 F. 2d 305, 310 (3d Cir. 1989) (absent demand no constitutional difficulty under § 636(b)(3) with delegating jury selection to magistrate); United States v. Ford, 824 F. 2d 1430, 1438-39 (5th Cir. 1987) (en banc) (harmless error for magistrate to conduct voir dire where defendant failed to object), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 1034... (1988); United States v. Wey, 895 F. 2d 429 (7th Cir. 1990) (jury selection by magistrate is not plain error where no prejudice is shown). Concededly, [United States v. France, 886 F. 2d 223 (CA9 1989),] concluded otherwise. The court there ruled that defendant’s failure to contemporaneously object to the magistrate conducting jury selection did not waive her right to appellate review. 886 F. 2d at 226. But that holding may be explained, as noted earlier, by what the court perceived as the futility of defendant raising an objection below.” 900 F. 2d, at 502.
The conflict among the Circuits described by the Court of Appeals prompted us to grant the Government’s petition for certiorari in the France case, see United States v. France, 495 U. S. 903 (1990). Earlier this Term, we affirmed that judgment by an equally divided Court, United States v. France, 498 U. S. 335 (1991). Thereafter, we granted cer-tiorari in this case and directed the parties to address the following three questions:
“1. Does 28 U. S. C. §636 permit a magistrate to conduct the voir dire in a felony trial if the defendant consents?
“2. If 28 U. S. C. § 636 permits a magistrate to conduct a felony trial voir dire provided that the defendant consents, is the statute consistent with Article III?
“3. If the magistrate’s supervision of the voir dire in petitioner’s trial was error, did the conduct of petitioner and his attorney constitute a waiver of the right to raise this error on appeal?” See 498 U. S. 1066 (1991).
Resolution of these questions must begin with a review of our decision in Gomez.
II
Our holding in Gomez was narrow. We framed the question presented as “whether presiding at the selection of a jury in a felony trial without the defendant's consent is among those ‘additional duties’” that district courts may assign to magistrates. 490 U. S., at 860 (emphasis added). We held that a magistrate “exceeds his jurisdiction” by selecting a jury “despite the defendant’s objection.” Id., at 876. Thus, our holding was carefully limited to the situation in which the parties had not acquiesced at trial to the magistrate’s role. This particular question had divided the Courts of Appeals. See id., at 861-862, and n. 7. On the other hand, those courts had uniformly rejected challenges to a magistrate’s authority to conduct the voir dire when no objection to his performance of the duty had been raised in the trial court.
Although we concluded that the role assumed by the Magistrate in Gomez was beyond his authority under the Act, we recognized that Congress intended magistrates to play an integral and important role in the federal judicial system. See id., at 864-869 (citing H. R. Rep. No. 96-287, p. 5 (1979)). Our recent decisions have continued to acknowledge the importance Congress placed on the magistrate’s role. See, e. g., McCarthy v. Bronson, 500 U. S. 136, 142 (1991). “Given the bloated dockets that district courts have now come to expect as ordinary, the role of the magistrate in today’s federal judicial system is nothing less than indispensable.” Government of the Virgin Islands v. Williams, 892 F. 2d 305, 308 (CA3 1989).
Cognizant of the importance of magistrates to an efficient federal court system, we were nonetheless propelled towards our holding in Gomez by several considerations. Chief among our concerns was this Court’s “settled policy to avoid an interpretation of a federal statute that engenders constitutional issues.” Gomez, 490 U. S., at 864. This policy was implicated in Gomez because of the substantial question whether a defendant has a constitutional right to demand that an Article III judge preside at every critical stage of a felony trial. The principle of constitutional avoidance led us to demand clear evidence that Congress actually intended to permit magistrates to take on a role that raised a substantial constitutional question. Cf. Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173, 223 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). The requirement that Congress express its intent clearly was also appropriate because the Government was asking us in Gomez to construe a general grant of authority to authorize a procedure that deprived an individual of an important privilege, if not a right. See 2A C. Sands, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 58.04, p. 715 (rev. 4th ed. 1984). The lack of an express provision for de novo review, coupled with the absence of any mention in the statute’s text or legislative history of a magistrate’s conducting voir dire without the parties’ consent, convinced us that Congress had not clearly authorized the delegation involved in Gomez. In view of the constitutional issues involved, and the fact that broad language was being construed to deprive a defendant of a significant right or privilege, we considered the lack of a clear authorization dispositive. See Gomez, 490 U. S., at 872, and n. 25, 875-876.
Reinforcing this conclusion was the principle that “[a]ny additional duties performed pursuant to a general authorization in the statute reasonably should bear some relation to the specified duties” that the statute assigned to magistrates. Carefully reviewing the duties that magistrates were expressly authorized to perform, see id., at 865-871, we focused on the fact that those specified duties that were comparable to jury selection in a felony trial could be performed only with the consent of the litigants. We noted that, in 1968 when magistrates were empowered to try “minor offenses,” the exercise of that jurisdiction in any specific case was conditioned upon the defendant’s express written consent. See id., at 866. Similarly, the 1976 amendment provided that a magistrate could be designated as a special master in any civil case but only with the consent of the parties. Id., at 867-868. And in 1979, when Congress enlarged the magistrate’s criminal jurisdiction to encompass all misdemeanors, the exercise of that authority was subject to the defendant’s consent. As we explained:
“A critical limitation on this expanded jurisdiction is consent. As amended in 1979, the Act states that ‘neither the district judge nor the magistrate shall attempt to persuade or induce any party to consent to reference of any civil matter to a magistrate.’ 93 Stat. 643, 28 U. S. C. § 636(c)(2). In criminal cases, the Government may petition for trial before a district judge. ‘Defendants charged with misdemeanors can refuse to consent to a magistrate and thus effect the same removal,’ S. Rep. No. 96-74, p. 7 (1979),- for the magistrate’s criminal trial jurisdiction depends on the defendant’s specific, written consent.” Id., at 870-871 (footnote omitted).
Because the specified duties that Congress authorized magistrates to perform without the consent of the parties were not comparable in importance to supervision of felony trial voir dire but were instead “subsidiary matters,” id., at 872, we did not waver from our conclusion that a magistrate cannot conduct voir dire over the defendant’s objection.
I — I I — H 1 — (
This case differs critically from Gomez because petitioner’s counsel, rather than objecting to the Magistrate’s role, affirmatively welcomed it. See supra, at 925. The considerations that led to our holding in Gomez do not lead to the conclusion that a magistrate’s “additional duties” may not include supervision of jury selection when the defendant has consented.
Most notably, the defendant’s consent significantly changes the constitutional analysis. As we explain in Part IV, infra, we have no trouble concluding that there is no Article III problem when a district court judge permits a magistrate to conduct voir dire in accordance with the defendant’s consent. The absence of any constitutional difficulty removes one concern that motivated us in Gomez to require unambiguous evidence of Congress’ intent to include jury selection among a magistrate’s additional duties. Petitioner’s consent also eliminates our concern that a general authorization should not lightly be read to deprive a defendant of any important privilege.
We therefore attach far less importance in this case to the fact that Congress did not focus on jury selection as a possible additional duty for magistrates. The generality of the category of “additional duties” indicates that Congress intended to give federal judges significant leeway to experiment with possible improvements in the efficiency of the judicial process that had not already been tried or even foreseen. If Congress had intended strictly to limit these additional duties to functions considered in the committee hearings or debates, presumably it would have included in the statute a bill of particulars rather than a broad residuary clause. Construing this residuary clause absent concerns about raising a constitutional issue or depriving a defendant of an important right, we should not foreclose constructive experiments that are acceptable to all participants in the trial process and are consistent with the basic purposes of the statute.
Of course, we would still be reluctant, as we were in Gomez, to construe the additional duties clause to include responsibilities of far greater importance than the specified duties assigned to magistrates. But the litigants’ consent makes the crucial difference on this score as well. As we explained in Part II, supra, the duties that a magistrate may perform over the parties’ objections are generally subsidiary matters not comparable to supervision of jury selection. However, with the parties’ consent, a district judge may delegate to a magistrate supervision of entire civil and misdemeanor trials. These duties are comparable in responsibility and importance to presiding over voir dire at a felony trial.
We therefore conclude that the Act’s “additional duties” clause permits a magistrate to supervise jury selection in a felony trial provided the parties consent. In reaching this result, we are assisted by the reasoning of the Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, and Seventh Circuits, all of which, following our decision in Gomez, have concluded that the rationale of that opinion does not apply when the defendant has not objected to the magistrate’s conduct of the voir dire. See United States v. Musacchia, 900 F. 2d 493 (CA2 1990); United States v. Wey, 895 F. 2d 429 (CA7 1990); Government of the Virgin Islands v. Williams, 892 F. 2d 305 (CA3 1989).
We share the confidence expressed by the Third Circuit in Williams that this reading of the additional duties clause strikes the balance Congress intended between the interests of the criminal defendant and the policies that undergird the Federal Magistrates Act. Id., at 311. The Act is designed to relieve the district courts of certain subordinate duties that often distract the courts from more important matters. Our reading of the “additional duties” clause will permit the courts, with the litigants’ consent, to “continue innovative ex-perimentations” in the use of magistrates to improve the efficient administration of the courts’ dockets. See H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, p. 12 (1976).
At the same time, the requirement that a criminal defendant consent to the additional duty of jury selection protects a defendant’s interest in requesting the presence of a judge at all critical stages of his felony trial.
“If a criminal defendant, together with his attorney, believes that the presence of a judge best serves his interests during the selection of the jury, then Gomez preserves his right to object to the use of a magistrate. Where, on the other hand, the defendant is indifferent as to whether a magistrate or a judge should preside, then it makes little sense to deny the district court the opportunity to delegate that function to a magistrate, particularly if such a delegation sensibly advances the court’s interest in the efficient regulation of its docket.” Government of the Virgin Islands v. Williams, 892 F. 2d, at 311.
In sum, the structure and purpose of the Federal Magistrates Act convince us that supervision of voir dire in a felony proceeding is an additional duty that may be delegated to a magistrate under 28 U. S. C. § 636(b)(3) if the litigants consent. The Act evinces a congressional belief that magistrates are well qualified to handle matters of similar importance to jury selection but conditions their authority to accept such responsibilities on the consent of the parties. If a defendant perceives any threat of injury from the absence of an Article III judge in the jury selection process, he need only decline to consent to the magistrate’s supervision to ensure that a judge conduct the voir dire. However, when a defendant does consent to the magistrate’s role, the magistrate has jurisdiction to perform this additional duty.
I — I <1
There is no constitutional infirmity in the delegation of felony trial jury selection to a magistrate when the litigants consent. As we have already noted, it is arguable that a defendant in a criminal trial has a constitutional right to demand the presence of an Article III judge at voir dire. We need not resolve that question now, however, to determine that a defendant has no constitutional right to have an Article III judge preside at jury selection if the defendant has raised no objection to the judge’s absence.
We have previously held that litigants may waive their personal right to have an Article III judge preside over a civil trial. See Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. Schor, 478 U. S. 833, 848 (1986). The most basic rights of criminal defendants are similarly subject to waiver. See, e. g., United States v. Gagnon, 470 U. S. 522, 528 (1985) (absence of objection constitutes waiver of right to be present at all stages of criminal trial); Levine v. United States, 362 U. S. 610, 619 (1960) (failure to object to closing of courtroom is waiver of right to public trial); Segurola v. United States, 275 U. S. 106, 111 (1927) (failure to object constitutes waiver of Fourth Amendment right against unlawful search and seizure); United States v. Figueroa, 818 F. 2d 1020, 1025 (CA1 1987) (failure to object results in forfeiture of claim of unlawful postarrest delay); United States v. Bascaro, 742 F. 2d 1335, 1365 (CA11 1984) (absence of objection is waiver of double jeopardy defense), cert. denied sub nom. Hobson v. United States, 472 U. S. 1017 (1985); United States v. Coleman, 707 F. 2d 374, 376 (CA9) (failure to object constitutes waiver of Fifth Amendment claim), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 854 (1983). See generally Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414, 444 (1944) (“No procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right”)- Just as the Constitution affords no protection to a defendant who waives these fundamental rights, so it gives no assistance to a defendant who fails to demand the presence of an Article III judge at the selection of his jury.
Even assuming that a litigant may not waive structural protections provided by Article III, see Schor, 478 U. S., at 850-851, we are convinced that no such structural protections are implicated by the procedure followed in this case. Magistrates are appointed and subject to removal by Article III judges. See 28 U. S. C. § 631. The “ultimate decision” whether to invoke the magistrate’s assistance is made by the district court, subject to veto by the parties. See United States v. Raddatz, 447 U. S. 667, 683 (1980). The decision whether to empanel the jury whose selection a magistrate has supervised also remains entirely with the district court. Because “the entire process takes place under the district court’s total control and jurisdiction,” id., at 681, there is no danger that use of the magistrate involves a “congressional attemptt] ‘to transfer jurisdiction [to non-Article III tribunals] for the purpose of emasculating’ constitutional courts, National Insurance Co. v. Tidewater Co., 337 U. S. 582, 644 (1949) (Vinson, C. J., dissenting)....” Schor, 478 U. S., at 850.
In Raddatz, we held that the Constitution was not violated by the reference to a Magistrate of a motion to suppress evidence in a felony trial. The principal constitutional argument advanced and rejected in Raddatz was that the omission of a requirement that the trial judge must hear the testimony of the witnesses whenever a question of credibility arises violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Petitioner has not advanced a similar argument in this case, no doubt because it would plainly be foreclosed by our holding in Raddatz. That case also disposes of the Article III argument that petitioner does raise. The reasoning in Justice Blackmun’s concurring opinion is controlling here:
“As the Court observes, the handling of suppression motions invariably remains completely in the control of the federal district court. The judge may initially decline to refer any matter to a magistrate. When a matter is referred, the judge may freely reject the magistrate’s recommendation. He may rehear the evidence in whole or in part. He may call for additional findings or otherwise ‘recommit the matter to the magistrate with instructions.’ See 28 U. S. C. §636(b)(1). Moreover, the magistrate himself is subject to the Art. Ill judge’s control. Magistrates are appointed by district judges, § 631(a), and subject to removal by them, § 631(h). In addition, district judges retain plenary authority over when, what, and how many pretrial matters are assigned to magistrates, and ‘[e]ach district court shall establish rules pursuant to which the magistrates shall discharge their duties.’ § 636(b)(4)....
“It is also significant that the Magistrates Act imposes significant requirements to ensure competency and impartiality, §§ 631(b), (c), and (i), 632, 637 (1976 ed. and Supp. II), including a rule generally barring reduction of salaries of full-time magistrates, § 634(b). Even assuming that, despite these protections, a controversial matter might be delegated to a magistrate who is susceptible to outside pressures, the district judge — insulated by life tenure and irreducible salary — is waiting in the wings, fully able to correct errors. Under these circumstances, I simply do not perceive the threat to the judicial power or the independence of judicial decisionmaking that underlies Art. III. We do not face a procedure under which ‘Congress [has] delegate[d] to a non-Art. Ill judge the authority to make final determinations on issues of fact.’ Post, at 703 (dissenting opinion). Rather, we confront a procedure under which Congress has vested in Art. Ill judges the discretionary power to delegate certain functions to competent and impartial assistants, while ensuring that the judges retain complete supervisory control over the assistants’ activities.” 447 U. S., at 685-686.
Unlike the provision of the Federal Magistrates Act that we upheld in Raddatz, § 636(b)(3) contains no express provision for de novo review of a magistrate’s rulings during the selection of a jury. This omission, however, does not alter the result of the constitutional analysis. The statutory provision we upheld in Raddatz provided for de novo review only when a party objected to the magistrate’s findings or recommendations. See 28 U. S. C. § 636(b)(1). Thus, Raddatz established that, to the extent “de novo review is required to satisfy Article III concerns, it need not be exercised unless requested by the parties.” United States v. Peacock, 761 F. 2d 1313, 1318 (CA9) (Kennedy, J.), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 847 (1985). In this case, petitioner did not ask the District Court to review any ruling by the Magistrate. If a defendant in a future case does request review, nothing in the statute precludes a district court from providing the review that the Constitution requires. Although there may be other cases in which de novo review by the district court would provide an inadequate substitute for the Article III judge’s actual supervision of the voir dire, the same is true of a magistrate’s determination in a suppression hearing, which often turns on the credibility of witnesses. See Raddatz, 447 U. S., at 692 (Stewart, J., dissenting). We presume, as we did in Raddatz when we upheld the provision allowing reference to a magistrate of suppression motions, that district judges will handle such cases properly if and when they arise. See id., at 681, n. 7. Our decision that the procedure followed in Raddatz comported with Article III therefore requires the same conclusion respecting the procedure followed in this case.
V
Our disposition of the statutory and constitutional questions makes it unnecessary to discuss the third question that we asked the parties to brief and to argue. We note, however, that the Solicitor General conceded that it was error to make the reference to the Magistrate in this case and relied entirely on the argument that the error was waived. Although that concession deprived us of the benefit of an adversary presentation, it of course does not prevent us from adopting the legal analysis of those Courts of Appeals that share our interpretation of the statute as construed in Gomez. We agree with the view of the majority of Circuit Judges who have considered this issue, both before and after our decision in Gomez, that permitting a magistrate to conduct the voir dire in a felony trial when the defendant raises no objection is entirely faithful to the congressional purpose in enacting and amending the Federal Magistrates Act.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Pub. L. 90-578, 82 Stat. 1108, as amended, 28 U. S. C. § 636(b)(3).
“THE COURT: Mr. Breitbart, I have the consent of your client to proceed with the jury selection?
“MR. BREITBART: Yes, your Honor.
“THE COURT: And Mr. Lopez, do I have the consent of your client to proceed?
“MR. LOPEZ: Yes, your Honor.” App. 5.
As the Third Circuit has recognized:
“The Court did not, however, reach the question presented in this case: whether the Federal Magistrates Act permits a magistrate to preside over the selection of a jury when a defendant consents. In Gomez, the Court framed the issue as ‘whether presiding at the selection of a jury in a felony trial without the defendant’s consent’ is an additional duty within the meaning of the Federal Magistrates Act. [490 U. S., at 860] (emphasis added); see also id. at [876] (rejecting the government’s harmless error analysis on the grounds that it ‘does not apply in a felony case in which, despite the defendant’s objection and without any meaningful review by a district judge, an officer exceeds his jurisdiction by selecting a jury’). Gomez thus left open the question whether a defendant’s consent makes a difference as to whether a district court may assign voir dire to a magistrate.” Government of the Virgin Islands v. Williams, 892 F. 2d 305, 308-309 (1989).
See, e. g., United States v. Ford, 824 F. 2d 1430 (CA5 1987) (en banc), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 1034 (1988); United States v. DeFiore, 720 F. 2d 757 (CA2 1983), cert. denied sub nom. Coppola v. United States, 466 U. S. 906 (1984); United States v. Rivera-Sola, 713 F. 2d 866 (CA1 1983); Haith v. United States, 342 F. 2d 158 (CA3 1965).
“It can hardly be denied that the system created by the Federal Magistrates Act has exceeded the highest expectations of the legislators who conceived it. In modern federal practice, federal magistrates account for a staggering volume of judicial work. In 1987, for example, magistrates presided over nearly half a million judicial proceedings. See S. Rep. No. 100-293, 100th Cong., 2d Sess. 7, reprinted in 1988 U. S. Code Cong. & Admin. News 5564. As a recent State Report noted, ‘[i]n particular, magistrates [in 1987] conducted over 134,000 preliminary proceedings in felony cases; handled more than 197,000 references of civil and criminal pretrial matters; reviewed more than 6,500 social security appeals and more than 27,000 prisoner filings; and tried more than 95,000 misdemeanors and 4,900 civil cases on consent of the parties. Id. at 5565.” Government of the Virgin Islands v. Williams, 892 F. 2d, at 308.
In Gomez, we cited our opinion in Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. Schor, 478 U. S. 833 (1986), which emphasized the importance of the personal right to an Article III adjudicator:
“Article III, § 1, serves both to protect ‘the role of the independent judiciary within the constitutional scheme of tripartite government.’ Thomas v. Union Carbide Agricultural Products Co., 473 U. S. 568, 583 (1985), and to safeguard litigants’ ‘right to have claims decided before judges who are free from potential domination by other branches of government.’ United States v. Will, 449 U. S. 200, 218 (1980). See also Thomas, supra, at 582-583; Northern Pipeline, 458 U. S., at 58. Although our cases have provided us with little occasion to discuss the nature or significance of this latter safeguard, our prior discussions of Article III, § l’s guarantee of an independent and impartial adjudication by the federal judiciary of matters within the judicial power of the United States intimated that this guarantee serves to protect primarily personal, rather than structural, interests. See, e. g., id., at 90 (Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment) (noting lack of consent to non-Article III jurisdiction); id., at 95 (White, J., dissenting) (same). See also Currie, Bankruptcy Judges and the Independent Judiciary, 16 Creighton L. Rev. 441, 460, n. 108 (1983) (Article III, § 1, ‘was designed as a protection for the parties from the risk of legislative or executive pressure on judicial decision’). Cf. Crowell v. Benson, [285 U. S. 22, 87 (1932)] (Brandéis, J., dissenting).” Id., at 848.
“The Federal Magistrates Act provides that a ‘magistrate may be assigned such additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.’ 28 U. S. C. § 636(b)(3). Read literally and without reference to the context in which they appear, these words might encompass any assignment that is not explicitly prohibited by statute or by the Constitution....
“When a statute creates an office to which it assigns specific duties, those duties outline the attributes of the office. Any additional duties performed pursuant to a general authorization in the statute reasonably should bear some relation to the specified duties. Thus in United States v. Raddatz, 447 U. S. 667, 674-676 (1980); Mathews v. Weber, 423 U. S. 261 (1976); and Wingo v. Wedding, 418 U. S. 461 (1974), we interpreted the Federal Magistrates Act in light of its structure and purpose." Gomez v. United States, 490 U. S., at 863-864.
The legislative history of the statute also emphasizes the crucial nature of the presence or absence of the litigants’ consent. See H. R. Rep. No. 96-287, p. 20 (1979) (“Because of the consent requirement, magistrates will be used only as the bench, bar, and litigants desire, only in cases where they are felt by all participants to be competent”).
See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, p. 7 (1976) (magistrate is to “assist the district judge in a variety of pretrial and preliminary matters thereby facilitating the ultimate and final exercise of the adjudicatory function at the trial of the case”); S. Rep. No. 92-1065, p. 3 (1972) (magistrates “render valuable assistance to the judges of the district courts, thereby freeing the time of those judges for the actual trial of cases”); H. R. Rep. No. 1629, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 12 (1968) (purpose of Act is “to cull from the ever-growing workload of the U. S. district courts matters that are more desirably performed by a lower tier of judicial officers”).
See, e. g., United States v. Peacock, 761 F. 2d 1313, 1319 (CA9) (Kennedy, J.) (“There may be sound reasons... to allow the magistrate to assist [in voir dire], as was done in this case. [E]ach of the... circuits in the federal system... has been instructed to improve its efficiency in juror utilization.... The practice of delegating voir dire to a magistrate may assist the district courts in accomplishing this objective”), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 847 (1985).
We noted in Gomez that the legislative history of the Act nowhere listed supervision, without a defendant’s consent, of a felony trial voir dire as a potential magistrate responsibility. We did call attention, however, to a Committee Report that referred to a “letter suggesting] that a magistrate selected juries only tvith consent of the parties.” Gomez v. United States, 490 U. S. 858, 875-876, n. 30 (1989) (emphasis added) (citing H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, p. 9 (1976)).
We do not qualify the portion of our opinion in Gomez that explained why jury selection is an important function, the performance of which may be difficult for a judge to review with infallible accuracy. See 490 U. S., at 873-876. We are confident, however, that defense counsel can sensibly balance these considerations against other concerns in deciding whether to object to a magistrate’s supervision of voir dire. We stress, in this regard, that defendants may waive the right to judicial performance of other important functions, including the conduct of the trial itself in misdemeanor and civil proceedings. Like jury selection, these duties require the magistrate to “observe witnesses, make credibility determinations, and weigh contradictory evidence,” id., at 874, n. 27, and therefore present equivalent problems for judicial oversight.
See, e. g., United States v. Alvarado, 923 F. 2d 253 (CA2 1991); Government of the Virgin Islands v. Williams, 892 F. 2d 305 (CA3 1989); United States v. Rivera-Sola, 713 F. 2d 866 (CA1 1983
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On. the evening of February 16, 1961, a man robbed a bank in Lake Charles, Louisiana, kidnapped three of the bank’s employees, and killed one of them. A few hours later the petitioner, Wilbert Rideau, was apprehended by the police and lodged in the Calcasieu Parish jail in Lake Charles. The next morning a moving picture film with a sound track was made of an “interview” in the jail between Rideau and the Sheriff of Calcasieu Parish. This “interview” lasted approximately 20 minutes. It consisted of interrogation by the sheriff and admissions by Rideau that he had perpetrated the bank robbery, kidnapping, and murder. Later the same day the filmed “interview” was broadcast over a television station in Lake Charles, and some 24,000 people in the community saw and heard it on television. The sound film was again shown on television the next day to an estimated audience of 53,000 people. The following day the film was again broadcast by the same television station, and this, time approximately 29,000 people saw and heard the <vinterview” on their television sets. Calcasieu Parish has a population of approximately 150,000 people.
Some two weeks later, Rideau was arraigned on charges of armed robbery, kidnapping, and murder, and two lawyers were appointed to represent him. His lawyers promptly filed a motion for a change of venue, on the ground that it would deprive Rideau of rights guaranteed to him by the United States Constitution to force him to trial in Calcasieu Parish after the three television broadcasts there of his “interview” with the sheriff. After a hearing, the motion for change of venue was denied, and Rideau was accordingly convicted and sentenced to death on the murder charge in the Calcasieu Parish trial court.
Three members of the jury which convicted him had stated on voir dire that they had seen and heard Rideau’s televised “interview” with the sheriff on at least one occasion. Two members of the jury were deputy sheriffs of Calcasieu Parish. Rideau’s counsel had requested that these jurors be excused for cause, having exhausted all of their peremptory challenges, but these challenges for cause had been denied by the trial judge. The judgment of conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Louisiana, 242 La. 431, 137 So. 2d 283, and the case is here on a writ of certiorari, 371 U. S. 919.
The record in this case contains as an exhibit the sound film which was broadcast. What the people of Calcasieu Parish saw on their television sets was Rideau, in jail, flanked by the sheriff and two state troopers, admitting in detail the commission of the robbery, kidnapping, and murder, in response to leading questions by the sheriff. The record fails to show whose idea it was to make the sound film, and broadcast it over the local television station, but we know from the conceded circumstances that the plan was carried out with the active cooperation and participation of the local law enforcement officers. And certainly no one has suggested that it was Rideau’s idea, or even that he was aware of what was going on when the sound film was being made.
In the view we take of this case, the question of who originally initiated the idea of the televised interview is, in any event, a basically irrelevant detail. For we hold that it was a denial of due process of law to refuse the request for á change of venue, after the people of Cal-casieu Parish had been exposed repeatedly and in depth to the spectacle of Rideau personally confessing in detail to the crimes with which he was later to be charged. For anyone who has ever watched television the conclusion cannot be avoided that this spectacle, to the tens of thousands of people who saw and heard it, in a very real sense was Rideau’s trial — at which he pleaded guilty to murder. Any subsequent court proceedings in a community so pervasively exposed to such a spectacle could be but a hollow formality.
In Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278, this Court set aside murder- convictions secured in a state trial with all the formalities of fair procedures, based upon “free and voluntary confessions” which in fact had been preceded by grossly brutal kangaroo court proceedings while the defendants were held in jail without counsel. As Chief Justice Hughes wrote in that case, “The State is free to regulate .the procedure of its courts in accordance with its own conceptions of policy .... [But] it does not follow that it may substitute trial by ordeal.” 297 U. S., at 285. Cf. White v. Texas, 310 U. S. 530. That was almost a generation ago, in an era before the onrush of an ■ electronic age.
The case now before us does not involve physical brutality. The kangaroo court proceedings in this case involved a more subtle but no less real deprivation of due process of law. Under our Constitution’s guarantee of due process, a person accused of committing a crime is vouchsafed basic minimal rights. Among these are the right to counsel, the right to plead not guilty, and the right to be tried in a courtroom presided over by a judge. Yet in this case the people of Calcasieu Parish saw and heard, not once but three times, a “trial” of Rideau in a jail, presided over by a sheriff, where there was no lawyer to advise Rideau of his right to stand mute.
The record shows that such a thing as this never took place before in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. Whether it has occurred elsewhere, we do not know. But we do not hesitate to hold, without pausing to examine a particularized transcript of the voir dire examination of the members of the jury, that due process of law in this case required a trial before a jury drawn from a community of people who had not seen and heard Rideau’s televised “interview.” “Due process of law, preserved for all by our Constitution, commands that no such practice as that disclosed by this record shall send any accused to his death.” Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227, 241.
Reversed.
The motion stated: “That to require the Defendant to be tried on the charges which have been preferred against him in the Parish of Calcasieu, would be a travesty of justice and would be a violation to the Defendant’s rights for a fair and impartial trial, which is guaranteed to every person accused of having committed a .crime by the Constitution of the State of Louisiana and by the Constitution of the United States.”
The Supreme Court of Louisiana summarized the event as follows: “[0]n the morning of February 17, 1961, the defendant was interviewed by the sheriff, and the entire interview was filmed (with a sound track) and shown to the audience of television station KPLC-TV on three occasions. The showings occurred prior to the arraignment of defendant on the murder charge. In this interview the accused admitted his part in the crime for which he was later indicted.” 242 La., at 447, 137 So. 2d, at 289.
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335.
“Q. Mr. Mazilly, you have been in police work roughly 21 years?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. Were you in court yesterday at the time a sound on film picture was shown to the court which had been shown on KPLC-TV encompassing an interview between Sheriff Reid and Rideau?
“A. I was.
“Q. In all of your 21 years, do you know of any similar case in this parish or Southwest Louisiana where a man charged with a capital crime was allowed — that pictures were made of him and the general public was shown the pictures and a sound track in which he confessed to a capital crime?
“A. No, sir.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
If law enforcement officers make a "seizure" of a person using force that is judged to be reasonable based on a consideration of the circumstances relevant to that determination, may the officers nevertheless be held liable for injuries caused by the seizure on the ground that they committed a separate Fourth Amendment violation that contributed to their need to use force? The Ninth Circuit has adopted a "provocation rule" that imposes liability in such a situation.
We hold that the Fourth Amendment provides no basis for such a rule. A different Fourth Amendment violation cannot transform a later, reasonable use of force into an unreasonable seizure.
I
A
In October 2010, deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department were searching for a parolee-at-large named Ronnie O'Dell. A felony arrest warrant had been issued for O'Dell, who was believed to be armed and dangerous and had previously evaded capture. Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, No. 2:11-cv-04771 (CD Cal.), App. to Pet. for Cert. 56a, 64a. Deputies Christopher Conley and Jennifer Pederson were assigned to assist the task force searching for O'Dell. Id., at 57a-58a. The task force received word from a confidential informant that O'Dell had been seen on a bicycle at a home in Lancaster, California, owned by Paula Hughes, and the officers then mapped out a plan for apprehending O'Dell. Id., at 58a. Some officers would approach the front door of the Hughes residence, while Deputies Conley and Pederson would search the rear of the property and cover the back door of the residence. Id., at 59a. During this briefing, it was announced that a man named Angel Mendez lived in the backyard of the Hughes home with a pregnant woman named Jennifer Garcia (now Mrs. Jennifer Mendez). Ibid . Deputy Pederson heard this announcement, but at trial Deputy Conley testified that he did not remember it. Ibid.
When the officers reached the Hughes residence around midday, three of them knocked on the front door while Deputies Conley and Pederson went to the back of the property. Id., at 63a. At the front door, Hughes asked if the officers had a warrant. Ibid. A sergeant responded that they did not but were searching for O'Dell and had a warrant for his arrest. Ibid. One of the officers heard what he thought were sounds of someone running inside the house. Id., at 64a. As the officers prepared to open the door by force, Hughes opened the door and informed them that O'Dell was not in the house. Ibid . She was placed under arrest, and the house was searched, but O'Dell was not found. Ibid.
Meanwhile, Deputies Conley and Pederson, with guns drawn, searched the rear of the residence, which was cluttered with debris and abandoned automobiles. Id., at 60a, 65a. The property included three metal storage sheds and a one-room shack made of wood and plywood. Id., at 60a. Mendez had built the shack, and he and Garcia had lived inside for about 10 months. Id., at 61a. The shack had a single doorway covered by a blue blanket. Ibid . Amid the debris on the ground, an electrical cord ran into the shack, and an air conditioner was mounted on the side. Id., at 62a. A gym storage locker and clothes and other possessions were nearby. Id., at 61a. Mendez kept a BB rifle in the shack for use on rats and other pests. Id., at 62a. The BB gun "closely resembled a small caliber rifle." Ibid .
Deputies Conley and Pederson first checked the three metal sheds and found no one inside. Id., at 65a. They then approached the door of the shack. Id., at 66a. Unbeknownst to the officers, Mendez and Garcia were in the shack and were napping on a futon. Id., at 67a. The deputies did not have a search warrant and did not knock and announce their presence. Id., at 66a. When Deputy Conley opened the wooden door and pulled back the blanket, Mendez thought it was Ms. Hughes and rose from the bed, picking up the BB gun so he could stand up and place it on the floor. Id., at 68a. As a result, when the deputies entered, he was holding the BB gun, and it was "point[ing] somewhat south towards Deputy Conley." Id., at 69a. Deputy Conley yelled, "Gun!" and the deputies immediately opened fire, discharging a total of 15 rounds. Id., at 69a-70a. Mendez and Garcia "were shot multiple times and suffered severe injuries," and Mendez's right leg was later amputated below the knee. Id., at 70a. O'Dell was not in the shack or anywhere on the property. Ibid .
B
Mendez and his wife (respondents here) filed suit under Rev. Stat. § 1976, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, against petitioners, the County of Los Angeles and Deputies Conley and Pederson. As relevant here, they pressed three Fourth Amendment claims. First, they claimed that the deputies executed an unreasonable search by entering the shack without a warrant (the "warrantless entry claim"); second, they asserted that the deputies performed an unreasonable search because they failed to announce their presence before entering the shack (the "knock-and-announce claim"); and third, they claimed that the deputies effected an unreasonable seizure by deploying excessive force in opening fire after entering the shack (the "excessive force claim").
After a bench trial, the District Court ruled largely in favor of respondents. App. to Pet. for Cert. 135a-136a. The court found Deputy Conley liable on the warrantless entry claim, and the court also found both deputies liable on the knock-and-announce claim. But the court awarded nominal damages for these violations because "the act of pointing the BB gun" was a superseding cause "as far as damage [from the shooting was] concerned." App. 238.
The District Court then addressed respondents' excessive force claim. App. to Pet. for Cert. 105a-127a. The court began by evaluating whether the deputies used excessive force under Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). The court held that, under Graham, the deputies' use of force was reasonable "given their belief that a man was holding a firearm rifle threatening their lives." App. to Pet. for Cert. 108a. But the court did not end its excessive force analysis at this point. Instead, the court turned to the Ninth Circuit's provocation rule, which holds that "an officer's otherwise reasonable (and lawful) defensive use of force is unreasonable as a matter of law, if (1) the officer intentionally or recklessly provoked a violent response, and (2) that provocation is an independent constitutional violation."Id., at 111a. Based on this rule, the District Court held the deputies liable for excessive force and awarded respondents around $4 million in damages. Id., at 135a-136a.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. 815 F.3d 1178 (C.A.9 2016). Contrary to the District Court, the Court of Appeals held that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity on the knock-and-announce claim. Id ., at 1191-1193. But the court concluded that the warrantless entry of the shack violated clearly established law and was attributable to both deputies. Id., at 1191, 1195. Finally, and most important for present purposes, the court affirmed the application of the provocation rule. The Court of Appeals did not disagree with the conclusion that the shooting was reasonable under Graham ; instead, like the District Court, the Court of Appeals applied the provocation rule and held the deputies liable for the use of force on the theory that they had intentionally and recklessly brought about the shooting by entering the shack without a warrant in violation of clearly established law. 815 F.3d, at 1193.
The Court of Appeals also adopted an alternative rationale for its judgment. It held that "basic notions of proximate cause" would support liability even without the provocation rule because it was "reasonably foreseeable" that the officers would meet an armed homeowner when they "barged into the shack unannounced." Id., at 1194-1195.
We granted certiorari. 580 U.S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 547, 196 L.Ed.2d 442 (2016).
II
The Ninth Circuit's provocation rule permits an excessive force claim under the Fourth Amendment "where an officer intentionally or recklessly provokes a violent confrontation, if the provocation is an independent Fourth Amendment violation." Billington v. Smith, 292 F.3d 1177, 1189 (C.A.9 2002). The rule comes into play after a forceful seizure has been judged to be reasonable under Graham. Once a court has made that determination, the rule instructs the court to ask whether the law enforcement officer violated the Fourth Amendment in some other way in the course of events leading up to the seizure. If so, that separate Fourth Amendment violation may "render the officer's otherwise reasonable defensive use of force unreasonable as a matter of law." Id., at 1190-1191.
The provocation rule, which has been "sharply questioned" outside the Ninth Circuit, City and County of San Francisco v. Sheehan, 575 U.S. ----, ----, n. 4, 135 S.Ct. 1765, 1776, n. 4, 191 L.Ed.2d 856 (2015), is incompatible with our excessive force jurisprudence. The rule's fundamental flaw is that it uses another constitutional violation to manufacture an excessive force claim where one would not otherwise exist.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." "[R]easonableness is always the touchstone of Fourth Amendment analysis," Birchfield v. North Dakota, 579 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 2160, 2186, 195 L.Ed.2d 560 (2016), and reasonableness is generally assessed by carefully weighing "the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion." Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8, 105 S.Ct. 1694, 85 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Our case law sets forth a settled and exclusive framework for analyzing whether the force used in making a seizure complies with the Fourth Amendment. See Graham, 490 U.S., at 395, 109 S.Ct. 1865. As in other areas of our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, "[d]etermining whether the force used to effect a particular seizure is 'reasonable' " requires balancing of the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the relevant government interests. Id., at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865. The operative question in excessive force cases is "whether the totality of the circumstances justifie[s] a particular sort of search or seizure." Garner, supra, at 8-9, 105 S.Ct. 1694.
The reasonableness of the use of force is evaluated under an "objective" inquiry that pays "careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case." Graham, supra, at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865. And "[t]he 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight." Ibid. "Excessive force claims ... are evaluated for objective reasonableness based upon the information the officers had when the conduct occurred." Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 207, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). That inquiry is dispositive: When an officer carries out a seizure that is reasonable, taking into account all relevant circumstances, there is no valid excessive force claim.
The basic problem with the provocation rule is that it fails to stop there. Instead, the rule provides a novel and unsupported path to liability in cases in which the use of force was reasonable. Specifically, it instructs courts to look back in time to see if there was a different Fourth Amendment violation that is somehow tied to the eventual use of force. That distinct violation, rather than the forceful seizure itself, may then serve as the foundation of the plaintiff's excessive force claim. Billington, supra, at 1190 ("The basis of liability for the subsequent use of force is the initial constitutional violation ...").
This approach mistakenly conflates distinct Fourth Amendment claims. Contrary to this approach, the objective reasonableness analysis must be conducted separately for each search or seizure that is alleged to be unconstitutional. An excessive force claim is a claim that a law enforcement officer carried out an unreasonable seizure through a use of force that was not justified under the relevant circumstances. It is not a claim that an officer used reasonable force after committing a distinct Fourth Amendment violation such as an unreasonable entry.
By conflating excessive force claims with other Fourth Amendment claims, the provocation rule permits excessive force claims that cannot succeed on their own terms. That is precisely how the rule operated in this case. The District Court found (and the Ninth Circuit did not dispute) that the use of force by the deputies was reasonable under Graham. However, respondents were still able to recover damages because the deputies committed a separate constitutional violation (the warrantless entry into the shack) that in some sense set the table for the use of force. That is wrong. The framework for analyzing excessive force claims is set out in Graham . If there is no excessive force claim under Graham, there is no excessive force claim at all. To the extent that a plaintiff has other Fourth Amendment claims, they should be analyzed separately.
The Ninth Circuit's efforts to cabin the provocation rule only undermine it further. The Ninth Circuit appears to recognize that it would be going entirely too far to suggest that any Fourth Amendment violation that is connected to a reasonable use of force should create a valid excessive force claim. See, e.g., Beier v. Lewiston, 354 F.3d 1058, 1064 (C.A.9 2004) ("Because the excessive force and false arrest factual inquiries are distinct, establishing a lack of probable cause to make an arrest does not establish an excessive force claim, and vice-versa"). Instead, that court has endeavored to limit the rule to only those distinct Fourth Amendment violations that in some sense "provoked" the need to use force. The concept of provocation, in turn, has been defined using a two-prong test. First, the separate constitutional violation must "creat[e] a situation which led to" the use of force; second, the separate constitutional violation must be committed recklessly or intentionally. 815 F.3d, at 1193 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Neither of these limitations solves the fundamental problem of the provocation rule: namely, that it is an unwarranted and illogical expansion of Graham . But in addition, each of the limitations creates problems of its own. First, the rule includes a vague causal standard. It applies when a prior constitutional violation "created a situation which led to" the use of force. The rule does not incorporate the familiar proximate cause standard. Indeed, it is not clear what causal standard is being applied. Second, while the reasonableness of a search or seizure is almost always based on objective factors, see Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 814, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996), the provocation rule looks to the subjective intent of the officers who carried out the seizure. As noted, under the Ninth Circuit's rule, a prior Fourth Amendment violation may be held to have provoked a later, reasonable use of force only if the prior violation was intentional or reckless.
The provocation rule may be motivated by the notion that it is important to hold law enforcement officers liable for the foreseeable consequences of all of their constitutional torts. See Billington, 292 F.3d, at 1190 ("[I]f an officer's provocative actions are objectively unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, ... liability is established, and the question becomes ... what harms the constitutional violation proximately caused"). However, there is no need to distort the excessive force inquiry in order to accomplish this objective. To the contrary, both parties accept the principle that plaintiffs can-subject to qualified immunity-generally recover damages that are proximately caused by any Fourth Amendment violation. See, e.g., Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 483, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994) ( § 1983"creates a species of tort liability" informed by tort principles regarding "damages and the prerequisites for their recovery" (internal quotation marks omitted)); Memphis Community School Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 306, 106 S.Ct. 2537, 91 L.Ed.2d 249 (1986) ("[W]hen § 1983 plaintiffs seek damages for violations of constitutional rights, the level of damages is ordinarily determined according to principles derived from the common law of torts"). Thus, there is no need to dress up every Fourth Amendment claim as an excessive force claim. For example, if the plaintiffs in this case cannot recover on their excessive force claim, that will not foreclose recovery for injuries proximately caused by the warrantless entry . The harm proximately caused by these two torts may overlap, but the two claims should not be confused.
III
The Court of Appeals also held that "even without relying on [the] provocation theory, the deputies are liable for the shooting under basic notions of proximate cause." 815 F.3d, at 1194. In other words, the court apparently concluded that the shooting was proximately caused by the deputies' warrantless entry of the shack. Proper analysis of this proximate cause question required consideration of the "foreseeability or the scope of the risk created by the predicate conduct," and required the court to conclude that there was "some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged." Paroline v. United States, 572 U.S. ----, ----, 134 S.Ct. 1710, 1719, 188 L.Ed.2d 714 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Unfortunately, the Court of Appeals' proximate cause analysis appears to have been tainted by the same errors that cause us to reject the provocation rule. The court reasoned that when officers make a "startling entry" by "barg [ing] into" a home "unannounced," it is reasonably foreseeable that violence may result. 815 F.3d, at 1194-1195 (internal quotation marks omitted). But this appears to focus solely on the risks foreseeably associated with the failure to knock and announce, which could not serve as the basis for liability since the Court of Appeals concluded that the officers had qualified immunity on that claim. By contrast, the Court of Appeals did not identify the foreseeable risks associated with the relevant constitutional violation (the warrantless entry); nor did it explain how, on these facts, respondents' injuries were proximately caused by the warrantless entry. In other words, the Court of Appeals' proximate cause analysis, like the provocation rule, conflated distinct Fourth Amendment claims and required only a murky causal link between the warrantless entry and the injuries attributed to it. On remand, the court should revisit the question whether proximate cause permits respondents to recover damages for their shooting injuries based on the deputies' failure to secure a warrant at the outset. See Bank of America Corp. v. Miami, --- U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 1296, 1306, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (2017) (declining to "draw the precise boundaries of proximate cause" in the first instance). The arguments made on this point by the parties and by the United States as amicus provide a useful starting point for this inquiry. See Brief for Petitioners 42-56; Brief for Respondents 20-31, 51-59; Reply Brief 17-24; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26-32.
* * *
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice GORSUCH took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337, 26 S.Ct. 282, 50 L.Ed. 499.
Respondents do not attempt to defend the provocation rule. Instead, they argue that the judgment below should be affirmed under Graham itself. Graham commands that an officer's use of force be assessed for reasonableness under the "totality of the circumstances." 490 U.S., at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865 (internal quotation marks omitted). On respondents' view, that means taking into account unreasonable police conduct prior to the use of force that foreseeably created the need to use it. Brief for Respondents 42-43. We did not grant certiorari on that question, and the decision below did not address it. Accordingly, we decline to address it here. See, e.g., McLane Co. v. EEOC, --- U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 1159, 1170, 197 L.Ed.2d 500 (2017) ("[W]e are a court of review, not of first view" (internal quotation marks omitted)). All we hold today is that once a use of force is deemed reasonable under Graham, it may not be found unreasonable by reference to some separate constitutional violation. Any argument regarding the District Court's application of Graham in this case should be addressed to the Ninth Circuit on remand.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O'Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves an action for damages against a railroad due to its alleged failure to maintain adequate warning devices at a grade crossing in western Tennessee. After her husband was killed in a crossing accident, respondent brought suit against petitioner, the operator of the train involved in the collision. Respondent claimed that the warning signs posted at the crossing, which had been installed using federal funds, were insufficient to warn motorists of the danger posed by passing trains. The specific issue we must decide is whether the Federal Railroad Safety Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 971, as amended, 49 U. S. C. § 20101 et seq., in conjunction with the Federal Highway Administration’s regulation addressing the adequacy of warning devices installed with federal funds, pre-empts state tort actions such as respondent’s. We hold that it does.
I
A
In 1970, Congress enacted the Federal Railroad Safety Act every area of railroad operations and reduce railroad-related accidents and incidents.” 49 U. S. C. § 20101. The FRSA grants the Secretary of Transportation the authority to “prescribe regulations and issue orders for every area of railroad safety,” § 20103(a), and directs the Secretary to “maintain a coordinated effort to develop and carry out solutions to the railroad grade crossing problem,” § 20134(a). The FRSA also contains an express pre-emption provision, which states:
“Laws, regulations, and orders related to railroad safety shall be nationally uniform to the extent practicable. A State may adopt or continue in force a law, regulation, or order related to railroad safety until the Secretary of Transportation prescribes a regulation or issues an order covering the subject matter of the State requirement.” §20106.
Although the pre-emption provision contains an exception, see ibid., it is inapplicable here.
Three years after passing the FRSA, Congress enacted the Highway Safety Act of 1973, §203, 87 Stat. 283, which, among other things, created the Federal Railway-Highway Crossings Program (Crossings Program), see 23 U. S. C. § 130. That program makes funds available to States for the “cost of construction of projects for the elimination of hazards of railway-highway crossings.” § 130(a). To participate in the Crossings Program, all States must “conduct and systematically maintain a survey of all highways to identify those railroad crossings which may require separation, relocation, or protective devices, and establish and implement a schedule of projects for this purpose.” § 130(d). That schedule must, “[a]t a minimum, . . . provide signs for all railway-highway crossings.” Ibid.
The Secretary, through the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), has promulgated several regulations implementing the Crossings Program. One of those regulations, 23 CFR § 646.214(b) (1999), addresses the design of grade crossing improvements. More specifically, §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) address the adequacy of warning devices installed under the program. According to § 646.214(b)(3), “[a]de-quate warning devices ,. on any project where Federal-aid funds participate in the installation of the devices are to include automatic gates with flashing light signals” if any of several conditions are present. Those conditions include (A) “[mjultiple main line railroad tracks,” (B) multiple tracks in the vicinity such that one train might “obscure the movement of another train approaching the crossing,” (C) high speed trains combined with limited sight distances, (D) a “combination of high speeds and moderately high volumes of highway and railroad traffic,” (E) the use of the crossing by “substantial numbers of sehoolbuses or trucks carrying hazardous materials,” or (F) when a “diagnostic team recommends them.” § 646.214(b)(3)(i). Subsection (b)(4) states that “[f]or crossings where the requirements of § 646.214(b)(3) are not applicable, the type of warning device to be installed, whether the determination is made by a State regulatory agency, State highway agency, and/or the railroad, is subject to the approval of FHWA.” Thus, at crossings where any of the conditions listed in (b)(3) exist, adequate warning devices, if installed using federal funds, are automatic gates and flashing lights. And where the (b)(3) conditions are not present, the decision of what devices to install is subject to FHWA approval.
B
Shortly after 5 a.m. on October 3, 1993, Eddie Shanklin drove his truck eastward on Oakwood Church Road in Gibson County, Tennessee. App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a. As Shanklin crossed the railroad tracks that intersect the road, he was struck and killed by a train operated by petitioner. Ibid. At the time of the accident, the Oakwood Church Road crossing was equipped with advance warning signs and reflectorized crossbucks, id., at 34a, the familiar black-and-white, X-shaped signs that read “RAILROAD CROSSING,” see U. S. Dept, of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices §8B-2 (1988) (MUTCD). The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) had installed the signs in 1987 with federal funds received under the Crossings Program. App. to Pet. for Cert. 3a. The TDOT had requested the funds as part of a project to install such signs at 196 grade crossings in 11 Tennessee counties. See App. 128-131. That request contained information about each crossing covered by the project, including the presence or absence of several of the factors listed in § 646.214(b)(3). See id., at 134. The FHWA approved the project, App. to Pet. for Cert. 34a, and federal funds accounted for 99% of the cost of installing the signs at the crossings, see App. 133. It is undisputed that the signs at the Oakwood Church Road crossing were installed and fully compliant with the federal standards for such devices at the time of the accident.
Following the accident, Mr. Shanklin’s widow, respondent Dedra Shanklin, brought this diversity wrongful death action against petitioner in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. Id., at 29-34. Respondent’s claims were based on Tennessee statutory and common law. Id., at 31-33. She alleged that petitioner had been negligent in several respects, including by failing to maintain adequate warning devices at the crossing. Ibid. Petitioner moved for summary judgment on the ground that the FRSA pre-empted respondent’s suit. App. to'Pet. for Cert. 28a. The District Court held that respondent’s allegation that the signs installed at the crossing were inadequate was not preempted. Id., at 29a-37a. Respondent thus presented her inadequate warning device claim and three other allegations of negligence to a jury, which found that petitioner and Mr. Shanklin had both been negligent. App. 47. The jury assigned 70% responsibility to petitioner and 30% to Mr. Shanklin, and it assessed damages of $615,379. Ibid. The District Court accordingly entered judgment of $430,765.30 for respondent. Id., at 48.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that the FRSA did not pre-empt respondent’s claim that the devices at the crossing were inadequate. 173 F. 3d 386 (1999). It reasoned that federal funding alone is insufficient to trigger pre-emption of state tort actions under the FRSA and §§646.214(b)(3) and (4). Id., at 394. Instead, the railroad must establish that § 646.214(b)(3) or (4) was “applied” to the crossing at issue, meaning that the FHWA affirmatively approved the particular devices installed at the crossing as adequate for safety. Id., at 397. The court concluded that, because the TDOT had installed the signs for the purpose of providing “minimum protection” at the Oakwood Church Road crossing, there had been no such individualized determination of adequacy.
We granted certiorari, 528 U. S. 949 (1999), to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals as to whether the FRSA, by virtue of 23 CFR §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) (1999), pre-empts state tort claims concerning a railroad’s failure to maintain adequate warning devices at crossings where federal funds have participated in the installation of the devices. Compare Ingram v. CSX Transp., Inc., 146 F. 3d 858 (CA11 1998) (holding that federal funding of crossing improvement triggers pre-emption under FRSA); Armijo v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. Co., 87 F. 3d 1188 (CA10 1996) (same); Elrod v. Burlington Northern R. Co., 68 F. 3d 241 (CA81995) (same); Hester v. CSX Transp., Inc., 61 F. 3d 382 (CA5 1995) (same), cert. denied, 516 U. S. 1093 (1996), with 173 F. 3d 386 (CA6 1999) (ease below); Shots v. CSX Transp., Inc., 38 F. 3d 304 (CA7 1994) (no pre-emption until representative of Federal Government has determined that devices installed are adequate for safety).
II
We previously addressed the pre-emptive effect of the FHWA’s regulations implementing the Crossings Program in CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, 507 U. S. 658 (1993). In that case, we explained that the language of the FRSA’s pre-emption provision dictates that, to pre-empt state law, the federal regulation must “cover” the same subject matter, and not merely “ ‘touch upon’ or ‘relate to’ that subject matter.” Id., at 664; see also 49 U. S. C. §20106. Thus, “preemption will lie only if the federal regulations substantially subsume the subject matter of the relevant state law.” Easterwood, supra, at 664. Applying this standard, we concluded that the regulations contained in 23 CFR pt. 924 (1999), which “establish the general terms of the bargain between the Federal and State Governments” for the Crossings Program, are not pre-emptive. 507 U. S., at 667. We also held that § 646.214(b)(1), which requires that all traffic control devices installed under the program comply with the MUTCD, does not pre-empt state tort actions. Id., at 668-670. The MUTCD “provides a description of, rather than a prescription for, the allocation of responsibility for grade crossing safety between Federal and State Governments and between States and railroads,” and hence “disavows any claim to cover the subject matter of that body of law.” Id., at 669-670.
With respect to §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4), however, we reached a different conclusion. Because those regulations “establish requirements as to the installation of particular warning devices,” we held that “when they are applicable, state tort law is pre-empted.” Id., at 670. Unlike the other regulations, “§§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) displace state and private decisionmaking authority by establishing a federal-law requirement that certain protective devices be installed or federal approval obtained.” Ibid. As a result, those regulations “effectively set the terms under which railroads are to participate in the improvement of crossings.” Ibid.
In Easterwood itself, we ultimately concluded that the plaintiff’s state tort claim was not pre-empted. Ibid. As here, the plaintiff brought a wrongful death action alleging that the railroad had not maintained adequate warning devices at a particular grade crossing. Id., at 661. We held that §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) were not applicable because the warning devices for which federal funds had been obtained were never actually installed at the crossing where the accident occurred. Id., at 671-673. Nonetheless, we made clear that, when they do apply, §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) “cover the subject matter of state law which, like the tort law on which respondent relies, seeks to impose an independent duty on a railroad to identify and/or repair dangerous crossings.” Id., at 671. The sole question in this case, then, is whether §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) “are applicable” to all warning devices actually installed with federal funds.
We believe that Easterwood answers this question as well. As an original matter, one could plausibly read §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) as being purely definitional, establishing a standard for the adequacy of federally funded warning devices but not requiring that all such devices meet that standard. Easterwood rejected this approach, however, and held that the requirements spelled out in (b)(3) and (4) are mandatory for all warning devices installed with federal funds. “[F]or projects that involve grade crossings ... in which ‘Federal-aid funds participate in the installation of the [warning] devices,’ regulations specify warning devices that must be installed.” Id., at 666 (emphasis added). Once it is accepted that the regulations are not merely definitional, their scope is plain: They apply to “any project where Federal-aid funds participate in the installation of the devices.” 23 CFR § 646.214(b)(3)(i) (1999).
Sections 646.214(b)(3) and (4) therefore establish a standard of adequacy that “determiners] the devices to be installed” when federal funds participate in the crossing improvement project. Easterwood, 507 U. S., at 671. If a crossing presents those conditions listed in (b)(3), the State must install automatic gates and flashing lights; if the (b)(3) factors are absent, (b)(4) dictates that the decision as to what devices to install is subject to FHWA approval. See id., at 670-671. In either case, § 646.214(b)(3) or (4) “is applicable” and determines the type of warning device that is “adequate” under federal law. As a result, once the FHWA has funded the crossing, improvement and the warning devices are actually installed and operating, the regulation “dis-placéis] state and private decisionmaking authority by establishing a federal-law requirement that certain protective devices be installed or federal approval obtained.” Id., at 670.
Importantly, this is precisely the interpretation of §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) that the FHWA endorsed in Easter-wood. Appearing as amicus curiae, the Government explained that § 646.214(b) “establishes substantive standards for what constitutes adequate safety devices on grade crossing improvement projects financed with federal funds.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, O. T. 1992, Nos. 91-790 and 91-1206, p. 23. As a result, §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) “cover the subject matter of adequate safety devices at crossings that have been improved with the use of federal funds.” Ibid. More specifically, the Government stated that § 646.214(b)
“requires gate arms in certain circumstances, and requires FHWA approval of the safety devices in all other circumstances. Thus, the warning devices in place at a crossing improved with the use of federal funds have, by definition, been specifically found to be adequate under a regulation issued by the Secretary. Any state rule that more or different crossing devices were necessary at a federally funded crossing is therefore preempted.” Id., at 24.
Thus, Easterwood adopted the FHWA’s own understanding of the application of §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4), a regulation that the agency had been administering for 17 years.
Respondent and the Government now argue that §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) are more limited in seopé and only apply where the warning devices have been selected based on diagnostic studies and particularized analyses of the conditions at the crossing. See Brief for Respondent 16, 24; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22 (hereinafter Brief for United States). They contend that the Crossings Program actually comprises two distinct programs — the “minimum protection” program and the “priority” or “hazard” program. See Brief for Respondent 1-7; Brief for United States 15-21. Under the “minimum protection” program, they argue, States obtain federal funds merely to equip crossings with advance warning signs and refleetorized erossbucks, the bare minimum required by the MUTCD, without any judgment as to whether the signs are adequate. See Brief for Respondent 5-7, 30-36; Brief for United States 15-21. Under the “priority” or “hazard” program, in contrast, diagnostic teams conduct individualized assessments of particular crossings, and state or FHWA officials make specific judgments about the adequacy of the warning devices using the criteria set out in § 646.214(b)(3). See Brief for Respondent 5-7, 34-35; Brief for United States 18-21. They therefore contend that (b)(3) and (4) only apply to devices installed under the “priority” or “hazard” program, when a diagnostic team has actually applied the decisional process mandated by (b)(3). See Brief for Respondent 16; Brief for United States 18-25. Only then has the regulation prescribed a federal standard for the adequacy of the warning devices that displaces state law covering the same subject.
This construction, however, contradicts the regulation’s plain text. Sections 646.214(b)(3) and (4) make no distinction between devices installed for “minimum protection” and those installed under a so-called “priority” or “hazard” program. Nor does their applicability depend on any individualized determination of adequacy by a diagnostic team or an FHWA official. Rather, as the FHWA itself explained in its Easterwood brief, §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) have a “comprehensive scope.” Brief for United States in CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, O. T. 1992, Nos. 91-790 and 91-1206, at 12. Section 646.214(b)(3) states that its requirements apply to ‘‘any project where Federal-aid funds participate in the installation of the devices.” 23 CFR § 646.214(b)(3)(i) (1999) (emphasis added). And § 646.214(b)(4) applies to all federally funded crossings that do not meet the criteria specified in (b)(3). Either way, the federal standard for adequacy applies to the crossing improvement and “substantially subsume[s] the subject matter of the relevant state law.” Easterwood, 507 U. S., at 664.
Thus, contrary to the Government’s position here, §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) “specify warning devices that must be installed” as a part of all federally funded crossing improvements. Id., at 666. Although generally “an agency’s construction of its own regulations is entitled to substantial deference,” Lyng v. Payne, 476 U. S. 926, 939 (1986), no such deference is appropriate here. Not only is the FHWA’s interpretation inconsistent with the text of §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4), see Robertson v. Methow Valley Citizens Council, 490 U. S. 332, 359 (1989), but it also contradicts the agency’s own previous construction that this Court adopted as authoritative in Easterwood, cf. Maislin Industries, U. S., Inc. v. Primary Steel, Inc., 497 U. S. 116, 131 (1990) (“Once we have determined a statute’s clear meaning, we adhere to that determination under the doctrine of stare decisis, and we judge an agency’s later interpretation of the statute against our prior determination of the statute’s meaning”).
The dissent contends that, under our holding, state law is pre-empted even though “[n]o authority, federal or state, has found that the signs in place” are “adequate to protect safety.” Post, at 360 (opinion of Ginsburg, J.). This presupposes that States have not fulfilled their obligation to comply with §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4). Those subsections establish a standard for adequacy that States are required to follow in determining what devices to install when federal funds are used. The dissent also argues that Easterwood did not hold that federal funding of the devices is “sufficient” to effect pre-emption, and that “any statement as to the automatic preemptive effect of federal funding should have remained open for reconsideration in a later case.” Post, at 361. But Easterwood did not, in fact, leave this question open. Instead, at the behest of the FHWA, the Court clearly stated that §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) pre-empt state tort claims concerning the adequacy of all warning devices installed with the participation of federal funds.
Respondent also argues that pre-emption does not lie in this particular case because the Oakwood Church Road crossing presented several of the factors listed in § 646.214(b)(3), and because the TDOT did not install pavement markings as required by the MUTCD. See Brief for Respondent 20-22, 36; Brief in Opposition 6-8. This misconceives how pre-emption operates under these circumstances. When the FHWA approves a crossing improvement project and the State installs the warning devices using federal funds, §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) establish a federal standard for the adequacy of those devices that displaces state tort law addressing the same subject. At that point, the regulation dictates “the devices to be installed and the means by which railroads are to participate in their selection.” Easterwood, supra, at 671. It is this displacement of state law concerning the devices’ adequacy, and not the State’s or the FHWA’s adherence to the standard set out in §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) or to the requirements of the MUTCD, that pre-empts state tort actions. Whether the State should have originally installed different or additional devices, or whether conditions at the crossing have since changed such that automatic gates and flashing lights would be appropriate, is immaterial to the pre-emption question.
It should be noted that nothing prevents a State from revisiting the adequacy of devices installed using federal funds. States are free to install more protective devices at such crossings with their own funds or with additional funding from the FHWA. What States cannot do — once they have installed federally funded devices at a particular crossing— is hold the railroad responsible for the adequacy of those devices. The dissent objects that this bestows on railroads a “double windfall”: The Federal Government pays for the installation of the devices, and the railroad is simultaneously absolved of state tort liability. Post, at 860-361. But the same is true of the result urged by respondent and the Government. Respondent and the Government acknowledge that §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) can pre-empt state tort law, but they argue that pre-emption only occurs when the State has installed the devices pursuant to a diagnostic team’s analysis of the crossing in question. Under this reading, railroads would receive the same “double windfall” — federal funding of the devices and pre-emption of state tort law — so long as a diagnostic team has evaluated the crossing. The supposed conferral of a “windfall” on the railroads therefore casts no doubt on our construction of the regulation.
Sections 646.214(b)(3) and (4) “cover the subject matter” of the adequacy of warning devices installed with the participation of federal funds. As a result, the FRSA pre-empts respondent’s state tort claim that the advance warning signs and reflectorized crossbucks installed at the Oakwood Church Road crossing were inadequate. Because the TDOT used federal funds for the signs’ installation, §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) governed the selection and installation of the devices. And because the TDOT determined that warning devices other than automatic gates and flashing lights were appropriate, its decision was subject to the approval of the FHWA. See § 646.214(b)(4). Once the FHWA approved the project and the signs were installed using federal funds, the federal standard for adequacy displaced Tennessee statutory and common law addressing the same subject, thereby preempting respondent’s claim.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Sections 646.214(b)(3) and (4) provide in full:
“(3)(i) Adequate warning devices, under § 646.214(b)(2) or on any project where Federal-aid funds participate in the installation of the devices are to include automatic gates with flashing light signals when one or more of the following conditions exist:
“(A) Multiple main line railroad tracks.
"(B) Multiple tracks at or in the vicinity of the crossing which may be occupied by a train or locomotive so as to obscure the movement of another train approaching the crossing.
“(C) High Speed train operation combined with limited sight distance at either single or multiple track crossings.
“(D) A combination of high speeds and moderately high volumes of highway and railroad traffic.
“(E) Either a high volume of vehicular traffic, high number of train movements, substantial numbers of sehoolbuses or trucks carrying hazardous materials, unusually restricted sight distance, continuing accident occurrences, or any combination of these conditions.
“(F) A diagnostic team recommends them.
“(ii) In individual cases where a diagnostic team justifies that gates are not appropriate, FHWA may find that the above requirements are not applicable.
“(4) For crossings where the requirements of § 646.214(b)(3) are not applicable, the type of warning device to be installed, whether the determination is made by a State regulatory agency, State highway agency, and/or the railroad, is subject to the approval of FHWA.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | J | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
MR. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents an important question under 71 Stat. 595, 18 U. S. C. § 3500, the statute sometimes referred to as the Jencks Act, as it deals with the problems presented in our decision by that name. Jencks v. United States, 353 U. S. 657. Petitioners were charged with making false statements (18 U. S. C. § 1001), with attempting to evade the wagering excise tax (26 U. S. C. § 7201), and with conspiring to defraud the United States of internal revenue taxes (18 U. S. C. § 371). They were found guilty and the judgments of conviction were affirmed. 276 F. 2d 617. The case is here on a writ of certiorari. 363 U. S. 836.
At the trial Minton, a government agent, testified concerning an interview with petitioner, Kastner, at which he was present. Minton testified “I did not take any notes at the time, but afterwards I returned to the office and made a memorandum of the interview.” Counsel for Kastner asked the court for the production of that memorandum pursuant to the Jencks Act.
Other government witnesses testified to conversations they had had with Clancy, Kastner, and a third partner in petitioners’ wagering business. One of the witnesses, Agent Buescher, testified he tad taken no notes during these interviews, but had “compiled a memorandum” from notes taken at the time of the interview by the second witness, Agent Mochel. Both Buescher and Mochel testified that they had signed the later memoranda of the conversations. Counsel for petitioners requested production of the memoranda, and the requests were refused.
The trial court, though directing delivery to the defense of notes made by the witnesses at the time of the interviews, refused the requests for the memoranda, saying that written statements were not covered by the Jencks Act unless they were made “contemporaneously” with the interview. The Government now concedes that this was an erroneous ruling, as indeed it was. Each of these statements related “to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified.” Each was a “statement” as that word is defined in the Act. The requirement that it be contemporaneous applies only to “a substantially verbatim recital of an oral statement” made to a government agent. By the terms of the Act, “a written statement made by said witness and signed or otherwise adopted or approved by him” is also included. These statements fell in that category and should have been produced. Campbell v. United States, ante, p. 85. And see United States v. Sheer, 278 F. 2d 65, 67-68. As the Senate Report on the bill that became the Jencks Act states:
“The committee believes that legislation would clearly be unconstitutional if it sought to restrict due process. On the contrary, the proposed legislation, as reported, reaffirms the decision of the Supreme Court in its holding that a defendant on trial in a criminal prosecution is entitled to reports and statements in possession of the Government touching the events and activities as to which a Government witness has testified at the trial.
“The purpose of the proposed legislation is to establish a procedural device that will provide such a defendant with authenticated statements and reports of Government witnesses which relate directly upon his testimony.”
The Government, however, contends that as to Agent Minton the error was harmless. It also asserts — though the record is silent and counsel for petitioners deny it— that verbatim carbon copies of the reports of Agents Buescher and Mochel were delivered to the defense at the trial. But since its version of what transpired is contested, the Government urges that the most we do is to remand the case to the District Court to determine whether verbatim copies of the reports were delivered to the defense at the trial. If they were so delivered, the Government argues, the court’s denial of their production was harmless error.
We do not follow that suggestion. We deal with the record as we find it, which gives no support to the Government’s assertion that verbatim reports were delivered to the defense. Moreover, the Government’s assertion is not a positive statement of the prosecution. Those who present the case here say with candor that they speak only “according to our information,” which admittedly falls short of an assertion that the copies were delivered to the defense at the trial. Since the defense earnestly denies the statement, we can only conclude that on the record before us petitioners were denied an inspection of the documents to which they were entitled.
We put to one side Rosenberg v. United States, 360 U. S. 367, where a failure to produce a document was considered to be harmless error under the particular circumstances of that case. We do not reach the harmless error point because, if applicable, it is relevant only to the report of one of the agents, not to those of the other two. Since the production of at least some of the statements withheld was a right of the defense, it is not for us to speculate whether they could have been utilized effectively. As we said in Jencks v. United States, supra, 667:
“Flat contradiction between the witness’ testimony and the version of the events given in his report is not the only test of inconsistency. The omission from the reports of facts related at the trial, or a contrast in emphasis upon the same facts, even a different order of treatment, are also relevant to the cross-examining process of testing the credibility of a witness’ trial testimony.”
Accordingly we conclude that at least as respects some of these statements reversible error was committed and that petitioners are entitled to a new trial. There are other questions raised that we do not reach, as we have no way of knowing whether they will arise on a new trial.
Reversed.
18 U. S. C. § 3500 provides in relevant part:
“(a) In any criminal prosecution brought by the United States, no statement or report in the possession of the United States which was made by a Government witness or prospective Government witness (other than the defendant) to an agent of the Government shall be the subject of subpena, discovery, or inspection until said witness has testified on direct examination in the trial of the case.
“(b) After a witness called by the United States has testified on direct examination, the court shall, on motion of the defendant, order the United States to produce any statement (as hereinafter defined) of the witness in the possession of the United States which relates to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified. If the entire contents of any such statement relate to the subject matter of the testimony of the witness, the court shall order it to be delivered directly to the defendant for his examination and use.
“(e) The term ‘statement’, as used in subsections (b), (c), and (d) of this section in relation to any witness called by the United States, means—
“(1) a written statement made by said witness and signed or otherwise adopted or approved by him; or
“(2) a stenographic, mechanical, electrical, or other recording, or a transcription thereof, which is a substantially verbatim recital of an oral statement made by said witness to an agent of the Government and recorded contemporaneously with the making of such oral statement.”
18 U. S. C. § 3500 (b), supra, note 1.
18 U. S. C. § 3500 (e), supra, note 1.
18 U. S. C. § 3500 (e) (2), supra, note 1.
18 U. S. C. § 3500 (e) (1), supra, note 1.
S. Rep. No. 569, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 2.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
This is a private civil action brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), Pub. L. 91-452, Title IX, 84 Stat. 941, as amended, 18 U. S. C. §§ 1961-1968. Respondents’ complaint alleged that petitioner bank and several of its officers had fraudulently charged excessive interest rates on loans. The gist of the claim was that the bank had lied with regard to its prime rate and that the rate charged to respondents, which was pegged to the prime, was therefore too high. The complaint alleged that this scheme to defraud, which was carried on through the mails, violated 18 U. S. C. § 1962(c), in that the mailings constituted a pattern of racketeering activity by means of which petitioners conducted, or participated in the conduct of, the bank. The only injuries alleged were the excessive interest charges themselves.
The District Court dismissed on the ground that the complaint did not state a claim. 577.F. Supp. Ill (ND Ill. 1983). In its view, “to be cognizable under RICO [the injury] must be caused by a RICO violation and not simply by the commission of predicate offenses, such as acts of mail fraud. ” Id., at 114. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed in relevant part, 747 F. 2d 384 (1984), rejecting various formulations of a requirement of a distinct RICO injury. We granted. certiorari, 469 U. S. 1157 (1984), to consider the question whether a claim under § 1964(c) requires that the plaintiff have suffered damages by reason of the defendant’s violation of § 1962 through the prescribed predicate offenses, or whether injury from those offenses alone is sufficient.
In their brief, and at oral argument, petitioners have argued primarily that respondents’ complaint does not adequately allege a violation of § 1962(c). In particular, they assert that respondents have not shown that the enterprise was “conducted” through a pattern of racketeering activity. Petitioners do not appear to have made this precise argument below, it was not addressed by the Court of Appeals, and it quite clearly is not included in the question presented by their petition for certiorari. Although we have the authority to waive it, this Court’s Rule 21.1(a) provides that only the question set forth in the petition for certiorari or fairly included therein will be considered, and we therefore do not consider petitioners’ late-blooming argument that the complaint failed to allege a violation of § 1962(c).
To the extent petitioners’ argument is a variation on the racketeering injury concept at issue in Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., ante, p. 479, it is inconsistent with that decision. ' The submission that the injury must flow not from the predicate acts themselves but from the fact that they were performed as part of the conduct of an enterprise suffers from the same defects as the amorphous and unfounded restrictions on the RICO private action we rejected in that case.
With regard to the question presented, we view the decision of the court below as consistent with today’s opinion in Sedima, and it is accordingly
Affirmed.
[For dissenting opinion of Justice Marshall, see ante, p. 500.]
The question presented was:
“Whether a civil claim for treble damages under the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act (‘RICO’) requires that the plaintiff suffer damages by reason of the defendant acquiring, maintaining control or an interest in, or conducting the affairs of an ‘enterprise’ through the commission of statutorily prescribed offenses as opposed to being damaged solely by reason of the defendant’s commission of such offenses.” Pet. for Cert. i.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The principal issue before us is whether materiality of falsehood is an element of the crime of knowingly making a false statement to a federally insured bank, 18 U. S. C. § 1014. We hold that it is not.
I
In 1993, the Government charged respondents, Jerry Wells and Kenneth Steele, with violating and conspiring to violate the cited statute as officers and part owners of Copytech Systems, Inc., a lessor of office copiers for a monthly fee covering not only use of the equipment but any service that might be required. To raise cash, Copytech sold its interest in the income stream from these contracts to banks.
In Count I of the indictment, the Government charged respondents with conspiring to violate §1014 by concealing from several banks the true contractual terms. Respondents supposedly conspired to provide the banks with versions of lease contracts purporting to indicate that Copytech’s customers were responsible for servicing the equipment when, in fact, secret side agreements placed that responsibility on Copytech at no further cost to the lessees. See App. 24-25; 63 F. 3d 745, 748 (CA8 1995). The Government alleged that respondents concealed the service obligations in order to avoid tying up needed cash in reserve accounts, which the banks might have required Copytech to maintain if they had known of the company’s servicing obligations. Ibid.
In Count II, respondents were charged with violating § 1014 by giving a bank forgeries of respondents’ wives’ signatures on personal guaranties designed to enable the bank to pursue the wives’ assets if Copytech defaulted on any liability to the bank. See App. 21, 30-31; 63 F. 3d, at 748. Each count of the indictment charged respondents with submitting one or more statements that were both false and “material.” App. 24, 25, 29, 30-31.
At the end of the trial, the District Court instructed the jury, at the Government’s behest, that withholding a “material fact” made a statement or representation false, id., at 41, 42, and defined a material fact as one “that would be important to a reasonable person in deciding whether to engage or not to engage in a particular transaction,” id., at 42. Although there was no controversy over the law as stated in these instructions, the Government argued that materiality was for the judge to determine, while respondents said it was an issue for the jury. 63 F. 3d, at 749, nn. 3 and 4. Following Eighth Circuit precedent then prevailing, the District Court agreed with the Government and told the jury that “[t]he materiality of the statement... alleged to be false... is not a matter with which you are concerned and should not be considered by you in determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant^],” App. 43. The jury convicted respondents on both counts, the court treated the statements as material, and respondents appealed.
While the appeal was pending, we decided United States v. Gaudin, 515 U. S. 506 (1995), in which the parties agreed that materiality was an element of 18 U. S. C. § 1001, but disputed whether materiality was a question for the judge or jury, 515 U. S., at 509. Applying the rule that a[t]he Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to have a jury determine... his guilt of every element of the crime with which he is charged,” we held that the jury was entitled to pass on the materiality of Gaudin’s statements, id., at 522-523. When the Court of Appeals in this case requested supplemental briefing on the applicability of Gaudin, respondents argued that under § 1014 materiality is an element on which they were entitled to a jury’s determination; the Government argued, for the first time, that materiality is not an element under § 1014, so that no harm had been done when the judge dealt with the issue. The Court of Appeals agreed with respondents, vacated their convictions and sentences, and remanded the case for a new trial. 63 F. 3d, at 749-751.
We granted the Government’s petition for certiorari to decide whether materiality of a false statement or report is an element under § 1014. 517 U. S. 1154 (1996). We now vacate and remand.
I
We first address respondents’ efforts to block us from reaching the question on which we granted certiorari. Given the Government’s proposal for jury instructions to the effect that materiality is an element under § 1014, respondents argue that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 30 and the doctrines of “law of the case” and “invited error” each bar the Government from taking the position here that materiality is not an element. None of these reasons stands in our way to reaching the merits.
Rule 30 (applicable in this Court, see Fed. Rules Grim. Proc. 1, 54(a)) provides that “[n]o party may assign as error any portion of the charge [given to the jury]... unless that party objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict.” But the Government is not challenging the jury instruction in an effort to impute error to the trial court; it is merely arguing that the instruction it proposed was harmless surplusage insofar as it was directed to the jury.
As for the two doctrines, respondents are correct that several Courts of Appeals have ruled that when the Government accepts jury instructions treating a fact as an element of an offense, the “law of the case” doctrine precludes the Government from denying on appeal that the crime includes the element. See United States v. Killip, 819 F. 2d 1542, 1547-1548 (CA10), cert. denied sub nom. Krout v. United States, 484 U. S. 987 (1987); United States v. Tapio, 634 F. 2d 1092, 1094 (CA8 1980); United States v. Spletzer, 535 F. 2d 950, 954 (CA5 1976). They are also correct that Courts of Appeals have stated more broadly under the “invited error” doctrine “ ‘that a party may not complain on appeal of errors that he himself invited or provoked the [district] court... to commit.’ ” United States v. Sharpe, 996 F. 2d 125, 129 (CA6) (quoting Harvis v. Roadway Express, Inc., 923 F. 2d 59, 60 (CA6 1991)), cert. denied, 510 U. S. 951 (1993). But however valuable these doctrines may be in controlling the party who wishes to change its position on the way from the district court to the court of appeals, they cannot dispositively oust this Court’s traditional rule that we may address a question properly presented in a petition for certiorari if it was “pressed [in] or passed on” by the Court of Appeals, United States v. Williams, 504 U. S. 36, 42 (1992) (internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted). Accordingly, we have treated an inconsistency between a party’s request for a jury instruction and its position before this Court as just one of several considerations bearing on whether to decide a question on which we granted certiorari. See Springfield v. Kibbe, 480 U. S. 257, 259-260 (1987) (per curiam). Here, it seems sensible to reach the question presented.
The question of materiality as an element was raised before the Court of Appeals, ruled on there, clearly set forth in the certiorari petition, fully briefed, and argued. Nor would reaching the issue excuse inattention or reward cunning. For some time before respondents’ trial in 1993, the Eighth Circuit had assumed that the Government was bound to prove a false statement’s materiality as an element under § 1014, see 63 F. 3d, at 750-751; United States v. Ribaste, 905 F. 2d 1140, 1143 (1990); United States v. McKnight, 771 F. 2d 388, 389 (1985), and had treated this issue as one for the judge, not the jury, see United States v. Ribaste, supra, at 1143. Since the Government was confident that it had evidence of materiality to satisfy the Circuit rule, it had no reason not to address the element when it drafted the indictment and its proposed jury instructions. When Gaudin rendered it reversible error to assign a required materiality ruling to the court, the Government suddenly had reason to contest the requirement to show materiality at all. Nothing the Government has done disqualifies it from the chance to make its position good in this Court.
M HH
We accordingly consider whether materiality of falsehood is an element under § 1014, understanding the term in question to mean “ha[ving] a natural tendency to influence, or [being] capable of influencing, the decision of the decision-making body to which it was addressed,” Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S. 759, 770 (1988) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. Gaudin, 515 U. S., at 509. We begin with the text. See Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U. S. 730, 739 (1989). Section 1014 criminalizes “knowingly mak[ing] any false statement or report... for the purpose of influencing in any way the action” of a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured bank “upon any application, advance,... commitment, or loan.” 18 U. S. C. § 1014. Nowhere does it further say that a material fact must be the subject of the false statement or so much as mention materiality. To the contrary, its terms cover “any” false statement that meets the other requirements in the statute, and the term “false statement” carries no general suggestion of influential significance, see Kungys v. United States, supra, at 781; cf. Kay v. United States, 303 U. S. 1, 5-6 (1938). Thus, under the first criterion in the interpretive hierarchy, a natural reading of the full text, see United States v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 310 U. S. 534, 542-543 (1940), materiality would not be an element of § 1014.
Nor have respondents come close to showing that at common law the term “false statement” acquired any implication of materiality that came with it into §1014. We do, of course, presume that Congress incorporates the common-law meaning of the terms it uses if those “ 'terms... have accumulated settled meaning under... the common law’ ” and “‘the statute [does not] otherwise dictat[e],’” Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Darden, 503 U. S. 318, 322 (1992) (quoting Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, supra, at 739). Respondents here, however, make no claims about the settled meaning of “false statement” at common law; they merely note that some common-law crimes involving false statements, such as perjury, required proof of materiality. See Brief for Respondents 23-24. But Congress did. not codify the crime of perjury or comparable common-law crimes in § 1014; as we discuss next, it simply consolidated 13 statutory provisions relating to financial institutions, and, in fact, it enacted a separate general perjury provision at 18 U. S. C. § 1621, see 62 Stat. 773.
Statutory history confirms the natural reading. When Congress originally enacted § 1014 as part of its recodification of the federal criminal code in 1948, 62 Stat. 752, it explicitly included materiality in other provisions involving false representations. Even more significantly, of the 18 provisions brought together by § 1014,10 had previously contained no express materiality provision and received none in the recodification, while 3 of the 13 had contained express materiality requirements and lost them in the course of consolidation. See Williams v. United States, 458 U. S. 279, 288 (1982). The most likely inference in these circumstances is that Congress deliberately dropped the term “materiality” without intending materiality to be an element of § 1014. See United States v. Shabani, 513 U. S. 10, 13-14 (1994). While 2 of the 3 offenses from which the express materiality requirement was dropped used the term “representation,” see n. 12, supra, and thus could have included a materiality element implicitly, see Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S., at 781 (noting that “misrepresentation” had been held to imply materiality), the remaining 11 would not have, as was clear from the opinion of the Court in Kay v. United States, 303 U. S. 1 (1938). Kay had construed 1 of the 10 statutes that were later mirrored in the language of §1014; when the petitioner claimed that the statements she had made could not “endanger or directly influence any loan made by” the decisionmaker, id., at 5, we thought her arguments unimpressive, ibid., and explained:
“It does not lie with one knowingly making false statements with intent to mislead the officials of the Corporation to say that the statements were not influential or the information not important. There can be no question that Congress was.entitled to require that the information be given in good faith and not falsely with intent to mislead. Whether or not the Corporation would act favorably on the loan is not a matter which concerns one seeking to deceive by false information. The case is not one of an action for damages but of criminal liability and actual damage is not an ingredient of the offense.” Id., at 5-6.
Although some courts have read Kay as holding only that there is no need for the Government to prove that false statements actually influenced the decisionmaker, see, e. g., United States v. Goberman, 458 F. 2d 226, 229 (CA3 1972), the opinion speaks of the importance of the statements as well as their efficacy, and no one reading Kay could reasonably have assumed that criminal falsity presupposed materiality. Since we presume that Congress expects its statutes to be read in conformity with this Court’s precedents, see, e. g., North Star Steel Co. v. Thomas, 515 U. S. 29, 34 (1995), and since the relevant language of the statute in Kay was substantially like that in § 1014, Kay stands in the way of any assumption that Congress might have understood an express materiality provision to be redundant.
Respondents’ remaining arguments for affirmance are unavailing. They contend that Congress has ratified holdings of some of the Courts of Appeals that materiality is an element of § 1014 by repeatedly amending the statute without rejecting those decisions. But the significance of subsequent congressional action or inaction necessarily varies with the circumstances, and finding any interpretive help in congressional behavior here is impossible. Since 1948, Congress has amended § 1014 to modify the list of covered institutions and to increase the maximum penalty, but without ever touching the original phraseology criminalizing “false statement^]” made “for the purpose of influencing” the actions of the enumerated institutions. We thus have at most legislative silence on the crucial statutory language, and we have “frequently cautioned that ‘[i]t is at best treacherous to find in congressional silence alone the adoption of a controlling rule of law,’ ” NLRB v. Plasterers, 404 U. S. 116, 129-130 (1971) (quoting Girouard v. United States, 328 U. S. 61, 69 (1946)). But even if silence could speak, it could not speak unequivocally to the issue here, since over the years judicial opinion has divided on whether § 1014 includes a materiality element, see n. 3, supra, and we have previously described the elements of § 1014 without any mention of materiality, see Williams v. United States, 458 U. S., at 284. It would thus be impossible to say which view Congress might have endorsed. See Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U. S. 517, 527-532 (1994).
Respondents also rely on the 1948 Reviser’s Note to § 1014, which discussed the consolidation of the 13 provisions into one, and explained that, apart from two changes not relevant here, the consolidation “was without change of substance,” Historical and Revision Notes following § 1014, 18 U. S. C., p. 247. Respondents say that the revisers’ failure to mention the omission of materiality from the text of § 1014 means that Congress must have “completely overlooked” the issue. Brief for Respondents 29-80. But surely this indication that the “staff of experts” who prepared the legislation, Muniz v. Hoffman, 422 U. S. 454, 470, n. 10 (1975), either overlooked or chose to say nothing about changing the language of three of the former statutes does nothing to muddy the ostensibly unambiguous provision of the statute as enacted by Congress, cf. Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102, 108 (1980) (“Absent a cléarly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, [statutory] language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive”). In any event, the revisers’ assumption that the consolidation made no substantive change was simply wrong. As respondents candidly conceded at oral argument, they failed to discover a single case holding that any of the predecessor statutes lacking a materiality requirement implicitly contained one, and after our decision in Kay v. United States, 303 U. S. 1 (1938), Congress could not have assumed that a materiality element was implicit in a comparable statute that was silent on the issue, see supra, at 494-495. Dropping the materiality element from the three statutes could not, then, reasonably have been seen as making no change. Those who write revisers’ notes have proven fallible before. See State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S. 523, 532, n. 11 (1967).
Respondents next urge that we follow the reasoning of some Courts of Appeals in reading materiality into the statute to avoid the improbability that Congress intended to impose substantial criminal penalties on relatively trivial or innocent conduct. See 63 F. 3d, at 751; United States v. Williams, 12 F. 3d 452, 458 (CA5 1994); United States v. Staniforth, 971 F. 2d 1355, 1358 (CA7 1992). But we think there is no clear call to take such a course. It is true that we have held § 1014 inapplicable to depositing false cheeks at a bank, in part because we thought that it would have “ma[d]e a surprisingly broad range of unremarkable conduct a violation of federal law,” Williams v. United States, 458 U. S., at 286-287, n. 8, and elsewhere thought it possible to construe a prohibition narrowly where a loose mens rea requirement would otherwise have resulted in a surprisingly broad statutory sweep, see United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64, 71-72 (1994). But an unqualified reading of § 1014 poses no risk of criminalizing so much conduct as to suggest that Congress meant something short of the straightforward reading. The language makes a false statement to one of the enumerated financial institutions a crime only if the speaker knows the falsity of what he says and intends it to influence the institution. A statement made “for the purpose of influencing” a bank will not usually be about something a banker would regard as trivial, and “it will be relatively rare that the Government will be able to prove that” a false statement “was... made with the subjective intent” of influencing a decision unless it could first prove that the statement has “the natural tendency to influence the decision,” Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S., at 780-781. Hence the literal reading of the statute will not normally take the scope of § 1014 beyond the limit that a materiality requirement would impose.
Finally, the rule of lenity is no help to respondents here. “The rule of lenity applies only if, ‘after seizing everything from which aid can be derived,’... we can make ‘no more than a guess as to what Congress intended.’” Reno v. Koray, 515 U. S. 50, 65 (1995) (quoting Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223, 239 (1993), and Ladner v. United States, 358 U. S. 169, 178 (1958)). Read straightforwardly, § 1014 reveals no ambiguity, its mens rea requirements narrow the sweep of the statute, and this is not a case of guesswork reaching out for lenity.
IV
Respondents advance two further reasons to affirm the Court of Appeals’s judgment, even on the assumption that materiality is not an element. According to respondents, the trial judge’s instruction that “[t]he materiality of the statement... alleged to be false... is not a matter with which you are concerned and should not be considered by you in determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant[s],” App. 43, probably left the jurors with the impression that the statements as alleged would have been material, and that impression could have improperly influenced the jury in passing on the elements of falsity and purpose. Respondents also suggest that because the indictment alleged materiality, any ruling that materiality need not be shown in this case would impermissibly “amend” the indictment contrary to the Fifth Amendment’s requirement that “[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 5. Since respondents failed to raise either of these issues in their briefs before the Court of Appeals and that court did not pass on these questions, we leave it to the Court of Appeals on remand to take up the propriety of raising these issues now and to address them if warranted.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.
It is so ordered.
Title 18 U. S. C. §371 makes it a crime to “conspire... to commit any offense against the United States.”
The Government also charged respondents with three other counts of violating § 1014. The District Court dismissed one count prior to trial and granted judgment of acquittal on the other two. 63 F. 3d, at 748; Brief for Respondents 2; Brief for United States 3, n. 1.
Most, but not all, of the Federal Courts of Appeals have held that materiality is an element. Compare United States v. Lopez, 71 F. 3d 954, 960 (CA1 1995), cert. denied, 518 U. S. 1008 (1996); United States v. Ryan, 828 F. 2d 1010, 1013, n. 1 (CA3 1987); United States v. Bonnette, 663 F. 2d 495, 497 (CA4 1981), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 951 (1982); United States v. Thompson, 811 F. 2d 841, 844 (CA5 1987); United States v. Spears, 49 F. 3d 1136, 1141 (CA6 1995); United States v. Staniforth, 971 F. 2d 1355, 1358 (CA7 1992); Theron v. United States Marshal, 832 F. 2d 492, 496-497 (CA9 1987), cert. denied, 486 U. S. 1059 (1988); United States v. Haddock, 956 F. 2d 1534, 1549 (CA10), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 828 (1992); United States v. Rapp, 871 F. 2d 957, 964 (CA11), cert. denied sub nom. Bazarian v. United States, 493 U. S. 890 (1989) (all holding materiality to be an element of § 1014), with United States v. Cleary, 565 F. 2d 43, 46 (CA2 1977) (concluding that materiality is not an element), cert, denied sub nom. Passarelli v. United States, 435 U. S. 915 (1978).
In this context, the “law of the case” doctrine is something of a misnomer. It does not counsel a court to abide by its own prior decision in a given case, but goes rather to an appellate court’s relationship to the court of trial. See 18 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §4478 (1981).
Respondents offer variations on their “law of the case” and “invited error” doctrines. In addition to arguing that the “law of the case” doctrine holds the Government to the position it took on the jury instructions, respondents contend this doctrine holds the Government to the position it adopted in the indictment. See Brief for Respondents 14-16 (citing United States v. Norberg, 612 F. 2d 1 (CA1 1979)). For the reasons set forth in the text, this latter version of the doctrine does not stand in our way to reaching the question presented. error” in the District
Along with arguing that the Government “invited error” Court by proposing its jury instructions, respondents claim that the Government invited error in the Court of Appeals by failing to argue that materiality is not an element of § 1014 in its initial brief to that court. This claim is wrong. After the Court of Appeals requested supplemental briefing, the Government argued that materiality is not an element of § 1014 and therefore hardly “invited” that court’s contrary ruling. dismissed the writ
In Springfield v. Kibbe, 480 U. S., at 259, the Court dismissed the writ of certiorari on prudential grounds in part because the petitioner there, like the Government here, sought “to reversfe] a judgment because of [jury] instructions that petitioner accepted, and indeed itself requested.” In contrast to the case at hand, however, the petitioner in Kibbe had not, in the Court of Appeals, raised an issue critical to resolving the question presented in its petition for a writ of certiorari, the Court of Appeals had not considered that related issue, and the petitioner had not explicitly raised that related issue in its certiorari petition, id., at 258-260. See also United States v. Williams, 504 U. S. 36, 43, n. 3 (1992) (discussing Kibbe)?
The Court of Appeals here also appears to have understood materiality to have this meaning. See 63 F. 3d, at 750 (relying on United States v. Adler, 623 F. 2d 1287, 1291 (CA8 1980), which defined “materiality” as having “a natural tendency to influence or [being] capable of influencing” an entity’s decision (internal quotation marks omitted)).
The pertinent text of §1014 is: “Whoever knowingly makes any false statement or report, or willfully overvalues any land, property or security, for the purpose of influencing in any way the action of... any institution the accounts of which are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation..., upon any application, advance, discount, purchase, purchase agreement, repurchase agreement, commitment, or loan, or any change or extension of any of the same, by renewal, deferment of action or otherwise, or the acceptance, release, or substitution of security therefor, shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.”
Justice Stevens argues that the four criminal acts other than “false statement” listed in § 1014 would in fact involve material misstatements, and that it follows on the theories of ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis that false statements must also be shown to be material. Post, at 510-511, n. 12. But this does not follow. The question is not whether the specified categories of statements will almost certainly be material statements in point of fact; like false statements made for the purpose of influencing a lender, the four other criminal acts will virtually always involve material misstatements. The question, however, is whether materiality must be proven as a separate element, and on that question a list of criminal acts, none of which is expressly described as “material,” is no premise for the dissent’s conclusion under the ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis canons.
Nor does Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U. S. 490 (1981), help respondents here. In Fedorenko, we agreed with the Government that, even though the phrase “willfully make a misrepresentation” in § 10 of the Displaced Persons Act, 62 Stat. 1013, did not use the term “material,” it nonetheless applied only to willful misrepresentations about “material” facts, 449 U. S., at 507-508, and n. 28. The dissent argues we should reach a similar conclusion here, because Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S. 759, 781 (1988), made it clear that “misrepresentation” and “false statement” were on par at common law. Post, at 504, and n. 6. But the passage from Kungys quoted by the dissent addressed the historic meaning of the term “material,” see 485 U. S., at 769, not the common-law meaning of “misrepresentation” or “false statement.” Although Kungys supports the view that “materiality” has the same meaning in criminal statutes that prohibit falsehoods to public officials, whether the statutes refer to misrepresentations, see id., at 772-776, or to some form of false statements, see id., at 779-782, that does not mean that “misrepresentation” and “false statement” are identical in carrying an implicit requirement of materiality. Indeed, Kungys distinguished between the common-law meaning of “misrepresentation” and “false testimony,” concluding that while the former had been held to carry a materiality requirement in many contexts, the terms “false” or “falsity” did not as frequently carry such an implication. Id., at 781.
More fundamentally, we disagree with our colleague’s apparent view that any term that is an element of a common-law crime carries with it every other aspect of that common-law crime when the term is used in a statute. Justice Stevens seems to assume that because “false statement” is an element of perjury, and perjury criminalizes only material statements, a statute criminalizing “false statements” covers only material statements. See post, at 504. By a parity of reasoning, because common-law perjury involved statements under oath, a statute criminalizing a false statement would reach only statements under oath. It is impossible to believe that Congress intended to impose such restrictions sub silentio, however, and so our rule on imputing common-law meaning to statutory terms does not sweep so broadly. and
See 18 U. S. C. § 1621, 62 Stat. 773 (entitled “Perjury generally,” and prohibiting statements under oath regarding “any material matter which [one] does not believe to be true”); 18 U. S. C. § 1001, 62 Stat. 749 (entitled “Statements or entries generally,” and prohibiting, inter alia, “knowingly and willfully falsifying]... a material fact”).
See 7 U. S. C. § 1514(a) (1946 ed.) (“mak[ing] any statement knowing it to be false... for the purpose of influencing”); 12 U. S. C. § 981 (1946 ed.) (“knowingly mak[ing] any false statement in an application for [a] loan”); 12 U. S. C. §1122 (1946 ed.) (“mak[ing] any statement, knowing it to be false, for the purpose of obtaining... any advance”); § 1123 (1946 ed.) (“willfully overvalu[ing] any property offered as security”); 12 U. S. C. § 1248 (1946 ed.) (“makftng] any statement... knowing the same to be false”); 12 U. S. C. § 1312 (1946 ed.) (“makftng] any statement, knowing it to be false, for the purpose of obtaining”); 12 U. S. C. § 1313 (1946 ed.) (“willfully overvaluftng] any property offered as security”); 12 U. S. C. § 1441(a) (1946 ed.) (“makftng] any statement, knowing it to be false,... for the purpose of influencing”); 12 U. S. C. § 1467(a) (1946 ed.) (“makftng] any statement, knowing it to be false,... for the purpose of influencing”); 15 U. S. C. § 616(a) (1946 ed.) (“makftng] any statement knowing it to be false... for the purpose of obtaining... or for the purpose of influencing”).
See 7 U. S. C. § 1026(a) (1946 ed.) (making a “material representation”); 12 U. S. C. § 596 (1946 ed.) (making a “material statement”); and 12 U. S. C. § 1138d(a) (1946 ed.) (making a “material representation”).
Justice Stevens suggests that because he can discern no meaningful difference between the subject matter and penalties involved in the 42 sections of the United States Code criminalizing false statements that expressly include a materiality requirement, and the 54 sections criminalizing false statements that lack an express materiality requirement, we must infer that Congress intended all of the sections to include a materiality element. See post, at 505-509. In other words, Congress must have thought that including materiality in 42 statutes was surplusage. This, of course, is contrary to our presumption that each term in a criminal statute carries meaning. See Bailey v. United States, 516 U. S. 137, 145 (1995). Moreover, the dissent’s approach to statutory interpretation leads to remarkable results
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On November 10, 1953, an 18-count indictment was returned in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, charging the appellee, a former member of Congress, with violations of 18 U. S. C. § 1001. During the course of the trial a judgment of acquittal was ordered on counts 8 through 18 of the indictment. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on the remaining 7 counts which charged the appellee with having falsely and fraudulently represented to the Disbursing Office of the House of Representatives that a named woman was entitled to compensation as his official clerk. The District Court granted appellee’s motion in arrest of judgment, holding that he had not falsified a material fact “within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States” since the Disbursing Office was not a department or agency within the meaning of the statute. The District Court was of the opinion that the statute does not afford protection to the legislative and judicial branches of the Government. The Government brought this case here on direct appeal pursuant to 18 U. S. C. § 3731. Reference to the evolution of § 1001 will assist in determining the correctness of the decision below. A detailed analysis appears in the opinion of the trial court. 120 F. Supp. 857.
Section 1001 had its origin in a statute passed almost 100 years ago in the wake of a spate of frauds upon the Government. The Act of March 2, 1863, 12 Stat. 696, “An Act to prevent and punish Frauds upon the Government of the United States,” made it a criminal offense for
“any person in the land or naval forces of the United States . . . [to] make or cause to be made, or present or cause to be presented for payment or approval to or by any person or officer in the civil or military service of the United States, any claim upon or against the Government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof, knowing such claim to be false, fictitious, or fraudulent . . .
This provision clearly covers the presentation of false claims against any component of the Government to any officer of the Government. The prohibition of the statute is broad, although its application was limited to military personnel.
False statements were proscribed in the following clause of the same section in these terms:
“any person in such forces or service who shall, for the purpose of obtaining, or aiding in obtaining, the approval or payment of such claim, make, use, or cause to be made or used, any false bill, receipt, voucher, entry, roll, account, claim, statement, certificate, affidavit, or deposition, knowing the same to contain any false or fraudulent statement or entry.”
It will be noted that there is here no specification as to the group to whom the false statements had to be made. The provision in the false claims section which made the presentation of false claims to “any person or officer in the civil or military service of the United States” punishable might reasonably have been applied here. There would be no justification for giving the false statements section a narrower scope, for, so long as the false statement was made with the indicated purpose, the statute made it punishable.
From 1863 to 1934 the coverage of the statute was at various times extended, but no change was made which could be or is taken by the appellee as restricting the scope of the false statements provision to the executive branch.
The words urged as crucial in this case first appeared in the revision of 1934. 48 Stat. 996. No change was made in the false claims portion of the statute, but the false statements section was amended to read:
“or whoever shall knowingly and willfully falsify or conceal or cover up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, or make or cause to be made any false or fraudulent statements or representations, or make or use or cause to be made or used any false bill, receipt, voucher, roll, account, claim, certificate, affidavit, or deposition, knowing the same to contain any fraudulent or fictitious statement or entry, in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or of any corporation in which the United States of America is a stockholder; . . . .” (Italics supplied.)
The amendment deleted all words as to purpose and inserted the italicized phrase. Under the prior statutes there had been no possibility of a restrictive interpretation which would read out falsifications made to officers of the legislative or judicial branches. Did the insertion of the new phrase exclude those branches? We think not.
The 1934 revision was largely the product of the urging of the Secretary of the Interior. The Senate Report, S. Rep. No. 1202, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., indicates that its purpose was to broaden the statute so as to reach not only false papers presented in connection with a claim against the Government, but also nonmonetary frauds such as those involved in the “hot-oil” shipments. A greater variety of false statements were meant to be included. There is no indication in either the committee reports or in the congressional debates that the scope of the statute was to be in any way restricted. There was certainly no suggestion that the new phrase was to be interpreted so that only falsifications made to executive agencies would be reached. Apparently the italicized phrase was inserted simply to compensate for the deleted language as to purpose — to indicate that not all falsifications but only those made to government organs were reached.
The 1948 revision put the statute into its present form. 62 Stat. 683. The false claims provision became § 287 of Title 18 and retained its prior form without significant change. Section 1001 is the “false statements” section. Except for housekeeping changes in language which are of no particular significance, the deletion of the reference to corporations, and the transposition of the “in any matter" clause to the beginning of the section, there has been no change since the 1934 statute. There is no indication that the revision was intended to work any substantive change. It would thus be supposed that the statute retained its broad scope, a scope at least as broad as the false claims section, and could not be limited to falsifications made to executive agencies.
The appellee and the District Court rely on § 6 of Title 18 to restrict the scope of § 1001. Section 6 provides:
“As used in this title:
“The term ‘department’ means one of the executive departments enumerated in section 1 of Title 5, unless the context shows that such term was intended to describe the executive, legislative, or judicial branches of the government.
“The term ‘agency’ includes any department, independent establishment, commission, administration, authority, board or bureau of the United States or any corporation in which the United States has a proprietary interest, unless the context shows that such term was intended to be used in a more limited sense.”
The falsification here involved was held to be within the jurisdiction of the Disbursing Office of the House which it was thought could not meet the definitions in § 6. It seemed significant to the trial court “that Title 18, § 287 (formerly the first part of old Section 35) provides penalties against any one who ‘makes or presents to any person or officer in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, or to any department or agency thereof, any claim . . . knowing such claim to be false,’ ” whereas § 1001 does not contain such language. 120 F. Supp., at 861.
It might be argued that the matter here involved was within the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department, as the appellee’s misstatements would require the payment of funds from the United States Treasury. Or, viewing this as a matter within the jurisdiction of the Disbursing Office, it might be argued, as the Government does, that that body is an “authority” within the § 6 definition of “agency.” We do not rest our decision on either of those interpretations. The context in which this language is used calls for an unrestricted interpretation. This is enforced by its legislative history. It would do violence to the purpose of Congress to limit the section to falsifications made to the executive departments. Congress could not have intended to leave frauds such as this without penalty. The development, scope and purpose of the section shows that “department,” as used in this context, was meant to describe the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the Government. The difference between the language of § 287 and that of § 1001 can only be understood in the light of legislative history. That history dispels the possibility of attaching any significance to the difference.
That criminal statutes are to be construed strictly is a proposition which calls for the citation of no authority. But this does not mean that every criminal statute must be given the narrowest possible meaning in complete disregard of the purpose of the legislature.
The judgment below is accordingly
Reversed.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Burton and Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”
Under the codification of December 1, 1873, approved June 22, 1874, R. S. § 5438, the statute was extended to cover "every person” — not merely military personnel. The Act of May 30, 1908, 35 Stat. 555, simply changed the penalties, and in the codification of 1909, 35 Stat. 1088, § 5438 was redesignated § 35. Section 35 was in turn revised in 1918, 40 Stat. 1015. The false claims provision was extended to cover corporations in which the United States held stock; and false statements were proscribed if made “for the purpose and with the intent of cheating and swindling or defrauding the Government of the United States” as well as if made for the purpose of obtaining payment of a false claim.
For a discussion of the legislative history of the Act, see United States v. Gilliland, 312 U. S. 86, 93-95.
In United States v. Cohn, 270 U. S. 339, the Court held that the 1918 Act did not proscribe false statements made to a customs collector where the purpose was not to defraud the Government of either its money or property. After the 1934 amendment, however, the Court sustained an indictment charging the defendants with willfully falsifying reports required to be filed under the “Hot-Oil'’ Act of February 22, 1935. The Court stated that the purpose of the 1934 amendment was to remove the prior “restriction to cases involving pecuniary or property loss to the government.” United States v. Gilliland, 312 U. S. 86, 93.
S. Rep. No. 1202; H. R. Rep. No. 1463, 73d Cong., 2d Sess.
78 Cong. Rec. 8136, 11270, 11513.
In Romney v. United States, 83 U. S. App. D. C. 150, 167 F. 2d 521, the Sergeant at Arms of the House of Representatives of the United States was convicted of presenting false statements of his accounts and of concealing shortages in reporting to the General Accounting Office, which was created as an establishment “independent of the executive departments and under the control and direction of the Comptroller General of the United States.” 42 Stat. 23, 31 U. S. C. §41.
In 1938, § 35 was divided into subsections, but the part of the statute with which we are here concerned was left unchanged. 52 Stat. 197.
Cf. United States ex rel. Marcus v. Hess, 317 U. S. 537; Spivey v. United States, 109 F. 2d 181.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner, who was sentenced to death while his co-defendant was given life, appealed to the Maryland Court of Appeals which affirmed his conviction. 227 Md. 615, 177 A. 2d 877. We granted certiorari “limited to the point of law raised in Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U. S. 52.” See 371 U. S. 909.
Petitioner was arrested on May 27, 1960, and brought before a magistrate on May 31, 1960, for a preliminary hearing. But that hearing was. postponed and not actually held until August 9,1960. At that time petitioner was not yet represented by a lawyer. When arraigned at that preliminary hearing he pleaded guilty. What Maryland calls the “arraignment” was first held September 8, 1960; but since petitioner was not represented by counsel, his arraignment was postponed and counsel appointed for him on September 9, 1960. He was finally arraigned on November 25,1960, and entered'pleas of “not guilty” and “not guilty by reason of insanity.” At his trial the plea of .guilty made at the preliminary hearing on' August 9, 1960, was introduced in evidence. Since he did not have counsel at the time of the preliminary hearing, he argued that Hamilton v. Alabama, supra, applied. The Court of Appeals disagreed, saying that arraignment in Alabama is “a critical stage in a criminal proceeding” where rights' are preserved or lost (368 U. S. 53-54), while.under Maryland law there was “no requirement (nor. any practical possibility under our present criminal procedure) to appoint counsel” for petitioner at the “preliminary hearing . . . nor was it necessary for appellant to enter a plea at that time.” 227 Md., at 625, 177 A. 2d, at 882.
Whatever may be the normal function of the “preliminary hearing” under Maryland law, it was in this case as “critical” a stage as arraignment under Alabama law. For petitioner entered a plea before the magistrate and that plea was taken at a time when he had no counsel.
Wé repeat what we said in Hamilton v. Alabama, supra, at 55, that we do not stop to determine whether prejudice resulted: “Only the presence of counsel could have enabled this accused to know all the defenses available to him and to-plead intelligently.” We therefore hold that Hamilton v. Alabama governs and that the judgment below must be and is.
Reversed.
Although petitioner did not object to the introduction of this evidence at the trial (227 Md., at 619-620, 177 A.2d, at 879), the rationale of Hamilton v. Alabama, supra/does not rest, as we shall see, on a showing of prejudice.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner refused to testify before a New York grand jury which was investigating the alleged association of city policemen with criminals, racketeers, and gamblers in Kings County. He was convicted of criminal contempt and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment. We granted certiorari, 347 U. S. 1010, to determine whether, under the circumstances here presented, petitioner was deprived of his liberty without due process of law in being punished for his refusal to testify. Cf. Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 54.
The following New York constitutional and statutory provisions are essential to an understanding of the ease. Article I, § 6, of the Constitution of the State of New York provides, in part, that no person shall “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Section 381 of the New York Penal Law, as it existed at the time of this case, provided that testimony relating to bribery could not be withheld on the ground of self-incrimination, but conferred immunity from prosecution for any criminal activity revealed in such testimony. Section 903 of the Charter of the City of New York provides that any city employee who refuses to sign a waiver of his immunity against subsequent prosecution upon any matter of an official nature about which he is asked to testify shall lose his job and be disqualified from future employment with the city. Article I, § 6, of the Constitution of the State of New York contains a provision much to the same effect.
Petitioner was first called to testify before the grand jury on March 7, 1951. He was then a member of the Police Department of the City of New York. Prior to being sworn, he signed a waiver of immunity against prosecution. After being sworn, he testified that the waiver had been executed voluntarily and with full understanding as to its meaning. He was given a financial questionnaire and directed to return with it completely filled out on'March 28, 1951. On March 27, 1951, his connection with the police department was severed. His next appearance before the grand jury was on October 22, 1952, when he was given another questionnaire and instructed to return it in completed form by November 12, 1952. On November 12 he asked for an extension of time and his request was granted. On December 21, 1952, he was once again before the grand jury. On that occasion, he was asked the following question: ’
“While you were a plainclothesman in the Police Department of the City of New York did you ever accept or receive any bribes from bookmakers or other gamblers?”
Petitioner refused to answer the question on the ground that his answer might tend to incriminate him. He made a statement in which he claimed that his waiver of immunity was invalid since he had not understood its significance when he signed it, and no one had explained it to him. He expressed doubt as to his status as a witness and his privileges and duties as such.
Petitioner was taken before the County Court of Kings County to clarify his status. It was there held, after a hearing, that the waiver was valid because petitioner had fully understood its significance when he signed it. Petitioner was directed to answer the question which he had been asked. He returned to the grand jury, but persisted in his refusal to testify. He was thereupon indicted for criminal contempt, tried by a jury, and convicted. His conviction was affirmed by the Appellate Division in a short memorandum opinion, 282 App. Div. 775, 122 N. Y. S. 2d 478, and by the New York Court of Appeals without opinion, 306 N. Y. 747, 117 N. E. 2d 921. The Court of Appeals did amend its remittitur to show that the question of whether petitioner had been deprived of liberty without due process of law had been raised and passed upon. 306 N. Y. 875, 119 N. E. 2d 45.
Petitioner contends that this Court must here determine whether the Fourteenth Amendment prevents a State from imprisoning an individual for refusing to give self-incriminatory testimony. In so doing he ignores the crucial significance of the immunity statute in this case. We simply hold that under the circumstances here presented petitioner was not deprived of any constitutional rights in being punished for his refusal to testify.
The immunity statute is crucial in this case because it removed any possible justification which petitioner had for not testifying. If petitioner had not executed a waiver of immunity, it is clear beyond dispute that he would have had to testify; the statute would have provided him with immunity from prosecution on the matters on which his testimony was sought, and thus his testimony could not possibly have been self-incriminatory. The waiver of immunity, although it does affect the possibility of subsequent prosecution, does not alter petitioner’s underlying obligation to testify. Much of the argument before this Court has been directed at the question of whether the waiver of immunity was valid or invalid, voluntary or coerced, effectual or ineffectual. That question is irrelevant to the disposition of this case for on either assumption the requirement to testify, imposed by the grant of immunity, remains unimpaired.
First, assume that the waiver was valid. Any testimony which the petitioner gave could then have formed the basis for a subsequent prosecution, and the State would here be punishing the petitioner for his refusal to provide such self-incriminatory testimony. But, since we are assuming the validity of the waiver, such a situation would be simply the result of a voluntary choice to waive an immunity provided by the State.
The waiver of immunity from prosecution may, on the other hand, be regarded as invalid. Petitioner argues at some length that the waiver was obtained by a “pattern of duress and lack of understanding.” He points to the circumstances attending the signing of the waiver: the size of the room, the number of policemen who simultaneously executed waivers, the speed with which the waivers were obtained, the lack of counsel, etc. He also points to the provisions of the New York Constitution and the City Charter requiring him to sign the waiver or lose his job. In addition he claims that the waiver was stale and thus ineffective since over 21 months had elapsed from the date of its execution to his refusal to testify. We fail to see where petitioner’s arguments lead. If the waiver is invalid, the immunity from prosecution persists, and in the presence of such immunity petitioner’s testimony could not possibly be self-incriminatory. It must be remembered that this conviction is for refusing to testify. The invalidity of the waiver may be made a defense to subsequent prosecution, where it would be a proper matter for disposition; it is no defense to a refusal to testify.
Petitioner suggests that his refusal to testify may have been justified by the uncertainty existing at the time he was directed to testify. That uncertainty was only as to whether or not he could be prosecuted for criminal activity which might be revealed in his testimony. As a matter of state law, a defense to the crime of criminal contempt may be provided when such uncertainty reaches a sufficiently high point. But the Constitution does not require the definitive resolution of collateral questions as a condition precedent to a valid contempt conviction. Cf. Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U. S. 323, 327. The petitioner knew that however the question of the validity of the waiver might be resolved, he was obliged to testify. In persisting in his refusal after being directed to testify he could be punished for contempt. The law strives to provide predictability so that knowing men may wisely order their affairs; it cannot, however, remove all doubts as to the consequence of a course of action.
The judgment below is accordingly
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter concurs in the result.
Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
See also New York Code of Criminal Procedure, § 10.
To the same effect were §§ 584 and 996 of the Penal Law which dealt with the crimes of conspiracy and gambling. These statutes have since been amended. New York Laws 1953, c. 891.
It states that: “. . . any public officer who, upon being called before a grand jury to testify concerning the conduct of his office or the performance of his official duties, refuses to sign a waiver of immunity against subsequent criminal prosecution, or to answer any relevant question concerning such matters before such grand jury, shall by virtue of such refusal, be disqualified from holding any other public office or public employment for a period of five years, and shall be removed from office by the appropriate authority or shall forfeit his office at the suit of the attorney-general.”
“Waiver op Immunity
“I, Michael J. Regan, of No. 3819 Harper Avenue, Bronx, ... of The City of New York pursuant to the provisions of Section 2446 of the Penal Law of the State of New York, do hereby waive all immunity which I would otherwise obtain from indictment, prosecution, punishment, penalty or forfeiture for or on account of or relating to any transaction, matter or thing concerning which I may testify or produce evidence, documentary or otherwise, before the Grand Jury of the County of Kings, in its investigation above entitled or in any other investigation or other proceeding, before any judge or justice, court or other tribunal, conducting an inquiry for legal proceeding relating to the acts of said John Doe, Michael J. Regan, or of any other person.
“I do hereby further waive any and all privileges which I would otherwise obtain against the use against me of the testimony so given or the evidence so produced upon any criminal investigation, prosecution or proceeding. (Signed) Michael J. Regan.”
[Witnessed and notarized.]
The questionnaires never were completed.
See Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591; cf. Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547.
Petitioner does not challenge the sufficiency of the immunity provided.
There was testimony that the waiver was obtained in a room which measured 'TO x 10, or 12 x 12, approximately,” containing a desk “about 60 x 2” [sic] and a bench upon which “about five people could sit.” About 35 waivers were obtained in a period of 25 minutes. An assistant district attorney made a single speech explaining the nature of the immunity. Immediately after executing the waiver, petitioner testified that he had signed the waiver voluntarily, that it had been explained to him, and that he understood its meaning. Twenty months thereafter petitioner reaffirmed its execution without raising any objection to its validity. It was some twenty-one months after its execution that petitioner challenged the validity of the waiver for the first time. The trial court left the question of the validity of the waiver to the jury. Its verdict of guilty indicates its finding on this matter. The conviction was affirmed by both appellate courts, but we cannot be sure that the affirmance sustained the finding on this matter for the appellate courts may have viewed the question of the validity of the waiver as irrelevant to their decision as we do to ours.
It might be pointed out that, as far as the record shows, this objection was at no point raised below. It appears for the first time in the Petition for Certiorari.
People ex rel. Hofsaes v. Warden, 302 N. Y. 403, 98 N. E. 2d 579.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner pleaded guilty to robbery in a Georgia state court in 1944. He was not represented by counsel at any time. While serving his sentence, petitioner escaped and did not return to Georgia until 1969, when he was returned to finish the remainder of his sentence. He then brought this habeas corpus action in county court, alleging that his conviction was void under Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963). The county court denied relief because Gideon was “recent law and under the law at the time of his sentence, the sentence met the requirements of the law at that time.” This was error since as we have often noted, Gideon is fully retroactive. See, e. g., Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 639 (1965); Desist v. United States, 394 U. S. 244, 250 n. 15 (1969); McConnell v. Rhay, 393 U. S. 2, 3 (1968); Stovall v. Denno, 388 U. S. 293, 297-298 (1967).
On appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the denial of habeas corpus on different grounds, saying that petitioner did not testify at the habeas corpus hearing that he “wanted a lawyer, asked for one, or made any effort to get one” or that “because of his poverty, or for any other reason, he was unable to hire a lawyer.” 226 Ga. 667, 177 S. E. 2d 87-88 (1970).
As this Court has said, however, “[I]t is settled that where the assistance of counsel is a constitutional requisite, the right to be furnished counsel does not depend on a request.” Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U. S. 506, 513 (1962). This applies to guilty pleas as well as to trials. Uveges v. Pennsylvania, 335 U. S. 437, 441 (1948).
Of course, to establish his right to appointed counsel in 1944, petitioner had the burden of proving his inability at that time to hire an attorney. His petition for habeas corpus specifically averred that he was unable to obtain counsel “because of his impoverished condition” at that time. The respondent denied this allegation and thus put the matter in issue. At the hearing, petitioner testified, “I was a lot younger and I didn’t have any money and I didn’t have a lawyer . . . .” (Emphasis added.) The State made no effort whatever to contradict petitioner’s testimony that he was indigent; no part of its case went to the issue of indigency. In this light, the Georgia Supreme Court’s finding that petitioner “did not testify . . . that because of his poverty, or for any other reason, he was unable to hire a lawyer” is explicable only under the most rigid rules of testimonial construction. Though petitioner did not precisely testify that his failure to obtain a lawyer was a result of his indigency, this was the undeniable implication of his testimony, especially in view of the habeas corpus petition’s allegation that petitioner was unable to hire an attorney “because of” his indigency. The hearing below, as the transcript shows, was conducted informally. Petitioner had no lawyer, and introduced no evidence other than his own testimony. He testified discursively; no objections were made by the State, nor did it cross-examine petitioner on the issue of indigency.
It is our view that on this record petitioner proved he was without counsel due to indigency at the time of his conviction. The petition for certiorari is granted, the judgment of the Georgia Supreme Court is reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This litigation brings here several important questions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seg. (1970 ed. and Supp. V). The issues grow out of alleged unlawful employment practices engaged in by an employer and a union. The employer is a common carrier of motor freight with nationwide operations, and the union represents a large group of its employees. The District Court and the Court of Appeals held that the employer had violated Title VII by engaging in a pattern and practice of employment discrimination against Negroes and Spanish-surnamed Americans, and that the union had violated the Act by agreeing with the employer to create and maintain a "seniority system that perpetuated the effects of past racial and ethnic discrimination. In addition to the basic questions presented by these two rulings, other subsidiary issues must be resolved if violations of Title VII occurred — issues concerning the nature of the relief to which aggrieved individuals may be entitled.
I
The United States brought an action in a Tennessee federal court against the petitioner T. I. M. E.-D. C., Inc. (company), pursuant to § 707 (a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-6 (a). The complaint charged that the company had followed discriminatory hiring, assignment, and promotion policies against Negroes at its terminal in Nashville, Tenn. The Government brought a second action against the company almost three years later in a Federal District Court in Texas, charging a pattern and practice of employment discrimination against Negroes and Spanish-surnamed persons throughout the company’s transportation system. The petitioner International Brotherhood of Teamsters (union) was joined as a defendant in that suit. The two actions were consolidated for trial in the Northern District of Texas.
The central claim in both lawsuits was that the company had engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminating against minorities in hiring so-called line drivers. Those Negroes and Spanish-surnamed persons who had been hired, the Government alleged, were given lower paying, less desirable jobs as servicemen or local city drivers, and were thereafter discriminated against with respect to promotions and transfers. In this connection the complaint also challenged the seniority-system established by the collective-bargaining agreements between the employer and the union. The Government sought a general injunctive remedy and specific “make whole” relief for all individual discriminatees, which would allow them an opportunity to transfer to line-driver jobs with full company seniority for all purposes.
The cases went to trial and the District Court found that the Government had shown “by a preponderance of the evidence that T. I. M. E.-D. C. and its predecessor companies were engaged in a plan and practice of discrimination in violation of Title VII....” The court further found that the seniority system contained in the collective-bargaining contracts between the company and the union violated Title VII because it “operate [d] to impede the free transfer of minority groups into and within the company.” Both the company and the union were enjoined from committing further violations of Title VII.
With respect to individual relief the court accepted the Government’s basic contention that the “affected class” of discriminatees included all Negro and Spanish-surnamed incumbent employees who had been hired to fill city operations or serviceman jobs at every terminal that had a line-driver operation. All of these employees, whether hired before or after the effective date of Title VII, thereby became entitled to preference over all other applicants with respect to consideration for future vacancies in line-driver jobs. Finding that members of the affected class had been injured in different degrees, the court created three subclasses. Thirty persons who had produced “the most convincing evidence of discrimination and harm” were found to have suffered “severe injury.” The court ordered that they be offered the opportunity to fill line-driver jobs with competitive seniority dating back to July 2, 1965, the effective date of Title VII. A second subclass included four persons who were “very possibly the objects of discrimination” and who “were likely harmed,” but as to whom there had been no specific evidence of discrimination and injury. The court decreed that these persons were entitled to fill vacancies in line-driving jobs with competitive seniority as of January 14, 1971, the date on which the Government had filed its systemwide lawsuit. Finally, there were over 300 remaining members of the affected class as to whom there was “no evidence to show that these individuals were either harmed or not harmed individually.” The court ordered that they be considered for line-driver jobs ahead of any applicants from the general public but behind the two other subclasses. Those in the third subclass received no retroactive seniority; their competitive seniority as line drivers would begin with the date they were hired as line drivers. The court further decreed that the right of any class member to fill a line-driver vacancy was subject to the prior recall rights of laid-off line drivers, which under the collective-bargaining agreements then in effect extended for three years.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed with the basic conclusions of the District Court: that the company had engaged in a pattern or practice of employment discrimination and that the seniority system in the collective-bargaining agreements violated Title VII as applied to victims of prior discrimination. 517 F. 2d 299. The appellate court held, however, that the relief ordered by the District Court was inadequate. Rejecting the District Court's attempt to trisect the affected class, the Court of Appeals held that all Negro and Spanish-surnamed incumbent employees were entitled to bid for future line-driver jobs on the basis of their company seniority, and that once a class member had filled a job, he could use his full company seniority — even if it predated the effective date of Title VII — for all purposes, including bidding and layoff. This award of retroactive seniority was to be limited only by a “qualification date” formula, under which seniority could not be awarded for periods prior to the date when (1) a line-driving position was vacant, and (2) the class member met (or would have met, given the opportunity) the qualifications for employment as a line driver. Finally, the Court of Appeals modified that part of the District Court's decree that had subjected the rights of class members to fill future vacancies- to the recall rights of laid-off employees. Holding that the three-year priority in favor of laid-qff workers “would unduly impede the eradication of past discrimination,'' id., at 322, the Court of Appeals ordered that class members be allowed to compete for vacancies with laid-off employees on the basis of the class members' retroactive seniority. Laid-off line drivers would retain their prior recall rights with respect only to “purely temporary'' vacancies. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the District Court to hold the evidentiary hearings necessary to apply these remedial principles. We granted both the company's and the union's petitions for certiorari to consider the significant questions presented under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 425 U. S. 990.
II
In this Court the company and the union contend that their conduct did not violate Title VII in any respect, asserting first that the evidence introduced at trial was insufficient to show that the company engaged in a “pattern or practice” of employment discrimination. The union further contends that the.seniority system contained in the collective-bargaining agreements in no way violated Title VII. If these contentions are correct, it is unnecessary, of course, to reach any of the issues concerning remedies that so occupied the attention of the Court of Appeals.
A
Consideration of the question whether the company engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminatory hiring practices involves controlling legal principles that are relatively clear. The Government’s theory of discrimination was simply that the company, in violation of § 703 (a) of Title VII, regularly and purposefully treated Negroes and Spanishsurnamed Americans less favorably than white persons. The disparity in treatment allegedly involved the refusal to recruit, hire, transfer, or promote minority group members on an equal basis with white jaeople, particularly with respect to line-driving positions. The ultimate factual issues are thus simply whether there was a pattern or practice of such disparate treatment and, if so, whether the differences were “racially premised.” McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792, 805 n. 18.
As the plaintiff, the Government bore the initial burden of making out a prima facie case of discrimination. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 425; McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, supra, at 802. And, because it alleged a systemwide pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of Title VII rights, the Government ultimately had to prove more than the mere occurrence of isolated or “accidental” or sporadic discriminatory acts. It had to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that racial discrimination was the company's standard operating procedure — the regular rather than the unusual practice.
We agree with the District Court and the Court of Appeals that the Government carried its burden of proof. As of March 31, 1971, shortly after the Government filed its complaint alleging systemwide discrimination, the company had 6,472 employees. Of these, 314 (5%) were Negroes and 257 (4%) were Spanish-surnamed Americans. Of the 1,828 line drivers, however, there were only 8 (0.4%) Negroes and 5 (0.3%) Spanish-surnamed persons, and all of the Negroes had been hired after the litigation had commenced. With one exception — a man who worked as a line driver at the Chicago terminal from 1950 to 1959 — the company and its predecessors did not employ a Negro on a regular basis as a line driver until 1969. And, as the Government showed, even in 1971 there were terminals in areas of substantial Negro population where all of the company’s line drivers were white. A great majority of the Negroes (83%) and Spanish-surnamed Americans (78%) who did work for the company held the lower paying city operations and serviceman jobs, whereas only 39% of the nonminority employees held jobs in those categories.
The Government bolstered its statistical evidence with the testimony of individuals who recounted over 40 specific instances of discrimination. Upon the basis of this testimony the District Court found that “[njumerous qualified black and Spanish-surnamed American applicants who sought line driving jobs at the company over the years, either had their requests ignored, were given false or misleading information about requirements, opportunities, and application procedures, or were not considered and hired on the same basis that whites were considered and hired.” Minority employees who wanted to transfer to line-driver jobs met with similar difficulties.
The company’s principal response to this evidence is that statistics can never in and of themselves prove the existence of a pattern or practice of discrimination, or even establish a prima facie case shifting to the employer the burden of rebutting the inference raised by the figures. But, as even our brief summary of the evidence shows, this was not a case in which the Government relied on “statistics alone.” The individuals who testified about their personal experiences with the company brought the cold numbers convincingly to life.
In any event, our cases make it unmistakably clear that “[statistical analyses have served and will continue to serve an important role” in cases in which the existence of discrimination is a disputed issue. Mayor of Philadelphia v. Educational Equality League, 415 U. S. 605, 620. See also McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S., at 805. Cf. Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 241-242. We have repeatedly approved the use of statistical proof, where it reached proportions comparable to those in this case, to establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination in jury selection cases, see, e. g., Turner v. Fouche, 396 U. S. 346; Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S. 475; Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587. Statistics are equally competent in proving employment discrimination. We caution only that statistics are not irrefutable; they come in infinite variety and, like any other kind of evidence, they may be rebutted. In short, their usefulness depends on all of the surrounding facts and circumstances. See, e. g., Hester v. Southern R. Co., 497 F. 2d 1374, 1379-1381 (CA5).
In addition to its general protest against the use of statistics in Title VII cases, the company claims that in this case the statistics revealing racial imbalance are misleading because they fail to take into account the company’s particular business situation as of the effective date of Title VII. The company concedes that its line drivers were virtually all white in July 1965, but it claims that thereafter business conditions were such that its work force dropped. Its argument is that low personnel turnover, rather than post-Act discrimination, accounts for more recent statistical disparities. It points to substantial minority hiring in later years, especially after 1971, as showing that any pre-Act patterns of discrimination were broken.
The argument would be a forceful one if this were an employer who, at the time of suit, had done virtually no new hiring since the effective date of Title VII. But it is not. Although the company’s total number of employees apparently dropped somewhat during the late 1960’s, the record shows that many line drivers continued to be hired throughout this period, and that almost all of them were white. To be sure, there were improvements in the company’s hiring practices. The Court of Appeals commented that “T. I. M. E.-D. C.’s recent minority hiring progress stands as a laudable good faith effort to eradicate the effects of past discrimination in the area of hiring and initial assignment.” 517 F. 2d, at 316. But the District Court and the Court of Appeals found upon substantial evidence that the company had engaged in a course of discrimination that continued well after the effective date of Title VII. The company’s later changes in its hiring and promotion policies could be of little comfort to the victims of the earlier post-Act discrimination, and could not erase its previous illegal conduct or its obligation to afford relief to those who suffered because of it. Cf. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S., at 413-423.
The District Court and the Court of Appeals, on the basis of substantial evidence, held that the Government had proved a prima facie case of systematic and purposeful employment discrimination, continuing well beyond the effective date of Title VII. The company’s attempts to rebut that conclusion were held to be inadequate. For the reasons we have summarized, there is no warrant for this Court to disturb the findings of the District Court and the Court of Appeals on this basic issue. See Blau v. Lehman, 368 U. S. 403, 408-409; Faulkner v. Gibbs, 338 U. S. 267, 268; United States v. Dickinson, 331 U. S. 745, 751; United States v. Commercial Credit Co., 286 U. S. 63, 67; United States v. Chemical Foundation, Inc., 272 U. S. 1, 14; Baker v. Schofield, 243 U. S. 114, 118; Towson v. Moore, 173 U. S. 17, 24.
B
The District Court and the Court of Appeals also found that the seniority system contained in the collective-bargaining agreements between the company and the union operated to violate Title VII of the Act.
For purposes of calculating benefits, such as vacations, pensions, and other fringe benefits, an employee’s seniority under this system runs from the date he joins the company, and takes into account his total service in all jobs and bargaining units. For competitive purposes, however, such as determining the order in which employees may bid for particular jobs, are laid off, or are recalled from layoff, it is bargaining-unit seniority that controls. Thus, a line driver’s seniority, for purposes of bidding for particular runs and protection against layoff, takes into account only the length of time he has been a line driver at a particular terminal. The practical effect is that a city driver or serviceman who transfers to a line-driver job must forfeit all the competitive seniority he has accumulated in his previous bargaining unit and start at the bottom of the line drivers’ “board.”
The vice of this arrangement, as found by the District Court and the Court of Appeals, was that it “locked” minority workers into inferior jobs and perpetuated prior discrimination by discouraging transfers to jobs as line drivers. While the disincentive applied to all workers, including whites, it was Negroes and Spanish-surnamed persons who, those courts found, suffered the most because many of them had been denied the equal opportunity to become line drivers when they were initially hired, whereas whites either had not sought or were refused line-driver positions for reasons unrelated to their race or national origin.
The linchpin of the theory embraced by the District Court and the Court of Appeals was that a discriminatee who must forfeit his competitive seniority in order finally to obtain a line-driver job will never be able to “catch up” to the seniority level of his contemporary who was not subject to discrimination. Accordingly, this continued, built-in disadvantage to the prior discriminatee who transfers to a line-driver job was held to constitute a continuing violation of Title VII, for which both the employer and the union who jointly created and maintain the seniority system were liable.
The union, while acknowledging that the seniority system may in some sense perpetuate the effects of prior discrimination, asserts that the system is immunized from a finding of illegality by reason of § 703 (h) of Title VII, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2 (h), which provides in part:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of this subchapter, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to apply different standards of compensation, or different terms, conditions,' or privileges of employment pursuant to a bona fide seniority... system,... provided that such differences are not the result of an intention to discriminate because of race... or national origin....”
It argues that the seniority system in this case is “bona fide” within the meaning of § 703 (h) when judged in light of its history, intent, application, and all of the circumstances under which it was created and is maintained. More specifically, the union claims that the central purpose of § 703 (h) is to ensure that mere perpetuation of pre-Act discrimination is not unlawful under Title VII. And, whether or not § 703 (h) immunizes the perpetuation of post-Act discrimination, the union claims that the seniority system in this litigation has no such effect. Its position in this Court, as has been its position throughout this litigation, is that the seniority system presents no hurdle to post-Act discriminatees who seek retroactive seniority to the date they would have become line drivers but for the company’s discrimination. Indeed, the union asserts that under its collective-bargaining agreements the union will itself take up the cause of the post-Act victim and attempt, through grievance procedures, to gain for him full “make whole” relief, including appropriate seniority.
The Government responds that a seniority system that perpetuates the effects of prior discrimination — pre-Act or post-Act — can never be “bona fide” under § 703 (h); at a minimum Title VII prohibits those applications of a seniority system that perpetuate the effects on incumbent employees of prior discriminatory job assignments..
The issues thus joined are open ones in this Court. We considered § 703 (h) in Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, but there decided only that § 703 (h) does not bar the award of retroactive seniority to job applicants who seek relief from an employer’s post-Act hiring discrimination. We stated that “the thrust of [§ 703 (h)] is directed toward defining what is and what is not an illegal discriminatory practice in instances in which the post-Act operation of a seniority system is challenged as perpetuating the effects of discrimination occurring prior to the effective date of the Act.” 424 U. S., at 761. Beyond noting the general purpose of the statute, however, we did not undertake the task of statutory construction required in this litigation.
(1)
Because the company discriminated both before and after the enactment of Title VII, the seniority system is said to have operated to perpetuate the effects of both pre- and post-Act discrimination. Post-Act discriminatees, however, may obtain full “make whole” relief, including retroactive seniority under Franks v. Bowman, supra, without attacking the legality of the seniority system as applied to them. Franks made clear and the union acknowledges that retroactive seniority may be awarded as relief from an employer’s discriminatory hiring and assignment policies even if the seniority system agreement itself makes no provision for such relief. 424 U. S., at 778-779. Here the Government has proved that the company engaged in a post-Act pattern of discriminatory hiring, assignment, transfer, and promotion policies. Any Negro or Spanish-surnamed American injured by those policies may receive all appropriate relief as a direct remedy for this discrimination.
^
What remains for review is the judgment that the seniority system Unlawfully perpetuated the effects of pre-Act discrimination. We must decide, in short, whether § 703 (h) validates otherwise bona fide seniority systems that afford no constructive seniority to victims discriminated against prior to the effective date of Title VII, and it is to that issue that we now turn.
The primary purpose of Title VII was “to assure equality of employment opportunities and to eliminate those discriminatory practices and devices which have fostered racially stratified job environments to the disadvantage of minority citizens.” McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S., at 800. See also Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S., at 417-418; Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S. 36, 44; Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S., at 429-431. To achieve this purpose, Congress “proscribe [d] not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation.” Id., at 431. Thus, the Court has repeatedly held that a prima facie Title VII violation may be established by policies or practices that are neutral on their face and in intent but that nonetheless discriminate in effect against a particular group. General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, 137; Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S., at 246-247; Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, supra, at 422, 425; McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, supra, at 802 n. 14; Griggs v. Duke Power Co., supra.
One kind of practice “fair in form, but discriminatory in operation” is that which perpetuates the effects of prior discrimination. As the Court held in Griggs: “Under the Act, practices, procedures, or tests neutral on their face, and even neutral in terms of intent, cannot be maintained if they operate to 'freeze’ the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices.” 401 Ü. S., at 430.
Were it not for § 703 (h), the seniority system in this case would seem to fall under the Griggs rationale. The heart of the system is its allocation of the choicest jobs, the greatest protection against layoffs, and other advantages to those employees who have been line drivers for the longest time. Where, because of the employer’s prior intentional discrimination, the line drivers with the longest tenure are without exception white, the advantages of the seniority system flow disproportionately to them and away from Negro and Spanish-surnamed employees who might by now have enjoyed those advantages had not the employer discriminated before the passage of the Act. This disproportionate distribution of advantages does in a very real sense “operate to 'freeze’ the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices.” But both the literal terms of § 703 (h) and the legislative history of Title VII demonstrate that Congress considered this very effect of many seniority systems and extended a measure of immunity to them.
Throughout the initial consideration of H. R. 7152, later enacted as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, critics of the bill charged that it would destroy existing seniority rights. The consistent response of Title VII’s congressional proponents and of the Justice Department was that seniority rights would not be affected, even where the employer had discriminated prior to the Act. An interpretive memorandum placed in the Congressional Record by Senators Clark and Case stated:
“Title VII would have no effect on established seniority rights. Its effect is prospective and not retrospective. Thus, for example, if a business has been discriminating in the past and as a result has an all-white working force, when the title comes into effect the employer’s obligation would be simply to fill future vacancies on a nondiscriminatory basis. He would not be obliged — or indeed, permitted — -to fire whites in order to hire Negroes, or to prefer Negroes for future vacancies, or, once Negroes are hired, to give them special seniority rights at the expense of the white workers hired earlier.” 110 Cong. Rec. 7213 (1964) (emphasis added).
A Justice Department statement concerning Title VII, placed in the Congressional Record by Senator Clark, voiced the same conclusion:
“Title VII would have no effect on seniority rights existing at the time it takes effect. If, for example, a collective bargaining contract provides that in the event of layoffs, those who were hired last must be laid off first, such a provision would not be affected in the least by title VII. This would be true even in the case where owing to discrimination prior to the effective date of the title, white workers had more seniority than Negroes.” Id., at 7207 (emphasis added).
While these statements were made before § 703 (h) was added to Title VII, they are authoritative indicators of that section’s purpose. Section 703 (h) was enacted as part of the Mansfield-Dirksen compromise substitute bill that cleared the way for the passage of Title VII. The drafters of the compromise bill stated that one of its principal goals was to resolve the ambiguities in the House-passed version of H. R. 7152. See, e. g., 110 Cong. Rec. 11935-11937 (1964) (remarks of Sen. Dirksen); id., at 12707 (remarks of Sen. Humphrey). As the debates indicate, one of those ambiguities concerned Title VII’s impact on existing collectively bargained seniority rights. It is apparent that § 703 (h) was drafted with an eye toward meeting the earlier criticism on this issue with an explicit provision embodying the understanding and assurances of the Act’s proponents, namely, that Title VII would not outlaw such differences in treatment among employees as flowed from a bona fide seniority system that allowed for full exercise of seniority accumulated before the effective date of the Act. It is inconceivable that § 703 (h), as part of a compromise bill, was intended to vitiate the earlier representations of the Act’s supporters by increasing Title VII’s impact on seniority systems. The statement of Senator Humphrey, noted in Franks, 424 U. S., at 761, confirms that the addition of § 703 (h) “merely clarifies [Title VII’s] present intent and effect.” 110 Cong. Rec. 12723 (1964).
In sum, the unmistakable purpose of § 703 (h) was to make clear that the routine application of a bona fide seniority system would not be unlawful under Title VII. As the legislative history shows, this was the intended result even where the employer’s pre-Act discrimination resulted in whites having greater existing seniority rights than Negroes. Although a seniority system inevitably tends to perpetuate the effects of pre-Act discrimination in such cases, the congressional judgment was that Title VII should not outlaw the use of existing seniority lists and thereby destroy or water down the vested seniority rights of employees simply because their employer had engaged in discrimination prior to the passage of the Act.
To be sure, § 703 (h) does not immunize all seniority systems. It refers only to “bona fide” systems, and a proviso requires that any differences in treatment not be “the result of an intention to discriminate because of race... or national origin....” But our reading of the legislative history compels us to reject the Government’s broad argument that no seniority system that tends to perpetuate pre-Act discrimination can be “bona fide.” To accept the argument would require us to hold that a seniority system becomes illegal simply because it allows the full exercise of the pre-Act seniority rights of employees of a company that discriminated before Title VII was enacted. It would place an affirmative obligation on the parties to the seniority agreement to subordinate those rights in favor of the claims of pre-Act discriminatees without seniority. The consequence would be a perversion of the congressional purpose. We cannot accept the invitation to disembowel § 703 (h) by reading the words “bona fide” as the Government would have us do. Accordingly, we hold that an otherwise neutral, legitimate seniority system does not become unlawful under Title VII simply because it may perpetuate pre-Act discrimination. Congress did not intend to make it illegal for employees with vested seniority rights to continue to exercise those rights, even at the expense of preAct discriminatees.
That conclusion is inescapable even in a case, such as this one, where the pre-Act discriminatees are incumbent employees who accumulated seniority in other bargaining units. Although there seems to be no explicit reference in the legislative history to pre-Act discriminatees already employed in less desirable jobs, there can be no rational basis for distinguishing their claims from those of persons initially denied any job but hired later with less seniority than they might have had in the absence of pre-Act discrimination. We rejected any such distinction in Franks, finding that it had “no support anywhere in Title VII or its legislative history,” 424 U. S., at 768. As discussed above, Congress in 1964 made clear that, a seniority system is not unlawful because it honors employees’ existing rights, even where the employer has engaged in pre-Act discriminatory hiring or promotion practices. It would be as contrary to that mandate to forbid the exercise of seniority rights with respect to discriminatees who held inferior jobs as with respect to later hired minority employees who previously were denied any job. If anything, the latter group is the more disadvantaged. As in Franks, “ fit would indeed be surprising if Congress gave a remedy for the one [group] which it denied for the other.’ ” Ibid., quoting Phelps Dodge Corp. v. NLRB, 313 U. S. 177, 187.
(3)
The seniority system in this litigation is entirely bona fide. It applies equally to all races and ethnic groups. To the extent that it “locks” employees into non-line-driver jobs, it does so for all. The city drivers and servicemen who are discouraged from transferring to line-driver jobs are not all Negroes or Spanish-surnamed Americans; to the contrary, the overwhelming majority are white. The placing of line drivers in a separate bargaining unit from other employees is rational, in accord with the industry practice, and consistent with National Labor Relation Board precedents. It is conceded that the seniority system did not have its genesis in racial discrimination, and that it was negotiated and has been maintained free from any illegal purpose. In these circumstances, the single fact that the system extends no retroactive seniority to pre-Act discriminatees does not make it unlawful.
Because the seniority system was protected by § 703 (h), the union’s conduct in agreeing to and maintaining the system did not violate Title VII. On remand, the District Court’s injunction against the union must be vacated.
Ill
Our conclusion that the seniority system does not violate Title VII will necessarily affect the remedy granted to individual employees on remand of this litigation to the District Court. Those employees who suffered only pre-Act discrimination are not entitled to relief, and no person may be given retroactive seniority to a date earlier than the effective date of the Act. Several other questions relating to the appropriate measure of individual relief remain, however, for our consideration.
The petitioners argue generally that the trial court did not err in tailoring the remedy to the “degree of injury” suffered by each individual employee, and that the Court of Appeals’ “qualification date” formula sweeps with too broad a brush by granting a remedy to employees who were not shown to be actual victims of unlawful discrimination. Specifically, the petitioners assert that no employee should be entitled to relief until the Government demonstrates that he was an actual victim of the company’s discriminatory practices; that no employee who did not apply for a line-driver job should be granted retroactive competitive seniority; and that no employee should be elevated to a line-driver job ahead of any current line driver on layoff status. We consider each of these contentions separately.
A
The petitioners’ first contention is in substance that the Government’s burden of proof in a pattern-or-practice case must be equivalent to that outlined in McDonnell Douglas v. Green. Since the Government introduced specific evidence of company discrimination against only some 40 employees, they argue that the District Court properly refused to award retroactive seniority to the remainder of the class of minority incumbent employees.
In McDonnell Douglas the Court considered “the order and allocation of proof in a private, non-class action challenging employment discrimination.” 411 U. S., at 800. We held that an individual Title VII complainant must carry the initial burden of proof by establishing a prima facie case of racial discrimination. On the specific facts there involved, we concluded that this burden was met by showing that a qualified applicant, who was a member of a racial minority-group, had unsuccessfully sought a job for which there was a vacancy and for which the employer continued thereafter to seek applicants with similar qualifications. This initial showing justified the inference that the minority applicant was denied an employment opportunity for reasons prohibited by Title VII, and therefore shifted the burden to the employer to rebut that inference by offering some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the rejection. Id., at 802.
The company and union seize upon the McDonnell Douglas pattern as the only means of establishing a prima facie case of individual discrimination. Our decision in that case, however, did not purport to create an inflexible formulation. We expressly noted that “[t]he facts necessarily will vary in Title VII cases, and the specification... of the prima facie proof required from [a plaintiff] is not necessarily applicable in every respect to differing factual situations.” Id., at 802 n. 13. The importance of McDonnell Douglas lies, not in its specification of the discrete elements of proof there required, but in its recognition of the general principle that any Title VII plaintiff must carry the initial burden of offering evidence adequate to create an inference that an employment decision was based on a discriminatory criterion illegal under the Act.
In Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., the Court applied this principle in the context of a class action. The Franks plaintiffs proved, to the satisfaction of a District Court, that Bowman Transportation Co. “had engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination in various company policies, including the hiring, transfer, and discharge of employees.” 424 U. S., at 751. Despite this showing, the trial court denied seniority relief to certain members of the class of discriminatees because not every individual had shown that he was qualified for the job he sought and that a vacancy had been available. We held that the trial court had erred in
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1961, petitioner and one Pollard appealed to the California District Court of Appeal from murder convictions upon which the California Superior Court had sentenced each of them to life imprisonment. California Rules of Court 35 (c) and 10 (c) required that the appellants be furnished with one free copy of the trial transcript to be shared by them for the purposes of the appeal. Pollard received the free copy but would not share it with petitioner. However, the State Attorney General loaned petitioner’s appellate counsel his copy. The District Court of Appeal affirmed the convictions, 194 Cal. App. 2d 830, 15 Cal. Rptr. 214 (1961).
Five years later, in 1966, petitioner wished to pursue a collateral remedy and sought the transcript from Pollard but Pollard “refuse [d] to communicate on the subject.” Petitioner’s inquiry of his appellate lawyer elicited the response that the copy borrowed from the Attorney General had been returned. Petitioner then turned to the California courts seeking, however, not temporary use of a copy, but to be furnished with a copy of his own. He applied initially to the trial court and was advised that the original of the transcript was in the District Court of Appeal. He thereupon filed a pro se motion for a copy in the District Court of Appeal, which motion was denied on the ground that the Court of Appeal had only the original and was not equipped to duplicate copies. He next filed a proceeding in the California Supreme Court and was advised by the clerk of that court that he must proceed in “the court possessed of the original record.” He renewed his application to the District Court of Appeal, which again denied it on the ground that that court had “no facility for reproducing records”; but this time petitioner was advised that the original record would be made available for copying at his expense. Petitioner then abandoned further efforts in the California courts.
In 1967, he filed the instant federal habeas corpus proceeding in the District Court for the Northern District of California. His petition alleged his indigency and the single claim that California’s refusal to furnish him without cost his own copy of the transcript denied him due process and equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court after hearing granted the writ and ordered California either to provide the free transcript or to release the petitioner. The District Court stated in an unreported opinion, “although there is no square holding on the precise question of the right to a transcript in preparing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus rather than an appeal, the logic of the Supreme Court holdings compels a finding that such a right exists.” The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed on the ground that “the trial court failed to find that Wade was claiming that there was any error which occurred in the proceedings which led to his conviction which would warrant the granting of post-conviction relief. . . . Wade was not entitled to demand a transcript merely to enable him to comb the record in the hope of discovering some flaw.” 390 F. 2d 632, 634 (1968). We granted certiorari. 393 U. S. 1079 (1969).
The California Court Rules require that a free transcript be furnished to convicted persons separately tried in felony cases and to each codefendant where one or more co-defendants are under sentence of death. Petitioner argues that in furnishing only one copy to be shared by codefendants where none received the death penalty California interposes an unconstitutional barrier to the use of its criminal appellate proceedings and that the distinction made by the Rules, without more, establishes that California has denied him equal protection of the laws. But petitioner will not be heard to attack the Rules since they concern only the furnishing of transcripts for purposes of direct appeal and he and his appellate counsel in fact had the use on his direct appeal of the transcript borrowed from the State Attorney General and did not complain that the terms on which it was made available in any way impaired its effective use on the appeal. See United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, 21-22 (1960).
Petitioner argues that in any event, contrary to the Court of Appeals, the District Court was correct in holding that because “it may not be possible to pinpoint . . . alleged errors in the absence of a transcript,” petitioner was entitled to a transcript for use in petitioning for habeas corpus even though he did not specify what errors he claimed in his conviction. To pass on this contention at this time would necessitate our decision whether there are circumstances in which the Constitution requires that a State furnish an indigent state prisoner free of cost a trial transcript to aid him to prepare a petition for collateral relief. This is a question of first impression which need not be reached at this stage of the case. Notwithstanding petitioner’s success in borrowing a copy of the transcript in connection with his direct appeal, his insistence in the subsequent proceedings in both the California and federal courts is that he has a constitutional right to a copy of his own. We think consideration of that contention should be postponed until it appears that petitioner cannot again borrow a copy from the state authorities, or successfully apply to the California courts to direct his codefendant, Pollard, or some other custodian of a copy to make a copy available to him. Cf. Rule 10 (c). Without such a showing, or a showing that having his own copy would be significantly more advantageous than obtaining the use of someone else’s copy, the District Court should not have reached the merits of petitioner’s claim. We think, however, that the case should be retained on the District Court’s docket pending petitioner’s efforts to obtain access to the original or a copy. Upon being advised by the parties that petitioner has been provided such access, the court should dismiss the action. We vacate the judgments of both the Court of Appeals and the District Court and remand to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Petitioner styled Ms application to the Supreme Court of California “A Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus” but the only relief he requested was issuance of the record in his case or an order to the District Court of Appeal to furnish him with the record. He did not request an order releasing Mm from custody.
The District Court cited Smith v. Bennett, 365 U. S. 708 (1961) (habeas corpus filmg fee); Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956) (transcript on direct appeal); Lane v. Brown, 372 U. S. 477 (1963) (transcript on post-conviction appeal); Long v. District Court, 385 U. S. 192 (1966) (transcript on post-conviction appeal). See also Roberts v. LaVallee, 389 U. S. 40 (1967); Gardner v. California, 393 U. S. 367 (1969).
Rules 35 (c) and 10 (c) provide in pertinent part:
Rule 35 (e): “As soon as both the clerk’s and reporter’s transcripts are completed, the clerk shall deliver one copy to the defendant or his attorney and one copy to the district attorney .... When there are two or more appealing defendants in a case in which a judgment of death has been rendered against one or more of the defendants, the clerk shall, deliver a copy of both transcripts to each such defendant or his attorney. . . . Where there are two or more appealing defendants represented by separate counsel in a case in which judgment of death has not been rendered against any defendant, the appellant’s copy shall be made available for the use of the appellants in the manner provided in Rule 10.”
Rule 10 (e): “The additional copy of the record required by these rules shall be made available for the use of the parties to the appeal in such manner as the judge, or the clerk under his direction, shall prescribe; provided that the parties may stipulate to its use, and in such event only the original need be filed with the clerk of the superior court.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Federal habeas courts reviewing convictions from state courts will not consider claims that a state court refused to hear based on an adequate and independent state procedural ground. A state prisoner may be able to overcome this bar, however, if he can establish "cause" to excuse the procedural default and demonstrate that he suffered actual prejudice from the alleged error. An attorney error does not qualify as "cause" to excuse a procedural default unless the error amounted to constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel. Because a prisoner does not have a constitutional right to counsel in state postconviction proceedings, ineffective assistance in those proceedings does not qualify as cause to excuse a procedural default. See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991).
In Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1, 132 S.Ct. 1309, 182 L.Ed.2d 272 (2012), and Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413, 133 S.Ct. 1911, 185 L.Ed.2d 1044 (2013), this Court announced a narrow exception to Coleman's general rule. That exception treats ineffective assistance by a prisoner's state postconviction counsel as cause to overcome the default of a single claim-ineffective assistance of trial counsel-in a single context-where the State effectively requires a defendant to bring that claim in state postconviction proceedings rather than on direct appeal. The question in this case is whether we should extend that exception to allow federal courts to consider a different kind of defaulted claim-ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. We decline to do so.
I
A
On April 6, 2008, a group of family and friends gathered at Annette Stevenson's home to celebrate her granddaughter's birthday. Petitioner Erick Daniel Davila, believing he had seen a member of a rival street gang at the celebration, fired a rifle at the group while they were eating cake and ice cream. He shot and killed Annette and her 5-year-old granddaughter Queshawn, and he wounded three other children and one woman.
After the police arrested petitioner, he confessed to the killings. He stated that he "wasn't aiming at the kids or the woman," but that he was trying to kill Annette's son (and Queshawn's father) Jerry Stevenson and the other "guys on the porch." App. 38. The other "guys on the porch" were, apparently, women.
The State indicted petitioner for capital murder under Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 19.03(a)(7)(A) (West 2016), which makes it a capital crime to "murde[r] more than one person... during the same criminal transaction." In response to the jury's request for clarification during deliberations, the trial court proposed instructing the jury on transferred intent. Under that doctrine, the jury could find petitioner guilty of murder if it determined that he intended to kill one person but instead killed a different person. Petitioner's counsel objected to the additional instruction, arguing that the trial judge should "wait" to submit it "until the jury indicates that they can't reach... a resolution." App. 51. The trial court overruled the objection and submitted the instruction to the jury. The jury convicted petitioner of capital murder, and the trial court sentenced petitioner to death.
B
Petitioner appealed his conviction and sentence. Although his appellate counsel argued that the State presented insufficient evidence to show that he acted with the requisite intent, counsel did not challenge the instruction about transferred intent. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed petitioner's conviction and sentence. Davila v. State, 2011 WL 303265 (Jan. 26, 2011), cert. denied, 565 U.S. 885, 132 S.Ct. 258, 181 L.Ed.2d 150 (2011).
Petitioner next sought habeas relief in Texas state court. His counsel did not challenge the instruction about transferred intent, nor did he challenge the failure of his appellate counsel to raise the alleged instructional error on direct appeal. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief. Ex parte Davila, 2013 WL 1655549 (Apr. 17, 2013), cert. denied, 571 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 784, 187 L.Ed.2d 597 (2013).
C
Petitioner then sought habeas relief in Federal District Court under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. As relevant here, he argued that his appellate counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to challenge the jury instruction about transferred intent. Petitioner conceded that he had failed to raise his claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel in his state habeas petition, but argued that the failure was the result of his state habeas counsel's ineffective assistance. Petitioner invoked this Court's decisions in Martinez and Trevino to argue that his state habeas attorney's ineffective assistance provided cause to excuse the procedural default of his claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel.
The District Court denied petitioner's § 2254 petition. It concluded that Martinez and Trevino did not supply cause to excuse the procedural default of petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel because those decisions applied exclusively to claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. See Davila v. Stephens, 2015 WL 1808689, *20 (N.D.Tex., Apr. 21, 2015). The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied a certificate of appealability on the same ground. 650 Fed.Appx. 860, 867-868 (2016). Petitioner then sought a writ of certiorari, asking us to reverse the Fifth Circuit on the ground that Martinez and Trevino should be extended to claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. We granted certiorari, 580 U.S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 810, 196 L.Ed.2d 597 (2017), and now affirm.
II
Our decision in this case is guided by two fundamental tenets of federal review of state convictions. First, a state prisoner must exhaust available state remedies before presenting his claim to a federal habeas court. § 2254(b)(1)(A). The exhaustion requirement is designed to avoid the "unseemly" result of a federal court "upset[ting] a state court conviction without" first according the state courts an "opportunity to... correct a constitutional violation," Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 518, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Second, a federal court may not review federal claims that were procedurally defaulted in state court-that is, claims that the state court denied based on an adequate and independent state procedural rule. E.g., Beard v. Kindler, 558 U.S. 53, 55, 130 S.Ct. 612, 175 L.Ed.2d 417 (2009). This is an important "corollary" to the exhaustion requirement. Dretke v. Haley, 541 U.S. 386, 392, 124 S.Ct. 1847, 158 L.Ed.2d 659 (2004). "Just as in those cases in which a state prisoner fails to exhaust state remedies, a habeas petitioner who has failed to meet the State's procedural requirements for presenting his federal claims has deprived the state courts of an opportunity to address" the merits of "those claims in the first instance." Coleman, 501 U.S., at 731-732, 111 S.Ct. 2546. The procedural default doctrine thus advances the same comity, finality, and federalism interests advanced by the exhaustion doctrine. See McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 493, 111 S.Ct. 1454, 113 L.Ed.2d 517 (1991).
A state prisoner may overcome the prohibition on reviewing procedurally defaulted claims if he can show "cause" to excuse his failure to comply with the state procedural rule and "actual prejudice resulting from the alleged constitutional violation." Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 84, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977) ; Coleman, supra, at 750, 111 S.Ct. 2546 To establish "cause"-the element of the doctrine relevant in this case-the prisoner must "show that some objective factor external to the defense impeded counsel's efforts to comply with the State's procedural rule." Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488, 106 S.Ct. 2639, 91 L.Ed.2d 397 (1986). A factor is external to the defense if it "cannot fairly be attributed to" the prisoner. Coleman, supra, at 753, 111 S.Ct. 2546
It has long been the rule that attorney error is an objective external factor providing cause for excusing a procedural default only if that error amounted to a deprivation of the constitutional right to counsel. See Edwards v. Carpenter, 529 U.S. 446, 451, 120 S.Ct. 1587, 146 L.Ed.2d 518 (2000). An error amounting to constitutionally ineffective assistance is "imputed to the State" and is therefore external to the prisoner. Murray, supra, at 488, 106 S.Ct. 2639. Attorney error that does not violate the Constitution, however, is attributed to the prisoner "under well-settled principles of agency law." Coleman, supra, at 754, 111 S.Ct. 2546 It follows, then, that in proceedings for which the Constitution does not guarantee the assistance of counsel at all, attorney error cannot provide cause to excuse a default. Thus, in Coleman, this Court held that attorney error committed in the course of state postconviction proceedings-for which the Constitution does not guarantee the right to counsel, see Murray v. Giarratano, 492 U.S. 1, 109 S.Ct. 2765, 106 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (plurality opinion)-cannot supply cause to excuse a procedural default that occurs in those proceedings. 501 U.S., at 755, 111 S.Ct. 2546.
In Martinez, this Court announced a narrow, "equitable... qualification" of the rule in Coleman that applies where state law requires prisoners to raise claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel "in an initial-review collateral proceeding," rather than on direct appeal. Martinez, 566 U.S., at 16, 17, 132 S.Ct. 1309. It held that, in those situations, "a procedural default will not bar a federal habeas court from hearing a substantial claim of ineffective assistance at trial if" the default results from the ineffective assistance of the prisoner's counsel in the collateral proceeding. Id., at 17, 132 S.Ct. 1309. In Trevino, the Court clarified that this exception applies both where state law explicitly prohibits prisoners from bringing claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel on direct appeal and where the State's "procedural framework, by reason of its design and operation, makes it unlikely in a typical case that a defendant will have a meaningful opportunity to raise" that claim on direct appeal. 569 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 1921.
III
Petitioner asks us to extend Martinez to allow a federal court to hear a substantial, but procedurally defaulted, claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel when a prisoner's state postconviction counsel provides ineffective assistance by failing to raise that claim. We decline to do so.
A
On its face, Martinez provides no support for extending its narrow exception to new categories of procedurally defaulted claims. Martinez did not purport to displace Coleman as the general rule governing procedural default. Rather, it "qualifie[d] Coleman by recognizing a narrow exception" that applies only to claims of "ineffective assistance of counsel at trial" and only when, "under state law," those claims "must be raised in an initial-review collateral proceeding." Martinez, supra, at 9, 17, 132 S.Ct. 1309. And Trevino merely clarified that the exception applies whether state law explicitly or effectively forecloses review of the claim on direct appeal. 569 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 1914-1915, 1920-1921. In all but those "limited circumstances," Martinez made clear that "[t]he rule of Coleman governs." 566 U.S., at 16, 132 S.Ct. 1309. Applying Martinez's highly circumscribed, equitable exception to new categories of procedurally defaulted claims would thus do precisely what this Court disclaimed in Martinez : Replace the rule of Coleman with the exception of Martinez.
B
Petitioner also finds no support in the underlying rationale of Martinez. Petitioner's primary argument is that his claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel might never be reviewed by any court, state or federal, without expanding the exception to the rule in Coleman. He argues that this situation is analogous to Martinez, where the Court expressed that same concern about claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. But the Court in Martinez was principally concerned about trial errors -in particular, claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Ineffective assistance of appellate counsel is not a trial error. Nor is petitioner's rule necessary to ensure that a meritorious trial error (of any kind) receives review.
1
Petitioner argues that allowing a claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel to evade review is just as concerning as allowing a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel to evade review. Brief for Petitioner 12; see also id., at 18-26. We do not agree.
The criminal trial enjoys pride of place in our criminal justice system in a way that an appeal from that trial does not. The Constitution twice guarantees the right to a criminal trial, see Art. III, § 2; Amdt. 6, but does not guarantee the right to an appeal at all, Halbert v. Michigan, 545 U.S. 605, 610, 125 S.Ct. 2582, 162 L.Ed.2d 552 (2005). The trial "is the main event at which a defendant's rights are to be determined," McFarland v. Scott, 512 U.S. 849, 859, 114 S.Ct. 2568, 129 L.Ed.2d 666 (1994) (internal quotation marks omitted), "and not simply a tryout on the road to appellate review," Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U.S. 868, 895, 111 S.Ct. 2631, 115 L.Ed.2d 764 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (internal quotation marks omitted). And it is where the stakes for the defendant are highest, not least because it is where a presumptively innocent defendant is adjudged guilty, see Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U.S. 600, 610, 94 S.Ct. 2437, 41 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974) ; Wainwright, 433 U.S., at 90, 97 S.Ct. 2497 and where the trial judge or jury makes factual findings that nearly always receive deference on appeal and collateral review, see Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) ; see also Cavazos v. Smith, 565 U.S. 1, 2, 132 S.Ct. 2, 181 L.Ed.2d 311 (2011) (per curiam ) (under deferential standard of review, "judges will sometimes encounter convictions that they believe to be mistaken, but that they must nevertheless uphold").
The Court in Martinez made clear that it exercised its equitable discretion in view of the unique importance of protecting a defendant's trial rights, particularly the right to effective assistance of trial counsel. As the Court explained, "the limited nature" of its holding "reflect[ed] the importance of the right to the effective assistance of trial counsel," which is "a bedrock principle in our justice system." 566 U.S., at 12, 16, 132 S.Ct. 1309 (emphasis added). In declining to expand the Martinez exception to the distinct context of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel, we do no more than respect that judgment.
2
Petitioner's rule also is not required to ensure that meritorious claims of trial error receive review by at least one state or federal court-the chief concern identified by this Court in Martinez. See id., at 10, 12, 132 S.Ct. 1309. Martinez was concerned that a claim of trial error-specifically, ineffective assistance of trial counsel-might escape review in a State that required prisoners to bring the claim for the first time in state postconviction proceedings rather than on direct appeal. Because it is difficult to assess a trial attorney's performance until the trial has ended, a trial court ordinarily will not have the opportunity to rule on such a claim. And when the State requires a prisoner to wait until postconviction proceedings to raise the claim, the appellate court on direct appeal also will not have the opportunity to review it. If postconviction counsel then fails to raise the claim, no state court will ever review it. Finally, because attorney error in a state postconviction proceeding does not qualify as cause to excuse procedural default under Coleman, no federal court could consider the claim either.
Claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel, however, do not pose the same risk that a trial error-of any kind-will escape review altogether, at least in a way that could be remedied by petitioner's proposed rule. This is true regardless of whether trial counsel preserved the alleged error at trial. If trial counsel preserved the error by properly objecting, then that claim of trial error "will have been addressed by... the trial court." Martinez, 566 U.S., at 11, 132 S.Ct. 1309. A claim of appellate ineffectiveness premised on a preserved trial error thus does not present the same concern that animated the Martinez exception because at least "one court" will have considered the claim on the merits. Ibid. ; see also Coleman, 501 U.S., at 755-756, 111 S.Ct. 2546.
If trial counsel failed to preserve the error at trial, then petitioner's proposed rule ordinarily would not give the prisoner access to federal review of the error, anyway. Effective appellate counsel should not raise every nonfrivolous argument on appeal, but rather only those arguments most likely to succeed. Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 536, 106 S.Ct. 2661, 91 L.Ed.2d 434 (1986) ; Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 751-753, 103 S.Ct. 3308, 77 L.Ed.2d 987 (1983). Declining to raise a claim on appeal, therefore, is not deficient performance unless that claim was plainly stronger than those actually presented to the appellate court. See Smith v. Robbins, 528 U.S. 259, 288, 120 S.Ct. 746, 145 L.Ed.2d 756 (2000). In most cases, an unpreserved trial error will not be a plainly stronger ground for appeal than preserved errors. See 2 B. Means, Postconviction Remedies § 35:19, p. 627, and n. 16 (2016). Thus, in most instances in which the trial court did not rule on the alleged trial error (because it was not preserved), the prisoner could not make out a substantial claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel and therefore could not avail himself of petitioner's expanded Martinez exception.
Adopting petitioner's proposed rule would be unnecessary to ensure review of a claim of trial error even when a prisoner has a legitimate claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel based on something other than a preserved trial error. If an unpreserved trial error was so obvious that appellate counsel was constitutionally required to raise it on appeal, then trial counsel likely provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to it in the first instance. In that circumstance, the prisoner likely could invoke Martinez or Coleman to obtain review of trial counsel's failure to object. Similarly, if the underlying, defaulted claim of trial error was ineffective assistance of trial counsel premised on something other than the failure to object, then Martinez and Coleman again already provide a vehicle for obtaining review of that error in most circumstances. Petitioner's proposed rule is thus unnecessary for ensuring that trial errors are reviewed by at least one court.
C
The Court in Martinez also was responding to an equitable consideration that is unique to claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel and accordingly inapplicable to claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. In Martinez, the State "deliberately cho[se] to move trial-ineffectiveness claims outside of the direct-appeal process, where counsel is constitutionally guaranteed," into the postconviction review process, where we have never held that the Constitution guarantees a right to counsel. 566 U.S., at 13, 132 S.Ct. 1309 ; id., at 9, 132 S.Ct. 1309. By doing so, "the State significantly diminishe[d] prisoners' ability to file such claims." Id., at 13, 132 S.Ct. 1309. Similarly, in Trevino, the State had chosen a procedural framework pursuant to which collateral review was, "as a practical matter, the onl[y] method for raising an ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim." 569 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 1920.
Although this Court acknowledged in Martinez that there was nothing inappropriate about the State's choice, it explained that the choice was "not without consequences for the State's ability to assert a procedural default" in subsequent federal habeas proceedings. 566 U.S., at 13, 132 S.Ct. 1309. Specifically, the Court concluded that it would be inequitable to refuse to hear a defaulted claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel when the State had channeled that claim to a forum where the prisoner might lack the assistance of counsel in raising it.
The States have not made a similar choice with respect to claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel-nor could they. By their very nature, such claims generally cannot be presented until after the termination of direct appeal. Put another way, they necessarily must be heard in collateral proceedings, where counsel is not constitutionally guaranteed. The fact that claims of appellate ineffectiveness are considered in proceedings in which counsel is not constitutionally guaranteed is a function of the nature of the claim, not of the State's "deliberat[e] cho[ice] to move... claims outside of the direct-appeal process." Ibid. The equitable concerns raised in Martinez therefore do not apply.
D
Finally, the Court in Martinez grounded its decision in part on the belief that its narrow exception was unlikely to impose significant systemic costs. See id., at 15-16, 132 S.Ct. 1309. The same cannot be said of petitioner's proposed extension.
1
Adopting petitioner's argument could flood the federal courts with defaulted claims of appellate ineffectiveness. For one thing, every prisoner in the country could bring these claims. Martinez currently applies only to States that deliberately choose to channel claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel into collateral proceedings. See, e.g., Lee v. Corsini, 777 F.3d 46, 60-61 (C.A.1 2015)
(Martinez and Trevino do not apply to Massachusetts); Henness v. Bagley, 766 F.3d 550, 557 (C.A.6 2014) (Martinez does not apply to Ohio). If we applied Martinez to claims of appellate ineffectiveness, however, we would bring every State within Martinez's ambit, because claims of appellate ineffectiveness necessarily must be heard in collateral proceedings. See supra, at 2068.
Extending Martinez to defaulted claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel would be especially troublesome because those claims could serve as the gateway to federal review of a host of trial errors, while Martinez covers only one trial error (ineffective assistance of trial counsel). If a prisoner can establish ineffective assistance of trial counsel under Martinez, he ordinarily is entitled to a new trial. See United States v. Morrison, 449 U.S. 361, 364-365, 101 S.Ct. 665, 66 L.Ed.2d 564 (1981) ; see also Hagens v. State, 979 S.W.2d 788, 792 (Tex.App.1998). But if he cannot, Martinez provides no avenue for litigating other defaulted trial errors.
An expanded Martinez exception, however, would mean that any defaulted trial error could result in a new trial. In Carpenter, this Court held that, when a prisoner can show cause to excuse a defaulted claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel, he can in turn rely on that claim as cause to litigate an underlying claim of trial error that was defaulted due to appellate counsel's ineffectiveness. 529 U.S., at 453, 120 S.Ct. 1587. Expanding Martinez as petitioner suggests would thus produce a domino effect: Prisoners could assert their postconviction counsel's inadequacy as cause to excuse the default of their appellate ineffectiveness claims, and use those newly reviewable appellate ineffectiveness claims as cause to excuse the default of their underlying claims of trial error. Petitioner's rule thus could ultimately knock down the procedural barriers to federal habeas review of nearly any defaulted claim of trial error. The scope of that review would exceed anything the Martinez Court envisioned when it established its narrow exception to Coleman.
Petitioner insists that these concerns are overstated because many of the newly raised claims will be meritless. See Brief for Petitioner 28. But even if that were true, courts would still have to undertake the task of separating the wheat from the chaff. And we are not reassured by petitioner's suggestion that extending Martinez would increase only the number of claims in each petition rather than the number of federal habeas petitions themselves. Reply Brief 14. Each additional claim would require the district court to review the prisoner's trial record, appellate briefing, and state postconviction record to determine the claim's viability. This effort could be repeated at each level of federal review. We cannot "assume that these costs would be negligible," Murray, 477 U.S., at 487, 106 S.Ct. 2639 and we are loath to further "burden... scarce federal judicial resources" in this way, McCleskey, 499 U.S., at 491, 111 S.Ct. 1454.
2
Expanding Martinez would not only impose significant costs on the federal courts, but would also aggravate the harm to federalism that federal habeas review necessarily causes. Federal habeas review of state convictions "entails significant costs," Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 126, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982), " 'and intrudes on state sovereignty to a degree matched by few exercises of federal judicial authority,' " Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103, 131 S.Ct. 770, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011) (quoting Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 282, 109 S.Ct. 1038, 103 L.Ed.2d 308 (1989) (KENNEDY, J., dissenting)). It "frustrates both the States' sovereign power to punish offenders and their good-faith attempts to honor constitutional rights." Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538, 555-556, 118 S.Ct. 1489, 140 L.Ed.2d 728 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). It "degrades the prominence of the [State] trial," Engle, supra, at 127, 102 S.Ct. 1558 and it "disturbs the State's significant interest in repose for concluded litigation [and] denies society the right to punish some admitted offenders," Harrington, supra, at 103, 131 S.Ct. 770 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Apart from increasing the sheer frequency of federal intrusion into state criminal affairs, petitioner's proposed rule would also undermine the doctrine of procedural default and the values it serves. That doctrine, like the federal habeas statute generally, is designed to ameliorate the injuries to state sovereignty that federal habeas review necessarily inflicts by giving state courts the first opportunity to address challenges to convictions in state court, thereby "promoting comity, finality, and federalism." Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 185, 131 S.Ct. 1388, 179 L.Ed.2d 557 (2011) ; McCleskey, supra, at 493, 111 S.Ct. 1454. Expanding the narrow exception announced in Martinez would unduly aggravate the "special costs on our federal system" that federal habeas review already imposes. Engle, supra, at 128, 102 S.Ct. 1558.
3
Not only would these burdens on the federal courts and our federal system be severe, but the benefit would-as a systemic matter-be small. To be sure, permitting a state prisoner to bring a meritorious constitutional claim that could not otherwise be heard is beneficial to that prisoner. Petitioner's counsel concedes, however, that relief is granted in, "[i]f any, a very minute number" of "post-conviction ineffective assistance of appellate counsel cases." Tr. of Oral Arg. 14. Indeed, he concedes that the number of meritorious cases is "infinitesimally small." Ibid. We think it is likely that the claims heard in federal court because of petitioner's proposed rule would also be largely meritless, given that the proposed rule would generally affect only those cases in which the trial court already adjudicated, and rejected, the prisoner's argument regarding the alleged underlying trial error. See supra, at 2068. Given that petitioner's proposed rule would likely generate high systemic costs and low systemic benefits, and that the unique concerns of Martinez are not implicated in cases like his, we do not think equity requires an expansion of Martinez.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Justice BREYER, with whom Justice GINSBURG, Justice SOTOMAYOR, and Justice KAGAN join, dissenting.
As the Court explains, normally a federal habeas court cannot hear a state prisoner's claim that his trial lawyer was, constitutionally speaking, "ineffective" if the prisoner failed to assert that claim in state court at the appropriate time, that is, if he procedurally defaulted the claim. See ante, at 2062 (the prisoner's failure to raise his federal claim at the initial-review state collateral proceeding amounts to an "adequate and independent state procedural ground" for denying habeas relief).
But there are equitable exceptions. In Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1, 132 S.Ct. 1309, 182 L.Ed.2d 272 (2012), and later in Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413, 133 S.Ct. 1911, 185 L.Ed.2d 1044 (2013), we held that, despite the presence of a procedural default, a federal court can nonetheless hear a prisoner's claim that his trial counsel was ineffective, where (1) the framework of state procedural law "makes it highly unlikely in a typical case that a defendant will have a meaningful opportunity to raise a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel on direct appeal," id., at 429, 133 S.Ct. 1911 ; (2) in the state " 'initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel in that proceeding was ineffective,' " ibid. (quoting Martinez, 566 U.S., at 17, 132 S.Ct. 1309 ); and (3) "the underlying ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim is a substantial one, which is to say that the prisoner must demonstrate that the claim has some merit," id., at 14, 132 S.Ct. 1309.
In my view, this same exception (with the same qualifications) should apply when a prisoner raises a constitutional claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. See, e.g., Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 396, 105 S.Ct. 830, 83 L.Ed.2d 821 (1985) (Constitution guarantees a defendant an effective appellate counsel, just as it guarantees a defendant an effective trial counsel).
I
Two simple examples help make clear why I believe Martinez and Trevino should govern the outcome of this case.
Example One: Ineffective assistance of trial counsel. The prisoner claims that his trial lawyer was ineffective, say, because counsel failed to object to an obviously unfair jury selection, failed to point out that the prosecution had promised numerous benefits to its main witness in return for the witness' testimony, or failed to object to an erroneous jury instruction that made conviction and imposition of the death penalty far more likely. Next suppose the prisoner appeals but, per state law, may not bring his ineffective-assistance claim until collateral review in state court (i.e., state habeas corpus), where the prisoner will have a better opportunity to develop his claim and the attorney will be better able to explain his (perhaps strategic) reasons for his actions at trial. Suppose that, on collateral review, the prisoner fails to bring up his ineffective-assistance claim, perhaps because he is no longer represented by counsel or because his counsel there is ineffective. Under these circumstances, if his ineffective-assistance claim is a "substantial" one, i.e., it has "some merit," then Martinez and Trevino hold that a federal court can hear the claim even though the state habeas court did not consider it. See Trevino, supra, at 429, 133 S.Ct. 1911 ; Martinez, supra, at 14, 132 S.Ct. 1309. The fact that the prisoner had no lawyer in the initial state habeas proceeding (or his lawyer in that proceeding was ineffective) constitutes grounds for excusing the procedural default.
Example Two: Ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. Now suppose that a prisoner claims that the trial court made an important error of law, say, improperly instructing the jury, or that the prosecution engaged in misconduct. He believes his lawyer on direct appeal should have raised those errors because they led to his conviction or (as here) a death sentence.
The appellate lawyer's failure to do so, the prisoner might claim, amounts to ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. The prisoner cannot make this argument on direct appeal, for the direct appeal is the very proceeding in which he is represented by the lawyer he says was ineffective. Next suppose the prisoner fails to raise his appellate lawyer's ineffectiveness at the initial state habeas proceeding, either because he was not represented by counsel in that proceeding or because his counsel there also was ineffective. When he brings his case to the federal habeas court, the State contends that the prisoner's failure to present his claim during the initial state habeas proceeding constitutes a procedural default that precludes federal review of his claim.
Given Martinez and Trevino, the prisoner in the first example who complains about his trial counsel can overcome the procedural default but, in the Court's view today, the prisoner in the second example who complains about his appellate counsel cannot. Why should the law
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Secretary of the Interior granted oil and gas leases to petitioner oil companies in the Norton Sound (Lease Sale 57) and Navarin Basin (Lease Sale 83) areas of the Bering Sea under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 67 Stat. 462, as amended, 43 U. S. C. § 1331 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. III). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit directed the entry of a preliminary injunction against all activity in connection with the leases because it concluded that it was likely that the Secretary had failed to comply with § 810 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), 94 Stat. 2371, 16 U. S. C. §3120, prior to issuing the leases. We granted certiorari, 476 U. S. 1157, and we now reverse.
I — I
When the Secretary of the Interior proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Lease Sale 57, the Alaska Native villages of Gambell and Stebbins sought to enjoin him from proceeding with the sale, claiming that it would adversely affect their aboriginal rights to hunt and fish on the OCS and that the Secretary had failed to comply with ANILCA § 810(a), 16 U. S. C. § 3120(a), which provides protection for natural resources used for subsistence in Alaska. The District Court denied their motion for a preliminary injunction and thereafter granted summary judgment in favor of the Secretary and oil company intervenors, holding that the villagers had no aboriginal rights on the OCS and that ANILCA did not apply to the OCS.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling on aboriginal rights, although on different grounds, and reversed the ruling on the scope of ANILCA §810. People of Gambell v. Clark, 746 F. 2d 572 (1984) (Gambell I). With respect to the claim of aboriginal rights, the court assumed without deciding that the villagers once had aboriginal rights to hunt and fish in the Norton Sound, but concluded that these rights had been extinguished by § 4(b) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), 85 Stat. 690, 48 U. S. C. § 1603(b). That section provides:
“All aboriginal titles, if any, and claims of aboriginal title in Alaska based on use and occupancy, including submerged land underneath all water areas, both inland and offshore, and including any aboriginal hunting or fishing rights that may exist, are hereby extinguished.” (Emphasis added.)
The Court of Appeals construed the phrase “in Alaska” to mean “the geographic region, including the contiguous continental shelf and the waters above it, and not merely the area within the strict legal boundaries of the State of Alaska.” 746 F. 2d, at 675. Finding the phrase ambiguous, the court examined the legislative history and concluded that Congress wrote the extinguishment provision broadly “to accomplish a complete and final settlement of aboriginal claims and avoid further litigation of such claims.” Ibid. The court then concluded that ANILCA § 810 had the same geographical scope as ANCSA § 4(b):
“[The villages] make a compelling argument that the provisions of Title VIII of [ANILCA] protecting subsistence uses were intended to have the same territorial scope as provisions of the earlier Claims Settlement Act extinguishing Native hunting and fishing rights. The two statutory provisions are clearly related. When Congress adopted the Claims Settlement Act it was aware that extinguishing Native rights might threaten subsistence hunting and fishing by Alaska Natives.... It is a reasonable assumption that Congress intended the preference and procedural protections for subsistence uses mandated by Title VIII of [ANILCA] to be coextensive with the extinguishment of aboriginal rights that made those measures necessary.” 746 F. 2d, at 579-580.
The court found support for this view in ANILCA’s legislative history. But, according to the Court of Appeals, “[t]he most compelling reason for resolving the ambiguous language of Title VIII in favor of coverage of outer continental shelf lands and waters is that Title VIII was adopted to benefit the Natives.” Id., at 581. The court acknowledged the familiar rule of statutory construction that doubtful expressions must be resolved in favor of Indians. See Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 89 (1918). It then remanded to the District Court the questions whether the Secretary had substantially complied with ANILCA § 810 in the course of complying with other environmental statutes, and if not, whether the leases should be voided.
In compliance with the Court of Appeals’ decision, the Secretary prepared a postsale evaluation of possible impacts on subsistence uses from Lease Sale 57. The Secretary found that the execution of the leases, which permitted lessees to conduct only limited preliminary activities on the OCS, had not and would not significantly restrict subsistence uses. He further found that the exploration stage activities, including seismic activities and exploratory drilling, that had occurred in Norton Sound had not significantly restricted subsistence uses and were not likely to do so in the future. Finally, he found that, if development and production activities were ever conducted, which was not likely, they might, in the event of a major oilspill, significantly restrict subsistence uses for limited periods in limited areas.
In April 1985, the villages sought a preliminary injunction in the District Court against exploratory activities in Norton Sound. At the same time, the village of Gambell, joined by Nunam Kitlutsisti, an organization of Yukon Delta Natives, filed a complaint seeking to void Lease Sale 83 and to enjoin imminent exploratory drilling in the Navarin Basin. The District Court consolidated the motions for preliminary injunctions and denied them. It found that respondents had established a strong likelihood of success on the merits. Although the Secretary, in the EIS’s for the Five Year Leasing Plan and for the Norton Sound and Navarin Basin Lease Sales, had evaluated in some detail the effect of OCS oil and gas development on subsistence resources and had considered alternatives which would reduce or eliminate the impact on these resources, the Secretary failed to comply with ANILCA because “he did not have the policy precepts of ANILCA in mind at the time of evaluation.” App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 85-1239, pp. 57a-58a. And with respect to the postsale evaluation for Lease Sale 57, the District Court concluded that because development and production activities, if they ever occurred, could significantly restrict subsistence uses in certain areas, the Secretary was required to conduct the hearing and make the findings required by §§ 810(a)(1) — (8) prior to conducting the lease sale. Nevertheless, the court concluded that injunctive relief was not appropriate based on the following findings:
“(1) That delay in the exploration of the OCS may cause irreparable harm to this nation’s quest for new oil resources and energy independence. Expedited exploration as a policy is stated in OCSLA. See 43 U. S. C. § 1332(3);
“(2) That exploration will not significantly restrict subsistence resources; and
“(3) That the Secretary continues to possess power to control and shape the off-shore leasing process. Therefore, if the ANILCA subsistence studies require alteration of the leasing conditions or configuration the Secretary will be able to remedy any harm caused by the violation.” Id., at 62a-63a.
Accordingly, applying the traditional test for a preliminary injunction, the court concluded that the balance of irreparable harm did not favor the movants; in addition, the public interest favored continued oil exploration and such exploration in this case would not cause the type of harm that ANILCA was designed to prevent.
Respondents appealed from the District Court’s denial of a preliminary injunction. The Ninth Circuit reversed. People of Gambell v. Hodel, 774 F. 2d 1414 (1985) (Gambell II). The court, agreeing that the villages had established a strong likelihood of success on the merits, concluded that the District Court had not properly balanced irreparable harm and had not properly evaluated the public interest. Relying on its earlier decision in Save Our Ecosystems v. Clark, 747 F. 2d 1240, 1250 (1984), the court stated: “‘Irreparable damage is presumed when an agency fails to evaluate thoroughly the environmental impact of a proposed action.’” 774 F. 2d, at 1423. It ruled that “injunctive relief is the appropriate remedy for a violation of an environmental statute absent rare or unusual circumstances.” Ibid. “Unusual circumstances” are those in which an injunction would interfere with a long-term contractual relationship, Forelaws on Board v. Johnson, 743 F. 2d 677 (CA9 1984), or would result in irreparable harm to the environment, American Motorcyclist Assn. v. Watt, 714 F. 2d 962, 966 (CA9 1983). 774 F. 2d, at 1423-1425. The court found no such circumstances in the instant case. The Ninth Circuit also concluded that the policy declared in OCSLA to expedite exploration of the OCS had been superseded by ANILCA’s policy to preserve the subsistence culture of Alaska Natives. Finally, the court rejected arguments that it was improper to apply Gambell I retroactively to Lease Sale 83.
I — I HH
Petitioners assert that the Ninth Circuit erred in directing the grant of a preliminary injunction. We addressed a similar contention in Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo, 456 U. S. 305 (1982). The District Court in that case found that the Navy had violated the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), 33 U. S. C. § 1251 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), by discharging ordnance into the sea without a permit. 456 U. S., at 307-308. The court ordered the Navy to apply for a permit but refused to enjoin weapons-training operations during the application process because the Navy’s “technical violations” were not causing any “appreciable harm” to the quality of the water and an injunction would cause grievous harm to the Navy’s military preparedness and therefore to the Nation. Id., at 309-310. The First Circuit reversed and directed the District Court to enjoin all Navy activities until it obtained a permit, concluding that the traditional equitable balancing of competing interests was inappropriate where there was an absolute statutory duty to obtain a permit. Id., at 310-311. We reversed, acknowledging at the outset the fundamental principle that an injunction is an equitable remedy that does not issue as of course. Id., at 311. We reviewed the well-established principles governing the award of equitable relief in federal courts. Id., at 311-313. In brief, the bases for injunctive relief are irreparable injury and inadequacy of legal remedies. In each case, a court must balance the competing claims of injury and must consider the effect on each party of the granting or withholding of the requested relief. Although particular regard should be given to the public interest, “[t]he grant of jurisdiction to ensure compliance with a statute hardly suggests an absolute duty to do so under any and all circumstances, and a federal judge sitting as chancellor is not mechanically obligated to grant an injunction for every violation of law.” Id., at 313. Finally, we stated:
“Of course, Congress may intervene and guide or control the exercise of the courts’ discretion, but we do not lightly assume that Congress has intended to depart from established principles.... ‘Unless a statute in so many words, or by a necessary and inescapable inference, restricts the court’s jurisdiction in equity, the full scope of that jurisdiction is to be recognized and applied.’” Ibid, (quoting Porter v. Warner Holding Co., 328 U. S. 395, 398 (1946)).
Applying these principles, we concluded that the purpose of the FWPCA — to restore and maintain the integrity of the Nation’s waters — would not be undermined by allowing the statutory violation to continue during the permit application process because the ordnance was not polluting the water. 456 U. S., at 314-315. The First Circuit had erroneously-focused on the integrity of the permit process rather than on the integrity of the Nation’s waters. Moreover, the permit process was not completely circumvented since the District Court ordered the Navy to apply for a permit. An injunction against all discharges was not the only means of ensuring compliance with the Act and we found nothing in the Act’s language and structure or legislative history which suggested that Congress intended to deny courts their traditional equitable discretion.
We see nothing which distinguishes Romero-Barcelo from the instant case. The purpose of ANILCA § 810 is to protect Alaskan subsistence resources from unnecessary destruction. Section 810 does not prohibit all federal land use actions which would adversely affect subsistence resources but sets forth a procedure through which such effects must be considered and provides that actions which would significantly restrict subsistence uses can only be undertaken if they are necessary and if the adverse effects are minimized. There is no clear indication in § 810 that Congress intended to deny federal district courts their traditional equitable discretion in enforcing the provision, nor are we compelled to infer such a limitation. Like the First Circuit in Romero-Barcelo, the Ninth Circuit erroneously focused on the statutory procedure rather than on the underlying substantive policy the process was designed to effect — preservation of subsistence resources. The District Court’s refusal to issue a preliminary injunction against all exploration activities did not undermine this policy. The District Court, after reviewing the EIS’s for the Secretary’s Five Year Leasing Plan and for Lease Sales 57 and 83, as well as the § 810 study prepared after Gambell I, expressly found that exploration activities would not significantly restrict subsistence uses. The Court of Appeals did not conclude that this factual finding was clearly erroneous. The District Court also found that “the Secretary continues to possess power to control and shape the off-shore leasing process,” App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 85-1239, p. 63a, referring to the four distinct stages under OCSLA, particularly the requirement for secretarial approval of a development and production plan, 43 U. S. C. § 1351. See n. 6, supra. The Court of Appeals did not dispute that the Secretary could meaningfully comply with ANILCA § 810 in conjunction with his review of production and development plans. Instead, the court stated that “[i]rreparable damage is presumed, when an agency fails to evaluate thoroughly the environmental impact of a proposed action.” 774 F. 2d, at 1423 (emphasis added). This presumption is contrary to traditional equitable principles and has no basis in ANILCA. Moreover, the environment can be fully protected without this presumption. Environmental injury, by its nature, can seldom be adequately remedied by money damages and is often permanent or at least of long duration, i. e., irreparable. If such injury is sufficiently likely, therefore, the balance of harms will usually favor the issuance of an injunction to protect the environment. Here, however, injury to subsistence resources from exploration was not at all probable. And on the other side of the balance of harms was the fact that the oil company petitioners had committed approximately $70 million to exploration to be conducted during the summer of 1985 which they would have lost without chance of recovery had exploration been enjoined. Id., at 1430.
We acknowledged in Romero-Barcelo the important role of the “public interest” in the exercise of equitable discretion. The District Court concluded that the public interest in this case favored continued oil exploration, given OCSLA’s stated policy and the fact that “such exploration will not cause the type of harm, 'a restriction in subsistence uses or resources, that ANILCA was designed to prevent.” App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 85-1239, p. 63a. The Court of Appeals concluded, however, that the public interest favored injunctive relief because the interests served by federal environmental statutes, such as ANILCA, supersede all other interests that might be at stake. We do not read ANILCA to have repealed OCSLA. Congress clearly did not state in ANILCA that subsistence uses are always more important than development of energy resources, or other uses of federal lands; rather, it expressly declared that preservation of subsistence resources is a public interest and established a framework for reconciliation, where possible, of competing public interests.
Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit erred in directing the issuance of a preliminary injunction.
I — I H-I 1 — l
Petitioners also contend that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that ANILCA § 810 applies to the OCS. We agree. By its plain language, that provision imposes obligations on federal agencies with respect to decisions affecting use of federal lands within the boundaries of the State of Alaska. Section 810 applies to “public lands.” Section 102 of ANILCA, 16 U. S. C. §3102, defines “public lands,” and included terms, for purposes of the Act as follows:
“(1) The term ‘land’ means lands, waters, and interests therein.
“(2) The term ‘Federal land’ means lands the title to which is in the United States after December 2, 1980.
“(3) The term ‘public lands’ means land situated in Alaska which, after December 2, 1980, are Federal lands, except [land selected by the State of Alaska or granted to the State under the Alaska Statehood Act, 72 Stat. 339, or any other provision of federal law, land selected by a Native Corporation under ANCSA, and lands referred to in ANCSA § 19(b), 43 U. S. C. § 1618(b)].” (Emphasis added.)
The phrase “in Alaska” has a precise geographic/political meaning. The boundaries of the State of Alaska can be delineated with exactitude. The State of Alaska was “admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the other States,” and its boundaries were defined as “all the territory, together with the territorial waters appurtenant thereto, now included in the Territory of Alaska.” Alaska Statehood Act (Statehood Act) §§ 1, 2, 72 Stat. 339. The Submerged Lands Act of 1953, 67 Stat. 29, as amended, 43 U. S. C. § 1301 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), was made applicable to the State. Statehood Act § 6(m), 72 Stat. 343. Under § 4 of the Submerged Lands Act, 43 U. S. C. § 1312, the seaward boundary of a coastal State extends to a line three miles from its coastline. At that line, the OCS commences. OCSLA § 2(a), 43 U. S. C. § 1331(a). By definition, the OCS is not situated in the State of Alaska. Nevertheless, the Ninth Circuit concluded that “in Alaska” should be construed in a general, “nontechnical” sense to mean the geographic region of Alaska, including the Outer Continental Shelf. 746 F. 2d, at 579. We reject the notion that Congress was merely waving its hand in the general direction of northwest North America when it defined the scope of ANILCA as “Federal lands” “situated in Alaska.” Although language seldom attains the precision of a mathematical symbol, where an expression is capable of precise definition, we will give effect to that meaning absent strong evidence that Congress actually intended another meaning. “[DJeference to the supremacy of the Legislature, as well as recognition that Congressmen typically vote on the language of a bill, generally requires us to assume that ‘the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used/” United States v. Locke, 471 U. S. 84, 95 (1985) (quoting Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 9 (1962)). This is not that “exceptional case” where acceptance of the plain meaning of a word would “thwart the obvious purpose of the statute.” Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U. S. 564, 571 (1982) (internal quotations omitted).
Nothing in the language or structure of ANILCA compels the conclusion that “in Alaska” means something other than “in the State of Alaska.” The subsistence-protection provisions of the statute must be viewed in the context of the Act as a whole. ANILCA’s primary purpose was to complete the allocation of federal lands in the State of Alaska, a process begun with the Statehood Act in 1958 and continued in 1971 in ANCSA. To this end, it provided for additions to the National Park System, National Wildlife Refuge System, National Forest System, National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and National Wilderness Preservation System, and also provided for the establishment of a National Conservation Area and National Recreation Area, within the State of Alaska. Titles II-VII, 94 Stat. 2377-2422. The Act also provided means to facilitate and expedite the conveyance of federal lands within the State to the State of Alaska under the Statehood Act and to Alaska Natives under ANCSA. Titles IX and XIV, 94 Stat. 2430-2448, 2491-2549. The remaining federal lands within the State were left available for resource development and disposition under the public land laws. The other provisions of ANILCA have no express applicability to the OCS and need not be extended beyond the State of Alaska in order to effectuate their apparent purposes. It is difficult to believe that Congress intended the subsistence protection provisions of Title VIII, alone among all the provisions in the Act, to apply to the OCS. It is particularly implausible because the same definition of “public lands” which defines the scope of Title VIII applies as well to the rest of the statute (with the exceptions noted at n. 13, supra).
There is a lone reference to the OCS in the statute, in § 1001(a), 16 U. S. C. § 3141(a), and it is for the purpose of ensuring that the provision does not apply to the OCS. Section 1001 provides for a study of oil and gas resources, wilderness characteristics, and wildlife resources of the “North Slope”:
“(a) The Secretary shall initiate and carry out a study of all Federal lands (other than submerged lands on the Outer Continental Shelf) in Alaska north of 68 degrees north latitude and east of the western boundary of the National Petroleum Reserve — Alaska, other than lands included in the National Petroleum Reserve — Alaska and in conservation system units established by this Act.”
The Secretary suggests that Congress included the parenthetical excluding the OCS out of an abundance of caution because “North Slope” is defined in a related statute — the Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Act of 1976, 15 U. S. C. §719 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill) — to include the OCS. See 15 U. S. C. § 719b. Whatever the reason for caution, it is apparent from ANILCA § 1008(a), 16 U. S. C. § 3148(a), that Congress did not intend “Federal lands in Alaska” to include the OCS despite the parenthetical in § 1001(a). Section 1008(a) requires the Secretary to “establish, pursuant to the Mineral [Lands] Leasing Act of 1920, as amended [30 U. S. C. § 181 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill)], an oil and gas leasing program on the Federal lands of Alaska not subject to the study required by section 1001 of this Act, other than lands included in the National Petroleum Reserve — Alaska.” (Emphasis added.) Congress clearly did not intend this program to extend to the OCS; OCSLA, rather than the Mineral Lands Leasing Act, governs mineral leasing on the OCS. See 43 U. S. C. § 1338(a)(1).
Title VIII itself suggests that it does not apply to the OCS. Section 810 places the duty to perform a subsistence evaluation on “the head of the Federal agency having primary jurisdiction over such lands.” Unlike onshore lands, no federal agency has “primary jurisdiction” over the OCS; agency jurisdiction turns on the particular activity at issue. See G. Coggins & C. Wilkinson, Federal Public Land and Resources Law 434 (1981).
The similarity between the language of ANILCA and its predecessor statutes, the Statehood Act and ANCSA, also refutes the contention that Congress intended “Alaska” to include the OCS. In the Statehood Act, Congress provided that the State of Alaska could select over 100 million acres from the vacant and unreserved “public lands of the United States in Alaska” within 25 years of its admission. Statehood Act §6(b), 72 Stat. 340. Similarly, in ANCSA, Congress allowed Native Alaskans to select approximately 40 million acres of “Federal lands and interests therein located in Alaska,” with the exception of federal installations and land selections of the State of Alaska under the Statehood Act. 43 U. S. C. §§ 1602(e), 1610(a), 1611. We agree with the Secretary that “[i]t is inconceivable that Congress intended to allow either the State of Alaska or Native Alaskans to select portions of the OCS — ‘a vital national resource reserve held by the [government] for the public’ (43 U. S. C. 1332(3)).” Brief for Petitioners in No. 85-1406, p. 33. Clearly, the purpose of these provisions was to apportion the land within the boundaries of the State of Alaska. The nearly identical language in ANILCA strongly suggests a similar scope for that statute.
When statutory language is plain, and nothing in the Act’s structure or relationship to other statutes calls into question this plain meaning, that is ordinarily “the end of the matter.” Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842 (1984). “Going behind the plain language of a statute in search of a possibly contrary congressional intent is a step to be taken cautiously even under the best of circumstances.” United States v. Locke, 471 U. S., at 95-96 (internal quotations omitted). ANILCA’s legislative history does not evidence a congressional intent contrary to our reading of the statutory language. Significantly, the legislative history nowhere expressly indicates that the subsistence provisions apply to the OCS. The Ninth Circuit relied on a number of remarks made during the floor debates which were not specifically addressed to the scope of ANILCA in general or the subsistence provisions in particular. 746 F. 2d, at 579. The central issue of the floor debates was the appropriate balance between exploitation of natural resources, particularly energy resources, and dedication of land to conservation units. A number of Congressmen addressed the amount of oil expected to be recovered from the OCS offshore of Alaska in the context of this balancing and, in doing so, referred to “Alaska” in a manner which included the OCS. Representative Udall, Chairman of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, and floor manager of the bill, for example, sought to assure Members that the bill he favored did not inordinately restrict energy development:
“The experts tell us that most of the oil and gas is not going to be from onshore.... Offshore in Alaska there are 203 million acres of sedimentary basin. Let me tell the Members how much of that is put out of production by this bill so that they cannot get it. The answer is zero. Every single acre of offshore oil sedimentary basin potential in Alaska is going to be open for oil drilling and prospecting. The State owns some of it beneath the high water mark, and the Federal Government owns the rest.
“Under other legislation those submerged lands are open, are going to be explored and developed, and that should be 203 million acres.” 125 Cong. Rec. 9900 (1979) (emphasis added); see also id., at 11128.
This casual use of the phrase “in Alaska” in a floor debate does not carry the same weight that it does in the definitional section of the statute. Spoken language is ordinarily less precise than written language; Representative Udall could easily have intended to say “offshore of Alaska.” Indeed, the obvious thrust of his statement was that ANILCA does not apply to the OCS; rather, OCSLA governs offshore oil development. Numerous statements by other legislators reveal a common understanding — consistent with the plain meaning of the statutory language — that ANILCA simply “has nothing to do with the Outer Continental Shelf,” id., at 11170 (remarks of Rep. Emery).
Finally, we reject the Ninth Circuit’s reliance on the familiar rule of statutory construction that doubtful expressions must be resolved in favor of Indians. 746 F. 2d, at 681. There is no ambiguity here which requires interpretation. “The canon of construction regarding the resolution of ambiguities... does not permit reliance on ambiguities that do not exist; nor does it permit disregard of the clearly expressed intent of Congress.” South Carolina v. Catawba Indian Tribe, 476 U. S. 498, 506 (1986).
The judgment of the Ninth Circuit with respect to the entry of a preliminary injunction and the applicability of ANILCA §810 to the OCS is reversed. We do not decide here the scope of ANCSA § 4(b). Respondents’ cross-petition on this issue, No. 86-1608, is granted, the Court of Appeals’ judgment that § 4(b) extinguished aboriginal rights on the OCS is vacated, and this question is remanded to the Court of Appeals for decision in light of this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The oil company lessees and the Secretary of the Interior separately petitioned for certiorari, Nos. 85-1239 and 85-1406 respectively, presenting the same four questions: (1) whether the Ninth Circuit’s rule that a district court must enter a preliminary injunction whenever it finds a likely violation of an environmental statute, absent extraordinary circumstances, conflicts with Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo, 456 U. S. 305 (1982); (2) whether ANILCA § 810 applies to the Outer Continental Shelf; (3) whether the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that the Secretary of the Interior must fully comply with § 810’s requirements prior to leasing and exploration, when a significant restriction of subsistence uses is not expected until the development and production stage, conflicts with Secretary of Interior v. California, 464 U. S. 312 (1984); and (4) whether the Ninth Circuit’s decision applying ANILCA to the OCS should be given retroactive effect. Our answer to the second question disposes of the third and fourth questions. Respondent Alaska Natives cross-petitioned, No. 85-1608, from the Court of Appeals’ ruling that the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, 43 U. S. C. § 1601 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), extinguished their aboriginal rights on the OCS. The cross-petition has been held pending our disposition in Nos. 85-1239 and 85-1406.
Section 810(a), 16 U. S. C. § 3120(a), provides:
“In determining whether to withdraw, reserve, lease, or otherwise permit the use, occupancy, or disposition of public lands under any provision of law authorizing such actions, the head of the Federal agency having primary jurisdiction over such lands or his designee shall evaluate the effect of such use, occupancy, or disposition on subsistence uses and needs, the availability of other lands for the purposes sought to be achieved, and other alternatives which would reduce or eliminate the use, occupancy, or disposition of public lands needed for subsistence purposes. No such withdrawal, reservation, lease, permit, or other use, occupancy or disposition of such lands which would significantly restrict subsistence uses shall be effected until the head of such Federal agency—
“(1) gives notice to the appropriate State agency and the appropriate local committees and regional councils established pursuant to section 3115 of this title;
“(2) gives notice of, and holds, a hearing in the vicinity of the area involved; and
“(3) determines that (A) such a significant restriction of subsistence uses is necessary, consistent with sound management principles for the utilization of the public lands, (B) the proposed activity will involve the minimal amount of public lands necessary to accomplish the purposes of such use, occupancy or other disposition, and (C) reasonable steps will be taken to minimize adverse impacts upon subsistence uses and resources resulting from such actions.”
The villages appealed and moved to enjoin the issuance of the leases pending appeal. The Ninth Circuit denied the motion and on May 10, 1983, 59 tracts were leased for bonus payments totaling over $300 million. While the appeal was pending, the Secretary approved exploration plans submitted by the lessees under 43 U. S. C. § 1340 (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill) and they proceeded with exploration during the summer of 1984. The Secretary also proceeded with Lease Sale 83 on April 17, 1984, which resulted in the leasing of 163 tracts for total bonus payments of over $500 million.
As explained by the Ninth Circuit, “[ajboriginal title or right is a right of exclusive use and occupancy held by Natives in lands and waters used by them and their ancestors prior to the assertion of sovereignty over such areas by the United States.” 746 F. 2d, at 574. See Oneida Indian Nation v. County of Oneida, 414 U. S. 661, 667-669 (1974); see also F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 486-493 (1982).
The Coastal Zone Management Act, 16 U. S. C. § 1451 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act, 16 U. S. C. § 1431 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), Marine Mammal Protection Act, 16 U. S. C. § 1361 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), Fishery Conservation and Management Act, 16 U. S. C. § 1801 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), Endangered Species Act, 16 U. S. C. § 1531 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), and National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U. S. C. §4331 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), all apply to activities on the OCS. Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Department of the Interior drafted in 1982 a 332-page Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on proposed Lease Sale 57. Interior analyzed in the EIS the effects that the lease sale, and subsequent exploration, development, and production, could conceivably have on “subsistence uses,” as defined by ANILCA §803, 16 U. S. C. §3113. The EIS documented
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, while driving a pickup truck on the highways of New Mexico, was involved in a collision with a passenger car. Three occupants of the car were killed and petitioner was seriously injured. A pint whiskey bottle, almost empty, was found in the glove compartment of the pickup truck. Petitioner was taken to a hospital and while he was lying unconscious in the emergency room the smell of liquor was detected on his breath. A state patrolman requested that a sample of petitioner’s blood be taken. An attending physician, while petitioner was unconscious, withdrew a sample of about 20 cubic centimeters of blood by use of a hypodermic needle. This sample was delivered to the patrolman and subsequent laboratory analysis showed this blood to contain about .17% alcohol.
Petitioner was thereafter charged with involuntary manslaughter. Testimony regarding the blood test and its result was admitted into evidence at trial over petitioner’s objection. This included testimony of an expert that a person with .17% alcohol in his blood was under the influence of intoxicating liquor. Petitioner was convicted and sentenced for involuntary manslaughter. He did not appeal the conviction. Subsequently, however, he sought release from his imprisonment by a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to the Supreme Court of New Mexico. That court, after argument, denied the writ. 58 N. M. 385, 271 P. 2d 827 (1954). Petitioner contends that his conviction, based on the result of the involuntary blood test, deprived him of his liberty without that due process of law guaranteed him by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. We granted certiorari, 351 U. S. 906, to determine whether the requirements of the Due Process Clause, as it concerns state criminal proceedings, necessitate the invalidation of the conviction.
It has been clear since Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 (1914), that evidence obtained in violation of rights protected by the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution must be excluded in federal criminal prosecutions. There is argument on behalf of petitioner that the evidence used here, the result of the blood test, was obtained in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in that the taking was the result of an unreasonable search and seizure violative of the Fourth Amendment. Likewise, he argues that by way of the Fourteenth Amendment there has been a violation of the Fifth Amendment in that introduction of the test result compelled him to be a witness against himself. Petitioner relies on the proposition that “the generative principles” of the Bill of Rights should extend the protections of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to his case through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25 (1949), answers this contention in the negative. See also Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78 (1908); Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319 (1937); Irvine v. California, 347 U. S. 128 (1954). New Mexico has rejected, as it may, the exclusionary rule set forth in Weeks, supra. State v. Dillon, 34 N. M. 366, 281 P. 474 (1929). Therefore, the rights petitioner claims afford no aid to him here for the fruits of the violations, if any, are admissible in the State’s prosecution.
Petitioner’s remaining and primary assault on his conviction is not so easily unhorsed. He urges that the conduct of the state officers here offends that “sense of justice” of which we spoke in Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952). In that case state officers broke into the home of the accused and observed him place something in his mouth. The officers forced open his mouth after considerable struggle in an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve whatever was put there. A stomach pump was later forcibly used and among the matter extracted from his stomach were found narcotic pills. As we said there, “this course of proceeding by agents of government to obtain evidence is bound to offend even hardened sensibilities.” Id:, at 172. We set aside the conviction because such conduct “shocked the conscience” and was so “brutal” and “offensive” that it did not comport with traditional ideas of fair play and decency. We therefore found that the conduct was offensive to due process. But we see nothing comparable here to the facts in Rochin.
Basically the distinction rests on the fact that there is nothing “brutal” or “offensive” in the taking of a sample of blood when done, as in this case, under the protective eye of a physician. To be sure, the driver here was unconscious when the blood was taken, but the absence of conscious consent, without more, does not necessarily render the taking a violation of a constitutional right; and certainly the test as administered here would not be considered offensive by even the most delicate. Furthermore, due process is not measured by the yardstick of personal reaction or the sphygmogram of the most sensitive person, but by that whole community sense of “decency and fairness” that has been woven by common experience into the fabric of acceptable conduct. It is on this bedrock that this Court has established the concept of due process. The blood test procedure has become routine in our everyday life. It is a ritual for those going into the military service as well as those applying for marriage licenses. Many colleges require such tests before permitting entrance and literally millions of us have voluntarily gone through the same, though a longer, routine in becoming blood donors. Likewise, we note that a majority of our States have either enacted statutes in some form authorizing tests of this nature or permit findings so obtained to be admitted in evidence. We therefore con-elude that a blood test taken by a skilled technician is not such “conduct that shocks the conscience," Rochin, supra, at 172, nor such a method of obtaining evidence that it offends a “sense of justice,” Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278, 285-286 (1936). This is not to say that the indiscriminate taking of blood under different conditions or by those not competent to do so may not amount to such “brutality” as would come under the Rochin rule. The chief law-enforcement officer of New Mexico, while at the Bar of this Court, assured us that every proper medical precaution is afforded an accused from whom blood is taken.
The test upheld here is not attacked on the ground of any basic deficiency or of injudicious application, but admittedly is a scientifically accurate method of detecting alcoholic content in the blood, thus furnishing an exact measure upon which to base a decision as to intoxication. Modern community living requires modern scientific methods of crime detection lest the public go unprotected. The increasing slaughter on our highways, most of which should be avoidable, now reaches the astounding figures only heard of on the battlefield. The States, through safety measures, modern scientific methods, and strict enforcement of traffic laws, are using all reasonable means to make automobile driving less dangerous.
As against the right of an individual that his person be held inviolable, even against so slight an intrusion as is involved in applying a blood test of the kind to which millions of Americans submit as a matter of course nearly every day, must be set the interests of society in the scientific determination of intoxication, one of the great causes of the mortal hazards of the road. And the more so since the test likewise may establish innocence, thus affording protection against the treachery of judgment based on one or more of the senses. Furthermore, since our criminal law is to no small extent justified by the assumption of deterrence, the individual’s right to immunity from such invasion of the body as is involved in a properly safeguarded blood test is far outweighed by the value of its deterrent effect due to public realization that the issue of driving while under the influence of alcohol can often by this method be taken out of the confusion of conflicting contentions.
For these reasons the judgment is
Affirmed.
Petitioner sought and was denied a writ of habeas corpus from the District Court for Santa Fe County, New Mexico, on March 7, 1952.
It might be a fair assumption that a driver on the highways, in obedience to a policy of the State, would consent to have a blood test made as a part of a sensible and civilized system protecting himself as well as other citizens not only from the hazards of the road due to drunken driving, but also from some use of dubious lay testimony. In fact, the State of Kansas has by statute declared that any person who operates a motor vehicle on the public highways of that State shall be deemed to have given his consent to submit to a chemical test of his breath, blood, urine, or saliva for the purpose of determining the alcoholic content of-his blood. If, after arrest for operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, the arresting officer has reasonable grounds for the arrest, and the driver refuses to submit to the test, the arresting officer must report this fact to the proper official who shall suspend the operator’s permit. Kan. Gen. Stat., 1949 (Supp. 1955), § 8-1001 through § 8-1007.
Forty-seven States use chemical tests, including blood tests, to aid in the determination of intoxication in cases involving charges of driving while under the influence of alcohol. Twenty-three of these States sanction the use of the tests by statute. These, for the most part, are patterned after § 11-902 of the Uniform Vehicle Code prepared by the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Laws and Ordinances. This section makes it unlawful to operate a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The finding of the presence of a certain percentage of alcohol, by weight, in the blood of a person gives rise to a presumption that he was under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The twenty-three state statutory provisions include: Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann., 1956, § 28-692; Del. Code Ann., 1953 (Cum. Supp. 1956), Tit. 11, § 3507; Ga. Code Ann., 1937 (Cum. Supp. 1955), §68-1625; Idaho Code, 1948 (Cum. Supp. 1955), §49-520.2; Burns’ Ind. Stat. Ann., 1952 (Cum. Supp. 1955), §47-2003; Kan. Gen. Stat., 1949 (Supp. 1955), §8-1001 through §8-1007; Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann., 1955, § 189.520; Me. Rev. Stat., 1954, e. 22, § 150; Minn. Stat. Ann., 1945 (Cum. Supp. 1956), § 169.12; Neb. Rev. Stat., 1943 (Reissue of 1952), §39-727.01; N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann., 1955, §262:20; N. J. Stat. Ann., 1937 (Cum. Supp. 1955), §39:4-50.1; McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, Veh. and Traffic Law, § 70 (5); N. D. Laws 1953, c. 247; Ore. Rev. Stat., 1955, § 483.630; S. C. Code, 1952, §46-344; S. D. Code, 1939 (Supp. 1952), §44.0302-1; Tenn. Code Ann., 1955, § 59-1032 to § 59-1033; Utah Code Ann., 1953, § 41-6-44; Va. Code, 1950 (Supp. 1956), §18-75.1 to §18-75.3; Wash. Rev. Code, 1951, §46.56.010; Wis. Laws 1955, c. 510; Wyo. Comp. Stat., 1945 (Cum. Supp. 1955), § 60-414. Other States have accepted the use of chemical tests for intoxication without statutory authority but with court approval. See, e. g., People v. Haeussler, 41 Cal. 2d 252, 260 P. 2d 8 (1953) (blood); Block v. People, 125 Colo. 36, 240 P. 2d 512 (1951) (blood); Touchton v. Florida, 154 Fla. 547, 18 So. 2d 752 (1944) (blood); Illinois v. Bobczyk, 343 Ill. App. 504, 99 N. E. 2d 567 (1951) (breath); Iowa v. Haner, 231 Iowa 348, 1 N. W. 2d 91 (1941) (blood); Breithaupt v. Abram, 58 N. M. 385, 271 P. 2d 827 (1954) (blood); Bowden v. State, 95 Okla. Cr. 382, 246 P. 2d 427 (1952) (blood and urine); McKay v. State, 155 Tex. Cr. R. 416, 235 S. W. 2d 173 (1950) (breath). Still other States accept the practice of the use of chemical tests for intoxication though there does not appear to have been litigation on the problem. See the summary in a report of the Committee on Tests for Intoxication of the National Safety Council, 1955 Uses of Chemical Tests for Intoxication.
The fact that so many States make use of the tests negatives the suggestion that there is anything offensive about them. For additional discussion of the use of these blood tests see Inbau, Self-Incrimination (1950), 72-86.
Several States have considered the very problem here presented but none have found that the conduct of the state authorities was so offensive as to necessitate reversal of convictions based in part on blood tests. People v. Duroncelay, 146 A. Cal. App. 96, 303 P. 2d 617 (1956); Block v. People, 125 Colo. 36, 240 P. 2d 512 (1951); State v. Ayres, 70 Idaho 18, 211 P. 2d 142 (1949) (test results were favorable to accused); State v. Cram, 176 Ore. 577, 160 P. 2d 283 (1945). See also State v. Sturtevant, 96 N. H. 99, 70 A. 2d 909 (1950); cf. United States v. Williamson, 4 U. S. C. M. A. 320, 15 C. M. R. 320 (1954). But see Iowa v. Weltha, 228 Iowa 519, 292 N. W. 148 (1940); Wisconsin v. Kroening, 274 Wis. 266, 79 N. W. 2d 810 (1956). But cf. United States v. Jordan, 7 U. S. C. M. A. 452, 22 C. M. R. 242 (1957).
The withdrawal of blood for use in blood-grouping tests in state criminal prosecutions is widespread. See, e. g., Maryland v. Davis, 189 Md. 640, 57 A. 2d 289 (1948); New Jersey v. Alexander, 7 N. J. 585, 83 A. 2d 441 (1951); Commonwealth v. Statti, 166 Pa. Super. 577, 73 A. 2d 688 (1950).
Many States authorize blood tests in civil actions such as paternity proceedings. See, e. g., the discussion in Cortese v. Cortese, 10 N. J. Super. 152, 76 A. 2d 717 (1950). Other States authorize such tests in bastardy proceedings. See, e. g., Jordan v. Davis, 143 Me. 185, 57 A. 2d 209 (1948); State ex rel. Van Camp v. Welling, 6 Ohio Op. 371, 3 Ohio Supp. 333 (1936). For a general discussion of blood tests in paternity proceedings see Schatkin, Disputed Paternity Proceedings (3d ed. 1953), 193-282.
In explanation, he advised that by regulation the state police are permitted to obtain blood for analysis only when the blood is withdrawn by a physician. He further advised that it is the customary administrative practice among municipalities to allow blood to be taken only by a doctor. In all cases a competent technician is required to make the laboratory analysis incident to the test. We were assured that in no instance had a municipality or the state police permitted the test to be made without these precautions.
National Safety Council, Accident Facts 1956, 43-71.
Governors’ Conference Committee, Report on Highway Safety (Nov. 1956); National Committee on Uniform Traffic Laws and Ordinances, Uniform Vehicle Code (Rev. 1956); White House Conference on Highway Safety, Organize Your Community for Traffic Safety (1954).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner conducted a search of respondents’ home pursuant to a warrant that failed to describe the “persons or things to be seized.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 4. The questions presented are (1) whether the search violated the Fourth Amendment, and (2) if so, whether petitioner nevertheless is entitled to qualified immunity, given that a Magistrate Judge (Magistrate), relying on an affidavit that particularly described the items in question, found probable cause to conduct the search.
I
Respondents, Joseph Ramirez and members of his family, live on a large ranch in Butte-Silver Bow County, Montana. Petitioner, Jeff Groh, has been a Special Agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) since 1989. In February 1997, a concerned citizen informed petitioner that on a number of visits to respondents’ ranch the visitor had seen a large stock of weaponry, including an automatic rifle, grenades, a grenade launcher, and a rocket launcher. Based on that information, petitioner prepared and signed an application for a warrant to search the ranch. The application stated that the search was for “any automatic firearms or parts to automatic weapons, destructive devices to include but not limited to grenades, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, and any and all receipts pertaining to the purchase or manufacture of automatic weapons or explosive devices or launchers.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a. Petitioner supported the application with a detailed affidavit, which he also prepared and executed, that set forth the basis for his belief that the listed items were concealed on the ranch. Petitioner then presented these documents to a Magistrate, along with a warrant form that petitioner also had completed. The Magistrate signed the warrant form.
Although the application particularly described the place to be searched and the contraband petitioner expected to find, the warrant itself was less specific; it failed to identify any of the items that petitioner intended to seize. In the portion of the form that called for a description of the “person or property” to be seized, petitioner typed a description of respondents’ two-story blue house rather than the alleged stockpile of-firearms. The warrant did not incorporate by reference the itemized list contained in the application. It did, however, recite that the Magistrate was satisfied the affidavit established probable cause to believe that contraband was concealed on the premises, and that sufficient grounds existed for the warrant’s issuance.
The day after the Magistrate issued the warrant, petitioner led a team of law enforcement officers, including both federal agents and members of the local sheriff’s department, in the search of respondents’ premises. Although respondent Joseph Ramirez was not home, his wife and children were. Petitioner states that he orally described the objects of the search to Mrs. Ramirez in person and to Mr. Ramirez by telephone. According to Mrs. Ramirez, however, petitioner explained only that he was searching for “‘an explosive device in a box.’” Ramirez v. Butte-Silver. Bow County, 298 F. 3d 1022, 1026 (CA9 2002). At any rate, the officers’ search uncovered no illegal weapons or explosives. When the officers left, petitioner gave Mrs. Ramirez a copy of the search warrant, but not a copy of the application, which had been sealed. The following day, in response to a request from respondents’ attorney, petitioner faxed the attorney a copy of the page of the application that listed the items to be seized. No charges were filed against the Ramirezes.
Respondents sued petitioner and the other officers under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents; 403 U. S. 388 (1971), and Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, raising eight claims, including violation of the Fourth Amendment. App. 17-27. The District Court entered summary judgment for all defendants. The court found no Fourth Amendment violation, because it considered the case comparable to one in which the warrant contained an inaccurate address, and in such a case, the court reasoned, the warrant is sufficiently detailed if the executing officers can locate the correct house. App. to Pet. for Cert. 20a-22a. The court added that even if a constitutional violation occurred, the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because the failure of the warrant to describe the objects of the search amounted to a mere “typographical error.” Id., at 22a-24a.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment with respect to all defendants and all claims, with the exception of respondents’ Fourth Amendment claim against petitioner. 298 F. 3d, at 1029-1030. On that claim, the court held that the warrant was invalid because it did not “describe with particularity the place to be searched and the items to be seized,” and that oral statements by petitioner during or after the search could not cure the omission. Id., at 1025-1026. The court observed that the warrant’s facial defect “increased the likelihood and degree of confrontation between the Ramirezes and the police” and deprived respondents of the means “to challenge officers who might have exceeded the limits imposed by the magistrate.” Id., at 1027. The court also expressed concern that “permitting officers to expand the scope of the warrant by oral statements would broaden the area of dispute between the parties in subsequent litigation.” Ibid. The court nevertheless concluded that all of the officers except petitioner were protected by qualified immunity. With respect to petitioner, the court read our opinion in United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897 (1984), as precluding qualified immunity for the leader of a search who fails to “read the warrant and satisfy [himself] that [he] understand^] its scope and limitations, and that it is not defective in some obvious way.” 298 F. 3d, at 1027. The court added that “[t]he leaders of the search team must also make sure that a copy of the warrant is available to give to the person whose property is being searched at the commencement of the search, and that such copy has no missing pages or other obvious defects.” Ibid, (footnote omitted). We granted certiorari. 537 U. S. 1231 (2003).
II
The warrant was plainly invalid. The Fourth Amendment states unambiguously that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (Emphasis added.) • The warrant in this case complied with the first three of these requirements: It was based on probable cause and supported by a sworn affidavit, and it described particularly the place of the search. On the fourth requirement, however," the warrant failed altogether. Indeed, petitioner , concedes that “the warrant . . . was deficient in particularity because it provided no description of the type of evidence sought.” Brief for Petitioner 10.
The fact that the application adequately described the “things to be seized” does not save the warrant from its facial invalidity. The Fourth Amendment by its terms requires particularity in the warrant, not in the supporting documents. See Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U. S. 981, 988, n. 5 (1984) (“[A] warrant that fails to conform to the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment is unconstitutional”); see also United States v. Stefonek, 179 F. 3d 1030, 1033 (CA7 1999) (“The Fourth Amendment requires that the warrant particularly describe the things to be seized, not the papers presented to the judicial officer . . . asked to issue the warrant” (emphasis in original)). And for good reason: “The presence of a search warrant serves a high function,” McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 455 (1948), and that high function is not necessarily vindicated when some other document, somewhere, says something about the objects of the search, but the contents of that document are neither known to the person whose home is being searched nor available for her inspection. We do not say that the Fourth Amendment prohibits a warrant from cross-referencing other documents. Indeed, most Courts of Appeals have held that a‘court may construe a warrant with reference to a supporting application or affidavit if the warrant uses appropriate words of incorporation, and if the supporting document accompanies the warrant. See, e. g., United States v. McGrew, 122 F. 3d 847, 849-850 (CA9 1997); United States v. Williamson, 1 F. 3d 1134, 1136, n. 1 (CA10 1993); United States v. Blakeney, 942 F. 2d 1001, 1025-1026 (CA6 1991); United States v. Maxwell, 920 F. 2d 1028, 1031 (CADC 1990); United States v. Curry, 911 F. 2d 72, 76-77 (CA8 1990); United States v. Roche, 614 F. 2d 6, 8 (CA1 1980). But in this case the warrant did not incorporate other documents by reference, nor did either the affidavit or the application (which had been placed under seal) accompany the v warrant. Hence, we need not further explore the matter of incorporation.
Petitioner argues that even though the warrant was invalid, the search nevertheless was “reasonable” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. He notes that a Magistrate authorized the search on the basis of adequate evidence of probable cause, that petitioner orally described to respondents the items to be seized, and that the search did not exceed the limits intended by the Magistrate and described by petitioner. Thus, petitioner maintains, his search of respondents’ ranch was functionally equivalent to a search authorized by a valid warrant.
We disagree. This warrant did not simply omit a few items from a list of many to be seized, or misdescribe a few of several items. Nor did it make what fairly could be characterized as a mere technical mistake or typographical error. Rather, in the space set aside for a description of the items to be seized, the warrant stated that the items consisted of a “single dwelling residence . . . blue in color.” In other words, the warrant did not describe the items to be seized at all. In this respect the warrant was so obviously deficient that we must regard the search as “warrantless” within the meaning of our case law. See Leon, 468 U. S., at 923; cf. Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79, 85 (1987); Steele v. United States, 267 U. S. 498, 503-504 (1925). “We are not dealing with formalities.” McDonald, 335 U. S., at 455. •Because “‘the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion’” stands ‘“[a]t the very core’ of the Fourth Amendment,” Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 31 (2001) (quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 511 (1961)), our cases have firmly established the “ ‘basic principle of Fourth Amendment law’ that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable,” Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 586 (1980) (footnote omitted). Thus, “absent exigent circumstances, a warrantless entry to search for weapons or contraband is unconstitutional even when a felony has been committed and there is probable cause to believe that incriminating evidence will be found within.” Id., at 587-588 (footnote omitted). See Kyllo, 533 U. S., at 29; Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177, 181 (1990); Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 761-763 (1969); McDonald, 335 U. S., at 454; Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10 (1948).
We have clearly stated that the presumptive rule against warrantless searches applies with equal force to searches whose only defect is a lack of particularity in the warrant. In Sheppard, for instance, the petitioner argued that even though the warrant was invalid for lack of particularity, “the search was constitutional because it was reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” 468 U. S., at 988, n. 5. In squarely rejecting that position, we explained:
“The uniformly applied rule is that a search conducted pursuant to a warrant that fails to conform to the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment is unconstitutional. Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476 (1965); United States v. Cardwell, 680 F. 2d 75, 77-78 (CA9 1982); United States v. Crozier, 674 F. 2d 1293, 1299 (CA9 1982); United States v. Klein, 565 F. 2d 183, 185 (CAI 1977); United States v. Gardner, 537 F. 2d 861, 862 (CA6 1976); United States v. Marti, 421 F. 2d 1263, 1268-1269 (CA2 1970). That rule is in keeping with the well-established principle that ‘except in certain carefully defined classes of cases, a search of private property without proper consent is “unreasonable” unless it has been authorized by a valid search warrant.’ Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 528-529 (1967). See Steagald v. United States, 451 U. S. 204, 211-212 (1981); Jones v. United States, 357 U. S. 493, 499 (1958).” Ibid.
Petitioner asks us to hold that a search conducted pursuant to a warrant lacking particularity should be exempt from the presumption of unreasonableness if the goals served by the particularity requirement are otherwise satisfied. He maintains that the search in this case satisfied those goals — which he says are “to prevent general searches, to prevent the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another, and to prevent warrants from being issued on vague or dubious information,” Brief for Petitioner 16 — because the scope of the search did not exceed the limits set forth in the application. But unless the particular items described in the affidavit are also set forth in the warrant itself (or at least incorporated by reference, and the affidavit present at the search), there can be no written assurance that the Magistrate actually found probable cause to search for, and to seize, every item mentioned in the affidavit. See McDonald, 335 U. S., at 455 (“Absent some grave emergency, the Fourth Amendment has interposed a magistrate between the citizen and the police. This was done ... so that an objective mind might weigh the need to invade [the citizen’s] privacy in order to enforce the law”). In this case, for example, it is at least theoretically possible that the Magistrate was satisfied that the search for weapons and explosives was justified by the showing in the affidavit, but not convinced that any evi-dentiary basis existed for rummaging through respondents’ files and papers for receipts pertaining to the purchase or manufacture of such items. Cf. Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476, 485-486 (1965). Or, conceivably, the Magistrate might have believed that some of the weapons mentioned in the affidavit could have been lawfully possessed and therefore should not be seized. See 26 U. S. C. §5861 (requiring registration, but not banning possession of, certain firearms). The mere fact that the Magistrate issued a warrant does not necessarily establish that he agreed that the scope of the search should be as broad as the affiant’s request. Even though petitioner acted with restraint in conducting the search, “the inescapable fact is that this restraint was imposed by the agents themselves, not by a judicial officer.” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 356 (1967).
We have long held, moreover, that the purpose of the particularity requirement is not limited to the prevention of general searches. See Garrison, 480 U. S., at 84. A particular warrant also “assures 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.” United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 9 (1977) (citing Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 532 (1967)), abrogated on other grounds, California v. Acevedo, 500 U. S. 565 (1991). See also Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 236 (1983) (“[Possession of a warrant by officers conducting an arrest or search greatly reduces the perception of unlawful or intrusive police conduct”).
Petitioner argues that even if the goals of the particularity requirement are broader than he acknowledges, those goals nevertheless were served because he orally described to respondents the items for which he was searching. Thus, he submits, respondents had all of the notice that a proper warrant, would have accorded. But this case presents no occasion even to reach this argument, since respondents, as noted above, dispute petitioner’s account. According to Mrs. Ramirez, petitioner stated only that he was looking for an “'explosive device in a box.’” 298 F. 3d, at 1026. Because this dispute is before us on petitioner’s motion for summary judgment, App. to Pet. for Cert. 13a, “[t]he evidence of the nonmovant is to be believed, and all justifiable inferences are to be drawn in [her] favor,” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 255 (1986) (citation omitted). The posture of the case therefore obliges us to credit Mrs. Ramirez’s account, and we find that petitioner’s description of “ ‘an explosive device in a box’ ” was little better than no guidance at all. See Stefonek, 179 F. 3d, at 1032-1033 (holding that a search warrant for “‘evidence of crime’” was “[s]o open-ended” in its description that it could “only be described as a general warrant”).
It is incumbent on the officer executing a search warrant to ensure the search is lawfully authorized and lawfully conducted. Because petitioner did not have in his possession a warrant particularly describing the things he intended to seize, proceeding with the search was clearly “unreasonable” under the Fourth Amendment. The Court of Appeals correctly held that the search was unconstitutional.
III
Having concluded that a constitutional violation occurred, we turn to the question whether petitioner is entitled to qualified immunity despite that violation. See Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 609 (1999). The answer depends on whether the right that was transgressed was “ ‘clearly established’ ” — that is, “whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 202 (2001).
Given that the particularity requirement is set forth in the text of the Constitution, no reasonable officer could believe that a warrant that plainly did not comply with that requirement was valid. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818-819 (1982) (“If the law was clearly established, the immunity defense ordinarily should fail, since a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct”). Moreover, because petitioner himself prepared the invalid warrant, he may not argue that he reasonably •relied on the Magistrate’s assurance that the warrant contained an adequate description of the things to be seized and was therefore valid. Cf. Sheppard, 468 U. S., at 989-990. In fact, the guidelines of petitioner’s own department placed him on notice that he might be liable for executing a manifestly invalid warrant. An ATF directive in force at the time of this search warned: “Special agents are liable if they exceed their authority while executing a search warrant and must be sure that a search warrant is sufficient on its face even when issued by a magistrate.” Searches and Examinations, ATF Order O 3220.1(7)(d) (Feb. 13, 1997). See also id., at 3220.1(23)(b) (“If any error or deficiency is discovered and there is a reasonable probability that it will invalidate the warrant, such warrant shall not be executed. The search shall be postponed until a satisfactory warrant has been obtained”). And even a cursory reading of the warrant in this case — perhaps just a simple glance — would have revealed a glaring deficiency that any reasonable police officer would have known was constitutionally fatal.
No reasonable officer could claim to be unaware of the basic rule, well established by our cases, that, absent consent or exigency, a warrantless search of the home is presumptively unconstitutional. See Payton, 445 U. S., at 586-588. Indeed, as we noted nearly 20 years ago in Sheppard: “The uniformly applied rule is that a search conducted pursuant to a-warrant that fails to conform to the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment is unconstitutional.” 468 U. S., at 988, n. 5. Because not a word in any of our cases would suggest to a reasonable officer that this case fits within any exception to that fundamental tenet, petitioner is asking us, in effect, to craft a new exception. Absent any support for such an exception in our cases, he cannot reasonably have relied on an expectation that we would do so.
Petitioner contends that the search in this case was the product, at worst, of a lack of due care, and that our case law requires more than negligent behavior before depriving an official of qualified immunity. See Malley v. Briggs, 475 U. S. 335, 341 (1986). But as we observed in the companion cáse to Sheppard, “a warrant may be so facially deficient— i. e., in failing to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized — that the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid.” Leon, 468 U. S., at 923. This is such a case.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
• It is so ordered.
Possession of these items, if unregistered, would violate 18 U. S. C. § 922(o)(l) and 26 U. S. C. §5861.
The warrant stated: “[Tlhere is now ises] a certain person or property, namely [a] single dwelling residence two story in height which is blue in color and has two additions attached to the east. The front entrance to the residence faces in a southerly direction.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 26a.
The affidavit was sealed. Its sufficiency is not disputed.
For this reason petitioner’s argument that any constitutional error was committed by the Magistrate, not petitioner, is misplaced. In Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U. S. 981 (1984), we suggested that “the judge, not the police officers,” may have committed “(a]n error of constitutional dimension,” id., at 990, because the judge had assured the officers requesting the warrant that he would take the steps necessary to conform the warrant to constitutional requirements, id., at 986. Thus, “it was not unreasonable for the police in [that] case to rely on the judge’s assurances that the warrant authorized the search they had requested.” Id., at 989, n. 6. In this case, by contrast, petitioner did not alert the Magistrate to the defect in the warrant that petitioner had drafted, and we therefore cannot know whether the Magistrate was aware of the scope of the search he was authorizing. Nor would it have been reasonable for petitioner to rely on a warrant that was so patently defective, even if the Magistrate was aware of the deficiency. See United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 915, 922, n. 23 (1984).
It is true, as petitioner points out, that neither the Fourth Amendment nor Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure requires the executing officer to serve the warrant on the owner before commencing the search. Rule 41(f)(3) provides that “ [t]he officer executing the warrant must: (A) give a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken to the person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was taken; or (B) leave a copy of the warrant and receipt at the place where the officer took the property.” Quite obviously, in some circumstances— a surreptitious search by means of a wiretap, for example, or the search of empty or abandoned premises — it will be impracticable or imprudent for the officers to show the warrant in advance. See Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 355, n. 16 (1967); Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 37-41 (1963). Whether it would be unreasonable to refuse a request to furnish the warrant at the outset of the search when, as in this case, an occupant of the premises is present and poses no threat to the officers’ safe and effective performance of their mission, is a question that this case does not present.
The Court of Appeals’ decision is consistent with this principle. Petitioner mischaracterizes the court’s decision when he contends that it imposed a novel proofreading requirement on officers executing warrants. The court held that officers leading a' search team must “mak[e] sure that they have a proper warrant that in fact authorizes the search and seizure they are about to conduct.” 298 F. 3d 1022, 1027 (CA9 2002). That is not a duty to proofread; it is, rather, a duty to ensure that the warrant conforms to constitutional requirements.
We do not suggest that an official is deprived of qualified immunity whenever he violates an internal guideline. We refer to the ATF Order only to underscore that petitioner should have known that he should not execute a patently defective warrant.
Although both Sheppard and Leon involved the application of the “good faith” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s general exclusionary rule, we have explained that “the same standard of objective reasonableness that we applied in the context of a suppression hearing in Leon defines the qualified immunity accorded an officer.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U. S. 335, 344 (1986) (citation omitted).
Justice Kennedy argues in dissent that we have not allowed “ ‘ample room for mistaken judgments,’” post, at 571 (quoting Malley, 475 U. S., at 343), because “difficult and important tasks demand the officer’s full attention in the heat of an ongoing and often dangerous criminal investigation,” post, at 568. In this case, however, petitioner does not contend that any sort of exigency existed when he drafted the affidavit, the warrant application, and the warrant, or when he conducted the search. This is not the situation, therefore, in which we have recognized that “officers in the dangerous and difficult process of making arrests and executing search warrants” require “some latitude.” Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79, 87 (1987).
Nor are we according “the correctness of paper forms” a higher status than “substantive rights.” Post, at 571. As we have explained, the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement assures the subject of the search that a magistrate has duly authorized the officer to conduct a search of limited scope. This substantive right is not protected when the officer fails to take the time to glance at the authorizing document and detect a glaring defect that Justice Kennedy agrees is of constitutional magnitude, post this page.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
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